Authors: Elizabeth Lowell
Las Vegas
November 5
Late afternoon
A
pril Joy watched
Shane massage his computer. Seven separate screens displayed different parts of the comparisons they were making. An eighth screen kept running score in a complex spreadsheet represented as a three-dimensional graph that kept turning and changing in a hypnotic fashion.
“What program is that?” April pointed to the colorful graph.
Shane didn’t look up from instructing his computers. “Mine.”
“You created it?”
“Yes.”
“Good thing I trust you.” She stretched with the grace and balance of someone who spent at least one hour a day practicing various forms of unarmed combat. “You could wipe evidence and I’d never know it.”
“I could, yes. But I won’t.”
“Why? Doing your patriotic duty?”
His laugh was as hard as his eyes scanning the complex graph. He didn’t like what he was seeing. It was telling him that he really should have spent more hours with his casino data.
“If someone has penetrated the casino accounts, I want to know it,” he said. “Then I’ll find out how they did it. And then . . .”
“You going to kick some ass?”
“I’ll leave that to your deadly feet.”
She smiled. She hadn’t found many men who were comfortable with her intelligence and her lethal skills. “You sure you’re happy with the sexy curator?”
“I’m working on it.”
“If it bounces, let me know.”
He gave her a quick, sideways glance. “If I have anything to say about it, it won’t bounce.”
“Yeah, I figured that out for myself. Story of my life,” she said, yawning. “The good ones are gone, and the bad ones aren’t good. You have a coffeepot around here?”
“It’s called the telephone. Room service is 01. Have them send enough coffee for two and some food.”
“What kind?”
Shane’s fingers sped over the keyboard, programming in new demands. He pushed back and slid to another computer station. “They know what I like. Get whatever you want for yourself.”
“Sushi,” she said.
“Ask for Norataki. He’s our best Sushi chef.”
April started to answer, then saw she had lost him. He was eyebrow deep in yet another computer program. The graphing screen was undergoing constant transformations that appealed to her as an art form but utterly baffled her as to meaning. For all she knew, he could have been running a connect-the-dots, 3-D sculpture program.
Frowning, she punched in 01 and ordered coffee, food for Shane, and a selection from the sushi chef for herself.
After she replaced the phone, she simply stood and watched Shane work. She’d been told by government computer specialists that Tannahill had been among the top programmer/hackers of his generation, but that he lacked the desire to dedicate himself to it full-time, so he’d likely lost his edge. She wondered if that was true or if Shane just didn’t feel the need to strut his stuff for an admiring audience.
“Shit.”
The soft, hissing word was all Shane said. Then he bent over and keyed in instructions for the special program he’d created to fry hackers if and when he found their tracks in his mainframe.
April wanted to ask what had happened. A look at his face told her to put it on hold. The man was angry, the kind of angry that burned like dry ice.
A minute later Shane hit the enter key and pushed back from the computer terminal. The screen showing the 3-D graph kept changing. He gave it a disgusted look and turned away. He had seen enough.
“What?” April said.
Shane glanced at the screen that was executing his most recent program and decided it was safe to let her in on the good news. Good for her, at any rate. It sure as hell wasn’t good news for him.
“I’m the owner of an unusually profitable casino,” he said evenly.
“Meaning?”
“My slots have been steadily earning more than they should, despite the losses from a techno-team last week. Instead of the usual autumn slump at the tables, things have been humming along. Nothing outrageous enough to send up an alarm. A few percent here. A few more there. It adds up fast. Because my watchdog programs are designed to chase consistent, unexpected
losses
rather than gains, no alarms got tripped.”
April watched Shane with dark eyes and total concentration. She didn’t say a word.
“I made it easier on them—whoever they are—by not shifting my firewall program every few weeks,” Shane added. “I’ve been too busy chasing Celtic gold.” And Risa, a fact he didn’t figure April had any need to know.
“Keep going,” April said.
“Somebody got into my computer. Instead of hosing me the usual way, they
added
money to my accounts, millions of dollars that I have no way of explaining but have already declared to the Gaming Control Board and paid all appropriate taxes on.”
“Bottom line?”
“Looks like you have yourself a laundry boy.”
The leashed emotion in Shane made her pause. He was agreeing to help her, but he was a long way from beaten. Angry, yes. He was furious. Yet there was a feral kind of triumph in his eyes that she didn’t understand.
And what she didn’t understand made her nervous.
“Drop the other shoe,” she said.
“Did one of Uncle’s computer experts set me up?”
“Not that I know of.”
“You better hope it was the bad guys.” Shane glanced at the program that was running and smiled when program completed flashed on the screen. “Because I just destroyed somebody’s very expensive toy.”
Las Vegas
November 5
Evening
G
ail Silverado,
Rich Morrison, and Carl Firenze no longer sat around the table that had been rolled into Gail’s office for dinner. The remains of duck, steak, and shrimp congealed on the abandoned plates. Only Carl had been hungry enough to eat everything he’d ordered. Gail never ate much anyway. Rich had eaten half of his duck, finished his wine, and watched the phone.
Now all three were drinking coffee in the “conversation” area of Gail’s office. In Rich’s case the coffee came with an extra kick. Gail and Carl were taking their caffeine straight up, no alcohol chaser. Neither of them wanted to be slow or stupid while carrying a million dollars in cash.
Nobody had much to say. The money had been counted and packed into two suitcases that could have fit in the overhead storage bin of any major airline.
Everyone was waiting for the call to come through the main desk and get switched to Gail’s private number.
“Ms. Silverado,” Carl said, setting aside his coffee, “sure I can’t talk you out of this?”
She jerked, startled out of her own thoughts. Then she sighed and admitted, “I’m thinking about it.”
“Think harder,” Rich said. “I have been. I don’t like what I’m thinking.”
“What are you talking about?” Gail said. “You were the one who was so eager to—”
“I changed my mind. Yes, it would be nice to have you testify against Tannahill as an on-the-spot witness to an illegal act. Icing on the cake, as it were.” Rich shrugged. “So who needs icing? We’ve got his cock in a wringer. No point pushing our luck.”
Before Gail could answer, the phone rang. She reached for it with a hand that trembled.
“Yes?” she said.
“Now, that’s a word I love to hear,” Cherelle said. “You ready to buy some gold toys?”
Gail looked at the two men. Carl was already on his feet, settling his shoulder holster with an automatic motion of his body.
“Yes,” Gail said.
“The Midas Motel. You know where it is?”
Gail hesitated, swallowed. “Yes.”
“Room 121. Twenty minutes.”
The line went dead.
Gail hung up the receiver and thought about walking out into the night with a million in anonymous bills.
“Well?” Rich said.
“Midas Motel, Room 121,” Gail said. She looked at her hands. “I think I’ll have that drink after all.”
Las Vegas
November 5
Evening
N
obody looked
at the telephone.
Everybody waited for it to ring.
No one talked about the fact that it was late, getting later, and Cherelle still hadn’t called with instructions.
The only good news was that Ian, who was watching Gail Silverado with the help of some extra bodies from the Golden Fleece’s security staff, hadn’t called in either. Gail was still at her casino, waiting as they were waiting.
Niall put the half-glasses on Risa, adjusted them, and judged his handiwork. “You’re going to make a cute little old lady someday.”
Dana snickered.
Risa ignored both of them. She was trying not to look at Shane. He hadn’t had a civil word to say to her since he’d walked back into her apartment, found her being fitted for special electronics, and was informed by Dana that Risa was going after the gold.
Alone.
It’s the only way we can be sure that a spectacular, and spectacularly meaningful, piece of human culture won’t vanish into an underground black market and never reappear.
Niall, usually Shane’s ally, had weighed in on Dana’s side.
Look, boyo, you’ve already fired Risa, Rarities can front the money if you refuse, and there’s sweet bugger all you can do about it. She’s going alone. Get used to it.
End of discussion.
End of conversation, too.
Risa glanced uneasily in Shane’s direction, wondering just how angry he was beneath his silence. Plenty, if the tightness around his eyes was any sign. And he was walking his gold pen again, jade eyes unfocused, thinking, thinking, thinking.
That alone made her more nervous than waiting for the phone on the table next to him to ring.
At the kitchen table Dana was polishing off the last of a meal of lobster, filet mignon, sinfully rich mashed potatoes, bread, buttered vegetables, salad drenched with dressing, and dessert. If Risa hadn’t liked Dana so well, she would have hated her for the turbo-metabolism that allowed the petite woman to eat whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted it, and never put on an ounce. The thought of what all that food would do to her own hips made Risa cringe.
“Okay,” Niall said, stepping back from her. “She’s ready. Remember, to trigger the stereo camera you bite down on the gold cap we put on your left back molar. A short bite for one low-resolution frame. Continued pressure for higher resolution. You can store two hundred frames at low resolution. Twenty at highest. How does it feel?”
She plucked at the loose dark shirt and black jeans she was wearing. Beneath them her black “underwear” nibbled and pinched. “Fits better than the body armor you found for me. Whoever wore this last was at least two sizes smaller in the butt.”
“Beggars can’t be choosers. Is the trigger loose on your tooth?”
Risa delicately tongued the cap. She hadn’t been able to stop fiddling with it since he had tapped it into place a few minutes ago. Like a sore tooth, it was irresistible. “No. It just feels strange.”
“How about the earpieces on the glasses? Do they pinch or give you a headache?”
“No pinching yet. Headache? Every time I look down, why?”
“Don’t look down,” Dana and Niall said together. Then Niall continued alone, “Think of them as reading glasses. The focal length is approximately your reading distance. When an object is in focus for you through the glasses, it’s in focus for the camera.”
“Keep that in mind,” Dana said, licking her dessert fork. “If things go to shit tonight, whatever bytes are stored in the earpieces will be our only record of some internationally important artifacts.”
Before Risa could answer, the phone rang. She reached for it.
Shane was quicker. He didn’t lift the receiver. He didn’t let her lift it.
“If I was the one going in alone with two million dollars in cash, how would you feel about it?” he asked.
Ring.
Her eyelids flickered. “At least as mad as you are right now.”
Ring.
“Even though you know I can take care of myself with or without a gun?”
Ring.
“That’s being reasonable,” she said in a low voice. “Fear isn’t reasonable.”
He lifted the receiver and held it out to her.
“Hello?” Risa said, grabbing the phone.
“What the hell took you so long, baby-chick?”
“I was counting money.”
Cherelle laughed. “Two million?
“Yes. Where and when?”
“Fifteen minutes. The Midas Motel.”
Shane started for the door.
“The Midas Motel?” Risa looked at Dana and followed orders: stall. “Never heard of it. Where is it?”
Niall barely made it to the front door before it slammed in his face.
Dana didn’t waste time yelling about what she couldn’t change. She just flipped over the shopping list and started writing down the instructions as Risa unhurriedly repeated them aloud.
“Okay,” Risa said. “I’m going to read the instructions back to you just to be sure.” Slowly she read off the sheet that Dana handed over. “I’ll be there as fast as I can.”
“Alone,” Cherelle said.
Risa thought of Shane and wondered if Niall would be able to keep him from kicking down Cherelle’s door. “I don’t like that part of it.”
“Tough shit. Don’t fuck with me on this one. I’ve been waiting all my life for this break. Ain’t nothing gonna get in my way. Are you hearing me, baby-chick?”
“Yes.”
She should have saved her breath. Cherelle had already hung up.
Las Vegas
November 5
Evening
S
ocks flipped through
the motel’s piped-in channels twice before he switched back over to the commercial offerings. He was tired of waiting for the call, but he wasn’t nearly as head-banging fed up with life as he had been on his uncle’s boring houseboat tied to one of Lake Mead’s boring docks under the boring winter sun. After the first few hours even the collection of porn tapes he’d discovered made him yawn.
When the call had come telling Socks to get back to Vegas and check in to the Lucky Sun motel under the name of Ed Hutch, he hadn’t asked any questions. He just climbed into a rental car, wished it was his screaming purple baby, and headed for Vegas. Now he was waiting again, bored again. If it hadn’t been for the promise of money—and a dead bitch—on the other end of the waiting, he would have hauled his ass out of the motel and gone for some long-overdue raving around town.
But the chance to make a bundle of money while getting even with Cherelle was just too good to pass up. The cocaine would wait. The pussy would wait. He had a date with a million dollars. The gun that had been put in the motel room before he got there was a sweet, hard weight against his belly. Fully loaded, semiautomatic, ready to party. All he needed was an address.
The phone rang.
He picked it up, listened, smiled.
Party time.