planning to get to me without an entourage?”
I sat up, because there’s only so many times one can tie one’s shoes before someone asks if you’re not feeling well.
Glancing across the street, I saw my lead tail had found the phone and was talking to his ear again. He was looking my way. In another few seconds, the person on the other end of his earphone would be telling him to check on me from inside the shop. Incidentally, when I did this sort of thing, we had to rely on line-of-sight and hand-signals. Kids these days.
“Give me an idea, at least,” Mike said.
I stood up and edged away from the window seat, right past Mike’s chair. “I think I might start a riot.” On my way out of the shop, I got to hold open the door for my FBI tail. I smiled and wished him a nice day, and he did the same for me. It’s the little things.
* * *
When I reached the casino floor that night, I was extremely uncomfortable. For starters, it was a Saturday night, so it was the absolute worst place to be if one still wasn’t entirely comfortable with crowds. That it was also full of attractive women practically bursting out of their evening gowns mitigated this complaint, but only slightly. I did make a point to check out many of them, and told myself it was because one might be Ariadne.
Also, I itched. I would not be returning to the room unless something very unfortunate happened, and there was the matter of all the cash I had in the suitcase under my bed, which I needed to keep some of in order to travel. To that end, Mike had a marvelous point, as plastic was really the way to go. In the future, I expected I would have to accustom myself to the concept. But for now, all of that money was on my person, stuffed into two money belts and duct taped to my torso. (I did the tape in my room, which was a tremendous pain since I knew people were listening. To cover some of the noise, I turned the TV on and found a movie with lots of explosions in it. Fortunately, that defines nearly every movie nowadays.) A T-shirt went on over the money and then, in order to disguise the added bulk—I didn’t know how observant the FBI was, but I had to think someone would notice if I’d suddenly gained twenty pounds—I was wearing an exceptionally large, baggy, and loud Hawaiian shirt. This also made me much easier to spot in the crowd, which was actually the idea.
My shoes were another problem. They were brand-new to go along with the new black slacks I was wearing. I hate breaking in shoes, but I always thought shoes were a stupid invention anyway. If I could go barefoot everywhere, I probably would.
All the new clothing was partly because Tchekhy had convinced himself the FBI was using trackers in my clothes. Given the way they tag-teamed me when I left the casino earlier, I thought this unlikely, but I wasn’t going to argue with him. Besides, I needed to look as much like a member of security as possible from the waist down, and new clothes were the best way to approximate that.
Itching all the way, I found a seat at a bar near the blackjack tables and took my time looking over the room. The unfortunate consequence of picking a busy casino floor for this was how difficult it made spotting my fan club. Mike told me they were jacked into the surveillance feed which was fine if that was all I had to worry about, but given my excursion earlier in the day, I was pretty positive they had at least a couple of agents on the floor with me in case I ran for the exit. They would be stupid not to.
After an hour, I had identified ten possible agents, and about thirty women I would have dropped the entire escape attempt for if they agreed to come back to my room with me. I wasn’t sure whether to blame the alcohol or Clara for this.
What sobered me a little was the notion that all ten of the possibles were agents. If I really warranted that much manpower, Mike had underplayed the degree of danger I was in significantly.
At a table about
I sat up, because there’s only so many times one can tie one’s shoes before someone asks if you’re not feeling well.
Glancing across the street, I saw my lead tail had found the phone and was talking to his ear again. He was looking my way. In another few seconds, the person on the other end of his earphone would be telling him to check on me from inside the shop. Incidentally, when I did this sort of thing, we had to rely on line-of-sight and hand-signals. Kids these days.
“Give me an idea, at least,” Mike said.
I stood up and edged away from the window seat, right past Mike’s chair. “I think I might start a riot.” On my way out of the shop, I got to hold open the door for my FBI tail. I smiled and wished him a nice day, and he did the same for me. It’s the little things.
* * *
When I reached the casino floor that night, I was extremely uncomfortable. For starters, it was a Saturday night, so it was the absolute worst place to be if one still wasn’t entirely comfortable with crowds. That it was also full of attractive women practically bursting out of their evening gowns mitigated this complaint, but only slightly. I did make a point to check out many of them, and told myself it was because one might be Ariadne.
Also, I itched. I would not be returning to the room unless something very unfortunate happened, and there was the matter of all the cash I had in the suitcase under my bed, which I needed to keep some of in order to travel. To that end, Mike had a marvelous point, as plastic was really the way to go. In the future, I expected I would have to accustom myself to the concept. But for now, all of that money was on my person, stuffed into two money belts and duct taped to my torso. (I did the tape in my room, which was a tremendous pain since I knew people were listening. To cover some of the noise, I turned the TV on and found a movie with lots of explosions in it. Fortunately, that defines nearly every movie nowadays.) A T-shirt went on over the money and then, in order to disguise the added bulk—I didn’t know how observant the FBI was, but I had to think someone would notice if I’d suddenly gained twenty pounds—I was wearing an exceptionally large, baggy, and loud Hawaiian shirt. This also made me much easier to spot in the crowd, which was actually the idea.
My shoes were another problem. They were brand-new to go along with the new black slacks I was wearing. I hate breaking in shoes, but I always thought shoes were a stupid invention anyway. If I could go barefoot everywhere, I probably would.
All the new clothing was partly because Tchekhy had convinced himself the FBI was using trackers in my clothes. Given the way they tag-teamed me when I left the casino earlier, I thought this unlikely, but I wasn’t going to argue with him. Besides, I needed to look as much like a member of security as possible from the waist down, and new clothes were the best way to approximate that.
Itching all the way, I found a seat at a bar near the blackjack tables and took my time looking over the room. The unfortunate consequence of picking a busy casino floor for this was how difficult it made spotting my fan club. Mike told me they were jacked into the surveillance feed which was fine if that was all I had to worry about, but given my excursion earlier in the day, I was pretty positive they had at least a couple of agents on the floor with me in case I ran for the exit. They would be stupid not to.
After an hour, I had identified ten possible agents, and about thirty women I would have dropped the entire escape attempt for if they agreed to come back to my room with me. I wasn’t sure whether to blame the alcohol or Clara for this.
What sobered me a little was the notion that all ten of the possibles were agents. If I really warranted that much manpower, Mike had underplayed the degree of danger I was in significantly.
At a table about
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