chili. Cassie remembered that the chili was the only thing on the menu that the regulars dared to eat. But she'd never eat it again, here or anywhere else, after having to eat chili every Wednesday for five years in High Desert. She walked up and was sliding into the booth when Paltz began protesting.
'Honey, I'm waiting for – '
'It's me.'
He looked up and recognized her.
'Little early for Halloween, isn't it?'
'I thought there might be people in here who'd remember me.'
'Shit, you haven't been around in six years. In Vegas that's ancient history. You know, I was just about to give up on you but figured, hey, you haven't been here in six, seven years. You don't know how bad traffic's gotten.'
'I just learned. I thought L.A. was bad but this is…'
'Makes L.A. look like the fucking Autobahn. They need about three more freeways here, all the building they been doin' around here.'
Cassie didn't want to talk about traffic or the weather. She got right to the point of the meeting.
'Did you bring me something?'
'First things first.'
Paltz slid around in the booth until he was right next to Cassie and moved his left hand under the table and started patting and feeling her body. Cassie immediately stiffened.
'Always wanted to do this,' Paltz said with a smile. 'Ever since I saw you that first time with Max.'
His breath was chili and onions. Cassie turned away and looked out into the bar.
'You're wasting your time, I'm not – '
She stopped when he brought his hand up her torso to her breasts. She pushed his arm away.
'Okay, okay,' Paltz said. 'You just can't be too careful these days, you know? You got eighty-five bumblebees in that bag?'
She looked out of the booth and across the bar to make sure no one was watching. They were clear. If people were noticing their serious looks, they were dismissing it as a pointed negotiation between a big-haired hooker and a john. No big deal. Even the pat-down could be seen as part of the negotiation; these days a buyer had to be sure of the quality and gender of the product.
'I brought what you told me to bring,' she said. 'Where's the kit?'
'In the truck. You show me what I need again and we'll take a walk.'
'We already did this once,' Cassie protested. 'Move back.'
Paltz slid back to his spot. He scooped some chili into his mouth and took a long pull on a bottle of Miller High Life.
Cassie moved the backpack across her lap and put it down on the seat between them. She pulled the flap back halfway. Her rubber tool satchel was now in the bag. On top of it was the sheaf of currency. Hundred-dollar bills – or bumblebees, as some of the longtime locals called them. It was Vegas slang dating back several years to a time when thousands of counterfeit hundred-dollar chips had flooded the Vegas underworld. They were perfect counterfeits of the black-and-yellow hundred-dollar chips used at the Sands. They were called bumblebees. The fakes were so good that the casino had to change the colors and design of their chips. The Sands was long gone now, demolished and replaced by a new casino. But the underworld code of calling a hundred-dollar bill or chip a bumblebee remained. Anyone who used the term had been around a while.
Cassie made sure Paltz got a good look at the money and then flipped the backpack closed just as a barmaid came to the table.
'Can I get you something?' she asked Cassie.
Paltz answered for her.
'No, she's fine,' he said. 'We're just gonna go outside and then I'll be right back. I'll need another beer then, sweetheart.'
The barmaid walked away and Paltz smiled, knowing that what he had just said would leave the waitress thinking that they were going outside to complete a sexual transaction. This didn't bother Cassie because it played into her cover. But what did annoy her was his calling the waitress 'sweetheart.' It always bothered Cassie when men called women they did not know by endearing names they didn't mean. She bit back on an urge to call Paltz on it and started sliding out of the booth.
'Let's do it,' she said instead.
Once they were out the door Paltz led the way to a van parked at the side of the bar. He unhooked a set of keys from his side belt loop and unlocked the sliding door on the passenger side. The van was parked so that the open door was only a few feet from the side wall of the bar. No one could look into the van without coming right up to it. Cassie understood this to be good and bad. Good if Paltz was going to be legit with her. Bad if this was a rip-off.
Paltz climbed into the van and signaled Cassie to follow. The front cab was partitioned off with a wall of plywood. In the rear of the van two bench seats faced each other across a work area. Various tools hung on hooks protruding from punch boards on the walls and five-gallon buckets contained more tools, equipment and rags. Cassie hesitated in the open door. She was carrying close to ten thousand dollars in cash in her backpack and was being beckoned into a van by a man she had not seen, let alone dealt with, in more than six years.
'Well, you want it or not? I don't have all night and I thought you didn't either.'
Paltz pointed to a medium-sized American Tourister suitcase that was on the floor. He picked it up and sat down on a bench seat with it on his lap. He opened it, raising the lid against his chest so that Cassie could see the equipment displayed in foam cushioning in the case.
Cassie nodded and climbed into the van.
'Close the door,' Paltz said.
She slid the door closed but kept her eyes on Paltz as she did it.
'Let's do this quick,' she said. 'I don't like being here.'
'Relax, I'm not going to bite you.'
'I'm not worried about getting bit.'
Now that she was closer, Cassie looked at the case again. Pieces of electronic surveillance equipment were placed in cutouts so they would not move during transport. Cassie recognized most of the pieces from prior use or from electronics magazines and catalogs. There were pinhole cameras, a microwave transmitter, a receiver and several pieces of related equipment. There was also a pair of night-vision goggles.
Like a door-to-door salesman, Paltz waved his arm in front of the display and started his spiel.
'You want me to go over everything or you think you've got a handle on it?'
'Better show me everything but the NVGs. It's been a while.'
'All right, then, let's go from image capture to picture delivery. First, the cameras.'
He pointed to the upper half of the case. Four small black squares with open circuitry and circular centerpieces were displayed in the foam rubber.
'You've got four chip cameras here – should be enough for any job. When we spoke before you didn't say if you needed color but – '
'I don't need color. I don't need audio. I need clarity. I need to read numbers.'
'That's what I figured. These are all black and white. The first three you see here are your standard pinhole board cameras. When I say standard, I mean Hooten L amp;S standard. Nobody puts together a better board right now. With these you get four hundred lines resolution from a linear electronic iris. Very clear. Runs four to six hours on a dime battery. How's that work for you, timewise?'
'Should be fine.'
Cassie felt herself getting excited. Keeping up through electronics magazines was one thing, but actually seeing the equipment was dipping the hot wire into her blood. She could feel the blood pounding in her temples.
Paltz went on with his show.
'Okay, then this fourth board is your green camera. It's called the ALI – like Muhammad Ali. That's why we call it the 'greatest little camera of all time' in the catalog.'
'Ali?'
