Orphan X: A Novel by Gregg Hurwitz Page A

second.”
    “Tell me when you’re done.”
    The faintest hint of amusement firmed those lips. “I’m done.”
    “What can you tell me about this gambling circuit?”
    “Like I said, not much. Texas Hold’em in basements of restaurants, rented suites, like that. There was security and dealers, but I never saw the face of anyone behind it all. Even the players, we used fake names. It was impossible to tell who was the house. They were smart enough not to leave a trail.”
    “How’d they find you?”
    “People find you in Vegas. I was at a table. They approached.”
    “Just like that.”
    “I make an impression when I play.”
    He asked her to walk him through whatever specifics about locations she could remember. Then he asked, “How did you find out about the Japanese businessman they killed?”
    “They sent a picture to my phone. It autodeleted a few seconds after I saw it.” She smoothed an invisible wrinkle from the bedspread next to her. “A few seconds was enough.”
    “You said they skinned him. But we’re dealing with a sniper, maybe a team. Why the change in approach?”
    “I have no idea,” she said. “It’s not exactly my field.”
    Rising to go, he realized that he knew the answer to his question already. Given the size of Katrin’s loan and her failure to deliver the money promptly, they’d gone to the next level.
    They’d brought in professionals.

 
    14
    Dream Come True
    In a form-fitting dress, Candy McClure waited at the bus stop on Ventura Boulevard, duffel bag resting near the pointed toes of her thigh-high vinyl boots. Passing cars brought wolf calls, which she basked in along with the morning sun. A bus hissed to the curb, and a group of would-be gangstas unpacked from it. They shuffled past, all lowered trousers and top-buttoned flannel shirts. The leader, not unreasonably taking her for a hooker, pivoted to shake his hips in her direction. “Hey, Catwoman, wanna play with this?”
    “Love to.” She reached out, grabbing his crotch through a baggy expanse of denim and squeezing. He made a noise like a whinny as she steered him around, depositing him on the bench next to her. She played him like an instrument, crushing at will, bringing forth various sounds as his friends circled in a sort of animal panic. When she released him, he rolled onto the sidewalk. She’d managed to squeeze out a few real tears to go with the inked ones tattooed at the corner of his eye.
    Boys.
    He struggled to his knees and then to a hunched approximation of standing.
    “Thanks,” Candy said, checking that her press-on nails remained intact. “Good session.”
    His friends conveyed him up the street.
    A few minutes later, a rented Scion sedan pulled up, the window lowering. Crammed into the driver’s seat, Danny Slatcher hid behind mirrored aviators and a mustache imported from 1980. A larger vehicle would have suited him.
    “’Bout time,” she said.
    With a long arm, he reached across and flung open the passenger door. “Get in. And change. You look like a whore.”
    And he looked like an insurance salesman. Which she supposed was the point.
    “Wow,” she said, climbing in. “A crappy purple Scion. Like in the song.”
    “What song?”
    “Train,” she said. “‘50 Ways to Say Goodbye.’” A brown grocery bag in the footwell contained her cover outfit. As he drove, she pulled on the new clothes. “It’s about a guy making up outlandish ways his girlfriend died so he doesn’t have to—”
    “You handled the esteemed assemblyman?” he asked.
    “Excessively,” Candy said.
    Ten blocks later, when Slatcher parked at one of the seedy tourist motels off the 101 near Universal Studios, she emerged from the car a new woman. She wore clunky espadrilles, a shapeless skirt pulled too high at the waist, and a loose blouse with fussy ruffles to hide her va-va-voom figure.
    Slatcher unfolded himself from the car. He was quite tall at six-three, but that didn’t account for his size—it