Lester turned in at The Mirage porte cochere and popped the trunk. The bell staff pounced on our luggage before we were out of the car. The Regal stayed on the strip, moving slowly with the traffic. Susan looked anxiously after the luggage as it disappeared through the bell door. I reached for my wallet as Lester opened the door for us, but Hawk shook his head.

"You got my beeper number," Lester said to Hawk.

"I be around."

Hawk nodded. Lester got back in the Lincoln and drove away.

The lobby of The Mirage was positively sylvan. There were jungle plants and waterfalls, and a small bridge over a stream.

Hawk said, "Wait here."

He went into the guest services office and in maybe two minutes he was back with three keys. We walked across the bridge and through the casino jiving with the implacable music of the slots, to a bank of elevators next to the in-house shopping mall. In front of our rooms on the fourth floor, Hawk handed Susan and me each a key.

"Case you get bored," Hawk said.

"Volcano erupts every fifteen minutes, until midnight. You can see it from your windows."

"The fun never lets up," I said.

"Round the clock," Hawk said.

"Got the room next door, you do something romantic try to keep the noise down."

"I don't know if I can promise that," Susan said.

Hawk laughed, which he does, as far as I can remember, only at Susan.

I unlocked the door and Susan went in.

"You make the Buick," Hawk said to me.

"Yeah."

"You got a thought who that might be?"

"I'm losing track," I said.

"You do that easy," Hawk said and unlocked the door to his room.

I followed Susan into mine. It was a one-bedroom suite. The ceilings were high. The walls were banked with windows, the decor was multicolored southwestern mixed with Catskills. The woodwork was dark. The living room was bigger than my apartment in Boston, with a bar, a huge walnut armoire concealing a television, two red couches, four blue armchairs, a large round dining room table finished in black, and six black dining room chairs. There was pottery and there were paintings and there was beige wall-to-wall carpeting. I went across the room and opened the curtains. The volcano was there as promised. Not, at the moment, erupting. But if I were patient… the doorbell rang, and Susan let the bellhop in with the luggage. He put the bags in the bedroom. I tipped him. He left.

Susan picked up a printed card off the bar.

"

"Dear V.I.P Guest,"

" she read. "

"Welcome to our V.I.P Level.

Please call the V.I.P office with any requests you may have. We are at your service twenty-four hours a day."

" "That's us," I said.

"V.I.P guests."

"On the V.I.P Level," Susan said.

"Is it because you are a famous detective?"

"No. Hawk knows somebody here that owes him something."

"Are we paying for this?"

"I don't think so."

Susan went into the bedroom. In a moment I heard her say, "Oh, oh."

I looked in. The bags were open on a black king-sized bed big enough for pony races, and the ceiling was mirrored.

"Oh? Oh?" I said.

"The mirrored ceiling," Susan said.

"I'll shut my eyes," I said.

"You'll pretend to," Susan said.

"You can watch too," I said.

"I'd rather go dancing with Howard Stern," Susan said.

"Oh come on," I said.

"It's not that bad to see."

"And I am desperately oversexed," Susan said.

"Yes you are."

"And it's probably better than watching the volcano," Susan said.

"Yes it is."

"So." Susan shrugged, her eyes gleaming.

"So?"

"So peekaboo," she said.

CHAPTER 15

Vegas is not a big town, but if you want to gamble there, they have lots of places to do it. All we had for a plan was to cruise the casinos until Anthony appeared.

"And if he doesn't appear?" Susan said.

I shrugged.

"Then we assume he's not here, and we look for him someplace else."

"Maybe he's in New York," Susan said, "hiding out at Bergdorf's."

We were at breakfast, sitting in a grotto of tropical vegetation, some of which was real, at the rim of the casino, soothed by the permanent harmonics of the slot machines which, when you're in Vegas, becomes like the music of the spheres.

"Susan and I will go north on the Strip," I said to Hawk.

"You go south."

"What about all the joints off the Strip?" Hawk said.

"If he's the guy I think he is, he'll be in one of the big casinos.

Here, Caesars, MGM Grand, that kind of place. What I gather, he's got something to prove."

"You gonna break the bank, you don't want to do it in some Motel Six in Laughlin," Hawk said.

I nodded.

"So first we hit the biggest and gaudiest. He's got a system. So we start with the blackjack tables. Could be something else, but most guys with systems play blackjack."

"Can a system win?" Susan said.

"Over a long time," I said.

"Like most things it depends some on the guy using the system. In some places, for instance, you can surrender early dealer shows a ten card and you don't like your first two you can turn them back to the dealer and forfeit half your bet. Gives you a quarter of a percent edge on the house."

"My God, that's not very much return on your investment."

"About a quarter for every hundred you play. But it's sort of illustrative. There are things that will give the player a positive edge. Most systems have to do with card counting; they can work if you play enough."

"How long is enough?" She was eating half a papaya with some lime squeezed on it. She had cut a small wedge off one end and picked it up and took a small bite. Even when she ate with her fingers, she seemed entirely delicate and proper. After I ate, I always looked like I'd been in a food fight.

"Two, three hundred hours," Hawk said.

Susan looked at him with horror.

"Two or three hundred?"

"Gambling ain't for lazy people," Hawk said.

"You going to make a living at it."

"Wouldn't it be easier to work?" Susan said.

Hawk smiled.

"Or do what we do," he said.

"The thing is most people don't gamble hundreds of hours," I said.

"Most people come to Vegas, say, for a weekend. Most of them don't have a system. They just play because that's what you do here."

"And they lose," Susan said.

"Absolutely," I said.

"If they didn't enjoy the experience they might as well mail in a check."

"I'd love to try it," Susan said.

"Blackjack?"

"Anything. It sounds like fun."

"You got a system?"

"Of course I do. You and Hawk tell me what to do."

Hawk looked at me without expression.

"Be a first," Hawk said.

"She won't do what we tell her," I said.

Susan smiled.

"I will if I want to," she said.

In the lobby bar a young woman with a tight red dress and a blonde ponytail was belting "Hey Look Me Over" to three guys at the bar and one woman sitting near the lounge feeding coins into a nickel slot. I looked at my watch. It was 7:45 A.M.