Carver pulled his cell phone and hit a speed dial number.
“What’s up?” Stone said.
“Are you still with Early?”
“Yeah, we’re building the tower.”
“Come back to the control room. We have a problem. Actually, two problems. And we need to take care of them. I’m working on a plan.”
“On my way.”
Carver closed the phone with a snap.
SIX: The Loneliest Road in America
At nine A.M. Wednesday I was waiting outside the locked door of the offices of Schifino & Associates on the fourth floor of an office building on Charleston near downtown Las Vegas. I was tired and slid down the wall to sit on the nicely carpeted floor. I was feeling particularly unlucky in a town that was supposed to inspire luck.
The early morning had started out well enough. After checking into the Mandalay Bay at midnight, I found myself too keyed up to sleep. I went down to the casino and turned the two hundred dollars I had brought with me into three times that amount at the roulette and blackjack tables.
The growth of my cash portfolio along with the free booze I’d drunk while gambling made sleep come easier when I returned to my room. Things took a dramatic downturn after my wake-up call came. The problem was I wasn’t supposed to have a wake-up call. The front desk was calling to tell me my Times-issued American Express card had been rejected.
“That doesn’t make sense,” I said. “I bought an airline ticket with it last night, I rented a car at McCarran and it was fine when I checked in here. Somebody ran the card.”
“Yes, sir, that is just an authorizing process. The card is not charged until six A.M. on the morning of checkout. We ran the card and it was rejected. Could you please come down and give us another card?”
“No problem. I wanted to get up now anyway so I could win some more of your money.”
Only there was a problem, because my three other credit cards didn’t work either. All were rejected and I was forced to chip back half of my winnings to get out of the hotel. Once I got to my rental car I pulled out my cell to start calling the credit-card companies one by one. Only I couldn’t make the calls because my phone was dead, and it wasn’t a matter of being in a bad cell zone. The phone was dead, service disconnected.
Annoyed and confused but undaunted, I headed to the address I had looked up for William Schifino. I still had a story to pursue.
A few minutes after nine, a woman stepped off the elevator and headed down the hallway toward me. I noticed the slight hesitation in her step when she saw me on the floor leaning against Schifino’s door. I stood up and nodded as she got closer.
“Do you work with William Schifino?” I said with a smile.
“Yes, I’m his receptionist. What can I do for you?”
“I need to speak to Mr. Schifino. I came from Los Angeles. I—”
“Do you have an appointment? Mr. Schifino sees potential clients by appointment only.”
“I don’t have an appointment but I’m not a potential client. I’m a reporter. I want to talk to Mr. Schifino about Brian Oglevy. He was convicted last year of—”
“I know who Brian Oglevy is. That case is on appeal.”
“Right, I know, I know. I have new information. I think Mr. Schifino will want to speak to me.”
She paused with her key a few inches from the lock and turned her eyes as if to size me up for the first time.
“I know he will,” I said.
“You can come in and wait. I don’t know when he’ll be in. He doesn’t have court until this afternoon.”
“Maybe you could call him.”
“Maybe.”
We entered the office and she directed me to a couch in a small waiting area. The furnishings were comfortable and seemed relatively new. I got the feeling that Schifino was an accomplished lawyer. The receptionist went behind her desk, turned on her computer and began her routine of preparing for the day.
“Are you going to call him?” I asked.
“When I get a moment. Just make yourself comfortable.”
I tried to but I didn’t like waiting around. I pulled my laptop out of my bag and turned it on.
“Do you have WiFi here?” I asked.
“We do.”
“Could I borrow it to check my e-mail? I’ll only be on a few minutes.”
“No, I’m afraid not.”
I studied her for a moment.
“Excuse me?”
“I said no. It’s a secured system and you will have to ask Mr. Schifino about that.”
“Well, could you ask him for me when you call him to tell him I am waiting here?”
“As soon as possible.”
She gave me an efficient smile and went back to her busywork. The phone buzzed and she opened an appointment book and started scheduling a meeting for a client and telling him about the credit cards they accepted for legal services rendered. It reminded me of my own current credit-card situation and I grabbed one of the magazines off the coffee table to try to avoid thinking about it.
It was called the Nevada Legal Review and it was chock-full of ads for lawyers and legal services like transcription and data storage. There were also articles about legal cases, most of them dealing with casino licensing or crimes against casinos. I was twenty minutes into a story about a legal attack on the law that kept brothels from operating in Las Vegas and Clark County when the office door opened and a man stepped in. He nodded to me and looked at the receptionist, who was still on the phone.
“Hold, please,” the receptionist said.
She pointed to me.
“Mr. Schifino, this man has no appointment. He says he’s a reporter from Los Angeles. He—”
“Brian Oglevy is innocent,” I said, cutting her off. “And I think I can prove it.”
Schifino studied me for a long moment. He had dark hair and a handsome face with an uneven tan from wearing a baseball cap. He was either a golfer or a coach. Or maybe both. His eyes were sharp and he quickly came to a decision about me.
“Then I guess you better come on back to the office,” he said.
I followed him to his office and he sat down behind a large desk while signaling me to the seat on the other side.
“You work for the Times?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Good paper but in a lot of trouble these days. Financially.”
“Yeah, they all are.”
“So how did you come to the conclusion in L.A. that my guy over here is an innocent man?”
I gave him my best scoundrel’s smile.
“Well, I don’t know that for sure, but I had to get in to see you. But this is what I’ve got. I’ve got a kid over there, sitting in jail for a murder I am thinking he didn’t commit, and it seems to me that the details are a lot like the details in your Oglevy case—what details I know. Only, my case happened two weeks ago.”
“So if they are the same, my client has an obvious alibi and there might be a third party here at work.”
“Exactly.”
“All right, well, let’s see what you’ve got.”
“Well, I was hoping I could see what you’ve got too.”
“Fair enough. My client is in prison and I don’t think he’s too worried about attorney-client privilege at this point, not if my trading information might help his cause. Besides, most of what I tell you is available in court records.”