Lucky Break (41 page)

The driver turned around, a young woman with a shy smile and hard eyes.
 
“Indian Springs?”
 

“Yes.”
 
I settled back for the ride.

“That’ll cost you.”

“In so many ways.”
 
I leaned my head back as she put the car in gear.
 
“You can wait for me, right?
 
I won’t take long.”
 

“Meter and a half to sit in the jail yard.”
 
She watched in the rearview, gauging my reaction.

“I’ll pay the meter; the rest is at my discretion.
 
Don’t push me, not today.”

She caved at my pushback.
 
The fare would be the best she’d had in months; we both knew it.

I must’ve dozed for part of the ride north—we were there before I was ready.
 
Even though less than thirty miles from the Strip, Indian Springs was a world apart.
 
A small town squatting amid sand, rocks, scrubby angry brush fighting for life, and mountains that looked like they’d been picked clean by a life-consuming cloud of locusts.
 
The Mojave, a desert as bleak and as beautiful as any, and the last place any sane man would envision a place like Las Vegas.

Vegas, an insane vision of a delusional mobster.
 
It fit.
 
But it was home.

Nevada had always welcomed the outliers.

The Tonopah Test Range was out here, the site of atomic testing back in the days before anyone understood the effect of exposure to radiation.
 
Yucca Mountain, the abandoned national repository for nuclear waste, was out this way too.
 
So it fit that the largest correctional facility in Nevada, a one-hundred-and sixty-acre site of low buildings hunkering in a remote corner of the desert behind electrified fence, rounded out the neighborhood. Guards with automatic weapons watched from towers that dotted the fence line.
 
Their eyes on us as I presented my ID at the checkpoint raised the hair on the back of my neck.
 
Even my cabbie with the attitude seemed subdued.
 
The guard directed us to the Visiting Center.

The warden was waiting for me when I finally got through all the security checkpoints, the double-door hallway—my least favorite part, where they let you in then lock the door behind you before unlocking the one in front, all the while watching you from behind thick glass, gauging your every movement, weighing all possible motives.
 
Every time I passed down this hallway I felt guilty of something.
 
And I worried they would discover my transgression through some unconscious tic or something and would never let me out.

Warden Jeffers greeted me warmly with a firm handshake and a smile.
 
He probably didn’t get too many visitors who didn’t have a rap sheet or love someone who did.
 
A tall man with a shaved head and a kind manner, he hovered a hand behind the small of my back as he motioned with the other outstretched.
 
“Here are Irv Gittings’ visitor logs.
 
I made copies of the pertinent sections.”

I scanned the sheets.
 
Nobody I recognized.
 
Darn.
 
My hope was hanging on someone being stupid.
 
I should know better.
 
I folded the sheets and tucked them in my pocket—Security had relieved me of everything else.

“Tell me what you’re looking for.”
 
The warden seemed interested.
 
“I’d love to have Mr. Gittings back.”
 
He shook his head.
 
“A bad judge, now dead.
 
Got Gittings’ fingerprints all over it.”

“I’m trying to connect Irv to the two high-profile shootings recently.”

He nodded, his face serious.
 
“Holt Box and your father.
 
I’m very happy he’s okay.
 
He’s a good man.”

“He is, thank you.”
 
We stood awkwardly in the hall, neither knowing which way to turn.
 
“Anything you can tell me about Irv while he was here?
 
Did he make any friends?”
 
I had the unnerving feeling that every move we made, every word, hell, every thought, was being recorded, monitored, and evaluated.
 
A bit too much scrutiny for my comfort.
 

“We kept him out of the general population, although he seemed to figure out his way around pretty quickly.”

“No doubt.” I thought about the Irv I’d first met and the man he became.
 
Of course, that man, the one who’d thought murder was a viable business strategy, had always lurked inside the suave pretender.
 
I’d been too young, too easily impressed, too foolish to peek under the veneer.
 
But I took a bit of solace in the fact I wasn’t the only one.
 
Irv Gittings had cut a wide swath.

“Did he have a cellmate or anyone he might have traded confidences with?”
 
If I knew Irv, he’d find someone to use, even in this place where brawn trumped brain.

“No cellmate.
 
We thought he needed to acclimate, lose some of the refinement before we turned them loose on him.”
 

I shot a glance at the warden.
 
He met it with a level gaze—he’d meant what he’d said.
 
The thought put a song in my heart.
 
As my father said, there are worse things than dying.
 

“I checked with some of the guards who spent more time around Mr. Gittings.
 
They said he had one friend.
 
They hung together in the yard, that sort of thing.
 
His name is Frank, and he’s actually a pretty good kid.
 
Did one stupid thing.
 
Rode a motorcycle into the casino at the Starlight.
 
Grabbed a bunch of chips from the cashier.
 
He didn’t know the casinos chip the high-dollar ones.
 
He didn’t get far.”

“I remember.
 
Made the national news—a prime-time stupid criminal spot.”
 
I glanced up at the camera in the corner and its blinking red eye and fought the urge to stick my tongue out.
 
One of those irrational urges, like hurling oneself into the void from a high balcony.

“Yeah, he got slammed.
 
All the publicity made it worse for him.
 
Like I said, he’s a good kid.
 
Stupid, but not bad.”

“There ought to be another place for us to rehabilitate stupid.
 
In here, they just get mad and learn all kinds of bad tricks.
 
Can I talk to Irv’s little buddy?
 
It’s Frank, right?”
 

“I thought you’d ask that.” He stepped back and motioned down a side hallway.
 
“This way.”

We walked shoulder-to-shoulder down the hallway as I fought the urge to drop breadcrumbs.
 
Institutional setting, everything looked the same, each hallway a mirror of the others, all connected in a maze.
 
I felt like a dog in Pavlov’s lab.

“He’s waiting for you in room six.”
 
I must’ve looked uncomfortable as he added, “A guard will be with you at all times, and Mr. Wu will be restrained.”

“Wu?
 
His name is Frank Wu?”
 
Had the Fates finally decided to open a window?

Visiting Room Six reminded me of the interrogation rooms at the Detention Center in Vegas.
 
Same gray paint, same metal furniture, same anger lurking in the corners.
 
The warden held the door for me, then stuck his head in long enough to make sure the prisoner and guard were as he said they would be.
 

The door closed and I turned, locking eyes with a nightmare.
 
“Sam?”
 
I stared into the face of the dinner jacket guy, the guy who’d shot my father.
 

He eyed me, a predator eyeing a future kill, with a look that told me he knew what I was thinking, what I was experiencing.
 
But he didn’t quite pull it off.
 
“It’s nice to meet you, Ms. O’Toole.”
 
He angled his head.
 
“I’ve heard so much about you.”

The guard stood close, ready, making me feel crowded and wary.
 
“Funny, nobody has told me about you at all.”
 

A prick to the ego that drew blood.
 
I saw it in the slight narrowing of his eyes.
 
“Irv, he really hates you.”

The resemblance between the man who sat in front of me and the guy who’d shot my father and mocked me from across the casino was amazing.
 
Not quite identical, but close enough to warrant a double-take.
 
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
 
I eased into the chair across from him, which put me at eye level with the guard’s gun and his crotch, both unnatural bulges.
 
“What did he tell you?”

“He would get even.”
 
Frank crossed his arms, adopting an arrogant air I knew pretty well.

“Your brother has that same look.”

Shock focused his stare.
 
“I don’t have a brother.”
 
He swallowed hard, his eyes moving from mine—not a good liar.
 
Apparently not a good hood either, considering his current address.
 

“Well, you’ve got somebody out there pretending to be you, looking like you, doing all kinds of interesting things on camera.”
 
I leaned forward.
 
“And I have a feeling he’s working with Irv on that revenge thing.
 
What did Irv promise you for connecting him?” I pressed, my voice hard, my patience short.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
 

“I’ve done some stupid shit in my day; allowing anyone like Irv Gittings within fifty yards was among one of my more stupendous follies.
 
But,” I leaned forward and gave him my best badass, which I’d been told by those who should know, was pretty good. “I am far from stupid.”

Frank’s mask slipped a little, giving me a glimpse of the kid pretending to be bad.

I leaned back in my chair and crossed my arms.
 
“So let’s see how I do.
 
You got this brother, he’s the real deal, mean, ruthless, a killing machine.
 
And your father, he’s no Boy Scout either.
 
But you didn’t get those genes.
 
You weren’t the kid torturing animals and knifing his friends.
 
No, that was Sam.
 
And your father was proud of Sam, could use somebody like him.
 
So you tried to fit that mold.
 
And you got caught.”
 
I angled my head and gave him a raised-eyebrow look.
 
“How’m I doing so far?”

He shifted uneasily.

“Your sister worried about you in here.
 
So, when her friend Irv Gittings got an invitation from the State of Nevada, she got word to him to look you up, take care of you.”

I hit Frank’s soft underbelly.
 
I saw it in his face, his eyes especially; they were a lot like his sister’s.
 
“You might look like Sam, but you favor Kimberly.”

He broke.
 
“She worries about me.”

“Did you set Irv up with Sam?”

“No.”
 
The last bit of artifice shattered, and I saw the real, frightened, sad kid.
 
“I would never hook anyone up with Sam.”
 
Frank licked his lips and looked away.
 
“Sam is…”

“I know.
 
A coldhearted killer.”

“When he left, did Irv say anything to you?”

“He said he’d get me out of here, which I shrugged off.
 
A lot of guys make promises, and Irv didn’t strike me as the kind who keeps many.”

Smart boy.
 
Smarter than me.
 
But he’d had a different kind of education.

“You need to be careful.
 
He has it out for you.
 
Never seen anything like it.”

“Revenge.
 
It’ll eat your soul if you let it.”

“Assuming you have one in the first place. He did say he had a lady waiting for him, which was rubbing it in.”

“That’s Irv. Hold out a carrot while he stabs you in the back.” I patted Frank’s hand, and the guard harrumphed.
 
I’d forgotten about him.
 
I turned and ran headlong into his crotch again.
 
I looked up at him.
 
“Could you back away a bit?”

He just stared down at me.

Frank gave me a look.
 
“You get used to it.”

“When will you be out?”

“Long time.
 
Around here they take messing with the casinos seriously.”

I would’ve thrown the book at him, too.
 
That thought gave me something to think about.
 
Snap judgments—perhaps I was guiltier than I thought.
 

“You got the warden’s ear, right?” he asked.
 
Hope, even in this place.

I didn’t agree or disagree.
 
“Why?”

He glanced at the guard, then found his courage.
 
“I’d really like a drawing pad and some colored pencils or anything.
 
I really like to draw.”
 
He clutched himself, both arms across his chest.
 
“I’m going crazy in here without my art stuff.”