"Let me guess, Vincent. La Cuba Nostra?"

Karch said it in an I-told-you-so voice. He and Vincent had talked about the mob hybrid before. Transplanted Mafia soldiers from the northeast teaming with Cuban exiles in Miami to take control of organized crime in South Florida. The word in criminal intelligence circles was that the group had secretly bankrolled a failed gambling referendum in Florida a few years before. It stood to reason that if they couldn't get casinos into Florida, they would look elsewhere to invest their money.

That elsewhere most likely would include Nevada, where you didn't need a referendum approval to set up gambling operations; you just needed to get by the Gaming Commission and the short-term memory of the current city fathers. The fact that Las Vegas was born of a mobster's dream and run for decades by like-minded and associated men was being lost in the community's collective amnesia. Las Vegas had been reborn as the All-American city. It was pirate ships and half-scale Eiffel Towers, waterslides and roller coasters. Families welcome. Mobsters need not apply. The problem was, every time a new subdivision was approved and cut farther into the desert, the backhoes of progress came perilously close to digging up the reminders of the city's true heritage. And some of the sons and grandsons of those forefathers – even some of the ones buried out in the desert – could not let the old place go.

"We're not going to talk about La Cuba Nostra," Grimaldi said, seemingly putting both an Italian and Cuban accent on the words. "My ass is on the line here and I don't give two shits about how smart you think you are."

"Okay, Vincent, then let's talk about your ass being in the crack. What happened?"

Grimaldi turned and gazed out the window as he spoke.

"Like I said, I got wind there was a problem. It was brought to my attention and I was informed that the problem could go away, could be cleaned up, for the right price."

"Why you?"

"Why me? Because I had the connection. You might not think I'm worth a shit, Jack, but I've been working this city for forty-five years. I was already here a lifetime before your old man got his first gig. I've seen a lot. I know a lot."

He glanced over his shoulder and looked pointedly at Karch as he said the last sentence. Karch took it as a reminder of what Grimaldi knew about him. Karch looked away and immediately wished he hadn't.

"Okay, Vincent. How much was this little cleaning operation going to cost?"

"Five million. Two and a half up front, the rest after the commission vote."

"And I guess you stepping in and brokering the deal was going to solidify your position here under the new ownership."

"Something like that, Jack. It would have solidified yours, too. Anybody with me would be along for the ride. I was going to get kicked up to GM. I would've been able to pick my own man in casino ops, put whoever I wanted up in the nest."

"What about Hector Blanca? He'd want his own man up there."

"Doesn't matter. The deal I made gave me the choice."

Karch got up and joined Grimaldi at the window. They spoke while both looked out across the desert to the mountains beyond.

"So the guy on the bed – Hidalgo – came out here with payment number one and got ripped off. It sounds like their problem, Vincent. Not yours. Not ours."

Grimaldi responded in an even tone. His words were measured, severe. The histrionics were gone and Karch knew this was when he was most dangerous. Like a dog with a broken tail. You try to pet it and you still might get your hand bitten off.

"It is my problem and that makes it yours," Grimaldi said. "I set up the transaction. The second that Hidalgo stepped off the plane at McCarran he and the money were in my care. That's the way Miami looks at it, so it's my ass that is on the line."

Karch raised his eyebrows.

"You already told Miami about this?"

"I talked to Miami right before I called you. Not an enjoyable call to make. But the picture was made real clear to me. The courier is no great loss. But the money, that's different. They're holding me responsible for it."

He paused for a moment and when he began again there was a note of desperation and maybe even pleading in his voice. It was a small note but it was there. It was a tone Karch had never heard coming from Vincent Grimaldi in the many years they had known each other.

"I have to get the money back, Jack. The GCIU report goes to the printer on Tuesday. After that it's too late to change. I have to get the money back and make the payment or the sale goes down the toilet. That happens and Miami will be sending people out."

He used his chin again to point, this time out toward the desert.

"That's where they'll take me. Out with the rest of them who didn't go the distance in this town. Breathing sand."

Grimaldi shook his head once, a quick, tight back-and-forth.

"I'm sixty-three years old, Jack. Forty-five fucking years in this town and that's what I'll get."

Karch let a delicious ten seconds slide by before responding.

"We can't let that happen, Vincent. We won't."

Grimaldi nodded and his mouth turned up into a humorless smile.

"Good old Jack of Spades. I knew I could count on you."

KARCH began with the body, studying its position and the pattern of blood spatter on the headboard and wall. The fat man had obviously been sitting upright on the bed when he took the bullet. The shooter had been standing at the foot of the bed.

"A lefty," he said.

"What?" Grimaldi asked.

"The shooter. He was left-handed. Most likely."

He stood in the position the shooter would have stood and extended his left arm. He nodded. It was likely that if Hidalgo had been hit in the right eye by a bullet from a gun held by someone facing him, then that person held the gun in his or her left hand.

His eyes traveled up from the body to the headboard and wall. Back at the office he had a couple of books on blood spatter – how to read the meanings of elliptical versus circular blood drops and so on. But he had never gotten past the introductory chapters because the stuff was so deadly boring and rarely usable in his line of work. What was to be read of significance from this tableau? Not much. The guy was alive and then he was dead. That was all.

"Anybody report a shot?" he asked.

"No," Grimaldi said. "But I wanted him isolated. So none of the rooms on either side or across were occupied. Also, I don't know if it connects up but there was a fire alarm on this floor last night."

Karch looked at him.

"About eleven," Grimaldi said. "Somebody left a cigarette on a room service cart and parked it in the service alcove, right below a smoke detector."

Karch nodded at the dead man.

"Was he evacuated? Did he leave his room?"

"Not that we know of. I have somebody pulling together the tapes so we can look at everything."

Karch nodded but was unsure how the fire alarm could have played into things. He looked at the body again.

"I think what you have here is a half-assed attempt to make this look like a suicide. But – "

"This was no suicide. This was a fucking rip-off. "

"I know, Vincent, I know. Listen to me. I said an attempt to make it look that way. A lousy attempt at that. Just listen to me before you start going off."

He decided to discontinue his running commentary. He'd let Grimaldi figure out things for himself. What bothered him most about the scene was the handcuffs. He didn't understand why they weren't removed.

"Vincent, I take it you searched this place top and bottom for the money?"

"Yes, it's gone. The case, too."

"What about his keys?"

"Keys?"

"Keys." He pointed to the dead man's wrist with the two cuffs on it. "The key to the cuffs, where is it?"