Neon Nights: Daymond Runyon meets James Ellroy in the Nevada Desert Page 18
My reception at the barracks in Carson City was warmer than my return to the Clark County Sherriff’s Office but wasn’t exactly glowing either. Particularly with the officers, apparently they had heard about my troubles in Las Vegas. I was assigned to Eli to patrol a stretch of State Highway 2 running across the state from Utah to the California borders. Everybody on the patrol called it the most desolate, lonely road in the state. I suspected the assignment was the Highway Patrol's way of letting me know I'd given them some grief. To add to it, they assigned me to the graveyard shift. Some nights I could count on one hand the number of vehicles I’d see. After two months of watching the cactus grow, I requested some leave so I could go to California and see Charlie Davis. I wanted to ask him if he could help get me a job with the Los Angeles Police Department.
On my way to the city of Angels, I stopped in Las Vegas to say hello to Billie and to give her a small gold necklace to, in a very small way, thank her for her helping me. I also wanted to see a couple of guys I'd kept in touch with on the Clark County Sheriff's Department. Jimmy Johnson was glad to see me. He told me Dick's drinking had become a real problem but it wasn’t my problem anymore. He said the death of "Two Ton Tony" never was officially solved. His body was recovered in San Diego, but his wife and the blackjack dealer were never found. The rumor was they were living on some island in Caribbean. Mike Rogers heard I was in town and called me from Washington D.C. He told me the gun found at Jake's turned out to have killed a couple of guys in California in nineteen forty-three. When Mike confronted Jake with that fact, Jake was happy to tell Mike all his secrets in exchange for a promise that wouldn't end up breathing Nevada gas. After his memory suddenly returned and he remembered that Johnny killed Jack Ryan in an argument over money. He also confirmed that Johnny hid Ryan's body in the desert. The exact location died with Johnny, and I doubt Ryan's body will ever be found. Too much time has passed and the coyotes and the buzzards are too good at their work to leave much.
I asked Mike if Jake ever mentioned Rita Heller, Mike said he never mentioned her. Mike asked who she was and I told him she was someone who lived in Jake’s trailer park who Jake didn’t like and I thought he might try and get her into trouble for talking to me. Apparently, Johnny didn't tell Jake about seeing Rita the night he killed Jack Ryan. That meant only two people knew what happened that night--Rita and me, and unless she tells someone, that's all there ever will be. Mike told me he got the job Ted Kemper wanted so badly and Kemper got his old job in Phoenix. I hope it never gets below one-hundred degrees as long as he works there.
My dream of working for the LAPD fizzled out. Charlie Davis said there was a hiring freeze but it could be his way of diplomatically telling me that my reputation would keep me off the force. I returned to the desolation of State Highway 2 and made the best of it.
Jimmy Johnson wrote me a letter at Christmas and said Dick’s drinking got him in real trouble. He was drunk and crashed his car into a car carrying a family of four one night. He killed all of them. He was so drunk they had to prop him. Sherriff Duncan helped hush it up but Dick was forced to retire. Jimmy speculated Dick was at his cabin in Lake Tahoe slowly drinking himself to death. I hope he’s haunted by what he has done and lives a long miserable life.
Stuffed into the envelope was a letter from Suzy. Jimmy wrote on the letter “This was sent to you here.” In a careful juvenile hand on notebook paper, she wrote that she'd finished her classes and passed the state boards to become a registered beautician. She was working at a beauty shop in Bakersfield and hoped to start her own beauty shop right after she marries this nice boy she'd met.
Suzy said she'd tried to write to Bottles, but she hadn't gotten a reply. She told me to say hello for her and give him her address. Wally Parks told me when I was in Las Vegas, Bottles had died. They found him in a shack down by the railroad yards. The needle was still in his arm. Either he had underestimated the strength of the dope or someone had given him a hot shot. Either way the books were closed on Gene "Bottles" Malloy. I went to the stationary store and picked out a couple of Christmas cards one for Jimmy and one to tell Suzy she’d done me proud.
After six months of working the graveyard shift, they moved me to the swing shift. It was still at night but it had a few more cars. By now, I was used to spending my nights alone in the desert and in a way it wasn’t all that bad. The stars covered the sky and with the exception of a lonely coyote it was quiet and peaceful. Once in awhile, I’d pull my cruiser off the road and look toward the south, and if I tried real hard, I could almost see the lights of the neon nights of Las Vegas.
The End