The Good Thief's Guide to Vegas (20 page)

With that in mind, I used the tiny brush fitted inside the compact to apply a fine layer of powder to each numbered key before shining my penlight over the results. I was somewhat dismayed by the mass of prints that materialised. They were adhered to every single key, a whole spectrum of whorls and arches and loops. I sighed and shook my head. I was still shaking my head when a thick finger appeared from over my shoulder and punched in a six-digit sequence.

I turned and scowled at Kojar from behind my mask. Of course, he couldn’t see my expression, so maybe that explained the beatific smile on his face.

‘What the hell are you doing?’

‘I enter code.’

‘You can’t just guess, Kojar. This thing is wired to detect false numbers. You enter too many, and it locks down completely.’

Kojar frowned at me, then held up a piece of laminated pink card with Sellotape around the edges. Printed on the card was the following information:
Door code 5-8-8-3-2-6.

‘Where did you get that?’

‘On counter.’

I looked from Kojar, to the security desk, and back again.

‘Why didn’t you just tell me it was there?’

Kojar shrugged, and looked genuinely perplexed by my question.

‘Oh, never mind. Give it to me.’

I snatched at the laminated card and went through the routine of swiping the key card and tapping in the numbered sequence. A green bulb lit up, the locking mechanism buzzed and the door sprang open on its hinges.

I held the door open with the toe of my shoe, wiped the fingerprint powder from the keypad with the hem of my shirt and whistled at Sal.

‘With me, Short Round. We have work to do.’

THIRTY-ONE

The service stairs were deserted and I led Sal straight up to Floor 50. Another magnetic card reader and combination keypad barred our way. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the swipe card and the door code and put them to good use. The door clunked open and I set my eye to the crack. I could see a slither of corridor, a frosted glass partition and two security cameras. A fire hose and an axe were set into the wall on my left, and the ceiling contained air vents and a smoke sensor.

I scoped the area behind the door. The corridor ended just a few feet away in a solid-looking wall. I wound my head back in and reacquainted it with my shoulders, then wedged my record bag into the gap between door and jamb.

Sal was trying to look out from behind my legs. I lifted him to one side and turned my attention to the service stairs. This was supposed to be the top floor of the main hotel tower, but the stairs appeared to continue upwards. I climbed as far as a half-landing, then turned and faced up to two double doors with daylight visible around the edges. A sign attached to the wall warned me that they were wired into an alarm system. I gave the alarm some respect to begin with, but I was soon able to disarm it with a steady hand and a strip of lead taken from my spectacles case.

I pushed the doors open and squinted through my mask against the mid-afternoon sun, shielding my eyes with my hand as I peered up at the giant 50-cent coin twirling overhead. From street-level, the coin had seemed to move with a soundless efficiency, but up here it creaked and screeched as though it was sorely in need of some oil. Below the spinning coin was the glass exterior of the counter-revolving, rooftop restaurant. The glass walls were tinted, but I could see the outline of people on the inside, and since I was afraid of being spotted, I ducked back into the stairwell and swung the door closed behind me.

I was still blinking away the sun glare when I made it back down to Sal. He had his hands on his hips and was tapping the toe of his yellow sneaker on the floor in an impatient rhythm. His Dean Martin mask was the only part of him that seemed happy.

‘What’s next?’ he asked.

I crouched towards my record bag and undid the zip, saying, ‘You heard Maurice. The twins’ office is just along this corridor. They should be on the way to their golf club by now.’

‘Sure, but they have staff, right?’

‘Two personal assistants, at the very least.’

‘So what gives? You have guns?’

I stopped what I was doing and searched out the blacks of his eyes from behind Dean’s face.

‘That’s not how this is going to happen.’

‘Knives, then?’

I sighed, and felt my breath wash back from the inside of my mask.

‘So what – you have a Taser in there?’

‘I have cigarettes.’

‘Huh?’

I pulled out my box of cigarettes and waggled them in the air. It took me a couple more minutes to bring Sal fully up to speed, and I can’t say he was altogether convinced by my approach. He even went so far as to check my bag to make sure that I really wasn’t in possession of any concealed weapons. Once he was convinced that I didn’t have a machete or a compact nuclear device squirreled away in a zipped side-pouch, he went on to suggest that perhaps he could arm himself with the fire axe from the corridor and ‘go native on their asses’.

Thankfully, I was able to dissuade him from adopting that particular approach, and after a good deal of coaching, he finally seemed to grasp the notion that it would be really quite neat if we could get our hands on the juice list without anybody knowing a thing about it.

I stabbed a cigarette through the slot in Dean’s mouth.

‘I ain’t sure I can smoke through this thing,’ Sal whined, the cigarette jostling from side to side.

‘Sure you can,’ I said, and set the flame of my lighter to the end of the cigarette.

He inhaled, then coughed, and a plume of smoke emerged through the mouth and eye slits of his mask.

‘How about you do the smoking?’ he croaked.

‘You want me to stand on your shoulders and show you why that’s a terrible idea?’

The eyes behind the mask narrowed but Dean’s expression didn’t alter in the slightest.

‘You sure this’ll work?’

‘Only one way to answer that.’

I eased the door open and sneaked into the corridor, then beckoned Sal towards me with an exaggerated sweep of my arm, as if I was welcoming the real Dean Martin onto the main stage at the Sands. Sal shuffled over and I dropped to my knees and bowed my head.

‘Need a boost?’

‘Nah,’ he squeaked. ‘I can handle it.’

Two tiny hands gripped onto my neck, followed by the tread of a toddler-like shoe on the small of my back. A second shoe thumped into the rear of my left lung, and then his right foot was up on my shoulder. He teetered for a moment and clawed at my hair.

‘Steady?’

‘Just hurry it along, already.’

I straightened, with my hands supporting his ankles. Tipping my head back, I saw that the top of his head was brushing the ceiling. The smoke alarm was off to his right, and I moved towards it with the kind of stride he obviously wasn’t used to.

‘Whoa, buddy.’

He overbalanced and circled his arms, and I had to step backwards to stop us both from tumbling over.

‘Better?’

He coughed, and a great cloud of cigarette smoke rolled across the underside of the ceiling.

‘Perfect,’ I whispered. ‘Give it some more.’

Before too long, Sal really got into the swing of things, and he became so confident that he was able to stand on tiptoes and cup his mouth over the smoke sensor before exhaling. The smoke enveloped the plastic moulding, wafting back over his masked face. He pulled away, then drew on the glowing cigarette and exhaled again. The fresh burst did the trick. After a moment’s hesitation, a small whine started up, followed seconds later by a great droning clamour.

I rolled my shoulders and caught Sal in my arms like a baby, then stooped to collect my record bag and backed out through the door. I carried Sal up beyond the half-landing and set him down on a step beside the doors to the roof.

‘I could have walked, you know,’ he said.

‘Of course you could.’

‘You didn’t have to carry me.’

‘Hush. I hear people coming.’

It wasn’t true. Above the whap and whop of the alarm, I could barely hear myself speak, but I was hoping to hear footfall and I preferred to wait for it in silence.

Not long afterwards, the door to the service stairs thudded back against the wall and I heard female voices and the percussion of stiletto heels. Flighty chatter echoed upwards as the women made their way downstairs. They didn’t appear to be distressed and I thought that was understandable. Short of seeing flames, most people would assume that the alarm was just an exercise, and I guessed there was a muster station just a couple of floors below, where they’d congregated during routine tests in the past.

Sal shuffled forward and tried to force his head through the railings. I hauled him back and held him at bay with an outstretched arm pressed against Dean’s latex forehead.

‘Hey!’ he shrieked.

‘Ssshh.’

‘They gone?’

‘Ssshh.’

It was difficult to know how many people to wait for. Moving before the office was evacuated was a sure way to get caught, but if we waited too long, hotel security would be on the scene and we’d have missed our opportunity.

‘I think we’re clear.’

The moment the words were out of my mouth, the door thumped into the wall again and a pair of high heels clattered down the stairs.

‘That was close.’

‘You figure she’s the last one?’

‘Here’s hoping.’

The alarm was much fiercer out in the corridor. I winced and bent at the waist, scurrying forward as though running from a mortar attack. The wailing swelled inside my head, pushing all sense and caution out through my ears. I bundled into the frosted glass partition and craned my neck around to survey the area. Sal did the same thing down by my waist. I couldn’t see anyone and apparently neither could he, because he squirmed past my legs and moved on before I was able to stop him.

The reception had the feel of a private gentlemen’s club. It was styled with leather couches and chairs, low mahogany coffee-tables spread with golfing magazines, polished brass standing lamps, cigar boxes, whisky decanters, and a large oil painting of a hunting scene.

On the opposite side of the room was a long wooden counter (also mahogany), which was empty aside from a pen-set and guest ledger. Behind the counter were two cushioned swivel chairs where I imagined the twins’ personal assistants were usually to be found, as well as two laptops and two telephones that looked complex enough to navigate warships. Between the telephones was a television monitor. The on-screen images were divided into quarters, with the uppermost segments featuring the empty interior of an elevator carriage. In the bottom-right segment, I could see Kojar fussing with his new hat, tugging it down over his ears as though he was aiming to convert it into a cravat.

To my left was a solid-looking door. Two brass plates were affixed to it, bearing the names
Mr R. Fisher
and
Mr G. Fisher
. I didn’t know if the twins had fought over the order in which their names would be positioned, but once I tried the brass handle I did at least know that the door had been locked.

I was glad that the door was locked because it reduced the likelihood of anyone being on the opposite side. The variety of cylinder that had been fitted beneath the handle was familiar to me, and while opening it wasn’t entirely straightforward, it didn’t take much more than a minute to select the necessary implements from my spectacles case and pick my way through.

The first thing I did once we were on the other side was to lock the door behind us. The second thing was to remove my mask, since I couldn’t imagine the twins allowing surveillance cameras inside their office. Lastly, I let go of a sigh of contentment, because by happy coincidence, the alarm had just stopped.

THIRTY-TWO

To describe the twins’ office as grand would be an understatement. I’d been in airport departure lounges that were more modest. The view from the floor-to-ceiling windows at the end of the room took in the Strip, the geometric McMansions of suburbia, the peaks of the Red Rock Mountains beyond, and very possibly infinity too. Beneath the picture windows was a sleek conference table that could seat at least twenty-five guests, while the middle ground was filled with an extensive collection of lounge chairs and sofas, upholstered in plush fabrics and leathers, and separated from one another by standing lamps and exotic houseplants. The wall behind the seating area had been clad in large slate tiles, and was dominated by a huge, unlit fireplace. Another oil painting featuring a hunting scene was positioned above the limestone mantel.

Closer to us (and by closer I mean within driving distance), were a pair of curved, cherrywood desks that had been arranged beside one another to form a horseshoe. They were free of all clutter, aside from matching pen-sets with tiny American flags poking out of them.

A circular mosaic was located on the floor just in front of the desks. Unlike your average mosaic, this one had been created with casino chips. The outer rim was made up of white chips, with a black concentric border, and the centrepiece was a 50-cent coin fashioned from neatly arranged silver markers. If I could have prised the chips out of the mixture of mortar and resin that contained them, and somehow replaced them with worthless replicas, I could have made myself very rich indeed. Sadly for me, the best I could do was to drop to my knees, run my fingers over the pattern and emit a low whimper, before at last turning my attention to the thin, dark crevice that ran around the perimeter of the coin.

Now that I knew there was a good chance that Maurice’s information had been accurate, I found my feet and walked around to the opposite side of the desks. I’d been led to understand that it didn’t matter which desk I started with – they were both as identical as the men who owned them – and from what I could see, that certainly appeared to be the case.

The desks were very fine pieces of furniture, made with obvious skill. The aged cherry timber had been turned and finished with great care, so that every join appeared utterly flawless. Each desk contained a number of locked drawers arranged on either side of the central knee-hole, and the locking furniture and handles had been manufactured in a becoming shade of brushed steel.

I wheeled aside the leather swivel chair from the desk on the right, ducked down into the knee-hole and clicked my fingers at Sal. Sal had tipped his mask up onto the top of his head, so I could see just how much he relished my snapping my fingers at him.

‘Go and wait by the door,’ I whispered. ‘See if anyone is moving around out there.’

As Sal muttered and mumbled across to the door, I delved inside my record bag for my penlight and cast the beam around the underside of the desk-top. After some searching, I spied a tiny keyhole, about half the size of the nail on my little finger. I ran my fingertip over the opening and screwed up my face in disgust, and then I reached for my spectacles case and hunted for one of the smallest picks I carried.

It wasn’t that the lock was especially difficult to open – desk locks rarely are – it was just that it was so damn fiddly. I guess a guy in my line of work should learn to get used to these things, but miniature locks are one of my bugbears. True, they tend to offer up less resistance to being forced, but if you want to do things right, it can be frustrating as hell trying to hold your hand steady enough to defeat one of the little buggers, and this particular example was truly dinky. If my first impressions were correct, none of the pins would be any bigger than the mechanics in the stolen watch that was struggling to keep time on my wrist, and I could already tell it was going to vex me.

Imagine facing up to an average-sized doll’s house and trying to poke a scaled-down key into the lock on the front door. Tricky, right? Well, maybe not so tough if you happen to be the same size as Sal, but teeth-grindingly, stomach-clenchingly, hair-pullingly infuriating for me.

Then again, if it had been simple, I don’t suppose I would have experienced the warm, fuzzy feeling that coursed through my veins when the itsy-bitsy pins eventually succumbed to my charms and the teeny tumblers turned and the little cherrywood hatch dropped down from above.

I have to admit it felt good. Mind you, that was nothing compared to the sweet sensation I experienced when I repeated the entire process beneath the second desk and a matching hatch eased down. I called Sal back from the door and waited for him to join me (without, I noticed, any need to bow his head), and then I guided his hand up inside the hatch and rested his teeny finger on the plastic button I found there. That done, I scrambled back to the first desk and located my own button. On the count of three, we pressed down, and I watched from below the three-quarter height kickboard as the floor mosaic popped up on a soundless, concealed hinge to reveal a circular orifice.

I squirmed beneath the kickboard on my belly and crawled on my hands and knees as far as the edge of the hole. I peered over the rim and a classic Schmidt & Co combination-lock safe stared back.

The safe was buried in hard-set concrete to a depth of approximately three feet. It was round in shape, with a green metal fascia, a reinforced steel door and an eighty-digit combination dial. The cylindrical space that led down to it was just large enough for a grown man to poke his head and shoulders inside, and I did just that.

‘Pass me my bag,’ I said, into the hole.

My bag thumped onto my back. I wriggled out and turned to see Sal dusting his hands off.

‘Thanks.’

‘Hey, no problem.’

I removed a pad of graph paper and a pencil. Since I’d been forewarned about the type of safe I’d be dealing with, I’d already gone to the trouble of drawing some hasty graphs on the opening pages. Normally, completing the graph was something I liked to do myself, but since I was going to have my head stuck down inside a cramped hole, it seemed that I would have to entrust Sal with the job.

‘Take these,’ I told him. ‘I want you to put a pencil mark on the graph for every number I call out.’

I beckoned to him and demonstrated what I meant. He snatched the pad away with an attitude that suggested I was vastly underestimating him.

‘Pass me the pencil already. You can trust me.’

I hate it when someone says that, but I handed the pencil across anyway before returning to my bag for a physician’s stethoscope. As a general rule, I don’t like to use a stethoscope. In theory, it’s supposed to make it easier to hear the click of the contact dials on the wheelpack engaging, but I find that it just makes me aware of other noises coming from the inner workings of the safe, or even my arthritic finger-joints. I much prefer to use my naked ear and my gut instinct, but the location of this particular safe made that impossible. So the stethoscope was a necessary evil, as was the pen-light I gripped in my teeth. I flashed Sal a smile, along with a beam of light, and then I dived down into the hole and set to work.

Safe manipulation is the purest and neatest way to defeat a locked safe, but the downside is that the technique requires a good deal of time and patience. It relies on the application of practical maths, a keen ear and a sound understanding of safe mechanics. And on top of all that, it involves a dose of good fortune, because while it’s usually possible to identify the numbers that make up a particular combination, there’s no way of knowing what order those numbers should be entered in.

Just to add to the challenge, the wily technicians at Schmidt & Co had constructed nearly all of their moving parts from plastics and nylons. That made it about as hard as it could get to hear any tell-tale clicks and clunks, and next to impossible to feel any resistance through the combination dial, especially when I was hanging upside down with my head and upper body in a space a little smaller than the drum of a tumble-dryer.

Twenty minutes in, and all the blood in my system seemed to have collected in my head. My temples were buzzing and my face felt hot and prickly, as if it had been jammed inside a vegetable steamer. I backed up out of the hole and lay flat on my back, yanked the stethoscope from my ears and held my hand out for the pad. The graph that Sal had produced was made up of a series of jagged peaks and troughs, representing the possible ranges of just two numbers. I wafted the pad above my face and tried my best not to groan.

‘How much longer you think this will take?’ Sal asked.

‘An hour. Maybe more.’

‘Are you kidding me?’

‘It could be less. But then we have to run the combinations.’

‘And how long will
that
take?’ If anything, his voice had become even higher than usual.

‘At a minute per combination? You don’t want to know.’

Sal put his face in his hands, and I was left to consider Dean Martin’s inappropriately smug demeanour.

‘We have, like, an hour and forty-five minutes, max.’

‘In that case, we’d best crack on.’

If he picked up on the pun, he didn’t show it. Instead, he gripped onto the pencil with both hands and sat quite rigidly at the edge of the hole.

I worked as swiftly as possible for the next half-hour, not even pausing when my head began to pound. It felt like I’d called out a good many numbers, and so far as I could tell, most of them were accurate. A couple of times, Sal tapped me on the back and told me to cool it while he investigated a suspect noise on the other side of the door. The reception staff had returned soon after I’d begun manipulating the safe, and usually he reported back to say that he’d heard a telephone ring, or the whirr of a document shredder. I can’t say I was staggered by his revelations, though I was always relieved to be able to continue. With each number I called out, we were moving steadily towards the next stage of the process and, just maybe, an improbable triumph.

Of course, as soon as a thought of that nature entered my head, things were bound to fall apart, and it wasn’t long before Sal tapped me on the shoulder for perhaps the fifth time and I hauled my head out of the hole to give him a piece of my mind. It was bad enough to be interrupted, I was about to tell him, but to be interrupted just to hear that somebody was using a photocopier was really beginning to wear on my nerves.

As it happened, I didn’t say anything, because it was immediately apparent from the haunted expression on Sal’s face that something was about to go very wrong indeed. He pointed towards the bottom of the door, where the bar of light had darkened in the middle. I heard a throaty chuckle, followed by the noise of a key being fitted into the lock.

I’ve heard it said that some people find themselves paralysed in dangerous situations, but I’m most certainly not one of them. In the seconds that followed, my brain considered and discounted a number of possible hiding spots, and before the door was even halfway open, I’d selected the right-hand desk and dived for its cover. I even had the presence of mind to toss my equipment and my record bag into the crawl-space ahead of me, but as I dragged my legs and my feet under the kickboard and grunted with the final, heroic effort of snatching my toes out of harm’s way, I realised with a sudden dread that I’d overlooked one trifling detail. The mosaic hatch was still open.