The Mirror Thief(24)
Curtis puts a hand up in the suit’s face, turns back to the slots. Yeah, he says. Yeah, I’m here.
Would you tell Damon—are you getting this?—would you please tell Damon that I know what happened in Atlantic City? I know what happened, I know why it happened, and I have kept my mouth shut about it. Please tell your boss that I am a professional, that I am willing to deal, but only on my own terms, and only with a reasonable guarantee of my safety. Can you remember all that?
What movie’d you get that from, man? Curtis says. I think I saw that movie.
He’s among the machines now, eyeing the crowd. Three Japanese ladies playing Beverly Hillbillies. A fat guy yelling at his wife, mouth half-full of burrito. A pregnant girl in an Eisenhower Lions T-shirt, sitting alone at a 24 Karat machine. Nobody’s lips sync with the voice he’s hearing. Every sound is swaddled in inane electronic chatter.
On the phone, the guy’s coming unglued. I will contact you soon, he says. I will let you know what my terms are. Until I do that, you lay the f*ck off of me. Just stay the f*ck away. You may have Stanley and Veronica and Walter Kagami duped, but I know what your game really is, and I am not gonna go quietly. You tell Damon—
At the edge of the machines, about a hundred feet away, there’s a blond kid, a pudgy fratboy type, leaning against an ATM. He’s wearing a ballcap and a Mirage T-shirt; he’s turned away from Curtis, reading a travel guide. And inside the travel guide is a mirror: about four inches by six, catching a little light from the chandelier over Curtis’s head. Curtis freezes, lowers his phone from his ear, takes a couple of quick steps, and the guy’s gone.
The gaming floor is crowded, Curtis is out of shape, and getting there seems to take forever. He’s got the guy in a corner, but it’s a big corner: Curtis hasn’t seen him pop up at the escalators, or at the Noodle Asia, so he figures he must’ve ducked into the sports book area. After quick glances left and right, that’s where he follows him.
It’s darker inside than on the casino floor: most of the light comes from dozens of flickering TVs, and Curtis’s vision takes a moment to adjust. A few Australians are glued to a soccer match; most other screens are recapping NCAA basketball. In a far corner, Curtis can make out a single luminous map of Iraq.
He looks around for a baseball cap, then for blond hair, then for a Mirage T-shirt, but strikes out across the board. Moving into the room, he spots the brim of the guy’s cap sticking out of a wastebasket. He picks it up, and finds the guy’s blond hair sewn neatly inside. As Curtis lifts it to his face, there’s movement somewhere to his left: someone making for the exit.
The guy is light on his feet. Curtis just catches a glimpse of him as he’s rounding the corner up ahead, blackhaired now, an MGM Grand hoodie pulled over his T-shirt. By the time Curtis thinks to look at his shoes, he’s already vanished. Curtis makes the corner not far behind him, feeling winded, and ducks through the first opening to his left.
It’s a little lounge, a salsa band playing to a crowded house. Colored lights sweep the floor; middle-aged white people shuffle and grin. Curtis knows right away that it’s over. No telling how many changes of clothes the kid’s got. If only he’d looked at the shoes. He stands there for a moment, fuming, catching his breath. His left foot is cold and sticky where the spilled drinks soaked through. After a while, he steps back onto the gaming floor and dials the number the guy called him from.
No answer, no voicemail set up. After five tries Curtis quits, then takes a moment to save the number in the phone. His fingertip mashes the small buttons. Whistler appears on the LCD screen.
He calls Damon on his way back to the elevators. As before, there’s no greeting, just a beep. Damon, Curtis says. It’s me. You got some explaining to do. I just had a very f*cked-up phone conversation with some little freak who’s here in Vegas dialing me from a 609 cell, who wants me to give you some message about how he knows what went down in AC and how he wants you to guarantee his safety, but I’m having a hard time doing that, see, because I don’t know who the f*ck he is or what the f*ck he’s talking about. All right? Now I am tired of being jerked around by you, motherf*cker. You need to call me—on the phone, not any more of this fax machine bullshit—and give me the poop. Until you do that, I am suspending operations, effective immediately. I am sitting by the swimming pool, and I am spending your goddamn dollars. Hear me? You need to be straight with me, man. Because this is f*cked up. Later.
The keycard slides; Curtis steps into his room. There’s a rasp along the tile, something stuck to the damp sole of his shoe: a folded-over sheet of hotel stationery. He catches whiffs of rum and orange juice as he stoops to peel it off.
We need to talk
I’m upstairs in 3113
Come by tonight after 11:30
VERONICA
It’s past 11:30 now. Curtis half-turns toward the door, then stops, thinking. Feeling suddenly very happy. Feeling like himself. Things are happening.
He turns, crosses the unlit suite, opens the safe. Checks the revolver’s cylinder—five brass caseheads, a neat gleaming ring—and clips it to his belt. His leather blazer is draped over a chair by the window; Curtis slips it on, smoothes the hem to hide the pistol, turns to check his silhouette in the mirror on the wall.
A second pair of eyes stares back at him. Black eyes in a waxen face.
Reflex puts the pistol back in his hand, but aims it automatically at the image in the glass; Curtis curses, wheels to look over his shoulder. As he moves, the phantom in the mirror wavers and warps—like a TV screen raked by a magnet—and dissolves from sight. Curtis feels the sickening, not-unfamiliar sensation of his brain losing its grip on his body: he sees himself wild-eyed, half-crouched, jabbing the pistol at dark corners, although he knows full well that he’s alone. His eye has tricked him, or his mind has.