Peter Corris: Casino

I sipped my long black, wished passionately for a cigarette, fought it down and pulled out my notebook. ‘Who was that?’

She was a serious smoker. The Kent was half gone in a few drags and she pulled it all down into her lungs before letting some of it go. She tapped off a long ash and stared at the travel posters on the wall as if seeking inspiration in scenes of Tuscany. She shook her head. ‘Forget the name, if he gave it. Sorry. Not the boss. There were two of them. Sergeant something-biggish, about your size and build but with darker hair, less grey. The one who talked to me was much younger, fair and slim, well-combed, smelled good, no doubt suppressing his femininity like mad.’

I scribbled that down. ‘Much younger’ and the reference to the grey hair was a bitter pill to swallow, but she hadn’t meant it maliciously. I felt very much on my mettle, keen not to make my questions as dumb as the coppers’ had been. “What did you think about Scott taking the job at the casino?’

She drank some coffee, snuffed out the cigarette and immediately lit another. ‘Hey, you’ve surprised me. Congratulations. I’m thinking, like, he’s just another walking prick with slightly better manners than most, and you come up with a real question.’

I was careful not to preen. ‘So, what’s the answer, Ms Drewe?’

‘Vita, OK? I thought it was right for him. A one-year contract, what’s the harm? I’m all for change and variety-in everything. Like, you might think I’m just this typewriter dyke, two hundred words a minute, right? But I’ve white-watered the Colorado River and been a mountain guide in New Zealand and culled deer in Tasmania.’

‘Jesus.’

‘Impressed? Good. People underestimate people all the time. It’s one of the world’s biggest problems. I don’t think I can help you very much. The police were schmucks, not interested. Scott was real pleased about the casino job. He was getting a little pissed at working out of that office and making peanuts, well, mostly.’

‘Did he confide in you?’

‘Sure. Faithful-to-his-wife kinda guy, he felt safe with me. Couple of times he had trouble paying me on time. He was embarrassed, you know? A power situation that was running against him. Scott loosened up some when I explained to him what was happening.’

‘OK, Vita. Good. Did the police take anything away from Scott’s office?’

‘Not unless they’re sleight of hand experts. I watched real close. They just searched through the stuff, kinda uninterestedly. You know the difference between uninterested and disinterested?’

‘I… I think so.’

‘Shoot, then. Say, you’re on expenses, right?’

I nodded, rehearsing my answer to the question.

‘Make sure you get a receipt for the coffees. I’ll have a cappuccino now.’ She lit another cigarette. ‘Let’s hear it.’

I went to the counter and ordered. Her mannerisms and attitude were beginning to annoy me. I sat down and fanned her smoke out of my face. ‘Disinterested means you haven’t got a personal investment in the outcome, uninterested means you don’t give a shit. Do you know where Scott kept his notebook?’

She squashed out her cigarette, pushed the ashtray away and dropped the packet and lighter into her bag. Then she gave me the face-transforming smile again. ‘That’s enough of that for now. Don’t want you to think I’m an addict. I really think we could get along, you know? But you’d have to show a whole lot more confidence in me.’

I was off-balance again. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘You’re nice, but slow. I want to help you. I feel guilty, too. I advised him to take the job, for Chrissakes. I fucking sold it to him. I like casinos, did I mention that? No? Well, I have more going on in here than I can get out. I like to dress up in the sequins and silk and throw money away. It’s a buzz. I told him to go for it, and now he’s dead. Dead at thirty-one’s the pits. I’m thirty, how old’re you, Cliff?’

‘Older, where’s this going?’

‘I’m not sure. Where do you want it to go?’

‘Towards finding out why Scott died. I wouldn’t expect to get much further with it than that.’

‘A pragmatist. OK. I can buy that. I don’t know where his notebook is. Hey, have you got a card?’

I decided then that she was seriously unstable, someone to be humoured. I took out a card and put it on the table. She flicked it up with her long, slender fingers and replaced it with one of her own. I hadn’t seen where her card had come from.

‘Thanks. Surprised, huh? Conjuring’s another one of my talents. Take the card.’

I picked it up and put it in my shirt pocket. Despite the fans cooling the heated air in the cafe and keeping it moving, the shirt was sticking to me. I was suddenly aware of a nervous sweating and an urgent need for some alcohol. ‘Well,’ I said. ‘Thank you, and I think that’s all I need for now.’

‘You’re full of it,’ she said. She reached out a long, thin, lightly tanned arm and rapped her knuckles on the file folders I’d put on the table. ‘Tell me about these.’

For all the irritation I felt, for some reason I didn’t want to part company with her. I pushed the files across. ‘Preliminary stuff. Do you happen to remember the clients?’

She flipped through the files. ‘Nope. I very rarely saw any. Mostly I just typed up his reports.’

‘I saw them. Terrific typing, better expression than I’d have expected from Scott, too.’

She smiled. ‘Yeah, well, I finessed them a little. Sometimes. He was no John Updike. You read Updike?’

‘I’m not up to date.’

‘The Rabbit books are the great American novel, I’m telling you. Fun name isn’t it-Updike? Hah! Weird you can’t find his notebook. It wasn’t on him when he got shot?’

‘I haven’t checked but I don’t think so. He was in a different job, after all.’

‘Not necessarily. He came in to the office a few times after he got the casino job, and it wasn’t just to pick up mail. He had that redirected I think. Hey, I remember now. He came in one night as I was quitting. I tried to get him to buy me a drink but he wouldn’t.’ She banged the side of her head, quite hard. ‘How could you forget that, dummy?’

‘Was he alone? What did he do?’

She held up a hand and the bracelets slid back over her bony wrist onto her forearm. ‘Hold on. I’m like trying to recall it scene by scene. I was coming out of the building and he was going in. Hurrying. He was carrying something. Papers, no, a folio, something like that.’

‘You didn’t tell the police about this?’

‘I didn’t tell myself. I was tired, plus it was my fasting day. You move into some strange spaces at times like that. It’s only just coming back now.’

‘How did he seem?’

‘I smelled his sweat. He was a clean guy. He was definitely upset. I was flirting with him a bit, the way we did, but he didn’t put anything out. Real cold. I remember thinking that his wife might be around so I glanced at the car… Shit!’

‘Yes?’

She kept her eyes focused on a point somewhere above my head and moved like an automaton, dipping into her bag and coming up with the packet of Kent and the lighter. She lit a cigarette. I moved my head slightly so that the cloud of smoke wouldn’t envelope me. Her head was rigid and she blew the smoke straight at that focus point. ‘I can see him,’ she said. ‘He was sitting in the car. Real still.’

‘Who?’

‘I don’t know. Some guy. Small, dark, maybe. There wasn’t much light’

It was like talking to a medium, trying to get in contact with the dead. Quite unconsciously I spoke in a hushed, sepulchral tone, aware that some of the other patrons were beginning to stare at us. ‘Would you recognise him again?’