Макс Коллинз - Road to Paradise

Now he was peering into the Graces’ garage — no cars. He cautiously walked around the rough-wood-sided house — he’d slung a dark gray sport jacket over the black Banlon to hide the .45 in the waistband of the slacks — and checked windows. Within five minutes he was convinced the house was empty.

Steps up to an elaborate wooden deck took him to glassed-in sliding doors onto the kitchen that, for all the rustic trappings of the mini-lodge, were the same as in the last two homes Michael had lived in. He forced the door open, without having to break the glass.

The interior of the home was phony farmhouse, starting with a mostly pine kitchen interrupted by calico wallpaper, avocado appliances, shelves of flea-market crocks, and a window of various wooden spoons hanging vertically and horizontally.

A sink filled with dirty dishes announced the aftermath of meals prepared for two. A wastebasket brimmed with empty cans of Tab, his daughter’s drink of choice. A big calendar with a picture of a covered New England bridge had bold notations, including a line drawn through five days today and tomorrow — “Bob and Janet/Caribbean!”

So Bob and Janet Grace had gone on a cruise and left high school senior Gary — the only one of the three Grace children still at home — to fend for himself for a few days. And Gary had done so by driving to Vegas to bring his girlfriend back here to shack up and go to prom...

...a theory the girlfriend’s father confirmed when he got to Gary’s room and found a double bed that had been slept in on both sides. In this all-pine room, with exposed beams, the walls wore posters of the Beatles walking across Abbey Road, the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders, O. J. Simpson in his uniform grinning as he cradled his helmet under an arm, and Muhammad Ali in boxing trunks and I-Am-the-Greatest grimace, raising a padded-gloved fist.

He felt parental rage rising as he noted the open box of Trojan rubbers on the nightstand, as casual as a pack of open cigarettes; four ripped-open individual packets were tossed there, too, like chewing-gum wrappers. But a luxury like fatherly disapproval wasn’t available to Michael right now.

He found her powder-blue overnight bag, with various articles of clothing in it, all clean — she’d done her own laundry, apparently, even if she hadn’t done the dishes — but one item was conspicuous by its absence: no nice dress for the prom, much less a formal.

Which meant that though it was now only a quarter to six, she had already dressed for the prom; she’d already left here — for the Cal-Neva? Then he remembered: the Incline High kids usually went out for a nice dinner before prom. So Anna and Gary were probably dining somewhere in North Tahoe.

He returned to that nightstand, where earlier his eyes had only been able to focus on those condoms; now he noted the football-shaped phone and a small message pad.

On the pad it said: reno sat reservation — 5 pm!!!

Which meant Anna and her rubber-sporting beau were at a restaurant in Reno, or on their way back, or possibly even were already at the Cal-Neva...

But Gary’s otherwise specific note (the handwriting was not Anna’s) did not indicate what restaurant...

He sat on the edge of the bed, but for just a moment, standing up as if the sheets had been hot; he looked back at the rumpled bedding and shuddered. As he left the boy’s bedroom, he knew that any hope of heading them off here, at the Grace home, before the prom, was as empty as those Trojan wrappers.

The house he’d already prowled before checking the bedroom — making sure he was truly alone — and had seen enough slate floors, knotty pine, rush-matting, and cane-seating to last a lifetime. But back in the kitchen a pile of unopened mail on the counter tweaked his interest; among various bills, he found one from the phone company.

Within seconds he was staring at the Graces’ monthly Ma Bell damage — which included ten long-distance calls to the number of the Smith family in Tucson, all in the last two weeks, juxtaposed beside dollar-and-cents figures sure to dismay the Graces when they got home... unless four-hundred-buck-plus phone bills were the norm around here.

He helped himself to some sandwich meat in the Amana fridge and settled for a can of Tab to wash it down. Then he gathered his daughter’s overnight bag — carrying it in his left hand to leave his right free for the .45 if need be — and returned to the Lincoln in the driveway. He stowed her bag in back with his Samsonite, which he opened, withdrawing a white shirt and a dark blue tie, putting them and his gray sport jacket on; he stuck the dirty clothes in the suitcase and snapped it closed.

Poised to get in on the driver’s side, he looked at the sky. Dusk had given over to night, and the same clear starry tapestry with full moon that accompanied him across the desert was waiting for him at Tahoe.

He said silently to the sky, This isn’t a prayer. But if Pat was wrong, and you are out there, not dead like some people say... I could use any help you want to give me, getting Anna out of here to safety .

Dispensing with the “amen,” but this time not giving God the finger at least, he left the Grace home and Pineview development and headed for Crystal Bay. Driving up the pine-framed “strip” of Lake Tahoe, the familiar glowing garish neons — crystal bay club, nevada lodge, bal tabarin, cal-neva — welcomed him home; but they seemed unreal. Was he asleep behind the wheel of the Lincoln, out in the desert, dreaming and about to run off the road...?

The Cal-Neva lot was brimming with luxury cars; but here and there a Chevy II or Plymouth Fury or GTO nestled between vinyl-topped Eldorados and Rivieras — one indication of the prom going on in the Indian Lounge tonight. Another was the steady stream of sideburned guys in tuxes (red or white or light blue, never black) with ruffled shirts and bow ties the size of small aircraft, arm-in-arm with shellac-haired gals in frilly pastel Guinevere gowns heading into the A-frame lodge under a banner shouting: welcome class of ’73!

Near the front a Mercedes pulled out and glided off, and Michael slipped the Lincoln into the spot, gaining a perfect clear path to the front entry; then he sat in the dark watching teenage couples go in, and considered his options.

If Anna and Gary weren’t back from Reno yet, he could simply wait for them, and grab the girl on the Cal-Neva doorstep. But that Reno reservation was for five, and the two kids could have eaten and made it back to the Cal-Neva by as early as six thirty or seven.

And it was almost eight o’clock now...

Michael exited the Lincoln, his manner seemingly casual, but keeping his right hand ready for the .45 in his waistband. He strolled around the side of the building where fir trees and darkness conspired with a recession in the building, between added-on sections of the lodge, to allow him to climb a drain pipe to the slanting roof, walking Groucho-style up to where it flattened out.

Sinatra’s most grandiose excess awaited Michael — a rooftop heliport atop the Celebrity Showroom that had not been used since the days (and nights) when the Chairman of the Board had flown Jack and/or Bobby Kennedy in from Sacramento, or Dino or Marilyn or the McGuire Sisters from Hollywood. As the moon lengthened Michael’s shadow across the rooftop, he ran on those quiet crepe soles to the dormer housing a doorway to a stairwell.

Padlocked on the other side, the door had panels so weathered and thin that Michael tapped one with an elbow and it splintered.

The unlighted stairs were not difficult to navigate; they led to a landing with off shoot stairs down to performer dressing rooms as well as a side door to the Sinatra Celebrity Showroom. The main stairs, however, took Michael below to the cement-block-walled tunnel with its indoor-outdoor carpeting and nest of overhead pipes. From this juncture the tunnel snaked under the kitchen, casino, and Circle Bar, coming back up to provide a pathway to what had been Michael’s office.