Atlantic City, New Jersey
The tires of Mercer’s Jaguar convertible gave a slight chirp as he pulled into a spot near the top floor in the parking structure adjacent to the Deco Palace Hotel and Casino. He killed the engine but could do nothing to stifle the excited monologue Harry had kept up since getting off the Garden State.
“Then there was this time I was here, oh, must have been eighty-eight or eighty-nine with Jim Read. You remember Jimmy? For some reason he and I drifted apart when he got sober.”
“You drifted apart for the same reason feminists don’t hang out with pornographers,” Mercer said sarcastically.
Harry ignored his remark. “Anyway, we came up here and I have never seen someone as hot with the dice. Not Jimmy. I swear to God the dice would land on their edges for him. No, it was this little old biddy, well, she was probably five years younger than I am now, but could she roll. She must have gone on-”
“The way you’re going on now?” Mercer interrupted.
“Give me a break, will you. I haven’t been to a casino since you were in Canada.”
“That’s what, seven months, Harry?”
“Five. Tiny and I came up when you went back to finish your contract with DeBeers.”
Mercer unlimbered himself from the sports car. “And you took my Jag, no doubt.”
Harry held a Zippo to his Chesterfield and arched his brows at Mercer. “No doubt.”
From the elevator a moving walkway glided them through a long tunnel lined with advertisements for shows, restaurants, and of course, the gaming tables. Keeping with the hotel’s Art Deco theme, big band played over hidden speakers. The other guests riding with them were mostly older New Yorkers uniformly dressed in nylon sweat clothes in neon colors with gold chains resting on fleshy breasts for the women and mats of graying hair for the men. None of the couples spoke to each other. They seemed intent on getting to the games with as little distraction as possible.
The conveyor ended at the lobby. The expansive space was themed after the old iron-and-glass railway stations seen in hundreds of movies from the thirties and forties, but with Art Deco accents on the walls and numerous columns. The reception desk ran along one wall with a commanding view of the boardwalk and the ocean beyond. Opposite was a real locomotive, puffing ersatz steam, connected to a pair of beautifully restored Pullman cars. There were forests of potted palms and all the staff were dressed in period uniforms.
“There it is,” Harry said, pointing across the vast lobby to the Bar Americain.
“Leave it to you to find the bar.” Mercer checked his watch. They were a half hour early but he could use a drink.
They ducked into the bar, which was remarkably intimate despite its size. The room looked like it had been the set for Rick’s Cafe Americain from
Harry muttered, “I feel I should be wearing a tux and drinking champagne cocktails.”
They sat at the alabaster-topped bar. Harry ordered a Jack and ginger while Mercer asked for a gimlet.
“Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world…”
Mercer recognized the voice at once, but couldn’t believe it. He swiveled on his bar stool. Cali Stowe wore a black suit with flared slacks and a cream silk shell. Her ruby hair danced and tangled to her shoulders. Her lips were such a bright red that he had trouble dragging his eyes to hers. There was humor in them that sparkled into a smile. She’d looked beautiful in Africa, unwashed and dressed in wrinkled safari clothes. Here she was absolutely stunning and it took Mercer a moment to get over his shock.
“Here’s looking at you, kid,” he finally stammered and saluted her with his glass.
“Buy a lady a drink?” She didn’t wait for an answer and addressed the bartender. “Dewar’s rocks with a water back.”
“Don’t get me wrong,” Mercer said, “but you are about the last person in the world I expected to see here. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
She took a sip from her drink. “I’m a compulsive gambler. Can’t stay away. Mortgaged the house, sold the car, the works. I live in a Dumpster out back.”
“I’m in love,” Harry said, then stood to introduce himself. “Harry White, at your servicing.”
She chuckled at his quip and they shook hands. “Hi, Harry. I’m Cali Stowe.”
Harry shot Mercer a glance before saying, “She was the one in Africa?”
She too gave Mercer an appraising look. “And now I’m here. What
“Pretty even if you’re meeting Serena Ballard.”
“Head of the class for the guy in the Armani sports coat.” She took the stool next to Mercer, forcing Harry to lean over the bar so he could ogle at her. “She and I spoke this afternoon, and imagine my surprise when she told me she already had a meeting to discuss Chester Bowie today.”
Still not over his shock, and delight, at seeing Cali, Mercer asked, “So are you going to tell me who you really are? Because I know you don’t work for the CDC. Their human resources guy nearly choked when I asked about you.”
“Ever heard of NEST?”
“Part of the Department of Energy, isn’t it?”
“It stands for Nuclear Emergency Search Team. I’m a member. Our main function is to act as a rapid response force in the event of a nuclear bomb strike or an attack at a nuclear plant. Back in 2003 our charter was changed slightly after President Bush went before the country in his State of the Union address and made a serious boo-boo by saying Saddam had gone uranium shopping in Africa. Because of that gaffe NEST has also been tasked with finding and securing previously unknown sources of uranium. There are ten of us on a team searching the world for old uranium mines, and places where uranium might be found.”
“So you weren’t lying about how you found that village.”
A shadow passed behind her luminous dark eyes and she took a quick sip of her Scotch. Some of her freckles blurred into an angry flush. “Sort of but not exactly. Someone at the CDC contacted me about that village having the highest cancer rate on the planet. When I took that info to my bosses they played around with it for a while, talked it over in a dozen meetings and committees, and finally shelved it, saying, and I quote, ‘There are more pressing matters.’”
“Let me guess,” Harry chimed in, “you went out on your own?”
Cali nodded, her good humor returning. “If you noticed I’m sitting kind of funny, it’s because most of my ass was chewed off when I got back to our field office in New York.”
Unbidden, Mercer’s mind conjured up the image of her backside. He was in little hurry to force it away but he remarked, “I saw you getting into a Town Car.”
“The head of NEST, Cliff Roberts, came to get me personally. That’s when the butt chewing began. Part of my left cheek is still in that Lincoln.” Cali tossed hair from her forehead in a simple gesture that held Harry entranced. “They bluffed about firing me, then about suspending me. In the end I was ordered to take a week’s worth of personal days and come back,” she deepened her voice to an approximation of her superior, “‘with the proper attitude of a team player.’ I envy you, Mercer, for not having to deal with government BS.”
“One of my first jobs was working for the USGS. It wasn’t bad as bureaucracies go but I knew I’d never make it there for long.” He thought back to their time at the village, making certain connections now that he knew her true purpose in being there. Some discrepancies came to light. “When you stepped into the bush for a little privacy…?”
“I was checking a Geiger counter. If you were anyone other than a geologist, I could have done it in the clear and made up a story. You would have seen through the ploy in a second, forcing me into the jungle with tales of diarrhea.”
“Sorry to cause you the embarrassment. Now that I think of it you weren’t all that pale coming back and you made a miraculous recovery.”
She grinned. “I’m not a method actor and I wasn’t kidding about having an iron stomach.”
“So what did the Geiger tell you?”
“There wasn’t much radiation above normal ambient. However large the lode was, it was all cleared out back
