Vegas Nerve Page 2

  She’s as tall as me, about five-ten, and she’s not skinny. She’s not fat, either, just a nice, big woman. She’s got dark brown hair peppered with silver—a lot more of the pepper since Johnny Mac entered our lives—and the greenest eyes you ever saw. She’s got a scattering of freckles on her nose and cheeks, and a smile that’ll make you catch your breath. She’s got large breasts, a small waist, perfect hips, and she probably would have had real shapely legs if it hadn’t been for the polio she contracted as a baby. Her mother had refused to get any of her kids vaccinated when the Salk vaccine came out; all of ’em made it okay except Jean. She’s been on crutches and leg braces her whole life. But since she’s been doing that since she could walk, the lady can move faster than most people. The only time she had a real problem was late in her pregnancy, when her belly got so big she lost her equilibrium and had to take to a wheelchair for the last two months.

  She finished her conversation with the man and turned, seeing me. She smiled and I smiled back. When we got to each other, she said, “I don’t have anything until the opening ceremonies tonight. They’re serving dinner, you want to come?”

  I thought about the rubber chicken and limp vegetables they usually serve at convention dinners, then thought about Chicken Fried’s and Maria’s TexMex. I thought about all the speeches that would come with dinner (Jean’s not being one of them) and the lure of the slots and the roulette wheel. Then I put on my best hangdog expression.

  “Honey, I’d really like to, but I didn’t bring the right clothes.”

  “You brought something to wear when I give my speech, didn’t you?”

  “Well, of course, but you don’t want me to wear that twice, do you?” I figured, being a woman, Jean could respect that.

  She grinned. “Honey, you are so full of shit.” She leaned over and kissed me. “Go ahead and ruin your diet, but don’t lose too much money, okay?”

  I grinned back and patted her cheek. “You’re a good wife,” I said.

  Then we both headed downstairs to see what all the fuss was about Vegas.

  What can I say? It was bright, it was loud, and, in the right frame of mind, I suppose it could be fun. Jean and me played the quarter slots and I got less enchanted with the place as my paper cup of quarters began to dwindle. Then Jean, who had moved down three stools from me, let out a very uncharacteristic whoop, and I ran to her side.

  “I won three hundred dollars!” she cried, grabbing me by the lapels of my blue jean jacket. “Three hundred dollars!” she shouted.

  “That’s great, honey,” I said. “We can pay a bill with it.”

  My ultra-practical wife said, “Are you out of your mind? Let’s go shopping!”

  I’m not much of a shopper, but it didn’t take long to blow three hundred bucks in a Las Vegas hotel. She bought a Little Lord Fauntleroy-looking outfit for Johnny Mac—that I swear he’ll never wear, not if I can help it—and a very small, very black, very see-through teddy for herself. That I swore she’d wear in about five minutes, if I had my way about it. Then she decided to buy something for me.

  “Honey,” I said, looking at the teddy, “you already did.”

  She had a few bucks left and insisted that I deserved a treat—I kept mentioning the elevator to our room as a way of getting my treat, but she ignored me. I ended up buying a Swiss Army knife I didn’t need, spending about three times what I would have paid for it at my local army-navy store. Finally I got her on the elevator.

  Just let me say that my wife looked real good in that teddy. We had three hours before her evening meeting/dinner was to start, and we put that teddy to real good use.

  First Friday - Prophesy County

  It had gone okay, the dinner. Emmett was surprised he talked so much. Didn’t know he had that much to say. But she was a good listener, and when she talked she was funny. He liked that. And she had good table manners. Shirley Beth had always been real big on table manners, so his were pretty good, too.

  They got back in his pickup and headed home to Longbranch. It would be okay. Since he was taking her back to her car at the sheriff’s office, he didn’t have to worry about her inviting him into her place, or having to invite her into his. This had been pretty easy, he thought. Hell, it was like riding a bicycle.

  He pulled his pickup next to her little Mazda in the parking lot.

  “Well, Jasmine, glad you went with me. I had a good time,” he said.

  “Thanks for inviting me,” she said.

  He took a deep breath. “Maybe we can do this again sometime,” he said.

  She nodded but didn’t look at him. Emmett had his hand on the door handle, ready to get out of the pickup and walk around to let Jasmine out, when he realized she was kissing him. Her lips were on his and his body was reacting before his mind fully knew what was going on. He put his hands on her waist, kissing her back, hard, then harder. His hands found that great ass, kneading it like his mama used to knead bread dough. He wanted to touch her skin, but shied away from it. Too much, he thought. This is good. This is real good. But then Jasmine pulled away, but instead of saying something like, “We shouldn’t be doing this,” or something else similar, she was unbuttoning her blouse.

  She took his hand, his left one he thought later, and touched it to the swelling of her breasts above the bra.

  His voice was husky when he said to her, “It’s been a real long time.”

  “For me, too,” she said. Her hands went to his belt, and he forgot about saying anything else.

  First Saturday - Las Vegas

  By the nightstand clock, it was 2:30 A.M. when the phone rang. I immediately wondered where the car wreck was before I realized I wasn’t at home. I picked up and said, “Hello?”

  “Milt?” came a female voice.

  “Who’s this?” I asked.

  “It’s Maida. Maida Upshank,” she said.

  Maida Upshank was my third or whatever cousin, and I vaguely remembered Gladys, my civilian clerk, saying that she and her husband Burl were in Las Vegas. But if this was a social call, it was a pretty damned unsociable hour.

  “Yeah, Maida, hey, what’s up?” I asked.

  “I’m real sorry to bother you on vacation, Milt, but I called Gladys to tell her what’s going on and she told me you were here. I really need your help.” She sighed deep and long, then said, “Burl’s been arrested,” and started to cry.

  Now that took me by surprise. Burl was Maida’s husband and I’d known him most of my life and he was definitely the lawabiding type. Burl had been a few years ahead of me in high school and the best defensive lineman the school had ever seen. So good, in fact, that he got a full scholarship to OU and did real good up there. Would have made pro for sure if he hadn’t blown his knee his senior year.

  He graduated OU still on crutches, came home and married his high school sweetheart, my second or whatever cousin Maida Leroy, and settled down to run his father-in-law’s insurance agency. After the old man died, Burl changed the name and expanded, and now there’s an Upshank Insurance Agency in every small town in our part of Oklahoma.

  The last time I’d seen Burl and Maida had been at their youngest daughter’s wedding about two years ago. My boy Johnny Mac had been barely a year old then and made a real nuisance of himself, kicking the back of the pews during the ceremony, and trying to run wild at the reception, although he was real cute doing it.

  I wondered if Burl had stiffed a casino or something. I figured they must take that pretty seriously.

  I sat up in bed and put my feet on the floor. “Now try and calm down, Maida. Tell me, what’s Burl been arrested for?”

  “Assault and battery,” she got out.

  I figured if Burl wanted to assault somebody, they’d be pretty damned assaulted, what with Burl’s size and all, even if he was well over sixty. The boy had kept in shape. I doubted he’d kicked anybody’s teeth out with his right leg, but other than that, I figured he could do some damage. The only thing was, Burl Upshank was a teddy bear. br />
  “Who’s Burl supposed to’ve assaulted?” I asked.

  “Our son-in-law, Larry,” she said, gulping air and trying not to cry.

  “And he’s pressing charges?” I asked. Back in Prophesy County we tried to keep that kinda domestic squabble indoors. You know, mano-a-mano. Though when it came to mano-a-womano, I tended to get involved.

  “Milt, can you come down here? I just don’t know what to do!” Maida said, and started crying again.

  Now that got me. Maida’s the mother of six and a pretty down-to-earth woman. She and Burl live on a ranch, and I knew her to be able to diaper a baby, birth a calf, and have a full meal on the table, almost simultaneously. Having five boys before the birth of her last child, finally getting the little girl she wanted, I knew her to deal with bloody noses, broken bones, and drunken teenagers without a qualm. Crying just wasn’t in Maida’s makeup. But here she was, bawling her eyes out.

  “Tell me where you are, Maida, and I’ll be right there,” I said.

  “Just a minute. Talk to this man,” she said, and handed the phone over.

  “Ah, Sheriff?” a young male voice said, sounding pretty unsure of himself. “This is Detective Jimmy Broderick, Las Vegas PD. I’ll have a squad car pick you up in front of your hotel, sir, if that’s okay with you. Twenty minutes?”

  “That’s fine,” I said. I told him where we were staying and hung up.

  I got dressed, explaining to my wife where I was going and why, and went down to the front of the hotel. The lobby was still hopping, the bells and whistles of the slots still going strong, the smell of roses and cigarette smoke still hung in the air like a rain cloud about to explode, and the Texas crap didn’t look any better at two in the morning than it had at three in the afternoon.

  DETECTIVE JIMMY BRODERICK was down a long hall in a large room full of cubbyholes. He stood up to greet me and we introduced ourselves. He was sorta what I expected: looked a lot like Dalton Pettigrew, my stupidest (okay, least bright) deputy, except he wasn’t quite so dull around the edges. He was dull, all right, just not as dull as Dalton. I’d always hoped Dalton was a one-of-a-kind; the world couldn’t handle more than that.

  Detective Broderick was at least six foot four, weighing in at about two-fifty to two-seventy-five, and his overly large head sported a bristly blond crew cut with military sides. He grinned when he introduced himself, showing a lopsided smile with crooked teeth that Jean woulda called “charming.” I thought it just made him look stupider, but then what do I know?

  “Hey, Sheriff,” he said, shaking my hand until I figured I’d never play the violin again (which I never did before, either, but there you go). “You made good time from the hotel I see.”

  “Seeing as how it’s three in the morning, I woulda expected better,” I said.

  Broderick grinned. “Yes, sir, but this is Las Vegas. We never sleep.”

  “Where’s Mrs. Upshank?” I asked, having looked around and not seen my third or whatever cousin.

  “She’s in the ladies’ room, sir, but she should be right out. You wanna have a seat, let me tell you what’s going on?” Broderick said, indicating the chair next to his desk.

  I sat and said, “I would like to know what’s going on, yeah.”

  “Well, sir, seems Mr. Upshank assaulted his son-in-law.”

  I glared at the Dalton-like creature in front of me. “I got that much from Maida. Is the kid alive?”

  “Oh, yes, sir,” Broderick said.

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “Well, Larry Allen’s daddy is Walter Allen,” the kid said, saying it like I was supposed to know who that was. Then I remembered some wedding gossip about the groom’s daddy being some bigwig in Las Vegas.

  “And?” I asked, urging him on. It was after three in the morning, and I didn’t care that it was Las Vegas, I needed my shut-eye.

  “Well, Mr. Allen’s pressing charges. Or having his son do it, I guess.”

  “Mr. Allen got a lawyer?”

  “Oh, yes, of course. One of the best in Vegas.”

  “Well, I know Burl’s got a lawyer, so why don’t we get those two together, let ’em charge too much, and work this out? No reason for Burl to be locked up.”

  Broderick sighed long and hard. “Well, sir, Mr. Allen’s definitely pressing charges. He keeps saying he wants Mr. Upshank hung, but we don’t do that anymore.”

  Maida came back from the ladies’ room, her eyes still red, but dry. I stood up and hugged her. “How you holding up?” I asked.

  She smiled weakly. “By my fingernails,” she said.

  “Why don’t we go into one of the interrogation rooms?” Broderick suggested. “More chairs in there.”

  We followed him down the hall and into a room that was far nastier than any we had in Prophesy County. There was a table, all scratched up with graffiti, three whole chairs and a fourth leaning up against a wall with one leg missing. There were marks on the wall, scratches in the faded paint, and scrubbed stains that looked like something had been removed. I was thinking blood.

  As we came in the room, I asked the detective, “Do you mind if I talk to Mrs. Upshank alone for a minute?”

  “No, sir, of course not,” he said, heading back out the door.

  “Detective,” I called.

  He turned around. “Yes, sir?”

  I nodded at the two-way mirror against one wall, behind which I knew was an observation room with speakers plugged into the interrogation room. “I mean really alone,” I said.

  “No problem, sir,” he said, flipping a switch on the wall that turned off the speaker.

  Once Maida and I were seated in what I hoped was complete privacy, I said, “Tell me what happened.”

  Maida sighed and started her story. Seems she and Burl came to Vegas the week before to visit their daughter and the casinos, not necessarily in that order. They’d been out last night and when they came home, they found their daughter Denise curled up on the couch crying and nursing a black eye and a busted lip. Her husband Larry stood over her, drunk as a hoot owl, shaking his fist. The fact that Denise was eight months pregnant only made Burl that much more incensed.

  “Burl just went crazy, Milt. He grabbed Larry and threw him up against the wall and started hitting him. Denise was screaming, I was screaming . . .” The tears started again and she grabbed a Kleenex and blew her nose. She smiled slightly. “I’m sorry. This whole thing has been horrible.”

  I patted her hand. “I can only imagine, Maida. I’m so sorry. Is Denise okay?”

  She shook her head, the tears starting up again. “She’s in the hospital. He kicked her in the stomach, Milt!” She broke down in sobs. “I should be there with her, not here! That’s why you had to come! It’s God’s own miracle you were here!”

  She was sitting across from me, so I got up and walked around the table, knelt down beside her, and put my arms around her. She latched on and I let her bawl. Sometimes that’s all you can do, and sometimes it even helps a little.

  I WAS PISSED off. I got up from Maida and went to the door, outside of which Detective Broderick was hovering. “Detective,” I said, “why don’t you come back inside.”

  He came in and I said, “Is Larry Allen under arrest?”

  “Ah, no, sir,” the detective said, obviously embarrassed.

  “Why not?”

  “Ah, well, Mrs. Allen hasn’t pressed charges.”

  That wasn’t all that surprising. She probably had other things on her mind, like trying to keep her baby alive. The bastard.

  “Okay,” I said, “two things are gonna happen. Right now. You’re gonna get a patrolman to escort Mrs. Upshank to the hospital to be with her daughter, and then you’re gonna get Burl, Mr. Upshank, in here pronto. I want him released under my recognizance.”

  “Ah, well, Sheriff, see, yeah, I can get Mrs. Upshank to the hospital, no problem, but releasing Mr. Upshank . . .”

  “Get Mrs. Upshank out of here now, then get whoever’s in charge in h
ere to see me. And I want to see Burl immediately.” I turned to Maida, who was still sitting in the chair, sobbing quietly. “Maida, honey, you go on to the hospital and be with Denise. I’ll take care of everything here. And I’ll have Jean get y’all a room at our hotel.”

  I helped her up and Broderick went for a patrolman, who turned out to be a patrolwoman, who guided Maida out of the bullpen.

  “So?” I asked. “Who’s in charge?”

  “Ah, that would be my lieutenant,” Broderick said.

  “You gonna get him?”

  “Ah, yeah, I mean yes, sir. Just wait here.”

  Chapter Two

  First Saturday - Las Vegas

  Broderick finally came back and escorted me down the hall to the glass-walled office of Lieutenant Mac Grayson. He was about my height, a few years younger, had a lot less hair, and a few more pounds. His handshake was firm without being painful, and his demeanor was friendly.

  “Sorry about this mess, Sheriff,” the lieutenant said. “I have a daughter Mrs. Allen’s age, and I can’t say I’d’ve done any different than Mr. Upshank.”

  “I’m glad you see it that way, Lieutenant,” I said. “The thing is, I’d like Burl released under my recognizance. What with me being a law enforcement officer myself, I think I can be trusted to keep him in town.”

  “Well, now, Sheriff, I’d have to wake up a judge to do that right now. Think it can wait until morning?”

  “I’d rather not. Burl isn’t getting any younger, and he has some health problems, you know.” I had no idea if Burl had health problems or not, but I thought it couldn’t hurt to say so. “Being locked up with the general population couldn’t be healthy for him.”

  The lieutenant laughed. “Oh, he’s not locked up with the general population, Sheriff. We were a little afraid for their safety. Mr. Upshank was swinging at everybody when we brought him in, so we put him in isolation.”

  “High blood pressure,” I made up. “This whole thing can’t be good on his blood pressure. I really need to get him released and to a doctor, Lieutenant.”

  Grayson turned to Jimmy Broderick who was standing at semi-attention by the closed door. “Jimmy, call Judge Maynard. He’s an insomniac. Probably still up. If he is, get the paperwork over to him.”