The Heist (22 page)

Nick gave her the thousand-watt smile and rose from his seat.
“I have total confidence in you. Meet me in the lobby at nine
A.M.
sharp. We need to go shopping.”

“What are we shopping for?”

“Sexy clothes that will make you irresistible to Derek Griffin.”

“No problem,” she said. “Is there a Kohl’s or Walmart around here?”

“We’re going to aim a little higher than that.”

“Where are we shopping?”

“Where a spoiled, rich heiress would,” Nick said.

“Spoiled, rich heiresses aren’t on FBI expense accounts.”

“Neither are you,” he said.

El Paseo was the Rodeo Drive of Palm Desert. It was a wide, palm-lined street of swanky shops, galleries, restaurants, and lush flower beds improbably situated on a patch of bone-dry desert that General George Patton had used to prepare his troops for battle in the Sahara. But now, instead of tanks and jeeps rumbling across the parched earth, battalions of sun seekers in Mercedes-Benzes and Jaguars cruised for prime parking spots.

The shopping experience on El Paseo was about the same as Rodeo Drive when it came to the stores with their ultraexpensive brands. The only difference here was the fleet of yellow seven-seat courtesy carts that went up and down the street giving free rides to retirees too frail or too burdened with shopping bags to manage the one-mile stretch of glitz on their own.

Nick and Kate had chosen to forsake the ride and walk, and Kate was lagging behind.

“Could you pick up the pace?” Nick said to Kate. “We just got lapped by someone dragging an oxygen tank.”

“I hate shopping for clothes,” Kate said. “I liked when I was in the military and all I needed was camouflage gear.”

“Shopping can be fun. Especially when it’s for a con. It’s the first step in creating a character. Isn’t there anything you enjoy buying? Lingerie? Shoes? Jewelry?”

“Shoes are okay. I don’t have to take my clothes off to try them on.”

“You don’t like to take your clothes off?”

“It’s the lighting in the dressing rooms. It makes you look fat and anemic. And pulling clothes on and off wrecks my hair.”

Nick put his hand on her head and ruffled her hair. “Like this?”

Kate jumped away. “Stop it! I have enough hair problems without you making it worse.”

“Maybe if you ran a brush through it once in a while.”

“Maybe if you’d keep your hands off it!”

Nick grinned and hugged her into him. “Are we a team, or what? Stick with me and I’ll get you to enjoy taking your clothes off.”

“You’re flirting with me.”

“Stating a fact,” Nick said.

First stop was a boutique with a French name and staffed by extremely thin young women with slicked-back hair and lots of eye shadow. Nick picked out a Michael Kors silk racerback tank top from the first display table he saw and handed it to Kate.

“You would be a knockout in this,” he said.

She held the tank out in front of her for inspection. Simple, stylish, and practical. Perfect for a relaxing lunch, a brisk walk on the beach, or hand-to-hand combat.

“I like it,” she said, “but it’s four hundred seventy-five dollars. I can get a tank top for twenty-five dollars at T.J. Maxx.”

“It’s not the same.”

“Yeah, one is reasonably priced and the other is insane.”

Nick took three of the tank tops from the table and handed them to the salesgirl, who was lucky she didn’t tip over, since the combined weight of the garments was probably greater than her own. “We’ll take these.”

“No, we won’t,” Kate said.

“You need those clothes.”

“Fine, but we’ll get them at T.J. Maxx.”

Nick pulled her aside out of earshot of the salesgirl. “No, we won’t. You need designer clothes, shoes, and accessories to instantly sell your cover to anyone who lays eyes on you. If you stroll off the plane in Bali wearing three grand worth of clothes and dragging a Louis Vuitton bag behind you like a gunnysack in a country where the average monthly wage is less than fifty dollars, you will do that.”

“This is so totally wrong,” Kate said.

“Obviously you opted out of the honey trap class when you were in SEAL boot camp.”

“It conflicted with the one on nose breaking and eye gouging.”

Nick added a $900 red silk sarong dress and an $800 cashmere T-shirt and handed the salesgirl his credit card. “We’ll take all these.”

From there they went to a store that featured clothes by Hervé Léger, a label Nick chose for Kate because their fashions would perfectly accentuate her toned body. And because the store served their customers Dom Pérignon champagne in Baccarat crystal flutes.

Kate liked the champagne, but she was skeptical about the clothes.

“Try this on,” Nick said, selecting a royal blue bandage dress.

“I don’t think so,” Kate said. “I can’t see myself in this.”

“Just try it.”

Kate belted back some champagne and marched off to the dressing room. She shimmied into the sleeveless, skintight dress, with its plunging halterneck and a zipper that followed the contours of her back. She tugged at the bottom of the dress but it instantly rolled back up to midthigh. Jeez Louise, she thought, how was she ever going to sit in this? For that matter, how was she going to breathe? She looked down at her cleavage and wondered where it had all come from. She’d always thought she had okay but not spectacularly large breasts. The bandage dress had everything squished up and looking like there wasn’t enough bandage to go around, as if her breasts had grown in the last fifteen minutes.

“I can’t wear this,” she said from inside the dressing room. “It’s too small.”

“Let’s see,” Nick said. “Come on out.”

“Get me a bigger size. A
lot
bigger.”

Nick opened the door and looked in at Kate. “Whoa,” he said on a gush of air. His pupils dilated to the point where his brown eyes were almost totally black, and Kate decided the dress must look better than she’d first thought.

“Well?” she asked.

“I think I’m in love,” Nick said. “But then my brain isn’t completely engaged right now. That’s not where the blood is flowing.”

“Too much information,” Kate said. “It would have been enough to tell me I look okay.”

“Honey, you look a lot better than okay.”

“You don’t think it’s a little slutty?”

“Not at these prices,” Nick said.

By the time they reached the Louis Vuitton store and she paid more for a single Pégase suitcase than she’d spent on her first car, Kate was sweating and popping Rolaids like they were Life Savers. Their last stop was Neiman Marcus, where they picked up sunglasses and other accessories.

“How many bikinis do you have?” Nick asked.

“None.”

He grinned. “You swim nude?”

“I do my swimming in the ocean, in a wet suit,” she said. “So I don’t need a bikini.”

“You’re going to need one in Bali,” he said.

“I can’t spend any more money. I’m having an anxiety attack. I can’t feel my fingertips.”

“Fine,” he said. “Leave it to me.”

“You don’t know my measurements.”

“Trust me,” he said.

“That’s a tough one.”

They drove back to the Fantasy Springs Resort Casino and Nick walked Kate and her bags to her room.

“I’m going to check us out,” he said. “I’ll see you and Willie at Ngurah Rai airport in Denpasar, Bali, in three days. Your passport, prepared by the finest forger in the United States, will be waiting for you at the front desk in the morning, along with one for Willie. Be sure to travel first-class. You need to look the part
from the moment you step on the plane. And I need you to wire two hundred thousand dollars to my account at DBS Bank in Singapore.”

“Why Singapore?”

“That’s where I’m heading. I’m on a flight out of LAX this evening so I can lay the groundwork for the con in advance of your arrival. I’ve written down the bank account information and the phone number where you can reach me once you’ve made your travel arrangements.”

He took a folded piece of paper out of his pocket and was about to hand it to her when she slammed him back hard against the wall, pinning him there with the palm of her hand flat against his chest.

“You expect me to give you two hundred grand and let you jet off alone to Southeast Asia?” Kate asked him, more accusation than question. “You aren’t thinking about going after Griffin and the half a billion dollars yourself, are you?”

“Never crossed my mind.”

They were so close that their lips were practically touching, and she could feel his heart beating under her hand. She’d sort of hoped his heart would be racing, but his heart was steady.
Her
heart was the only one racing.
Dammit
.

She saw his eyes darken just as they had in the dressing room. He leaned in to her ever so slightly, and a hot rush of panic flashed through her. The panic was followed by something she feared was desire. Holy Toledo, she thought, he’s going to kiss me.

“See you in Denpasar,” Nick said, his lips lightly brushing hers when he spoke.

“Mmm,” Kate murmured, ready for the kiss. “Denpasar.”

Nick stepped away, smiled at her, and messed up her hair.
“Wear something sexy,” he said, and then he turned on his heel and sauntered off down the hall.

Kate snapped her mouth shut, and narrowed her eyes. The hideous man had conned her into thinking he was going to kiss her! That was so typical of him, so sneaky, so
horrible
. She looked around for something to throw at him. Finding nothing she kicked a shopping bag.

“I hate when you mess up my hair!” she yelled after him, but he’d already disappeared into the elevator.

On her way to Encino Grande later that day, she called her father and invited him to the Fantasy Springs Resort Casino for breakfast the next morning.

“Sure,” he said. “I could play some blackjack and break in my AARP discount card at the outlet stores in Cabazon.”

Kate had an easy time seeing her father at the blackjack table. Seeing him using an AARP discount card at the Cabazon outlets was a struggle. She disconnected from him, and minutes later she rolled into the compound at Encino Grande. Boyd was floating on a raft in the pool, and Chet was returning to the house after serving Burnside his dinner tray in his cell. Tom had already gone back home to be with his family for the night but would be returning early in the morning to relieve Chet.

Boyd abandoned his raft and joined Kate and Chet in the kitchen. Kate made herself a bologna sandwich, and Chet tore open a bag of chips.

“It looks like Nick, Willie, and I are going to be gone for at least two weeks,” Kate said.

Chet stopped eating for a beat. “That’s longer than I expected. You really think we can pull off this charade for that long?”

“I did 212 performances of
Love Letters
on the dinner theater circuit with a different woefully untalented local actress every night. I can handle two weeks of this,” Boyd said. “Of course it took a lot of alcohol to get me through
Love Letters
.”

“I’m arranging for a senior operative to stop by from time to time,” Kate said. “His name is Jake and he’s a pro. Do as he says. And if anything goes wrong, and he’s not around, call him at this number.”

She passed Boyd a piece of paper with Jake’s cell phone number on it.

“What happens in two weeks?” Chet asked.

“If it’s not practical for Griffin to get picked up at sea, we might have to bring him back here for act three,” Kate said.

“I wish I could be there for act two,” Boyd said. “It’s poor storytelling to have the central character off the stage for so long.”

“I thought Derek Griffin was the star of this show,” Chet said.

“I’m the character that ties together all of the plotlines,” Boyd said. “I’m like Hannibal Lecter in
The Silence of the Lambs
, only without all of Anthony Hopkins’s outrageous overacting. Remember how the movie dragged when his character wasn’t around?”

“Not for me. I loved Jodie Foster,” Chet said. “There was something really sexy about her as that FBI agent.”

“Clarice Starling,” Kate said.

“Yeah. Even though she was all buttoned up and tightly wound, there’s something hot about a take-charge woman with a gun and a badge.”

Kate perked up at that. She had a gun and a badge and she was take-charge.

The faux stack-stone décor of the Fantasy Springs Resort Casino was the same as the lobby of the Ventura retirement home that Kate had visited with the MPAA investigator weeks ago. There was also a similarity in the clientele. When Kate stepped out of the elevator at 10
A.M.
, there were already dozens of seniors ramming money into the slots, one hand poised on the big red button, ready to hit it as soon as the cherries stopped spinning.

She picked up the passport envelope Nick had left her at the desk and went to the coffee shop. Her dad was in a booth with a stack of hotcakes, two eggs, four strips of bacon, rye bread toast, and a cup of coffee in front of him. He smiled when he saw her.

“You look great,” he said.

She sat down across from him. “I do?”

“Like you’re about to leap out of a plane over Greece.”