The Good Thief's Guide to Vegas (5 page)

The two-way radio might have been enough to snag anybody’s attention – this was in the middle of a show spectacular, and everybody had been warned to switch off their cellphones and pagers – but that wasn’t why I continued to look. I continued to look because the men were identical.

They really were exactly the same. They had carroty hair, clipped close to the scalp, very pale skin dotted with freckles, and prominent ears. They were strikingly thin, so much so that their Adam’s apples seemed to protrude as though they’d each swallowed an egg, and they were dressed in the preppy style of Ivy League graduates, sporting blue knitted sweaters over blue chequered shirts, pale chinos and tasselled loafers. If it hadn’t been for the way they’d interrupted Masters’ rhythm, I might even have believed that they were a part of his act. It wouldn’t have been the first time a magician had used twins to his advantage.

Back on stage, dry ice had encircled the cabinet and the music had increased in volume. Masters was holding a large black cape to his side, like a matador awaiting an invisible bull. Then he flicked the cape up onto his shoulders, pressed a finger to his lips and crept behind the rear of the closet.

And then we waited. And waited some more.

SEVEN

The scenario would have made for a cracking sociology experiment.

Question:
How long will a theatre audience wait if a performer vanishes in the middle of his act?

Answer:
Approximately seven minutes.

I’m able to tell you this because once Masters had stepped behind the cabinet, I waited along with everyone else for him to emerge from the other side and complete his illusion. But he never did reappear, and as the dry ice began to thin, and as the jazzy show music looped and re-looped, and as the audience turned to one another and murmured uncertainly, it slowly dawned on us all that something was up.

Continuity aside, it was plain odd to have absolutely nothing happen for the first five minutes, and it was stranger still when the bald stagehand shuffled on to peer behind the closet, followed shortly afterwards by the smartly dressed twins. But even then, I think most of us were holding our breath for some spectacular twist.

It never came, and we had to settle for one of the ginger-haired twins gesturing frantically to the wings until the stage curtain plummeted and a fit of whispers swept the crowd. The auditorium lights flashed on and a hasty announcement was made over the speaker system, apologising for the cancellation of the show and asking us to exit the theatre as quickly and as calmly as possible.

Some hope. We were bewildered, sure, but we were also intrigued – and I was worried about Victoria. A second announcement followed, more curt this time, and a team of security guards jogged down the aisles in their period cop uniforms to direct us outside.

I say ‘us’, but I’m afraid I rather took matters into my own hands, and while everybody else was shuffling back towards the casino floor and speculating about what could have happened, I snuck up onto the stage and ducked beneath the heavy curtain.

As I pushed up from my knees and brushed stage dust from my palms, I noticed the identical twins and the black-clad stagehand, huddled at the rear of the closet. I couldn’t hear what they were saying and I couldn’t see any sign of Josh. I’d half-expected to find him flat on his back with someone administering the kiss of life, but there was nothing to indicate that he was anywhere nearby.

I waved awkwardly at Victoria, who was still trapped in the cabinet, and was just in the process of approaching her when the twin with the two-way radio happened to catch sight of me.

‘Sir, this is a restricted area and you need to leave along with everybody else. We can’t have you back here.’

He marched towards me and gestured over my shoulder towards the exit with his radio. Sure, he had the build of a classroom skeleton and the skin tone to match, but the edge in his voice told me he was used to having people do as he said.

‘But that’s my friend.’ I pointed to Victoria’s face. She looked annoyed, which wasn’t altogether surprising.

‘Sir, we’re dealing with a situation here and I’m asking you to make your way outside.’

‘Hold it,’ the second twin said, before either of us could continue. He looked from me to his brother and back again, then extended a bony finger and subjected me to a slow, watery stare. ‘This is the guy on the surveillance footage. You remember?’

I think I may have gulped, and I’m pretty sure the colour drained from my face until I was nearly as pale as the twins themselves. I certainly began to wonder if this was a situation Victoria could handle by herself.

‘Look,’ I said, ‘maybe you’re right and I should leave.’

‘This is the guy?’ the first twin asked, ignoring me.

‘I’m telling you. It’s him.’

Now, considering what had happened upstairs in Masters’ suite, you’ll understand that those words chilled me to the very core. You’ll also appreciate that I wasn’t spectacularly pleased when Victoria chipped in to conclude the introductions.

‘His name’s Charlie. And if it’s not too much trouble, could somebody please release me and tell me what on earth is going on.’

The twins peered at one another, adopting matching expressions that seemed to suggest they were running through the exact same thoughts. I got the distinct impression I wouldn’t like where their thoughts were leading them, but before they reached a conclusion we were interrupted by an insistent knocking.

‘Hello?’ Victoria called from the cabinet. ‘Is anyone listening to me? I think I’ve been in here long enough now, don’t you?’

The twins gazed at one another for a moment longer before approaching the closet. They stood in profile to me so that I could see their jug ears in all their glory, and they were just about to swing the doors open when I thought I’d better mention a minor detail.

‘You’ll need to remove the blades first.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘The blades in the side of the closet. The ones poking through my friend. Often these illusions have to be undone in a certain order.’

‘Is that right?’

‘So I understand.’

While they hesitated, I stepped forward and, flattening my palm against the side of the closet, I very delicately removed one of the blades. Once it was clear that the blade was unbloodied, the stagehand followed suit and yanked at the blade on the opposite side. We all looked at Victoria. Her head didn’t fall from her shoulders.

The twins hauled open the closet doors. I heard a hissing, shuffling noise, like shower water striking a tray, and then both twins leaped backwards and cursed as a great volume of sand spilled out over their loafers.

I moved sideways and saw that Victoria’s feet were buried up to the ankles in sand. I also discovered that the closet interior was no longer black. It was decorated with a beach mural featuring a pale blue sky, a turquoise sea and a yellow beach dotted with colourful parasols and figures in swimsuits. Victoria was still strapped in position, only now she wore a straw sunhat on her head and was holding a pink daiquiri glass with a cocktail umbrella poking out from it. Despite her props, she didn’t appear to be in a holiday mood.

‘Nice vacation?’

I won’t describe the look I received, but suffice it to say that I unbuckled the straps and helped her out from the closet as swiftly as I could.

‘What’s happened? Where’s Josh?’ she asked, kicking sand from her stockinged feet.

‘I think that’s exactly what these gentlemen would like to know.’

The twins snatched a look at one another and I found myself wondering if they ever spoke or took a decision without checking with each other first.

‘You’re saying he didn’t plan this with you?’

Victoria scrunched up her face. ‘Plan what?’

Just for a change, they turned to consult one another. I could swear they almost blinked simultaneously.

‘We barely know the guy,’ I explained. ‘My friend only met him this evening. He asked her to help out with his act. And now she’s done that, and I think it’s probably best if we just go.’

I freed the daiquiri from Victoria’s hand and passed it to the stagehand. He didn’t look too chuffed about it, and he looked even less pleased when I plonked the floppy sunhat on his bald head. I didn’t care. I grabbed Victoria’s wrist and dragged her towards the curtain.

‘Hold it. Nobody’s going anywhere until we find Josh.’

I’d been afraid one of the twins might say something like that. I wasn’t crazy about the suggestion.

‘But this has nothing to do with us.’

‘It has everything to do with you.’

I steadied myself, then shook my head very slowly.

‘You’re mistaken. I don’t know who you are and I don’t altogether care. But we’re going to leave now. And I’m afraid that’s the end of the matter.’

I parted the stage curtain and poked my head through, but before the rest of me could follow, I saw something that stopped me in my tracks – a string of security guards, arranged like a chorus line in their vintage uniforms. Somewhat disappointingly, they hadn’t linked arms and they weren’t high-kicking or singing a rousing show tune. They were standing with their feet shoulder-width apart and their hands behind their backs. One of them even patted a nightstick against his palm.

‘Like I said, nobody’s going anywhere until we find Josh.’

I turned and offered the twins one of the colder looks from Victoria’s collection. It seemed to lack the impact I might have hoped for.

‘You asked who we are.’ The twin without the radio poked his thumb towards his brother. ‘We’re the Fisher Twins.’

Of course they were. The name suited them. It fit with their pale, fish-belly skin and bug-eyes. But from the way he’d said it, I got the impression the name was meant to mean something more.

‘I’m sorry. Who?’

‘We own this casino. We built it and we run it. We watch over everything that happens here. So understand that we know why it is that you’re looking to leave in a hurry. And understand that we’re not prepared to let that happen.’

‘Charlie?’ Victoria said, from the corner of her mouth. ‘What have you done?’

I focused hard on what the twins had said. There was no reason to doubt them, and short of disappearing in a puff of smoke, my only real chance of getting out of the scrape I’d landed myself in was to hand them the man responsible for the corpse I’d stumbled upon. Because it seemed to me now that Masters must have killed her. Why else would he have behaved the way he had?

‘He’s in the cabinet,’ I said.

‘Say what?’

‘Josh. He’ll be in the cabinet.’

I brushed past the twins and approached the cabinet in question, moving around to the back of it. I knocked on the rear panel with my good knuckles, trying to locate any hollow points. When that didn’t work, I felt around the edges with my fingertips, hunting for a concealed hinge.

‘But your friend was in the closet.’

‘Yeah, but there could be a rear section too. It’s a perspective thing.’ I slapped my palm against the wood. ‘You can come out now, Masters. We know you’re in there.’

There was no response. I sighed and, moving around to the front, stepped inside the closet on top of the sand. I prodded at the rear of the beach mural, searching for a loose board or a catch.

‘Where’d you get the drink?’ I asked Victoria.

‘The daiquiri? There was a cubby-hole near my shoulder. It had a sliding door. He told me to feel for it.’

I looked to where Victoria was pointing and noticed an inlaid panel that had been painted to match the rest of the mural. It was around the size of a hardback book and I slid it aside and found a small cavity. There was nothing inside it.

‘And the sunhat?’

‘A panel above my head.’

I checked up there too. The space was easy to access but it was completely empty.

‘And the mural? Where did that come from?’

‘The whole thing was covered by black roller blinds. He released them quite early on.’

‘And the sand?’

‘I have no idea. He didn’t warn me about it.’

I turned to the stagehand. ‘Are there any trapdoors?’

He shifted uncomfortably, then glanced sideways at the twins. It seemed the habit was catching.

‘You’re saying he went through a trapdoor?’ the twin with the radio said.

‘I’m not saying anything. I don’t even know if you have trapdoors. But if you do, it makes a lot of sense. He can’t have just vanished. He’s not that good a magician.’

The twin pressed the radio antenna against his bottom lip as he considered my words.

‘Okay. You need to come with us now.’

‘Come with you where?’

‘Just get moving already.’

It seemed like I was all out of options. Stepping down from the closet, I shook the sand from the bottom of my jeans, then squinted at Victoria.

‘I’m really sorry about this. I’ll see you later, okay?’

‘Not so fast,’ the twin told me. ‘She’s coming too. You’re both going to run through every detail of your plan.’

EIGHT

Plan? What plan? I didn’t know of any plan besides the hasty get-away-themed one I’d been working on since I’d found the dead woman in Masters’ bathroom.

Now, don’t get me wrong, plans are mighty useful things and I have a lot of time for a well-developed scheme. But I hadn’t the faintest idea what details our hosts were so intent on hearing. And I was pretty sure that wasn’t something they’d be altogether thrilled about.

Speaking of not being altogether thrilled, I was becoming less and less enamoured with the route we’d been following since we’d left the theatre. To begin with, we’d been taken to a small dressing room so that Victoria could reclaim her handbag, and after that we’d been led through a door marked
Restricted Access
and down a flight of stairs into a basement level. The endless service corridors we were walking along featured bare concrete floors and whitewashed walls. Dusty pipes ran along the ceiling above our heads. Honestly, it was almost as if all the investment had been spent on the hotel tower and the casino floor.

The Fisher Twins marched in front of us and two male security guards followed from behind. The uniformed guards were Hispanic-looking, and they were of around the same height and build – their height being significant and their build rating somewhere beyond substantial. It occurred to me that Victoria and I must have looked out of place, as if we were on our way to some latterday Noah’s Ark and hadn’t got the memo about coming in pairs.

Eventually, we were instructed to wait outside an unremarkable white door. There was no sign telling us what to expect on the other side. I suppose I could have crossed my fingers (the healthy ones at least) and wished for something cosy and luxurious, but as the twins went in ahead of us and the security guards adopted an open-legged stance outside, it finally dawned on me that we were about to experience a piece of Vegas folklore that few tourists ever get to see. The back room.

The room was plainly decorated. There was a plastic table and four plastic chairs and a flat-screen television fitted to a bracket on the far wall. The remote for the television was on the tabletop. The ceiling was low and made up of square polystyrene tiles. Two spot bulbs pointed towards the back wall and cast the room in a dim yellow light. A grill above the door pumped cold air around, keeping the temperature about perfect for a morgue.

One of the side walls contained a rectangle of tinted glass. Through the glass I could see a second room that looked just like the one we were standing in, only lit more brightly. There was another television and another plastic table. Sitting at the table, squinting beneath the hard electric light, was a man I recognised.

I turned to Victoria and Victoria turned to me. We gave a fine impression of the Fisher Twins but it didn’t clear up my confusion.

The man in question was the acne-scarred croupier from the high-stakes roulette-table. His head was bowed, his bony fists were bunched on the tabletop and he was fidgeting in his seat, jiggling his thighs and tapping his feet. On his pimpled neck, just above the open collar of his white uniform shirt, I could see a blue ink tattoo of a pair of dice. Each die showed a single dot. Snake eyes.

The croupier was nodding fast, almost like he had a nervous tic, and the skin of his neck was moving because of it, making it appear as though the dice were rattling against one another. He seemed to be murmuring continuously but his speech wasn’t a monologue. A second man faced him from across the table.

The man was black-skinned and dressed in a blazer, shirt and tie. He was partially bald and the top of his bullet-shaped skull glistened under the low striplights like a bowling ball. A monkish band of cropped, silver-grey hair ran around his head just above his ears, and a goatee beard of the same shading ringed his mouth. His cheeks and his neck were flirting with the idea of becoming jowly, and he filled his blazer around the shoulders and upper arms in a way that suggested he used to be plenty muscular, and in another ten years might be plenty fat. I placed him in his mid to late fifties.

The black man smoothed the outline of his salt and pepper beard with the fingers of one hand. A cardboard file lay open on the table before him and he scribbled notes on a sheet of paper clipped to the file. From the speed of his writing, it seemed as though the croupier had a lot of talking to do.

I didn’t think they could see us. In fact, I was pretty sure we were looking through a two-way mirror, which explained why the light in our room was so meagre.

As we watched, the black man raised a palm and the croupier quit talking and slowly turned his head in our direction. His eyes didn’t focus but I saw fear in his wavering pupils as he asked himself who might be watching over him. Before he could reach a conclusion, his interrogator finished his notes, closed his folder and exited the room.

It didn’t take long for the man to appear in the doorway behind us. He nodded briefly to the Fisher Twins, and then he squinted through the dimness towards Victoria and me. When he was through gauging the threat we might pose, he kicked the door closed with a dismissive grunt and motioned to the chairs on the far side of the table.

‘How about you folks sit down?’

‘How about you tell us why we’re here?’ Victoria planted her fists on her hips. ‘We’re guests of this hotel – not criminals.’

I almost winced as she said it. True, I didn’t welcome the label, but I had to admit it was somewhat apt.

‘Let’s just sit down and talk this through like adults.’ He pronounced ‘adults’ without a hard ‘a’. Like a dolt.

‘Adults, you say?’

He lifted his shoulders. ‘It’s a start, right?’

He tossed his cardboard folder onto the table without another word and took one of the plastic seats. I smiled crookedly at Victoria and followed suit. She delayed a moment longer before dragging back a chair of her own and sitting rigidly with her arms folded across her chest.

The black man opened the cardboard folder in front of him, carefully laid a fountain pen onto a fresh sheet of paper and exhaled heavily. He clearly paid attention to his grooming. The skin of his face and scalp was smooth and unblemished, and his beard was very neatly trimmed. His blazer was brown in colour, his shirt a crisp Oxford blue, and his tie was yellow with blue diamonds. He smelled of grapefruit. Whether it was his cologne or his shower gel, I couldn’t say.

‘My name is Ricks.’ He opened his palms. ‘I work for Carson Associates.’

‘It’s funny,’ I said. ‘People keep saying names as though we should know what they mean. The Fisher Twins. Carson Associates.’

He smiled readily enough. ‘Carson Associates is a private security firm.’ He reached inside his jacket and removed a business card that he slid across the table towards us. The card was buff in colour with a motif of a watchful eye in one corner. The name Terry Ricks was emboldened in the middle, above an italicised slogan:
Ever Watchful
. ‘We work alongside a couple other agencies here in Vegas, mainly on behalf of the casinos. My expertise runs to gambling irregularities.’

‘Gambling irregularities? You mean cheating?’

‘You could say.’

I palmed his card, acting as if we were two travelling salesmen about to do business. Alas, I didn’t have a card of my own. Burglars don’t tend to advertise – unless they want to get caught.

I must say I was more than a little confused by his introduction. A guy who specialised in gambling fraud didn’t sound like the type of individual who should be tasked with investigating a murder-suicide.

‘Are you planning to tell us what’s going on here?’ Victoria asked him.

‘Well, ma’am, allow me to show you.’

And with that he gathered up the remote control from the table and pointed it towards the television on the wall. We turned in our seats and peered at the screen through the gloom. A prick of light ballooned out from the centre and I readied myself to be confronted with the evidence of my rather undignified escape from Josh Masters’ suite.

To my surprise, I found myself watching colour footage of the high-stakes roulette-table. I could see Victoria and Josh and a number of other players I recognised, including the elderly woman in the gold lamé jacket. I could also see the back of the croupier’s head.

I watched for a good few minutes without the reason for the footage becoming any clearer. I saw Masters laying chips on the felt, and I saw him hand chips to Victoria. While she considered where to place them, Masters collected together a stack of blue one-hundred-dollar markers and slid them across to the croupier. The croupier traded them for the appropriate number of purple tokens. Then he spun the roulette wheel and sent the tiny white ball whizzing around its circumference until the ball settled in a number and Victoria jumped up and down in celebration. It was strange watching the scene unfold without any sound. The television was as silent as the rest of the room.

I scrutinised Ricks. ‘What are we supposed to be seeing here?’

He studied me coldly before pointing the remote at the television and prodding a button. The footage began to rewind. Ricks paused the recording just as Masters handed Victoria her chips, and then he started it playing again. I watched Victoria place her bet and Masters trade up his blue tokens. I still didn’t get it.

‘I still don’t get it.’

‘Is that so?’

‘Perhaps I’m being thick.’

I glanced at the Fisher Twins. They were standing with their backs to the wall and their hands in their pockets. With their youthful, freckled faces, and their khaki trousers and knitted sweaters, they could have passed for the undernourished stars of a GAP commercial.

‘What am I missing?’

One of the twins whistled and considered his nails. His brother exhaled sharply and shook his head. Ricks stroked his beard some more. After a long moment’s contemplation, during which I could have produced a truly astonishing ECG read-out, Ricks delved inside his trouser pocket and removed something in his bunched fist. He set the item down onto the tabletop and lifted his hand away. A stack of five purple chips had appeared.

‘Those are the casino chips Josh was betting,’ Victoria told him.

‘Is that so?’

‘I’m not colour blind.’

Ricks smiled benignly and contemplated us through hooded eyes. Then he extended his forefinger and thumb and lifted the chips from the table. As if from nowhere, a stack of three silver chips had appeared.

‘How did you do that?’

‘Aw, come on, lady. Enough with the act.’

Victoria’s fingers clenched the leather of her handbag as though she was administering a Vulcan death grip.

‘I’ve had just about enough of this gangland nonsense,’ she said. ‘Now, either you tell us what’s going on here or you let us go. If you plan on detaining us any longer, I’m going to have to insist that you call the police.’

I gulped and held fast to the underside of my chair. The police? What the hell was she trying to do to me?

Ricks pouted and drummed his fingers on the table-edge. He tipped his chair back on its hind legs and casually tossed the purple chips to Victoria. She scrambled to catch them, batting them between her palms, but as soon as she managed to get a proper hold of them, her brow creased.

‘What’s this?’

‘Bottle-top,’ Ricks explained. ‘A cap from a soda bottle, painted up to look like a stack of casino markers. Only the chip glued to the top is genuine.’ He pointed to the television. The screen was still frozen on the image of the croupier sliding Masters’ purple chips back to him. ‘A player cashes up and the croupier hands him his chips – in this case a stack of purple five-hundred-dollar tokens in return for some hundred-dollar markers. The painted bottle-top looks genuine to a casual observer, but really it contains a stack of silver chips. One purple chip on top, three silver chips hidden underneath.’

Victoria’s mouth formed a perfect hole. ‘But why?’

Ricks exhaled and allowed his chair to tip forward again, as if he was deflating. ‘You really want to run with this routine?’

‘The silver chips are worth more,’ I said, my voice catching in my throat. ‘Ten thousand dollars a piece.’

‘But . . . you’re saying
Josh
was doing this?’

‘Lady, we closed the table when you both quit. It’s down a hundred eighty thousand dollars.’

Victoria’s eyes widened and her face became very nearly as pale as the wall. Maybe it was a good thing. Any paler and the Fisher Twins might have mistaken her for a close relative.

‘But that can’t be right.’

‘Oh, it’s right. Reason we were watching is because he pulled a similar stunt yesterday evening.’

‘Well, that may be.’ She gathered herself and swallowed hard. ‘But I still don’t see what this has to do with us.’

Ricks pointed through the double glass at the croupier next door. The croupier was crouched forward with his face pressed against the table and his arms coiled around his head.

‘It helps if you work a scam like this with a team. You need a guy on the inside, for one. It also helps if you have a distraction. A pretty girl who’s mighty excited about winning, say.’

‘Oh good grief.’ Victoria cast her hand towards the twins. ‘We’ve already explained to these men that we’d never met Josh before tonight. We only arrived in Las Vegas this afternoon. You can contact our airline if you don’t believe me.’

Ricks inhaled very deeply through his nostrils. He stuck out his bottom lip and pointed the remote towards the television.

‘The other thing that helps is if the cheating player can pass the chips off to another team member. That way, if he gets searched, he comes up clean.’

Ricks jabbed the remote and I turned towards the television screen to see just what I’d feared he was driving at. By now, I’d entered the picture and I was talking with Victoria, a bottle of Budweiser in my bad hand. Josh interrupted us and pressed some chips into Victoria’s palm, encouraging her to lay a bet.

Ricks slowed the footage, so that it advanced at half-speed. I watched as Victoria debated where to stake her chips and as Josh leaned over the table. I saw my recorded self edge close to him and my good hand slip inside his trouser pocket. My hand eased out and slid into my own pocket. Ricks freeze-framed the image.