Iceman (13 page)

Eichord showed the drawing to some people anyway and watched various pairs of bored Las Vegas eyes glaze over. After all this WAS Vegas, pal. These people have seen it all. They've seen all the cops. All the wise guys. All the hookers. All the stars. What's one more serial killer in a wheelchair—right?

The old man was still farting away his Social Security leftovers when Eichord decided he was spinning
his
wheels. The man's sweet wife had joined her hubby and stood beside him, this strange old dude in a ragged undershirt, as he had his moment of fun, escaping momentarily out of whatever drabness, escaping into the bright flash for a second—one turn of a card or spin of a wheel and a thirty-second promise of easy dough that had led so many of us down the wrong pathway. A cocktail waitress in a push-up bra and stiletto heels whispered at him and by reflex he showed her the picture.

They talked briefly. Her name was Stephanie or Kim or Lisa, she was twenty-one, or twenty-two, or twenty-three, she was married to a struggling lounge performer, or she was a would-be student or a part-time nurse working cocktails to support a child, and he'd known a thousand girls just like her. On his way back out of the club he tried to remember all the name tags that went with the glazed eyes: Lethea, Nadja—from Iran, Gerry, Nassia. A dealer named Takio, Sam. A lady pit boss with an American first name he couldn't remember—last name Wong. Eduarda, whom they called Fast Eddy. Stephanie. Kim. Lisa.

A maid said, “How ya doin'” to him as he smiled at her in the hallway, back in the hotel.

“No good,” he said, meaning it.

“I know what you mean. I live here."

J
ack spent all of the next morning getting the official glad hand from the guys at Metro headquarters. MLVPD was one of the top cop shops in the country for a Homicide detective. The action of a high-crime-incidence beat without the hazards of some shithole like East L.A. or Bed-Sty. It tended to draw slick sleuths with a taste for gold and rich, Corinthian leather.

Eichord was accorded full VIP status whether he wanted it or not, which automatically made any good copper just a tad suspicious of this big-media mocker, this ink-happy fed from some mystical task force dropping by to snoop around.

He eventually got shoved off onto a liaison type named A.W. “Augie” Stiverson.

“Sorry you got saddled with me, Augie,” Eichord said with a smile.

“It's a dirty job"—Stiverson smiled back—"but...” He left it go unsaid.

Eichord had to spend twice as much time getting duked back in while he went around listening, being a good dude, being Eichord, acting like he was just one more flat-footed copper who didn't think his shit smelled like Chanel.

“Let me know what we can do for you and we'll give it our best shot."

“This one's a bitch kitty, so far,” Eichord said, handing a stack of the police drawings to Stiverson. “Got this dude who looks real good for about five serial homicides back in the 1960s. Spoda, Arthur. It's all on the other sheet. We're talking about a male Cauc maybe forty-one, forty-two years old now. Likely he could have been a resident here for years, possibly. I believe he may have killed again recently, the first kill after twenty years, back on my home turf. Just a hunch from the M.O. Nothing solid. But the more I looked at these old files, he was doing the victims in and around Amarillo, Texas, I think they had him."

“What happened?"

“I never got a real handle on that. I think it may have just been a combination of things. Their so-called eyeball witness fell apart on them. Violated some Texas statute when they put him into a lineup, best I can judge. He was nineteen, this Spoda, and all of that and some sloppy paperwork and he just ended up walking. Like a dude there said to me, You know how it is, it happens."

“Yeah.” Siverson nodded. “I know. Sometimes the scumbags walk. I know how it happens. Can you put something together on this individual if you can find him again?"

“I dunno.” Eichord scratched his head. “Beats me,” he said quietly. “I know the Iceman killings stopped as soon as the suspect became hurt. He apparently was crippled to the point where he was in a wheelchair.” Eichord told him about the mother and the man in Vega, Texas, who had supposedly seen Spoda in Vegas.

“Shit. I think you could send these around to all the big hospitals, clinics, therapy centers, and what not. Real needle in a haystack without a mug shot or prints.” He read the short information sheet Eichord had handed him with the stack of drawings.

“Well, for starters, I'd like all the guys to get one of these. I'll also get them run through all the casinos just on the odd chance it might shake something loose."

“Sure. What else?"

Eichord gave him a couple more requests, including the standard desk-directories-telephone requirements, and Stiverson eventually left him to his own devices while he sat there in busy MLVPD Homicide dialing and smiling, finding out in the course of one afternoon that Las Vegas, Nevada, had about all the health care anybody could handle.

By late afternoon he was getting punchy. The day had not been a total loss, however. He had learned about how the coloration of a victim's fingernails and the consistency of the vomit will help determine if they have ingested a slow-acting, nonvolatile poison. That a shotgun leaves pellets, wadding, markings, ejected shell casings, and that people who do police work send these things to laboratories for analysis. He learned they found a homosexual with over a hundred stabbing wounds in the body, of which a detective observed “Boy! Somebody was sure pissed."

He learned more about the Vegas sports books than he had ever wanted to know, including the line on three important games. He learned that in Vegas they use the transitive verb “shake” the way they use the word “smoke” in Buckhead. That most homicides are solved by witnesses or informants. That most Vegas crimes are solved in the first twenty-four hours or they tend to go unsolved. That a three-day-old killing was “getting there ‘cause this guy in the joint told me this hump he knows said he was gonna shake him.” He learned that a stringer for Channel 11 was a turd. And the guy on the early-morning assignments desk was cool. And that a guy in the News Cruiser eats shit. And that somebady “got their ten-thirty-one stepped on” and all of this was profoundly more interesting than the sheet of doodles in front of Eichord. A list that said: 5 x 39 .6
=
198

Gloria (39) Strangulation

Darleen (37) Strangulation

Ann (38) Bludgeoning/Stabbing

Elnora (41) Stabbing

May (43) Stabbing.

The doodles were average. Nothing great. He was proud of the numbers, though. They were nicely rendered. Why would a nineteen-year-old boy want to “shake” 39.6 year old women? Because he could? Because they were vulnerable? Because they were surrogate mommy targets? Forcing Mom to give him head and then going to work with his hands or his sharpened icepick? I am twisted. So here's some
steel
, Lucile. NOW you can't see my perversions and abnormalities. My half-inch Vienna sausage of a cock. My twisted soul. Here's not looking at you, kid. Kiss THIS, Sis!

It bored him so badly, this doodle, that he concentrated on the more accessible Homicide work at hand. And by the time he packed it in for his last overnight in Vegas, he knew exactly how the three-county-level special unit worked Homicide calls, suspicious deaths, and officer-related shootings. He knew that the officer, or pair, depending on the beat, calls in the “criminalistic” officers, the HDs and the ID techs. He learned how to write up an incident report, how to get hold of a path, the pathologist, the way photographs are made, the manner in which diagrams are drawn. The place the autopsy is performed. All sorts of useful stuff in case he ever decided to do any Homicide work.

You had to walk right through the casino to get to the elevators. What made him think it was planned that way? He put a ten-dollar bet on ODD and lost. Put a two-dollar bet on 39 and lost. Put two five-dollar chips on ODD and won. Put ten dollars on EVEN and won. He was eight dollars ahead, and he quit. There was a slot machine near the bank of elevators and he fed five dollars in while waiting for his elevator. Still, he was quitting three bucks ahead. Another Vegas winner.

The noise and the smoke and the lights and the sleaze factor were almost overpowering. He couldn't wait to have Las Vegas become a memory. One more piece of business in the morning and he was gone.

“
P
ull your coat down a little,” a metallic voice commanded over the intercom, and the good-looking man seated beside the car mouthed a silent okay and leaned forward as far as he could, pulling his coat down under him as well as he was able, smoothing his lapels.

“Okay now?” he asked aloud.

The intercom did not choose to reply and a boy with a rattail haircut clicked a marking slate clapper and said, “Fourteen,” looking at the man in the chair saying, “Stand by."

The seated man held his smile into the bright lights, and when the rattail boy pointed at him, he smiled widely and said, “Luxury in a beautiful car you CAN afford. Because nobody beats our deal.” He let the smile relax a little and took a breath.

The intercom squawked, “Let's do it again."

“Sure."

“Take Fifteen."

“Luxury in a beautiful car you CAN afford. Because nobody beats our deal.” He was very tired. “Was that better?"

“Let's wild-track it again, please,” she answered in her grating, metallic squawk.

“Sixteen,” the boy said, and marked it.

“Luxury in a beautiful car you CAN afford. Because nobody—"

“Hold it."

He breathed again. Fucking imbeciles.

“Wha hoppen?” He beamed in the direction of the control booth.

“You're saying Lug-sury. It's LUCKS-U-REE. Make it a real hard X sound, okay?"

“LUXury in a beautiful car. Like so?"

“Better. Do it again. Here we go."

“Seventeen."

“Nobody ... Shit, I'm sorry. I forgot the line.” He kept his smile as the rattail boy giggled and said, “That's a take.” Wise little fuck. “Okay. I'll get it right this time, folks. I promise."

“Okay,” over the intercom. He could feel himself reddening a little. Fuck it.

“Eighteen,” the kid said in a tone of unmasked contempt.

“LUXury in a beautiful car you CAN afford. Because nobody beats our deal.” The eyes boring in under the red light. His hundredth spot maybe. An old pro.

“I think that one got it, but give me a safety,” she said, and he tilted his head back and said, “Sure,” ever the gentleman.

“Nineteen, safety,” the wise-ass kid said, and the man in the chair smiled brightly, gestured to the new car parked in the production studio, and gave her another perfect one. Smiling into the camera with his handsome public face.

H
e was up, dressed, and checking out half an hour before dawn and the casino looked like nine p.m. on a Friday night. An incessant blur of movement and a ceaseless roar of voices and noise. He walked past a blackjack layout and a woman dealer whose tag said adele—nevada. A Yugoslavian crackpot was babbling something to her about how GM was going to pay him a billion dollars in “reparations” for patent infringement.

“Don't bet until I've cleared the table, sir,” he could hear another dealer scolding someone as he walked by the early-morning crew. You can have it all, Adele Nevada. Every last dirty dollar. Just lemme outta here.

Heading north out of Las Vegas on I-15 past the Moapa Reservation, he drove into the Valley of Fire, and the sun came up over the mountains like a blazing red H-bomb, lasering the eyeballs as it mushroomed out into billowy fallout over the rocky canyons and the bust-out, degenerate gamblers, and the poor, ordinary folks, and the pathetic detectives, and whoever else.

Even with his shades on and the visor of the rental flipped down the blindingly bright sun gave him a massive headache, smashing into his eyes and into the brain like the needle-sharp Icepick of the Gods. He remembered the mirrored reflections from the eye-in-the-sky back in the casino. He knew the day was going to suck and it hadn't even started yet.

Far out in the sky over the Valley of Fire some movement caught his eye. He had to shield his eyes to squint, looking through dark lenses and tinted glass at buzzards circling something dead or dying out there. Eichord hoped it wasn't a sign.

T
he one flimsy semilead he'd turned up out west had flattened out on him. A former Vice guy, three years retired, had vague memories of this “spectacular pony” who lived with this wheelchair-bound gambler in one of the old plush joints—the Flamingo, he thought. The guy turned out to be hazy on the whole thing—some fuzzy recollection of the guy and his show-bizzy broad. He couldn't be sure of the drawing, he said. Bottom line: el zero.

Eichord heard a radio or television blaring as he descended into the sublevel of Buckhead Homicide. One of the guys had brought a TV set to work. Not a portable, but a twenty-one-inch set purloined from God-knows-where and squeezed into the back seat of an unmarked ride.

“Couldn't you get a big screen?"

“It's Dana's tummy tee vee,” Peletier said, and brought forth some snickers.

The detectives were watching a dog show for some reason.

“Peletier,” fat Dana Tuny growled, “you'd hafta pick up forty more IQ points to qualify as a fuckin moron, ya know that."

“I'm gonna be fuckin a moron inna minute. Jumbo, so gitcher pants down and reach for your ankles."

“This ain't mine,” Tuny said to Eichord, ignoring Marv Peletier, “the schvatza boosted it in Watts."

“Welcome back, Jack. Have a nice trip,” Eichord said to himself out loud. “Yes, thanks. A real bummer. Glad you missed me,” he told himself.

Peletier turned up the volume as the announcer's voice intoned out of the speaker “Ah! Here comes the giant schnauzer. What a gorgeous bitch.” And the entire squad room hooted with catcalls, a room full of twelve-year-olds.

“I was out wit’ a gorgeous bitch the other night had a giant schnauzer on her,” Tuny said.