hers but I need to know I’m dealing with someone who can guarantee
payment
.
He closed the email account, the website. He erased the browser history. He left the internet café and went and ate lunch,
standing up in a narrow student-geared pizza joint, chewing on a thick slice, drinking a Coke.
A million dollars. The terms of the reward preferred that she be alive. That complicated things.
Braun ate his lonely pizza, then walked home and sat in his leather chair, and thought about Novem Soles, and Mila, and how
he could collect that million dollars.
13
Las Vegas
It’s not everyday that you a) inspect a new business you own, and b) make plans to meet a kidnapper there. Happy partiers
filled The Canyon Bar, escaping the tourist-swollen casino hotspots, searching for revelry and the next place you wanted to
be seen.
I was planning how to capture a woman who’d stolen my child.
The Canyon was not a tourist trap bar like so much of the Vegas nightlife scene. I’d noticed in the first hour there this
evening that the servers and bartenders were extremely capable; attentive, engaging, focused. Of course, when I’d come around
and introduced myself to the staff they might all have switched to best behavior, but you can’t hide sloppiness in the running
of a first-class drinking establishment.
I’d seen one server gently talk an indecisive customer out of ordering a chocolate martini and into a handcrafted Old-Fashioned:
a real drink for a real person. The décor washigh-dollar: carefully sculpted beams of wood undulated along the curving walls, the tables were of polished granite, the
chairs covered with faux rare animal hides. The Canyon was a destination bar for those too cool for the Strip or who wanted
a break from the casino nights and the nerve-numbing rattle of slots, dice, and chips. The crowd was youngish, a mix of more
daring visitors and well-heeled locals. There was a dance floor, small, and the DJ was mashing classic Massive Attack with
the latest hip-hop star’s word play and drum beat.
I watched all this from the security cameras mounted in my office on the second floor of the bar.
I scanned the crowd. I knew Anna’s face, from the security photo and the passport photo we’d acquired: tall, dark hair, a
beauty mark near the curve of her mouth. But those were elements easily changed. I didn’t see anyone who fit her description
in the crowded club.
But I did see a face I knew, apparently a recent arrival. There she was, Mila, sitting at a back table, her hair dyed auburn
now (or wearing a good wig), flirting with some thick-shouldered guy who wore a well-tailored gray pinstripe suit. His face
was familiar, and that worried me until I recognized him – a guy who once played tight end for the New York Giants. Dude probably
thought he was about to get Vegas-lucky. Mila wowed him a champagne-fueled smile, although the wine in her flute appeared
to be untouched. His was empty. He refilled and guzzled his twice while I watched. I guessed she was conducting her own surveillance,
observing every face that came and left the bar. She had to be careful, now that the Company had resumed its interest in me.
I went downstairs to a corner booth that I’d reserved for myself. I wore my hosting clothes: a pinstripe suit, a white shirt,
a gray-silver tie. In your own bar, you have to look better thana lawyer. Sharper. And the jacket hid my Browning pistol and my slacks hid my knife, strapped to my calf.
Mila got up, whispering something that was (I am sure) most promising to her male camouflage, but came over and sat at my
table.
‘I understand I am to be your wife. Every time I play this role, there is trouble.’
She’d taken a later flight than me – best if we didn’t travel together. She flew under an assumed name. But no one tailed
me at the Vegas airport; I made sure.
‘I like the auburn,’ I said.
‘Thank you.’
I could see the Giants ex glaring
payment
.
He closed the email account, the website. He erased the browser history. He left the internet café and went and ate lunch,
standing up in a narrow student-geared pizza joint, chewing on a thick slice, drinking a Coke.
A million dollars. The terms of the reward preferred that she be alive. That complicated things.
Braun ate his lonely pizza, then walked home and sat in his leather chair, and thought about Novem Soles, and Mila, and how
he could collect that million dollars.
13
Las Vegas
It’s not everyday that you a) inspect a new business you own, and b) make plans to meet a kidnapper there. Happy partiers
filled The Canyon Bar, escaping the tourist-swollen casino hotspots, searching for revelry and the next place you wanted to
be seen.
I was planning how to capture a woman who’d stolen my child.
The Canyon was not a tourist trap bar like so much of the Vegas nightlife scene. I’d noticed in the first hour there this
evening that the servers and bartenders were extremely capable; attentive, engaging, focused. Of course, when I’d come around
and introduced myself to the staff they might all have switched to best behavior, but you can’t hide sloppiness in the running
of a first-class drinking establishment.
I’d seen one server gently talk an indecisive customer out of ordering a chocolate martini and into a handcrafted Old-Fashioned:
a real drink for a real person. The décor washigh-dollar: carefully sculpted beams of wood undulated along the curving walls, the tables were of polished granite, the
chairs covered with faux rare animal hides. The Canyon was a destination bar for those too cool for the Strip or who wanted
a break from the casino nights and the nerve-numbing rattle of slots, dice, and chips. The crowd was youngish, a mix of more
daring visitors and well-heeled locals. There was a dance floor, small, and the DJ was mashing classic Massive Attack with
the latest hip-hop star’s word play and drum beat.
I watched all this from the security cameras mounted in my office on the second floor of the bar.
I scanned the crowd. I knew Anna’s face, from the security photo and the passport photo we’d acquired: tall, dark hair, a
beauty mark near the curve of her mouth. But those were elements easily changed. I didn’t see anyone who fit her description
in the crowded club.
But I did see a face I knew, apparently a recent arrival. There she was, Mila, sitting at a back table, her hair dyed auburn
now (or wearing a good wig), flirting with some thick-shouldered guy who wore a well-tailored gray pinstripe suit. His face
was familiar, and that worried me until I recognized him – a guy who once played tight end for the New York Giants. Dude probably
thought he was about to get Vegas-lucky. Mila wowed him a champagne-fueled smile, although the wine in her flute appeared
to be untouched. His was empty. He refilled and guzzled his twice while I watched. I guessed she was conducting her own surveillance,
observing every face that came and left the bar. She had to be careful, now that the Company had resumed its interest in me.
I went downstairs to a corner booth that I’d reserved for myself. I wore my hosting clothes: a pinstripe suit, a white shirt,
a gray-silver tie. In your own bar, you have to look better thana lawyer. Sharper. And the jacket hid my Browning pistol and my slacks hid my knife, strapped to my calf.
Mila got up, whispering something that was (I am sure) most promising to her male camouflage, but came over and sat at my
table.
‘I understand I am to be your wife. Every time I play this role, there is trouble.’
She’d taken a later flight than me – best if we didn’t travel together. She flew under an assumed name. But no one tailed
me at the Vegas airport; I made sure.
‘I like the auburn,’ I said.
‘Thank you.’
I could see the Giants ex glaring
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