by Chris Ewan
I went through the guard’s pockets until I found a swipe card and then I gathered his radio and threw it to Kojar. He caught it in his meaty hand, giving the device the appearance of a child’s toy, and at that point it finally dawned on me that part of my plan was fundamentally flawed.
My original idea had been for Kojar to dress in the guard’s uniform and to stand watch at the security desk. But if Kojar tried pulling on the guard’s trousers or buttoning his shirt, he’d wind up looking like Dr Bruce Banner soon after transforming into the Hulk.
I tossed Kojar the guard’s hat. ‘This’ll have to do,’ I said. ‘No point in you putting on his clothes.’
I looked at what he was wearing. From behind the security desk, nobody would be able to see his sweat pants or his athletic trainers. His vest was a different story. Sure, it was blue, but it was also sleeveless in order to show off his muscles, and combined with the hat, there was a real danger he might look like a Chippendale midway into a themed strip.
‘If anyone asks, just tell them that you’re new and your uniform is on order.’
Kojar nodded, and set the hat onto his head at a jaunty angle.
‘And if you hear anything on the radio that suggests we’re in trouble, well, do what you can.’
He touched the peak of his hat and smiled inanely.
I looked over at Sal. He was crouched beside the guard, monitoring his breathing.
‘How’s he doing?’
‘Still out cold.’
I nodded at his diagnosis, then rooted through my record bag and removed a strip of sticking plaster and a pair of nail scissors. I cut a mouth-sized patch of the plaster, peeled off the paper backing and smoothed the makeshift gag over the guard’s mouth, making sure that he could still breathe through his nose.
I returned to my bag for my spectacles case, a small make-up compact and two latex masks.
Now admittedly, when I’d walked along the corridor to lure the guard towards the store room, I hadn’t been able to hide my face. And on top of that, I’d directed Kojar and Sal through some restricted areas in the hotel. So it stood to reason that any number of cameras could have recorded our features. But even so, I thought that wearing a mask was still a worthwhile precaution.
On the downside, a desert town wasn’t the ideal place to buy ski masks at short notice, and the best alternative I’d been able to find had been on sale in the souvenir store outside the Rat Pack theatre show.
‘You’re kidding, right?’ squeaked Sal, when I passed him one of the masks.
‘I’m afraid not.’
I pressed my own mask against my face and snapped the elastic strap onto the back of my head, jiggling the thing around until I’d aligned the eyeholes properly.
‘How come I don’t get to be Frank?’
I cocked my head on my shoulders. ‘Glad you asked. We’re doing this My Way.’
Sal grimaced and showed me his crooked teeth, as if someone had just whistled in his ear at an unbearable pitch. Then he lowered his face to fix his own mask. When he looked up again, he’d been transformed into a pint-sized Dean Martin.
I opened the make-up compact in my hand and used the circular mirror to check on the smiling rubber visage of one Francis Albert Sinatra.
‘This is real dumb,’ Sal told me.
‘You’re probably right. But it’s non-negotiable.’
I peered out at him from behind the slits in my mask. The slits narrowed my vision in a way I wasn’t especially keen on, making it seem as though I was looking through a letter box.
‘Talking of non-negotiable,’ I said, and tossed him a pair of scrunched-up plastic gloves. ‘I’m afraid they don’t make them any smaller.’
‘Are you for real?’
‘If you plan on touching anything, you’ll wear them.’ I worked my own gloves onto my hands, taking care not to snag the plastic on my taped fingers. Then I pointed at the door. ‘Gentlemen, shall we?’
I locked up behind us and followed the pair of them along the corridor, stationing Kojar behind the security desk and Sal where he could keep watch for anyone who might be approaching. Then I crouched down to confront the locking mechanism on the stairwell door.
Thanks to the security guard, I already had the appropriate swipe card in my possession, so the only obstacle that remained was the electronic combination keypad. The numbers on the keypad ran from zero through to nine, and Maurice had said that there was a six-digit code. Originally, I’d hoped that Kojar would be able to extract the code from the security guard, but since all Kojar had managed to extract from the security guard was a faraway look and a long series of zzz’s, I was going to have to fall back on a trick that had worked for me once before in Amsterdam.
The make-up compact, you see, had been emptied of foundation powder and re-filled with fingerprint powder, of the kind that certain resourceful individuals are willing to sell over the internet. By the by, certain even more resourceful individuals are willing to sell talcum powder over the internet and claim that it’s fingerprint powder, but since I’d taken the precaution of testing my latest batch, I was hopeful that it could help me to narrow my odds of getting through the door.
With that in mind, I used the tiny brush fitted inside the compact to apply a fine layer of powder to each numbered key before shining my penlight over the results. I was somewhat dismayed by the mass of prints that materialised. They were adhered to every single key, a whole spectrum of whorls and arches and loops. I sighed and shook my head. I was still shaking my head when a thick finger appeared from over my shoulder and punched in a six-digit sequence.
I turned and scowled at Kojar from behind my mask. Of course, he couldn’t see my expression, so maybe that explained the beatific smile on his face.
‘What the hell are you doing?’
‘I enter code.’
‘You can’t just guess, Kojar. This thing is wired to detect false numbers. You enter too many, and it locks down completely.’
Kojar frowned at me, then held up a piece of laminated pink card with Sellotape around the edges. Printed on the card was the following information: Door code 5-8-8-3-2-6.
‘Where did you get that?’
‘On counter.’
I looked from Kojar, to the security desk, and back again.
‘Why didn’t you just tell me it was there?’
Kojar shrugged, and looked genuinely perplexed by my question.
‘Oh, never mind. Give it to me.’
I snatched at the laminated card and went through the routine of swiping the key card and tapping in the numbered sequence. A green bulb lit up, the locking mechanism buzzed and the door sprang open on its hinges.
I held the door open with the toe of my shoe, wiped the fingerprint powder from the keypad with the hem of my shirt and whistled at Sal.
‘With me, Short Round. We have work to do.’
THIRTY-ONE
The service stairs were deserted and I led Sal straight up to Floor 50. Another magnetic card reader and combination keypad barred our way. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the swipe card and the door code and put them to good use. The door clunked open and I set my eye to the crack. I could see a slither of corridor, a frosted glass partition and two security cameras. A fire hose and an axe were set into the wall on my left, and the ceiling contained air vents and a smoke sensor.
I scoped the area behind the door. The corridor ended just a few feet away in a solid-looking wall. I wound my head back in and reacquainted it with my shoulders, then wedged my record bag into the gap between door and jamb.
Sal was trying to look out from behind my legs. I lifted him to one side and turned my attention to the service stairs. This was supposed to be the top floor of the main hotel tower, but the stairs appeared to continue upwards. I climbed as far as a half-landing, then turned and faced up to two double doors with daylight visible around the edges. A sign attached to the wall warned me that they were wired into an alarm system. I gave the alarm some respec
t to begin with, but I was soon able to disarm it with a steady hand and a strip of lead taken from my spectacles case.
I pushed the doors open and squinted through my mask against the mid-afternoon sun, shielding my eyes with my hand as I peered up at the giant 50-cent coin twirling overhead. From street-level, the coin had seemed to move with a soundless efficiency, but up here it creaked and screeched as though it was sorely in need of some oil. Below the spinning coin was the glass exterior of the counter-revolving, rooftop restaurant. The glass walls were tinted, but I could see the outline of people on the inside, and since I was afraid of being spotted, I ducked back into the stairwell and swung the door closed behind me.
I was still blinking away the sun glare when I made it back down to Sal. He had his hands on his hips and was tapping the toe of his yellow sneaker on the floor in an impatient rhythm. His Dean Martin mask was the only part of him that seemed happy.
‘What’s next?’ he asked.
I crouched towards my record bag and undid the zip, saying, ‘You heard Maurice. The twins’ office is just along this corridor. They should be on the way to their golf club by now.’
‘Sure, but they have staff, right?’
‘Two personal assistants, at the very least.’
‘So what gives? You have guns?’
I stopped what I was doing and searched out the blacks of his eyes from behind Dean’s face.
‘That’s not how this is going to happen.’
‘Knives, then?’
I sighed, and felt my breath wash back from the inside of my mask.
‘So what – you have a Taser in there?’
‘I have cigarettes.’
‘Huh?’
I pulled out my box of cigarettes and waggled them in the air. It took me a couple more minutes to bring Sal fully up to speed, and I can’t say he was altogether convinced by my approach. He even went so far as to check my bag to make sure that I really wasn’t in possession of any concealed weapons. Once he was convinced that I didn’t have a machete or a compact nuclear device squirreled away in a zipped side-pouch, he went on to suggest that perhaps he could arm himself with the fire axe from the corridor and ‘go native on their asses’.
Thankfully, I was able to dissuade him from adopting that particular approach, and after a good deal of coaching, he finally seemed to grasp the notion that it would be really quite neat if we could get our hands on the juice list without anybody knowing a thing about it.
I stabbed a cigarette through the slot in Dean’s mouth.
‘I ain’t sure I can smoke through this thing,’ Sal whined, the cigarette jostling from side to side.
‘Sure you can,’ I said, and set the flame of my lighter to the end of the cigarette.
He inhaled, then coughed, and a plume of smoke emerged through the mouth and eye slits of his mask.
‘How about you do the smoking?’ he croaked.
‘You want me to stand on your shoulders and show you why that’s a terrible idea?’
The eyes behind the mask narrowed but Dean’s expression didn’t alter in the slightest.
‘You sure this’ll work?’
‘Only one way to answer that.’
I eased the door open and sneaked into the corridor, then beckoned Sal towards me with an exaggerated sweep of my arm, as if I was welcoming the real Dean Martin onto the main stage at the Sands. Sal shuffled over and I dropped to my knees and bowed my head.
‘Need a boost?’
‘Nah,’ he squeaked. ‘I can handle it.’
Two tiny hands gripped onto my neck, followed by the tread of a toddler-like shoe on the small of my back. A second shoe thumped into the rear of my left lung, and then his right foot was up on my shoulder. He teetered for a moment and clawed at my hair.
‘Steady?’
‘Just hurry it along, already.’
I straightened, with my hands supporting his ankles. Tipping my head back, I saw that the top of his head was brushing the ceiling. The smoke alarm was off to his right, and I moved towards it with the kind of stride he obviously wasn’t used to.
‘Whoa, buddy.’
He overbalanced and circled his arms, and I had to step backwards to stop us both from tumbling over.
‘Better?’
He coughed, and a great cloud of cigarette smoke rolled across the underside of the ceiling.
‘Perfect,’ I whispered. ‘Give it some more.’
Before too long, Sal really got into the swing of things, and he became so confident that he was able to stand on tiptoes and cup his mouth over the smoke sensor before exhaling. The smoke enveloped the plastic moulding, wafting back over his masked face. He pulled away, then drew on the glowing cigarette and exhaled again. The fresh burst did the trick. After a moment’s hesitation, a small whine started up, followed seconds later by a great droning clamour.
I rolled my shoulders and caught Sal in my arms like a baby, then stooped to collect my record bag and backed out through the door. I carried Sal up beyond the half-landing and set him down on a step beside the doors to the roof.
‘I could have walked, you know,’ he said.
‘Of course you could.’
‘You didn’t have to carry me.’
‘Hush. I hear people coming.’
It wasn’t true. Above the whap and whop of the alarm, I could barely hear myself speak, but I was hoping to hear footfall and I preferred to wait for it in silence.
Not long afterwards, the door to the service stairs thudded back against the wall and I heard female voices and the percussion of stiletto heels. Flighty chatter echoed upwards as the women made their way downstairs. They didn’t appear to be distressed and I thought that was understandable. Short of seeing flames, most people would assume that the alarm was just an exercise, and I guessed there was a muster station just a couple of floors below, where they’d congregated during routine tests in the past.
Sal shuffled forward and tried to force his head through the railings. I hauled him back and held him at bay with an outstretched arm pressed against Dean’s latex forehead.
‘Hey!’ he shrieked.
‘Ssshh.’
‘They gone?’
‘Ssshh.’
It was difficult to know how many people to wait for. Moving before the office was evacuated was a sure way to get caught, but if we waited too long, hotel security would be on the scene and we’d have missed our opportunity.
‘I think we’re clear.’
The moment the words were out of my mouth, the door thumped into the wall again and a pair of high heels clattered down the stairs.
‘That was close.’
‘You figure she’s the last one?’
‘Here’s hoping.’
The alarm was much fiercer out in the corridor. I winced and bent at the waist, scurrying forward as though running from a mortar attack. The wailing swelled inside my head, pushing all sense and caution out through my ears. I bundled into the frosted glass partition and craned my neck around to survey the area. Sal did the same thing down by my waist. I couldn’t see anyone and apparently neither could he, because he squirmed past my legs and moved on before I was able to stop him.
The reception had the feel of a private gentlemen’s club. It was styled with leather couches and chairs, low mahogany coffee-tables spread with golfing magazines, polished brass standing lamps, cigar boxes, whisky decanters, and a large oil painting of a hunting scene.
On the opposite side of the room was a long wooden counter (also mahogany), which was empty aside from a pen-set and guest ledger. Behind the counter were two cushioned swivel chairs where I imagined the twins’ personal assistants were usually to be found, as well as two laptops and two telephones that looked complex enough to navigate warships. Between the telephones was a television monitor. The on-screen images were divided into quarters, with the uppermost segments featuring the empty interior of an elevator carriage. In the bottom-right segment, I could see Kojar fussing with his new hat, tuggi
ng it down over his ears as though he was aiming to convert it into a cravat.
To my left was a solid-looking door. Two brass plates were affixed to it, bearing the names Mr R. Fisher and Mr G. Fisher. I didn’t know if the twins had fought over the order in which their names would be positioned, but once I tried the brass handle I did at least know that the door had been locked.
I was glad that the door was locked because it reduced the likelihood of anyone being on the opposite side. The variety of cylinder that had been fitted beneath the handle was familiar to me, and while opening it wasn’t entirely straightforward, it didn’t take much more than a minute to select the necessary implements from my spectacles case and pick my way through.
The first thing I did once we were on the other side was to lock the door behind us. The second thing was to remove my mask, since I couldn’t imagine the twins allowing surveillance cameras inside their office. Lastly, I let go of a sigh of contentment, because by happy coincidence, the alarm had just stopped.
THIRTY-TWO
To describe the twins’ office as grand would be an understatement. I’d been in airport departure lounges that were more modest. The view from the floor-to-ceiling windows at the end of the room took in the Strip, the geometric McMansions of suburbia, the peaks of the Red Rock Mountains beyond, and very possibly infinity too. Beneath the picture windows was a sleek conference table that could seat at least twenty-five guests, while the middle ground was filled with an extensive collection of lounge chairs and sofas, upholstered in plush fabrics and leathers, and separated from one another by standing lamps and exotic houseplants. The wall behind the seating area had been clad in large slate tiles, and was dominated by a huge, unlit fireplace. Another oil painting featuring a hunting scene was positioned above the limestone mantel.
