Jonathan Kellerman - The Clinic

“Hey, I woulda taken that for you.” Hand out.

Milo showed him a badge. “I woulda joined the Beatles if my name was McCartney.”

The valet's mouth closed. He stared for a second, then ran to open the doors of a urine-yellow, boat-sized Cadillac full of laughing, sun-broiled, silver-haired optimists.

We walked through the casino's glass double doors and into a wall of noise just as a very tall man in Johnny Cash black stumbled out. Behind him was a four-hundred-pound woman in a flowered sundress and beach sandals. She looked ready to deliver a speech and he kept well ahead of her.

The doors closed behind us, locking in the noise and eye-searing fluorescence. We were on a small, elevated, brass-railed platform covered with blue-green industrial carpeting and sectioned by arbitrary columns of polished mahogany. Steps on both sides led down to the playing room: one single space a hundred by fifty. More aqua carpeting and columns under acoustical-tile ceiling. White walls, no windows, no clocks.

To the right was a single stud-poker game: hunched men in plaid shirts and windbreakers, black-lensed sunshades, paralyzed faces. Then row after row of slots, maybe ten dozen machines, rolling, beeping, blinking, looking more organic than the people who cranked their handles. The blackjack tables took up the left side of the room, crammed together so you had to either sit or keep circulating. Dealers in deep red polo shirts and white name tags stood back-to-back, laying down patter, scooping up ante chips, sliding cards out of the shoe.

Bings and buzzers, nicotine air, cash-in window at the rear of the room. But this early no one wanted out. The players were a mixture of desert retirees, Japanese tourists, blue-collar workers, bikers, Indians, and a few dissolute lounge bugs trying to look sharp in fused suits and long-collar shirts. Everyone pretending winning was a habit, pretending this was Vegas. Perfect-body-less-than-perfect-face girls in white microdresses walked around, balancing drink trays. Big men dressed in white and black like the valet patrolled the room, scanning like cameras, their holstered guns eloquent.

Someone moved toward us from a corner of the platform, then stopped. A gray-haired, gray-mustachioed man in a gray sharkskin suit and red crepe tie, fifty-five or so with a long, loose face and purse-string lips. Walkie-talkie in one hand, hair-tonic tracks in his pompadour. He pretended to ignore us, didn't move. But some sort of signal must have been sent because two of the armed guards strolled over and stood beneath the platform. One was an Indian, one a freckled redhead. Both had thick arms, swaybacks, hard potbellies. The Indian's belt was tooled with red letters: GARRETT.

People came in and out of the building in a steady flow. Milo moved closer to the brass rail and the gray-mustachioed man came over as Garrett turned and watched.

“Can I help you gentlemen?” Deep, flat voice. The name tag, computer-printed. LARRY GIOVANNE, MANAGER.

Milo showed his ID in a cupped hand. “Ted Barnaby.”

Giovanne didn't react. The ID went back in Milo's pocket.

“Barnaby's working tonight, right?”

“Is he in trouble?”

“No, just some questions.”

“He's new.”

“Started two weeks ago Wednesday,” said Milo.

Giovanne looked up, taking in Milo's face, then down to the green poly shirt hanging over tan chinos. Looking for the gun-bulge.

“No problems?” he said.

“None. Where's Barnaby?”

“Did you check in with the tribal police?”

“No.”

“Then technically you have no jurisdiction.”

Milo smiled. “Technically, I can walk around the room til I find Barnaby, sit down at his table, play real slow, keep spilling my drink, ask stupid questions. Keep following him when he moves tables.”

Giovanne gave a tiny headshake. “What do you want with him?”

“His girlfriend was murdered half a year ago. He's not a suspect but I want to ask him a few questions.”

“We're new, too,” said Giovanne. “Three months since we opened and we don't want to break up the flow if you know what I mean.”

“Okay,” said Milo. “How about this- send him out when he goes on break and I'll stay out of the way.”

Giovanne shot French cuffs and looked at a gold watch. “The dealers do thirty-minute shifts at each table. Barnaby's set to change in five, break in an hour. If you don't cause problems, I'll give him his break early. Fair enough?”

“More than fair. Thanks.”

“Five minutes, then. Want to play in the meantime?”

Milo smiled. “Not tonight.”

“Okay, then go outside, over by the Camaro, and I'll send him out to you. How 'bout some drinks, peanuts?”

“No, thanks. Give any cars away lately?”

“Three so far- after you're finished with him, come back and try your luck.”

“If I had some, I'd try it.”

“What's your game?”

“Cops and robbers,” said Milo.

A microdress girl brought out two beers anyway and we drank them standing against the cool block wall of the casino, waiting behind the purple car, watching the in-and-out, able to feel and hear the gambling inside. The outdoor lot seemed to stretch for miles, bleeding into black space and star-painted sky. Motor drone and headlights defined a distant road but for the most part all the movement was here.

Just as we emptied our glasses, a tall, thin, red-shirted man came out and looked from side to side, long fingers curling and straightening.

Barely thirty, with thick blond hair, he wore flint-colored bullhide boots under his pressed black slacks. Thin but knotted arms. A turquoise-and-silver bracelet circled a hairless wrist, and a gold chain seemed to constrict a long neck with a kinetic Adam's apple. Handsome features, but his skin was a ruin, so acne-scarred it made Milo's look polished. A couple of active blemishes stood out in the light, most conspicuously an angry swelling on his right temple. Small, round Band-Aid under his left ear. Deep pits ran down his neck.

Milo put his glass down and came out from behind the car. “Mr. Barnaby.”

Barnaby stiffened and his hands closed into fists. Milo's ID in his face made him step back.

Milo extended a hand and Barnaby took it with the reluctance of a man with wet palms. Milo started to draw him out of the light but Barnaby resisted. Then he saw the valet approaching and came along.

Back at the purple car, he looked at me and the glass in my hand. “What the hell is this all about? You just got me fired.”

“Mandy Wright.”

Hazel eyes stopped moving. “What do the L.A. cops have to do with that?”

Milo put a foot on the Camaro's bumper.

“Careful,” said Barnaby. “That's new.”

“So you're not too torn-up over Mandy.”

“Sure I'm torn-up. But what am I supposed to do about it after all this time? And why should I get fired over it?”

“I'll talk to Giovanne.”

“Gee, thanks. Shit. Why'd you have to come here? Why couldn't you just call me at home?”

“Why'd Giovanne boot you?”

“He didn't but he gave me the look. I know the look. They're bending over backward not to have problems and you just made me a problem.”

He touched the Band-Aid, pressed down, winced. “ Damn. Just signed a lease on a place in Cathedral City.”

Milo cocked his head toward the casino entrance. “This ain't exactly Caesar's, Ted. Why'd you leave Vegas after Mandy was killed?”

“I got… I was bummed, didn't want to deal with people.”

“So you took off?”

“Yeah.”

“Where?”

“To Reno.”

“After that?”

“Utah.”

“Why Utah?”

“It's where I'm from.”

“Mormon?”

“Once upon a time- listen, I already told those Vegas cops everything I knew. Which is nothing. Some customer probably killed her. I never liked what she did, but I was heavily into her, so I stuck around. Now what am I supposed to tell you? And why are the L.A. cops interested?”