LITMIR.BIZ

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consisted of a series of interlinked rooms containing maybe twenty or so paintings, as well as a number of small abstract sculptures on glass plinths. It was an impressive and expensively assembled collection, bringing to mind the recent newspaper headlines when Kezman had broken his own auction record for the highest amount ever paid for a painting. Tom’s eyes sought out the Picasso he’d bought on that occasion in amongst the works by Cézanne, Gauguin, van Gogh, Manet and Matisse.

      ‘Impressive, isn’t it?’ Jennifer said in a low voice, echoing his own thoughts. ‘Although, I don’t know, it feels a bit…’

      ‘Soulless?’ Tom suggested.

      ‘Yes.’ She nodded slowly. ‘Soulless. Perhaps that’s it.’

      Tom’s sense was that Kezman had been less concerned with the paintings themselves than by who had painted them. To him these were trophies, specimens of famous names that he’d only bought so that he could tick them off his list, much as a big-game hunter might set out on safari intent on adding a zebra’s head to the mounted antelope horns and elephant tusks that already adorned his dining-room walls.

      ‘What do you know about him?’

      ‘He’s rich and he’s smart. In thirty years he’s gone from running a diner in Jersey to being the biggest player on the Strip.’

      ‘He buys a place that’s losing money, turns it around or knocks it down, and starts over,’ Stokes added, having been listening in. ‘As well as the Amalfi, he owns three other places in Vegas, two in Atlantic City and one in Macau.’

      ‘And he’s clean?’ Tom asked.

      ‘As anyone can be in this town,’ Stokes replied with a smile. ‘He mixes with a pretty colourful crowd, which always gets people talking, but so far he seems to check out.’

      ‘He used to collect cars, but art is his new passion now,’ Jennifer added. ‘He’s become a major donor to both the Met and the Getty.’

      ‘Which is your favourite?’

      Kezman had breezed into the room wearing sunglasses, a gleaming white smile and a tuxedo. He was closely flanked by an unsmiling male assistant clutching a briefcase in one hand and two gold-plated mobile phones in the other. From the way his jacket was hanging off his thin frame, Tom guessed that he was armed.

      Kezman was in his mid-fifties or thereabouts, and shorter than Tom had expected. Although he was still recognisably the same person, the photo on his jet had clearly been taken several years before, his brown hair now receding and greying at the temples, the firm lines of his once angular face now soft and surviving only in the sharp cliff of his chin. The energy in his voice and movements, however, was undimmed, his weight constantly shifting from foot to foot like a boxer, his head jerking erratically as he looked around the room, as if it pained him to focus on any one thing for longer than a few seconds. He answered his own question before anyone else had a chance to respond.

      ‘Mine’s the Picasso, and not just because I paid a hundred and thirty-nine million dollars for it. That man was a genius. A self-made man. A true visionary.’

      Tom smiled, the machine-gun rattle of Kezman’s voice making it hard to know whether he was talking about himself or Picasso.

      ‘Mr Kezman, this is…’

      ‘Tom Kirk, I know.’ He grinned. ‘Luckily the FBI doesn’t have a monopoly on information. At least not yet. I like to know who’s on my plane.’

      Tom stepped forward to shake his hand, but Kezman waved him back.

      ‘Stay where I can see you, goddammit,’ he barked.

      Tom suddenly understood why Kezman was wearing sunglasses and moving his head so erratically - he was clearly blind, or very nearly so, his aide presumably there to help steer him in the right direction as he navigated through the hotel.

      ‘Retinitis pigmentosa,’ Kezman confirmed. ‘The closer I get to things, the less I can see. And one day even that…’

      His voice tailed off and Tom couldn’t stop himself wondering if this explained Kezman’s insistence that they should go up to his private apartment first, before meeting him down here. It was almost as if he’d wanted to give them some small insight into his shrinking world. A world where there was little point in furnishing a room he could barely see, but where a view was still there to be enjoyed. At least for now.

      ‘I’m sorry,’ Tom said. He didn’t know Kezman, but he meant it all the same.

      ‘Why? It’s not your fault,’ Kezman shrugged. ‘Besides, in a way, it’s a gift. After all, would I have started my collection if I hadn’t known I was going blind? Sometimes, it’s only when you are about to lose something that you really begin to understand what it’s worth.’

      There was a long silence, which Ortiz eventually broke with a forced cough.

      ‘As I have discussed with your head of security, the plan is for Mr Kirk to take the money down on to the casino floor and wait there for them to make contact.’

      ‘It’s unlikely they’ll bring the painting with them,’ Jennifer added. ‘So we expect them to either provide us with a location, which we will then check out before handing over the money, or lead us to it so that we can make the exchange there.’

      ‘Either way, we’ll follow them to make sure we grab them, the painting and the money,’ Stokes said confidently.

      ‘Once again, Mr Kezman, the federal government is very grateful for your co-operation in this matter. We’ll do what we can to ensure that your staff and customers…’

      ‘Don’t mention it,’ Kezman waved Jennifer’s thanks away with a sweep of his hand. ‘You just make sure no one gets hurt.’

       TWELVE

       Amalfi Casino and Hotel Resort, Las Vegas

       17th March - 11.22 p.m.

      It was funny how people conditioned themselves to only ever see what they wanted to, Foster mused. Ask anyone who wears a watch with Roman numerals how the number four is written on it and they’ll say IV. All those years that they’ve been looking at it, checking the time, the numbers only a few inches from their stupid dumb-ass faces, and they’ve never actually noticed that it’s IIII. That it’s always IIII on a watch, because IV would be too easily confused with VI. That their brains have tricked them into seeing what they expect to, or rather not seeing what they should. It was pathetic really.

      Like tonight. The security detail at the staff entrance had barely glanced at his badly fitting uniform and tampered badge before waving him through. He looked the part, so why see something that you’ve convinced yourself isn’t there? That’s why the beard had had to go in the end; that might have been the one thing that could have triggered a response.

      He, on the other hand, had immediately picked out the FBI agents, uncomfortable in their civilian clothes as they loitered near the entrance, or perched unconvincingly in front of the slot machines. It was the half-hearted way they were feeding the money into the machine that was the killer tell - either you played the slots, or they played you.

      He stopped next to an anonymous-looking red door. How many people had walked past it, he wondered, without ever asking themselves why, out of all the doors that lined this service corridor, this was the only one that warranted two locks. Without ever asking themselves what might possibly lie behind it that demanded the extra security. But then, that’s what he’d noticed in civilians: a lack of basic human curiosity, a slavish, unquestioning acceptance of a life dropped into their lap like a TV dinner.

      Quickly picking the locks, he opened the door on to a dimly lit stairwell that he slipped into, wedging a fire extinguisher between the base of the door and the bottom step of the metal staircase to

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