Perpetual Motion (3 page)

“Sure Mr. Jones!” Missy said, looking him up.
“Is this your first visit to the Bellagio?”

“You mean you don’t recognize me?” Cynical
asked as he put his computer case on the marble counter and
unzipped it.

“Um, I’m sorry Mr. Jones,” she said
unsteadily. “How many days will you be staying with us this
time?”

“Don’t know yet,” he said. “Depends on how
lucky I am.”

She feigned another smile. “Well, I’ll need
to get a copy of your driver’s license and an imprint of your
credit card.”

Cynical scooted the required credentials over
the counter. As Missy ran his card, he turned his laptop on.

“I need to print a photo and get some copies
made,” he said. “Where can I do that?”

“In our business service center,” she said.
“It will be open tomorrow morning.”

Missy ran the card, just as a front desk
agent had done for Michael Dexter’s card two nights ago. As the
computer warmed up, Missy swiped a piece of plastic. Placing his
card key in a mini-envelope, she handed it to him, along with his
credit card.

“You’re in room 143,” she informed him. “Will
you need a bellman?”

“No thanks,” Cynical said, who was tapping on
his computer. “Have you seen this guy?” He turned the screen toward
Missy. “He checked in a couple of nights ago.”

Taken back by the question, Missy studied the
face for a whole two seconds. “I don’t think so. Of course, that
doesn’t mean he wasn’t here. We have hundreds of check-ins every
day,” she said proudly.

Looking up, he noticed the discrete camera
staring at him from the back wall. It would be nice to confirm that
Michael was the one who had actually used the card.

“Is your manager around?”

“Is there a problem?” she asked, concern
entering her voice.

“No problem,” he reassured her.

Missy picked up her phone and dialed an
extension. While she spoke in hushed tones, Cynical took the
opportunity to put his computer away.

Looking at her customer with a pouty frown,
she announced, “I’m sorry. He’s on his dinner break. Can I have him
call you in your room?”

“Nah,” Cynical said. “I’ll talk to someone
tomorrow.” Rechecking the envelope, he confirmed, “143?”

“143,” she said, back to her happy self.
“Enjoy your stay.”

“Yeah,” Cynical said, slinging his bag over
his shoulder. But he wasn’t in Vegas to have a good time. He was,
however, there to gamble. He was betting fifty grand he could find
one man in a city of over five hundred thousand. His odds were
better playing the slots, and yet, this was the game he had chosen
to play.

His intention had been to get to his room,
put his bag down, splash some cold water on his face, and head back
out to check the casino floor. Somewhere on his way to the
bathroom, he had decided to lie down for a few minutes. Ten hours
later, he opened his eyes.

While he gave himself a badly needed shower
and shave, Cynical cursed himself for wasting the valuable
prime-time gambling hours between 10:00 pm and 1:00 am. He was off
to a slow start, but he had to admit, he looked and felt
better.

First stop was the Bellagio’s business
service center. Using a flash drive, he downloaded Michael’s
picture and typed in his own name and cell phone number at the
bottom of the page. Taking a moment to think about it, he added
“$5,000” in big bold font at the top. In Vegas, dollars speak
louder than words.

At $3.50 a piece, he ordered 300 copies.
Sure, it was highway robbery, but he didn’t have time to mess
around with nickels and dimes. Time was money, especially when the
trail was warm. Besides, he could always bill it to Abrams,
although he probably wouldn’t. From the business center, he found
the cashier and forked over his credit card for a cash advance to
cover his reward.

At the front desk, he waited impatiently for
a group of seniors to check out. Once he finally got to the front
of the line, he asked to see the front desk manager on duty. This
time, the agent obliged and returned with an attractive older woman
who might have been a showgirl thirty years ago. Her nametag read
Rhonda.

Cynical showed her one of the wanted
pictures. “I’m looking for this man,” he said politely. “His name
is Michael Dexter.”

“Are you a cop?” Rhonda asked, not even
giving the photo a glance.

That question never failed to sting him a
bit. “I’m a private investigator; an attorney hired me to find him
because he’s mixed up in an illegal scam.” He didn’t know if
Michael was running a scam or not but, without a badge, he had to
motivate people to talk anyway he could. “I believe he checked into
this hotel three nights ago.” Cynical motioned toward the camera
behind her. “Is there any way I could confirm that?”

When he looked back at Rhonda, she was
already shaking her head. “Can’t do it unless you get permission
from the general manager and he won’t do it unless you’ve got a
warrant, or at least a badge.”

In many ways, his job had been so much easier
when he had the full weight of Johnny Law on his side. He tried to
make up the difference with hard work and, if that failed,
bribes.

“Could you at least ask around the front
desk?” he asked as he handed her the photo. “If you hear anything,
give me a call. My number is on there.”

Rhonda nodded, distracted by the check-outs
piling up behind him.

“As you can see, there’s a reward if you can
help me locate him.”

Finally, noticing the $5,000s, she became
more attentive. “I’ll see what I can do,” she said, this time
sounding like she might not toss the photo in the nearest circular
file. Five grand was real money to someone making fifteen dollars
an hour.

Faking his own friendly smile, Cynical made
his way to the casino floor. As soon as he waded into the tables,
he began asking for the casino floor manager. A blackjack dealer
told him he was looking for “Sid,” who was probably over by
“Bobby’s.”

“Bobby’s” turned out to be a high dollar
poker room where he did, in fact, find a small, hyper-energetic man
with a white twitchy moustache and a nametag that confirmed he was
“Sid.” The manager reminded Cynical of a mouse who had been
frazzled by fifty years of bells and whistles in the casino
maze.

“What can I do you for?” Sid asked.

“I’m a private investigator.” Cynical slid a
photo off the top of his stack. “I’m looking for this guy. He’s a
scam artist who’s working your casino.”

With the flyer looking like a wanted poster,
it cast Michael in a guilty light. Sid studied the picture, like he
was trying to memorize the answers to a pop quiz.

“Have you seen him in the last two or three
days?”

Sid scratched at his moustache. “I worked
graveyard three nights ago; maybe then. If it’s the guy I’m
thinking of, he was playing roulette. Won some too.”

Cynical pressed the photo into his hand. “If
you see him again, can you call me? I’ll take care of you.
Okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll keep an eye out,” Sid said,
always anxious to get a wanted hustler off his floor and make a
chunk of cheese on the side. Scuttling off to his next crisis, the
floor manager called back, “Don’t get your hopes up, it’s a big
room.”

It was a big room and an even bigger city. At
the moment, trying to find one guy in Vegas seemed daunting, even
overwhelming. And that was if Dexter was still there – or had ever
even been there. Maybe he was the real rat in the maze, chasing a
piece of cheese and nothing more. A tiny voice told him it wasn’t
too late to cut his losses and head back home before sinking more
time and energy into this case.

Shaking the thought out of his head, he
reminded himself this was the hard part; the slow, methodical grind
that came with being a private detective. It wasn’t exciting or
fancy but, in his experience, it was necessary.

It was same as being a cop and having to
canvas a hostile neighborhood after a crime. Or being a detective
and running down a dozen dead-end leads from a tip line. Nothing
beat being on the street and talking to people. Or so he told
himself as he grabbed a cup of coffee and kept moving.

With a slowly diminishing stack of photos,
Cynical made his way around to the big hotels in the vicinity;
talking to door men, front desk agents, floor managers, pit bosses,
security personnel, and whoever else would listen to him.

Caesar’s, Mirage and Treasure Island were
three strikes in a row, although he had an interesting conversation
with a cocktail waitress named Tammy at Caesar’s. For the first
five minutes, she thought he was handing out promotional pictures
for a lounge act.

“So where’s he playing?” Tammy asked in her
high, squeaky voice.

“That’s what I’m trying to find out,” Cynical
said.

“Why are you handing out flyers if you don’t
even know where he’s playing?”

“I think he’s gambling,” Cynical said,
starting over. “And I’m looking for him.”

“Yeah, but where is he performing?” Tammy
asked, tugging on her toga. “You left that off the flyer.”

Eventually Tammy got the picture. Even if she
wasn’t exactly the brightest bulb on the strip, she was cute and
Cynical hoped she would call the number, if nothing else, for a
drink when her shift was over.

Just because no one had seen the kid didn’t
mean Michael wasn’t around, or so he kept telling himself. It just
meant he was in the wrong hotels, or the people he had been talking
to hadn’t been working, couldn’t remember, or didn’t care.

When he was a real detective, he could simply
put out an all-points bulletin and have ten thousand trained sets
of eyes on the streets. Now, he was completely dependent on the
good will of others and the allure of a reward; mostly, the
reward.

After pausing at the outdoor pirate show,
Cynical crossed the strip where he hit the Flamingo, Aladdin, and
Parisian. It was a bartender at the Aladdin who told him someone
else had been in looking for the kid. He chalked it up to a case of
mistaken identity, but then a pit boss at the Parisian said he had
been shown that same picture the day before.

“You sure it was the same guy?” Cynical
asked, thumping it.

“Yeah I’m sure,” the pit boss insisted.

“Who was looking for him?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “They were official
looking, you know, suits.”

“Okay,” Cynical said handing him one of his
photos. “Will you call
me
if you see him again?”

“Sure,” the boss said. “If you’re paying five
grand, you bet I will.”

Cynical contemplated his new competition
over a light lunch and a glass of Chardonnay at a “French” bistro.
They could be some kind of police or private security. Maybe
Mancuso had hired more than one private eye or, maybe, Michael had
more than one investor who wanted to talk to him.

His deliberation was interrupted by a call
from someone who “thought they’d seen someone who looked like the
guy in the photo.” Cynical knew he’d get his share of cranks and
over anxious reward seekers. He dismissed this one when the caller
admitted he hadn’t seen the Michael-look-alike for an hour.

“If you see him again, let me know,” Cynical
said.

Hanging up, he considered having another
glass, but reminded himself that someone was out there trying to
jump his claim, so he asked for the check instead.

Back across the boulevard, he walked and
talked as he crossed the Luxor, Excalibur, New York New York, and
Monte Carlo off his list. Again, he ran into the same story: no one
could definitely remember seeing Mr. Dexter, but someone else was
looking for him. All he could do was hope his reward was big enough
to give him the edge.

By late afternoon, the constant barrage of
lights, bells, screams of delight, and groans of agony had become
wallpaper to him. By 6:00, the walls were closing in. The sensory
overload had taken their toll, giving him a splitting headache, not
to mention his dogs were barking like a couple of bloodhounds.

The good news was he had managed to hit all
of the major hotels in the vicinity of the Bellagio. The bait was
set. The bad news was the bait was also attracting any little fish
that needed a quick five grand, in Vegas no less. Years of being a
detective helped Cynical sniff out the fakes, knocking each call
down as wishful thinking or an outright lie.
After hitting an all-you-can-eat buffet, Cynical fought the urge to
call it a night. He started out with a leisurely warm-up lap around
the Bellagio gaming floor. No one he recognized seemed to be
around; not even Sid, the house mouse. It felt dead, so instead of
waiting around for it to heat up; he headed over to Caesar’s.

While his primary target was Michael, he was
also aware that Tammy’s shift ended in thirty minutes. Maybe she
would accept an invitation to see the opening night performance of
his one man show at the Bellagio, Room 143. It wasn’t that he
thought she was necessarily easy, but she did come wrapped in a
sheet.

Half-way down the Caesar’s people mover, his
cell phone rang. Seeing it was a Vegas number, he braced himself
for another crank. Instead, he was greeted with a flat, no-nonsense
male voice.

“Yeah, this is Frank Gibbons at the Flamingo
– you looking for the skinny kid in the picture?”

“Yeah – have you seen him?”

“He’s right in front of me, playing
roulette,” Frank retorted. “If you want him, get over here – and
bring the reward.”

Not wasting any more time asking questions,
Cynical jumped off the moving sidewalk. The lead felt right; it was
from an official source with eyeballs on Dexter.

His heart started to race, and not entirely
because he was a little out of shape. Chasing down a suspect still
got the blood flowing and he realized this is what he missed most
about being a cop. For a moment, he wondered if it was the same
kind of feeling a gambler got when he was on a roll.