"I don't know, Jack. I didn't see any keys. Whoever took the money, took the keys, I guess. But they'll get a surprise."

"What surprise?"

"The key to the briefcase won't be on there. Fat boy here didn't have it. Mr. Bla – uh, his boss didn't want him opening it, maybe going down to the tables with a piece of the cash. So he sent the key to me and I would open the case at the drop meeting this morning. I have the key but no fucking briefcase to open. The case has electronic protection – like a stun gun. Somebody tries to open it without the key, they'll get knocked on their ass good. Ninety thousand volts."

Karch nodded and took a small notebook and pen from his pocket. He jotted down a note about the key and the briefcase.

"What are you writing, Jack?"

"Just a couple notes, so I can keep things straight."

"I don't want any of this information getting into the wrong hands."

Karch turned and looked at Grimaldi. It backed him down.

"I know, Jack. You'll be discreet."

Karch came around the bed and looked at the watch on the night table. It looked like a Rolex. He hooked the pen through the metal band and lifted it, holding it so that he could look at the wrist plate.

"Whoever it was who did this was smart enough to know this is a phony."

"Anybody on the con would know that, Jack. They sell those things for fifty bucks on the sidewalk outside of any place on Fremont. Whoever it was was smart enough to know what they wanted was the goddamn money and that was it."

Karch nodded and put the watch back down. He stepped over to the closet and opened it and looked down at the safe. The door was open and it was empty.

"Tell me about this guy, Vincent. When did he come into town?"

"Three days ago. I wasn't sure when the drop would take place. The guy we were paying was calling the shots on that. We just had to be ready with the cash. Hidalgo came in Monday and we waited."

Karch squatted on his haunches and closed the door to the safe but not all the way. He studied the combination pad.

"He stay in the room the whole time?"

"No, he spent a lot of time on the floor. I gave him a draw and the fuck started cleaning up on me. Christ, I thought if we didn't get this drop taken care of soon he was going to bankrupt us down there."

Karch turned and looked up at Grimaldi.

"How much did he win, Vincent?"

"I gave him fifty bees out of the cage on Monday. By last night he had turned that into a hundred K and change. He was doing good. He was tipping hundred-dollar bills around like it was toilet paper."

Karch looked back at the safe and swung the door open. He looked into its emptiness but was not really seeing anything. He was thinking, brooding on what Grimaldi had just said.

"You see what you did, Vincent? You brought this on yourself."

"The fuck you talking about?"

"You gave the guy money and he turned it into more money. And he was showing it to the world. This town, that was like putting blood in the water, Vincent. It drew a shark to your fat man."

"What are you saying, that whoever did this did it for the hundred, not the two and a half million?"

"I'm saying that whoever did this came in for the hundred and then found the rest. Luckiest fucking day of his life."

"That can't be, Jack. That – "

"Who knew about the money? I mean, that it was here and who had it. Who knew?"

"Only me."

"What about Miami? Could there have been a leak from there?"

"No, only one person knew."

"Maybe the courier told somebody."

"It's unlikely, Jack. He worked directly for the source. If the money was taken he knew they'd look at him."

"Unless he ended up dead. What about the guy getting the drop?"

"He knew it was here somewhere but he didn't know who had it or where exactly it was. Besides, why steal what we're givin' him?"

"Exactly. So if nobody knew it was here, it goes to prove my point. This was a hot prowler, Vincent. Somebody who picked up on this guy winning a hundred grand and went after it. And he hit the fucking jackpot."

From his crouched position Karch looked up at the closet. He studied Hidalgo 's clothes, all pushed to the side so that the thief could work around the safe. His eyes caught on something on the wall behind the safe. It looked like peeling paint. He moved forward onto his knees and looked behind the safe. He looked closer and saw it was not paint that was peeling, but painted tape. He reached down and grabbed the tab and pulled it up. The tape went along the baseboard of the closet, up alongside the door, over the door frame to the wall over the closet and then out and along the alcove ceiling. It finally ended on the wall above the alcove entrance.

"What the fuck is that?" Grimaldi asked.

"Conducting tape. This was a pro who did this, Vincent. He was watching this guy."

"You mean cameras?"

Karch nodded and returned to the closet. He scanned the ceiling again and then the walls. He saw the small drill hole on the right-hand wall and found more tape. He pulled it off the wall and it led to the rear of the safe.

"Two cameras. One in the room to watch the mark. The other right here to pick up the combo. This was good."

"I haven't heard about anybody using cameras since… since that last time. Max Freeling."

Karch looked at Grimaldi.

"I haven't either. But we know that Max didn't do this, don't we?"

"You're right about that."

Karch left the closet and went back through the suite, his eyes scanning the ceiling and upper walls. He came to the front door and opened it. He squatted down again and studied the locking mechanism.

"What about prints?" Grimaldi said from behind.

"There won't be any."

He turned the deadbolt and saw the bolt come only halfway out. He closed the door with the bolt extended. He nodded. He admired a job well done. He stood up, closed the door and looked at Grimaldi. Karch couldn't help but smile.

"What's so fucking funny?" Grimaldi demanded.

"Nothing," Karch said, his smile broadening. "I just get a rise out of a worthy opponent, that's all. I'm really glad you called me in on this, Vincent. I'm going to enjoy it."

"Listen, this isn't about you getting a rise. It's about me getting the money back."

Karch let Grimaldi have the rebuke. It didn't bother him. He could already see how he was going to use this job to his advantage, to get what he had always wanted.

"Vincent, you have a problem."

"I know that! Why do you think I reached out for you?"

"I mean a problem within a problem. Look at this."

Karch stepped back so he could show Grimaldi the door's locking mechanism.

"He gaffed the lock. The fat man thought he was locked up tight in here but the deadbolt and the flip-lock were gaffed. So was this Radio Shack piece of shit he added himself. "

Karch jerked the electronic door alarm off the doorknob and tossed it onto the floor.

"But, see, all of this only worked on the in-room protections. The main lock wasn't gaffed. That means – "

"He had a key."

Karch nodded.

"You're real good, Vincent," he said in a tone that implied the opposite. "He had a key. That means he had somebody who got it for him. An insider."

Grimaldi looked down at the floor and Karch watched as the older man's color deepened again. Karch didn't wait for the wave of anger to subside.

"My guess is our guy also had a key to one of these empty rooms around here so he could set up and watch his cameras and make his move when the time was right."

"You want to take a look?"

"Oh, yeah."

The first room they checked was directly across the hall, Suite 2015, and Karch immediately said upon entering that they had found the spot where the thief had waited for the mark to go to sleep.

"How do you know?" Grimaldi asked.