Did he say how long he’s going to be in town?
He didn’t. He said he was waiting for a connection to come through. Something he had going back East. He and Veronica had just flown in that afternoon: Wednesday, it would have been. Nine days ago. I remember because our waitress had the black smudge on her forehead. Stanley made a joke about it. Anyway, I comped them a suite, told them they could stay the week, but they were gone by morning. Didn’t say where to.
Kagami leans a little to the side, as if he’s trying to get a better view of something down below. Veronica was in college out here, he says. She used to be a dealer at the Rio, and I think maybe at Caesars before that. Stanley could be staying with her people.
I talked to Veronica last night. She says she doesn’t know where Stanley is. She’s looking for him, too.
You believe that?
Curtis tries to find Kagami’s eyes in the window reflection but can’t. I don’t know, he says. I don’t know why she’d lie.
She seemed pretty goosey when I saw her. Nervous.
Yeah. When I saw her, too. How did Stanley seem?
Kagami is quiet for a second. Then he laughs, turns back around. How does Stanley ever seem? he says. Listen, Curtis, I tell you what. If I can’t tell you where Stanley is, I can at least feed you a decent meal. We got the best restaurant in the state of Nevada right upstairs. My treat. Those Strip buffets’ll kill you.
The corridor outside Kagami’s office leads to an art-nouveau glass elevator that runs up the rocky hillside. The car is walled with lead-crystal, topped by stained-glass tracery in blazing sunset colors; it bears them smoothly toward a benchcut terrace about twenty feet overhead.
Real nice place you got here, Walter. How long you been doing this?
We’ve been open for two years now. I’ve been on board since we broke ground.
How’s business?
It’s terrible. Maybe you didn’t notice, but most of our regulars are older than me. And I’m no spring chicken. On the upside, our owner’s a fruitcake. Silicon Valley zillionaire. He plans to operate this place at a loss for ten years, for fifteen: however long it takes the city to grow up to us. He’s a young guy, and he thinks he’s got the bankroll to make it work.
You think he’s right?
Kagami laughs. That depends, he says. It’s like anything else: there’s a window. If you’re there when the window opens, and you can get out before it closes, then you do real well. The city is growing in a hurry, that’s for damn sure. But here’s the other thing: we got no water out here. People tend to forget that. I’m talking about the entire valley. Lake Mead’s at a thirty-year low. That’s climate change: the water’s not coming back. Eventually we’re gonna dry out. And that’s assuming we’re even around long enough to have that problem. We could get avalanched onto North Hollywood by an earthquake long before then.
You get earthquakes up here?
Haven’t had one yet. But one is all it would take. We’re about two hundred yards from the Sunrise Fault. That’s an active fault. You saw the river rocks on the pillars at the entrance, where the nursing-home shuttles drop off? The big round ones? We’ve already had to mortar five of those bastards back into place. If the ground ever really starts to move, and Doctor Richter weighs us in anywhere north of five and some change, it’s gonna be Bowling for Biddies out there.
Damn.
Yeah, Kagami says, I figure one way or another, I’ll be long dead before this place ever turns a profit.
He wipes a hand on his jacket, reaches out to touch the spotless glass. The Mormon temple is below them, edging into view as they rise. All around it Curtis can see roofs of new houses going up: blond wood of exposed sheathing, patterned rows of underlayment.
This is the first straight job I’ve had since I was nineteen years old, Kagami says. I used to be a gambler, just like Stanley. But the grind finally wore me down. Trying to make a living off a two-percent edge—it’s too much for a senior citizen like me. Unless you’re working with a good team. And teams always come apart.
Curtis shifts his weight a little. I don’t know how Stanley does it, he says.
Well, Stanley’s got Veronica. And besides, Stanley doesn’t know anything else. Kagami smiles to himself. Stanley also has a supernatural gift, he says. You did not hear that from me.
The doors slide open on a little glassed-in chamber, which opens in turn onto a rubber-flagstone path bordered by rosemary and budding desertwillow. A tiny restaurant at the terrace’s edge: RAVENCREST branded on a wooden sign. White tablecloths flutter in the light breeze.
Kagami walks slowly, hands in his pockets. So, he says, how’s old Donald doing these days? I haven’t talked to him in years.
He’s doing real good. He’s not Donald anymore, though.
That’s right, I forgot. What is it now?