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CHAPTER 56

TWENTY MINUTES LATER, Carlos and I wait for Ava next to a sculpture near the front entrance of Speaking Rock Entertainment Center. With lights shining from below, the bronze statue shows a muscular man with his arms spread, feathers hanging from them like wings. The sculpture is perched above a pool of water, glowing blue from lights below the surface. A stage has been erected next to the statue, but whatever concert they’ve set up for isn’t happening tonight.

The wind has died down to a stiff breeze, and the clouds overhead are breaking up. The sky had been threatening to rain, but it hasn’t carried through on the threat.

Ava approaches in her uniform, all business, and gives me a curt nod.

“You’re back?” she says.

“I’m sorry,” I say, then gesture to Carlos. “I just needed someone to remind me why I wear this badge.”

Carlos smacks me on the back.

“Rory was just constipated,” he says, and even Ava can’t help but crack a smile at his remark. “He’s had a healthy bowel movement,” Carlos continues, “and now he’s ready to get back to work.”

We all laugh together, and, at least for now, the tension of the reunion has been alleviated. Without further discussion, we head inside.

Though nothing by Las Vegas standards, the casino is larger than I expected—and bustling with activity. The light is dimmed. The building has multiple wings, all packed with slot machines, where patrons sit drinking from daiquiri glasses and beer bottles. On one side of the casino is a large bar, with flat-screen TVs displaying various late-night recaps of the day’s sporting events. On the other side is a room with a BINGO sign above the entrance. The air is filled with the noise of the slot machines electronically mimicking the sound of coins spilling into trays.

We make our way through the maze of machines to the cashier’s cage, where we let Ava do the talking. She asks to speak with a manager, and a minute later, a Tigua man approaches. He has short hair graying at the temples and wears a white shirt with a black bolo tie. Ava, who apparently knows him, introduces us.

“We’re looking for this man,” Carlos says, showing him a photo of Llewellyn Carpenter. “Apparently he cashed some chips in today and got a receipt.”

We tell the manager we’d like to look at security footage before and after the time the receipt was stamped. He looks skeptical, like he doesn’t want to get involved with two Texas Rangers, but Ava says, “You’d really be doing us a favor, Xavier.”

He relents and tells us to follow him. He leads us to an employee door tucked out of sight, and then the three of us walk down a well-lit hallway to a door marked SECURITY . He leads us inside, where a uniformed guard mans a bank of computer screens. Xavier tells the man the time of the stamp, and the guard rewinds one of the computer screens.

A minute later, we’re looking at the black-and-white image of Llewellyn Carpenter walking up to the cage to buy chips. It’s clearly him, the snake tattoo visible on his forearm as he reaches for the receipt the teller hands him. He walks away from the counter with a rack of chips, but within a few seconds, he pulls his phone out of his pocket and appears to answer a call. He looks around and walks back to the counter of the cage—off to the side this time, where he won’t be in anyone’s way—and sets the chips down. He pulls a pen or pencil from his pocket and writes something on the back of his receipt. A minute later, he hangs up the phone and pockets it.

He stares at whatever he’s written.

“He’s memorizing it,” Carlos says.

Thirty seconds later, Carpenter wads up the piece of paper and looks around for a trash can. There’s one in a nearby corner, and he tosses the balled-up receipt toward it.

“He missed,” Ava says, almost breathless.

“Back up the video,” Carlos says. “Please.”

The guard rewinds the recording. He tries to zoom in but the picture only gets blurrier. Still, it looks like Ava is right. The ball of paper overshoots the can and lands behind it on the floor, hidden in the corner behind the bin.

On the screen, we watch as Carpenter returns to the cage and cashes in the chips he just bought. He receives another receipt, which he pockets.

“That’s the one we found,” Carlos says. “Let’s go see if we can find the one he threw away.”

We rush back down the hallway and into the casino, leaving the manager and guard behind. It takes a moment for us to orient ourselves within the clanging labyrinth of slots, but soon we hurry past the machines on our way to the cage.

In my mind, I’m preparing myself for the fact that the receipt will be gone. Whoever comes around to empty the garbage bins will have noticed it and thrown it away. We’ll have to confiscate all the garbage in the dumpster and ask Ryan to okay a team of techs to sift through it.

But when we arrive at the garbage can, the wadded-up receipt is still there, wedged into the corner with some napkins and a used coffee cup that also didn’t make it into the trash bin. Carlos puts on a pair of gloves before reaching down to pick up the receipt. Slowly he unfolds it.

On the back, written in sloppy cursive handwriting, is an address and nothing more.

The address is on Old Pueblo Road.

“Isn’t that the road we’re on right now?” I ask.

Ava nods.

“I know where that is,” she says, looking up at Carlos and me. “It’s the old Tigua community center. It’s been abandoned. They’re building a new one and haven’t made up their mind whether they should tear it down or use it for something else.”

I remember seeing it when Carlos and I drove onto the Pueblo to meet Ava for the first time.

“What the hell would Carpenter want there?” Ava says.

“I don’t know,” I say, “but let’s go find out.”