The Eyes of Darkness

accident. Which meant it had to be someone she didn’t even know. Why would a stranger harbor such passionate feelings about Danny’s death?

The red traffic light changed.

A horn tooted behind her.

As she drove across the intersection and into the entrance drive that led to the Golden Pyramid Hotel, Tina couldn’t shake the creepy feeling that she was being watched by someone who meant to harm her. She checked the rearview mirror to see if she was being followed. As far as she could tell, no one was tailing her.

Chapter Twelve

The third floor of the Golden Pyramid Hotel was occupied by management and clerical personnel. Here, there was no flash, no Vegas glamour. This was where the work got done. The third floor housed the machinery that supported the walls of fantasy, beyond which the tourists gamboled.

Tina’s office was large, paneled in whitewashed pine, with comfortable contemporary upholstery. One wall was covered by heavy drapes that blocked out the fierce desert sun. The windows behind the drapes faced the Las Vegas Strip.

At night the fabled Strip was a dazzling sight, a surging river of light: red, blue, green, yellow, purple, pink, turquoise — every color within the visual spectrum of the human eye; incandescent and neon, fiberoptics and lasers, flashing and rippling. Hundred-foot-long signs—five-hundred-foot-long signs — towered five or even ten stories above the street, glittering, winking, thousands of miles of bright glass tubing filled with glowing gas, blinking, swirling, hundreds of thousands of bulbs, spelling out hotel names, forming pictures with light. Computer-controlled designs ebbed and flowed, a riotous and mad — but curiously beautiful — excess of energy consumption.

During the day, however, the merciless sun was unkind to the Strip. In the hard light the enormous architectural confections were not always appealing; at times, in spite of the billions of dollars of value that it represented, the Strip looked grubby.

The view of the legendary boulevard was wasted on Tina; she didn’t often make use of it. Because she was seldom in her office at night, the drapes were rarely open. This afternoon, as usual, the drapes were closed. The office was shadowy, and she was at her desk in a pool of soft light.

As Tina pored over a final bill for carpentry work on some of the Magyck! sets, Angela, her secretary, stepped in from the outer office. “Is there anything more you need before I leave?”

Tina glanced at her watch. “It’s only a quarter to four.”

“I know. But we get off at four today — New Year’s Eve.”

“Oh, of course,” Tina said. “I completely forgot about the holiday.”

“If you want me to, I could stay a little longer.”

“No, no, no,” Tina said. “You go home at four with the others.”

“So is there anything more you need?”

Leaning back in her chair, Tina said, “Yes. In fact, there is something. A lot of our regular junketeers and high rollers couldn’t make it to the VIP opening of Magyck! I’d like you to get their names from the computer, plus a list of the wedding anniversaries of those who’re married.”

“Can do,” Angela said. “What’ve you got in mind?”

“During the year, I’m going to send special invitations to the married ones, asking them to spend their anniversaries here, with everything comped for three days. We’ll sell it this way: ‘Spend the magic night of your anniversary in the magic world of Magyck!’ Something like that. We’ll make it very romantic. We’ll serve them champagne at the show. It’ll be a great promotion, don’t you think?” She raised her hands, as if framing her next words, “The Golden Pyramid — a Magyck! place for lovers.”

“The hotel ought to be happy,” Angela said. “We’ll get lots of favorable media coverage.”

“The casino bosses will like it too, ’cause a lot of our high rollers will probably make an extra trip this year. The average gambler won’t cancel other planned trips to Vegas. He’ll just add on an extra trip for his anniversary. And I’ll be happy because the whole stunt will generate more talk about the show.”

“It’s a great idea,” Angela said. “I’ll get the list.”

Tina returned to her inspection of the carpenter’s bill, and Angela was back at five minutes past four with thirty pages of data.

“Thank you,” Tina said.

“No trouble.”

“Are you shivering?”

“Yeah,” Angela said, hugging herself. “Must be a problem with the air-conditioning. The last few minutes — my office got chilly.”

“It’s warm enough in here,” Tina said.

“Maybe it’s just me. Maybe I’m coming down with something. I sure hope not. I’ve got big plans tonight.”

“Party?”

“Yeah. Big bash over on Rancho Circle.”

“Millionaire’s Row?”

“My boyfriend’s boss lives over there. Anyway… happy new year, Tina.”

“Happy new year.”

“See you Monday.”

“Oh? Oh, yeah, that’s right. It’s a four-day weekend. Well, just watch out for that hangover.”

Angela grinned. “There’s at least one out there with my name on it.”

Tina finished checking the carpenter’s bill and approved it for payment.

Alone now on the third floor, she sat in the pool of amber light at her desk, surrounded by shadows, yawning. She’d work for another hour, until five o’clock, and then go home. She’d need two hours to get ready for her date with Elliot Stryker.

She smiled when she thought of him, then picked up the sheaf of papers that Angela had given her, anxious to finish her work.

The hotel possessed an amazing wealth of information about its most favored customers. If she needed to know how much money each of these people earned in a year, the computer could tell her. It could tell her each man’s preferred brand of liquor, each wife’s favorite flower and perfume, the make of car they drove, the names and ages of their children, the nature of any illnesses or other medical conditions they might have, their favorite foods, their favorite colors, their tastes in music, their political affiliations, and scores of other facts both important and trivial. These were customers to whom the hotel was especially anxious to cater, and the more the Pyramid knew about them, the better it could serve them. Although the hotel collected this data with, for the most part, the customers’ happiness in mind, Tina wondered how pleased these people would be to learn that the Golden Pyramid maintained fat dossiers on them.

She scanned the list of VIP customers who hadn’t attended the opening of Magyck! Using a red pencil, she circled those names that were followed by anniversary dates, trying to ascertain how large a promotion she was proposing. She had counted only twenty-two names when she came to an incredible message that the computer had inserted in the list.

Her chest tightened. She couldn’t breathe.

She stared at what the computer had printed, and fear welled in her — dark, cold, oily fear.

Between the names of two high rollers were five lines of type that had nothing to do with the information she had requested:

NOT DEAD

NOT DEAD

NOT DEAD