disoriented and burdened with luggage too heavy for them to carry, under the gigantic roofed porticos of the big hotels. And then each taxi would roar out the driveway again to try for one more piece of this flight or the first passengers off the next one—the man who was first to the taxi stand because he was in a hurry and didn’t mind tipping big to get to the casinos.
He decided to walk. Sunshine and exercise were the best medicines in the world. He was feeling stronger already, even though his leg still didn’t feel right. And maybe by evening he’d know what was bothering Orloff. It was probably just that somebody had seen him with Little Norman and gotten scared, but it could be anything. And for that matter, Little Norman hadn’t behaved right either. As soon as he showed up with a bruise or two everybody had changed—as if he were an eyesore that was going to lower the going rates on hotel rooms or spoil the customers’ appetites.
He reached the Strip at Sahara Avenue and crossed to the other side of the street. He passed Circus Circus, the Stardust, the Silver Slipper, and settled on the Frontier. It was a little quieter this time of day, and it was mostly blue inside. He established himself in the dark bar off the main casino and ordered a Bloody Mary. He didn’t much like them, but if you were going to drink in the daytime you had to have what other people drank in the daytime.
As he sipped the Bloody Mary he could see that the midday flights must have begun arriving at the airport. Already on the other side of the casino the lobby was beginning to fill up with people wearing too many clothes for this weather, who apologetically stepped aside to avoid carts of baggage propelled with relentless efficiency toward the elevators by bellmen who seemed unaware of obstacles. In another half hour the first planes would be fueled and ready to take off again, and the scene would be complicated by the husbands in line at the hotel cashiers while the wives pumped the slot machine handles a few more times. If there were still watchers they would have to fight the crowds.
It was just about right, he thought. He wouldn’t stay out of sight long enough to worry anyone; just long enough so the watchers would have time to pick him up again and pretend they hadn’t lost him in the first place. Then he noticed that the bar was slowly beginning to fill up around him. In a few minutes more waitresses would appear, and when that happened the lights would begin to brighten imperceptibly so they could push the drinks without bumping into each other or losing track of anybody.
He edged farther into the shadows and watched the people coming into the bar. There were the usual couples—some middle-aged, husbands in sport coats and looking secretly pleased at the unfamiliar feeling of not wearing ties on a weekday. The wives in spotless unwrinklable pants outfits that were designed and manufactured to say money—some young, the pair not quite used to each other yet, the man still looking younger and greener than the woman in spite of what he thought of himself. Then there were a few solitaries, both men and women, all fortyish, who would sit down where they could get a good view of the casino. Usually they smoked heavily but didn’t drink much—drank at all only because it was the price of the seats they occupied while they collected themselves from the long flight and scanned the casino to see which tables seemed to be paying off. After the first drink most of them would have to get change because they didn’t have anything smaller than a hundred.
Then he noticed three men who didn’t look right. Two were wearing business suits like junior bankers or insurance men, and the third was dressed like a cowboy in a magazine ad—boots and jeans and a blue shirt with snaps on the pockets. They all came in together, but sat alone in different corners of the bar. He couldn’t decide whether they were inspectors from the Nevada Gaming Commission or the troubleshooters the casino planted to keep the whores from hanging around and distracting the gamblers.
And then he spotted the old man crossing the lobby toward the elevators, his accountant in front of him to shield him from the possibility that anyone could come within eight feet of him, his lawyer beside him, eyes sweeping the surrounding area for any sign that something was out of place, and then, five paces behind him the porter pushing the luggage cart. It didn’t matter who paid the men in the bar for watching the old man. Just the fact that Carlo Balacontano was here was enough reason to be somewhere else. The old man was an industry. There would be bodyguards, courtesy envoys from the semiretired Dons in the area, influence peddlers, favor seekers, business partners, all trooping in to get an audience with Carl Bala. And probably there would be cops, here to be sure he wasn’t in town because he had a secret interest in a casino; and just as much, to be nearby if any of the people who hated him finally managed to have him killed—not to stop it, but to clean up afterward so the public order wasn’t derailed too brutally or for too long. It wasn’t a good place to be.
The old man had passed through and disappeared in a moment. He waited while the three men finished their drinks and left, then finished his own more slowly. He headed out through the aisles of jangling, buzzing, winking slot machines toward the side entrance to the parking lot.
ELIZABETH WAS NOT FULLY awake and it was ten o’clock already in Washington. It was her third time zone this week; the fact that this was the one she was supposed to be accustomed to didn’t help any. And being pulled away from her activity reports before she’d had fifteen minutes to burrow into the three-day backlog destroyed any illusion that she was settling back into the routine. As soon as he’d noticed her, Brayer had said, “Drop that. Padgett needs your help.”
So now, as drudgery specialist for the entire office, damn them, she was doing Padgett’s field reports while the computers in the room behind the glass wall ticked out more to be piled onto her own desk. Sometimes she imagined she could hear it, though she knew that was impossible. It wasn’t just the work. It was that she was always at the mercy of contingencies, at any moment available to be pulled away from her own work to become what amounted to a clerical assistant to Padgett or Richardson or somebody. They were all supposed to be on a par: senior analysts. But when Elizabeth was in trouble you didn’t see Brayer pulling them off anything to help her. And they didn’t see it and wouldn’t see it if they outlived the Washington Monument. It was just the way things were. Every time one of Padgett’s “friends” felt his hemorrhoids acting up and decided to see a doctor in Des Moines, Elizabeth had to drop everything and monitor field reports or do background checks or something. And when the “crisis” was over and even the file report was already done because Elizabeth had done it for him, did anybody worry about Elizabeth’s work? No, dammit, they didn’t. They stood around in the lounge or took a much- needed day or two off.
This time it was going to be worse. There were four of Padgett’s old mafiosi out of their neighborhoods at once, all in the Southwest, and now two had turned up in Las Vegas. These were old men, rich men. What else would they do in the winter but go to a warm spot? And of course they’d stop in Las Vegas. What on earth did John think? That they’d sit alone in the middle of the desert reading Gibbon’s
But not Elizabeth. She’d go back to her own desk and work three more weeks of twelve- and fourteen-hour days to catch up. But she wouldn’t say anything to them, because there wasn’t anything to say that was sufficient to overcome the massive stupidity of it. If she tried they’d wink at each other behind her back and tell each other it was probably just that she was having her period. Well fuck them, she thought. And you can’t even get the satisfaction of saying that because if you do they’ll decide you’re a slut and have that to hold over you too.
Suddenly she realized she hadn’t been doing any work for some time—just staring at the field report and feeling sorry for herself. It wouldn’t help. It just meant there was that much more to do besides her own work. She forced herself to read it: “There are none of the standard indicators of friction or animosity at this time. Balacontano has been placed in a celebrity suite at the Frontier Hotel, which, although it has security design of B class, does not appear to indicate undue fear of violence. The suite also has superior facilities. The normal price of the suite is six hundred dollars per diem, and it is often used to house entertainers appearing in the hotel shows. As of this time there is no indication of the length of Balacontano’s stay. The Learjet (leased from Airlift Transport, Inc.; Nutley, New Jersey, Registration Number N-589632) was refueled immediately after landing. No flight plan for another destination has been filed with the FAA, however. There has been no communication with persons outside the suite since arrival at eleven forty-five A.M. Thursday.”
Big deal, thought Elizabeth. Flew in and checked into a hotel room, in a thousand words or less. But they were edgy, she could tell. They always did that until something happened and then they snapped to. Every word would count then, but now it was just chattering to make the time pass, to keep the sense that there was somebody back here listening.
She looked up and saw Padgett rush by with a worried look on his face, carrying a voice transcript in his hand. So important—Man with a Big Job to Do—he was really in his glory now, she thought. Probably one of them
