Robert Randisi - Hey There (You with the Gun in Your Hand)

“It’s instructions for the next meeting,” I said.

“Where’s the meet, this time?”

“Reno. After dark, again.” I looked at him. “Why Reno?”

“To take you away from a place you know?” he asked.

“They could’ve said Tahoe, for that.”

“Then maybe it’s to take you someplace that they know.”

I picked up the phone and called the front desk. I got a man I knew named Ted.

“Did anyone send anything up to my room?” I asked. “Like an envelope?”

“Nope,” he said, “I don’t have anything for you.”

Ted’s not the smartest kid on the block.

“No, Ted, there’s already an envelope in my room,” I said. “I want to know how it got here. Would you check with the bell captain, see if anyone brought it up?”

“Sure, Mr. Gianelli.”

“And call me right back.”

I hung up.

“What about the maid?” Jerry asked.

“Good thought.” This time I called housekeeping and made the same request. Now we just had to wait for a call back.

I sat on the bed next to him.

“The only people we know of who know what’s gone on are you, me, Sammy and that driver, Thomas.”

“Whatever happened to him?”

“Nothing,” I said. “He’s still doing what he does, I guess. Driving.”

“He’s got somethin’ on us, now.”

“Yeah, but we’ve got more on him,” I reminded him. “He killed those men.”

“Well, two of ’em,” Jerry said. “You killed the third.”

“The point is we’ve got something on each other. And he doesn’t know where we are right now. I’m trying to figure out how they got this envelope here.”

“Has anybody been in this room but you?” he asked.

“Oh, Jesus,” I said, closing my eyes.

“What?”

“Caitlin.”

“Who’s Caitlin?”

I looked at him and said, “Exactly. Who is Caitlin?”

I explained, as briefly as possible, about Caitlin.

“You got laid?” he asked, breaking it down into even simpler terms. “Yes,” I said, “but I should have suspected something when she came to my room.”

“Don’t you, uh … I just thought you had a lot of, um …”

“I do okay with women, Jerry, but this girl is twenty-four years old,” I said. “I really don’t think she came to my room just because she had to have me.”

“So you think she’s part of the gang?”

“If there is a gang. There’s one way to find out,” I said. I called down to the employment department and asked about Caitlin. I listened to the reply and hung up.

“She started working here as a trainee last week,” I told Jerry. “She quit today.” I slapped my forehead with the heel of my hand. “Jesus, I’m so stupid!”

“Hey, she was good-lookin’, right?”

“Very.”

“So, you’re just a guy,” he said. “She threw herself at ya. What were you supposed to do?”

“Be smart,” I said. “I should have been smart and figured something was up.”

“So she left you a note. If that’s all she did, so what? You were waitin’ for more contact, anyway.”

“True,” I said, “but why didn’t I see it this morning?”

“Maybe you had your mind on somethin’ … else.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I said, waving at him. “Okay, Caitlin’s gone, but she did what she came to do, I guess.”

“She probably coulda done it without fuckin’ you,” he said, “like … slidin’ the note under the door?”

I stared at him.

“I ain’t no genius, Mr. G.,” he said, “but what I got is a lot of common sense.”

“Yeah,” I said, “you’re right about that one. Okay, so we have to go to Reno.”

“When?”

“Today,” I said, “we go today.”

Instead of calling Sammy to arrange for Frank’s helicopter I called Jack Entratter.

“You need a chopper to take you to Reno?” he repeated into the phone. “For what?”

“I can’t tell you that, Jack.”

“Yeah, okay,” he said. “I’ll arrange it. And a car.”

“Thanks. Half an hour?”

“You got it.”

When I hung up Jerry asked, “Why didn’t you call Mr. Davis?”

“I don’t want him to know about this meet.”

His eyes widened.

“You don’t trust Mr. Davis?”

“I just want to keep it quiet this time,” I said. “Just between us two.”

“Okay,” he said. “Just between us. Now what?”

“I’m gonna wash up and then we can go down and take the car to the airport.”

He made a face. “The helicopter, again.”

“It doesn’t bother you to fly in a helicopter, does it?”

“It don’t thrill me.”

“You sure hid your feelings real well.”

“Yeah,” he admitted, “I’m good at that.”

I dry-washed my face with my hands and said, “I just need to slap some cold water on my face and then we can go.”

“I could use some water myself.”

We took turns at the sink in the bathroom, then left the room.

That is, we started to leave the room. When I opened the door there were some men in the hall. One of them had his hand raised, as if he was getting ready to knock on the door.

“Mr. Gianelli,” Detective Hargrove said. “Just the man I was looking for.” Then he looked past me. “Oh, and look who’s in town. If I had any doubts when I came up here they’re gone now. Come on, boys. We’re takin’ a ride downtown.”

I could see that the meet in Reno was now definitely in jeopardy.

The door to the interview room opened and Hargrove came walking in. I had been waiting almost two hours.

“Where’s Jerry?” I asked. “What the fuck did you do with him?”

“Don’t worry about your buddy,” Hargrove said. “He’s been through this plenty of times before.”

“Did you put him in a cell?” I asked. “That ain’t fair, ya know.”

“You ever notice how your Brooklyn accent comes out when you’re agitated?” he asked, seating himself across from me. “Or when you’ve spent a lot of time with that Jewish torpedo? Yeah, you’re starting to sound like him.”

“Actually, Detective, you have a way of bringin’ the Brooklyn out in me.”

“And you know what you bring out in me, Gianelli?” he asked. “The urge to put you away.”

“For what?”

He opened a brown eight-by-ten envelope, took out four photos, and placed them in front of me. All four were dead men. One was the man we’d found in the warehouse, the other three were the men who were killed in my house. I hoped my face was expressionless.

“You know any of these men?”

I leaned forward, as if to take a better look.

“No,” I answered, leaning back. “Should I?”

“You tell me.”

“I thought I just did.”

Hargrove reached across the table and reclaimed the photos, putting them back in the envelope.

“Your buddy Jerry’s singin’ like a songbird,” he said.

“Yeah, right.”

Hargrove had to smile.

“Yeah, even I didn’t believe that one.”

“What’s this all about, Hargrove?” I asked. “I’ve got a living to make, you know?”

“So do I, Eddie,” he said, “and I’m doin’ it right now.”

“When’s the last time we saw each other?” I asked.

“What? I don’t know, last year? In the summer.”

“Really?” I asked. “Geez, you got some gray in your hair since then, don’tcha?”

He touched his head of coal black hair and said, “What the-I’m younger than you are, Eddie. What the hell are you talkin’ about?”

“Hey,” I replied, “I’m just sayin’ …”

“Never mind.” He dropped his hand from his hair.

“Besides, you’re not that much younger than me, maybe a year or two-”