Ashes to Dust (Las Vegas Mystery)

machine—did you notice?”
    Dows turned his head back facing Snow. “Oh yeah, he always shoves that thing in there as soon as he sits down. Everybody does. I guess they want the points. But most of the guests seem to believe they won’t get free drinks unless they use their card, which isn’t the case. The only rule they have here is that you can’t call the brand without the card. So that’s a good reason to use a player’s card—along with the points.”
    Snow nodded. “Plus you save two bucks per person on the buffet.”
    Dows grinned. “What a deal, huh?”
    “So, you say Andrew Tully was here Tuesday or Wednesday of last week?”
    “Now that I think about it,” Dows said, “I’m pretty sure it was Tuesday.”
    “Do you know what time it was when he got here?”
    “Middle of the afternoon, I think it was. I start at noon. And I seem to remember him coming in earlier than usual. Seemed like only a few hours after I started. Usually he gets here around five thirty or six. I’m off at eight, and he’s usually still here when I leave.”
    “What about Tuesday night?” Snow asked.
    “Yeah, he was still here, pounding them down like there’d be no tomorrow.”
    “He was drinking pretty heavy that day?”
    “Oh yeah. We had trouble keeping his glass filled.”
    “Does he usually drink that heavily?”
    Dows shrugged and tilted his head. “Sometimes, if there’s something bugging him. Otherwise he drinks at an average pace—maybe a couple drinks per hour.”
    Snow frowned and folded his arms in front of him. “Was there something bothering him last Tuesday night?”
    Dows nodded. “He was really nervous when he got here. Seemed jittery. Sweating a lot. Fidgeting. Couldn’t seem to get comfortable. Seemed really irritable.”
    “He’s not usually like that?” Snow asked.
    Dows shook his head. “No. He’s a nervous kind of guy. High strung, I guess. But I don’t remember ever seeing him like that.”
    “How long have you known him?”
    “A year,” Dows said. “That’s the length of time I’ve worked here.”
    Snow nodded. “Where’d you work before that?”
    “Tacoma, Washington,” Dows said.
    “Really? Tending bar up there?”
    Dows let out a breath and shook his head. “I had a moving business up there.”
    “What happened with that?” Snow unfolded his arms and sat down in one of the padded bar chairs.
    Dows put his hands on the inside lip of the bar and leaned against it. “Belly up,” he said, looking down at his knuckles. “I’m originally from Oregon. Grew up there. My family was into surveying. But that went down the tubes when the housing market went bust. So I took all the savings I had and started a moving business up in Tacoma. Bought my own moving truck and all the equipment to go with it.”
    “Why did you pick that neck of the woods?” Snow asked.
    “I liked it there, and it’s a fairly large city.”
    “You had some friends from Oregon go up there with you?”
    Dows shook his head. “No, I went up there alone; hired a guy to work with me. We couldn’t get enough business to make a go of it, so I had to lay him off and try to figure out what to do next.” He pushed back from the bar and put his hands in his front pockets. “I had the impression Las Vegas was the place to go when you need a fresh start. So I borrowed some money from my folks, moved down here, and went to bartender school.”
    “And they hired you here a year ago with no experience?” Snow said.
    “I had the bartender training,” Dows said.
    “But everyone’s been cutting back and laying off. Unemployment here has been over fourteen percent for a long time.”
    Dows raised his eyebrows and shrugged.
    “What’d you do with your moving truck?” Snow asked.
    “I’ve got it in storage in Oregon at my uncle’s place.”
    “I think you should get it and bring it down here,” Snow said. “People are moving out of Las Vegas in droves. They’re showing up at U-Haul without reservations, looking for anything they can rent—to get the hell out of here. It seems to me the moving business should be booming here right now, as long as you don’t mind driving cross-country.”
    Dows smiled. “You could be right. But now that I’ve got some income, I think I’d better stay put with this job for now. I’ll watch and see how it plays out.”
    Snow felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to see Alice standing next to him.
    “What did you find out?” he asked her.
    “He