The gun went to his forehead. Kobiashi couldn’t help but freeze in terror at the gaping hole before him. Two out of six. A one in three chance of death. Those were not good chances at all with so much on the table. Namely, his life. And then—
Click.
No relief this time. Only rage and fear and a sick feeling that his life was slipping through his fingers and there was nothing he could do about it except watch as she loaded yet another bullet into the cylinder, spun it, clicked it shut.
“Now the game gets interesting,” she said. “But you like these kinds of odds, don’t you? You like living on the edge. But who cares what you’ve laid on the line? You’ve got plenty money where this came—”
Click.
“STOP IT, GODDAMNIT!” Kobiashi screamed. “WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME?”
As she added still another bullet, the woman said, “It’s not you, my dear Kobiashi. You’re just an example. Could have been anybody. You just came to our attention.”
The barrel of the revolver returned to his sweat-slicked forehead.
“Four bullets now. The odds are suddenly in the house’s favor, wouldn’t you say? How lucky do you feel, Mr. Kobiashi? Are you in your comfort zone yet?”
“PLEASE DON’T, PLEASE DON’T, PLEASE DON—”
Click.
The adrenaline was nearly blinding him now, rendering him deaf. He hardly saw her load the weapon with a fifth bullet, barely heard the spin of the cylinder, the awful horrible sickening
click
of it snapping back into place. Hardly felt the cold steel pressed up against his face.
But Kobiashi was able to see the cylinder, and the empty chamber outside the gun, away from the firing pin. You didn’t have to be able to count cards to know that this meant only one thing.
There would be no more clicks.
Haruki Kobaishi knew that any moment now he could die. And as it turned out, he didn’t even hear the
cl
—
chapter 54
Las Vegas, Nevada
Dark looked up at the towers of the old Vegas hotel. They tried to blaze bright in the night sky, but it was no match for its brighter, gaudier, louder, slicker cousins. Dark knew that back in the day—the Howard Hughes days, the days between RFK buying it at the Ambassador and Watergate—this grand old Egyptian-themed casino was an elaborate CIA front. What better way to funnel money to various operations around the world than a casino? You had a constant drunken swirl of tourists, sex, slot machines, drugs, gluttony, and nothing but sand and mountains as far as the eye could see.
Many people thought Vegas was a glitzy mirage-turned-real, powered by cold, hard American cash and sheer can-do American spirit.
But Dark knew the truth. It was just an awfully convenient location for an amazing number of deals, white and black, overt and covert—then, just like now.
Which was why Graysmith had little trouble making a few phone calls and laying the place wide-open for Steve Dark. Her colleagues had their fingers all over the Strip; it didn’t take much to gain access.
The amazing part was that Dark’s hunch had been right. The Wheel of Fortune card, laid down smack dab in the middle of the American Southwest. Where else but Las Vegas? Just thirty minutes ago he’d told Graysmith over the phone: “I’m taking a charter to Vegas. I think that’s where this Tarot Card Killer is going to strike next.”
“How do you know that?” Graysmith asked.
“The guy’s working geographically. Like he’s laying the cards down on a map of the United States. He’s already worked through the cross on the East Coast. Now he’s headed west.”
“That’s shaky—at best,” Graysmith said. “Even if you are right, each tarot reader uses a different layout. How can you be sure he’s laying those cards down in Nevada? Maybe he’ll strike next in Europe while we’re dicking around in the desert.”
“The next card will be the Wheel of Fortune.”
“And how do you know that?”
Dark remained silent. It sounded ridiculous, even to him.
Because a five-dollar tarot card reader in Venice Beach told me.
“Trust me.”
“In my line of work,
trust me
is code for
fuck you
.”
“Just check your sources for recent murders,” Dark said. “Almost definitely sure we’re talking about in or near a casino. The big ones. Where the high rollers flock.”
“I’ll get back to you,” Graysmith said.
After minutes later, Graysmith sounded almost gleeful when she called back to report: “Nothing. We’ve got beaten prostitutes, a full drunk tank, and a lot of meth dealers taking shots at each other, but nothing that matches the profile of the TCK.”
“That just means it hasn’t happened yet. Keep looking.”
As the small jet raced over the Mojave Desert, Dark stared at the image of the Wheel of Fortune card he’d loaded on his phone. The crime scenes so far always referenced details in the cards. Sometimes overtly, sometimes in subtle but meaningful ways. The illustration on this card was one of the more fanciful ones in the deck: pale clouds swirling around a wheel inscribed with arcane symbols. Winged beasts and an angelic figure poring over tomes. A snake, with its whiplike tongue extended, writhing next to the wheel. A jackal-headed man—Anubis, the guardian of the underworld—either gliding along the outside of the wheel or being crushed by it. A sword-carrying sphinx resting on top, overseeing all, yet nearly faded into the background of the sky.
During the plane’s descent, Dark put it together. When Graysmith called back, he didn’t give her time to open her mouth.
“Something happened at the Egyptian, didn’t it?” Dark snapped.
There was a stunned pause, and then:
“How the hell did you know?”
The Vegas CSI techs beat Dark to the scene by mere minutes. They were snapping on gloves and unlocking gear when Dark stepped into the room, and immediately the lead homicide detective marched over, telling Dark to get the fuck out. Dark showed him the credentials that Graysmith had sent to his phone. This only further enraged the homicide dick—a balding lifer who looked like he wanted to take a swing at Dark. But his colleagues pulled him aside. “Not worth it, Muntz,” someone muttered. The Vegas guys were used to jurisdictional skirmishes; this was just another one in a long line of them. Immediately, Dark realized that alienating these guys was a mistake. This crime scene was no more than thirty minutes old; their killer was no doubt still in the city. The Vegas PD would be more of a help than a hindrance at this point.
“Look,” Dark said. “I’m not here to interfere. How about walking me through what you know?”
“What, you want me to do all of your work for you?” Muntz, the homicide dick, asked.
“I’m not here officially.”
“You guys never are. But let me ask you this. How the fuck did you get here so fast? We only caught the call a few minutes ago.”
Because,
Dark thought to himself,
I’m finally listening to Hilda.
chapter 55
The victim’s name was Haruki Kobiashi. He had checked in the night before—the first of six nights he planned to spend here in Sin City. The man was a notorious high-stakes gambler—a Japanese whale, in Vegas parlance—who made a spectacle of his time at the roulette wheel. When Kobiashi won, he roared, and the crowd roared with him. Beautiful babes would rub his bald head for luck. When he lost—which was often—it was the stuff of high tragedy, and he would inevitably need to console himself with eight-hundred-dollar bottles of Cristal, which he would share with his audience. Kobiashi’s legendary spending and losing sprees were a better show than Wayne Newton’s.
Such massive losses and bar tabs would be the ruin of any mortal millionaire. But Kobiashi was worth 6.1 billion yen and rising, thanks to his empire of cheap clothing emporiums. Kobiashi, of course, wore the best, and never wore the same item of clothing twice. In his philosophy, according to
Forbes
and
Fast Company
, material goods and cash were transient, and not meant to be held on to for long. He was doing his best to keep the worldwide economy humming.
Until tonight.
The economy would have to limp on without him.
Kobiashi had been found on the floor of his suite, stark naked. He’d been shot in the face at point-blank range. A steel .44 Smith & Wesson and a pair of blood-splattered dice were a few inches away on the desktop. Five bullets in all. Four still in the chamber. One inside Mr. Kobiashi’s skull.
chapter 56
30,000 feet above Nevada
When the three of them agreed to keep close tabs on Dark, Constance got the idea to follow the money. Credit card transactions, car rentals, beer bodegas, everything. If Dark spent a traceable dime, they’d know when and where. She was also working on satellite surveillance of his home and car.
Meanwhile Josh Banner hit a database of traffic cameras trained on West Hollywood and LAX, entering Dark’s make, model, and license plate number. Within a few minutes they had multiple hits, tracing Dark’s movements down the 405 all the way to a parking garage, where a credit card transaction revealed that he’d purchased a last-minute flight to Vegas—just a quick hop over the Mojave Desert.
Their own plane was descending into McCarran now.
“Strange place for Dark to visit, isn’t it?” Constance asked.
“Yeah. Dark’s not exactly a gambling man,” Riggins said. “Hell, he used to roll his eyes at me when I used to play the ponies.”
“So why here? What kind of lead does he have that we don’t?”
“No idea,” Riggins said. But he was thinking to himself:
Because Dark’s in league with the killer—some crazy woman with big breasts and a gas mask fetish. So of course he’d know where to strike next.
His only regret now was not putting constant surveillance on Dark from the moment he had left the man’s house in L.A. If it had been anyone but Dark—if Riggins had done his fucking job and treated Dark as a
person of interest
—then maybe he could have stopped all of this sooner.
“Guys,” Banner said, thumbing his smart phone. “I think I know why he’s here.”
chapter 57
Vegas likes to keep its eye on you, Dark thought.
They say what happens here stays here . . . but that’s the point. It stays here, and
they know all about it
.
Every bet you place, every plate you take from the stack in the hotel buffet, every drink you’re served, every drink you leave behind . . . they’re keeping track. They know how much time you spend on the floor. They know how much time you spend in your room. They know, because they track your universal key card.
The only two people to enter Mr. Kobiashi’s penthouse suite in the past twenty-four hours were Mr. Kobiashi himself and a bellhop named Dean Bosh. As a valued guest of the Egyptian, Mr. Kobiashi’s suite was prepared just the way he liked it. Buckets of shaved ice, an array of flavored vodkas, and an absurd quantity of shelled nuts. According to the hotel, Bosh entered the room three times. First, an hour before Kobiashi’s arrival. Then upon his arrival. And finally, about fifteen minutes before he died.
“Find this Bosh,” Muntz told his team. “Now.”
Within minutes they found him—bound and disoriented in a supply closet on the top floor, amid bottles of booze and toilet paper and towels and shampoo. Bosh couldn’t remember who he was or where he was, or even what day of the week it was. As a result, he had no idea who’d taken his key card. Bosh apologized deliriously, then began to sob. Whatever knockout drug he’d been given, the stuff was clearly still wreaking havoc on his nervous system.
Meanwhile, Dark accompanied Muntz down to the private hotel security stronghold, located on a phantom sixth floor. The Egyptian had cameras for show, where patrons could see them. Those video feeds went to central security office on the ground floor. Dark knew those feeds would be useless. The killer had taken great precautions to avoid being caught on tape so far. Why give away the game now?
However, there was a second, more elaborate set of cameras—a holdover from the hotel’s CIA glory days, recently updated and digitized. A series of pinhole cameras covered every possible public area, along with the interiors of certain rooms. Kobiashi’s suite was not one of them—whales were afforded certain perks, like privacy. But the outside of his suite? That was fair game.
“Right there,” Dark told the tech manning the video bay. “Bring it up.”
The image showed a skinny figure with dark hair, wearing a hotel uniform. Was it male or female? Hard to tell from the angle. The figure was taking great care to avoid showing his/her face to the cameras, and that meant holding his/her body in a slightly awkward position.
“Can you pull that up a little closer?”
“Not too much,” the tech said. “The cameras are small, and for that we sacrifice some clarity.”
“Okay. Keep it rolling.”
Just before the mystery figure reached the door, the head turned, face to the camera. The image was blurry, but now you could see the shape of the face, as well as the cheekbones. It was a woman.
Dark squinted and tried to recognize the features. There was something strangely familiar about them. At first, the hyper-paranoid voice in his brain said
Lisa Graysmith
, but that wasn’t right. Dark tried to match the features against other women he knew—Constance Brielle, Brenda Condor . . . okay, now he was being insane. If he looked long enough, he’d start seeing Sibby’s face in those features, too.
“Get me a copy of the highest res image you’ve got,” said Dark. “I can get it analyzed.”
“So can we,” said Muntz. “Our guys are really good at this stuff, you know.”
“No doubt,” Dark said, “but I might have access to a different set of toys.”
chapter 58
In years past, whenever Johnny Knack rolled into Vegas, it almost always meant a puff piece. Interview some vapid celebrity in a suite, or by an over-chlorinated pool, or in a dark velvety hotel bar, or some other ridiculously clichéd location. Knack hated Vegas, to be perfectly honest. Other cities were whores, but they had a quiet dignity about them. Vegas practically gave you a handjob on the way in and shook you down for a penicillin shot on the way out. There was very little a writer could do with Vegas. Even the great Hunter S. Thompson had to make shit up.