by Chris Ewan
‘That, or your buddy the magic man. And don’t even think about running. We have eyes at the airport.’
‘And we’ll need your passports,’ added the other twin.
‘Oh yeah,’ his brother said. ‘Hand us your passports already.’
TEN
I don’t recall a great deal about our journey back to my hotel room, but one thing I do remember is that we didn’t talk. I was busy thinking and Victoria was busy fuming and that kept us occupied until I closed the door behind us and collapsed onto my bed with a groan.
‘Get up.’ Victoria kicked my foot. ‘And start packing. We have to get out of here.’
‘You heard those nutters,’ I said, into the mattress. ‘They have “eyes” at the airport.’
‘They can’t watch every departure gate.’
‘Maybe they can.’
‘So we’ll hire a car and drive somewhere else. We’ll find an airport where they don’t have “eyes”.’
I turned over on the bed and rubbed my face with my hand. ‘I think it was just an expression, about the airport. What they mean is, they’ll be watching us. And besides, they have our passports.’
‘Passports don’t matter. We can get to a British Embassy and wait for new ones.’
‘And meantime they’ll file a police report connecting us to a casino theft. Showing up at an embassy would be like handing ourselves in.’
‘Not necessarily.’
‘Yes, necessarily.’
I rolled off the bed and dropped to my knees. My holdall was right beside me and I unzipped it and started to root around inside. I hadn’t unpacked just yet, so my holdall was stuffed with my clothes and possessions – my laptop, my framed first edition of The Maltese Falcon, my writing notebooks and pens. And somewhere, way down towards the bottom, my spectacles case.
Aha. My fingers tightened around the dimpled plastic shell and I pulled it from my bag.
‘Aha,’ I said, and went to show Victoria.
But Victoria had moved from where she’d been standing. She was over by the desk with the telephone on it. The telephone receiver was hooked under her chin. Her fingers were prodding numbers.
‘Who are you calling?’
‘The police.’
‘Oh no, you don’t.’ I raced across and pressed down on the cradle, cutting her connection.
‘Charlie, let go.’
‘Not until you put the phone down and listen to me.’
I reached for the receiver but Victoria snatched it away. Her skin had taken on a greyish tone and she was visibly shaken. Whether from anger or fear, I wasn’t entirely sure.
‘We have to call the police, Charlie. Those psychopaths have threatened to kill us.’
‘Yes, and I got the impression they meant it. But we can’t get the police involved.’
‘Whyever not?’
I sighed and pressed the flat of my hand against my forehead. ‘Take a seat,’ I told her. ‘I need to tell you something.’
‘Charlie?’
‘Please just sit down.’ I motioned towards the corner of my bed. ‘I’m pretty sure you’re not going to like what I have to say.’
For once, I was absolutely right. Victoria didn’t like it one little bit. She didn’t like me very much either, but I have to say I was prepared for that. After all, it’s hard to explain to your best friend how you ignored their advice and lost a small fortune at poker, or why petty jealousy led you to steal a man’s wallet. It’s harder still to admit that you broke into that same man’s room and raided his safe out of pure spite, and it’s even more difficult to put into words what compelled you to rob him of sixty thousand dollars of casino chips. But all of that pales into insignificance when you’re faced with confessing how you stumbled upon a dead woman and left her just where she lay (or happened to be floating) without alerting anyone to her plight.
Every one of the excuses I’d come up with for the benefit of my own conscience sounded utterly ludicrous when I heard myself speaking them aloud, and long before Victoria said anything in response, I already knew there was no way of justifying my behaviour.
That didn’t make the things she had to say any easier to hear. And on that basis, I’d rather not repeat them in print. True, I might be a coward and a reprobate, but I’d much prefer to skip the details of just what a lowlife she took me to be, and jump ahead to the part where she began to run out of steam and throw her hands into the air and sum up her thoughts by saying, ‘What on earth were you thinking? I can’t believe you stole his wallet in the first place.’
‘I’m a thief, Vic. It’s what I do.’
‘But this was meant to be a holiday. Your words.’
‘What can I say? I’m a workaholic.’
‘Charlie. Be serious for once. Please.’
‘I can’t be serious. If I’m serious, I’ll have to admit what a git I’ve been.’
‘You have been a git. And you’ve placed us in real danger.’
Technically, I didn’t think it was fair of Vic to put all the blame on me. I mean, if she hadn’t gravitated towards Josh in the first place, none of this would have happened. Then again, since I wasn’t a complete numbskull, I wasn’t going to voice that particular theory.
Victoria glanced at her watch. ‘It’s almost half-past ten already. I feel shattered, and I’m angry and I’m scared. And now I really don’t know what we should do.’
‘There’s only one thing to do. I need to break back into Josh’s suite.’
Victoria leaned back on the bed and crossed her legs at the knee. ‘Well, that’s a terrible idea.’
‘Of course it’s a terrible idea. Unfortunately, it’s also essential.’
‘I fail to see why.’
‘Well, for starters, Josh might be there. But even if he isn’t, I might find something in his room that could tell us where he’s gone. The quickest way to satisfy the Fisher Twins is to find Josh.’
Tiny frown lines appeared between Victoria’s eyebrows. ‘He’s hardly likely to have left directions.’
‘Maybe not. But it’s worth checking.’
‘Is it? Wouldn’t it be a lot more sensible to work out how we can prove that we weren’t involved with him in the first place?’
‘Feel free to try. My take is that it’s not something the Fisher Twins are likely to entertain.’
‘Because of the chips you had in your pocket.’
I squirmed a little. ‘That, and the fact I happened to confess to being a part of the scam.’
‘But you weren’t a part of the scam.’
‘Christ, no. I already told you that. I only said it because it seemed like the best way to get us out of that room.’
‘You’ll forgive me for wanting to make sure.’
I bunched my hands into fists and pressed them against my chin. ‘Vic, I steal things, and I’ve always admitted as much, but I’m nowhere near stupid enough to try to steal casino chips under a bunch of security cameras on a casino floor.’
Victoria placed her head onto her shoulder. ‘Let’s not get into an argument about how stupid you are, okay?’
I paused and moved across to the window at the front of the room. Neon throbbed through the net curtains and I pulled them aside and peered out. I’d paid extra for a view of the Strip and it was alight in all its tawdry glory. Pinks and yellows and greens and whites. Car headlamps and brake-lights. I could glimpse a slither of the illuminated Colosseum Theatre outside Caesars Palace. A billboard out front told me that Elton John was in town. I didn’t imagine we’d be watching his show anytime soon.
‘I have to get going,’ I said.
‘But what if the twins have already sent someone to Josh’s room?’
‘Then I won’t go in.’
‘But what if you do go in, and then they turn up and find you with the dead woman?’
‘Then I’m in trouble. And the longer I stay here running through the variables with you, the greater the risk becomes that something like that might happen.’
‘You’re certain she was dead?’
‘That, or she’s the first aquatic human being in history. And she’s strangely underwhelmed by her status.’
Victoria snatched at her handbag and began to search through it. When she didn’t find what she was looking for, she huffed and she sighed, and then she upended her bag above my bed and shook its contents out for the second time that day. She moved her makeup and purse around, but she still didn’t appear satisfied. She checked inside her purse, then let her shoulders fall.
‘Damn it.’
‘What?’
‘I can’t find the key card to my room.’
‘Maybe it got lost when you emptied your handbag downstairs.’
Victoria stamped her foot and squealed, and then she paced across to the double doors that connected our suites.
‘Will you open this door for me?’
I batted my eyelids. ‘But it’s locked.’
‘Oh, grow up.’
I didn’t grow up, but I did crouch down before the snap lock on the doors and open my spectacles case. From within the case, I selected a likely pick and screwdriver and a little over a jiffy later, the door popped open. I swung it back on its hinges and waved Victoria through. She brushed by me without acknowledging my prowess, tossed her bag onto her bed, lifted her right foot into the air and heaved off her shoe.
‘Are you going to take a nap?’ I asked.
‘No, I’m bloody not.’ She reached for her other shoe. ‘I’m changing into something more comfortable. And then I’m coming with you. You might be the buffoon who got us into this mess, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to stand idly by while you run around making it worse.’
ELEVEN
Up on Floor 40, with Victoria dressed in jogging trousers, a sweater and training shoes, and with me gripping a wire coat hanger behind my back, we emerged from the service stairs and crept along the corridor towards Masters’ hotel suite.
I’d acquired the coat hanger from Victoria’s luggage. The hangers in the hotel closet were no good. They were wooden and fixed to the rail, and I needed something that could bend. I suppose I could have suggested using the under-wire from one of Victoria’s bras but I somehow doubted she’d be likely to dignify that particular request.
I would have felt a lot more comfortable if Victoria had been walking alongside me, but she’d taken to following from behind on tiptoes, as if she was in rehearsals for the role of Burglar #2 in a light-hearted play. By the time we reached the door of Suite H, I wouldn’t have been surprised to find that she was wearing a black eye-mask.
‘Why don’t you go ahead and check around the corner,’ I said.
‘What do I do if I see someone coming?’
‘You could tell me. That’d be dandy.’
‘But how do I tell you without making it obvious that I’m warning you not to break in?’
‘Obvious doesn’t matter. The warning is the key part. Go ahead. See if the coast is clear.’
As Victoria tippytoed to the end of the corridor, I began to unwind the coat hanger and straighten it out as best I could without breaking it. Once I was satisfied with my handiwork, the wire formed a shape like a capital ‘L’, only with a hook at the top.
‘What’s that?’
‘Christ.’ I reached for my heart. Victoria was standing right next to me. ‘You almost gave me a stroke.’
‘Oops,’ she said. ‘But what have you done to my coat hanger?’
‘I’m going to use it to open this door.’
‘Why not use one of your picks?’
‘This is quicker.’
‘If you say so.’
‘I do.’ I peered over Victoria’s shoulder. ‘I take it we’re clear.’
‘I couldn’t see anyone coming.’
‘Right-ho.’ I crouched down towards the base of the door and fed the hook of the coat hanger underneath.
‘Shouldn’t we knock first?’
‘Ssshh.’
‘I’m just saying, in your books you always have Faulks knock on a door before he breaks in.’
I took a breath. ‘We don’t want to knock if Masters is inside. And keep your voice down, will you?’
I focused my attention on the hook, feeding it under the door with all the care and precision of a medic performing keyhole surgery. Of course, that would be a really cracking analogy, if only the door had a keyhole in the first place. But, as I’ve already mentioned, the hotel employed a card entry system, which was why I’d resorted to such a makeshift approach.
Using a coat hanger was damn frustrating. The idea was to hook the door handle from the inside, then tug down on the wire, thus turning the handle and opening the door. Problem was, the procedure was fiddly at the best of times, and it was only made harder with two of my fingers out of commission. Oh, and I had to try not to make too much noise for fear of alerting anyone who happened to be inside the suite. Already, I was becoming annoyed, and that was making me reckless. The wire was scratching around far more than I would have liked.
‘You’re making a bit of a racket,’ Victoria told me.
I scowled up at her from where I was lying with my back on the floor.
‘Just trying to help,’ she said.
I gritted my teeth and did my best to visualise where the hook had ended up.
Victoria pressed her ear against the door, saying, ‘You’re close.’
‘Higher or lower?’
‘Higher, I think.’
‘There?’
‘No, lower.’
‘There?’
‘Lower still.’
Christ, this was beginning to sound all too familiar.
‘How about there?’
I heard a clink of metal and saw the door handle flicker. Holding my tongue between my teeth, I very steadily pulled down on the wire. The handle turned, and turned and . . . the door popped open just as the hook slipped free and scratched loudly down the reverse of the door.
I pushed the door inwards and rolled in out of the corridor. Victoria followed me and closed the door behind us.
‘Phew,’ she whispered.
‘Indeed.’
‘It’s dark in here.’
‘We’ll come to that.’
I set my trusty coat hanger down on the kitchen counter and reached inside my pocket, removing a pair of plastic gloves. I held the gloves out to Victoria and returned to my pocket for my doctored gloves.
‘Do I have to?’ she asked.
‘This is a crime scene, Vic.’
‘It’s a hotel room.’
‘Just put them on.’
‘I don’t know, Charlie. It makes me feel odd.’
‘And breaking in didn’t?’
‘You broke in.’
‘Oh, I see. Like that, is it?’
‘I’m just saying.’
‘Put the damn gloves on.’
Victoria held off for a moment longer, then sighed and slipped her fingers inside the sheer plastic. I followed suit. It took me a little more time than I might have liked, but once I was done, I flexed my healthy fingers before my eyes.
‘Looks like Masters has been here already,’ I said.
‘Really? How can you tell?’
I pointed towards the wall behind the door. ‘When I was here earlier, there was a key card in the plastic slot and the lights were on.’
‘Oh.’
‘No key card now.’
‘So I gathered. Do you have a torch?’
‘I have a penlight. But I can do a lot better than that.’
Stepping through the kitchen, I stumbled down the steps that led into the sunken lounge. I was halfway towards the large picture windows and the sodium glare beyond when I sensed that Victoria hadn’t followed me.
‘What are you waiting for?’ I hissed.
‘I’d rather stay here for now, if that’s okay.’
I grumbled to myself and marched on into the bedroom. The thick curtains hadn’t been drawn but it was dim inside all th
e same, and the bathroom door was in darkness. In the movie soundtrack in my head, an ominous note sounded, as though warning me not to approach the door. Unlike the teen starlets of most horror movies, I didn’t need the reminder. I was a long way from ecstatic to be in the vicinity of the bathroom again, and I’d be happy to leave it behind just as soon as I could.
With that thought at the very front of my mind, I threw back the closet doors and crouched down to the room safe. I withdrew my penlight from my jacket and, in the startling glare of the beam, I punched in the code I’d been so proud of – 50-50 – and the word OPEN scrolled across the electronic screen. Masters’ wallet was just where I’d left it, and so was his key card. I stuffed his wallet inside my pocket and hurried back through the suite to slip the card into the receptacle on the wall, bathing the place in light.
‘Wow, impressive,’ Victoria said.
‘Thanks.’
‘I was talking about the suite.’ She shoved past me and approached the black leather couch, running her gloved hands over its surface. ‘This place is huge.’
‘I’ve seen bigger.’
‘What, in this hotel?’
I slapped my forehead with my palm. ‘Just how many rooms do you think I’ve broken into?’
Victoria moved across to the window and took in the distant mountain view. She shivered.
‘Do you really think Josh has been back here?’ she asked.
‘Seems that way. If he came up here the moment he vanished, he would have had a head start. And if he was planning to go on the run, he might have wanted to grab some of his stuff. More importantly, he didn’t know I’d taken the chips from the safe. It’s a lot of money to leave behind.’
She turned and scanned the room. ‘Have you noticed anything missing? It’s so tidy in here. Unless it was very different earlier on, it doesn’t look like he had too many personal effects.’
‘It doesn’t look any different.’
She gave me a dubious look. ‘There’s not much to search.’
‘Still worth checking.’
‘And how do you suggest we go about it?’
‘There’s no particular technique, Vic. Just be orderly. We don’t want the place to look like it’s been ransacked.’
