What's The Worst That Could Happen (30 page)

Not the other, please.
One
way, and one way only: With the burglar in custody, in jail, or in the morgue. The fellow had to make his move while Max was still here in Las Vegas, he just
had
to.

In the meantime, Max prowled, from the large L–shaped living room to the big square bedroom with its big square king–size bed to the slightly smaller second bedroom with its own compact bathroom and with, at the moment, Earl Radburn napping as neatly as a corpse atop the bedspread; and on to the completely furnished gleaming white–and–chrome kitchen with its sink currently full of dirty glasses and cups, and around to the pleasingly pink large bathroom with all the mirrors and all the little bottles and boxes of sundries: shampoo, hand and body lotion, bath gel, hair conditioner, shoe polish, shower cap, toothpaste …

Irritated, Max slapped the tiny bath gel bottle back onto the bathroom counter, and glowered at himself in the wall–length mirror. In his boredom, he was reading the little bottles’ labels again. Again!

The business meetings he’d scheduled here had gone well, better than might have been expected under the circumstances, but now they were done, and he was still here, and there was nothing to do, nothing to do. Fuming, restless, struck livid by ennui, Max paced back out to the living room, where the four uniformed guards continued to sit murmuring together in the conversation area, and the drapes remained resolutely closed against the outside world.

Max hated that, the shut drapes. He’d argued against it, pointing out that the idea here was to let the burglar
know
he was actually present in this cottage. So why not let him
see
that Max was present? But Earl Radburn had said, “I’ve been thinking about this problem, Mr. Fairbanks, and I’ve been thinking what
I
might do, if I was the fella we’re looking for. It’s always a good idea to put yourself in that other fella’s place. And it seemed to me, if what I wanted was that ring on your finger there, and if I could see you through a plate–glass window, I just might decide to fire a high–powered rifle through that window, and put a bullet in your head, and count on stripping that ring off your finger in the subsequent confusion.” While Max had blanched at this idea — the bullet in the head was just too graphic an image — Earl had gone on, “Now, I’m not saying this fella’s the kind that might do such a thing, or not. I’m just saying, if
I
was that fella, that’s one of the possibilities I’d consider.”

So the drapes would stay closed. Every once in a while, a battle would take place out there on the Battle–Lake, unseeable beyond the drapes, and during the period of explosions, and the roaring of the crowd, Max and his guards would pace more restlessly than ever inside this prison, the guards with hunted looks, their hands hovering over their sidearms as the cannonades sounded all around them. But other than during those battles, there was no way to tell for sure that there was anything at all in the entire world outside this apartment. They might as well be on an asteroid in the asteroid belt, the last human beings in existence.

A knock on the door. Max at once removed himself to the kitchen doorway, feeling ashamed of his caution, but knowing nonetheless that caution was his only friend at this moment. One of the guards crossed the room to cautiously — caution was everybody’s friend in this cottage — open the door.

A murmur of voices. The guard stepped back, and a dapper black fellow in a tux came in, with a clipboard in his hand and a gold nametag reading JONES on his left lapel. “Evening, sir,” he said, with a broad toothy smile and a slight bow of the head in Max’s direction.

Max grimaced in return. Evening? It was after midnight, and nothing had happened yet. He could almost wish this was the burglar himself, or at least one of his friends.

“Housekeeping,” the guard explained to Max, unnecessarily.

“Just checking,” the fellow from Housekeeping said, still with that broad smile, “to be sure everything’s all right.”

“Everything’s,” Max said savagely, “hunky–dory.”

“Well, we’ll just look around,” the fellow from Housekeeping said. “With your permission, sir?”

“Go ahead,” Max told him, and moved out of the kitchen doorway, so the fellow could go in.

The guard had already returned to his conversation in the conversation area, and now Max went over there to say, “You recognized him, did you?”

The guard had just resumed his seat on one of the sofas, but now he stood and said, “Sir?”

“The fellow from Housekeeping,” Max said. “You recognized him.”

“No, sir,” the guard said. “Why would I recognize him?”

Max only now looked at the shoulder patch on the guard’s uniform, and realized it did not say Gaiety Hotel, Battle–Lake and Casino, it said
Markus Plaza,
which happened to be a shopping mall owned by TUI outside Phoenix, Arizona. So he was part of the extra security force brought in for the occasion.

Max now looked more carefully at the other guards’ uniforms and shoulder patches. He said, “None of you work here at the Gaiety?”

“No, sir,” they said. “No, sir.”

“So you won’t recognize bona fide employees of the Gaiety,” Max said.

“Well,” the first guard said, “they have to show us ID.”

“Did that fellow show you ID?”

“His nametag, sir.” The guard, who was himself black, cleared his throat and said, “Uh, the guy you’re waiting on, he’s white, isn’t he?”

“Well … yes.”

“So,” the guard said, and shrugged.

“But why,” Max demanded, “aren’t there people from the Gaiety in here, who know what the other employees look like?”

The guards looked at one another. One of them said, “Mr. Fairbanks, sir, we couldn’t take over for them. We wouldn’t know their jobs. We’re extra security on account of you, so we’re assigned to you.”

“The people outside as well? Around the perimeter?”

“Yes, sir,” they said. “Yes, sir.”

Max frowned deeply, thinking about this. He wanted to blame Brandon Camberbridge, accuse the man of keeping the most knowledgeable guards for his
hotel
instead of using them to protect the boss, but he did understand the orders would have come from Earl, and it did make sense to keep the hotel staff at its normal duties. “If a white person tries to get in here,” he said, “
check
his ID.”

“Yes,
sir,
” they said. “Yes,
sir.
”

Max walked back over to the kitchen doorway, and looked in. The fellow from Housekeeping was washing the dirty dishes in the sink. Looking over toward Max, his inevitable smile now apologetic, he said, “Won’t take a minute, sir. This should have been taken care of.”

“Very good,” Max said. He was pleased to see someone who took an interest in his work.

“I’ll be back a little later with the supplies you need,” the fellow said. “For now, I’ll just finish up in here, check the bedrooms and baths, and be out of your way.”

“There’s someone asleep in the second bedroom.”

“I’ll be as quiet as a mouse,” the fellow promised, and flashed that big smile again as he stood over the sinkful of soapy water. “I’ll be in and out of there, he’ll never even know I’m around.”

Herman Jones, formerly Herman Makanene Stulu’mbnick, formerly Herman X, finished stage one of his reconnaissance, thanked Max Fairbanks for his patience, and was ushered out of the cottage by the same brother who’d admitted him. Two more guards, one a brother and one not, escorted him from the cottage to the main path, where he thanked them for their courtesy, assured them they’d see him later, and moved jauntily away, toward the main building of the hotel.

For Herman Jones, subterfuge at this level was child’s play, was barely deception at all. Back in the old days when he’d been actively an activist, when he’d been X and most of his jobs had been selfless heists to raise money for the Movement, so that he barely had time left to steal enough to keep his own body and soul together, he’d constructed an entirely false cover life to live within, full of nice middle–class friends of all races who believed he was something important and well–paid in “communications,” a word that, when he used it, sometimes seemed to suggest book publishing, sometimes the movies or television, and sometimes possibly government work.

Later, when he’d been in politics in central Africa, vice president of Talabwo, a nation where your Swiss bank account was almost as important as your Mercedes–Benz and where the only even half–educated person within five hundred miles who was
not
trying to overthrow the president was the president, and where if the president went down the vice president could expect to share with him the same shallow unmarked grave, Herman had learned a level of guile and misdirection that Americans, had they been able to observe it, could only have envied.

So now that he was home, no longer devoted to turning over the proceeds of all his better heists to the Movement (mainly because the Movement seemed to have evaporated while he was away), and no longer having to deal with politicians and army men (most of them certifiably insane) day and night, Herman was ready to turn his hard–earned expertise to for–profit crime.

Which was why he was here. He’d only worked with John Dortmunder twice before, but he’d enjoyed both jobs. The first time, he’d been brought into the scheme by Andy Kelp, whom he’d met in the course of various non–Movement enterprises, and the scheme was an interesting one, in which they’d stolen an entire bank, which had given him plenty of leisure time to work on the vault. The job hadn’t wound up to be an absolutely perfect success, but the group had been nicely professional and the experience basically a good one. The second time he’d been included into a Dortmunder job, it had been a scam, a little favor like this current one, but with less potential return.

Pilots say that any landing you walk away from is a good landing, and Herman’s variant on that was, any crime you walk away from unhandcuffed is a good crime. With that criterion, all of Herman’s experiences with John Dortmunder had been good ones.

So now he was back in the States, and he wanted people in the profession to know he was here, he was available, and that’s why he’d phoned Andy Kelp. Then, when Andy’d told him what was going down here, and why, he could see it was a caper he had to be part of. However large or small the profit on this one, it would get him noticed in the right places. “Herman is back,” people would say to each other after tonight. “As good as ever.”

No no no. They would say, “Herman is back.
Better
than ever.”

Striding away from cottage one in the shadowed darkness, exuding the confidence of a supervisory employee on official business, clipboard prominent, Herman made his way to cottage three, diagonally to the right rear of cottage one, and at the moment — as at most moments since the high rollers left — unoccupied. (Cottages five, six, and seven, even farther back from the Battle–Lake, currently housed the imported extra guards.)

So many hotels and other such places no longer have actual keys for their many doors. They have electronic locks instead, that respond only to a specific magnetic impulse. All the old skills of the lockman, with picks and slugs and routers and skeleton keys, have gone by the board. But technology is there to be mastered, and mastered it shall be. The card Herman now inserted into the slot of the front door of cottage three had not been supplied by a hotel check–in clerk, but had come from the criminal workshops of New York City. This card was an alien, a wily seducer, a cuckoo in another bird’s nest, and the instant Herman slid it into the slot that little green light went on, and the door fell open before him.

Cottage three was a bit smaller than cottage one, and had the faint chemical smell of a place with wall–to–wall carpet after it’s been shut up for a while. Herman moved briskly through the place, turning on lights, making notes on his clipboard, doing small adjustments here and there. At the end, he left the small light on in the kitchen, the one under the upper cabinet that merely illuminated a bit of the white Formica counter beside the sink.

At the door, because he wasn’t going to give his magic card away, Herman paused to take a roll of duct tape from inside his tuxedo jacket, tear off a length, and attach it to the edge of the door over the striker to keep it from locking. Spies, political agents, and other amateurs put such tape on a door horizontally, so that it shows on both front and back, and can be noticed by a passing security person. Herman ran the tape vertically, which did the job just as well while remaining invisible when the door was shut.

Having made cottage three ready, Herman marched off and this time made his way around the Battle–Lake along the path illuminated by low–wattage knee–high flower–shaped fixtures. Beyond the lake, he approached a guard standing next to the walkway with his hands clasped behind him, observing the late–night stillness with the satisfied look of a man who likes peace and quiet for their own sake. This guard, however, was not actually a guard at all, but was another associate of John Dortmunder’s, named Ralph Demrovsky; he too wore a uniform copped earlier this evening from Finest Fancy Linen Service.

When Herman approached, Ralph smiled and held his right hand out. Herman took no notice of him, but somehow, as he strode by, the clipboard left his hand and wound up in Ralph’s. And then, as Herman moved on through tree shadows between lighted areas toward the main building, his right hand brushed across the front of his tux jacket, and when next he moved into the light the nametag was gone from there, and he was now merely a handsome black man in a tux, surely a guest of the hotel, though better dressed than most these days. Still, there are always
some
well–dressed hotel guests in Las Vegas, even in these latter times, people who maintain the standards and joie de vivre of the good old days of mob bosses and Arab sheiks.

Herman entered the hotel not as though he owned it, but as though he were thinking of buying it. He strode past the open coffee shop and the closed boutiques and around the check–in desk, where things were very quiet at the moment, with only one clerk on duty. To get to the elevators, he had to skirt the edge of the slot machine area, and surreptitiously he sniffed a little, to see if he could tell anything about the air, but of course he couldn’t. And from the look of the few people he could see in among the slot machines, it hadn’t started to take effect as yet.

Well, there was plenty of time.

Herman took an elevator to the fourteenth floor, and walked down a hallway chirping with the chatter of many television sets behind many closed doors. He was on his way to Anne Marie’s room. A nice lady, he thought, he being a connoisseur in that area. If Andy Kelp needed a lady, then that was probably the one he needed. However, Herman would keep his opinion to himself. He did not intrude into other people’s love lives unless he had hopes of becoming a participant therein, and neither Andy Kelp nor Anne Marie Carpinaw interested him in that way, which was probably just as well.

Rap–a–de–rap; rap, rap. The agreed–upon signal. The door opened, and it was Anne Marie standing there, giving him a skeptical look. “Room service,” he suggested.

“Come on in,” she said, and he did, and she shut the door behind him, saying, “Took you long enough.”

“Well, you know how it is, ma’am,” he said, playing along. “We get awful busy down there in the kitchen.”

“That’s all well and good,” she said. “But there’s no
telling
how upset I’d be, if it happened I’d ordered anything.”

“Thank you, ma’am, I’ll tell the manager you said so,” Herman said, grinning at her. Then he turned away to see Dortmunder and Kelp both in chairs over by the window, looking out at the night. Dortmunder was in a guard uniform, Kelp dressed like a bank examiner in black suit, round–lensed black–framed eyeglasses, and navy blue bow tie with white polka dots. Herman could see their backs in the room and their fronts reflected in the window they were looking out. He said, “There’s nothing out there.”

They turned at last to look at him, with glazed eyes, like people who’ve been at the aquarium too long. Dortmunder said, “That’s what I’m hoping for.”

“Nothing out there,” Kelp explained.

“A quiet night,” Herman assured them, and went over to also look out the window.

Fascinating. By night, the hotel grounds became a sketch outline drawing of itself, the little flower–shaped lights becoming dots of amber against the black, defining the paths, drawing a pointillist line around the Battle–Lake, marking off the cottages. The only truly illuminated area was the pool; its underwater lights were kept on all night, creating a strange blue–green bouillon down there, its surface shadowed, its depths cool and crystal clear. Being the only center of light made the pool look much closer than it really was, as though you could open this window here and jump right in.

Herman looked until he realized he was about to become as mesmerized as Dortmunder and Kelp, and then he backed away from it, shook his head, grinned at the other two, and said, “What are you trying to see out there, anyway?”

“Trouble,” Dortmunder said.

Kelp explained, “If anything goes wrong in the caper, we’ll know it from up here.”

“And,” Anne Marie said, “they’ll get
out
of here.”

“Absolutely,” Kelp assured her.

Dortmunder said, “Red lights coming from out there,” and waved in the general direction of employee parking and Paradise Road, the parallel street behind the Strip.

Kelp showed a walkie–talkie. “Any problem,” he said, “I warn the guys, and John goes to get his ring.”

“And I turn off the light,” Anne Marie said, “and I was asleep in bed here, all by myself, the whole time.”

“Poor you,” Herman said, with a little smile.

She gave him an oh–come–on look.

“Plan two,” Dortmunder explained.

“Plan six or seven, actually,” Kelp said. “And how are
you
doing, Herman?”

“Just fine,” Herman assured them. “John,” he said, “you got that rich man
extremely
worried. He’s like a cat on a hot tin pan alley.”

Dortmunder, interested, said, “You got in there all right?”

Herman did his big toothy yassuh–boss smile: “Jess as easy,” he said, “as fallin’ off a scaffold.” Reverting to his former persona, he said, “I rigged one kitchen window and one bedroom window so they look locked but you just give them a tug. I sussed out the circuit breaker box; it’s in the kitchen, the line goes straight down. There’s no basement under those buildings, just concrete slabs, so the line must go through conduit inside the slab. Give me pen and paper and I’ll do you a drawing of the layout inside there.”

“Good,” Dortmunder said.

The room’s furnishings included a round fake–wood table under a hanging swag lamp — some styles are so good, they
never
go away — which Dortmunder and Kelp had moved to make it easier for them to see out the window and hit their heads on the lamp. Now, while Kelp turned his chair and pushed it close to that table, Anne Marie produced sheets of hotel stationery and a hotel pen. Herman sat at the table, hit his head on the lamp, stood up, moved the chair, sat at the table, and did a very good schematic drawing of the cottage, using the proper architectural symbols for door, window, closet, and built–in furniture pieces, like toilet and stove.

As he drew, Herman described the look of the place, and as he finished he said, “There’s four uniformed guards inside, four outside, but they’re not from the hotel, they’re imported.”

“Extra security,” Dortmunder commented.

“Extra, yeah, but they don’t know the lay of the land.” Herman put down his pen. “I got cottage three ready,” he said. “Door’s open, one little light in the kitchen so’s you can find your way around.”

“I should go there now,” Dortmunder decided. “You John the Baptist me,” meaning Herman, looking more presentable, should go first, to be sure the coast was clear.

“Fine,” Herman said, and got to his feet, not hitting his head.

“And I’ll keep watch here,” Kelp said. “Anne Marie and me.”

Dortmunder looked one last time out the window. “Gonna get exciting out there,” he said.

Herman grinned at the outer darkness. “I’d like to be here to watch it,” he said.

“No way,” said Anne Marie.