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“I’m sorry, I can’t let you pass,” he said when I tried to go around him.
“But I work here. What’s going on?”
“Who are you?”
“I’m Dom Reilly. I’m an investigator for Lydia Gonzalez. What’s happened? Is Lydia okay?”
“I can’t give you any information.”
A young woman in a Goth get-up stood nearby. She’d been following the conversation. She leaned toward us, and said, “There’s been a shooting.”
“Oh my God, who was it?” I asked. “Was it Lydia? Was it Karen?”
“My friend thinks the victim was a man.”
“But that doesn’t make sense. I’m the only man who works there.” That wasn’t exactly true, it could have been Edwin. But I wasn’t trying to sell accuracy here.
“It’s probably best that you just go home and wait there,” the police officer said. “There’s really nothing you can do here.”
“I can’t talk to Lydia?”
“I’m afraid that’s not possible.”
“You’re sure? She needs to know I was here. Dom Reilly.”
“There’s no way you’re going to be able to talk to her right now. It’s not going to happen.”
I tried asking the question again, a couple of times, providing a few semijustifications; then gave up and walked away. None of that was necessary. I knew before he said anything he wouldn’t let me in. I just wanted him to remember me.
As I walked around the block to the rental car my mind was hornet’s nest of ideas and thoughts and emotions. Could I really run away now? Wouldn’t it put Lydia in jeopardy? The story she was telling did not include me, so I wasn’t exactly needed. But—if I disappeared it would raise all sorts of questions. Suddenly, I would be needed.
But I couldn’t stay. That would put Ronnie and John and maybe even Junior in danger. For all I knew Hamlet Gilbody wouldn’t wait for me to come out of the house. He might just burn it down with us in it. I was royally screwed. I couldn’t stay and I couldn’t go.
As I approached the rental, I took the keys out of my pocket. The car came with one of those remotes where you flick a button, and the doors all unlock. I hit that button and there was a beep followed by a thwap—the locks unlocking. I reached out to open the driver’s door and someone behind me said, “Nick Nowak.”
I turned around and there was the little round man still wearing his Army surplus jacket.
“Hamlet Gilbody.” I said.
He smiled. I assumed he was about to pull a gun out of his pocket and shoot me dead next to a green car that looked like a frog. Somehow that seemed a fitting end. I hoped they wouldn’t make Ronnie identify my body. I’d hate for him to see—
“I work for Lackerby, Leone and Cooke. They represent—”
“Deanna Hansen, I know. I owe her money. I imagine she’s quite angry about that.”
“I suppose she is. But we don’t represent her anymore.”
“What? You don’t?”
“The Leone boy took a suitcase of cash belonging to her. He ended up dead because of it—not her fault—but in the process the Las Vegas police kept the cash as evidence. You see where it might be difficult for her to claim it. After that she found a new law firm.”
I was struggling to grasp all of this. Hard to do when you’re standing there wondering why someone hasn’t killed you yet. I mean, it sounded like maybe he wasn’t there to kill—
“What do you want?”
“As I started to say, we represent the estate of Owen Lovejoy.”
“Oh.”
