“Hello,” Engracia’s voice was very quiet. “I’m Engracia Montoya.”
“Engracia, thank you for calling. This is Coral. I drove you home, awhile ago, after the thing . . . the thing with the police.”
“Si.”
“How are you?”
She didn’t reply.
“I mean, uh, I hope you’re doing well. I called you because I was hoping we could meet. Ms. Navarro wants to give you a gift. She appreciates what you did that day. She’s very grateful. And she’d like to give you something.”
“I don’t want anything.”
“I understand. I do. But maybe we could just talk. Ms. Navarro is worried about something else. She wants to be sure you’re okay.”
“I’m okay.”
“Do you think we could just meet? Just for ten minutes? I can meet you anywhere. At your house? At work?”
“I don’t want anything.”
“Engracia. You saved a whole family. You saved Ms. Navarro’s daughter from a lot of pain. She’s grateful. Please, just meet with me.”
There was a long silence.
“Please. Don’t hang up.”
“I work at the El Capitan.”
Coral’s heart skipped. She would never be free of that place.
“I could meet you after my work. In the Midnight Cafe. I get off at nine.”
“Today?”
“Yes.”
“That’s great. Thank you, Engracia. I’ll be there.”
She didn’t say good-bye. Coral heard the phone click, checked for the number. It looked like a hotel. She had probably called from a room in the hotel.
So here she was now, racing to make it to the El Capitan before nine, and wondering what exactly she was going to say to Engracia Montoya. She had the money with her, but mostly there was the issue of the gun. Engracia might not reveal the truth about the gun, but maybe Coral could just tell her some of the risks of having it. How much more difficult Immigration would be if she were caught with that gun.
Thank God she was alive.
She figured Father Burns would have told her if something had happened, but he didn’t give away much information. Each time she called, he just said that he would give Engracia the message again.
Coral took a shortcut to the back side of the casino, but a fence blocked the road a short ways from the hotel, so she pulled her car onto a patch of gravel and made her way around the fenced area on foot. Construction had stopped so fast on the Strip, when the money dried up a few years ago, that nobody had bothered to even move the trucks or the cranes or the lifts off the lots where the new casinos were to have been built. They just sat there, hulking, rusting beasts, and behind this array of them stood the faded fa?ade of the El Capitan, with its arched entry and its old-fashioned neon and some of the letters missing in the sign: “C–me On In! Ge– Rich!”
The Midnight Cafe was just to the right of the main entry, in an older part of the casino. The whole place looked dilapidated, though the newer half had a tropical 1980s feel, whereas the older part was darker and lower, with wood paneling on the walls and a deep red fabric above it. The cafe sign was an old-fashioned marquee with a 1950s pin-up girl splayed across the letters M-i-d-n-i-g-h-t, and Coral gathered that the room had once been a nightclub. She took a booth on the side, facing the door, so that she would see Engracia when she entered. It was 8:55. Her shift had not yet ended.
Coral looked around to be sure Engracia wasn’t there. Then she picked up the heavy leatherette binder that held the menu.
“What’ll you have, honey?”
The waitress looked at least sixty, with bouffant hair and a big, smothering bustline and a Southern accent, though she might have lived in Vegas for decades.
“Coffee, please. I’ll order when my friend arrives.”
“No problem. Cream and sugar?”
“Just cream.”
The cafe must have been remodeled shortly before the economic crash. Enormous black-and-white photos ringed the wall; they looked like they might be pictures taken at the El Capitan in its early years. She could see a line of showgirls, a group of men standing around a roulette table, and what might be Del Dibb posing with a little girl and smoking a big cigar.
Coral looked down at the menu. Her stomach did a small flip. She wished that Engracia worked somewhere else. This casino meant nothing to her, and yet in a way, maybe she meant something to it. She didn’t like being in here. Didn’t like that photo of Del Dibb.
The menu told the story of the cafe. It had started as a nightspot, the Midnight Room, and in the heyday of the El Capitan, it had been one of the premier clubs in town. Sammy Davis Junior had played there. And Jimmy Durante. Marlene Dietrich had stopped by to see Eddie Knox, and sung a duet with him. They’d kept it a nightclub even after they had expanded the casino, ran small local shows in it: revues of past hits, things like that. After June Dibb retired, her son Marshall had turned the nightclub into a cafe and decorated it with these enormous vintage photos from a starrier past.
Coral looked around for Engracia. It was 9:10. She probably had a time clock to punch.
“More coffee, honey?”
“Sure.”
“Want a pastry? Tide you over?”
“No, thanks. She’ll be here any minute.”
But she wasn’t there any minute.
Ten minutes passed, then twenty. It was 9:40. Obviously Engracia wasn’t coming. Coral had upended her whole morning, was going to miss Gus’s game, and then just sat here, drinking cup after cup of pretty good coffee.
“You sure you don’t want something to eat, honey? It’s on me. I won’t charge you.”
“Oh, thank you. No. I’m going to go. I was really hoping my friend was still coming.”
“She doesn’t have a phone?”
“No. But she works here. She’s a maid. Do you know if there’s anyone I could ask?”
“Well, you could try Arturo. Over at the cashier desk. This is payday, and a lot of the maids cash their checks when they get off.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
Coral paid her bill, left a large tip, and walked over to the cashier. Arturo was an old man, wearing a brocaded vest and a shirt with silver tips on the collar.
“Hi. I’m looking for someone who works here. A maid?”
“I might know her. I don’t know.”
“Her name’s Engracia. Engracia Montoya. She got off at nine today?”
Arturo gave her a funny look.
“You know Engracia?”
“Yes. A little. She called me this morning, about five. She asked me to meet her at nine.”
“Well, she’s gone.”
“Oh. Do you know where?”
“She cashed her check.”
The man seemed to hesitate.
“I’d really like to see her. I have a gift.”
The man looked carefully at Coral. Finally, he spoke.
“She wasn’t wearing her uniform. Maybe she’s not coming back.”
Coral thought about this.
“Because she has to give back her uniform if she quits?”
“Yes. I work here a long time. And the maids cash their checks with me. But when they’re not wearing their blue dresses, sometimes they’re not coming back.”
“Did you talk with her?”
Arturo was quiet. He looked down as if he was not sure whether to say something or not.