Nobody Dies in a Casino by Marlys Millhiser Page A

the air, hear the grunts of disgust as an infrared camera showed the Hilton’s casino in varying shades of sickly luminescent green. It quite clearly caught three figures in identical dark clothing, gloves, and full head masks threading their way through the confusion of people caught in a crowd in total darkness.
    These figures wore goggles and could obviously see where no one else could. One mugged for the camera by blowing out a cigarette lighter every time a guy in a Stetson tried to light it. He gestured with what appeared to be a stick, maybe a yard long, but didn’t offer to hit anyone with it, more as if to make a point of the thing for the camera.
    There had to be four people in the gang. One on the camera, which bobbed between the two making their way into the cage, and the guy snuffing out matches and lighters close by. When a guard with a flashlight searching out possible trouble in front of him began to turn his light back toward the cage, the light-snuffer shoved a disoriented tourist into him. She probably weighed in at over three hundred pounds. She and the guard went down while the light-snuffer took advantage of the guard’s guard going down as well to grab the flashlight.
    There were other flashlights approaching by now, but the two robbers raced out of the cage with bulging bags and leapt over the downed guard and his heavy oppressor. Charlie knew the casino at the Hilton well enough to detect the fact that the four fleeing robbers did not head toward the hotel’s front door. They raced back toward the sport’s book area and a back door she’d used today to catch a shuttle to Fremont Street.
    This whole robbery and even the clowning for the camera had taken place faster than the time it would take to describe it. The cameraman turned for a shot of security guards armed with flashlights spilling out of a side door Charlie recognized as leading to the restricted area with its warren of security rooms.
    It was then that the light-snuffer revealed the purpose of the mysterious stick. With the camera, and presumably the cage robbers behind him, he waved it like a wand across the phalanx of uniformed guards. They stopped. In midstride.
    â€œOh, come on, Black, not even the government’s got that kind of weapon.”
    â€œYeah, man, you faked those shots. We know you.”
    â€œFancy laser, must be a phaser,” added someone who felt good enough to joke. “Beam me up, Scotty.”
    This was a strange crowd for a money party. It had to be three-quarters male. Very few trophy blondes. And half the guys talked like her boss. Even stranger, the less delighted these people seemed with Evan’s offering, the more delighted he appeared to be with them.
    The wand and the camera panned around to the casino, where the guy in the Stetson stood with his cigarette lighter raised and eyes unblinking. The only moving thing in that confused crowd was the heavy woman who’d landed on the first casino guard. She moved, but as if she was clawing her way through Jell-O.
    â€œPayoff time, cash only,” Evan said mysteriously from the back of the screening room when the film suddenly cut to the desert, a burning Mooney 201, and color. Charlie lay spread out on the abrasive sand, shadows of the leaping flames dancing on and around her, A scratchy bush that sat above her head like a tombstone whipped in the wind.
    Even to Charlie, she looked dead.
    *   *   *
    â€œVulnerable, not dead,” Evan Black insisted after everyone had left. His eyes burned with triumph. He must be on something. This whole screening did not make sense and certainly wasn’t a triumph. He hadn’t proved he could make a successful project from what he’d shown. He’d proved that he could break the law and fly over restricted government property and that he could rob the Hilton. Why would he reveal the burning Mooney if he’d burned it to get rid of evidence?
    â€œThe