The Mirror Thief(16)

Kagami’s office is small, cluttered, tucked away off the gaming floor. Nice oak desk. Navaho rug over scuffed parquetry. Picture window with a southern view: the Boulder Highway, toward Henderson and the dam. A sink and a tiny closet. A little slept-on couch. On a patch of bare wall between two overflowing bookcases hangs a column of old photographs, and Curtis spots his father’s laughing face in one. It looks like it was taken at the Trop; the clothes and the eyewear seem to put it in the late ’70s, though with gamblers it can be hard to tell. Curtis’s dad is posed with an aloof-looking Stanley, an Asian guy who must be Kagami, some men Curtis doesn’t recognize, and, in the middle, Sammy Davis, Jr. Curtis blinks, leans closer, touches the frame. Smiling wryly. Thinking of Danielle: her favorite pet name for him. But his smile collapses, and he starts to feel uneasy. Self-conscious. Fraudulent. Like he’s performing as expected for the benefit of some unseen audience. Or for himself.

He shifts his attention to the shelves. Math and physics paperbacks with drab two-tone covers. Thick illustrated works on American Indian art and archaeology. Books on the history, the economy, the architecture of Las Vegas. A Peterson’s guide to western birds. A Jane’s guide to aircraft identification. Everything ever written on card counting, including fifteen different printings of Edward Thorp’s Beat the Dealer, most from prior to the 1966 revision.

A voice from behind him: That’s the book that started it all, you know.

Curtis has been standing with the door in his blindspot and didn’t see Kagami come in. He curses inwardly, tries not to register surprise. I read it a long time ago, he says, turning around. An old copy of my dad’s. I don’t remember it too well. I never had too much of a head for that stuff.

You know where that guy is these days? Ed Thorp, I mean?

Curtis shakes his head.

Take a wild guess. Shot in the dark. C’mon.

The yellow-edged paperback that Curtis was looking at protrudes slightly from the shelf; he extends a blunt finger, pushes its cracked spine flush with those of its siblings. Wall Street? he says.

See? Kagami says, grinning, moving into the room. You always were a smart kid.

Kagami is about Curtis’s height, stocky, in good shape for his age—probably older than his dad by a couple of years, though he looks younger. Gray herringbone trousers, brown tweed jacket, fawn shirt, classy tie with a gold pin. A pokerplayer’s tinted eyeglasses. Big rings on both hands. He gives Curtis’s upper arm a friendly squeeze as they shake. Last time I saw you, Kagami says, you were probably about six years old. You’re looking good, real good. You’re a married man now, I hear.

Yes sir. It’ll be a year next month.

You still in the Marine Corps?

Just took my retirement.

Well, congratulations! That’s good. Looks like you got out just in time, too.

Kagami steps back, studies him. I heard you took a pretty good hit a couple of years ago, he says. Bosnia, was it?

Kosovo.

Well, it looks like you bounced right back.

Yeah, Curtis says. It took me a little while. I appreciate you seeing me on such short notice, Mister Kagami.

Walter! Christ, call me Walter. I’m glad you stopped in. Don’t know how much help I’m gonna be, though. You’re looking for Stanley Glass?

Yes sir. I’m trying to put him in touch with a friend of mine, and I heard he might be out here. Do you know how I can reach him?

Kagami moves behind his desk, looking out the window. Sunlight pours in sideways, and as he draws closer, his reflection meets him in the glass. I don’t know how to get in touch with Stanley, he says. But he has definitely been around. I had dinner with him just last week.

Did he say how long he’s going to be in town?

He didn’t. He said he was waiting for a connection to come through. Something he had going back East. He and Veronica had just flown in that afternoon: Wednesday, it would have been. Nine days ago. I remember because our waitress had the black smudge on her forehead. Stanley made a joke about it. Anyway, I comped them a suite, told them they could stay the week, but they were gone by morning. Didn’t say where to.

Kagami leans a little to the side, as if he’s trying to get a better view of something down below. Veronica was in college out here, he says. She used to be a dealer at the Rio, and I think maybe at Caesars before that. Stanley could be staying with her people.

I talked to Veronica last night. She says she doesn’t know where Stanley is. She’s looking for him, too.

You believe that?

Curtis tries to find Kagami’s eyes in the window reflection but can’t. I don’t know, he says. I don’t know why she’d lie.

She seemed pretty goosey when I saw her. Nervous.

Yeah. When I saw her, too. How did Stanley seem?

Kagami is quiet for a second. Then he laughs, turns back around. How does Stanley ever seem? he says. Listen, Curtis, I tell you what. If I can’t tell you where Stanley is, I can at least feed you a decent meal. We got the best restaurant in the state of Nevada right upstairs. My treat. Those Strip buffets’ll kill you.

The corridor outside Kagami’s office leads to an art-nouveau glass elevator that runs up the rocky hillside. The car is walled with lead-crystal, topped by stained-glass tracery in blazing sunset colors; it bears them smoothly toward a benchcut terrace about twenty feet overhead.

Real nice place you got here, Walter. How long you been doing this?