The guy is light on his feet. Curtis just catches a glimpse of him as he’s rounding the corner up ahead, blackhaired now, an MGM Grand hoodie pulled over his T-shirt. By the time Curtis thinks to look at his shoes, he’s already vanished. Curtis makes the corner not far behind him, feeling winded, and ducks through the first opening to his left.
It’s a little lounge, a salsa band playing to a crowded house. Colored lights sweep the floor; middle-aged white people shuffle and grin. Curtis knows right away that it’s over. No telling how many changes of clothes the kid’s got. If only he’d looked at the shoes. He stands there for a moment, fuming, catching his breath. His left foot is cold and sticky where the spilled drinks soaked through. After a while, he steps back onto the gaming floor and dials the number the guy called him from.
No answer, no voicemail set up. After five tries Curtis quits, then takes a moment to save the number in the phone. His fingertip mashes the small buttons. Whistler appears on the LCD screen.
He calls Damon on his way back to the elevators. As before, there’s no greeting, just a beep. Damon, Curtis says. It’s me. You got some explaining to do. I just had a very fucked-up phone conversation with some little freak who’s here in Vegas dialing me from a 609 cell, who wants me to give you some message about how he knows what went down in AC and how he wants you to guarantee his safety, but I’m having a hard time doing that, see, because I don’t know who the fuck he is or what the fuck he’s talking about. All right? Now I am tired of being jerked around by you, motherfucker. You need to call me—on the phone, not any more of this fax machine bullshit—and give me the poop. Until you do that, I am suspending operations, effective immediately. I am sitting by the swimming pool, and I am spending your goddamn dollars. Hear me? You need to be straight with me, man. Because this is fucked up. Later.
The keycard slides; Curtis steps into his room. There’s a rasp along the tile, something stuck to the damp sole of his shoe: a folded-over sheet of hotel stationery. He catches whiffs of rum and orange juice as he stoops to peel it off.
We need to talk
I’m upstairs in 3113
Come by tonight after 11:30
VERONICA
It’s past 11:30 now. Curtis half-turns toward the door, then stops, thinking. Feeling suddenly very happy. Feeling like himself. Things are happening.
He turns, crosses the unlit suite, opens the safe. Checks the revolver’s cylinder—five brass caseheads, a neat gleaming ring—and clips it to his belt. His leather blazer is draped over a chair by the window; Curtis slips it on, smoothes the hem to hide the pistol, turns to check his silhouette in the mirror on the wall.
A second pair of eyes stares back at him. Black eyes in a waxen face.
Reflex puts the pistol back in his hand, but aims it automatically at the image in the glass; Curtis curses, wheels to look over his shoulder. As he moves, the phantom in the mirror wavers and warps—like a TV screen raked by a magnet—and dissolves from sight. Curtis feels the sickening, not-unfamiliar sensation of his brain losing its grip on his body: he sees himself wild-eyed, half-crouched, jabbing the pistol at dark corners, although he knows full well that he’s alone. His eye has tricked him, or his mind has.
He straightens up, holsters the gun. His wrists and jaw quiver a little from adrenaline, and he clears his throat, shakes his head roughly, scowls at his solitary reflection. This has happened before, though not for a long time. When he first returned from the Desert, he saw ghosts often: dead faces, dead bodies or parts of bodies, what remained of the enemy after the daisycutters and FAE clusters fell on them. In Kuwait the dead were an annoyance, something not to step in, but when he shipped home they came to haunt him—charred skulls peeping from car windows, shriveled arms curled in flowerbeds—and bothered him badly for many days, until one day they didn’t anymore. Now it seems they’re back, which doesn’t surprise him. These days it seems like everything is coming back.
What’s strange, though, is that the face in the mirror didn’t look like any memory from the Desert. It was a dead face, that’s for sure, and also a familiar one, but not a face from any battlefield he’s known. It looked like Stanley.
Curtis doesn’t know what to do with that; doesn’t want to think about it. He clears his throat again, rubs his face. Disgusted with himself. Topside, Veronica is waiting.