The Mirror Thief (39 page)

She grins—a little crazy—and eases closer as they walk. She’s maybe a half-inch taller than he is. Well, she says, you’re gonna protect me. Right?

He stops. She steps around, turns to face him. He searches her expression for a tell—a clue that she’s just opening up to reel him in—but even as he does it he knows that it’s hopeless, that he’s outclassed. If she’s playing him, then he’s going to get played. It’s the only move he’s got.

Look, he says. You asked me before if I’m the only one Damon sent out here to find Stanley. I told you yes. That’s what I thought at the time. I was wrong. There’s another guy. Local. Tall white guy. Sort of a dirtbag. Calls himself Albedo. You know him?

Her face turns sour. She shakes her head no. She’s telling the truth.

Well, Curtis says, you probably ought to keep an eye out, and steer clear. He wants to make some trouble for you.

Damon sent this guy?

Yeah.

And Damon sent you.

The muscles are tight in her jaw and forehead. There’s way more rage in her face than fear. For a second he thinks she might bite him. He looks away.

Then what the fuck are you telling me about him for, Curtis, if you guys are on the same team?

I want to do this my way, Curtis says. That’s all I want.

She wheels and takes a few steps in silence, then stops again. Staring at the floor. After a while she looks up, past him, at the canvases to his right. Calm now, one hand on her cocked hip. Her posture reminds him of an explorer surveying a treacherous valley, and also of a white girl from Santa Barbara that he dated for a few weeks during his one semester at Cal Lutheran.

Look what happens after 1839, she says.

He tracks her gaze past the bare-breasted Venus he ogled earlier to a couple of later canvasses: a haystack and a field of flowers; a pond glimpsed between trees. Brightly daubed mosaics of color. Curtis looks at them for a second, trying to see what she’s seeing, before his eye slides back across the rusted steel to the Venus. Her piled hair and small white breasts. Her sleepy smile. A ray of late-morning light falls on her from somewhere, and she’s stretching, waking up. Her face half-hidden by her plump raised arm. Her single visible eye watching him with undisguised lust.

1865 and 1880, Veronica’s saying. Corot and Monet. For the first time in four hundred years paintings are flattening out. Chemical photography begins in 1839. All of a sudden the replication of projected images by hand isn’t such a neat trick anymore. The challenge from here is to paint the world the way the mind sees it, not the eye. Not to capture external objects but the act of perception itself. The monocular tradition—the thumb and the eyeball, the picture plane and the camera lens, the illusion of depth—that’s over. Now it’s all about two eyes and a brain in between. Flat retinas and flat canvases. The eye that tricks itself. This is the beginning of modern art.

Curtis shoots her an uneasy glance, but she’s not looking at him. Her eyes are shifting up and down the walls, chasing a thought, following a story written there. She’s talking to herself. It’s impossible to tell how much she knows about him, how much she might have forgotten.

Eventually her attention lands on the Venus, and she flashes a lupine grin. She’s a real creampuff, isn’t she? she says. Even a hundred years before photography, you can tell people are getting bored. Everybody knows the game. You look at her, she looks at you. Trying to get under your skin through your eyeballs. All the old tricks are almost embarrassing. Joshua Reynolds owned a camera obscura that folded into a book.

Curtis and Veronica stand side by side, very still, for a long time. He can almost feel her quick and steady pulse through the sanitized air.

The Venus’s single eye is all pupil, wide and bottomless. The red curtains painted behind her are billowy, frozen, with a pool of dark tangled in their folds. The position she’s in—right elbow above her head—doesn’t
look very comfortable. The blond Cupid that tugs at her sash will never untie it. The hand that hides her face will never fall away.

C’mon, Veronica says after a while. Let’s go upstairs. I’ll buy you a doughnut.

The area between the slots and the Doge’s Palace is swarmed by packs of middle-aged white guys wearing golf shirts and identical red-and-white Ace Hardware caps. Some are wheeling luggage, some have the blush of afternoon drunkenness on their cheeks, and all shout back and forth in thick-necked last-day-of-school bonhomie. Curtis and Veronica weave between them, Veronica walking a little in front, alert and unhurried, head sweeping from side to side like a prowling lion’s. Curtis notes the efficient shuttle of her calves and shoulders, and he thinks back to Friday night, watching her at the blackjack table. Her spine tilted like an antenna toward the cards.

They step onto the escalator. Veronica leans on the rubber handrail, looking up at the vast oval canvas on the ceiling: a sturdy blond queen enthroned on a cloud, a levitating angel crowning her from above. Two steps down, his head level with her ribs, Curtis sees that Veronica’s vinyl handbag is two-thirds unzipped, and he remembers the little SIG that she pulled on him last night. It should make him nervous, the fact that she’s carrying, and he wonders why it doesn’t, why he feels relieved. Then, for a sudden sick instant, he’s sure he’s never going to see Stanley Glass alive in this world again. The feeling thins out like smoke, and he follows Veronica into the Great Hall.

On their way toward the fake sky they pass another living statue, or maybe it’s the one Curtis saw last night; he can’t tell. Same whiteface, same robes, same roundlet cap. Ringed by a marble railing topped with crumpled dollar bills. Veronica doesn’t give it a second glance.

At the Krispy Kreme in the Food Court she swaps a voucher for a half-dozen glazed, and they carry them back to the Grand Canal to walk along the railing and listen to the shouts and songs of gondoliers plying the chlorinated water below. How much to ride the boats? Curtis asks.

Like fifteen bucks, I think. In Italy, the real thing would set you back a C-note.

A commedia dell’arte troupe is headed their way—a courtesan and a masked scaramouche harassing what looks like Napoleon—and Veronica makes a swift evasive left onto a bridge, surprising an older couple cuddling over the canal. The permed-and-dyed wife looks at Curtis, then at Veronica, then back at Curtis. Her eyes narrow. The husband—tan, silverhaired, crew sweater around his neck—puts a hand on her back and steers her away.

Whoops, Veronica says. Did we just walk into a Viagra ad?

She takes a doughnut from the box and leans to eat it, her elbows propped on the marble rail. Sugar flakes fall from her fingers, vanishing as they hit the water. There’s a tattoo, a big one, across the base of her spine; Curtis looks at it for a second, looks away, looks back. It’s a tree with seven branches, each labeled with a symbol: sun and moon, male and female, something that looks like a four, or maybe a two, and something that looks like a flat, or a lower-case b. They’re familiar, but Curtis can’t place them. The highest branch, the seventh, is hidden by Veronica’s top. Two figures are under the tree; Curtis can just see their heads over her waistband. The design is inked in black, like an old woodcut. Thinking of his own tats—bird-ball-and-chain on his right deltoid, devil dog on his left pec—and the way they’ve softened over time, he figures hers as eight or nine years old, minimum.

Look at that shit, Veronica says. She’s nodding at the old couple, now strolling the arcade hand in hand. It’s so middlebrow I could shoot somebody. Come to the themed city! Experience the themed culture! Purchase and consume your own reified emotions! Huzzah! Another loveless marriage preserved! I guaran-goddamn-tee you when that guy comes back for COMDEX in November the first thing he’ll do is put on his fuzzy white
robe and order himself a nineteen-year-old callgirl for a leisurely half-and-half. He’ll come back to this hotel because he had such a great time here with the wife. He won’t see any contradiction in what he’s doing. And he’ll be right.

She finishes her doughnut, sucks the tips of her fingers. I hate this place, Curtis, she says. I hate the good things about it most of all. I hate that I like it sometimes. It’s such a relief to outsource your thoughts and feelings. You don’t have to worry about making an original gesture because original gestures are impossible. You just stick to the script. It’s like senior prom with gambling and shopping.

Hey, Curtis says. Can I ask you a question?

Sure.

Did you ask to meet for a specific reason, or did you just want to talk? Either’s fine with me. But if we need to do some business, I’d just as soon get it out of the way.

She laughs silently, straightens up. The tattoo disappears. I did invite you for a specific reason, she says. Which was, in fact, to talk. This morning I made a few calls to people in Philly and D.C., and I checked you out. Everybody told me basically the same shit. Stand-up guy. A little square. Not mixed up in anything heavy. Nobody in Atlantic City seemed to know you at all, which I took to be a good sign. But I wanted to feel you out myself. Without pulling a gun on you first.

I appreciate that. How am I doing?

Not bad. You’re a good listener. If we can improve on
great sense of humor
, I think you’ll be all squared away. You’re gonna make some young lady very happy.

Thanks. You mind if I ask who you talked to in Philly and D.C.?

No, I don’t mind, she says. But I’m not going to tell you, either.

She grins at him, but she won’t hold his gaze, and he starts watching her carefully, sure he’s close to something. Curtis hasn’t been part of her world in years. There’s only one person she could’ve talked to this morning.

Veronica turns away, crosses the bridge, walks back the way they came along the opposite side of the canal. He falls into step on her left.
Somewhere behind them Napoleon and the courtesan are singing a hammy duet for the sidewalk diners; their harmonies blend and clash with the piped-in Vivaldi on the sound system, the murmured conversations of passersby, the low hum of air conditioners underneath everything. Just ahead there’s a German family
—ein Papa, eine Mama und zwei Kinder
—studying a lightbox map of the shopping area, their sharp angelic features gilt from below, like they’re peering into a sanctum sanctorum.

I think you should go home, Curtis, Veronica says. Right now. You’ve got no good reason to be out here. Don’t get mixed up in this.

I’m not mixed up in anything. I’m just looking for Stanley. Just trying to help.

She gives him an irritated look, the same look he often draws from Danielle when he’s being stubborn, and it makes him stifle a smile. Curtis, she says. C’mon. Damon Blackburn? Seriously? I know he’s your old war buddy or whatever. But you’ve
got
to know the guy’s shady.

No, I don’t know that. Why don’t you tell me about that.

Veronica draws a breath, opens her mouth to speak, then exhales quietly. She does this a couple of times. She’s slowing down; her neck and shoulders droop. For a second he’s afraid she’ll fall asleep right there on the pavement.

I would like to know, she says,
exactly
what Damon told you. About the marker he gave Stanley, and about the counters who hit the Point. I’d like to know exactly what he wants you to do for him, and why.

Curtis thinks about how best to respond. He’s not holding much, and he figures he’ll just lay it out. Damon told me he loaned Stanley ten grand, he says. Not long after, the counters hit the Point, and those other places. Stanley stopped returning Damon’s calls. Damon’s afraid that if Stanley defaults, Spectacular management will think he had something to do with the counters, and they’ll fire Damon for approving the loan. So he asked me to find Stanley, and to report back. That’s all he wants.

And you believed that.

Not really, no.

Why not?

Curtis is cautious with his answer. Damon and Stanley are friends, he says. I’ve never known Stanley to borrow money from a friend.

Veronica closes her eyes, smiles. That was the right answer, and he waits for the coins to drop. She’s still creeping forward, listing from side to side. Curtis thinks of spinal patients he met in physical therapy, and also some Japanese dancers he saw one time in Okinawa.

The marker for ten grand wasn’t a favor, Veronica says. It was to cover expenses while Stanley was putting the team together.

Curtis blinks. Shit, he says.

Stanley and I did all the legwork, but Damon helped with recruitment. He also brought in most of the money. Nobody but Stanley was supposed to know that Damon was involved, but of course Stanley told me, just in case anything happened.

Veronica’s tone is flat and tired, precise but unrehearsed. Listening, Curtis gets a quivery rollercoaster feeling; his pulse shifts into lower gear. He hadn’t expected this, but he’s not really surprised by it, either. It fits.

There were a dozen of us, Veronica says. Working in two teams. Big casinos have gotten good at spotting teams, but with us they never had a chance. We were like amoebas oozing through the tables. Transparent. Whenever a pit boss would start getting wise, we’d change shape. The bosses knew something was up, but every time they’d pin one of us down, they’d just create an opening someplace else. Pushing on a balloon. On top of that, the bankroll Damon put together was enormous. I personally started the day with two hundred grand in a Betsey Johnson bag. And I was one of the lightweights.

Hold up, Curtis says. You’re telling me Damon helped put this team together. Why did he think it’d be a good idea to hit his own place? That makes no sense to me.

We didn’t hit the Spectacular.

Curtis shakes his head to clear it. But the Point lost more money than—

Listen to me. We didn’t make a dime off the Point. They knew we were coming, and they immediately shut us down. They had security all over
us from the moment we stepped through the door. Every time a count would go up they’d lower the table limit, drop the minimum to bring in the grinds. Every time we’d ID a weak dealer he’d disappear. It was like playing tick-tack-toe: it was obvious we were gonna spend the whole night fighting to break even. We left after an hour. The shift boss was waiting for us at the exit, handing us these cheap-ass gift baskets full of shampoo and lotion and shit. Big grin on his face. Better luck next time, assholes.