There was no sign of O’Brien anywhere, no matter which alias he was using. Stevens worked the airport with Windermere and Mathers all afternoon and into the night. Divvied up the departures and worked every flight they could, assisting the airport cops and LVPD in screening departing passengers, slow-boarding the planes and studying faces, searching for the skinny kid who’d shot up Sin City.
Stevens looked at thousands of faces. Checked off hundreds of names on countless manifests. Endured complaints and half-muttered insults from worn-out gamblers and exhausted parents, his own nerves frayed to threads by the ever-present clamor of the slot machines in the terminal. He didn’t find O’Brien.
Finally, as dusk settled over the airport and the twinkling lights of the distant Strip, Stevens ran into Windermere walking away from an Aeromexico flight. “Aguas calientes,” she said, rueful. “Figured maybe he made a run for the border.”
Stevens glanced out at the plane. “No luck, though.”
“No luck,” she said, “anywhere.”
“Heard from Mathers?”
Windermere shook her head. “Guess if he found something, we’d know it.”
“What about your FAA guy?”
“Still collecting the manifests,” she said. “He’s going to fax them our way when he gets them.” She looked at Stevens. “Kirk, this guy’s gone. I can feel it.”
“Maybe he’s still in Vegas,” said Stevens. “Hiding out somewhere. Takes a lot of guts to roll through an airport like this after you just killed a man.”
Windermere shook her head. “You saw this guy, Stevens. Guts he has in spades. He’s gone, and we lost him. We lost our best shot.”
“Got the FAA manifests. We’ll find him again.”
“That’s all catch-up,” she said. “We’re playing from behind. I want to get ahead of this guy for once. Preferably before more people die.”
“Sure,” he said. “But how?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “We need some goddamn luck, partner.”
She looked exhausted, utterly depleted. Stevens surveyed the concourse again. Saw Mathers in the crowd, far off, hurrying their way. The kid looked excited about something. “Luck, huh?” he said. “Looks like Mathers might just have our share of it.”
Windermere turned and they watched Mathers approach, as eager as a retriever with a tennis ball. “Youthful exuberance,” said Stevens. “You find O’Brien?”
Mathers shook him off. Turned to Windermere, his eyes bright. “Not quite,” he said. “But I did hear from LVPD. Sounds like our witness just woke.”