Karch pointed to the table. The magazines, the room service menu and hotel information binder were stacked and pushed to the side along with the bottle of welcome wine.

"This is where he waited."

Karch looked around the suite but wasn't expecting much. This guy was good and the chances of a mistake were almost nothing. The bedroom looked undisturbed. He poked his head into the bathroom and saw nothing unusual. If the perpetrator had used the toilet he had even put the seat back down when he was finished.

He walked back into the living room, where Grimaldi was standing in the middle of the room with his arms folded. Karch was trying to think of something to say that would twist the knife a little bit but then noticed something beneath the table by the curtains. He stepped over and got down on his knees to crawl under the table.

"What've you got, Jack?"

"I don't know."

He reached under the curtain and lifted it up. On the floor was a playing card. The ace of hearts. Karch looked at it a moment, considering it. He noticed that two opposite corners had been clipped – an indication it was from a casino souvenir pack. After use in the casino the cards were clipped and then sold in the casino gift shop. The clipping was done to make sure nobody tried to slip one back into play at a casino table.

"What is it?" Grimaldi asked from behind him.

"A card. The ace of hearts."

Karch suddenly thought of his old man and what he used to say about the ace of hearts. The money card, he called it. Follow the money card, he would say.

"The ace of hearts?" Grimaldi said. "What do you think it means?"

Karch didn't answer. He reached to the card and picked it up, his thumb and forefinger holding it by the edges. He crawled out from under the table, holding the card out. When he was standing again, he turned his wrist so he could see the top of the card. It had a design of two pink flamingos with their necks entwined and forming the outline of a heart.

"From the Flamingo," he said.

Grimaldi stared at the card.

"What does it mean?"

Karch shook his shoulders.

"Maybe nothing. But our guy had to have been in here watching the cameras for a while. Maybe he was playing a little solitaire to pass the time."

"Well, if he dropped the ace of hearts, then he never fucking won."

"Very perceptive, Vincent."

Grimaldi exploded.

"Look, Jack, are you going to help me out here or are you going to spend your time playing word games and trying to make me look stupid? Because if that's what you're about, then I'll reach out for somebody else who can do the job without giving me the grief. "

Karch waited a long moment before responding in a calm tone.

"Vincent, you reached out for me because you know there isn't anybody else who can handle this like I can."

"Then let's stop talking and get it handled. The clock is ticking."

"All right, Vincent. Whatever you say."

Karch looked down at the card he still held by the corner. He knew he could call in a favor from Iverson over at Metro and run the card for latent prints. But that would bring Iverson into something that Karch expected was going to get dirty. He decided to keep the idea as a last alternative. He went over to the table and opened the folder containing the hotel information packet. There were envelopes and writing paper inside one of the pockets. He slipped the playing card into an envelope and put it into his inside jacket pocket.

"Prints?" Grimaldi asked.

"Maybe. I'll try a few other things first."

They went back across the hall to 2014 and took a final look around while they discussed their options. Grimaldi said Miami didn't care what became of the courier and so that left things open. They could back out of the room and let things run their course when the housekeeping maid discovered the body. Or they could bring a laundry cart to the room, put the body in it and take it down the service elevator to the loading dock and a waiting van. Any trace of the courier's stay in the hotel could be wiped off the computers and tapes and his body could then be planted out in the desert after nightfall.

"It will take four guys to lift that sack of shit," Grimaldi lamented.

"You widen the circle of people who know about this and you widen your exposure," Karch said.

"But if we let things go, that means Metro comes in, and talk about the hotel getting a black eye. I can't remember the last hotel homicide we had in this town. They'll go after this like Tyson went after Evander's ear."

"That's true. But maybe that sort of pressure on our guy will be useful. Maybe force him into a mistake."

"Yeah, and what if Metro Homicide gets to him before you?"

Karch just looked at Grimaldi with an expression that said the idea was absurd.

"You call it, Vincent. We're wasting time. I want to look at the tape downstairs and get on with it."

Grimaldi nodded.

"Okay, no Metro. I'll have some people come up and take care of things here."

"Good call, Vincent," Karch said, but in a way that might make Grimaldi wonder if he really meant it. "Let's go watch the tape."

They both backed out of the room then, leaving the dead man behind on the bed. Grimaldi made sure he hooked the DO NOT DISTURB sign on the door handle.

ON numerous prior occasions Karch had been in Grimaldi's office on the second level of the casino. He held a secret security consulting contract with the Cleopatra – no records, payments in cash – and as such he most often met with Grimaldi in his office, even though the tasks he was given normally had little to do with anything that went on in the casino below. Karch was most often involved in what Grimaldi liked to call ancillary security issues and problems. Karch liked his outside status all right. He knew he would never be the kind of man who could willingly wear a blue blazer with the profile of the Queen of Egypt emblazoned on the breast pocket.

The office was large and opulent, with a desk area, a sitting area and a private bar. The entrance was through the casino's huge security center, where dozens of video techs sat in rows of booths watching the screens of video tubes showing the ever-changing views of the hundreds of cameras focused on the casino floor. This room was dimly lit and never warmer than 65 degrees because of the delicate electronics. Most of the techs wore sweaters beneath their standard blue blazers. In Las Vegas, when you saw somebody wearing a sweater to work in the summer, you knew he worked inside, watching tubes all day.

One wall of Grimaldi's office had windows looking out into the security center. Another wall had windows viewing the casino. And located directly behind Grimaldi's desk was the door leading out to the crow's nest. It could be reached only through Grimaldi's office and he had never once invited Karch out for a view of the casino floor. This was something that bothered Karch and his frustration was compounded because he believed Grimaldi knew.

As they entered the office, Karch noticed a man sitting behind Grimaldi's desk and working the control board of the multiplex video station to the right of the desk.

"What have you got?" Grimaldi said as he turned to lower the blinds on the windows viewing the security center.

"I gotta surprise is what I got," the man behind the desk said without looking up from the four screens he had active on the video station.

"Tell us."

The word us made the tech look up from the screens. He nodded once to Karch and then cast his eyes back down.

"Well, looks to me like this guy mighta been ripped off by a woman," he said.

Grimaldi came around the desk and looked over the tech's shoulder at the screens.

"Show us."