Stephen White - Missing Persons

“I’ll try her room and call you back.”

“You’ve tried her mobile?” he asked.

“A few times.”

“Merde.” I recognized the move from Catalonian to French. The man could curse in more languages than anyone I knew. He never cursed in English, however. Not in my presence.

“It’s probably nothing.” I didn’t believe my own words. I said it because it was just one of those things that people say in circumstances like those.

While Raoul was still on the line, I pulled Lauren’s cell from her purse and punched in Diane’s mobile number. After three rings someone answered.

A female voice, not Diane’s, said, “Yeah? Who is this?”

Speaking into both phones simultaneously, I said, “Hold on a second, Raoul. Someone’s on her cell.”

“Go on,” he said. “Allez!”

The voice on Diane’s phone demanded, “Who’s Rule?”

The lilt of the woman’s voice triggered some clinical trigger in my brain. Instinctively I went into therapist mode, specifically I went into psychiatric-emergency-room therapist mode. My voice calmed, my hearing sensitized for the unexpected. Psychologically speaking, my weight was on my toes; I was prepared to change directions in a heartbeat.

“This is Dr. Gregory, may I speak to Dr. Diane Estevez, please? You answered her phone.”

“Well, she’s not home.” The woman laughed. “No one’s home. That’s the whole point, isn’t it? Not being home? This is about as far from home as I get. So there.”

I considered the possibility that I’d dialed Diane’s number incorrectly and that I was simply being confused by the lottery of errant connection. Then I heard the familiar frantic calliope riff of a slot machine jackpot and I knew that what had happened wasn’t a simple wrong number. This woman was in a Las Vegas casino and she was holding Diane’s phone in her hand. Why?

“The phone you’re holding belongs to a friend of mine. Do you mind if I ask how you got it? Did you find it?”

“The doctor? It belongs to the doctor? Rule? Dr. Rule?”

“Yes.” I let it go. I didn’t want to try to explain to this woman who Rule, or Raoul, was, or wasn’t.

“Well,” she said. “I would guess he’s out playing golf.” She laughed again. Her cackle was sharp and high-pitched-the yelp of a distressed tropical bird. You wouldn’t want to be sitting in the vicinity of this woman in a movie theater during the screening of a half-decent comedy.

“That’s pretty funny,” I said in a voice intended to convey that, against all odds, I found her act cute. “But I’m actually being serious. Where exactly did you find my friend’s cell phone? It’s important. She’ll want to know when she… thanks you.”

“I’m playing slots. Two machines-I always play two machines. It was in the tray on the left when I sat down. Or is that the right? I get my lefts and my rights mixed up, especially when I’ve been drinking, and I’ve been drinking. Who the heck are you?”

I played the doctor card. “I’m Dr. Gregory.”

“You out playing golf, too?” She laughed again. I had to hold the phone six inches from my ear to provide a cushion from the intensity of the din.

Diane had dropped her phone on the way out of the casino. That was the explanation for everything. That was why she hadn’t kept her promise to call me back as soon as she was outside the casino. That was why she hadn’t been answering my repeated calls to her cell phone.

Simple. “You’re in the casino at the Venetian?”

“You wanna bet?” She laughed. “Or, I… wanna bet. I guess I’m the one who’s betting.”

“What’s your name?”

“Michelle. You know about Harvey Wallbangers?”

“A cocktail, right?” I reminded myself to be patient. Corral her, I thought, don’t lasso her.

“Ver-y good. Nobody here knows how to make ’em. Nobody. I order one and I keep getting Tequila Sunrises. Can you imagine? I don’t like the red stuff, I like the yellow stuff. In the tall bottle? You know what I’m talking about?”

“How many have you had?”

“Three, or… not-no, four.” She paused. “Four. Not counting this one. Oops, this one’s almost gone, too. Do you know how hard it is to make any money playing nickel slots? Well, it is. Even if you max your bets, and I do sometimes, I really, really do, it’s like… when you win you still just get… well, nickels. Is that fair?”

“So you’re playing nickel slots at the Venetian?”

“I am.”

“Are there any casino employees around, Michelle? Maybe right behind you? Somebody in a uniform, someone making change or… serving cocktails, or something? An attendant?”

“Yep, there’s one right there-how’d you know? Is there a camera on me? Am I like on one of those TV shows or something?”

“Could you please give my friend’s phone to the person who works for the casino? Tell him I would like to speak with him?”

“Her.”

“Her. Fine.”

“Here,” she said to somebody, possibly the casino employee, but certainly not to me. “Some doctor named Rule or… Gregory or something lost his phone while he was playing golf. Here, you take it, go on. I don’t want it anymore. I need more nickels.”

A heavily accented voice-Caribbean? Jamaican?-said, “What you need, ma’am? Change?”

And that was the end of that call.

“Raoul, you still there?”

“Of course.”

“Diane doesn’t have her phone with her. Some drunk woman in the casino found it, just turned it over to a casino employee. The call died. I’ll try calling back again in a minute. Diane must have lost her phone.”

“At the Venetian?”

“That’s what the woman said.”

Raoul said, “I’ll call her room. Keep your line open in case she calls you.”

“Of course. Raoul, I’m sure it’s okay. There will be a simple explanation for this.”

He’d already hung up.

Diane had lost her phone. Raoul would call her hotel room and find her sitting on her king-sized bed lambasting somebody from hotel security about the casino’s inefficient lost-and-found procedures. That’s what I was telling myself. No big thing.

In my heart that’s what I didn’t believe. As innocuous as the events sounded-a friend failed to keep a promise to call another friend for less than an hour-my heart told me that something sinister had occurred.

You really need to hear this, she’d said. Diane would have found a way to call.

I tried Diane’s cell one more time. Without even a single ring, my call was routed to voice mail. I left a simple message, “Hey Diane, it’s Alan. Still trying to reach you in Vegas. Give me a call. I’m getting a little worried. Raoul is concerned, too. Call him.”

I surmised that the casino employee who possessed Diane’s phone had killed the power and that Diane’s phone was programmed to send power-off calls to voice mail.

I walked down the hall to find Grace and Lauren asleep together on our big bed. One big spoon nestled protectively around one little spoon. I adjusted the comforter so that it covered both of them, flicked off the lights, took the bedtime volumes away from the pillows, and kissed them each on the head before I retraced my steps back to the kitchen counter. I’d carry Grace from our bed into her room later on.

The phone chirped in my hand. I caught it after half a ring.

Raoul. He said, “She’s not answering. Quin merder. ”

It was my turn to curse. I’m not multilingual; I said simply, “Shit.”

“I tried her cell again,” I said. “I think someone turned it off. The call went straight to voice mail.”

“That’s enough for me. I’m going to call hotel security,” Raoul said. “Get them on this.”