She believed Karch. She had no reason to but she knew in her heart that he was telling the truth about what Max had said. She realized then that telling him, surprising him with the news that night, had set things into a terrible motion. In her mind she suddenly saw Max's crumpled body on the casino table. She had run to him and cradled his head in her arms. They'd had to pull her away from him.
"So you see," Karch suddenly said, "if there's anybody you should blame it's you, not me. You had the kid in your belly and you told him the news. What do you think about that, Cassie Black?"
She didn't answer. She gripped the wheel so tightly her knuckles glowed white in the dim light from the dash gauges. She felt a deep-rooted tremble go through her. It started in her chest and then made her shoulders shake. It moved like a wave down her arms until control of the wheel was in question. Finally, it passed. She tried to put thoughts about Max aside, to be dealt with later. Jodie was the important thing. She had to concentrate on Jodie.
"You know something?" Karch said. "Now that I understand what happened in that room with Max, the one thing I don't understand is what happened in the room with Hidalgo. I mean, why'd you do it?"
Cassie didn't understand why he asked such an obvious question.
"Why else? The money."
"But why put the guy down unless you had to and it didn't seem to me that – "
"What are you talking about? Hidalgo? Hidalgo's dead?"
"You should know that better than – "
"No! I don't know what you're talking about!"
"It looked pretty cold-blooded to me. Guy sitting there in bed in his underwear, defenseless, and you pop him like that."
As he spoke Cassie remembered her last moments in the room. Hidalgo was restless, waking up. She stood at the foot of the bed and raised the gun. She had been ready and willing to do what was necessary. To cross the final line. Had she done it, had she crossed, and then blocked it from her memory? Impossible.
"Karch, listen to me. If he's dead somebody else did it."
There was a pause and then Karch's voice came back.
"Sure. Whatever you say. It still doesn't change things. You're coming back here with the money and – "
"Karch?"
"What?"
"How do I know you even have her?"
He laughed in a fake way into the phone.
"That's just it. You don't."
"I need to talk to her. Before I come there, I need to know you have her. And that she's alive. Please, Karch."
"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.