"Okay, Martin, close it."
Karch watched the bag being closed and then he looked at the face of the man who held it. Martin? He remembered the videotape. Hidalgo riding the elevator up with his security escort. Martin. Who was supposed to be dead. Martin, whom Grimaldi had asked Karch to bury in the desert.
"Martin?" he said.
He looked from Martin to Grimaldi as it all came to him. It was all a bluff, all part of a more elaborate plan.
"You," he said to Grimaldi. "You staged this whole thing. It was all a setup."
He then looked at Martin, who held the gym bag in his right hand and his weapon in his left. He remembered Hidalgo's body on the bed. The bullet in the right eye, delivered by a gun held in the left.
"And you," he said to Martin. "You're the one who hit Hidalgo."
One side of Martin's mouth turned upward in an approximation of a proud smile.
"It wasn't the girl," Karch said, looking back at Grimaldi. "All she did was take the money you wanted her to take."
When Cassie turned around in the junction she heard intense voices from the sitting room. She didn't wait to listen. She headed toward the main air duct and covered the ground in about ten seconds. She saw the penlight that Jodie was holding and realized the girl was still in the smaller tributary vent and had not moved into the main conduit.
As she got closer she realized why. Jodie had reached a dead end. Metal bars criss-crossed the opening to the main duct. Cassie reached around the girl and out into the larger duct. She felt the end of each bar to determine how they were attached to the wall of duct. She felt the smooth metal weld joints. They could go no further.
"What – " Jodie started to say before Cassie got her hand over her mouth. She gave the silence signal and the girl continued in a whisper. "What do we do?"
Cassie gripped one of the bars. She shook it and then braced her back against the upper wall of the duct and pushed on the bar with all of her strength. The bar didn't move or show any weakness in its weld points. Cassie shook her head. The operators of the hotel had put bars in the air ducts but hadn't bothered to replace the half gears in the deadbolts. It made no sense to spend money in one area and not the other. That was why hitting this dead end was so surprising and distressing.
"What do we do?" Jodie whispered again.
Cassie looked at her innocent and beautiful face in the shine of the small light. She then looked at the bars and realized something.
"Jodie, you can fit through."
"What about you?"
"Don't worry about me. You go through. I'll go out and come around and get you."
"No, I want to go with you."
"No, you can't. This is the only way. You squeeze through and wait for me to come get you."
She pushed the girl toward the bars. Jodie reluctantly stuck her head between the bars and into the larger duct, then worked her upper body through. She then pulled her legs into the new space and looked back at Cassie.
"Good girl," Cassie whispered. "Now you wait there. I'll come around as soon as I can but I have to wait for those men to leave the room, okay?"
"How long will that be?"
"I don't know, darling. You'll have to wait. Do you know how to tell time?"
"Of course, I'm almost six."
Cassie took off her watch and handed it through the bars. She showed her the button to press to light the face. She then gave the girl her cell phone and showed her how to open it. Jodie said her daddy had one but never let her play with it.
"If I don't come for you by twelve o'clock you open that phone and call nine-one-one. Do you know how to do that?"
The girl did not immediately answer. Cassie took the cell phone back and showed her what to do.
"You press nine-one-one and then this button – the send button. You tell whoever answers that you are stuck on the top floor of the Cleopatra. Can you remember that?"
"Of course."
"Where are we?"
"The Cleo-pah-tra. Top floor."
"Good girl. I'm going to go now and listen for the men to leave. Then I will come around and get you. Come here."
The girl leaned forward and Cassie leaned her face through the bars and kissed her forehead. She could smell her hair again. She hesitated and then started backing toward the junction, where she would be able to monitor what was happening in the suite.
Cassie saw Jodie wave to her through the bars and had a premonition that she was seeing her daughter for the last time. She waved back and then blew her a kiss.
Grimaldi was beaming as he watched Karch come to an understanding of his scheme.
"I was just like Leo and the girl, a piece you used," Karch said.
"A piece I used beautifully and that performed beautifully," Grimaldi responded.
"And Chicago, did they have anything to do with this?"
"That was the beauty of it. I used Chicago and they didn't even know it. But I knew just the mention of the Outfit would get your blood boiling and you'd go off like a loaded gun. Leo Renfro had markers with some people I know. I bought his paper and sent Romero and Longo over to L.A. to let him know there was a new sheriff in town. They told him they were from Chicago, that they worked for Tony Turcello. He bought it and started shitting his pants. Then they gave him a way out: hit Hidalgo on the hot prowl and his debt is clear. He went for it. Just like you went for it, Jack."
Karch nodded.
"Yeah, I went for it. My job was to follow the trail, wipe out all parties and collect the money."
"And you did a fine job – all except for letting the girl go. Now she's a loose end but we'll take care of it. This is the important thing."
He raised the gym bag full of money. Karch tried to keep any physical showing of his anger in check.
"You're making a big fucking mistake, Vincent. I didn't – "
"I don't think so, Jack. I don't think so at all."
They stared at each other for a long moment, their hatred enough to warm the room.
"So what happens now?" Karch finally asked.
"What happens now is that we still need someone to disappear with the money. Someone Miami can send their people after."
"And that would be me."
"You were always a smart man, Jack."
Karch shook his head. The shortsightedness of Grimaldi's plan was staggering.
"And you always thought small, Vincent. Short range. You should have just gone along with the plan. That bag of money would have been just a drop in the bucket once Miami got the license and got into this place. You sold off the long run for the short end; one bag of money. That was stupid."
Instead of getting angry, as Karch expected he would, Grimaldi laughed loudly and shook his head as if amused by a child's na‹vet‚.
"You still don't get it, do you, Jack?"
"Get what? Why don't you tell me, Vin-CENT?"
"Miami will never get the license. Don't you see? There never was going to be a payoff. This is the new Las Vegas, Jack. Miami will never get in here. I set this up from day one. Me, Jack! I called Miami and said they had a problem and it would cost them five million to get it fixed and to get in here. Half up front and half after the license app was approved. They're greedy and they went for it. Just like you."
Now Karch saw it. A perfect plan. Grimaldi would get away with two-and-a-half million and Miami would forever search for Karch – only he'd never be found because he was about to be escorted out to the desert on a one-way trip. Karch dropped his eyes to the floor. He no longer wanted to look at Grimaldi.
"You know what your problem was, Jack?" Grimaldi asked. He was so full of himself and his success that he couldn't help but turn the knife further. "Your problem was that you thought too long range. I know all about you. The looks, the comments behind my back, the bullshit. You wanted to get to me and you thought this was the way. I knew that and I used it, man. I played you like a fucking piano and now the song's over. So fuck you, Jack. Tonight you sleep in the sand. We're gonna take the service elevator down and then we'll use your car – it probably knows its fucking way. You already have the shovel in the trunk, right, Jack of Spades?"