BY noon on Wednesday, after making a few last stops for paint and supplies, Cassie Black was crossing the desert, the sun gleaming off the silver skin of the Porsche and heat waves rising off the pavement in front of her. Though the highway was reasonably clear and she was driving a car capable of cruising smoothly at 110 mph or better, she kept the Porsche at a steady two miles under the limit. It was tantamount to holding a thoroughbred race horse at a canter but she had good reason. The moment she had left Los Angeles County she was in violation of her parole. Drawing a traffic stop from the highway patrol could result in her immediate incarceration.
As soon as she crossed the county line she knew that the stakes were high and her life was now at risk. Any interaction with law enforcement would probably result in her returning to lockdown. She had been paroled five years into a seven-to-twelve-year sentence for manslaughter. If she got hooked up she'd be returned to prison for a minimum two years but probably even longer.
She put a Lucinda Williams compact disc in the car stereo and listened to it over and over during the drive. The music rarely skipped badly on the smooth freeways. She liked the outlaw spirit of the songs, the sense of yearning and searching for something the singer put in every song. One of them made Cassie cry each time it came up on the disc. It was about a lost lover who had gone back to Lake Charles to die.
Did an angel whisper in your ear hold you close and take away all your fear in those long, last moments For Cassie the question posed in the song was a ghost that haunted her all the time. She hoped an angel had come to Max.
The sharp-edged outlines of the casino resorts were visible ahead by three and she felt an unmistakable mix of excitement and trepidation. For many years she had believed she would never again see the place where she had grown up, where she had met and lived with Max. She had comfortably reconciled that and put Las Vegas behind her. Returning now made her think of pain and regrets and ghosts. But she also couldn't help but marvel at the genius of the place. If ever something had been made out of nothing, Las Vegas no doubt was it.
As she cruised the Strip she found the changes made in her absence to be remarkable. On every block there rose a new resort, a new testament to greed and excess. She drove by a faux New York skyline, the colossal MGM Grand and the new Bellagio. She saw re-creations of the Eiffel Tower and Venice 's Piazza San Marco. They were places and things she had never seen. But now here they were on the Las Vegas Strip. She remembered something Max had once said. 'Everything and everybody will eventually come to Las Vegas. It will take away any reason to go anywhere else.'
Then they went to islands and they knew there was at least one place that couldn't be counterfeited or corrupted.
She came to the Cleopatra and her attention was immediately drawn to the side-by-side Tigris and Euphrates Towers. Her eyes drew along the mirrored glass of the top floor of the Euphrates Tower and held momentarily on one window.
Her eyes dropped to the rising triangular form of the glass atrium that covered the sprawling casino twenty floors below. The reflection of the sun was as sharp as a diamond on the side of the mirrored glass uprising. The complex was set almost a hundred yards off the Strip and the entrance drive took the visitor past a series of reflecting pools at graduated levels and from which fountains rose in a choreographed water dance. Set in the reflecting pools were pure white statues of children at play – all under the benevolent eye of Cleopatra, who sat in a throne at the edge of the highest pool. Behind her, an Egyptian motif was integrated into the modern design of the sand-colored exterior of the hotel and casino.
Cassie drove by and waited with the traffic to turn onto Flamingo and head out into the industrial warrens on the west side of the city. She couldn't help but think about Max. About their times here. About the end. She had not expected such biting pain and regret upon her return. The landscape of Las Vegas was always changing, reinventing itself. She had not expected a place that was essentially just a facade to have such a nostalgic resonance. But it was there and it burned. She had not been with another man since Max and she was sure she never would be. Perhaps, she thought, this pain was all she would ever have. That she should embrace it. But then she remembered there was more. There was the plan out on the horizon.
Hooten's Lighting amp; Supplies was located in an industrial complex near an elevated section of the freeway. It had been there for almost forty years, though its business had changed markedly over that time. Originally a wholesaler of lighting equipment to the casinos, its business had evolved more into the arena of electronics. It was no longer simply a supplier but a manufacturer as well. HLS now built and sold much of the sophisticated surveillance equipment employed in the casinos in Nevada as well as in gaming rooms on Indian reservation land throughout the West.
What the operators of HLS and the casinos that purchased the equipment were not aware of was that inside the company there was at least one person who made the same technology available – for a price – to those intent on circumventing the casino security systems the company installed.
Cassie parked the Boxster in the fenced rear lot, where the installers parked their trucks at night, and went in through the back door. Once inside she stood still for a moment as her eyes adjusted to the dim interior. When she could see clearly, her attention was drawn to the long counter that ran the length of the right side of the no- frills equipment-and-catalog room. Behind the counter were a half dozen men working with customers or working the phones. Most of them had copies of the thick HLS catalog open in front of them and were writing down orders. Cassie noticed that not much in the place had changed. The same slogan that had been painted along the wall behind the counter seven years ago was still there.
IN GOD WE TRUST
ALL OTHERS WE MONITOR
It took Cassie a few seconds to spot Jersey Paltz. He was working on the phone at the far end of the counter. He had a beard now and more gray hair. But he still had the ponytail and the silver loop earring. It was him.
Paltz hung up just as Cassie stepped up to the counter but he didn't look up at her. He finished writing notes on the top page of an order book. Reading upside down, Cassie could see the order was from the Tropicana. She spoke while he was still writing.
'So, Jersey, too busy to say hello to an old friend?'
Paltz finished the line he was on and then looked up smiling. The smile faltered a little and his face showed the slow register of recognition.
'Cassie Black?'
Cassie nodded and smiled.
'Hey, girl, sure been a long time. When did you… uh…'
'Ten months ago. I just haven't been around. After High Desert I moved to California. I like it out there. Where I live the temperature only hits trips a few times a year.'
Paltz nodded but there was hesitation there. Cassie could easily read him. He was realizing she wasn't there to make old acquaintances – there had never been anything but a business relationship between them in the first place. She glanced around to make sure their conversation was private and then leaned over the counter, her elbows on his open catalog and order book.
'I need a kit. Full rig, at least three cameras, and one has to be green.'
Paltz put the pencil he'd been using behind his ear and shook his head once without looking directly at her.
'I'm going to need a pair of NVGs and a roll of Conduct-O tape, too,' Cassie added. 'I stopped at Radio Shack on the way over and they don't sell the tape anymore. The rest of the tools I brought with me.'
'Well, that might be a problem,' Paltz said.
'The goggles or the tape?'
'No, all of it. We don't… I mean, I just don't get involved in that sort of – '
'Look, Jersey. Don't you think that if I was going to set you up I would've done it six years ago when it could have done me some good? I mean, Max and me, we made you a lot of money back then. You remember that, don't you?'
He nodded his head once, reluctantly.
'It's just that things are different now in this town. You cross a line and they come after you. I mean they really come after you.'
