“You know how you can tell they’re not ex-marshals?” Bob asked. “They’re too skinny.”
“Keen observation,” Lucas said.
“Bunch of sissies,” Bob muttered.
They walked into the Forum, an indoor shopping center with domed ceilings painted blue, orange, and white to look like a partly cloudy evening sky in the desert. The various hallways were punctuated by intersections that featured oversized tableaus of fake Roman sculpture—gods, goddesses, emperors, gladiators.
“Man, Roman women had really great tits,” Bob said, taking them in. “I mean ‘breasts.’”
Rae: “You know why? They all died when they were twenty-six.”
“I’m not saying this place is cheesy...” Lucas said.
“I’ll say it,” Rae said. “It’s cheesy. But not uninteresting. It’s like its own art form. Vegas cheddar. I kinda like it. Remind me to write something about it and use the phrase ‘Vegas cheddar.’ It’s both accurate and snarky.”
A security guard went rolling by on a Segway; another wandered past, wearing an old-fashioned brimmed hat, like the Stetson Open Road hats once worn by the Texas Highway Patrol. He eye-checked the three of them, nodded, and moved on. A few minutes later, another one went past. And then another.
Rae said, “They must not like shoplifters.”
“I get that impression,” Lucas said.
From where they were standing, Lucas could see the shops: Dior, Zegna, Armani, Tiffany, Louis Vuitton, Ferragamo, Versace, Cartier. Dozens of people were gawking at a fountain like they’d never seen water before, some of them stopping to take selfies with it as the backdrop.
“Fountain makes me want to pee,” Bob said.
“I’m not sure you’re the demographic the designers were looking for,” Rae said.
Lucas said, “You know what? Walking around here won’t get us anywhere. Too many people. Even if they were here, we wouldn’t see them.”
“We could break up, make a sweep,” Rae said.
“We could try that,” Lucas said. “Give it a half hour.”
—
AS THEY WEREdoing that, one of the security guards took a slip of paper out of his wallet, called the number written on it, and said, “You asked me to look for a face. He walked past me just now.”
“Is he staying there?” A woman’s voice, which he hadn’t expected.
“I don’t know,” the guard said. “I’m just standing here like I’m looking for shoplifters. He was shopping, I think, so he could be staying anywhere.”
After a moment of silence, the woman on the other end said, “Probably there, I bet. It’s too hot to be walking outside to get to a shopping center. Not at five o’clock in the afternoon. Maybe at nine or ten.”
“Dunno. Anyway, I was told there’d be a hundred bucks in it for me, if I remember correctly.”
“Yes. We’ll catch you the next time we come through.”
Click.
The guard had the sudden feeling that the hundred bucks might not be coming through anytime soon. Fuckin’ hoodlums.
—
LUCAS WAS INa Canali store, eying the ties, when his phone burped. A call from Russell Forte in Washington.
“You’re interrupting my shopping trip,” Lucas said. And, “What time is it? Are you calling from home?”
“Yeah. I’m watching HBO and eating popcorn. It’s after eight here. You wouldn’t be in the Forum Shops at Caesars, would you?” Forte asked.
