Chapter 2
She sits back behind the desk and I’ve taken a seat on the most comfortable chair I’ve sat in for quite some time, possibly ever. Business offices should not have seats like this, it’s so unbusiness-like, this comfort. It feels so damn comfortable that it takes me longer than a few seconds to realize that she’s basically ignoring what I’ve just told her and now she’s just taking me in, sizing me up.
“Just play poker, huh? I have friends who tell me you are the best of the breed, so to speak, in terms of the business of privately investigating certain matters.”
Her words hang in the air for a moment or 2 as I assess the meaning of what she’s telling me here. I don’t want to wait too long to reply but I am already aware of the possibility of a lot of money being paid – I can’t help myself, it comes with the poker playing, this quick assessment of risk and reward despite how much I’ve sworn off this “working for others.”
“Well...”
Have I switched back to my former self and when exactly did it happen?
“I am prepared to make it very worth your while to help me with a serious matter involving a member of my family.”
“Aha.”
Notice how I’ve failed to say “no” here? Some guy in Russia said something once about how all unhappy families are all fucked up in different fucked up ways and this mention of family right away as we sit down to talk probably means the kind of fucked up difficult that just keeps piling upon itself. Ms. Tamblyn knows this, I can tell, and that tells me that the amount of money she is willing to part with is substantial if I can take care of whatever it is she needs. I am instantly weighing how much trouble it might be worth versus how much I can make just like playing poker against the skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled players that show up regularly at the tables. I can’t help myself, it’s where my mind goes: x would be worth y if z could be determined. It just kicks in.
“My daughter – Mary Catherine -- is missing, Mr. Dempsey,” she says, looking from me and then to a spot out the window now. Clearly, she’s already figured that I’ll take the job and there’s no need to go on about that part. “She has been missing for quite some time. I want you to find her. The police know a bit of the matter and it’s being kept quiet, but I would prefer to have a professional like you on this.”
I think this is a compliment, but I’ve been playing poker for so long that I also think it might be a bluff, whether it is or not. Whatever the case, she is handing me a piece of paper with typewritten paragraphs on it. I’ve seen this type of note before, it’s glued and pasted print, cut up in pieces on paper so that no handwriting is there, no handwriting that might be easily traced.
“Mr. Dempsey, I believe this is something like a ransom note. Please read it and let me know what you think.”
“Mister Dempsey” – the name I am never called by downstairs at the Texas Hold 'Em tables. It’s definitely a step up from the “hey fella” that I get from the out-of-town newcomers at the game who think I’m not really bluffing.
The note says simply that the writer knows where her daughter is and would be glad to provide the details in return for a large sum of money, specified to the penny. So, it’s not exactly a kidnapping just judging from the language – or maybe it is, depending on how you might look at it, but I don’t think so. Taken at its word, the note writer has knowledge of Catherine’s whereabouts but is not implicated. One crime is not as bad as the other crime although the note definitely reveals a disgusting lowlife at work.
I read it again.
“I’ll see what I can find out” is what I find myself saying, eventually.
I wait at the elevator after our little talk and after Ms. Tamblyn and I had agreed to certain basic terms and I think we’d shaken hands and I left her office.
Clarice, the assistant with the elegant, just-right eye frames, hands me a pinkish-white envelope and tells me that “Eleanor” wishes to show me how grateful she is that I had agreed to work for her. I take it and she turns around and heads back and before the elevator door opens, I look in the envelope and discover a stash of fresh one-hundred-dollar bills nicely wrapped in a bundle secured by a thick pink rubber band. There will be time to count out the exact amount later but it’s better than recent Texas Hold 'Em winnings, that’s for sure.
Naturally, I thought, the billionaire Chief Executive Officer of a publicly traded casino resort has plenty of cash around to pay for private eyes when they’re needed. Everyone knows that. Then, the doors open, and Charles looks at me and just nods and, in a minute, I am back down to floor level and headed out the door.
I spend a few minutes outside, taking in the noisy blasting of the water fountains in front, with the steady parade of traffic stopping and starting over on the Strip. I stopped smoking years ago but right now I’m thinking about a cigarette. Thinking about it, that’s all. I hear car horns honking and I’m back to non-thought for a moment.
The only thing I really like about Las Vegas is the availability of a number of good poker rooms, well managed, carefully watched over and basically fair, except for the rake, of course. I start thinking about how much that pleases me and allows me to put up with the rest of the greed, the ugliness and the “entertainment capital” nonsense around here. Then, I stop myself, let it go and take the long walk downtown, so I have time to consider all of the Ms. Tamblyn situation and that new feeling of her cash in an envelope in my pocket.