Steal the Lightning: A Field Ops Novel (Field Ops #3)(62)

I asked her, “Ready?”

“Give me a minute.”

“You’re OK? I’m not being patronizing, honest. But I think we’re close to a god here. If it sparks off any, you know, any reaction, or you don’t feel right—”

“Chris,” she said. She took her phone and makeup from her purse. “I’ve been acting like I’m this guy’s entertainment for the night. I think I ought to touch my face up. Don’t you?”

“Well, you probably shouldn’t take the role so seriously . . .”

“Jealous?” She dabbed a lipstick at my nose, and I ducked back. “Maybe I’m a method actor? Thought of that?”

Then she was business-like at once. “All right. Let’s get this done, OK?”

Cool air blew across the lobby. I hesitated, relishing the AC, taking in the new surroundings: soft lights, pop music, and rich, deep carpeting . . .

A woman lay upon the floor, some ten yards in. She wore a pink dress and her hair was streaky-blond. She looked as if she’d fainted, but no one went to help her. People just stood around, chattered, stared at her.

Angel said, “Hey,” and quickened her pace.

As we approached, though, the woman seemed to wake. She sat up, tipped her head back, ran her fingers through her hair. She looked about twenty, twenty-five; a model or a showgirl, possibly. She stretched, yawned, and snaked onto her feet. Then, without a glance towards the onlookers, she turned, quickly and deliberately, and walked into the wall.

There was a tiny phut sound, like a bulb blowing.

She disappeared.

The same instant, her image flashed back into life, just as we’d first seen her, supine, sleeping, sprawled across the carpet. She sat up, threw her head back . . .

“It’s holograms,” a man was telling his wife. “Like Star Trek, see? They got projectors—” He cast about, then pointed. “There, see?”

“That’s a security camera,” she said.

“No, no. It’s a projector. See?”

We left them arguing—them, and the ghost-woman, and walked into the gaming hall.

Casinos don’t have clocks. Nothing to tell you if it’s night or day. Time shrinks or stretches, moves in rhythm to your mood. It’s unreal, trippy: bursts of color, noises everywhere . . .

But there was something else going on here. I caught it, after a moment: little movements in the shadows, a flicker in the corner of the eye. Things you couldn’t look at straight on. A scent of lemon and ammonia, gone almost the moment you acknowledged it. A whisper, cutting through the din of slot machines and disco tunes, a voice that seemed to say something but you could never afterwards remember what.

“Check your reader.”

Anybody near would probably have thought that we were looking at our phones.

“Jesus, Chris—”

Readings were up. Almost off the scale.

I went over to the welcome desk, put on a little swagger, hands in pockets, shoulders rolling. The fellow working there looked young and well-scrubbed, like he was just about to leave for church.

“I’m here to speak to Preston McAvoy,” I said. “I’d appreciate it if you let him know that I’ve arrived. Preston McAvoy,” I said again, and handed him a twenty-dollar bill. “Tell him it’s Copeland. Copeland, from the Registry . . .”

I did my poshest voice.

It was meant to sound like Churchill, but it came out more like Basil Fawlty.

“The name again, sir?”

So I spelled it, and he typed it into the computer, and of course it drew a blank, and I asked for him to call his supervisor, which he did, and then—because I didn’t actually want to see his supervisor, just let him know that I was there—I walked away.

Angel said, “Vegas is a big place, Chris.”

“Trust me, he’s here.”

I watched the banks of slot machines, gaudy engines with names like Robin Hood and Goldenville and Da Vinci’s Diamonds, and I watched the players, drawn here regardless of the off-the-Strip location, the lack of gimmickry and show-business pizzazz.

But I was missing something. There was something that I wasn’t seeing, something in the mood, the atmosphere, the very function of the place. Or if I saw it, then I didn’t understand . . .

A young man, one foot up on the machine, finger tapping in a kind of spasm, beating out a code. A woman, motionless with concentration. An older man, hunched forward, his face just inches from the screen. He looked like he was going to fall asleep but had to play one final game—and then another, and another . . . It was after midnight. Every single slot was occupied. Every one. Lights flashed and burst: a heart pulsing an endless stream of colors, and over to the right, a big, bright star, and Jagger’s cartoon mouth, and after that an arch through to the next room and the hanging jewel of lights over the blackjack tables, and still more activity, and I could feel the buzz, everyone amped up, and fizzing with adrenaline.

The taste of metal in my mouth.

Lemon. Ammonia . . .

I caught it, and I wasn’t even playing.

I heard drum rolls and a waterfall of fake piano notes, a trumpet-whoop to mark a minor win—then, for maybe two minutes, the machines were silent. There was only background music, oldies, Clapton and Diana Ross.

That jogged my memory.

I’d had a summer job at SkyLux Lighting, years ago, when I was growing up. Factory work. To keep us going, they’d play pop music, but only at specific times: an hour, when we first arrived, a half hour after lunch, and then a final hour before we all went home. Calculated, I suppose, to maximize production.