The casino’s wall clocks were about the only numbers that couldn’t be bet on. It was 14:35 and Azu Nashy was out front of Furn, heading to the hotel elevators with the kind of strides sprinters take to the starting block. They were in a foyer of polished black tiles. The tall, domed ceiling was just as black, with a giant chandelier and starry glitter that the elevators promised to ascend into. A young Mandarin speaking couple in tennis outfits had already pressed the up button. They were quick to claim their right of being the first inside. They rode with Nashy and Furn for three out of seven floors but it was enough to glean that they liked their elevators quiet when there were strangers present. They stepped out onto the passageway, their hands reuniting with a newlywed freshness. The elevator doors closed again, the piano continued to tinkle over the speakers and Nashy and Furn didn’t need the presence of strangers for their silence.
Riley had made Crown Casino one of the RIP’s unofficial operational headquarters, drawn as he was to the kind of non-honeymooning gangsters that would burrow away in its lavish suites - many of them truly rogue. If the cops had had the authority to ignore their Do Not Disturb signs, their community service would have been at a whole different level.
Nashy knocked on Room 728 and glanced up and down the greyish green carpeted passageway, looking right through Furn. Riley threw open the door, piqued with purpose. His shirt was half untucked and his eyes bloodshot.
‘Come in.’
There were three chairs evenly spaced around the lounge room’s white circular table. The refrigerator door was open, the mini bar having been emptied out. Many of the empty bottles were on the floor. Riley took the window-facing chair.
‘We’ve had a breakthrough,’ he said.
His low, measured voice could not have been more of a contrast with the racket of electronic temptations down on the gaming floors. His demeanour was that of the serious gambler - someone who didn’t relax in process and didn’t believe in ends.
‘Catlett came into HQ this morning to identify the street performer as one of the home intruders, seemingly the instigator, and Wragg Dokomad as the accomplice. Apparently when he nudged the street performer aside to retrieve the handkerchief there were words exchanged. Now he’s saying it was the same voice.’
‘Why did he wait until now?’ asked Nashy, sitting back into one of the chairs.
‘Perhaps Rish convinced him of his moral obligations and civic responsibility to come clean. More likely an astute agent got onto him about all the publicity a celebrity victim could cash in on; especially in a case in which the city’s murkiest cops were taking each other out.’
‘How is Breeze?’ interjected Furn.
‘The surgeons have plugged the holes. And none of the machines have written him off yet. The doctors are hopeful he’s in the mood for a fight.’
Furn nodded his head and finally sat down in the vacant chair.
‘Military Intelligence thinks that we’re getting close and have opened up their full resources. Satellites, on ground surveillance systems and -’ he took out a gold Master Card and put it down on the table, ‘it’s been activated. Its pin number is all ones.’
Furn and Nashy both shot a hand for it. Furn won.
‘With MI you don’t have to worry about the budget getting in the way,’ added Riley.
‘You got a name on the statue man?’ Furn queried, gazing over the credit card details.
‘Guy Odierno is the name on the Tourist Authority’s permit. Could be an alias. We’re checking that out.’
‘Surveillance camera footage?’
‘MI has access to surveillance cameras you wouldn’t even know existed.
Images are flooding in. Odierno must have done his act in front of every camera in every city in the country. Doesn’t make for spectacular viewing though. It’s like watching someone watching golf.’
‘Have you got any footage on the Catlett incident?’ snapped Nashy, her testiness perhaps owing to the missed credit card.
‘It’s a rare highlight. It appears to show Odierno signalling to someone after he was nudged aside by Catlett. We didn’t get who, but it could be Dokomad. The current theory is that Odierno has been using the living statue role to conduct some kind of surveillance work of his own. Perhaps, casing out targets. And using Dokomad as a spotter.’
‘With two hundred and twenty centimetre professional basketball players for targets, the spotter could stay at home,’ murmured Furn.
‘Book yourselves into a hotel. Somewhere low profile. Wrap yourselves in cotton wool. When the live statue makes another appearance we’ll call you in.’
‘All this cooperation with the military. Have they gotten around to telling us what they’re going to do with Wragg when we bring him in?’
‘I’d call it assistance not cooperation. A whole lot of assistance.’
‘Now that Breeze is down, I don’t care as much as I used to,’ said Nashy, ‘but taking us off the investigation could be a mistake.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘We were getting close to the Sapiens. Then we suddenly drop off the radar. It might worry them into doing that themselves. So, let’s give them some misdirection. Something high profile. We’ll make it look like we’re too busy trying to save our own necks to be a threat to anyone else.’
‘What did you have in mind?’
‘A call to the press for starters. A tip-off about those garment busters. That’ll be our bit for supporting the flagging newspaper industry.’
Riley’s eyes flamed an instant. ‘That’s just for starters?’
‘We need something current. Something unrelated out of the Red Line Files. And we’ll make it messy. That’ll be three prime time strikes against the RIP in a week. No self-respecting Sapien will think of us as a threat then.’
A headache might have been coming on: Riley took his time putting on his glasses. ‘If we do this, the RIP will most likely be finished whether we are successful in the case or not.’ He looked to his long serving Detective Sergeant who was smirking wryly.
‘I don’t know about that,’ muttered Furn. ‘Once word gets out about those garment penetrating glasses, we’ll have transfer requests up to our ears.’
‘Book yourselves into that hotel. One room. This is no time for modesty. You need to be watching each other’s back.’ Riley stood up. ‘After all, once I’ve tipped off the press, no one else will.’
Furn joined him on his feet, catching a glimpse through a bedroom doorway at a black briefcase half submerged in a cream queen-sized bedspread: The Red Line Files. And as long as they contained the kind of stinking cases no other department would touch, the RIP’s future was brighter than Riley feared.
‘See you later,’ said Furn, quietly confident, as he headed for the door, that the next time they met the Red Line Files would be just that little bit lighter.