Find This Woman by Richard S. Prather Read Free Book Online Page B

somewhere up here—or might be in Wisconsin, for all I know. This Carter came up here after her. You didn't get anything on him, huh?"
    He grinned as he came over and handed me a drink. "Tell you the truth, I barely made it to work this morning, so I didn't have much time to nose. Been working all day. But I asked around the hotel people here. Nothing. Like you said—registered, but nobody's seen him since."
    "Yeah. There's something damned screwy. I was warned in no uncertain terms to stay the hell away from here. And I think I got a welcome." I gave him the story of the robin's-egg-blue Chrysler and finished, "So I don't know whether I made an ass of myself or prevented a hole in my head."
    He laughed. "You got holes in your head already, working at a time like this. Your car still at the airport?"
    "Yeah."
    "Good enough. I'll pick it up and bring it in while you relax."
    I sat up on the bed. "The hell you will, Freddy! That car stays there till dark. I'll pick it up myself when I get a line on what's cooking. If I pick it up at all. The guys hate my guts up here, whoever they are, and they must know the car by now, even if they don't know where it is."
    "O.K., O.K." He grinned. "What you want me to do?"
    I was getting so tired and dopey lying on that soft bed with two pillows behind my head that I almost wanted him to do nothing but leave me in peace for an hour or two. Then a thought struck me.
    "One thing, Freddy. This Angel of the phone. That wouldn't have been Colleen Shawn?"
    He shook his head. "Nope. The Angel flew this morning. Just a tomato. Wish to hell it had been Colleen. You like that, huh?"
    "I like that. Know anything about her?"
    "Just that she shivers my timbers. I've only talked to her a couple of times at the bar. She's been around for a week or so. That's about all I know so far—but I'm gonna give you competition."
    "Good enough. Say, Fred, I've got a call on a guy named Dante on my schedule. You know him?"
    "Sure. Victor Dante. Runs the Inferno. Owns another club or two. Not in Vegas, though."
    "I'm going to see him later tonight—if I can get off this bed. What can you tell me about him?"
    Freddy scratched his black hair. "Gambler—a smart one. Understand he came up from L.A. One thing, Shell, you don't want any trouble with him. He's got a lot of influence around here now. And that influence, they tell me, is not only political but police. Let's see, they opened the Inferno about three months ago. February, I think it was. He was around a while before that, but he's a real big man now he runs the Inferno. Moved right in. Tell you something else: He'll bet on anything, but from the dope I've picked up behind the bar, he's a sure-thing, boy. Doesn't like to lose. Don't even bet him the sun will come up in the east tomorrow, because he'd win if he had to put in a fix with some angels."
    "Like that, huh?" I thought a minute. "The last thing I heard about this Carter guy was that he was going to call on Dante. That's the main reason I want to see him."
    Freddy lit a cigarette and frowned at it for a while before saying anything else. Then he looked at me. "You watch yourself. It might interest you to know that the Inferno wasn't originally supposed to be called the Inferno. When they first started building the place it was going to be the Sundown Club. Most people know that, but not so many know a guy named Big Jim White was behind it then."
    "Then? Why not now?"
    He grinned. "That's a funny thing. Dante was interested in the place all along, but the story goes he didn't have enough cash to handle it. This Big Jim was on the inside—had the backing and money—but he got taken suddenly dead about a month before the club opened. Then there were some legal powwows, and now the place is Dante's Inferno."
    "How do you mean, taken dead?"
    "Accident. Apparently Big Jim was walking around on the highway out beyond the Flamingo and a car hit him. The sheriff wondered what the guy was