Void Moon

by Michael Connelly

  "Why you?"

  "Why me? Because I had the connection. You might not think I'm worth a shit, Jack, but I've been working this city for forty-five years. I was already here a lifetime before your old man got his first gig. I've seen a lot. I know a lot."

  He glanced over his shoulder and looked pointedly at Karch as he said the last sentence. Karch took it as a reminder of what Grimaldi knew about him. Karch looked away and immediately wished he hadn't.

  "Okay, Vincent. How much was this little cleaning operation going to cost?"

  "Five million. Two and a half up front, the rest after the commission vote."

  "And I guess you stepping in and brokering the deal was going to solidify your position here under the new ownership."

  "Something like that, Jack. It would have solidified yours, too. Anybody with me would be along for the ride. I was going to get kicked up to GM. I would've been able to pick my own man in casino ops, put whoever I wanted up in the nest."

  "What about Hector Blanca? He'd want his own man up there."

  "Doesn't matter. The deal I made gave me the choice."

  Karch got up and joined Grimaldi at the window. They spoke while both looked out across the desert to the mountains beyond.

  "So the guy on the bed - Hidalgo - came out here with payment number one and got ripped off. It sounds like their problem, Vincent. Not yours. Not ours."

  Grimaldi responded in an even tone. His words were measured, severe. The histrionics were gone and Karch knew this was when he was most dangerous. Like a dog with a broken tail. You try to pet it and you still might get your hand bitten off.

  "It is my problem and that makes it yours," Grimaldi said. "I set up the transaction. The second that Hidalgo stepped off the plane at McCarran he and the money were in my care. That's the way Miami looks at it, so it's my ass that is on the line."

  Karch raised his eyebrows.

  "You already told Miami about this?"

  "I talked to Miami right before I called you. Not an enjoyable call to make. But the picture was made real clear to me. The courier is no great loss. But the money, that's different. They're holding me responsible for it."

  He paused for a moment and when he began again there was a note of desperation and maybe even pleading in his voice. It was a small note but it was there. It was a tone Karch had never heard coming from Vincent Grimaldi in the many years they had known each other.

  "I have to get the money back, Jack. The GCIU report goes to the printer on Tuesday. After that it's too late to change. I have to get the money back and make the payment or the sale goes down the toilet. That happens and Miami will be sending people out."

  He used his chin again to point, this time out toward the desert.

  "That's where they'll take me. Out with the rest of them who didn't go the distance in this town. Breathing sand."

  Grimaldi shook his head once, a quick, tight back-and-forth.

  "I'm sixty-three years old, Jack. Forty-five fucking years in this town and that's what I'll get."

  Karch let a delicious ten seconds slide by before responding.

  "We can't let that happen, Vincent. We won't."

  Grimaldi nodded and his mouth turned up into a humorless smile.

  "Good old Jack of Spades. I knew I could count on you."

  20

  KARCH began with the body, studying its position and the pattern of blood spatter on the headboard and wall. The fat man had obviously been sitting upright on the bed when he took the bullet. The shooter had been standing at the foot of the bed.

  "A lefty," he said.

  "What?" Grimaldi asked.

  "The shooter. He was left-handed. Most likely."

  He stood in the position the shooter would have stood and extended his left arm. He nodded. It was likely that if Hidalgo had been hit in the right eye by a bullet from a gun held by someone facing him, then that person held the gun in his or her left hand.

  His eyes traveled up from the body to the headboard and wall. Back at the office he had a couple of books on blood spatter - how to read the meanings of elliptical versus circular blood drops and so on. But he had never gotten past the introductory chapters because the stuff was so deadly boring and rarely usable in his line of work. What was to be read of significance from this tableau? Not much. The guy was alive and then he was dead. That was all.

  "Anybody report a shot?" he asked.

  "No," Grimaldi said. "But I wanted him isolated. So none of the rooms on either side or across were occupied. Also, I don't know if it connects up but there was a fire alarm on this floor last night."

  Karch looked at him.

  "About eleven," Grimaldi said. "Somebody left a cigarette on a room service cart and parked it in the service alcove, right below a smoke detector."

  Karch nodded at the dead man.

  "Was he evacuated? Did he leave his room?"

  "Not that we know of. I have somebody pulling together the tapes so we can look at everything."

  Karch nodded but was unsure how the fire alarm could have played into things. He looked at the body again.

  "I think what you have here is a half-assed attempt to make this look like a suicide. But - "

  "This was no suicide. This was a fucking rip-off. "

  "I know, Vincent, I know. Listen to me. I said an attempt to make it look that way. A lousy attempt at that. Just listen to me before you start going off."

  He decided to discontinue his running commentary. He'd let Grimaldi figure out things for himself. What bothered him most about the scene was the handcuffs. He didn't understand why they weren't removed.

  "Vincent, I take it you searched this place top and bottom for the money?"

  "Yes, it's gone. The case, too."

  "What about his keys?"

  "Keys?"

  "Keys." He pointed to the dead man's wrist with the two cuffs on it. "The key to the cuffs, where is it?"

  "I don't know, Jack. I didn't see any keys. Whoever took the money, took the keys, I guess. But they'll get a surprise."

  "What surprise?"

  "The key to the briefcase won't be on there. Fat boy here didn't have it. Mr. Bla - uh, his boss didn't want him opening it, maybe going down to the tables with a piece of the cash. So he sent the key to me and I would open the case at the drop meeting this morning. I have the key but no fucking briefcase to open. The case has electronic protection - like a stun gun. Somebody tries to open it without the key, they'll get knocked on their ass good. Ninety thousand volts."

  Karch nodded and took a small notebook and pen from his pocket. He jotted down a note about the key and the briefcase.

  "What are you writing, Jack?"

  "Just a couple notes, so I can keep things straight."

  "I don't want any of this information getting into the wrong hands."

  Karch turned and looked at Grimaldi. It backed him down.

  "I know, Jack. You'll be discreet."

  Karch came around the bed and looked at the watch on the night table. It looked like a Rolex. He hooked the pen through the metal band and lifted it, holding it so that he could look at the wrist plate.

  "Whoever it was who did this was smart enough to know this is a phony."

  "Anybody on the con would know that, Jack. They sell those things for fifty bucks on the sidewalk outside of any place on Fremont. Whoever it was was smart enough to know what they wanted was the goddamn money and that was it."

  Karch nodded and put the watch back down. He stepped over to the closet and opened it and looked down at the safe. The door was open and it was empty.

  "Tell me about this guy, Vincent. When did he come into town?"

  "Three days ago. I wasn't sure when the drop would take place. The guy we were paying was calling the shots on that. We just had to be ready with the cash. Hidalgo came in Monday and we waited."

  Karch squatted on his haunches and closed the door to the safe but not all the way. He studied the combination pad.

  "He stay
in the room the whole time?"

  "No, he spent a lot of time on the floor. I gave him a draw and the fuck started cleaning up on me. Christ, I thought if we didn't get this drop taken care of soon he was going to bankrupt us down there."

  Karch turned and looked up at Grimaldi.

  "How much did he win, Vincent?"

  "I gave him fifty bees out of the cage on Monday. By last night he had turned that into a hundred K and change. He was doing good. He was tipping hundred-dollar bills around like it was toilet paper."

  Karch looked back at the safe and swung the door open. He looked into its emptiness but was not really seeing anything. He was thinking, brooding on what Grimaldi had just said.

  "You see what you did, Vincent? You brought this on yourself."

  "The fuck you talking about?"

  "You gave the guy money and he turned it into more money. And he was showing it to the world. This town, that was like putting blood in the water, Vincent. It drew a shark to your fat man."

  "What are you saying, that whoever did this did it for the hundred, not the two and a half million?"

  "I'm saying that whoever did this came in for the hundred and then found the rest. Luckiest fucking day of his life."

  "That can't be, Jack. That - "

  "Who knew about the money? I mean, that it was here and who had it. Who knew?"

  "Only me."

  "What about Miami? Could there have been a leak from there?"

  "No, only one person knew."

  "Maybe the courier told somebody."

  "It's unlikely, Jack. He worked directly for the source. If the money was taken he knew they'd look at him."

  "Unless he ended up dead. What about the guy getting the drop?"

  "He knew it was here somewhere but he didn't know who had it or where exactly it was. Besides, why steal what we're givin' him?"

  "Exactly. So if nobody knew it was here, it goes to prove my point. This was a hot prowler, Vincent. Somebody who picked up on this guy winning a hundred grand and went after it. And he hit the fucking jackpot."

  From his crouched position Karch looked up at the closet. He studied Hidalgo's clothes, all pushed to the side so that the thief could work around the safe. His eyes caught on something on the wall behind the safe. It looked like peeling paint. He moved forward onto his knees and looked behind the safe. He looked closer and saw it was not paint that was peeling, but painted tape. He reached down and grabbed the tab and pulled it up. The tape went along the baseboard of the closet, up alongside the door, over the door frame to the wall over the closet and then out and along the alcove ceiling. It finally ended on the wall above the alcove entrance.

  "What the fuck is that?" Grimaldi asked.

  "Conducting tape. This was a pro who did this, Vincent. He was watching this guy."

  "You mean cameras?"

  Karch nodded and returned to the closet. He scanned the ceiling again and then the walls. He saw the small drill hole on the right-hand wall and found more tape. He pulled it off the wall and it led to the rear of the safe.

  "Two cameras. One in the room to watch the mark. The other right here to pick up the combo. This was good."

  "I haven't heard about anybody using cameras since . . . since that last time. Max Freeling."

  Karch looked at Grimaldi.

  "I haven't either. But we know that Max didn't do this, don't we?"

  "You're right about that."

  Karch left the closet and went back through the suite, his eyes scanning the ceiling and upper walls. He came to the front door and opened it. He squatted down again and studied the locking mechanism.

  "What about prints?" Grimaldi said from behind.

  "There won't be any."

  He turned the deadbolt and saw the bolt come only halfway out. He closed the door with the bolt extended. He nodded. He admired a job well done. He stood up, closed the door and looked at Grimaldi. Karch couldn't help but smile.

  "What's so fucking funny?" Grimaldi demanded.

  "Nothing," Karch said, his smile broadening. "I just get a rise out of a worthy opponent, that's all. I'm really glad you called me in on this, Vincent. I'm going to enjoy it."

  "Listen, this isn't about you getting a rise. It's about me getting the money back."

  Karch let Grimaldi have the rebuke. It didn't bother him. He could already see how he was going to use this job to his advantage, to get what he had always wanted.

  "Vincent, you have a problem."

  "I know that! Why do you think I reached out for you?"

  "I mean a problem within a problem. Look at this."

  Karch stepped back so he could show Grimaldi the door's locking mechanism.

  "He gaffed the lock. The fat man thought he was locked up tight in here but the deadbolt and the flip-lock were gaffed. So was this Radio Shack piece of shit he added himself. "

  Karch jerked the electronic door alarm off the doorknob and tossed it onto the floor.

  "But, see, all of this only worked on the in-room protections. The main lock wasn't gaffed. That means - "

  "He had a key."

  Karch nodded.

  "You're real good, Vincent," he said in a tone that implied the opposite. "He had a key. That means he had somebody who got it for him. An insider."

  Grimaldi looked down at the floor and Karch watched as the older man's color deepened again. Karch didn't wait for the wave of anger to subside.

  "My guess is our guy also had a key to one of these empty rooms around here so he could set up and watch his cameras and make his move when the time was right."

  "You want to take a look?"

  "Oh, yeah."

  The first room they checked was directly across the hall, Suite 2015 , and Karch immediately said upon entering that they had found the spot where the thief had waited for the mark to go to sleep.

  "How do you know?" Grimaldi asked.

  Karch pointed to the table. The magazines, the room service menu and hotel information binder were stacked and pushed to the side along with the bottle of welcome wine.

  "This is where he waited."

  Karch looked around the suite but wasn't expecting much. This guy was good and the chances of a mistake were almost nothing. The bedroom looked undisturbed. He poked his head into the bathroom and saw nothing unusual. If the perpetrator had used the toilet he had even put the seat back down when he was finished.

  He walked back into the living room, where Grimaldi was standing in the middle of the room with his arms folded. Karch was trying to think of something to say that would twist the knife a little bit but then noticed something beneath the table by the curtains. He stepped over and got down on his knees to crawl under the table.

  "What've you got, Jack?"

  "I don't know."

  He reached under the curtain and lifted it up. On the floor was a playing card. The ace of hearts. Karch looked at it a moment, considering it. He noticed that two opposite corners had been clipped - an indication it was from a casino souvenir pack. After use in the casino the cards were clipped and then sold in the casino gift shop. The clipping was done to make sure nobody tried to slip one back into play at a casino table.

  "What is it?" Grimaldi asked from behind him.

  "A card. The ace of hearts."

  Karch suddenly thought of his old man and what he used to say about the ace of hearts. The money card, he called it. Follow the money card, he would say.

  "The ace of hearts?" Grimaldi said. "What do you think it means?"

  Karch didn't answer. He reached to the card and picked it up, his thumb and forefinger holding it by the edges. He crawled out from under the table, holding the card out. When he was standing again, he turned his wrist so he could see the top of the card. It had a design of two pink flamingos with their necks entwined and forming the outline of a heart.

  "From the Flamingo," he said.

  Grimaldi stared at the card.

  "What does it mean?"

  Karch shook his shoulders
.

  "Maybe nothing. But our guy had to have been in here watching the cameras for a while. Maybe he was playing a little solitaire to pass the time."

  "Well, if he dropped the ace of hearts, then he never fucking won."

  "Very perceptive, Vincent."