I ended the call and stared at the black clamshell phone for a long, bleak stretch of time. Eventually I came to myself and realized that I was still sitting in the parking lot of the Blue Hills Treatment Center. People probably sat in their cars here all the time, snorking up their last line or popping their last pill before checking themselves in. I felt like checking myself in. I was sure I could use treatment for something.

  But the fact remained that Woody had been glommed. However those two had worked me, it didn’t feel right just to walk away. I’d see this thing through. Save my father’s ass. Then kick it. That was my plan.

  It was a long, slow ride back to the Gaia. I felt all alone in the world.

  My mind wandered to Martybeth in her underwear. The thought caused me a scrotal tickle, and then a shudder. Though Allie had pretty clearly betrayed me, I wasn’t prepared to betray her back.

  Yet, Martybeth and her underwear …

  At last I had a useful idea.

  I phoned Vic. After several rings, Zoe answered. “Thank you for calling MirploCo,” she said in a scripted voice. “How may I direct your call?”

  “Hi, Zoe, it’s Radar. Let me talk to Vic.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, still on script, “there’s no one here named Vic.”

  This is crazy, I thought. Allie reappears and suddenly Vic goes AWOL? What’s going on? Then I realized that this problem was purely semantic. “I mean Mirplo,” I said. “Let me speak to Mirplo.”

  “If this is regarding a commission,” Zoe continued, on script, “Mirplo is now taking orders for thirty-six-month delivery. If this is about an existing commission—”

  “Zoe, it’s me, Radar. Let me talk to Mirplo.”

  Zoe processed this for a long, silent second and then said, “One moment, please; I’ll see if he’s available.”

  After a pause, Vic came on the line. “This is Mirplo.”

  “It’s Radar.” I filled him in on the latest developments and said, “I’m accelerating the timetable. How soon can you get to Vegas?”

  “I don’t know, Radar. Right now I’m pimping out the ultralight.”

  “Vic, this is important.”

  “And the ultralight isn’t? This isn’t just about you, you know. It’s also about me. My statement.”

  “Your statement,” I repeated flatly.

  “Do you begrudge me, Radar? I don’t see you as a begrudger.”

  “I don’t begrudge, Vic. I’m not a”—I stumbled over the word—“a begrudger. I just need your help, that’s all.”

  “And don’t worry, buddy, you’ll get it. Plane’s almost done anyhow. It’s a dragonfly.”

  “What’s that, the brand?”

  “Nah, the motif. It represents—” He cut himself off. “Why spoil it? You’ll see soon enough.”

  We hung up. I jammed the phone back in my pocket and rocketed down the highway toward town. I had to make two quick stops, then get back to the Gaia and talk to Martybeth again.

  I suddenly saw her underwear in a whole new light.

  22

  Special Agent Ysmygu

  I went to a business center in a strip mall and spent a productive hour with a computer, color printer, and sheets of plastic laminate. A nearby pawnshop yielded another necessary hunk of verisimilitude, and I returned with these to the Gaia in high spirits—higher than they’d been in quite some time. Granted, Woody was on ice, Allie was past participle, and Mirplo was a shaky (though increasingly arrogant) platform upon which to build a grift, but I was making moves again—snuke moves—and that was like putting on a comfortable old shirt. I felt within myself the same undercurrent of glee I’d heard in Woody’s voice on the phone: This shit is dangerous and uncertain, but on some level just fun. I wasn’t fooling myself completely, of course. I knew that somewhere deep inside lurked a serious heartache I’d have to address eventually. For the moment, though, I muted it with moves. My imagination was flowing, a cool mental lava that eradicated much in its path.

  The perks of a Gaia host’s job included a parking space in the employee garage and a room in the old, unimproved part of the hotel. I landed the Swing and thought about going to my room to change but instead went straight to the casino floor, where I found a house phone and had Martybeth paged. When she came on the line, she reacted to my voice about as you’d expect, with a proud cloud of “busier-than-thou” cushioning her hurt. But I’d figured Martybeth out. She was wired to her sexuality. In her mind, she scored points with her body, and I figured her likely to give it a second chance. It’s what people do when they’re hooked on validation. So I apologized for running out on her, thereby implicitly erasing the stigma of rejection. Then I asked if we could complete the tour, which I knew she’d interpret as “pick up where we left off.” She surrendered her reproof immediately, confirming my impression of her as a slave to approval, someone who put ego above everything. She said she was in Aurum, the casino’s VIP gaming salon, and told me to come to her there.

  Aurum* occupied a giant metal pod mounted on eight steel struts that lifted it high off the gaming floor. Its mirrored surfaces and neon trim gave it the spooky look of a UFO, but the design served its purpose of isolating the salon from the main casino’s noise and hubbub, the constant clang of slots, the periodic hoot or whoop of gamblers scoring big with cards or dice, and the undertow lilt of cocktail waitresses crooning, “House’ll buy you a drink?” You entered Aurum by climbing a set of cut-quartz steps or taking a short-throw glass elevator. Then, under the frosty gaze of face control, you passed through a polished metal ring (and embedded metal detector) and followed a long, corkscrew corridor, so that by the time you reached the heart of the sanctum, you were physically, acoustically, and psychically separated from the penny public and could enjoy your high-roller lifestyle in appropriate privacy and luxury.

  The room held just six tables, two blackjack and one each of roulette, craps, baccarat, and pai gow, but these six tables yielded, on average, almost 10 percent of the Gaia’s take. In addition to the gaming tables, there was a conversation pit equipped with marble-top tables and creamy leather couches. Martybeth sat on one of these, chubby legs crossed, showing plenty of thigh and chatting quietly with an ancient Asian millionaire and his young escort. I could read Martybeth’s lips as she said, “Don’t be silly, Dr. Wu. It’s the casino’s pleasure. My pleasure. Enjoy your evening.” Then she handed him what seemed to be tickets to a show; however, she fumbled the pass, so that I caught a glimpse of a tiny glassine bindle. The escort saw it too, and her nostrils flared.

  Martybeth noticed me and disengaged herself from her guests. She crossed to meet me, tugging down her skirt and tucking her blouse tighter against her frame. “I’m glad you came back,” she cooed. “I’d hate not to finish my job.”

  Within the hour, I’d seen all the confidential card rooms, unmarked restaurants, hidden spas, and private lounges that served the Gaia’s top-tier guests. I’d seen the exclusive cashier’s cage they used, with a safe-deposit room more lavish than five-star hotels. I’d visited the private bell service, concierge desk, and access corridors. And I’d seen Antibes, the Gaia’s award-winning topless swimming pool. Did Martybeth measure her roomy self negatively against the taut bodies of all those professionals and avid amateurs? If so, she didn’t let on. Perhaps she thought the sight of such plastic figurines in G-strings would inflame my desire. They seemed to inflame hers; she stayed close, and breasted me from time to time, signaling like crazy. Clearly she was at the tipping point.

  Time for a nudge.

  “That suite we visited before,” I said. “Any chance I could get a second look?”

  “Not now,” said Martybeth. “They’re shampooing the rugs.”

  “Shame,” I said, coloring my voice with disappointment and thwarted intent.

  “Don’t worry, honey,” she said, laying her hand on my arm. “This hotel has lots of rooms.”

  Ten minutes later, we’re making small talk in a room Martybeth has commandeered. It’s no high-roller suite, but plenty adequate for the party we have planned. And there we are, sitting on the edge of a king-size bed. Martybeth fiddles with the buttons of her blouse. As she brazenly pops one open, I reach into my pants …

  … and pull out a badge.

  By all rights, the fake Jake gag shouldn’t ever work. I mean, it’s so transparent a play. But if you use it right—a swift strike against a soft target—you can sell the bluff long enough to get what you’re after. Martybeth had established herself as a soft target, short on discretion and long on need. Her proximity to Wolfredian (close enough to drop a dime about Woody) implied that she might be long on information, too, so I blitzed her with Special Agent Dim Ysmygu of the thoroughly fictive Nevada Bureau of Gaming Investigation.

  The badge, as badges will, stopped her cold. Though naught but a classic generic that I’d picked up at the pawnshop, it engendered the deer-in-headlights reaction that most people have. I handed her my identification card, fruit of my labor at the business center, pure bafflegab but convincing enough, and laminated, which carries a surprising amount of clout. She stumbled over the name on my paperwork—as she was intended to, for in situations like this, an improbable-to-impossible name rings truer than a common one. John Doe sounds like, well, a John Doe, but who in their right mind settles on Dim Ysmygu as an alias? Its sheer outrageousness lends cred to your credential.

  She took a weak stab at pronouncing it. “Dim … Yaz-mig-you?”

  “Us-muggy,” I corrected. “It’s Welsh.”*

  The first thing most people do when confronted with adversarial authority is try to figure out how much trouble they’re in.

  Can I cry my way out of this speeding ticket?

  Would a blow job unresist my arrest?

  Do they know about the Caymans account?

  Martybeth, predictably, played the seduction card, the strongest one in her deck. She let the halves of her blouse fall open and looked at me with buttery eyes.

  Pocketing my credentials (which had done their job and would now not be seen again), I said, “I’m sorry, Martybeth, we don’t have time for that anymore.”

  I spun her a quick yarn about how the NBGI had inserted me undercover as a casino host to dig into Wolfredian’s operation, of which there was suspicion of money laundering, tax evasion, hummery, flummery, and crimes against nature. I had intended, I told her, to run a measured investigation. “But you screwed that up.”

  “Me? How?”

  “By telling Wolfredian about that call this morning. You’re going to have to make that right.”

  “What do you want me to do?” she asked.

  “Just tell me”—I spread my hands and smiled—“everything.”

  Martybeth didn’t know everything, but what she did know was enlightening. Wolfredian had assigned her to train the new host—me—but also to stay watchful and report if I did anything strange. I suppose she regarded running out on sex with her as strange, and that’s how Wolfredian learned I was off to Blue Hills and got Red Louise there first.

  “He doesn’t trust you,” said Martybeth. She glanced at the pocket holding my badge. “Apparently with good reason.”

  “You said he thought I was a macher.”

  “I made that up. I wanted you to feel at home.” She pouted like a hurt kitten.

  “You did a good job,” I said, and she brightened. “You’re still doing a good job. Tell me more.”

  This popped the lid on Martybeth, and all sorts of interesting tidbits spilled out, chief among them that Gaia hosts were paid a big bonus for getting Wolfredian next to their guests. “Not even whales,” said Martybeth. “Midlevel players. Anyone who might have loose cash in their pocket.” It was an open secret that he routinely worked the clientele for investments. “He’s really more interested in that,” she said, “than even in having them gamble.” She became thoughtful. “Which I really don’t understand,” she said, “since his job has to pay, like, anyhow, seven figures.”

  “He must have a jones,” I said.

  “Jones?”

  “Habit. If a seven-figure salary’s not covering his nut, there must be a big leak somewhere.”

  “Drugs?” said Martybeth. “Girls? Gambling?” She was trying to be helpful, but it was clear to me that Wolfredian’s addiction was simply not in her database. “You might ask his consultant.”

  “Consultant?”

  “You see him from time to time. What’s his name?” She scrunched her brain to remember. “Something weird. Harrison? No. Hannibal! That’s it, Hannibal Hamlin. Funny name, huh?”

  Yeah, funny. Lincoln’s other vice president.

  “They hang around?”

  “Used to,” she said. “Not so much lately, at least not the last few days.”

  Used to hang around, huh? If so, then Woody’s tale of his and Jay’s adversarial relationship was both less and more than he’d led me to believe. I chased the significance of this information for a moment, but that was a mistake, for it left Martybeth alone with her thoughts, and the light began to dawn that I might not be who I said I was. Her brow furrowed, and I could see the structure of my bluff starting to break down. Any second now, she’d be asking for another look at my tickets.

  Time to wrap this up.

  Special Agent Ysmygu spent a few hard moments impressing upon Martybeth the seriousness of the situation, then carrot-and-sticked her with promises of immunity but threats of legal hellfire should she breathe a word of this to anyone. I had little hope the lip glue would set, but it was the best I could do on the fly. And, hey, if she took the story to Wolfredian, maybe it would further muddy the waters of my true intent.

  In the elevator back downstairs, I sent Vic a long text, outlining some refinements I needed in his script, and ending with: “Time 2 make yr ntrance.”

  But his ntrance was already under way.

  *Latin for gold, which is weird, because Gaia is Greek for earth, and that seems linguistically inconsistent to me, but whatever. I’m not the marketing director around here.

  *For “No Smoking,” natch.

  23

  The Unbearable Lightness of Being Mirplo

  There’s a class of pop culture one might call stunt art. Christo’s Umbrellas. Banksy’s graffiti. Big stuff. Impactful. But ephemeral, and soon gone. Christo once said, “I think it takes much greater courage to create things to be gone than to create things that will remain.” I think that’s a little self-serving, but whatever. The point is that big installations are as much about the artist as they are about the art. With the wave on which Vic—excuse me, Mirplo—rode toward Vegas just then, I shouldn’t have been surprised at the magnitude of the stunt art he whipped up for himself. After all, I’d invited his superfueled ambition to town in the first place and inspired him to fire it off in all directions in that supercharged air. True, too, we’d held some strategic consultations, so that what he contrived outside the casino easily conformed to the picture he’d create within its walls. Too easily, in fact. By dint of early success, self-fulfilling self-confidence (my own behind-the-scenes fluffing efforts), and the love of a good woman, Vic was morphing quickly from large to larger than life, no longer the clumsy dumb yutz whose most marketable skill had once been his ability to wheedle free drinks. Maybe the best thing about art is its impact on the artist.

  Be that as it may, Mirplo the would-be superstar was coming to town as the superstar he would be. You could read it on all the signs. And I don’t mean signs like portents or tea leaves. I mean signs like giant temporary billboards placed along Las Vegas Boulevard—the Strip—at hundred-yard intervals from the Stratosphere at the north end all the way down to Mandalay Bay.

  “Think big,” I had advised him, and think big he had.

  The colors were electric: reds and greens that shimmered in the sun, vibrating hard, clashing loud, yet somehow harmonizing into a test of visual acuity that, if you passed it, emerged as Mirplo’s face and the words BE THE SHOW! Each billboard housed a huge video monitor, with streaming images from the camera feeds of tiny, radio-controlled helicopters flying lazy loops over the Strip. The baby choppers fed to the crowds below liberal and extensive shots of themselves, so that folks looking up at the screens saw imaginatively manipulated shots of folks looking up at screens, a fun-house mirror effect that was (like all of Mirplo’s art, I would say) at once refreshing and subtly disturbing, equal parts You are here and Where are you? The billboards formed the centerpiece of a viral marketing campaign for something big, arty, and conceptually Mirplovian coming very soon to an undisclosed desert location near you.

  With advance word of Mirplo the phenomenon in place, all that remained was the arrival of Mirplo the man. For this grand entrance, I stationed myself in the Gaia’s porte cochere and kept an eye peeled for his limo. I was still fretting about Woody, of course, still trying to quell my anxiety by the following logic: Woody would be safe (I tried to persuade myself) unless and until Mirplo tanked as a whale. Of course, merely succeeding as a whale wouldn’t entirely do the trick either. He had to be—I coined a phrase here—a value-added whale, one worth more to the Gaia than his earn and churn, one worth more to Wolfredian than just his deep and seemingly easy pocket to pick. All of a sudden, I had a lot riding on the performance (in many senses of the world) of a man I used to not trust with a dry-cleaning ticket. How things had changed. Well, at least I hoped they had.

  And now here he came, his limo sliding to a stop at the VIP entrance, a section of the valet area set apart by stanchions, velvet ropes, and an honest-to-God red carpet. A young Gaia employee in upmarket livery opened the passenger door for Vic, who stepped out grandly, and struck a pose like Columbus landing on Hispaniola. A growth of new beard graced his face, giving it an unexpectedly rugged aspect. His hair, gelled, spiked, and frosted, betrayed the handiwork of some high-priced stylist. This from a guy who used to attack his own greasy locks with kitchen shears rather than part with ten bucks for a Supercuts. He wore big tinted glasses, like something from the bottom of Elton John’s prop closet. Matching linen shirt and slacks. Versace black leather Chelsea boots.