'Oh, well, if you're going to be so polite about it…'
She listened. She thought she heard a horn honking and then Karch cursed at someone. She realized he was in a car and guessed it meant that he had pulled over and maybe cut someone off. She heard a rustling sound and then Karch's voice again, but not directed into the phone.
'Wake up, kid,' he said. 'Somebody wants to talk to you. Say hello.'
Cassie heard her daughter's breathing before her voice. Then she spoke one word that went through Cassie's heart like a diamond-tipped drill.
'Mommy?'
Cassie involuntarily drew her breath in and held it. She tried to halt the torrent of tears she knew was waiting to come down. She opened her mouth and tried to respond to the first word her daughter had ever said to her. But before she could form a sound, Karch's rude and gruff laugh loudly filled the inside of the car.
'Out of the mouths of babes, right?' he said. 'The Cleo by midnight, Cinderella, or your pumpkin gets smashed.'
He killed the connection and Cassie was suddenly riding in silence and darkness. In the tunnel.
She thought about calling Karch back but knew that all that was to be said had been said. She gazed out the windshield at the WELCOME TO LAS VEGAS sign as it passed. She had lied to Karch. She was coming in right behind him. It would give her a time advantage – a few hours to get ready – but little else. She had no idea what it was she would be getting ready for.
41
THE girl sat up in the backseat of the Lincoln and took in the dazzling lights of the Strip.
'Where are we?' she asked.
'We're almost there.'
'I want my daddy.'
Karch turned the rearview mirror and looked back at her. It sounded like she was going to start crying again. Halfway from L.A. she had started crying and screaming for her mother and father. Karch had had to pull off in Barstow and calm her. Mostly he bribed her with French fries and a Coke. He got her to agree to stop the outburst until they got to the hotel in Las Vegas where her daddy was waiting. The one good thing was that all the crying made her tired and she slept most of the rest of the way.
'Remember our deal. No crying and no outbursts until we get to the hotel room and you see your daddy. Okay?'
'I don't care. I want my daddy.'
'We're almost there,' he said. 'You're going to be with your daddy real soon.'
He smiled, though he knew she would never comprehend the joke.
'Are we in France now?'
'What?'
He checked the mirror and saw her staring out the window to her right, the reflection of neon light playing on her young face. He looked out the windshield to the right and saw what she was looking at. They were passing a half-size Eiffel Tower fronting a casino.
'Could be, kid. Could be.'
After a few more minutes he turned the car into the Cleopatra's entrance and followed the signs that said SELF PARKING to the rear of the property. He drove into the west parking garage as he had told Grimaldi he would. He found a parking slot on the fourth level and then he and the girl took the stairs down to the ground floor. Karch walked quickly, holding the girl by the hand and tugging her along.
An emergency exit door that Karch knew led from the elevator lobby of the Euphrates Tower directly to the parking garage had been left propped open for them with a towel tied around the inside push bar and then looped around the edge of the door and tied to the outside handle. By entering here he would be able to bypass all of the cameras in the casino. He could not allow there to be any video documentation of himself with the girl. Once they were through the door Karch yanked the towel free so that the door closed and locked. He left the towel on the floor.
In the elevator lobby Jodie Shaw stopped and tried to jerk her hand out of Karch's grip. It reminded him of the slightest tug of a throw-back fish on a fishing line. He looked down at her.
'Where's my daddy?'
'We're going up to see him right now. You want to push the button?'
He pointed to the elevator call buttons.
'No, I'm almost six years old. Not three.'
'Oh, okay then.'
Karch pulled her to the panel and pushed the button. He then glanced around and made sure no one was paying attention. He dipped his fingers into the sand jar below the buttons and eventually pulled out the card key Grimaldi had had planted there for him. An elevator opened and Karch pulled the girl into it. He used the card key to engage the penthouse button. Once the door was closed he let go of her hand. He looked up at the camera in the corner. There was no light or other means of determining if it was on or had been shut down per his instructions.
He looked down at the girl and he could tell she was confused and about to start crying again. He squatted down to her level and smiled.
'It's all right, kid. This will all be over in a few hours.'
'I want my mommy and daddy now.'
'You will all be together real soon. I promise. Hey, tell you what, did I show you this?'
He took the pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and shook one out. He then performed the in-the-ear-and- out-the-mouth transfer flawlessly. The girl's eyebrows arched in wonder. He lit the cigarette with a lighter and blew the smoke up over her head.
'That's magic,' he said. 'My daddy taught me that.'
He stood up.
'Or at least the guy who thought he was my daddy.'
The doors opened and he led the girl out into the alcove. They stepped into the hallway and went to the first door to the right. He used the card key to open the door and the girl charged in ahead of him.
'Daddy!'
He watched her look around expectantly and then go through the open double doors leading to the bedroom. Karch closed and locked the door, dropped the card on a little table beneath a mirror in the entranceway and followed her into the bedroom. She was leaning against the bed, her face down on the spread.
'Where's my daddy?'
'I guess we have to wait for him.'
She turned and looked up at him with accusing eyes.
'You told me he was here.'
'Don't worry. He's around somewhere. We just have to wait for him to come back. I'll make some calls to see if I can find him, okay? In the meantime, this here is the room where you are going to wait. You can get on the bed and go back to sleep or you can watch TV, whatever you want. They have a channel just for cartoons, right? Why don't you check it out?'
He looked at the girl nodding and smiling but she wasn't with the program. She hardly seemed mollified and Karch was just about out of patience. The next move would be to tie the kid up and put her in the shower with a gag in her mouth. He decided to try once more before going to that extreme.
'Tell you what, you hungry? I'll order us up some room service. I'm fucking starved. How about a nice, juicy steak?'
'Gross. And you talk dirty.'
'That I do, that I do. All right, no steak. What would you like instead?'
'Spaghetti-Os.'
