Twice a Spy_ A Novel - Keith Thomson [113]
He needed appropriate clothes, which were readily available a few steps off the casino floor. Among other tuxes for sale at a store called Golden Man was the “High Roller” line; Charlie bought a size 42R along with a matching dress shirt, shoes, and a bow tie. He also tossed onto the counter a Golden Sun baseball cap and a windbreaker, as if on impulse. The total was $2,111. He paid in cash, hoping the lack of a paper trail in this instance would obfuscate his planned exit.
He checked into a hotel room, opting for a Chief’s Suite at an extra fifteen dollars per night. The lofty space was furnished in an Ancient Rome theme, the walls and marble floor flecked with silver and gold. The bed was almost as big as a swimming pool. He wished Alice were here, if only to share his grin.
He called room service and ordered the “executive” surf and turf. While waiting, he changed into his tux, which was almost identical to those worn by the staff he’d seen carrying drink trays and pushing the linen-draped room service trolleys.
A few minutes later, at the sound of a gong, he answered his door and admitted a waiter who not only wore a tux like his, but was close to his height and weight. Their principal differences were twenty years in age, a slight hunch, and an overbite. Lucky, Charlie thought. He could mimic those.
He asked, “Sir, how would you like to make a thousand dollars?”
The man, who probably heard an equally unusual question at least once a week, didn’t hesitate. “Depends what for.”
“For reasons I’m sure I won’t need to explain to you, I need to get out of this building without being seen by my wife, who unexpectedly just showed up.”
Stooping so as to resemble the waiter and to keep his face from the view of security cameras, Charlie heaved the trolley down a service corridor, his planned change of clothes hidden in a food compartment.
He came to an exit leading onto a dark dining patio, evidently used during warmer months. Abandoning the trolley, he crossed the patio, reaching an unlit spiral stairwell that took him down to a curb lined with six or seven buses rumbling at idle. Their exhaust created a fog laced with diesel fumes. His plan had been to make his way to the parking lot and find someone leaving the casino who would thank Jesus for the crazy Yankee who gave him three grand for a clunker pickup truck. But this was better.
Charlie fell into step with the grumbling and otherwise downtrodden crowd exiting the casino and boarding the buses. Throwing the windbreaker over his tuxedo coat and zipping it to the neck, he wove through shadows and climbed aboard the first bus in line, a sixty-foot-long Golden Sun coach destined for Hattiesburg, Mississippi’s YMCA, according to the marquee.
He found a seat, the three dozen passengers scattered around the cabin paying him passing notice at most. The lone exception, a buzzard of around eighty lowering himself into the seat across the aisle. The old man locked eyes with Charlie and said, “Fun, but no money,” then readied his blanket and tubular “snuggle pillow” for the trip home.
The bus driver, a fiftyish man with the look of a commandant, took his place behind the wheel, snapped the door shut, and propelled the coach toward the highway—all without a glance at the passengers. The Golden Sun’s management cared much more about gamblers on the way in than those who’d left.
The Brig reminded Bream of a utility shed. Decorated, barely, with a pair of model ships, a dartboard, and three beer company posters, it smelled of low tide even though the tide was now high—because the jukebox was out of order and the six solitary patrons weren’t speaking to one another, Bream could hear the waves slapping the top of the pier.
Glad of the opportunity to be alone with his thoughts, he climbed onto a stool at the warped bar and ordered his Bud.
He found himself stealing glances at the young woman in a Princeton sweatshirt at the other end of the bar, as exquisite a specimen as he’d ever seen. Aphrodite with green eyes and