Silent Rage: Inside the Mind of a Serial Killer by Michael Newton

Author:Michael Newton
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Kenneth Bianchi, True Crime, John Wayne Gacy, recreational killers, serial killer, Serial Killers, Ted Bundy
ISBN: 9781618092021
Publisher: The Write Thought
Published: 2014-04-24T00:00:00+00:00

ELEVEN

COLE’S FIRST STOP IN LAS VEGAS, after renting a Cleveland Avenue apartment, was the state employment office. He registered as an ex-convict, on the theory that felons receive preferential treatment in job-hunting, to keep them from getting itchy on the street. True or false, it seemed to work, and he was sent to meet a woman named Marie, who ran the slot machine concessions out of Mr. Sy’s Casino, on The Strip.

Marie was looking for a janitor, but Eddie’s job had less to do with sweeping up and taking out the trash than helping her police the slots. When he was not behind a broom, Cole emptied out the one-armed bandits, trundled heavy loads back to the counting room, and dumped the coins into machines that sorted, bagged, and weighed the take. Some days, he also drove Marie out to McCarran International, where Mr. Sy’s had banks of slot machines installed to catch incoming suckers first thing off the plane. On those trips Eddie was assigned to pilot an electric cart from one point to another, picking up as much as $30,000 on a busy day, escorting Marie to the airport’s branch bank for deposits.

The sight of so much easy cash gave Cole ideas, but he was smart enough to bide his time and plot things out before he made a move. No rush. The slots would always be there, and new suckers were arriving every day.

Most evenings, after work, he stopped in at the Silver Slipper to drink and play keno, limiting his bets to fifteen or twenty dollars per day. Cole rarely marked a winning card, but he let Mr. Sy cover his losses, palming a roll of quarters at work on the days when he planned to go gambling. “You have to understand,” he wrote, years later, “I had nothing but a drunken wife at home, so I was in no hurry to get there.”

One night at the Slipper, Cole met an attractive young woman who seemed totally out of her element, no transportation and nowhere to go. Las Vegas regulars can spot the type at fifty yards: they wear a vaguely dazed expression, almost glassy-eyed, and hang around the carpet joints as if they’re waiting for a long-lost friend. Unlike the stone habituals who show up wearing leather work gloves to protect their hands, refusing to be separated from a “lucky” slot machine at any cost, if it means urinating where they stand, the space cadets drift aimlessly and drop a nickel here, a quarter or a dollar there. Free liquor keeps them lubricated, snack bars keep them fed while money lasts, and they can hang around for days on end without encountering a clock.

Cole sized the new arrival up at once. Dark hair to match her sweater, slacks just tight enough to emphasize lean thighs and sculpted buttocks.

Nice.

They drank together for a while, made small talk, Eddie finally asking her if she could use a lift. Perhaps downtown? The woman shrugged, agreeable to anything, and Eddie walked her to his car.

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