The Good Thief's Guide to Vegas (19 page)

His mouth twisted. ‘Casino, maybe? But don’t mess with her, dude. You know who she is, right?’

Jared was about to say more when he was interrupted by an electronic ping. I thought of Victoria’s mobile in my back pocket and was poised to reach for it when Jared fumbled in his shorts and removed a cellphone of his own. He pressed a button with his thumb and read over the screen without a great deal of interest.

‘That’s my ride.’ He sniffed again. ‘I gotta go. You gonna be okay? You feeling dizzy?’

‘Oh, I’m feeling dizzy,’ I told him. ‘But I’ll be all right.’

‘You can rest awhile, if you need it. Doesn’t bother me no more.’

I held my left hand out to him and he did likewise. We shook awkwardly, in the manner of two men who are naturally right-handed, and then he shrugged his shoulders and lifted the packing crate, resting it on the padding of his bandage. He was halfway to the door when he turned to look back at me.

‘You should get out too, man. Find someplace else to start over.’

‘I’ll give it some thought.’

‘Yeah, well think fast. The Fisher brothers ain’t just today’s bad news. They’re tomorrow’s too.’

TWENTY-NINE

I watched Jared slouch off along the concrete balcony and down the stairs to the street, and then I ducked back inside his apartment. There wasn’t much to see. The living room and the room next to it were empty, and the only thing the bathroom contained was a roll of toilet paper. I tore off a couple of sheets, twisted them into knots and stuffed them up my nostrils. I grimaced at how ridiculous I looked in the bathroom mirror, then ran the cold tap over the flannel and did my best to scrub away some of the blood that had stained my T-shirt. All I succeeded in doing was making the T-shirt bloody
and
wet, which was really quite brilliant of me. Tossing the flannel into the sink, I went to check the kitchen.

The kitchen was much the same as the rest of the apartment. Every cupboard and drawer was empty, except for the drawer beneath the sink. The drawer didn’t contain anything of value. I found some wooden barbecue skewers, a roll of baking foil and a box of matches. I also found a carton of used playing cards from the Circus Circus casino. I didn’t pause to count the cards, but I did ease the pack into a spare pocket on my jeans by way of consolation for a wasted trip.

I suppose I could have used my picks to lock Jared’s apartment as I left, but there didn’t seem much point. And anyway, I was far more interested in flagging down a passing cab and making my way back to the Fifty-Fifty as soon as possible. My excursion hadn’t taken as long as I’d feared, and I had a couple of errands to run.

I was approaching the door to my hotel room from the direction of the service stairs when I glanced up and saw Victoria coming along the corridor towards me. She’d changed out of her cocktail dress into a mauve sweater and grey corduroy trousers. Her face brightened when she saw me, then knotted an instant later.

‘Christ, Charlie. Are you okay?’

It took me a moment to remember the bloody stain on the front of my T-shirt.

‘I’m fine. It’s no big deal.’

She put her head on one side and studied me curiously, stepping closer to look up at my nose. ‘Where have you been? You haven’t been walking around the hotel like that, have you?’

‘It’s just a bit of blood, Vic.’

She raised her hands and plucked the two corkscrews of tissue from my nostrils.

‘Ah,’ I said. ‘I’d forgotten about those.’ I grinned sheepishly and hefted the plastic shopping bag I held in my right hand. ‘Thought the sales staff were treating me a little strangely.’

Victoria broke into a tremendous grin. She held it for all of two seconds before glancing down and registering the blood on the toilet paper. ‘Eugh,’ she said, and pressed the tissues into my hand. ‘My God,’ she went on. ‘What happened to you? Your nose looks like somebody stepped on a grape.’

‘Charming. I got pushed into a doorframe, as it happens.’

I fumbled in my pocket for the key card to my room and slid it into the lock. I reached for the handle and a static charge buzzed through my fingers. I cursed under my breath, then kicked the door open and held it aside with my foot.

‘Who pushed you?’ Victoria asked, as she moved past me. ‘Was it Jared?’

‘Yup. But it was sort of an accident.’

‘An accident? How can that be?’

I entered the room behind her and mumbled a reply. Unfortunately, Victoria didn’t consider my mumbling to be quite good enough.

‘I can’t hear you, Charlie. Speak up.’

‘For some reason,’ I said, ‘he formed the opinion that I was an intruder.’

Victoria twirled around and planted her hands on her hips. ‘You broke into his home?’

‘Kind of.’

‘You bloody idiot. Don’t you think we’re in enough trouble already?’

‘The thought had occurred to me.’

I moved across to my holdall and searched through it until I found the grey record bag I sometimes use to carry my laptop. I filled the record bag with the contents of my shopping bag, then added my spectacles case, Victoria’s mobile, Josh’s wallet, my cigarettes and one or two other items for good measure.

‘What did you buy?’ she asked, with an exasperated sigh.

‘Just a few bits and bobs. Oh, and some chocolate.’

I threw a Hershey bar to Victoria, then ripped open my own snack and inhaled the sickly-sweet delight in a shade under three mouthfuls. I was still chewing as I peeled off my bloody T-shirt and moved into the bathroom. I soaped my chest with the complimentary hotel body wash, then patted myself down with a towel.

Victoria appeared in the bathroom doorway, nibbling on her chocolate bar.

‘See what I mean about the squashed grape?’

I contemplated my swollen nose in the mirror above the sink. It was sore and tender, but I didn’t believe it was broken. ‘I guess that’s why I’m the writer,’ I said. ‘It looks pretty normal to me.’

‘It’s ginormous.’

‘There’s a tiny amount of swelling.’

‘And it’s all squished. As if you’re pressing it up against a window.’

‘It’s not that bad.’

‘Yes, it is.’

I abandoned the mirror to go and find a clean T-shirt. The one I chose was hooded with long sleeves, and it was green in colour. I thought it would complement my grape-like nose.

‘Should I ask how things went with Jared?’ Victoria went on. ‘Or is your nose answer enough?’

‘He talked to me, if that’s what you mean. But I didn’t get a lead on Josh.’

‘Bummer.’

‘And his hand . . .’ I shuddered. ‘Let’s just say Josh has messed up Jared’s life good and proper. He’s leaving Vegas as we speak.’

‘Poor guy.’

‘What about you? Any luck tracking down Caitlin?’

Victoria took another bite of her chocolate bar. ‘I hung around by the theatre, as you suggested,’ she said, before swallowing. ‘There was no one there, so I tried the same thing outside the Rat Pack show and managed to speak to a couple of the dancers.’

‘And?’

She belched and covered her mouth with her hand. ‘Gosh,’ she said. ‘Excuse me.’

‘You’re excused. Provided you hurry up and tell me what they said.’

‘They said that the Fisher Twins have a cabin at a place called Mount Charleston. It’s an hour outside Las Vegas, and apparently it’s where Caitlin spends a lot of her time. I don’t have a telephone number or an address, but I’m told it’s impossible to miss – it’s the largest place by quite some distance.’

I looked at my watch and scratched the back of my head. It was shortly after two o’clock, so there was no way I could get out there and break into the twins’ office all in the same afternoon.

‘It’s okay,’ Victoria told me. ‘I’ve been down to the concierge and hired myself a car. I can go by myself. I’ll do my best to find her, Charlie.’

‘Thank you,’ I said, and meant it. ‘I’ll keep my fingers crossed.’ I lifted my hand and frowned at my taped digits. ‘Not that I can do much else, of course.’

Victoria smiled. ‘Are you ready for what you need to do?’

‘As I’ll ever be. I’ve just been up to Floor Forty-nine on a scouting mission.’

‘And? How did it look?’

‘Honestly? It looked as if I’m going to need some help.’

THIRTY

I hadn’t wanted to involve Kojar or Sal in my attempt to get my hands on the juice list. In fact, when Maurice had suggested the notion back at his home, I’d gone to great lengths to explain why I needed to work alone. I was an expert at sneaking into and out of places unnoticed, I’d told him, and it wouldn’t do to have novices along for the ride – especially ones as conspicuous as those two. Besides, I’d added (somewhat misleadingly), if I was by myself and I happened to get caught, there was no danger of the Fisher Twins linking Maurice to the job.

I must have been more convincing than I realised, because when I changed my mind and telephoned Maurice to say that I couldn’t do the job alone, he was more than a little reticent. Eventually, though, he agreed that Kojar and Sal could be excused from the matinée performance of their circus revue to lend me a hand, so long as I didn’t ‘screw up’ and land us all in a ‘shit storm’ of trouble. It seemed an odd kind of bargain to me, but I thanked him anyway, then slung my record bag over my shoulder and accompanied Victoria downstairs to claim her hire car. I watched her drive away in a Chrysler PT Cruiser, eager to make sure that she didn’t veer onto the left-hand side of the Strip, and afterwards I cooled my heels in the grand hotel foyer as I waited for my accomplices to arrive.

My wait had barely begun when I became aware of a commotion over by the check-in desks. A group of women in gaudy outfits were arguing with the hotel staff. Their language was every bit as colourful as their clothing, and their waistlines were very nearly as big as their hair. The loudest of the women was familiar to me. She was still wearing the Dalmatian-print blouse that she’d discarded on the floor of Dirty Harry’s hotel room, and she held a padded brown envelope in her hand.

As I watched, she pulled a wad of notes from the envelope and thrust them across the counter, instantly extinguishing the objections of the hotel staff. I heard her demand three adjoining rooms, and while the staff complied with her instructions, her companions smacked gum, cocked their hips and brazenly stared down anyone unfortunate enough to look in their direction.

I held back until the women had strutted away with their room keys before moving close and tapping Harry’s girl on the shoulder. She turned sharply, full of aggression.

‘Yeah? What now?’ she snapped.

‘Easy,’ I told her, and pointed to the envelope. ‘I just wanted to say that I know where you got that.’

She looked from me, to the envelope, and back again. She tipped her head onto her shoulder and squinted hard at my face. In the bright lights of the foyer, she appeared older than I’d previously thought. A flock of crow’s feet marked her face.

‘I know you?’ she asked.

‘Nope.’

She eyed the envelope again, then glanced over her shoulder to where her group of friends were passing through the casino. By the time she turned back, she seemed to have decided that I was no more than a fantasist. ‘You don’t know nothing,’ she told me, with an ugly snarl.

‘I’m afraid that’s not so. For instance, I know enough to call Space Station One and ask to be put through to Harry’s room.’

She clutched the envelope against her bosom, as if she feared I might reach out and snatch it from her.

‘Who are you?’ she asked slowly.

‘That’s not important.’

‘Then what is it you want?’

I didn’t know what I wanted. Truth be told, I didn’t know why I’d confronted her in the first place. Yes, getting some of the money would have been nice, but I couldn’t see her handing it over without a fight, and right now was hardly a good time to draw attention to myself. And the talk of calling Harry’s room was simply a bluff. I wasn’t outraged by her crime – I was just irritated that she’d taken the money before
I’d
had a chance to.

So I guess what it came down to was spite – a desire to make things difficult for her. But now that I’d seen how she was destined to spend the money – entertaining her friends, maybe paying for a meal and a show, maybe losing it all at the craps table – any desire I’d had to cause trouble for her began to desert me.

‘Only to tell you to have a good time,’ I found myself saying.

‘Huh?’

I backed off, abandoning her to her confusion. ‘Oh, and to recommend that you don’t leave all that cash in the safe in your room. Believe me, it’s really not as secure as you might imagine.’

It was nearing three o’clock by the time Sal and Kojar finally showed up, and so without further ado I led them upstairs by somewhat more, and somewhat less, legal means until we reached a locked store room located on Floor 49.

Once I’d picked the door open and closed it behind us, I cleared a space on the tiled floor and used my finger and a helpful layer of grime to explain what I needed Kojar and Sal to do. In truth, I’d seen Wile E Coyote sketch out more complicated plans, but I still had to go over it twice before they were happy. Fortunately, my scheme didn’t involve anything so difficult to obtain as Acme Dynamite, and I had only to arm myself with my questionable acting ability as I stepped out into the corridor and set things in motion.

The security guard on duty was perched on a high stool behind a curved wooden counter, just a couple of metres from the door I was aiming to access. He was a squat fellow, with bulging, ruddy cheeks and a well-cultivated moustache. He had on the same vintage cop uniform as the guards downstairs, only his polyester shirt was pulled very tight across his drooping pecs and fatty shoulders. The brim of his angular hat was tilted so low that I could barely see his eyes, and I found myself talking to his moustache as I hurried towards him.

‘Security? Thank God. I just heard a woman scream back here.’

I jerked my thumb over my shoulder and did my best to appear spooked. The guard’s moustache twitched and squirmed, and he reached out towards the two-way radio on his counter.

‘You need to come right away,’ I added. ‘I really think she’s in trouble.’

I turned, as if to jog back in the direction I’d come from. The guard stepped down from his stool, but he was still uncertain. His head turned towards the stairwell door, and he snatched up his radio and raised it towards his lips.

‘You need to hurry.’

I grabbed him by the wrist, preventing him from speaking into the radio. He obviously didn’t work out too often, because he was panting by the time I’d dragged him as far as the store room.

‘Listen,’ I said, and pushed his bulky frame towards the door.

A high, squeaky mewling became audible.

‘Sounds like a cat,’ the guard commented.

He was right – it did sound like a cat – and I began to realise that Sal’s acting range was even more limited than my own.

‘Don’t you think you should check?’

Sal picked up my cue and gave it his best shot. His voice came out sounding midway between Shirley Temple and a Smurf.

‘Oh, help me,’ he wailed. ‘Please, help me.’

‘Gee, I don’t know,’ the guard said, and fiddled with a knob on the top of his radio. ‘I better call this in.’

I’d had enough of his dawdling, so I kicked open the door, grabbed him by the tie and yanked him inside the store room. Kojar welcomed him with a crushing embrace, picked him up, turned him around and dropped him clean on his head.

‘Holy crap,’ I said. The guard was a crumple of uniform and moustache on the floor. ‘Did you just kill him?’

Kojar shrugged, as if he wasn’t entirely sure, and then he lifted the guard by the ankle, bent at the waist and sniffed around his face. He seemed perplexed for a moment. Then he snapped his head away and covered his nose with his hand, as though he’d just chanced upon something foul-smelling in the back of his refrigerator.

‘He breathes,’ Kojar announced. ‘But he eat bad eggs for breakfast.’

‘You weren’t meant to knock him unconscious,’ I told him. ‘Remember? I need the code to get through the door.’

Kojar and Sal looked up at me for a moment, wide-eyed, as though this was news to them.

‘Forget it,’ I said. ‘You might as well go ahead and remove his uniform.’

Sal looked dubious. ‘You want us to undress the guy?’ he asked, in his high nasal drone.

‘We’ve been over this already.’

‘Yeah, but I ain’t no fairy.’

‘Fine. I’ll do it. Kojar, lift him up.’

I must say, I could get used to having a brainless giant at my beck and call. On my command, Kojar let go of the guard’s ankle, cupped his hands beneath the man’s chin and held him aloft at around chest-height (or head-height for a normal human being) with his feet dangling in mid-air. It struck me that Kojar looked a lot like an athlete preparing to throw the hammer, and that perhaps the guard was lucky to be unconscious, after all.

Since I was afraid that the guard’s head might come off in Kojar’s hands, I did my best to remove his clothes as quickly as possible. Once I was done and the guard was stripped to a white cotton vest, paisley boxer shorts and navy socks, I worked with Sal to bind his wrists behind his back with his necktie while Kojar secured the man’s belt buckle around his ankles. I had to remind Kojar not to pull the belt so tight that the guard’s feet would be severed, but by the time we were through he was neatly trussed up.

I went through the guard’s pockets until I found a swipe card and then I gathered his radio and threw it to Kojar. He caught it in his meaty hand, giving the device the appearance of a child’s toy, and at that point it finally dawned on me that part of my plan was fundamentally flawed.

My original idea had been for Kojar to dress in the guard’s uniform and to stand watch at the security desk. But if Kojar tried pulling on the guard’s trousers or buttoning his shirt, he’d wind up looking like Dr Bruce Banner soon after transforming into the Hulk.

I tossed Kojar the guard’s hat. ‘This’ll have to do,’ I said. ‘No point in you putting on his clothes.’

I looked at what he was wearing. From behind the security desk, nobody would be able to see his sweat pants or his athletic trainers. His vest was a different story. Sure, it was blue, but it was also sleeveless in order to show off his muscles, and combined with the hat, there was a real danger he might look like a Chippendale midway into a themed strip.

‘If anyone asks, just tell them that you’re new and your uniform is on order.’

Kojar nodded, and set the hat onto his head at a jaunty angle.

‘And if you hear anything on the radio that suggests we’re in trouble, well, do what you can.’

He touched the peak of his hat and smiled inanely.

I looked over at Sal. He was crouched beside the guard, monitoring his breathing.

‘How’s he doing?’

‘Still out cold.’

I nodded at his diagnosis, then rooted through my record bag and removed a strip of sticking plaster and a pair of nail scissors. I cut a mouth-sized patch of the plaster, peeled off the paper backing and smoothed the makeshift gag over the guard’s mouth, making sure that he could still breathe through his nose.

I returned to my bag for my spectacles case, a small make-up compact and two latex masks.

Now admittedly, when I’d walked along the corridor to lure the guard towards the store room, I hadn’t been able to hide my face. And on top of that, I’d directed Kojar and Sal through some restricted areas in the hotel. So it stood to reason that any number of cameras could have recorded our features. But even so, I thought that wearing a mask was still a worthwhile precaution.

On the downside, a desert town wasn’t the ideal place to buy ski masks at short notice, and the best alternative I’d been able to find had been on sale in the souvenir store outside the Rat Pack theatre show.

‘You’re kidding, right?’ squeaked Sal, when I passed him one of the masks.

‘I’m afraid not.’

I pressed my own mask against my face and snapped the elastic strap onto the back of my head, jiggling the thing around until I’d aligned the eyeholes properly.

‘How come I don’t get to be Frank?’

I cocked my head on my shoulders. ‘Glad you asked. We’re doing this My Way.’

Sal grimaced and showed me his crooked teeth, as if someone had just whistled in his ear at an unbearable pitch. Then he lowered his face to fix his own mask. When he looked up again, he’d been transformed into a pint-sized Dean Martin.

I opened the make-up compact in my hand and used the circular mirror to check on the smiling rubber visage of one Francis Albert Sinatra.

‘This is real dumb,’ Sal told me.

‘You’re probably right. But it’s non-negotiable.’

I peered out at him from behind the slits in my mask. The slits narrowed my vision in a way I wasn’t especially keen on, making it seem as though I was looking through a letter box.

‘Talking of non-negotiable,’ I said, and tossed him a pair of scrunched-up plastic gloves. ‘I’m afraid they don’t make them any smaller.’

‘Are you for real?’

‘If you plan on touching anything, you’ll wear them.’ I worked my own gloves onto my hands, taking care not to snag the plastic on my taped fingers. Then I pointed at the door. ‘Gentlemen, shall we?’

I locked up behind us and followed the pair of them along the corridor, stationing Kojar behind the security desk and Sal where he could keep watch for anyone who might be approaching. Then I crouched down to confront the locking mechanism on the stairwell door.

Thanks to the security guard, I already had the appropriate swipe card in my possession, so the only obstacle that remained was the electronic combination keypad. The numbers on the keypad ran from zero through to nine, and Maurice had said that there was a six-digit code. Originally, I’d hoped that Kojar would be able to extract the code from the security guard, but since all Kojar had managed to extract from the security guard was a faraway look and a long series of zzz’s, I was going to have to fall back on a trick that had worked for me once before in Amsterdam.

The make-up compact, you see, had been emptied of foundation powder and re-filled with fingerprint powder, of the kind that certain resourceful individuals are willing to sell over the internet. By the by, certain even more resourceful individuals are willing to sell talcum powder over the internet and claim that it’s fingerprint powder, but since I’d taken the precaution of testing my latest batch, I was hopeful that it could help me to narrow my odds of getting through the door.