Home > A Thin Disguise(3)

A Thin Disguise(3)
Author: Catherine Bybee

He shifted from one foot to the other, weighed his options.

Brutis A stood.

Leo squared his shoulders. “He in there?” The question was rhetorical.

Brutis B met his friend on his feet.

It was then that Leo pushed his jacket back enough to display his badge and the butt of his gun holstered at his side.

They didn’t flinch, and they didn’t sit down.

They knew who he was.

“I’ll just look,” Leo said as he moved into the restaurant.

Navi Sobol’s bodyguards right at his back, he marched in.

Sobol spotted him, put his drink down.

With every step, Leo knew his boss wasn’t going to be happy with him. But he moved forward anyway. He had no choice.

Leo arrived at the table with a smile. “I see you’re making yourself right at home.”

Navi folded his hands and placed them in his lap.

“Is there something I can do for you?”

Leo moved his gaze around the room.

Plenty of people were watching them. Hard not to when three men, two admittedly a little larger than him, stood in the center of a posh restaurant talking.

“No, no . . . I’m good.” Leo turned his stare to Navi’s female companion—young . . . but not Marie Nickerson young—then looked back. “How’s the food?”

Navi opened one palm to the empty table. “I couldn’t tell you.”

Leo grinned. “Well, let me know. I’ll put this place on my list.”

Navi tilted his head, looked Leo dead in the eye.

“You kids enjoy yourselves,” Leo said. He’d gotten what he wanted by seeing the man in the restaurant with only the woman.

He turned and found Navi’s bodyguards push in just enough to stop him from walking past without bumping into one of them.

There was no way Leo was going to brush shoulders with them. As much as the men were trying to intimidate him, Leo knew their kind. Hired men who held no value for life other than their own and the man they were paid to protect.

An accidental touch of a shoulder could be considered battery in front of the right judge.

Leo put his hands up, his playful smile still in place. “If you’ll excuse me.”

A noise behind him suggested Navi had called his dogs off.

Brutis A and B separated, allowing Leo a path.

Leo made eye contact with at least two people in the restaurant as he slipped past the paid help.

He felt both bodyguards at his back as he left.

A few yards into the noisy casino, Leo muttered, “Well, fuck.”

 

Olivia broke her own code and called in. “Get him out of here.”

“Who?”

“The teacher. He’s fucking up.”

“Grant?”

“I don’t care who he works for, he’s fucking up! I can’t do my job if he’s lurking.”

“Consider it done.”

The person on the end of the line disconnected the call.

Leo walked out of the restaurant with an audience.

As he headed toward the door, the bodyguards peeled off. Leo lifted a cell phone to his ear and paused.

Olivia was too far away to hear the conversation, but she imagined what was being said. Leo looked around the massive room as if searching for someone he recognized. Olivia knew that wouldn’t be her. Outside of walking past him in the restaurant, they’d never met.

He turned a full circle, gestured with his hand, and walked out of sight.

She released a breath of relief.

If Navi Sobol had planned on meeting with anyone after dinner, that plan was likely to change.

She should probably call it a night, but instead she walked over to a penny slot machine, put a hundred bucks in, and sat down.

In the time it took Navi to have his dinner, the cocktail waitress had stopped by several times and filled up a sparkling water with lime, and Olivia had managed to keep the machine eating pennies a few at a time. She’d pulled out a cigarette only to realize she was in a nonsmoking section of the casino. Just as well, but it would have added to her leisure status, as she’d sat at one machine for well over an hour.

She saw the bodyguards first. But once Navi and the woman stepped out of the restaurant, the guards took position from behind, following like the puppy dogs they were.

Waiting until the entourage had passed, Olivia cashed out of her machine and held her winning ticket in her hand as she followed from a safe distance.

The casino had filled with people, and with them the noise level increased. But even with all that, it was easier to duck into a bank of slots when one of Navi’s dogs turned around.

Olivia played shadow while Navi stopped at a craps table and pulled out several hundred-dollar bills. This was where she would have approached, but since Leo had stopped her in the restaurant, she knew better than to make her face seen twice by the bodyguards. They looked as if they were all muscle and no brain, but she wasn’t going to risk it. Instead, she kept her distance and watched to see who, if anyone, approached the man.

An hour passed, he won some, lost more, but the only conversation was with the woman and a thirtysomething man wearing a plaid shirt and jeans. His accent said Deep South, and the only reason she knew that from a distance was the loud nature of the man. No one Navi would be in contact with on purpose.

Eventually Mr. South moved on, and Navi collected his chips and did the same.

After a brief stop at a roulette table, the couple headed back to the elevators.

It wasn’t even ten o’clock and the man was turning in.

For the second time that night, Olivia wished she’d bugged the man’s room.

She waited until his group entered the elevator, then stepped closer to watch the numbers. Sure enough, the elevator stopped on the top floor.

She considered hanging around longer, see if the man was dropping off the woman only to reemerge, then decided against it. If she’d stashed another disguise in the hotel and could change her appearance, she would have. But as it stood, the longer she hung around, the better the chances of being seen.

Outside the resort, the hot desert night had cooled down enough to be tolerable. The dryness of the air gave the atmosphere a spark of electricity. Or maybe that was the buzz of people that swarmed like bees to honey.

Olivia walked past the valet and the line of high-end cars all parked in a way to be noticed. As tourists snapped pictures of the Ferrari that sat next to a Bentley, she rolled her head and loosened the tight muscles in her neck as she strolled by.

She was hungry, and tired.

Deeply tired.

She made her way onto the Strip and slowed her pace. If Marie’s testimony wrapped up the next day as expected, this would be Olivia’s last night in Vegas. Maybe even the States. That forgotten island somewhere sounded better and better.

Groups of people passed her in both directions. Several homeless limped along in no hurry while a few single locals, high on God only knew what, zipped around talking to themselves.

The closer she was to the trendier hotels, the bigger the crowd.

Street drinking was encouraged, and nearly everyone took part.

She found an understated convenience store and stepped in under the blinding fluorescent lights. The air-conditioning grew colder as she moved deeper inside the building. In the back she found what she was looking for. She favored a turkey and cheese over tuna and discovered an apple that didn’t look half bad. And since the water coming out of the tap at her hotel tasted like dirt, she grabbed a big bottle of water.

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