Ch. II: The Streets of Sin City
Frankie Mancuso was director of security for the establishment where Dr. Masterson had been found murdered in room 33-B. He knew better than to immediately notify the police. The maid who first discovered the body was sent off with an escort and a substantial amount of cash to visit her family in Mexico City.
The first person who Mancuso called was Charles Fish. Known affectionately as "Charlie the Tuna" to his friends, he had been a P.I. for more than forty years. Frankie's father, Jack Mancuso, had served with Charlie and often talked about the cold weeks they spent in Bastogne together in December 1944 while serving with the 101st Airborne. The Tuna, now seventy-seven, was partially crippled by arthritis and couldn't get around very well. Complicating his immobility was the fact that the radiation treatments he was currently undergoing for prostrate cancer were causing him to spend most of his time in the bathroom.
Charlie had been with the F.B.I. for ten years after the war and then became a private investigator. His broad client base ranged from ordinary citizens to Fortune 500 corporations and Lloyd's of London. He had been exposed to just about every type of illegal behavior and had been primarily responsible for solving several high-profile murder cases and many other unusual crimes. The Tuna had been retained by numerous police departments and governmental security agencies to conduct a variety of complex criminal investigations. He also on occasion was technical consultant to several rather famous authors of both crime fiction and nonfiction.
At this point in his long career and life, Charlie was financially and intellectually independent to the point where he could pick and choose his cases. He was fanatic about constitutional issues and often accepted a case because it involved a blatant violation of constitutional rights, which he considered detestable. Otherwise he selected cases which he found extraordinarily interesting to him personally and which nobody else seemed to be able to make much progress in solving. This case, the one Frankie Mancuso had described to him, Charlie agreed to accept because of his long friendship with Frankie's father.
The Tuna had numerous investigative operatives but the three girls were his obvious favorites. "Charlie's Angels" he called them which they hated. He often joked with them that he was the brains and they were the brawn, although he was quite certain all three were much more intelligent than he was. He liked to antagonize the girls with his favorite line from his favorite movie, The Maltese Falcon, "You've got brains. Yes you have." Then he would add, "And everybody wants a piece of your brain!" and start cackling.
What Charlie liked best about the three was that they were very willing to use the most effective means available to man, or in this case woman, to extract information. Not guns although he knew the girls never went without. Not torture. Not their style. These girls often used, well, let's just say they could tease and tantalize anyone to the point of verbose confession. Definitely his angels were the cure for lockjaw Charlie thought with a smile. The Tuna was often shocked by their liberated sexuality and they often tried to embarrass him. He knew they were not lesbians but they seemed to enjoy one another's company immensely. They were always touching and feeling and kissing each other and poking fun. A purely delightful trio.
Charlie knew Sal Slade was already in Vegas because she was at this very moment working a case for him. The case of the two very attractive younger women married to older doctors who mysteriously disappeared at the National Rodeo Finals in Vegas two months ago. They rode off with two tall dark Harley riding strangers. He was so fond of Sally and she was like the daughter he never had. Only Charlie and her mother called her Sally. No one else would dare. She was either Sal or Ms. Slade. And in his opinion the most beautiful creature God ever made. Tall, long blonde almost white hair, emerald eyes and the milkiest skin he had ever seen. She could almost pass for an albino but for her eyes. The kind of skin that would never tan and Sally often joked about her bouts with sun poisoning and said to give Caitlin and Kim the jobs that involve the beach and the bikinis. She'd take the dark bars. When he thought of her eyes, he thought of this Maltese Fuckin' rare jade piece with embedded emeralds Frankie Mancuso had mentioned in their conversation.
"Sally," Charlie began as soon as she picked up on her cell phone, "I've got a hot one, a really hot one. Get in touch with Caitlin and Kim and have them get here to Vegas as soon as possible. Once you have talked to them get over to my office and I'll begin to fill you in. Be here in an hour."
"How should I dress, Tunafish?" Sal asked seriously. Sometimes Charlie complained when she showed up in her jeans and Fucking Bruiser t-shirt.
"Get dressed to kill, Sally. I want to maximize the acquisition of information and minimize bullshit. We need to work fast on this before the police get involved and totally fuck it up. I fixed you up with a lunch date with one of the principal witnesses."
"Shame, shame, Tunafish! You shouldn't say that naughty word "F" word. And you complain about the variation of that word on my t-shirt. What a fucking hypocrite! Well, I guess you can say fuck. You are certainly too old to do it. I'll see you in an hour,"
"You're a good man, sister," Charlie responded as they both hung up.
Caitlin was living in western New York and told Sal she could be on a flight to Vegas in two hours so to expect her by dinner time, so make reservations at her favorite dining spot. Caitlin Cornplanter, Ph.D., was a Seneca born in the only city which lies within a reservation, Salamanca. She was one of the more than five hundred now living descendants of the great Seneca chief, Cornplanter. Chief Cornplanter's mother was a Seneca and his father was an Irishman, or so most said. Her hair was extraordinarily red and one would think she was a sassy Irish lass but for her rather dark complexion, buckskin garb and braids that usually hung over her breasts. And everyone said she had the most extraordinary sky blue eyes.
Doc, as Sal called her, was a professor at the Harvard Divinity School on indefinite sabbatical to complete her book, of which she would tell no one of the subject matter. She had been teaching courses on comparative religions and Native American studies. Being fluent in Hebrew and Greek and several Native languages, she occasionally taught a language course when the dean said he needed her. Dr. Cornplanter was also a lecturer at the Chautauqua Institution during summers and she kept cajoling Sal and Kim to spend some time with her there in the summer. She insisted it was one of the most intellectually and spiritually stimulating environments anywhere. Art, drama, religion, history, music. It had the best of everything so she claimed.
Kim Wright was a former resident of Las Vegas now living in Bloomington, Indiana. She told Sal she could easily get a flight to Vegas which would put her at McCarran International at about the same time as Caitlin so Sal could pick them up together. Kim was a stunning multi-racial woman. Her mother's name was Tran Thi Kim Hong, Vietnamese, and she died in an automobile accident when Kim was eight. Her father, Jesse Wright, was a black retired Army officer. He brought his wife to the states in 1970 and Kim was born in 1972.
Notre Dame was where Kim did her undergraduate work and first became interested in serial killers. She did her masters at Indiana where she was now close to completing her Ph.D. in Mass Communication with a required minor in Journalism. All she had left was her doctoral dissertation and an oral exam defending it. Her dissertation was on the media's treatment of female serial killers and she was planning on eventually turning that dissertation into a book. Kim had been an investigative reporter with the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the largest paper in Nevada, until six months ago when she resigned to concentrate on her other priorities.
While at Notre Dame in South Bend, Kim became interested in the serial killer Belle Gunness from LaPorte which was not far away. Almost ninety years ago Belle lured men to her LaPorte home with love wanted adds and murdered them. She faked her own death in a fire and was never apprehended. The much more recent case of Aileen Wuormos was also one which fascinated Kim and was the one which changed the nature of the typical serial killer profile. Aileen turned the tables on the male serial killers who offed prostitutes. She was a bisexual prostitute who murdered her johns along deserted highways. Once apprehended she confessed to disposing of seven men who picked her up hitch-hiking and then exchanged money for sex, then shot and robbed them and left their naked bodies beside their used condoms several miles from their abandoned cars. This is what fascinated Kim. Female serial killers who used sex to lure their victims into their trap. The ultimate femme fatale. When Sal called and briefly described the case, Kim could hardly wait.
