“What about the rest of the half million?” Bob asked.
“I had a hundred and fifty thousand in a pair of earrings that Cal gave me when we got married. Great stones—three carats each, E color, flawless, brilliant cut.”
Calvin Wright said, “Great stones, but they’re nothing, like, unique. They’re not like the Loloma stuff. Pull them out of the settings and they’re totally anonymous.”
Toni said, “The rest of it was gold and platinum bracelets, three watches, plus a ring by Belperron and a pearl necklace. Not really a collection, but the Belperron was worth a ton. I’d kill to get it back.”
Lucas began, “This person, Belle Perron...”
“One name. Belperron is her last name, Suzanne Belperron, she was French. Long gone now,” Toni said.
“So the ring would be, what, worth more intact or in pieces?”
“Oh. Far, far more intact. It’s like the Loloma, each one is unique,” she said. “I gave the police copies of the insurance photos; we haven’t settled with the insurer yet, there might be a lawsuit.”
There had also been currency in the safe, mostly in dollars, but also an uncertain amount in euros and Chinese renminbi—the Wrights thought the total would be the equivalent of five or six thousand dollars. Toni Wright had managed to save her diamond-encrusted wedding ring by turning it around on her finger so that it displayed only its thin platinum band.
When they’d cleaned the safe out, the robbers had lockedchains around the Wrights’ ankles, with the chains looped around a couch. They’d put the Wrights’ cell phones on the kitchen counter. “We had to carry the couch into the kitchen before we could get to our phones and call the police,” Calvin said. “That took a while, fifteen or twenty minutes, you know, because we had to go up the steps to the kitchen and then down the hallway. It was a tight squeeze. And that goddamn couch was heavy.”
Rae looked at Lucas and said, “It’s them. No doubt about it. They did the couch thing in LA.”
“One thing that you should know that I didn’t think of until tonight,” Calvin said. “It might not be important, but it was dark and we never saw their car, really. There’s not much traffic here, and IthinkI saw their taillights going out the exit. They turned left, went west, but there’s not a lot to the west of us—we’re right on the edge of town. They could have been going to the parkway and then east, but it’d be a weird way to do it. Or they could have been going out to the Beltway, but that’s right on the edge of civilization.”
Lucas: “So, you think wherever they’re hiding might be on the west side of town rather than downtown or the Strip or...”
“Or anywhere east, yeah. Don’t know if that helps.”
“The small stuff helps,” Lucas said. “We add it all up and it helps.”
“One other small thing, but I’m not sure I’m right about this because Cal says he didn’t see it,” Toni Wright said. “One of them, not the big man but one of the others, was wearing jeans, and there was something about one of his legs. It... It was fat around the knee, like he might have had a bandage on it. The other leg looked like, you know, nothing, but this one looked too fat. Tome anyway. I wondered if he might have had to go to a doctor for something.”
Rae: “You’ve got a good eye.”
“There’s a major medical center out here,” Calvin Wright said. “If he’s out here on the west side and he got bit by a dog, or something, he might have gone to their emergency room.”
Bob said to Lucas, “He probably would have paid cash.”
Lucas: “Especially if he got a prescription.”
—
THEY LEFTthe Wrights and ended the evening at the Forum’s Cheesecake Factory. The air had cooled dramatically by midnight and had become light and pleasant. They’d walked over from the Bellagio. And since the casinos never closed, there were still people on the streets. Bob, who’d led the way, ordered a Very Cherry Ghirardelli Chocolate Cheesecake, Rae went with the Lemoncello Cream Torte, while Lucas chose the Hot Fudge Sundae. Lucas had asked the waitress if the sundae was decent and she said, “It’s fabulous. I gotta tell you, if it was me, I’d be sticking my feet in that ice cream. I’ve been standing up for fourteen hours straight.”
“Not in this one job, for God’s sakes?” Bob said.
“Two jobs,” the waitress said. “This one pays the rent, the other feeds the slots.”
—
WHEN THE DESSERTScame, Lucas summed up: “We know they’re here. The bad thing is, they probably know that we’re here. They could go on the run again. We only found them because wegot lucky with the phone. If they figure that out, and they probably will, they’ll stop using Haar and throw the phone away. If we’re going to find them, we’ve got to do it quick or we’ll have to start over.”
“Then what’s next?” Bob asked.
“You guys check the hospitals tomorrow morning, see if you can find the guy with the hole in his leg. I’ll get back with Mallow and see who’s fencing what around town and what places handle high-end Indian jewelry.”
“Sounds like legwork,” Bob said.
“Yes. In 105-degree heat.”
