Smoke & Mirrors (25 page)

95

PIERCE MULVANE HAD BEEN RELIEVED WHEN KURT
Klein had summoned him with the news that the Gardner land transaction would be done that evening by nine. On Monday the crews would come in from their hotel rooms in Memphis, and in two weeks the ground would be raised several feet, and a trench would be dug to the base of the levee. Soon, a temporary hole would be cut in the levee to connect to the river so the actual casino could be floated there in sections from the fabrication yards. Using the Mississippi River as a highway, they would put the casino together section by section in the concrete pond. The levee would be put back as it had been by the corps, the trench filled in by private contractors, and the casino’s foundation would forever float in a few inches of water.

Klein had invited him to have a celebratory dinner in his suite after the papers were signed. Mulvane picked up his receiver and pressed the intercom button. “Send Tug in.”

Tug Murphy came through the door seconds later, closed it behind him, and stood in front of the desk, hands behind his back. “Yes, sir?”

“Sit,” Pierce said, smiling. “Take a load off.”

Tug took a seat and sat with his back straight, folding his hands on his knee.

“I’ve been asked to have a celebratory dinner with Herr Klein tonight,” Pierce said, suppressing the glee he felt. “The Gardner land deal is in place, and I believe he wants to make my position with River Royale official. The Germans are big on formality.”

Tug nodded once.

“As a reward, he asked me to give you and Albert the night off,” Pierce said.

Tug’s expression became worried.

“You should be honored that he’s so thoughtful. Not that you don’t deserve that and a nice bonus—which will be forthcoming—but that he has thought enough of your efforts to make the gesture.”

“A few minutes ago his man, Finch, said he wanted to go get some local color,” Tug said. “He said we—him and Albert and me—ought to go to a restaurant that had good local food, and hit the blues bar. He said Mr. Klein wanted to treat us to a big night out. He said maybe there’d be some female company later on. It felt kind of…I don’t know…weird to take us out on the spur of the moment. He’s usually such a planner. I told him I had some things I had to see to, and he sort of insisted. He said the two men who worked with him might want to come with us, if that was all right.”

“I see,” Pierce said, thinking through what Tug had said from several angles.

“What seems weirdest is that Klein would have all three of his bodyguards out as well, leaving him unprotected,” Tug said. “Even stranger is that he would send Albert and me along too.”

Pierce thought it was possible that Klein felt secure enough now that the land deal was done that he didn’t feel he needed protection. But Tug’s troubled expression concerned him.

“If Finch wants to see the sights, seeing he’s a foreigner and all…And naturally they want someone to show them around. What time did Finch say he wants to go out?”

“Around eight-thirty.”

“I give you my approval,” he said with a big smile. “Go and have fun. I’ll tell you all about it when you come back. One thing…”

“Yes?” Tug asked.

“When we move out there to the new resort, you’re going to be getting a big raise and expanded duties.”

96

KURT KLEIN SHOULD HAVE FELT AN INNER PEACE,
since he had made one of the most difficult decisions of his life. Once he had decided that Styer had to be sacrificed, he knew how to accomplish the task. Kurt had used Paulus Styer’s skills for more than a decade, and so he was very familiar with Styer’s methods. Styer would have infiltrated the casino in disguise in order to blend into his larger theater of operations. Klein had monitored the employees closest to Mulvane carefully, and only one employee had come in after Styer was given the nod to deal with the Gardners. That hire was a man Mulvane had asked for, but a man Mulvane didn’t know very well. He was a man recommended as being capable of performing difficult assignments, who could also be trusted to take secrets to the grave. Although Klein had never met Paulus Styer face-to-face, he was certain Styer had met him.

When Steffan Finch came into the suite, Kurt Klein closed the computer, lit a Dunhill, and nodded for Finch to speak.

“White is on, but Murphy says he has personal business he has to attend to. He says he can meet us at the blues club later. Do you want me to force the issue?”

Kurt thoughtfully expelled a stream of smoke. “He said ‘personal business’? Are you sure that is what he said?”

“His exact words.”

“Don’t press it,” Kurt told him, comforted by hearing the expression Styer had used in his message. “I’ve got that covered.”

“If you’re sure.”

“Absolutely,” Kurt said, nodding. “That will be all.”

After Finch left him, Kurt crushed out his cigarette, opened the computer, and typed his contact in D.C. a short message. After he had finished, he felt no relief at all. He knew that in business a man had to do things he didn’t want to do for the greater good. He trusted that Finch and his associates would be capable of performing the future business-related jobs that he had earmarked for Styer. He reviewed the note he had typed out and nodded.

Confidential:

FYI—it may be of interest to your shadow friends now operating in the South that Cold Wind is disguised as Tug Murphy, Roundtable’s GM, Pierce Mulvane’s personal assistant.

Payment will include a double amount as bonus and will be credited to your account when Cold Wind stops blowing.

Klein parked the cursor on the
SEND
button and, inhaling slowly, pressed it with his trembling finger. He knew that his name would not be passed along as the source of the information, and he didn’t think it intelligent to tell anyone that he had been employing Styer. He doubted the shadows would botch things again. But if they somehow did, there was no way Styer would put together that Kurt had figured out who he was.

97

ALEXA WATCHED STYER CLIPPING HIS FINGERNAILS
over an ashtray. The tape on her mouth prevented her from saying anything.

“Now,” Styer told Alexa as he dropped a final clipping into the glass bowl. “If you want to save the Gardners, and I assume you do, you and I are going to walk out of this casino together. While Mrs. Gardner and Massey and others, I presume, are conducting their business here with Mr. Klein, we will go to the Gardners’ home. I will collect the explosives I put there during the funeral of the unfortunate young lady with the ruined cranium. After that, I will leave Massey a note and you and I will take a ride in the country. Winter will come alone to rescue you, and he and I will have our reckoning. It will be a fair fight and I will kill him. If you try anything now, I will explode the device, and whoever is in the house will be vaporized. Do you understand?”

Alexa nodded.

“If you scream, I will set off the device, stroll up to Massey and Mrs. Gardner, which we both know I can do, and kill them inside this establishment. On all of this, and I mean every bit of it, you have my word. Please tell me you understand.”

Alexa nodded again.

“Oh, and there’s one other thing you should see. Just in case you don’t grasp the entire situation.”

Styer stood and went into the bedroom. When he came back, he was not alone. Cynthia Gardner’s eyes were wild, her hands behind her back, her mouth covered with tape. Around her waist was a belt containing a brick of explosives with a detonator and a receiver attached to it. Styer pushed her roughly onto the couch and she blinked rapidly, looking from Alexa to Styer, confusion and fear clouding her features.

Styer came around the table and jerked the tape from Alexa’s mouth. “Alexa, do you know Cynthia Gardner? I told you she was all right. Cynthia, meet FBI Agent Alexa Keen. She’s an abduction specialist who has found you against all odds.”

Cynthia turned toward Alexa, alert and terrified.

“So you didn’t know I had her?” Styer said. “You being the world’s leading abduction expert?”

Styer picked up Alexa’s purse, took out her Glock, removed the magazine, jacked the receiver, and caught the round in the air. He slowly thumbed each of the rounds from the magazine into the bowl along with his nail clippings. That done, he slammed the empty magazine into the gun’s handle, tossed the other loaded magazines on the couch, and put the Glock back into her purse.

“I won’t hesitate to kill her. You believe me, I hope. Cyn’s explosive is rigged to the same signal and will go off in sync with the one in her home. Double jeopardy, you see. I think I’ve covered all my bases.”

Lifting his cell phone, he checked the readout, and put it into his left hand, thumb on the
SEND
button. “One queer move and I’ll press it.”

“Okay,” Alexa said.

“I know you may think I’m bluffing so I want to show you something.” He reached into his jacket pocket and showed her a Polaroid of him holding a bomb made of eight blocks of explosive in the foyer of the Gardner house.

“I’m pretty photogenic, don’t you think?” he said.

“Jesus,” Alexa said.

“Do as I say and you will live. I want your word.”

“It’s your game,” Alexa said.

Styer cut the cable ties on Alexa’s ankles and unlocked her handcuffs. She sat up, rubbing her wrists slowly.

Cynthia was sobbing hysterically.

“It’s okay, Cynthia. He won’t do anything if we do as he says.”

“Now, Cynthia,” Styer said. “You are going to make a call. If you say exactly what I tell you, you’ll be fine. If you screw this up, you are going to be very dead.”

Cynthia nodded slowly as she locked eyes with Alexa. “Cynthia, do exactly what he says,” Alexa told the girl.

98

PIERCE MULVANE HAD EXPLAINED TO HIS WIFE THAT
with Kurt Klein visiting he wasn’t going to make it home tomorrow for his usual Sunday visit with her and the kids. He listened patiently to her long litany of complaints, all the while going over the stack of gamblers’ complaints passed up to him from his managers. Most of the complaints were no more important to him than the tripe his wife came up with about him missing his son’s soccer finals, or his daughter’s hidden candy stashes, or his wife’s inability to find decent shoes in her size that were the right color. Why they couldn’t live in Vegas, where they had everything, was simply beyond her. He promised her that when River Royale was up and running, the shops would stock her sizes and colors, and she’d never have to mention Las Vegas again—and neither would anybody else.

By the time he finally told her he would get up on Wednesday to spend the night, he had initialed the customers’ gripe reports and placed them into a stack for further consideration, probably around the time the temperature of hell finally dropped below thirty-two degrees.

Pierce’s phone buzzed.

“Yeah,” he said.

“Pierce,” Kurt Klein said. “Am I interrupting anything?”

“Absolutely not. I was just finishing up some paperwork. What can I do for you?”

“One of my security men was in the model room a few minutes ago and he reported to me that he caught a man with a camera who claims to be from one of the newspapers in Memphis, taking pictures of the resort model.”

“That room was locked,” Pierce said.

“Maybe one of your people let him in. My man does not think he is who he says he is, and he may be with a competitor. They found some interesting items in his room—number seven ten. I am going to go down myself in a minute. Meet me there?”

“I’ll be right there as soon as I call Tug. He’s very good at this sort of thing. Don’t you think you should stay clear of it?”

“Good thinking. But use Steffan’s people, no need to hassle Tug. Meet me up here after you have a look and we will decide what action is required.”

Pierce hung up. If pictures of the resort were released before the official press conference, it would greatly lessen the impact of the announcement. When over a billion dollars was on the line, care had to be taken.

Pierce tried to call Tug anyway, but there was no answer. He went to the elevator and got off on the seventh floor. One of Klein’s beefy security men waited in the hall beside the door. As Pierce drew close, the man gave him a troubled smile. “Sorry to bother you, Mr. Mulvane,” he said, opening the door. “I think you will find this very disturbing.”

Pierce went through the door into the short hallway and the security man came in behind him. The first thing he noticed were the leather suitcases beside a laundry cart. A sheet of plastic covered the floor and there was more covering the furniture. He wondered what the guest was up to that had made protective covering necessary. When he realized that the suitcases were just like his, the bathroom door opened, and Finch stepped out wearing a raincoat. Even as the guard muscled Pierce farther into the room and onto the plastic, Pierce had no idea why Finch was aiming a gun at him.

99

ALBERT WHITE TOOK OFF HIS TIE AND PUT IT IN
the drawer along with his .38. He took the two speed loaders from his jacket pocket and tossed them in before closing and locking the drawer. In the five years since his wife left him for his second cousin, a roofer, he had rarely spent any of his off time—and there was less and less of that—with other people. He didn’t much care for company. Now he was going to spend the evening with a South African jerk-off and two of his pals. The prospect made him bone-tired. Why the old Kraut hadn’t just given him a cash bonus was beyond him. He was going to sit in a restaurant for a couple of hours, eat a thick steak. Then instead of lying down, which is what he’d want to do, he would have to go out carousing with the sons of bitches. And he’d bet ten dollars against a donut they’d want free trim at casino expense.

He looked at his watch and frowned. Why was it that time passed so quickly when something unpleasant was coming at you, and so slowly when there was something tasty ahead? Well, if things worked out as planned, he’d be getting a nice bump from a real estate deal he’d been working on. He thought about Jack Beals. Although White had never cared for him, he had been useful. He may have been a preening smart-ass, but he would do anything for money, and he and White had made a few hundred grand by taking winnings from people who walked away with money they didn’t deserve. White knew the cash that had been found in Beals’s house was from their little sideline venture.

Albert had his money well hidden, and once in a while he would take it out of the vents and count it. Since he didn’t go on vacations or buy expensive toys, he had more than he needed. When he wanted sex, Albert had a colored gal who would come over and set him right as rain for a fifty-dollar bill.

Albert was saving for retirement. He had bought a small house on a lake in Florida, and when he walked out in five years, six months, two days, and fourteen hours, he would have enough to pad his retirement from the force in West Memphis, his social security, the bundle he’d saved from the years of collecting money to look the other way in West Memphis, Arkansas, and the liberated winnings he and Beals had put together. Nine hundred thousand dollars, but he planned to have well over a million before walking away into the glorious sunrise.

Albert’s thoughts were interrupted by a rapping on his office door. Finch opened it. “You ready, big buddy?”

“Yeah,” Albert said. “Where’s your two guys at?”

“Waiting outside in the limo,” Finch said, smiling. “We’re going first-class all the way, big fellow. We go eat at that steak house you were bragging about, have a few drinks with Tug at that blues club outside town, and then we get some girls and have our ashes hauled. You up for all that?”

“I reckon I am,” Albert said.

“Then let’s have a run at it.”

Albert nodded, took a look at the locked drawer, and followed Finch down the hall toward what he was sure was going to be a pure pain-in-the-ass experience.