The Good Thief's Guide to Vegas (23 page)

THIRTY-SEVEN

We waited beneath the shade of some palm trees while one of the valets retrieved Josh’s car. It was a bright, sun-drenched afternoon, the kind of weather that didn’t fit with my mood. If I’d written the scene myself, rain would have been lashing down from a brooding grey sky, and Faulks would have been soaked clean through, with his clothes stuck to his skin like webbing.

In fairness, my underarms were perspiring rather heavily, but it wasn’t quite the same thing. The audio didn’t help, either. Birdsong and idle fountain splatter filled the air, along with the carefree conversations of tourists waiting in line for a cab and the hum of traffic out on the Strip. Hardly the stuff of nightmares.

At least the vintage automobiles parked behind us in the hotel foyer conjured up some of the atmosphere I might have expected. If I squinted over at the Packards and Buicks and Studebakers, I could even have believed I was in the middle of a hardboiled
noir
. Of course, if that was the case, I’d need to brace myself for a bittersweet ending that might not involve the neatly packaged solution for which I’d been hoping.

‘What are you thinking about?’ Victoria whispered.

‘Oh, nothing.’

‘Nothing?’

‘Too tired to think.’

‘Well, that’s unfortunate, because I have a question. What do we do if the car is a dead end?’

‘We could run.’

‘Think we’d make it?’

‘No, but we might shed a few pounds from that breakfast buffet.’

Victoria kicked me in the shin.

‘Ouch. That’s not going to make running away any easier.’

She turned her back on me and looked over towards Ricks and the Fisher Twins. They were standing in a huddle with their hands in their pockets and their heads bowed in conference. Caitlin was close by, grinding her toe into the pavement. It might have been a good opportunity to make our escape, if only Ricks hadn’t arranged for a group of security guards to watch over us.

‘What about those cuffs you’re wearing?’ Victoria asked. ‘Could you loosen them?’

‘Not without a pencil. Or better still, one of my picks.’ I nodded towards one of the security guards who happened to be holding my record bag.

‘How about a biro?’

I grinned at her. ‘That might do.’

Victoria delved inside her handbag, then acted as if she couldn’t find what she’d been looking for and palmed a biro across to me. A purist would say she did it all wrong, but so far as I could tell, there were no purists watching.

‘Houdini would be proud.’

‘Are you going to do it now?’

‘Let’s just see what the car brings first.’

I’d barely finished speaking when a gleaming Lexus sedan pulled up and a young valet stepped out in a polo-shirt and pressed shorts. He went to hand the keys to one of the Fisher Twins but Caitlin hurried forward and claimed them for herself. She scrambled inside the Lexus and scanned the interior. The rest of us crowded around and watched through the open door as she searched the glove box and a selection of ashtrays and cup-holders and cubbyholes. She flipped down the sun visor. The car appeared to be empty, and one glance around the showroom-clean interior told me that things weren’t likely to improve anytime soon.

‘This is definitely his car?’

Caitlin nodded.

‘Did he have more than one?’

‘Not here. He kept a Porsche in storage. And a Harley.’

‘Maybe we should check those?’

‘I don’t think so.’ Ricks slapped his hand on the roof of the Lexus. ‘I think we’re done here.’

‘Yeah, we’re done,’ one of the twins agreed. ‘Let’s go back inside and have that conversation.’

‘What about the boot?’ Victoria asked.

‘Huh?’

‘The trunk,’ I said to Caitlin. ‘Can you open it?’

She searched beneath the dash for a likely mechanism, pulled a recessed handle and the fuel cap jinked out.

‘Wrong lever.’

‘I’m kinda lost here.’ She held up her hands.

‘Try the key.’ I turned the key in her palm, tilting the plastic casing towards the light. ‘Here.’

I pressed a dimpled button, the indicator lamps flashed, there was a muffled clunk and the boot lid bounced up. I scurried to the rear of the Lexus and heaved at the lid with my cuffed hands. A puff of hot, moist air rolled out to greet me. It didn’t smell nearly so pleasant as the scented freshener hanging from the rearview mirror, and as I covered my mouth with my arm and peered into the boot, I was unfortunate enough to see why.

A stiff, lifeless body had been wedged inside, legs bent at the knees. The face and torso were part covered by a black cloth, but I had a fair idea of who I was looking at. I peeled the cloth away and made absolutely certain.

Josh Masters stared back. His eyes were fixed and sightless, the left pupil misted with blood. His tanned face and neck were speckled a deep claret, and his capped teeth were arranged in a most unfortunate grin, as though he’d just performed his ultimate illusion and was awaiting the applause that was sure to follow.

Lower down, his arms were folded across his chest, fingers clawed, and the downy hairs on his forearms were stained and matted with dried blood. Beneath his arms, his trademark white T-shirt was no more than a sodden, dark-red rag, torn and ripped. He looked to have been stabbed many times over, and the entry wounds were scattered from his neck right down to his lower belly.

I felt like I’d seen enough, and others seemed to agree. Rough hands shoved me aside and I stumbled on the tarmac before turning to see the twins crowding the rear of the car. They groaned and staggered backwards, as though reeling from a small explosion, and one of them started yelling at a security guard to go fetch a medic. I wasn’t sure that was strictly necessary. True, my track record was a little patchy, but I would have bet the house limit that Josh was dead.

I tried to catch Victoria’s eye, but she was busy leading Caitlin away towards the valet booth. Meanwhile, one of the twins ordered his security detail to clear the area while his brother barked commands into a two-way radio. Something about the scene jarred with me, and it took me a good few moments to figure out why.

I forced myself back to the trunk of the Lexus. Josh didn’t look a great deal healthier. I watched over him for just a short while longer and then I leaned into the trunk and shrouded his face with the bloodied black cape he’d used to make his escape from the theatre.

Over at the valet booth, Victoria was clutching Caitlin’s face to her chest and stroking her hair and making shushing noises. I beckoned Victoria towards me. She scowled, but when I repeated the gesture, she pressed a tissue into Caitlin’s trembling fist, kissed her forehead and drew near.

‘Where’s Ricks?’ I asked.

‘Is that all you wanted? I have no idea, Charlie.’

I turned on the spot and scanned the area. Ricks wasn’t anywhere close, and I couldn’t recall seeing him after the valet had pulled up in the Lexus.

‘Don’t you find that strange? He’s one of their main security advisers.’

‘I’m trying to look after Caitlin here, Charlie.’

There was a queasy sensation in my stomach, but it had nothing to do with the sights or smells I’d just experienced. The puzzle was beginning to assemble itself in my brain and I didn’t like the picture that was forming.

‘Charlie, it is Josh in the car, right?’

‘The cabinet,’ I said, all of a sudden.

‘Excuse me?’

‘In the theatre. He must have made for the stage.’

‘What are you gibbering about?’

‘I have to go,’ I said, and started to run.

‘Charlie?’

‘It took me long enough,’ I called over my shoulder. ‘But I’m onto him now.’

Of course, I hadn’t been looking where I was going, and I ran straight into the twin on the two-way radio. I knocked the radio from his hand and stooped towards the ground, my knuckles grazing concrete. The twin snatched at my ankle but his reaction was slow and my momentum carried me free.

‘Hey,’ he shouted. ‘Hey, quit running.’

I didn’t quit running. I zeroed in on the revolving glass doors at the front of the casino, bracing my cuffed hands out in front of me.

‘Somebody stop that guy,’ the twin yelled. ‘He’s getting away.’

It didn’t feel like I was getting away. It felt like I was running headlong into trouble. The criminal part of my psyche seemed to be having difficulty understanding what I was up to. The law-abiding part couldn’t understand it, either.

Three security guards were ahead of me. They hunkered down with their feet spread and palms raised, as if I was a runaway freight train they were aiming to stop. I didn’t have a lot of time to consider my options, but I did know that I couldn’t dive through their legs without piercing a glass panel with my head. I opted for a late swerve and dodged to my right. The guard nearest to me stuck out his leg but I vaulted his shin and crashed into a swing door, doing a good job of displacing my knee cap.

I hauled the door back, then toppled inside, lurching for the handle of a giant slot machine to stop myself from falling. The handle dropped, the drums spun, and the bride and groom who’d been posing for a photograph beside the machine looked appropriately startled.

I garbled an apology, then turned and kicked on without waiting to see if we’d won the sports car that happened to be revolving on the podium above them. I lifted my bound hands before my face and pumped my knees, hollering at the people in my way to clear a path. It didn’t work. They froze and stared, perhaps asking themselves why the loony guy in plastic tie-cuffs was running into the middle of the casino instead of making for the exit.

The loony guy in plastic tie-cuffs wasn’t entirely sure.

Facing me was a security guard with a nightstick. He wet his lip and raised his baton in a two-handed grip, as if he was a baseball player looking to strike a home run. I let go of an almighty scream and drove forwards with my shoulder. The nightstick thudded against my bicep and my shoulder met with his chin. He went down hard and I lost my balance and pitched forwards. An action hero would have pulled off a tumble roll and sprinted on. I belly-flopped onto the carpet, with my crotch smothering the poor chap’s face.

‘Sorry,’ I yelled.

‘Geroff me,’ he mumbled.

I scrambled up from my knees but the idiot grabbed hold of my foot. I tried shaking him loose but he clung on until I was forced to tear my foot from my shoe and totter forwards into a run. It was a lopsided kind of run. If I’d had time to haul off my other shoe, I could have balanced things out, but there was no way that was going to happen.

I glanced up and got my bearings. The high-stakes area was way off to my left. The keno pit was dead ahead. The theatre was away to my right.

I veered towards it, skirting a craps table where all of the players were gawping at me, their game momentarily forgotten. A cocktail waitress blocked my way. I dodged left and so did she. We both went right. Her drinks tray teetered. I bent at the waist and hoisted her onto my shoulder. She yelped and slapped her tray against my back. Beer and soda rained down on me. I ditched her on an empty roulette felt and scurried on.

Behind me, the security guards were gaining, running hard in their vintage uniforms with their nightsticks drawn, like a motley crew of Keystone Cops. A pit boss in a sharp suit and trilby watched over me and raised a telephone handset to his ear. Two cigarette girls stood beside one another, their painted mouths frozen in a double ‘O’. If only the sound system had been playing some jaunty piano music instead of mid-tempo jazz, I could have believed I was trapped in the chase scene from an old silent movie.

The crowds thinned as I neared the theatre. The ticket booths were closed and laminated signs informed me that the show was temporarily cancelled. The entrance was roped off and I would have been trapped if it hadn’t been for the one door I could see that was slightly ajar.

Yanking the door back, I darted past a locked concession stand and burst through into the auditorium. Darkness embraced me and the carpet fell away beneath my feet as I ran between the rows of tiered seating.

I was halfway towards the lighted stage before I saw Ricks. He was on his knees at the front of the cabinet, with the sleeves of his blazer rolled up on his forearms and his hands buried deep in sand. The sound of my one-sock, one-shoe shuffle must have drawn his attention, because he flinched and peered out into the black. I wasn’t sure if he could tell who was coming, so I shouted at him in my best English just to make sure.

‘Hold it, Ricks. That’s enough.’

He ignored me and kept digging. I sucked air and tried to gather what was left of my strength. I had a stitch in my gut, my lungs were on fire and the plastic restraints were biting into the skin of my wrists.

The stage seemed higher than I remembered. I jumped up and hooked my arms and legs over the edge as if I was climbing out of a swimming pool, then picked my way between the footlights and cables and stood panting before Ricks.

‘Security are coming.’ I pointed out into the darkness of the auditorium at the footsteps I could hear.

Ricks grinned disconcertingly and removed his hands from the sand. There was something wrapped in his right fist. His grin widened and he moved as if to get up from his knees.

I’d really had my fill of things by now. I’d been scared half out of my mind with the idea that I’d found a drowned woman; had a haul of casino chips taken away from me; been locked up, interrogated and threatened; trapped myself inside a closet; been ripped off by a hooker; got caught in the middle of a robbery; been kicked while I was down (repeatedly), and come face to face with the gruesome corpse of a mid-ranking magician. And now Ricks was grinning at me.

So sure, my hands might have been cuffed and my ribs bruised, I might have been struggling for air and to stay upright, but there was no way –
no how
– that I was prepared to stand it for a moment longer.

I bowed my head and snarled and went thundering across the stage. If Ricks had moved aside at just the right moment, I would have looked pretty stupid, but he didn’t move and I didn’t stop, and I hit him smack in the forehead with everything I had.