when he was a child. It was the way the men of that time discussed serious business.
He said, “I’m in a lot of trouble—”
Harkness interrupted, not harshly, just talking into his sentence. “You don’t need to tell me that. Nobody comes here except he has his troubles. What you want from me?”
“I have to disappear, but I have to do some traveling first. It may take time.”
The old man sat motionless and silent, staring at him. “I see,” he said. Then he said, “It’ll cost twenty thousand dollars. More if it’s longer than a month. That’s if I can do it at all.”
He waited and the old man went on. “Only two thousand is for me. The rest is to keep you alive while you go.”
“Why so much?”
“I said I know you. I don’t want to know why you have to disappear, but I know it’s not the law. If anybody found out how you traveled, the ones who helped you wouldn’t go to some nice warm cell.”
“What do I get for it?”
“A bodyguard. Enough cover, if they’re not too eager to find you.”
He frowned. “A bodyguard? Hell, I can’t travel with a bodyguard. They’d spot us.”
“You can with this one. She’s the best I know of.”
ALL IT AMOUNTED TO was going in with the FBI’s auditors and taking possession. You just handed the subpoena to whoever was there and let the auditors do the hard part. They’d know where to look and what to look for. That was what Brayer had said. “Just stay out of the way. Don’t worry. Those guys know exactly what they’re doing. Pick up the search warrant and meet the auditors at the FGE office.”
She wondered what one wore to a raid. That’s what it added up to. She got out of bed and tested the shower. The stream of water was hot and strong—where did the water come from in the middle of a desert? Oh, yes. Lake Mead. She slipped out of her nightgown.
The telephone rang and she turned off the shower—seven A.M.—it had to be Brayer.
Brayer’s voice said, “Elizabeth, are you awake?”
“Yes, barely,” she answered. “What’s new?”
“I just wanted to check. I don’t want anything to interfere with the schedule. It looks good so far. They haven’t got the slightest idea what’s going on. The place has been watched since yesterday morning, and nothing has been moved out or destroyed.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course. We’ve been through their garbage and their outgoing mail. There are only about four employees who work weekends, and they left empty-handed.”
“You’ve thought of everything.”
“Yes, I have,” he said. There was no irony in his voice. “Just take care of your part of it and we’ll be fine. Even if there isn’t anything in the company records the raid’s got to trigger some action from the silent partner. He’ll have to wonder if there is.”
Elizabeth returned to the shower. She’d had just enough time to get wet and enjoy the sensation of waking up when the telephone rang again. She wrapped a towel around herself and scampered out into the bedroom. Brayer had changed his mind about something, no doubt.
“Agent Waring,” said an unfamiliar male voice. “This is John Tollar, FBI Las Vegas.” It sounded like an address. God, they were a humorless bunch.
“Yes?” she said.
“We’ve been informed of a change. Can you meet me at the front desk as soon as possible, please?”
“I’ll be there.” It didn’t sound as though Brayer had just gotten impatient, she thought. Something was up. They must have panicked and made a move. Elizabeth dressed as quickly as she could and made her way to the desk. There wasn’t any problem locating the FBI agents. There were two burly men in business suits at the elevator when she emerged. Their broad, tanned faces reminded her of a football player from the Pittsburgh Steelers she’d seen advertising cologne on television. They made her miss Agent Hart a little, but only for an instant: they were perfect for this job. Brayer had probably handpicked them because they looked like what they were; their beefy, unlined, and untroubled faces had a quality of merciless and efficient innocence that would terrify whoever saw them show up with a search warrant.
“Miss Waring?” said one. “I’m John Tollar and this is Bill Hoskins. We have our car waiting.”
Elizabeth let her hand be engulfed twice by their hard, clean palms, then followed them down the corridor away from the casino and the lobby. John and Bill, she noted. Easy enough to remember the names, but hard to remember which was which. John had the dark gray suit and Bill the dark blue suit. She let one of them open the car door for her while the other assumed the driver’s seat.
As the car moved out to the street, Elizabeth said, “Why so early? Did something happen?”
Tollar said, “I don’t actually know if anything happened. We just got a call from the Bureau to move now.”
Something must have happened. It was typical that the Bureau office wouldn’t have told them, and that they would refuse to speculate in front of her. But it wasn’t like Brayer to pass up another chance to interrupt her shower with a telephone call. But this was their show, really. They were the auditors and she was only—what? The decoy.
At the courthouse they pulled up to the front entrance and Bill got out to open the door for Elizabeth. For the first time she noticed he was carrying a gun in a shoulder holster. She felt a wave of affection for John Brayer. He was always cautious, always protecting his people. DiGiorgio’s death must have torn him apart, but he wouldn’t let anybody know how it felt; he’d just make damned sure it wouldn’t happen again.
She quickly found the chambers of Judge Stillwell. The judge’s clerk was already waiting with the warrant, and as soon as she’d flashed her identification he simply handed it to her. More of Brayer’s work, she thought. All preparations made with quiet efficiency. Elizabeth scurried down the empty corridor and out to the car.
She glanced at her watch. Almost eight o’clock. They’d arrive just as the office was opening for business. John maneuvered through the morning traffic expertly and without visible effort. There was obviously nothing special about this job for them. It was just another warrant to be served, another set of ledgers to examine. They were probably a little jealous that other agents always made the arrests and felt the excitement. In a little while they’d be sitting in an office in their shirtsleeves tapping away at calculators. They took a shortcut to the Fieldston Growth Enterprises office, a long straight street that passed warehouses and lumberyards. They bumped over three sets of railroad tracks, past a junkyard piled high with the wrecked and stripped carcasses of automobiles. This was another side of the city, she thought, a place so foreign to the hotels and casinos that it didn’t seem that the same name could be used to refer to both. She wondered if this was what truck drivers and railroad men thought of when they said Las Vegas—a gigantic depot in the middle of the desert where you delivered tons of liquor and bed linen, food and cigarettes, and then pushed on to Kingman, Arizona, or Albuquerque, New Mexico, before the sun got too high and began to overheat your engine.
But then they turned a corner and she recognized the squat building with the Fieldston Growth Enterprises sign. John parked the car in the rear of the building and the three walked in on the receptionist just as she was uncovering her typewriter. Her purse was still in her hand. She said “Good morning” and looked pleased.
Elizabeth handed her the warrant and waited for her to read it. “What is this?” she asked.
“It’s a search warrant,” said Elizabeth, trying to manage a soft, kindly tone. “We’d like to see your accounting department, please.”
The receptionist stared at Elizabeth blankly. Then it occurred to her that something she’d heard meant something to her. “Last office,” she said, waving the warrant at the corridor behind her.
The auditors were two steps ahead of Elizabeth before she had time to move. They walked down the corridor and into the accounting office and flashed their identification wallets at the three clerks in the room, then immediately began opening file cabinets and taking out files. She left them to it and turned to the astonished clerks. She said, “We’re here for an audit. It won’t take very long to get what we need and then we won’t disrupt your office any further.” She tried to be reassuring, but she felt like the one in a bank robbery who says, “Don’t move and you won’t get hurt.”
The two FBI men were working quickly, piling files on the nearest desk and then rummaging for more. Elizabeth felt too uncomfortable to stay. She wandered back up the hallway toward the front of the building. The receptionist was staring at the warrant, her purse still in her other hand.
