Charlie chided himself for having underestimated the might of gambling.
From the parking garage he heard the distinctive rain of coins into slot machine payout trays. The dozens of other people leaving their cars-and, mostly, pickups-seemed to brighten at the sound. He wandered onto the gaming floor, a galaxy of slot machines-5,465 of them according to a billboard with the digital numbers poised to change with each addition, a new take on the HAMBURGERS SOLD sign. Seemingly all of the ten million colors visible to the human eye were on display. The whirring reels, accompanied by bells and chimes, blended into one harmonious and mesmerizing chord. It wasn’t just that the oxygen was purer in here, Charlie thought. It was like inhaling adrenaline.
In the chrome frame of a one-armed bandit, he caught the reflection of a curly-haired young man in a peacoat and fatigue pants. The thick-framed glasses would probably have thrown Charlie. But although the young man was playing a slot machine, he was looking at something other than the wheel, possibly a chrome band enabling him to view Charlie, and enabling Charlie to recognize him as the lanky custodian from the State Line, Mississippi, McDonald’s.
Charlie felt as if he’d hit a jackpot.
Turning away, he searched for the VIP credit lounge. It would have been hard not to find. Its golden letters were almost as big as those outside.
But would they admit him? A VIP, in the gaming industry, was someone with assets. Does a person have a credit card, a debit card, even a library card that can advance cash now against overdue fees later? Then he’s a VIP.
Charlie waltzed into the lounge, and with little effort obtained a $5,000 cash advance-it was nice to be able to draw on the family numbered account without fear that the transaction would incite an Interpol SWAT team. He also put $5,000 on the casino platinum card he’d been handed upon entry, bringing its balance to $5,020-all new arrivals began with a balance of $20. A taste.
He needed appropriate clothes, which were readily available a few steps off the casino floor. Among other tuxes for sale at a store called Golden Man was the “High Roller” line; Charlie bought a size 42R along with a matching dress shirt, shoes, and a bow tie. He also tossed onto the counter a Golden Sun baseball cap and a windbreaker, as if on impulse. The total was $2,111. He paid in cash, hoping the lack of a paper trail in this instance would obfuscate his planned exit.
He checked into a hotel room, opting for a Chief’s Suite at an extra fifteen dollars per night. The lofty space was furnished in an Ancient Rome theme, the walls and marble floor flecked with silver and gold. The bed was almost as big as a swimming pool. He wished Alice were here, if only to share his grin.
He called room service and ordered the “executive” surf and turf. While waiting, he changed into his tux, which was almost identical to those worn by the staff he’d seen carrying drink trays and pushing the linen-draped room service trolleys.
A few minutes later, at the sound of a gong, he answered his door and admitted a waiter who not only wore a tux like his, but was close to his height and weight. Their principal differences were twenty years in age, a slight hunch, and an overbite. Lucky, Charlie thought. He could mimic those.
He asked, “Sir, how would you like to make a thousand dollars?”
The man, who probably heard an equally unusual question at least once a week, didn’t hesitate. “Depends what for.”
“For reasons I’m sure I won’t need to explain to you, I need to get out of this building without being seen by my wife, who unexpectedly just showed up.”
Stooping so as to resemble the waiter and to keep his face from the view of security cameras, Charlie heaved the trolley down a service corridor, his planned change of clothes hidden in a food compartment.
He came to an exit leading onto a dark dining patio, evidently used during warmer months. Abandoning the trolley, he crossed the patio, reaching an unlit spiral stairwell that took him down to a curb lined with six or seven buses rumbling at idle. Their exhaust created a fog laced with diesel fumes. His plan had been to make his way to the parking lot and find someone leaving the casino who would thank Jesus for the crazy Yankee who gave him three grand for a clunker pickup truck. But this was better.
Charlie fell into step with the grumbling and otherwise downtrodden crowd exiting the casino and boarding the buses. Throwing the windbreaker over his tuxedo coat and zipping it to the neck, he wove through shadows and climbed aboard the first bus in line, a sixty-foot-long Golden Sun coach destined for Hattiesburg, Mississippi’s YMCA, according to the marquee.
He found a seat, the three dozen passengers scattered around the cabin paying him passing notice at most. The lone exception, a buzzard of around eighty lowering himself into the seat across the aisle. The old man locked eyes with Charlie and said, “Fun, but no money,” then readied his blanket and tubular “snuggle pillow” for the trip home.
The bus driver, a fiftyish man with the look of a commandant, took his place behind the wheel, snapped the door shut, and propelled the coach toward the highway-all without a glance at the passengers. The Golden Sun’s management cared much more about gamblers on the way in than those who’d left.
13
The Brig reminded Bream of a utility shed. Decorated, barely, with a pair of model ships, a dartboard, and three beer company posters, it smelled of low tide even though the tide was now high-because the jukebox was out of order and the six solitary patrons weren’t speaking to one another, Bream could hear the waves slapping the top of the pier.
Glad of the opportunity to be alone with his thoughts, he climbed onto a stool at the warped bar and ordered his Bud.
He found himself stealing glances at the young woman in a Princeton sweatshirt at the other end of the bar, as exquisite a specimen as he’d ever seen. Aphrodite with green eyes and a damned good attendance record at the gym.
What the hell, he wondered, was someone like her doing in a place like this?
Cliche be damned, he wandered over and asked.
“Waiting for you to come to this side of the bar.” She flashed two fingers to the bartender. “But just because you’re the only man here who wouldn’t be a shoo-in for the cast of a zombie movie, don’t think I’m going to be easy.”
“That makes two of us,” Bream said. “I’ve already got an old lady.”
“But you want a young one, don’t you?”
Bream didn’t say no. Maybe what he really needed was to take his mind off work. Settling on the stool next to hers, he asked, “So you got a story?”
At twenty-three, she said, she was over the hill as a fashion model. Tonight she was drinking herself into grudging acceptance that she would start law school in the fall. She had eschewed the Ivies for the University of Alabama so that she could help take care of her grandma, who lived nearby.
He was charmed. Three beers later and it was probably clear to everyone in the bar, even the guy facedown at the table beneath the dartboard, where this was heading.
Everyone except Bream. He was haunted by the thought that, as a consequence of the washing machine aboard his cabin cruiser, this latter-day Aphrodite would be transformed into red mist tomorrow.
He thought back to the conference in Miami in March 2005. He was a round peg then, trying to act square enough to work for Air Force Intelligence. And he was succeeding. He’d received a spate of plum assignments, the latest of which was an appointment to an interagency force to protect America from weapons of mass destruction smuggled aboard small oceangoing vessels.
The October 2000 al-Qaeda small vessel assault on the USS
