Ghosts, Matt Rogers [reading the story of the .txt] 📗

She tossed Slater the keys.

‘Any issues?’ King said.

‘None,’ she said. ‘I made it back, didn’t I?’

‘Here’s hoping you didn’t get flagged in the system.’

‘I don’t think they would have leased me the car if that was the case,’ she said. ‘Besides, it’s been a month. If there was something that could lift the blanket off our old identities, it would have happened by now.’

Slater smiled as she passed him by. ‘You don’t get fazed, do you?’

She said, ‘Thought that was a fundamental part of the job. You look good.’

‘Don’t I always?’ he whispered.

She took his hand — briefly — on the way past. ‘Don’t get yourself killed.’

‘I’ll keep that in mind.’

Then she was gone, leaving the two of them alone in the balmy desert night.

King said, ‘This feels different, doesn’t it?’

‘How?’ Slater said, but he knew.

‘Doesn’t feel like work.’

‘I think we can manage,’ Slater said. ‘It’s just street thugs running some janky racket.’

‘For now it is. When does anything ever resolve itself neatly?’

‘It doesn’t,’ Slater said, and made for the driver’s seat. ‘That’s the fun part.’

King rode shotgun, and Slater familiarised himself with the Bentley’s cockpit and drove out of the estate. The gates rumbled closed behind them — Violetta’s invisible hand, sealing them out.

There should have been nerves inside the car.

The stress of undercover work — having to pretend they were undesirables, aware that the slightest slip-up would ruin everything, trapping them in an unfamiliar web.

But there was nothing.

They might as well have been heading out for groceries.

They drove east for fifteen minutes, staying on West Desert Inn Road the whole time, passing darkened suburbia and a handful of empty sand lots. Then the Spring Mountain gravel pit loomed on their right, like the ground had opened up and swallowed an area the size of several football fields whole. Minutes later they were in Chinatown. Wan’s had a public address King found on Google, so he navigated as Slater guided the luxury ride through relatively quiet streets. It was a weeknight, and the allure of Vegas was elsewhere.

Out on the Strip.

It loomed half a mile away, unmissable. The eclectic glow of endless casinos and hotels, skewering into the skyline, like something out of a fantasy. That was Las Vegas, after all. Hedonism and flamboyance in the middle of nowhere, skewered into an otherwise unremarkable desert, a faux city of hopes and dreams. There were fortunes to be made and lost on the tables, overpriced drinks to guzzle, outrageous fountain shows to watch. Slater hadn’t visited the Strip once — at least, not since they’d arrived a month ago. Granted, neither had King, but Slater considered himself more of a risk than his counterpart. He’d been drowning his pain in artificial thrills for most of his career. The hundreds of thousands of square feet dedicated solely to indulging yourself would be a ticking time bomb if he decided to lose himself in it.

Now he had something better, so he didn’t even flirt with it.

Here on the distant outskirts of the Strip they passed Chinatown Plaza, huge and dazzling and adorned with dragons and statues and a giant gate. They drove on past into the downtown Chinatown maze, and King directed them to the strip mall Josefine had spoken of. It was at the southern limits, just north of a dark industrial zone across the street and a shade over a mile north-west of the airport.

The mall itself was unremarkable, but that was the point. It was a long low building with a cream exterior, home to a couple of dozen shops, most of them still open. The parking lot was sparsely populated by plain suburban vehicles — locals doing their evening supply haul, a few having dashed out for last-minute groceries before a late dinner. They drifted by the main entrance, both taking a look down a starkly lit corridor behind motion-sensing entrance doors.

Slater carried on past.

King said, ‘Remember what I told you.’

Slater didn’t take the bait.

He flashed the indicator and silently rounded the corner, diving into the true backwaters of Chinatown. The street behind the mall was dark, the streetlights spaced further apart. The atmosphere dripped with grime.

King said, ‘What?’

‘If we don’t fix this tonight, Josefine goes to prison tomorrow.’

‘We’re not fixing it tonight,’ King said. ‘I thought that’d be obvious. She’s going to prison.’

‘So it’s pointless, then.’

‘You don’t want to deal with whatever the hell’s happening behind Wan’s?’

‘Of course,’ Slater said. ‘But if that’s the goal, then I’m a fan of brute force. As are you, if I remember anything we’ve ever done together.’

‘See what happens,’ King said. ‘Maybe I’m an optimist.’

‘You want to follow it? No matter how deep it goes?’

‘Yeah.’

‘And you think that’ll help her in any way if she’s sitting in a cell?’

‘Do I look like a psychic?’

‘I’m just saying.’

‘You’re overthinking this,’ King said. ‘Right now we know nothing. Elsa’s still missing, which means she might be out there somewhere. And razing Wan’s to the ground will kill every possible lead.’

‘So restraint?’

‘Restraint.’

‘That’s a shame.’

A Rolls Royce rumbled through the intersection ahead. It drifted to the opposite lane, slowed as the driver scoped out the darkened turn-off, and then mounted the sidewalk and disappeared into the recesses of the laneway behind the mall.

King said, ‘Bingo.’

Slater turned off the street and followed the luxury ride into the gloom.

11

The laneway was narrow, illuminated only by both sets of headlights.

The beams pierced the night, exposing the dumpsters and rotting cardboard in all their pestilent detail.

The Rolls navigated with practiced experience. It missed the brick wall on the left by inches and the dumpsters on the right by a similar margin, then turned into a discreet garage with its roller doors up. It parked next to a couple of similarly expensive rides, but Slater couldn’t make out their models due to poor visibility.

He didn’t hesitate.

He pulled in to the right, slotting into an empty spot as if he belonged.

‘Game face,’ King muttered.

They got out in unison, and both the headlights and interior lights died as they locked up the