CHAPTER 4

Everything is for sale in Las Vegas. That’s probably true in most cities, but nowhere does money talk more loudly and openly than in Vegas. In its own way Vegas is the unique embodiment of the American dream carved in concrete, neon, and white stucco. It is the Babylon of the middle class, the Monte Carlo for salesmen and secretaries, the one place in America where the term working girl means prostitute and where you can indulge in any sin, so long as you pay for it in cash.

Even before the Paiute Indians came, the sixteenth-century Spaniards, who were building the Spanish Trail between Sante Fe and the Camino Real, had discovered the fertile valley. Ringed by harsh treeless mountains, the valley was an oasis of grass fields fed by natural springs, and so the Spanish called their settlement Las Vegas, meaning “The Meadows.” But if Vegas got its name from the Spanish, it got its character from Bugsy Siegel, a gangster of the forties, who understood, perhaps better than anyone else, that what Americans really wanted was a gaudy cut-rate merry-go-round where everyone gets a crack at the brass ring and where even the losers can pay for their sins on the installment plan. And that was why Caine had come to Vegas. There were things he had to buy and it would be easier in a town where money is as sacred as the name of God to an orthodox Jew.

Or at least so Caine thought in the taxi from McCarran International Airport to the Strip. The taxi turned into the circular drive around a huge fountain display and pulled up to the main entrance of Caesars Palace. As the driver got Caine’s suitcase out of the trunk, he said, “There it is, pal. The biggest Italian car wash in town,” gesturing at the fountains spraying water at least a hundred feet into the air. Caine smiled appreciatively, but his eyes behind his sunglasses were not smiling. The tail in the brown sports jacket he had first spotted at LAX was still with him. He registered under the name Charles Hillary, the identity he had picked up in Hollywood the previous night. The long-haired bellboy, who looked like a college student except for his cynical expression and knowing eyes, took Caine’s suitcase up to the twelfth floor. Caine barely glanced at the plaster Roman statues set in niches along the corridor as he followed the bellboy to his room. After the bellboy had put away the suitcase and fussed about the lavish suite a bit, Caine gave him a five-dollar tip—adequate in case he wanted to buy a little something extra later, but not enough to make the boy remember him—and locked the door as soon as he was alone.

He lit a cigarette and sat down in the large easy chair opposite the bed. The room was opulently furnished, with oversized furniture on an ankle-deep gold carpet. The living area was separated by arched dividers from the bed that stood on a raised platform with steps. Caine walked over to the window and looked down at the city. The hotels and golf courses were spread out below him like the toys of a giant. He turned away and looked at the immense raised bed again and grinned. The place was a standing invitation to debauchery.

Then his brow furrowed. He would have to flush the tail and find out who was after him and why. But he could take care of that later. He only planned to be in Vegas for a couple of days, so the Hillary cover should hold. But it was annoying that he had to worry about his cover so soon. After all, he had just acquired it a few hours ago.

The first thing C.J. had done yesterday morning was to take a snort of coke and go down on him. Then she straddled him, her sea-blue eyes fastened on his like a leech, as they bucked and heaved in a sweaty tangle. For the first time, he was truly aware of her, not of her body but of her, and he groaned as he came into her. Afterward she tenderly nuzzled his neck and ear.

“It was better this time,” she said.

“Much.”

“Karl said you have to leave. Will you be coming back?” she asked, and wouldn’t look at him.

“I’ll be back,” he said and wondered if it was true. She smiled and snuggled against his shoulder.

After a leisurely brunch at Alice’s on the Malibu pier C.J. had dropped him off at the airport. But instead of heading straight to Vegas, as he had indicated to Wasserman, he had doubled back and rented a car. He drove the freeways to Hollywood and checked into a cheap motel on Highland Avenue. He spent the rest of the day in his room, except for brief excursions to a stamp shop, a stationery store, and finally a costume store on Sunset, where he bought a curly black wig, a mustache, and a red silk shirt. On his way back to the motel he stopped at a photographer’s studio and had half-a-dozen passport photos made, paying extra for immediate development.

Back in his room he wrote himself a meaningless business letter filled with buy-and-sell agricultural commodity quotations taken from The Wall Street Journal. He carefully glued the Mauritius one-penny stamp to the envelope and, next to it, two other canceled Mauritian stamps that had come in a two-dollar packet from the stamp store. He wrote a return address on the envelope from a nonexistent Mauritian company, but left the name of the addressee blank, since he didn’t know what cover name he would be using. Then he burned the remaining stamps. He also burned the hundred-dollar bill that Wasserman had first sent him, using it to light a cigarette. He knew it was childish, but it was something he had always wanted to do, and besides, he had to destroy the bill in any case, since it had Wasserman’s number on it and was the only physical link connecting them. The last thing he did before taking a nap was to ring the desk and instruct them to call him at 8:00 P.M.

He met Charles Hillary at the Peacock Lounge on Hollywood Boulevard, the second gay bar he had hit that evening. Hillary was just what he was looking for. He was the same height as Caine, although thinner, with wavy blond hair and fine even features. He squinted slightly, which indicated that he might be nearsighted, and he wore lipstick and just a touch of eye makeup. He would play the “fem” to Caine’s “butch,” and was probably used to a passive role, so he shouldn’t be much trouble, Caine deckled. After a few drinks, during which Hillary ran his fingers admiringly up Caine’s arm, shivering slightly at the feel of the silk and the hard muscles underneath the shirt, they agreed that the noisy atmosphere of the bar, the queens screeching in noisy voices and cattily eyeing, each other, was terribly crude and they left arm in arm. As they walked out, Hillary threw a triumphant glance at his fluttering friends. He had a dark-haired Adonis, oozing machismo, on his arm. Hillary drove them to his nearby apartment and, when they got inside, excused himself so he could slip into something more comfortable.

Hillary came out of the bedroom, wearing a flaming pink velvet robe and sat next to Caine on the couch. He nuzzled Caine’s neck, then ran his lips down the silk shirt and breathed warmly on Caine’s crotch. Caine spread his legs slightly and slid to the edge of the couch, as Hillary knelt before him and leaned forward. Suddenly, without any change in expression, Caine brought his knee up sharply into Hillary’s chin, snapping the head back. Hillary crumpled to the floor, moaning through his shattered teeth. The blood trickled from his mouth and seeped into the carpet. He had almost completely bitten through his tongue. Caine considered kicking him again in the jaw, but the moaning stopped. He knelt and felt the erratic pulse of the unconscious man and was warmed by a vague sense of relief. After all, he hadn’t wanted to kill the poor bastard. After a bit of searching, Caine found Hillary’s wallet in a pants hip pocket in the bedroom and quickly scanned the driver’s license and credit cards. He had been right. Hillary wore wire-rimmed glasses in the license photograph. He took the wallet and methodically rummaged through the apartment to make it look like an ordinary robbery. Not that he thought that Hillary would go to the police. Homosexuals usually avoided the police, from whom they could expect little sympathy. As he left the apartment, he heard Hillary beginning to groan. He quickly walked two blocks to Sunset. On the way he dropped the black wig-and mustache in an apartment house trash bin. He caught a taxi outside Schwab’s and took it to near where he had parked the car.

Caine briefly studied the license photograph in the car, then drove to an all-night drugstore, where he bought hair dye, a curling set, and a pair of Polaroid light-sensitive wire-rimmed glasses of the same type as in the photograph. Back in his motel room, he dyed his hair blond, set it in the style in the photograph, and practiced the signature on the license. He destroyed everything he had bought and put the shirt and the other things that couldn’t be destroyed into the motel garbage can near the manager’s office. Then he called and made a reservation for the morning flight to Vegas under his own name. He also called an all-night accommodation number and reserved a room at Caesars Palace under Hillary’s name. Everything had gone perfectly, except for the tail he had spotted at LAX in the morning.

Caine stubbed out his cigarette in a large marble ashtray that stood on a coffee table modeled in the massive Roman style. He decided he would take care of the tail later that night. Meanwhile he had things to do that were innocent enough, so it didn’t matter whether he was tailed or not. He found a telephone directory in a desk drawer and noted the address of the public library, a hardware store, a luggage shop, and several gun stores. Then he went down to the lobby, casually checking for the tail. He saw the arm of the brown jacket almost hidden behind a copy of the L.A. Herald-Examiner, then turned away and walked around until he found the Rent-a-Car booth, where he rented a Chevy Vega. He picked up a map of the city from the Rent-a-Car agency and followed it to the public library.

The librarian was a pretty young woman in jeans who proved very helpful. She directed him to the microfilm viewer, where he ran through back issues of the Las Vegas Sun. He was looking for the by-line of a reporter: someone who knew everything going on in town, but who was discreet enough not to mention names. After about an hour he decided on a reporter named Cassidy. He went outside the library to a pay booth and called the newspaper, asking for the reporter.

A twangy western voice answered and Caine suggested that they meet in Cleopatra’s Barge that evening about eight thirty. He promised Cassidy the inside story on a hell of a scoop. Cassidy guardedly accepted his invitation, the cynicism and doubt heavy in his voice.

“How will I find you?” he asked.

“Don’t worry, I’ll find you,” Caine replied and abruptly hung up.

Caine then bought hair color rinse and a large roll of plastic sheeting at a nearby supermarket. His next stop was the hardware store, where he picked up a hacksaw, a small vise, a trench shovel, flashlight, and a Smith & Wesson stainless steel folding knife. At the luggage shop he bought a large leather suitcase and a small vinyl airline-style shoulder bag. As he came out of the hardware store, he noted that the tail was in a gray Ford parked down the street. He placed the shovel and the plastic roll in the large suitcase and everything else into the airline bag. Then he drove downtown to the Greyhound bus station and put the large suitcase into a locker. Caine relaxed in the station for a few minutes till he made Brown Jacket again, then drove to the elaborate Boulevard Mall shopping center.

A large sign spread across the Sears window proclaimed, “Joy to the world, on earth peace and goodwill to men,” and loudspeakers electronically carolled. For the first time, he was reminded that it was almost Christmas. The mall thronged with the bustle of holiday shoppers and he felt a sudden stab of loneliness. But wasn’t it that same Christ who had said, “Foxes have dens, and birds of the air their nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head,” perhaps one of the loneliest sentences ever uttered? And Caine had no family or place to call his own, either. More than ever, he felt an alien in the crowd. He ambled along the bricked walk, peering at the shop windows stylishly dressed for Christmas and attractively enclosed with wrought-iron gates. After a while he went into the Broadway and purchased a pair of jeans and a cowboy shirt. Lastly, he stopped at a camera shop and purchased a Hasselblad, a cheap Polaroid camera, a Film Shield lead-coated pouch, and several rolls of film for both cameras. That was about all he could do with the tail on him, so he drove to the Desert Inn Country Club and played a challenging nine holes.

He completely forgot about the tail and concentrated totally on the game. In fact it was Caine’s ability to dispassionately concentrate on something that made him so formidable. Just before making a chip shot on the seventh hole, he remembered that the psychologist at Langley had once asked him, “What is the most important thing in the world to you?”

With some surprise he had replied, “Whatever I happen to be doing at the time.”

By the time Caine got back to the hotel, showered, and changed into his three-piece suit, it was almost six o’clock.

Caine began the evening with a steak dinner downstairs at the Bacchanale. While he was eating, Brown Jacket peered briefly into the restaurant. He was a burly man, about Caine’s size, with deep-set eyes and unruly dark hair. Jesus, Caine thought, the dumb prick could use a few classes from Koenig, the Company’s shadow and unarmed combat instructor. He explicitly ignored Brown Jacket and inwardly sighed. He would have to take him out right after dinner. The guy looked strong enough to be trouble, so he would have to do it quickly, he decided as he paid the pretty miniskirted waitress. Her eyes widened slightly as he peeled off one of the hundred-dollar bills from his roll. She smiled brightly, trying to expose her molars as she bent over to hand him his change, giving him the benefit of her cleavage all the way to the nipples. He raised his eyebrows and gave her a twenty-dollar tip. Maybe later, he told himself, and gave her saucy rump an affectionate pat as he got up to leave.

A spectacular rose-and-violet sunset splashed across the sky, like a giant reflection of the glittering neon that was lighting up all over the Strip, as he drove through the swarming evening traffic to the Pussy Cat A-Go-Go.

Catty-corner from the Pussy Cat, a white stucco chalet blazed with the neon invitation:

Wedding Chapel

Marriage License Information

Parking In Rear.

Next to the chapel was a storefront lawyer’s office, with a large sign advertising, “Divorce. Uncontested Only $25.” Caine grinned and headed into the Pussy Cat.

The large dark bar was relatively empty, since the band didn’t come on till 10:00 P.M. It took a minute for Caine’s eyes to become accustomed to the dim red light. He ordered a Coors from a red-cheeked bartender with a yellow bow tie and left the change on the bar.

Why is it bars are always dark? Caine wondered. Maybe people feel safer that way. Maybe it’s so they can observe other people while they think that their own faces are safely hidden. While he waited, certain that Brown Jacket would have to come in to see if he was meeting anybody, he checked out the location of the men’s room and the emergency exit.

At the other end of the bar two businessmen, the only other customers, were talking about how somebody named Roger didn’t know a goddamned thing about the business. There was some discussion of Roger’s connections. It couldn’t be his brains, they agreed sagely, and argued over which of them should pay for the next round. Just then Brown Jacket came in, blinking blindly for a few seconds while his eyes adjusted to the gloom.

Brown Jacket sat at the other end of the bar, near the two businessmen, and ordered a bourbon and branch. When Caine was certain that Brown Jacket had made him, he glanced nervously at his watch a few times, as though he were waiting for someone, and headed for the men’s room.

He stood waiting in front of the urinal, his hands in front of him. At last Brown Jacket stumbled in anxiously and, seeing Caine alone, quickly made for the urinal next to him.

“That beer just goes right through you,” Caine drawled amiably. He noted the tail’s shoulders relax a bit as he flushed the urinal.

“Yeah, I know what you—”

Brown Jacket never finished the sentence, for Caine, stepping quickly behind him, had thrown his right arm around the man’s throat. As he leaned his weight against the back of Brown Jacket’s knees, forcing him down, Caine shoved his left hand against the back of the head, smashing the startled face into the urinal. The sound of flushing water covered the man’s gasp. Caine grabbed a fistful of hair and hauled the dazed man into one of the cubicles and slammed him onto the seat. He locked the door and unfolded the pocketknife. Brown Jacket sat there stunned, his nose broken and mouth bleeding. Caine grabbed the hair to keep the man’s head still and pricked one of the half-closed eyelids with the knife point. Catching his breath, he said softly:

“I’m only going to ask you three times. If I don’t get the answer I want the first time, I’m going to cut out your left eye. The second time I take the other eye. The third time I cut the carotid artery and you’ll be unconscious in less than a minute and dead in less than five. And even if somebody somehow manages to save you, you’ll be blind for life. Nod if you understand.”

He felt a shudder run through the man and then the weak, desperate nod. Brown Jacket’s agonized gaze was desperately fixed on Caine’s cold green eyes. Cat’s eyes, Lim had called them once, Caine thought irrelevantly.

“Who are you?” he demanded quietly.

“Name’s DePalma. Private investigator,” Brown Jacket managed to gasp through his bloody mouth.

“Who sent you?”

“I don’t know. Said his name was Smith.”

“Say good-bye to your left eye,” Caine said and began to press on the point.

“Wait, please!” he gasped desperately. “Jesus! Oh, God, that’s what he told me. I just do what I’m paid for. He pointed you out at LAX and told me to stick. That’s all I know, I swear.”

“What did he look like?”

“He was a big guy. Hairy. You couldn’t miss him. Oh, wait, he wore a gold earring,” DePalma added eagerly.

Freddie, Caine thought ominously. What was that asshole Wasserman trying to do? Of course, he hadn’t really expected Wasserman to trust him, but didn’t Wasserman realize that a tail destroyed his anonymity and made him vulnerable? He frisked DePalma and removed a .38 revolver from a shoulder holster. Then he cracked open the cylinder and dropped the bullets into his jacket pocket and put the gun back in the holster.

“Listen to me very carefully,” Caine said quietly. “If I ever see you again, that’s the day you die. You catch the next plane to L.A. and tell the goon that hired you that I don’t like company. Oh, yeah, and don’t stop on your way to the airport.”

Caine thought he saw a sudden hand movement and, grabbing DePalma’s throat so he couldn’t scream, smashed his fist into the broken nose. DePalma started to slide to the floor, but Caine propped him against the side of the cubicle and left the bar by the emergency exit. He glanced at his watch as he got into the car. He just had time to get back to the hotel to meet Cassidy.

Cleopatra’s Barge was a gaudy cocktail lounge, complete with oars, sails, waving ostrich feathers, and mini-togaed Nubian slave girls. The barge floated on a five-foot-deep Nile set beside a wide corridor just off the casino. At one end stood a lushly draped royal box, where the queen presumably entertained Antony. At the other end a baritone with capped teeth and an expensive toupee, fighting the battle of the bulge against his cumberbund, was standing on a small stage. He was holding a microphone in one hand, a cocktail in the other, and singing, “I Gotta Be Me.”

Caine lurched aboard across a gangplank, feeling slightly seasick from the hydraulic mechanism that rocked the barge. He caught the eye of one of the older bartenders and asked for Cassidy. The bartender pointed out a thin, ruddy-cheeked man with short graying hair, wearing a rumpled green suit. Caine sat down at Cassidy’s table and ordered “whatever my friend is having” from a busty blond waitress, her thigh-length toga swirling to show a flash of yellow panties.

“What’s the story?” Cassidy asked, briefly glancing at Caine with indifferent eyes and then looking back to contemplate the bubbles in his drink.

“Money,” Caine replied.

“That’s what makes the world go round,” Cassidy said and finished his drink, wondering what Caine’s hustle was.

“You sound like a cynic.”

“So what?” Cassidy replied cynically.

“The trouble with a cynic is that he’s just a disillusioned idealist.”

“What’s wrong with idealists, come to that?”

“They make mistakes,” Caine said quietly, his voice almost obscured by the baritone crooning that he had done it his way. For the first time Cassidy looked directly at Caine, stirred by curiosity. The baggy folds under his eyes gave Cassidy the appearance of an intelligent cocker spaniel.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“An idealist reasons that because roses smell better than onions, they must make better soup.” The two men grinned at each other and for an instant they were almost friends.

“Okay, Mr.…” Cassidy hesitated.

“Hillary,” Caine put in.

“Okay, Mr. Hillary. Are you buying or selling?”

“Buying. I want a name.”

“What’s in a name, speaking of roses,” Cassidy remarked and signaled to the blonde for another drink.

“One thousand dollars,” Caine replied. “Five hundred dollars now, five hundred dollars when I meet the name.”

“That’s a nice name. What are you looking for?”

“Suppose somebody wanted to buy a hundred-percent Grade A phony ID: passport, driver’s license, the works. Top quality and satisfaction guaranteed not to be used in this town. Would you happen to know somebody who might have that kind of merchandise for sale?”

“Maybe,” Cassidy said, sucking his teeth. Then he winked at the waitress bringing his drink. He took a quick gulp and when he put the glass down, he saw that it was resting on a five hundred-dollar bill that Caine had laid on the table.

“Merry Christmas,” Caine said, but Cassidy made no move to touch the money.

“Are you with an organization, by any chance?”

“Relax. If I were with an organization, would I have to come to you for help?”

“No, I guess not,” Cassidy said, rubbing his chin speculatively. After a moment he lifted the glass and took the money.

“The name,” Caine prompted.

“There’s this guy,” Cassidy began. “Name is Hanratty. Pete Hanratty. He did a stretch at Folsom for counterfeiting. I hear he does some quality paperwork for a certain organization, which shall be nameless. He might be interested in a little private enterprise. It’s okay to use my name. I’ve done him a few favors.”

“Where do I find him?”

“He works nights as a dealer at Billion’s Horseshoe in Glitter Gulch,” using the term the locals have given to the central casino area on downtown Fremont.

“What’s he look like?”

“Short fat guy. Mostly bald. Wears glasses too.”

“Good enough,” Caine said. “You wouldn’t happen to know his address?”

“It’s in the book,” Cassidy said, finishing his drink. A burst of applause signaled the end of the baritone’s lounge performance. As people started to get up, Caine touched Cassidy’s arm.

“Just one more thing,” Caine said. “Forget you ever saw me. Remembering won’t do either of us any good.”

“What about the other five hundred dollars?” Cassidy asked.

“If Hanratty works out, you get the other five hundred dollars in the mail. If he doesn’t,” Caine added softly, “I’m coming back for my five hundred dollars.”

“You’re not threatening me, are you? Because I’ve been threatened before, by experts,” Cassidy replied, suddenly straightening up.

“You seem like a nice guy, Cassidy. I’m not threatening you. I’m giving you the best advice you ever got. Believe me, you never want to see me again,” Caine said, his cat’s eyes glinting green and cold. Cassidy felt a shiver of uneasiness pass up his spine, and nodded. Caine put a ten-dollar bill down on the table. “For the drinks,” he said, and left.

Caine went to a lobby phone and placed a call to Wasserman’s number in Hollywood. An answering machine answered the phone and beeped. Caine spoke quickly to the machine.

“Your last associate botched the job. Send any more and the deal is off and I keep the down payment.”

That should keep Wasserman off my back for a while, he thought as he hung up the phone. He checked his watch and decided that he had enough time to launder some of the money before he looked up Hanratty.

It was with a sense of wonder that Caine descended into the maelstrom of the hotel’s sunken casino. The walls of the casino area were lined with plaster bas-reliefs of Roman gladiators, and the entire area was brilliantly lit by what was easily the largest crystal chandelier he had ever seen. The casino hummed with the noises of chips and machines and the exclamations of players begging whatever god they believed in to “Come on, baby.” Perhaps the noisiest section was where the long banks of slot machines were situated-phalanxes of middle-aged women mechanically cranked coins into the machines with all the spontaneity of clockwork figures in an automated assembly line. This was the real essence of Vegas, Caine thought, its raison d’être: the money machine. He felt himself caught by the excitement and sternly reminded himself that he was there to launder the money and not to gamble.

It would have been simpler a few years ago, Caine mused, as he bought $10,000 worth of hundred-dollar chips. In those days chips from any casino were as good as cash anywhere in Vegas. All you had to do was buy chips in one casino, and cash them in at another. But in a classic example of Gresham’s Law, that bad money drives out good, counterfeit chips had appeared and now each casino would only cash its own chips.

He went over to one of the crap tables, changed two of the hundred-dollar chips for ten-dollar chips and bet cautiously on the Don’t Pass line. After about half an hour he was down $120. The dice passed to a middle-aged woman in a yellow print dress. She made a six point and on a hunch Caine bet a hundred on the hard eight. The woman rolled the two fours as though they were wired. Feeling that she was still good, Caine put five hundred of the thousand he had just won on the Come. She rolled an eleven and he put five hundred on the Pass line. She rolled a ten and after five excited rolls, she made her point. In less than a minute, he had won $2,000.

He collected his chips, tossing a few ten-dollar chips to the pit man, and went back to the cashier. He cashed them in, making sure he was paid in fifties so he wouldn’t get Wasserman’s hundred-dollar bills back again, and went to another cashier’s window and bought $10,000 in $500 denomination American Express traveler’s checks, keeping about $2,000 of the cashed-in chips in cash. Then, heading back to the parking area, he had the attendant bring the car and drove down to Glitter Gulch.

Entering Binion’s Horseshoe, Caine was immediately struck, like any other gawking tourist, by the large glass display that contained one hundred $10,000 bills. The stern visage of Samuel Chase repeated itself across the felt like an Andy Warhol painting, and Caine tingled with the idea that he might soon be worth half of it. He was growing greedy, he thought. He would be willing to kill a hundred Mengeles for that kind of money.

Caine bought $10,000 in chips with the Wasserman money and wandered around the casino looking for Hanratty. The fat little man was dealing at a blackjack table. Hanratty dealt, with mechanical efficiency and all the excitement of an accountant doing a particularly boring audit, to two penny-ante customers, a middle-aged man and a young Japanese girl. Caine sat down at the table and began to play with ten-dollar chips. Hanratty had small black eyes set deep in rolls of fat. He wore a western string tie and a red vest bearing a tag that read, “Howdy, My name is Pete.”

After a while the middle-aged man shrugged and walked away. The girl looked like she was there for the duration, but finally she went bust getting hit on a showing seven, while Hanratty showed only a six. As she turned away, Caine put down a hundred-dollar chip and said urgently,

“A reporter friend of mine named Cassidy suggested we get together.”

“I’m off in twenty minutes,” Hanratty replied tonelessly, scooping up the chip after hitting Caine with a king to his thirteen.

“Buy you a drink at the bar,” Caine replied, and got up. He cashed in his chips and waited at one of the bar tables. Hanratty came over and ordered a J & B from the waitress.

“Cassidy sent you?” he asked. Caine nodded.

“Describe him,” he said, and Caine did so. Then as Hanratty nervously watched him, Caine told him what he wanted.

“When do you need it?” Hanratty asked.

“Tomorrow.”

“No can do. No, sir. No can do.”

“Bullshit,” Caine replied. “I never heard of a paper-maker who didn’t keep something stashed away for a special job. That’s what I want, your special.”

“You don’t plan on using it here in Vegas?” Hanratty asked.

“No way,” Caine said. Hanratty closed his eyes and considered for a minute.

“I might have something special,” he admitted reluctantly. “But it’ll cost you.”

“Naturally.”

“Three thousand in cash.”

Caine pretended to think for a minute and then agreed. Hanratty was chagrined. He should have asked for more.

“What about photographs?”

Caine pulled out three of the passport photos he’d had made up in Hollywood and tucked them into Hanratty’s vest pocket.

“I got a clean passport and Nevada driver’s license made out for a William Foster. He was a straight nobody and he’s been dead for less than a year. No family to speak of. I used it to get a vaccination record and an international driver’s license from the Triple A. Let’s see, put you down for a birthdate in ’43, make you thirty-six. Height?”

“Five eleven, weight one seventy, green eyes, light brown hair, occupation lawyer, birthplace Los Angeles,” Caine finished for him. Being a lawyer was one of those all-purpose covers that required just a bit of legal jargon to carry off and, like the law itself, it covered a multitude of sins. “All you have to do is fill in the blanks and seal the photographs. What else?”

“Do you want a different name?”

“How about Robert Redford?” Caine smiled and when Hanratty looked at him sharply, said, “William Foster is fine. Anything else?”

“Money,” Hanratty said, biting his lower lip.

Caine counted out $1,500 and passed it under the table. Hanratty counted it as quickly as a bank teller and stuffed it into his hip pocket.

“Tomorrow night, this time,” Caine added. “We’ll make the switch in the john. If it looks good, you get the rest of the money.”

“Fair enough.” Hanratty smiled and started to get up. Caine stopped him by grabbing his sleeve.

“One more thing, Pete. After tomorrow night, you never heard of William Foster.”

Hanratty looked aggrieved.

“What do you take me for? I’m a professional. I got a reputation,” he protested and, yanking his arm away from Caine, waddled indignantly back to his blackjack table.

Caine laundered the rest of Wasserman’s money at the Flamingo and walked back across the Strip to Caesars Palace. He debated between going to bed and catching Harry Belafonte’s midnight show at the Circus Maximus. While he stood there indecisively, his waitress from the Bacchanale bumped into him and they decided to have sandwiches at the Noshorium.

He regarded her over the bagels and lox. She had long brown hair, dark eyes, a slim young figure with soft round breasts, and a pert uptilted Irish nose. He asked if she was a working girl.

“Part time,” she murmured.

“A hundred do it?”

“Not for the whole night.”

They finished their coffee and went up to his room. They undressed and she lay on the giant raised bed, a carnal offering to the gods. He played with her smooth round breasts, thinking not of Lim for the first time in a long time, but C.J. As he plunged into the girl, he remembered the feel of C.J.’s exquisite young skin, her gentle knowing touches, and was disturbed by the impact she had made on him. Something had passed between them all right, he thought.

Caine did all the things to the girl that he hadn’t done to C.J., holding back his orgasm until after she had climaxed in a long series of shudders, moaning, “Oh, Daddy,” over and over. Then he spurted into her and lay exhausted on her soft white body, like a castaway thrown up on a distant shore. She offered to stay the night with him anyway, but he shook his head. She dressed and came back to the bed to kiss him good night.

“By the way,” she said. “My name is Nancy.”

“Good night, Nancy,” he said, thinking that he had to file away his feelings about C.J., that it was strictly business. He locked the door after the girl left and took a quick shower.

Before he slept, he called the desk and gave instructions for a 7:00 A.M. wake-up call.

The soft burring of the phone woke Caine out of a restless sleep. He methodically went through the morning ritual of exercise, shower, and shave, then dressed in jeans and the cowboy shirt. He again set his hair in the style affected by Hillary in the license photo. Hillary had been striving for a Byronic effect in the photo, but he hadn’t quite brought it off. Caine practiced the prissy smile from the photo and spent another half hour practicing the signature. Then he went down to the Circus Maximus and enjoyed a lavish champagne breakfast.

After breakfast he used all the standard flushes, but he was clean. Caine knew that from now on he could no longer afford anything that even smelled like a tail.

He found Hanratty’s address in the phone book and parked across the street from a small white tract house. A little boy was riding his tricycle on the sidewalk in front. Caine snapped a few Polaroids of the boy and when a thin woman in curlers and a red house dress came out and dragged the protesting child back into the house, he got a good picture of her as well.

He drove around town, like a tourist trying to get his bearings, then headed northwest on U.S. 95. After a while he turned west onto State Route 39 and drove into the sparse scrublands of Kyle Canyon, counting signposts from the turnoff. Just past the sixth signpost he spotted a clump of mesquite cactus about twenty yards off the road. He pulled over and shut off the engine. The canyon was deserted and silent except for the slight rustle of the wind through the Joshua trees. Satisfied, he turned the car around the way he had come. On the way back to town he stopped off at a plant shop, bought a knee-high mesquite cactus and put it in the backseat.

One of the reasons he had come to Vegas is that Nevada is a western state, proud of its frontier heritage, and as such, buying a gun in Nevada is almost as simple as buying a pack of cigarettes. At the first gun shop he went into, he purchased a tiny Bauer .25 caliber stainless steel automatic, two six-shot clips, and a box of standard Remington shells. Unfortunately the only legal .25 bullets were hard-nosed, which wouldn’t stop a determined mosquito at twenty-five feet, the gun’s maximum effective range, but he would take care of that later. As Caine handed the Hillary license to the amiable gum-chewing gun dealer and signed the purchase form with the practiced signature, he smiled the prissy smile. But the gun dealer didn’t even glance up at him to check the license photo. Caine felt a slight sense of chagrin at the wasted effort. Still, better safe than sorry. What was it some Soviet general had once said, “Train hard, fight easy.”

It was so easy, in fact, that he bought a Smith & Wesson .44 Magnum revolver with a six-and-a-half-inch barrel from the same dealer. After some discussion Caine bought a box of Remington 240 grain hollow head bullets to go with the S & W .44. He figured he could easily blow away anybody at a hundred yards with it. Before he left the shop, he also purchased an official-looking bronze badge that read, SPECIAL AGENT.

He next stopped at the bus station and retrieved the large suitcase from the locker. As he walked into another gun shop, on Charleston Boulevard, he reflected that he wasn’t really sure what the job would ultimately require and he was simply trying to provide himself with the tools to use for any possible opportunity to make the hit that might present itself.

This time he bought a Winchester Model 70 bolt-action rifle and a Browning three-to-nine-power variable scope. For a moment he debated between the .300 and the .338, but decided that he wanted range over power and picked the .300 caliber model. He bought Magnum hollow-point shells and had the dealer mount the scope. Caine tried the gun out on a range behind the shop and made some minor adjustments to the scope. By the time he left the shop, he was confident that, with the scope, he could bring down a fucking elephant at twelve hundred yards. Any hit on a man, no matter on what part of the body, would almost certainly be fatal.

At another gun shop on Main Street he got a black Colt AR-15 rifle to give him some accurate firepower in case he needed it. The light .223 caliber rifle was a semiautomatic civilian version of the M-16. The gun came comfortably into his hand and for a moment it brought the feel of Indochina back to him. But he shook it off as he smiled the Hillary smile. He considered getting a three-power scope for the handle mount, but calculated that with the flip rear sight he could hit anything within 300 yards, and he already had the Winchester for long range. Lastly he bought five thirty-round clips and two boxes of Super X soft-point 5.56mm bullets. All told, he had spent about $1,600 for the guns and accessories, he calculated.

That done, he checked into the Star Motel on South Fourth, a concrete and plastic affair with a big neon sign shaped like a star. After he locked the door and made sure the windows were closed and shaded, he turned on the TV and got to work. As an afternoon game show came on the tube, a pretty curly-haired housewife was screaming in ecstasy as she embraced the fatuously smiling MC. The announcer’s voice solemnly intoned the virtues of the refrigerator she had just won. Jesus, it made you wonder, Caine thought. Still, he was as much a whore as anybody, he admitted as he opened the large suitcase and began to tightly wrap the guns and bullets, except for the Bauer .25 automatic, in lengths of plastic cut from the roll. When he was finished, he tightly packed the guns, shovel, and flashlight into the suitcase.

Next he mounted the vise on a small table and dumdummed the .25 caliber bullets, making careful crisscross cuts with the hacksaw. The Bauer still wouldn’t kill anybody, unless he got lucky with a head or a heart shot, but the dumdums would certainly make anyone hit with them pause and reconsider, he mused.

After going to the bathroom to wash the sweat off his hands and face, he loaded the clips and wrapped them and the Bauer in the lead-coated film pouch and inserted them, with handkerchiefs for padding, into the film compartment of the Hasselblad camera. It should pass any customs or airport inspection, he decided after critically inspecting the camera. Most airport magnetometers only picked up ferrous metals and would not detect the stainless steel automatic. The Wong magnetometer would pick it up, but the inspector would naturally assume that the camera itself was causing the bleep and the camera sheathing and the Film Shield pouch would screen the gun from X rays. It would do, Cain decided, and put the Hasselblad back into the airline bag and cleaned up the room. He deliberately rumpled the bed, wet one of the towels, and shut the TV, silencing a smiling salesman pitching the recreational joys of buying worthless desert land. No one noticed him as he locked the suitcase and bag in the car trunk and drove away.

As soon as it got dark, Caine drove out of the artificial electric noon of the Strip back to Kyle Canyon. It was as if the canyon were filled with the utter darkness and silence of death itself, once he had shut off the engine and the car lights. The only light to be seen came from myriad stars sprayed across the darkness like a distant city in the sky.

In spite of the desert chill that seemed to come from the endless night of outer space, he removed his jacket and shirt before he buried the large suitcase just to the right of the mesquite clump he had spotted that morning. Periodically he stopped and looked around, but there was nothing. Once he heard the sound of a car headed into town and clicked off the flashlight, waiting in the darkness until the car lights were long out of sight. He planted the cactus he had purchased at the plant shop on top of the layer of dirt covering the suitcase and then buried the shovel and flashlight in a shallow hole a few feet away. He wiped himself clean with a hotel towel and then used it to smooth away any evidence of digging or footprints. When he turned the headlights on, there was no indication that anyone had been there. The guns would keep until he came back for them, when and if he located Mengele.

Hanratty was anxiously waiting for him in the men’s room at Binion’s. Caine went into one of the cubicles and carefully examined the documents. Although he knew that they had been altered, he couldn’t see any evidence of it. He was impressed—they were flawless. He counted out the $1,500 and handed it to Hanratty, who never took his eyes off the door. Then he added an extra $200 and the Polaroid pictures of Hanratty’s wife and son. Hanratty blanched when he saw tie pictures.

“What’s that for?” he asked warily.

“The money’s a little extra for a good job. The pictures are to remind you how vulnerable you are. You are never to mention anything about me or William Foster to anybody, including Cassidy.”

“Even the Mob doesn’t threaten a man’s wife and kid. Besides, I got friends.”

“Forget it, Pete. Your friends can’t get at me. I’m not vulnerable. You are. And so are they”—indicating the pictures.

When he left the john, Hanratty was nervously attempting to comb his fringe of side hair across his large bald spot.

Caine spent the rest of the evening dining alone on the excellent escargots, followed by a tender filet mignon at the Top of the Mint. And he finally got to see Harry Belafonte at the Circus Maximus. Before he went upstairs, he told the desk clerk that he would be checking out in the morning. He put $500 in an envelope and mailed it to Cassidy, care of the Las Vegas Sun. Before going upstairs, he used a lobby phone to call and reserve a seat on the morning flight to New York under his own name.

Caine was tired by the time he finished a Scotch and soda in his room. Wearily he color-rinsed his hair in the shower, and after a final cigarette, he went to bed.

In the airport men’s room the next morning he flushed Hillary’s torn credit cards and driver’s license down the toilet and put on his own wraparound sunglasses. He smoothed his hair into place, vaguely relieved to be even briefly back in his own identity. The envelope with the stamp on it, now addressed to William Foster, was in his jacket pocket. At the Western Union booth he sent a terse unsigned cable to Wasserman, telling him that he was flying to Switzerland to deal with the Zurich situation.

The sun was shining warm and clear over the tarmac as he boarded the plane for New York. The smiling stewardess took his boarding pass and asked him how he had done in Vegas, her blue eyes twinkling.

“Not bad.” Caine smiled back boyishly. “Not bad at all.”