What's The Worst That Could Happen (31 page)

So on Monday night, particularly into Tuesday morning, is when the casinos are at their emptiest, with the fewest tables open, the fewest dealers and croupiers and security people around, the fewest players. On this particular Monday night, Tuesday morning, by 3:00 A.M., there were barely a hundred people in the whole casino area of the Gaiety Hotel, Battle–Lake and Casino, and they were all giggling.

None of the Dortmunder crew were in with the gigglers, not yet. Tiny Bulcher and Jim O’Hara and Gus Brock, cause of the giggling, remained on duty near the air room. Not inside it; the air room was also on the sweetened air line. Tiny and Jim and Gus hung around the basement corridors, keeping out of other people’s way — not that many other people wandered around down here late at night — and from time to time checked on the equipment in the air room, where the technicians were now all fast asleep, with smiles on their faces.

In cottage three, Dortmunder sat in the dark living room, looking out at the lights behind drapes of cottage one; Max Fairbanks hadn’t gone to bed yet. In their fourteenth–floor crow’s nest, Kelp and Anne Marie looked out the window at the night and discussed the future. Herman Jones, now in chauffeur’s cap, sat at the wheel of a borrowed stretch limo near the front entrance of the Gaiety, ready to be part of the general exodus should trouble arise.

Across town, on a dark industrial street near the railroad tracks, Stan Murch napped in the cab of the big garbage truck borrowed from Southern Nevada Disposal Service. Out of town, up by Apex, in a wilderness area off a dirt road leading up into the mountainous desert, Fred and Thelma Lartz had parked the Invidia, in which at the moment Thelma was asleep in the main bedroom, lockman Wally Whistler was asleep in another bedroom, and Fred and the other lockman, Ralph Winslow, and the four other guys aboard were playing poker in the living room, for markers; they’d settle up after the caper.

Who else? Ralph Demrovsky, in guard gear, patrolled the dark paths in the general vicinity of the cottages. And three other guys, dressed all in black and holding pistols in their hands, stood in the shrubbery at the rear of the main building, near an unmarked door that opened out onto a small parking area. This parking area held an ambulance, a small fire truck, and two white Ford station wagons bearing the logo of the Gaiety security staff. The unmarked door beside them led into the security offices, where at this moment five uniformed guards were yawning and giggling and trying to keep their eyes open. “Jeez,” one of them said. “I don’t know what’s the matter with me tonight.”

“Same thing’s the matter with you every night,” another one told him, and giggled.

The guy who was supposed to be watching the monitors — fed by cameras pointed at the front entrance, at the side entrance, at various spots within and without the hotel, a whole bank of monitor screens to watch for stray movement — that guy gently lowered his head to the table in front of him and closed his eyes. His breathing became deep and regular.

“Jeez,” said the first guy again. “I need some
air.
”

That made all the others, except the sleeper, laugh and chortle and roll their heads around.

The first guy lunged to his feet, staggered, said, “Jeez, what’s the
matter
with me?” and moved, tottering, to the door. “I’ll be back,” he told the others, and opened the door, and then, true to his word, backed directly into the room, blinking, coming somewhat more awake, as the three guys dressed in black pushed their way inside, guns first, one of them saying, “I was beginning to wonder when one of you birds would come out.”

A second guy in black pointed his pistol at the seated guards, and snapped at one of them, “Stay away from that button! Your foot moves over by that button, I’ll shoot your knee off!”

These guards were professional, highly paid, three of them ex–cops and the other two formerly military police. Normally, they would have caused a great deal of trouble for any three wiseguys with guns blundering in here. But tonight their reaction time was nil, their coordination was off, their brains were wrapped in cotton and their bodies in bubblewrap. Before the guard sitting near the emergency button could even
think
about moving his foot over to press that button — which would send alarms both to police headquarters and to the manager’s office behind the check–in desk — he’d been roughly hustled out of his chair and over against the wall, with his friends, including the sleeper, who was very rudely awakened indeed. All five of them were briskly disarmed, and then, blinking, open–mouthed, fuzzy–brained, they stared at their captors and waited for whatever would happen next.

“Uniforms off,” one of the guys in black said.

The guards didn’t like that, not at all, but the guys in black were insistent, so off came the trimly pressed shirts with the pleats, and the shiny gun belts. More difficult were the trousers; all five guards had to sit on the floor to remove their pants, or they would have fallen to the floor and possibly hurt themselves.

There was a locked gunrack full of shotguns and rifles and handguns along one wall, with a heavy barred gate locked across the face of it. The guys in black forced the guards, now in their underwear, feeling foolish and ill–used but unable to stop the occasional giggle at the sight of one another, to sit on the floor under this gunrack. Then they were trussed, ankles and wrists (behind back), with duct tape, and more duct tape was looped under their armpits and through the bars of the gunrack gate, so they wouldn’t be able to crawl across the room; toward the emergency button, for instance.

“Let’s move this along,” said one of the guys in black. “I’m beginning to feel it.”

“Jeez,” the first guard said, shaking his woolly head, body hanging there suspended from the gunrack by duct tape. “What’s goin’
on
here?” he wanted to know.

The guys in black were stripping out of the black and into the uniforms. One of them paused to say, “Oh, don’t you know? It’s a heist goin’ on here.”

One of the other guards, the one who hadn’t managed to get to the button, tried to snarl, “You won’t get away with this,” but the threat came out softer than he’d intended, almost caring, and was further diminished by a loud snore: the sleeper had returned to sleep. All of which should have made the failed snarler mad, but somehow it didn’t. He chuckled instead, and shook his head, and grinned at the heisters now zipping up the uniforms. “You’re crazy,” he told them, and laughed. So did the other still–awake guards.

“That’s okay,” one of the heisters said. He had the extra uniforms and their own former clothing wrapped in a big ball in his arms. “See you later,” he said.

Which the still–awake guards — now down to three — found very funny indeed. They were still laughing as the heisters went out and the door swung shut behind them, leaving the guards in their underwear alone on the floor in here with nothing but the air–conditioning.

That’s what Earl Radburn told himself, as he patrolled the general area of the hotel, moving around the Battle–Lake, the pools, the tennis courts, the outside bar (shut for the night), the parking lots, the main entrance. He never went into the casino or the coffee shop or the lounge; there was nothing in there of interest to him. What was of interest was outside, was somewhere around cottage one, was one insane but determined burglar aimed at Max Fairbanks.

But where was he? Earl
knew
the fellow was around some place, he could feel it, like a tingle on the surface of his skin, as though all his pores were breathing in, smelling the villain out there. But where?

Quiet; too quiet. Earl saw his own guards here and there, saw the hotel’s security people, other hotel staff around and about. He saw the bored doorman at the main entrance, saw the black chauffeur in the stretch limo waiting for the last of the high rollers, saw the parked cars in the employee parking lot around back and the guest parking lot to the left of the entrance, and the nonresident visitor parking lot off to the right of the entrance, and
nothing
was suspicious. That’s what was so suspicious about it all; nothing was suspicious.

The local head of security, Wylie Branch, had gone home at midnight, stating his opinion that nothing would happen in the middle of the night, and his intention to be back on duty “bright–eyed and bushy–tailed,” as he’d phrased it, at six in the morning. Which was all well and good for Wylie Branch, but Earl Radburn knew you could never be sure, never be absolutely sure,
what
would happen, or
when.
This was the burglar’s last clear shot at Max Fairbanks. Would he wait till morning to make his move? Earl didn’t believe it.

But where was the fellow? Earl roamed and roamed the territory, moving constantly back around the cottages, then out again, moving, moving, questing, like a hunting dog that’s lost the scent. And it remained quiet out there. Too quiet.

He walked again around the side of the hotel toward the front, one more time, and saw the big motor home just turning in from the Strip, bowing and nodding up the entrance drive to turn rightward, toward the nonresident visitor parking lot. There seemed to be a woman driving it, in a hat.

Earl watched the big vehicle move across the nearly empty lot, the only moving vehicle in sight. It came to a stop over there, and Earl turned away, aiming his attention elsewhere. He walked past the front of the building and saw the doorman seated beside the entrance on a little stool, half asleep. The stretch limo was still there, the patient chauffeur at the wheel; he gave Earl a friendly wave, and Earl waved back. Poor fellow; had to wait out here hour after hour. And here it was, almost four in the morning.

Earl turned back, retracing his steps, looking this way and that, and his eye was snagged by that motor home. The woman was still seated there, at the wheel. Nobody had got out of the motor home, though its lights were on inside, behind drawn shades.

Why would a motor home come visiting at four in the morning? Why would it stop, and nobody get out of it?

Hmmmm. Earl strolled over that way, seeing that the woman’s hat was one of those tall things with fruit, like a salad. She was just sitting there, as patient as the chauffeur, hands on the wheel.

Was she waiting for somebody who was supposed to come out of the casino at this hour? Waiting, like the limo driver? Earl’s curiosity was piqued. A sixth sense told him there was something meaningful about this motor home. He walked closer to it, wary, watching this way and that, watching the door in the side of the thing, waiting for it to open, but it didn’t.

The woman finally did turn her head to smile down at him when Earl stopped beside her window. “Hello, there,” he said.

The window was closed, and probably she couldn’t hear him. She smiled, and nodded.

Mouthing carefully, raising his voice a bit, Earl said, “Who are you waiting for?”

Instead of answering, the woman smiled some more and pointed backward, gesturing for him to walk along the side of the motor home. He frowned up at her, and also pointed down in the same direction: “Down there?”

Her smile redoubled. She nodded, and made rapping motions in the air with one fist, then pointed down along the vehicle again.

She wanted him to go down there and knock on the door. All right, he would, and he did. The woman, and her smile, and her hat, had made him less suspicious than before, but still just as curious. He knocked on the door, and a few seconds later it opened, and a smiling guy in T–shirt and brown pants stood there, saying, “Hi.”

Earl said, “You folks waiting for somebody?”

“We are,” the guy said.

“Who?”

“You,” the guy said, and brought his hand out from behind his back with a Colt automatic in it. “Come on in,” he invited.

He couldn’t follow his normal routine tonight, he just couldn’t. Normally, he was out and about, everywhere in the hotel, smiling, greeting, nodding, encouraging the staff, beaming on the beauties of his paradise, circulating all night as the great hotel sailed like a wonderful ship through the darkness, himself out and about until his bedtime at four in the morning, like the captain of the wonderful ship, walking the decks, feeling the great hum of it, alive beneath his feet.

But not tonight. He couldn’t stand to be out there tonight, the tension, the strange faces of the imported security people, the knowledge that the big cheese was brooding in cottage one,
festering
in cottage one.

No, no, Brandon couldn’t walk the deck of his great ship tonight; the hotel had to sail without him, while he sat here in his office, the control center of it all, waiting for disaster to strike.

For a while, he’d phoned security every now and then, just to check in, but at 11:30 Wylie Branch had come on the line and had been
extremely
sarcastic: “Let my boys do their job,” he suggested. “Anything you need to know, they’ll be in touch. They got your number, believe me.”

So for the last four and a half hours he’d just
been
here, listening to a local news radio station, trying to go over old paperwork, waiting for the phone to ring. What’s happening? Has the war started? Has the disaster struck?

Four A.M. Time to go to bed, though Brandon seriously doubted he’d get much sleep tonight. Still, he ought at least try to maintain his normal schedule; it wouldn’t help anybody if he were to come down with a bug tomorrow, would it? So, at 4:00 A.M. exactly, he switched off the news station — grateful that he’d heard no news at all about the Gaiety — and left his office.

Brandon’s managerial office suite was directly behind the check–in desk, but his primary route in and out was via a short corridor to a door that opened onto the public space around the corner from the main desk, between that and the coffee shop, and facing the glass doors out to the pool area. Coming out here tonight, he wasn’t surprised to see no one in the coffee shop or walking by; 4:00 A.M. on a Monday night was always very slow. But he ought at least look in once on the guests in the casino, just to reassure himself with a faint echo of his normal routine, so that’s the direction he turned.

There was no one visible at the desk, but that was also normal. No guests would be checking in at this hour, and if anyone did have a question they could press the bell on the desk and the young woman from the office behind it would step promptly out to be of service.

Brandon walked on by, and saw no one at all at the slot machines, which was slightly unusual. Slot players have more staying power than any other human beings on the planet. Reflecting on that, he walked on by, just peripherally registering the fact that two players
were
there, crumpled on the floor in front of machines, cardboard cups of coins spilling from their limp hands, when his attention was drawn horribly to the sight of four people
unconscious
at a blackjack table.

Good God! The dealer and three players, all sprawled on the half–moon–shaped table, dead to the world. And beyond them, another table, three more sleepers.

Brandon stared. He couldn’t believe his eyes. People were sleeping on the crap tables! They were sleeping on the floor! They were sleeping —

Were
they sleeping? Or were they …

Poison! Thoughts of botulism, death from his own kitchens, scrambled in Brandon’s brain as he hurried forward to the nearest table. Oh, please be alive!
Please
be alive!

They were alive. Their arms were warm. Several of them were snoring. They were alive, they were merely asleep.

“Wake up,” Brandon said, and prodded the nearest dealer, a heavyset middle–aged man, who kept right on sleeping. “Wake
up,
” Brandon insisted. “What’s going
on
here?”

But the man would not wake up. Brandon stared around, and it occurred to him he could see none of his guards, none of the security people, not a uniform in sight. Where were they all? What’s happened to everybody?

Along the wall to the right of the blackjack tables was a plain unmarked doorway, leading to a curved hall with walls papered the same dull green as this part of the casino, and a floor with the same dull red carpeting, the hall angling away out of sight, featureless, uninviting. This hall led to the dayroom, as it was called, which was a small private place where security people could take their breaks. Coffee and tea and pastries were available in there, and chairs and sofas for the guards to sit on, put their feet up, rest from the hours of standing around that was the main ingredient of their jobs. Bewildered, growing frightened, apprehensive of what he might find, Brandon crossed to this doorway, hurried along the curving hall, and came into a room full of sleeping guards, sprawled in furniture and on the floor all over the room. And every one of them lashed wrist and ankle with duct tape.

“Oh, my God!” Brandon cried, and off to the right a guard in the security uniform, who had been seated with his back to the entrance, stood up and turned around and said, “Well, hello, there.”

Brandon thought he would faint. He thought he’d have a heart attack, or at least a humiliating accident in his underwear. He didn’t know
which
element was the more bewildering and the more terrifying: the pistol that was being pointed at him; the gas mask on the guard’s face; or the muffled metallic sound when the guard spoke, the voice coming through that horrible mask, the mask like a parody of an elephant’s head, gross and inhuman.

“I —” Brandon said. “Uh —” he said. His hands moved, accomplishing nothing.

A second guard — no, a second interloper, in a guard’s uniform — also stood and pointed his gun and his gas mask at Brandon. “Room for one more,” he said, and he had the same muffled metallic voice as the first one.

Brandon said, “What’s
happening?
What are you
doing?
”

The first gas mask turned to the second gas mask and said, “You notice how they all ask that? I would of thought it was obvious what was happening, but they all wanna know.”

There were rest rooms beyond the coffeemaker, and from the men’s room now came a third man in security uniform and gas mask, who looked at Brandon and then at his friends and said, “What have we got here?” (These were the three who’d recently dealt with the staff in the security offices.)

Brandon thought,
Not in my hotel.
You can’t destroy my hotel, whatever the big cheese may think. This isn’t a toy! I have to be strong, he thought, I have to get my wits about me, I must establish authority here. He said, his voice quavering only slightly, “I am the hotel manager. I am Brandon Camberbridge, and you are —”

“That’s nice,” the first one said. “That’s a nice name. Come sit down here.”

“I demand,” Brandon said, “to know —”

The second one said, “Brandon Camberbridge.”

Brandon blinked at him, at that horrible gas mask. “What?”

“Sit down or I’ll shoot your knee.” (He said that to everybody.)

I must argue with them, Brandon thought, I must protest, but even while thinking that, he was nevertheless moving forward, unwillingly but obediently placing himself in the chair indicated, unwillingly but obediently allowing them to tie his wrists and his ankles with duct tape.

“See you later,” one of them said.

“Where are you going?” Brandon demanded, with increasing hysteria. “You aren’t going to burn it down, are you? Why are you wearing those
things
on your face?”

They laughed, fuzzy metallic horrible laughs, and one of them leaned forward close enough for Brandon to read the Air Force markings on the boxlike thing at the bottom of the hose–snout on the front of the mask. “It’s the latest style,” said that nasty twangy voice, like a robot singing a country song.

They all laughed again, and headed for the doorway. “Pleasant dreams,” one of them said, and then they were gone.

Pleasant dreams? Was that supposed to be funny, some sort of sadistic comedy? Did they really think he’d be able to
sleep?
Here? Under these circumstances?

Wide–eyed, Brandon stared around at the sleeping guards. Sleeping. Gas masks.

Oh.

It turned out he could hold his breath for under three minutes.