Don Winslow: While Drowning in the Desert

“Did you know who he was?”

She sipped her martini and smiled. “Oh sure. In this town you make it your business to know who’s out front, so I knew Natty Silver was in the house. But I never thought I’d step out with him.”

“Why did you?”

She seemed to give this question some serious thought, then she said, “He was just so funny.”

She must have seen the quizzical look on my face, because she leaned forward, patted my hand, and said, “Let me tell you a secret, honey: You make a girl laugh and she’ll make you smile, if you know what I mean.”

And she blushed.

“Miss White, do you know where he is?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Honest Injun, I left him at the Mirage.”

“He checked out.”

She opened her cornflower eyes nice and wide, smiled, shrugged, and finished her drink.

“Do you have an idea where he might have gone?” I asked.

“Honey,” she said, “Natty Silver was once a headliner in this town. He can go anywhere he wants. This isn’t New York or Hollywood. Las Vegas has a memory.”

That’s what I was banking on.

I thanked her and got up to leave.

“Do you have a girl, Neal?” she asked me at the door.

“A fiancee, actually.”

“Do you make her laugh?”

“Oh, she thinks I’m a stitch.”

I don’t think she bought it, because she said, “Have Natty give you some good jokes.”

If I can find him, Hope. If I can find him.

I left the jeep with the valet-parking guys and walked into the lobby of the Sands. I hung around the high-roller blackjack tables and made myself conspicuous until I saw a barrel-chested guy who gave me a twice-over.

I walked over to him.

“I’d like to see Mickey the C,” I said.

“And you are?”

“Neal Carey.”

“Does Mickey know you, Neal Carey?”

“No,” I said. “But he knows people who know my boss.”

“Give me names, Neal Carey.”

“Joe Graham, Ed Levine, Ethan Kitteredge.”

“Who do they know?”

“People in Providence,” I said. “People in New York.”

All kinds of people in both places. But in this case, “people” referred specifically to wise guys, mobbed-up guys, connected guys. See, Friends of the Family did all sorts of confidential things for its rich and influential clients, and if you’re going to do confidential things for anybody in New York and Providence, you’re bound to make some connections with the mob.

The same might be said of Las Vegas, which is what brought me to the Sands Hotel to talk with Mickey the C. I’d never met Mickey the C, but I’d heard about him since I was a kid.

The guy thought about it for a second and said, “Why don’t you sit down and have a drink?”

“Thanks.”

I found an empty barstool and ordered a beer. The bartender waved me off when I tried to pay for it.

The Sands Hotel was a big contrast to the Nugget. It was sleek, stylish, and looked like serious money. It was run by serious people, too, which is why I had come here after Hope said she had no idea where Nathan had gone after their matinee romance.

I sipped my beer and watched the high-rollers, Armani-clad guys escorted by skinny blondes in black sheath dresses, win and lose at blackjack. Mickey the C was probably watching me on a monitor and making the necessary calls.

A few minutes later the barrel-chested guy came back and said, “Neal Carey, Mickey would like to see you.”

I followed him upstairs to the security room, where somber men and women sat staring into monitors, watching the doors and the tables. The watchers could punch a few buttons and zoom in on a dealer’s hands or a player’s face or an individual coming through a door. The owners of serious casinos liked to know who came in and out of their places. They hired people like Mickey the C to know these things.

Mickey the C was in his early sixties but looked younger, which I attributed to a daily regimen of razor cuts, manicures, steam baths, and massages. Mickey was wearing a conservative gray suit that cost at least a thousand bucks, a monogrammed white shirt and an Italian print tie. His black Oxford shoes were polished to a high shine.

Mickey the C was serious people.

We shook hands.

“Neal,” he said. “It’s a late Sunday night on the East Coast so I didn’t make the phone calls I probably should make, so I hope you’re not screwing around.”

“I’m on the job, Mr. C.”

“I know who you are,” Mickey said. “You’re Joe Graham’s gofer.”

“Yes, sir.”

Well, it was accurate enough.

“You did a big favor for some people in Providence a while ago,” Mickey said.

“I was doing my job and it coincidentally worked out for them,” I answered, ever modest.

“Anyway you’re good people,” Mickey said. “Why are you reaching out?”

“I messed up.”

I told Mickey about Nathan Silverstein.

Mickey laughed and said, “Natty Silver gave you the slip?”

“That’s what it comes down to.”

Mickey the C chuckled, then said, “Why don’t you have another beer and relax. I’ll put a call out. Everyone in town knows Natty, we’ll have him in maybe half an hour.”

“That’s why I came to you, Mr. C.”

It wasn’t just shameless brownnosing, it was also true.

Mickey said, “That’s one smart thing you did today, anyway.”

“I knew there was something.”

“Take it easy, kid,” Mickey said. “Nice to meet to you.”

“Thanks for taking the time, sir.”

“You have good manners,” Mickey the C said. “Joe Graham did you okay.”

Yeah, he did.

It took two beers instead of one, but I had just drained the second one when the barrel-chested guy found me at the bar and said, “Mr. Silver is at the Flamingo, in the Palm Room. Their guy is watching him till you get there.”

I thanked him and left a tip for the bartender that was more than the beers would have been. Anything less would have been bad manners.

As I stepped down into the Palm Room I heard Natty say, “Guy comes home and finds his wife rubbing her breasts with newspaper. He asks her what she’s doing. She says, ‘I read in a magazine that if you rub your breasts with newspaper they’ll get bigger.’”

There was an expectant chuckle from the small crowd in the cocktail bar. (I was going to say a “titter of laughter,” but I thought better of it.) Natty waited out the laugh, then continued, “The guy says, ‘Newspaper? You should try toilet paper.’ The wife says, ‘Toilet paper? Why?’ and the guy says, ‘Well, it worked on your ass’.”

The dozen or so people in the room roared. Didn’t laugh-roared. I slipped into a booth at the back and hoped Natty didn’t see me from the tiny stage. I looked around for the plainclothes security, made him in about three seconds, and nodded. The guy gave me a quick wave and strolled out.

It wasn’t too tough to reconstruct what had been happening. The piano player, a young guy with slicked-back black hair, was sitting back on his bench, relaxing, sharing the fun, and figuring his tip jar wasn’t going to suffer because the customers were getting some free laughs. The few drinkers in the place just looked surprised and delighted that this impromptu stand-up routine had started from this ancient guy they maybe recognized from TV.

And Natty Silver was having fun. Standing on that shitty little stage, leaning on his cane, eyes sparkling, teasing the crowd with his deadpan delivery and killer timing.

“Guy and a dog walk into a bar…” he was saying.

I checked my watch. If I grabbed Natty right now we could still make the plane and I could wrap up this errand. It would be a simple matter of getting up, easing Natty off the stage and grabbing a cab to the airport. Otherwise we’d miss the last flight to Palm Springs and that would mean spending the night in Vegas. Another night away from the old thesis, another night away from Karen.