Steve Hamilton - A Cold Day in Paradise

“Do you want me to come with you?” Uttley said.

“No, you stay here,” I said. “See if you can make Mrs. Fulton some tea or something. I won’t be long. There aren’t that many places he could be.”

“Maven’s not going to like this,” he said.

“Maven doesn’t like anything I do. So it doesn’t matter.”

On my way out, I grabbed Sylvia by the elbow and pushed her into the hallway. “Goddamn it,” I said in a whisper. “What’s the matter with you?”

“Let go of me,” she said. Her green eyes shone with enough venom to kill me seven times over.

“Why did you let him go out gambling?”

“I told you, I tried to stop him. What does it matter, anyway? You don’t care what happens to him.”

“Why are you still here?” I said. “Why don’t you tell him you want to leave, go back home to Grosse Pointe?”

“I don’t think you really want me to leave,” she said.

“Is that what this is about? Are you making him stay here because you think there’s still a chance for us? Because if you are-”

“Oh please,” she said. “That is so pathetic. And so transparent. You’re the one who’s missing it, Alex. It’s so obvious.”

“Whatever you say, Sylvia. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go find your husband.”

She caught my arm as I turned to go. “Alex,” she said, her voice low and even, the anger seemingly turned off in an instant. I could smell her perfume. I knew it would cling to me. Her scent would stay with me all night. “What’s going on? Why is she so upset about Edwin being gone?”

“I can’t talk about it right now,” I said.

“Is he really in danger? Tell me the truth.”

“I promised her I’d bring him back,” I said. “And I’m going to.”

“Your promises don’t mean anything.” She said it without malice, like it was nothing more than simple truth. “I should know.”

I HEADED TO the Bay Mills Casino first, Edwin’s favorite place to play blackjack. On the way I gave Maven a call. He wasn’t in, so I left a message that I wouldn’t be at the cabin for a while. If he really wanted to, he could let an officer sit by my phone. Dave had a key. He could pretend to be me for a night.

It almost made me happy to imagine how upset he would be when he found out I wasn’t at home. I was sure Edwin was just sitting at a blackjack table, spending money as fast as he could. He didn’t even know how to play the game. I once saw him draw two sevens against a dealer showing a six. He didn’t split them. He didn’t even stand. He hit the fourteen and busted. Most compulsive gamblers at least give themselves a fighting chance once in a while.

I’m sure that’s where he was. Or in a bar somewhere. Just like I told his mother. This prickly little ball of dread rolling up and down my back, that was just a product of my overworked imagination. God knows I had every right to it by now.

The casino is on the Bay Mills reservation, just north of Brimley. No big sign in front, no lights all over the place. The outside is all cedar, the inside is all high wooden beams and ceiling fans. It looks nothing at all like a casino, not like in Vegas or Atlantic City where they try to dazzle you into coming inside and staying. Only the noise is the same, that distinctive casino noise that hits you as soon as you walk into the place. The slot machines with that hollow electronic music, the coins hitting the metal trays, a payoff somewhere in the room every few seconds. The keno wheel spinning and clacking, slower and slower until it stops. Dealers calling out every exchange of money for chips, the pit bosses answering. A thousand voices at once, begging for the right card or the right turn on the roulette wheel, celebrating, cursing, winning, losing. You just stand in the middle of the room for five minutes, that noise starts to make sense. It starts calling your name. Tonight’s your night, it says. As long as you’re in this room, nothing can touch you. You’re better than everybody else. You’re smarter, you’re luckier. You deserve to be a winner.

A guy like Edwin doesn’t stand a chance here.

They had about twenty blackjack tables going, a Bay Mills tribe member standing at each one, dealing the cards with detached precision. I didn’t see Edwin at any of them. I pulled a pit boss over and asked him if Edwin Fulton had been in. I knew he’d know the name.

“Just got here myself,” he said. “Let me go ask somebody else.”

I watched a few hands of blackjack while he was away. The players were a strange mix of downstaters. One man was wearing the kind of clothes you only see in casinos anymore: the polyester blue sport coat, the pinkie ring, the tie as wide as a lobster bib. The man next to him looked like he walked right out of the woods: the mandatory orange pants and jacket, the hunting license pinned to his back. They were both pushing piles of chips onto the table and staring at the cards as though they were hypnotized. I wondered if they pumped extra oxygen into the air here like they do in Vegas, just to keep the bettors from getting tired.

The pit boss reappeared. “Mr. Fulton was here,” he said. “He left about two hours ago. I understand he made quite a little performance on his way out.”

“Oh beautiful,” I said. “You guys didn’t throw him out the window or anything, did you? Not that I’d blame you.”

“I wouldn’t know. Like I said, I wasn’t here.”

“Is Vinnie LeBlanc here? Red Sky? I’m sorry, I don’t know what he calls himself here. He lives down the road from me.”

“Red Sky, huh? He’s gonna hear about that one. No, I think he’s on his dinner break. He should be back soon.”

I thanked the man and left. When I was outside I took a deep breath of the night air. The casino sounds were still buzzing in my head. From the west I caught a blast of cold wind that smelled like rain.

I raced down Six Mile Road toward the city, hoping I was right behind him on his rounds through the casinos. Just before I got there, my cellular phone rang. I had a good idea who it was, but I picked it up anyway.

“McKnight, what the hell is wrong with you?”

“Chief Maven, what a pleasant surprise.”

“You’re supposed to be in your cabin.”

“I’ll be there. I just have to find Edwin first.”

“Goddamn it, McKnight, are the two of you queer for each other or something?”

“Would that upset you, Chief? That I was already taken?”

“Go fuck yourself, McKnight.”

“You have a nice night, too, Chief.”

The casino was just up ahead. I hung up before he could say another word.

The Kewadin Casino is right in Sault Ste. Marie, on a little piece of land owned by the Sault tribe. They’re Chippewas just like the Bay Mills tribe, but they’re less traditional and less restrictive on the bloodlines. And they have a lot less restraint when they build casinos. The Kewadin is huge, with giant triangles on the front that are supposed to remind you of tepees. You can see that damned thing ten miles away. It has a four-star hotel, live entertainment every night, the works.

I looked at my watch. It was almost nine o’clock. Okay, Edwin, you’ve got to be here somewhere. They threw your ass out of the other place and this is the only other game in town. I started working my way up the rows of blackjack tables. I knew I had to hit them all, even the five-dollar tables, because that’s where he liked to start, see how the cards were falling that night. I remembered telling him once that he should just throw five-dollar bills out his car window on the way there. The effect would be the same.

I didn’t see any sign of him. I took a quick look through the roulette tables and the craps tables. Sometimes out of desperation he’d go give them a try when he felt his luck needed a little jolt. I didn’t see him anywhere.