By 9 a.m. Ava was running along Las Vegas Boulevard. It was as if she were in a different world than the one she had arrived in nine hours before. The sidewalks that had been clogged with tourists and locals the previous night were now blissfully vacant. She ran south, retracing the route the limo had taken from McCarran Airport.
The desert air was crisp and clean. The streets had been washed and cleared of the beer bottles, empty cigarette packs, and other debris that the drunken revellers left every night. The casinos, so gaudily lit at night, now looked almost naked to Ava’s eyes.
She ran for close to an hour, starting on the west end of the Strip, past the Bellagio, with its man-made lake set before the facade of an Italian village nestled in mountains; on to the Luxor Hotel, which was shaped like a pyramid; and past the Paris Las Vegas with its Eiffel Tower and the Venetian, where gondoliers were now stationed in the canal. Vegas brought the world to America.
Back at Wynn’s she showered, put on a black Giordano T-shirt and her Adidas training pants, and then made herself a Starbucks VIA instant coffee. She opened the drapes, sat at the dining table, and turned on her computer. The golf course offered a pleasant view: ribbons of green punctuated by pale white bunkers and man-made ponds.
Ava’s plan for the day was low-key. She wanted to find out a bit more about The River, Ashton, and Douglas. Online she found The River’s website and its office address, which was on Korval Lane, the first street south of Las Vegas Boulevard. Then, using the information Martin Littlefeather had provided, she located Ashton’s residence, a condo near the Hard Rock Hotel, and Douglas’s house, in what looked like a ritzy neighbourhood southwest of the city called The Oasis. With time to kill, she decided to take a look at all three.
Ava left her room and took the elevator to the hotel lobby, then walked outside and joined the queue for a taxi. There were ten people ahead of her, but with typical Vegas efficiency she was in a cab in less than five minutes. With the luck of the draw, she got a driver who was Chinese. She spoke English to him at first, but when he answered haltingly, she switched to Cantonese. His Cantonese was as rough as his English, so Ava changed to Mandarin. The driver smiled at her in his rear-view mirror and introduced himself as Au.
“Could you take me to Korval Lane?” she asked.
The River’s office was only a few minutes away. They drove a kilometre south from Wynn’s to Flamingo Avenue and then turned left and drove towards Korval, which was at the next intersection. Even though they were only a block away from the Strip, the neighbourhood was decidedly plain in contrast. They passed small office complexes, low-rent motels, and several rows of townhouses that rented by the week or the month. The River was in a three-storey brown stucco building whose walls were starting to peel. A sign outside listed two dentists, an accountant, a chiropractor, and a podiatrist. There was no mention of The River. She had Au stop outside, just as he was telling her that he was from Beijing and his wife was from Hong Kong. She got out of the car and walked into the lobby. A tenant board listed the same occupants on the first and second floors and, in smaller letters, The River on the third. Why such a dumpy building? Ava thought. Why so inconspicuous a presence?
Ava got back in the cab and directed Au to Ashton’s condo. They drove west along Harmon, past low-rise apartment buildings, strip malls, and gas stations to Paradise Road, and then turned south. Ashton’s condo was close to twenty storeys high and one of several in a row just beside the Hard Rock Hotel. It was set back from the road, with no security at the driveway entrance. Au drove up to the front door and Ava got out.
The door to the building required a code. Through the glass door Ava could see inside, where a security guard sitting behind a desk was eyeing her. Another guard appeared from a side door and glanced in her direction. Ava knew there would be security cameras as well.
“Do you know where The Oasis is?” she asked Au when she got back into the idling taxi.
“It’s about a thirty-minute drive beyond the Strip,” Au said.
“Take me there, please.”
They wormed their way through the suburbs, stopping at nearly every intersection until they reached the desert. Ava knew that distances in the desert were deceptive; the complex came into view at least five minutes before they got to the gated community. The Oasis was essentially in the middle of nowhere, a sprawling mass of houses whose roofs peeked above a ten-foot-tall brick wall crowned with razor wire. Across the entranceway sat a lonely looking service station.
“Drive slowly past the entrance,” she said. When they were just past it, she asked him to pull over and park.
Ava noted the double-barrelled security system. First there was a security gate with a barrier activated by a card and a speaker set up for visitors to identify themselves. A car drove past them and into the complex; the driver waved a plastic card in front of the box and the barrier rose. Two guards were manning a security checkpoint about fifty metres past the barrier. When the driver got to the checkpoint, one of the guards came out of the hut to look inside the car. The guard was young, fit, and alert. Ava noticed he carried a gun on his hip in an open holster.
“Let’s go back to the hotel,” she said.
As they drove back to the Strip, Au continued to chat, but Ava’s mind was elsewhere. It wasn’t until they were back in the city that she finally tuned in. He had just finished telling her about his arrival in Las Vegas five years before, as an acrobat in a Cirque du Soleil show, when they pulled up in front of Wynn’s. “I injured myself, and I’ve been driving cabs ever since,” he said.
A Wynn’s doorman knocked on the driver’s-side window to tell Au he was blocking traffic. Ava opened her door. “Are there any Chinese restaurants you’d recommend?” she asked him.
“Go to Chinatown, on Spring Mountain Road,” Au said.
“Anything closer?”
“There’s a noodle bar at the Venetian.”
“I’ll go there for lunch,” she said. “How about dinner? Are there any good Japanese restaurants outside the hotels? I can’t stand paying those prices.”
“Ichiza,” he said.
“Where is it?”
“It’s on Spring Mountain Road as well, just past the Chinese mall, on the second floor of a strip mall.”
“So far again?”
“It’s worth it,” he said. “That’s where all the Chinese chefs from the hotels go at night when they’ve finished work. It costs two-thirds less than Japanese on the Strip, and the food is great. You’ll save enough on the food to pay for a taxi, and then some.”
“I’ll try it,” she said.
He passed her a business card. “My cellphone number’s there. Call me whenever you need a cab. I’m usually no more than ten minutes away from anywhere.”
Ava walked back to the Venetian and into the noodle bar. She sat at a Formica table that would have felt at home in any American diner. All the chefs and servers were Chinese but the customer base was nearly all gweilo. Ava’s waiter fussed over her in English until she responded in Cantonese. He responded in Mandarin. Ava made a mental note that she wasn’t in Toronto anymore, where Cantonese was dominant because of the influx of Hong Kong immigrants.
She ordered baby bok choy and har gow noodle soup. When the soup was served, Ava grimaced. Two shrimp dumplings and a sprinkling of chopped green onion floated in cloudy chicken broth. The waiter noticed her reaction. It’s one thing to stick it to the gweilos, she thought, and another to take advantage of a fellow Chinese.
When she had finished eating, the server asked her how her meal had been. “Adequate,” she said. As he picked up her bowl and plate, she asked if he had heard of a restaurant called Ichiza.
“I go there all the time,” he said.
“Good food, good value?”
“Better than here,” he whispered.
It was almost two o’clock when she strolled back into Wynn’s to wait for Douglas. She leaned against the wall directly across from the room’s entrance and took in the action. There were twenty-six tables and fifteen were in play, most of them on the ground level. The upper level, where she assumed Douglas played, had only three active tables. Ava searched for a silver halo but didn’t see one.
She had a thing about being prompt, even early. Marian shared the same characteristic; she said it was in reaction to a mother whose idea of being on time was within two hours of a scheduled appointment. Ava was thinking about her mother when she caught her first glimpse of the Disciple. He was taller than she had thought, well over six feet. His belly was particularly prominent and his hair had receded since the photograph, the afro more wispy than wiry. He walked slowly through the casino, greeting patrons who had left their tables to approach him. She watched as he stopped to chat, shake a hand, sign a cocktail napkin. In this place he was a celebrity.
She waited until he was ten yards away from the host’s desk before she intercepted him. He looked down at her with eyes that were a watery, washed-out blue. “And what can I do for you?” he asked.
“My name is Ava Lee,” she said.
“And what can I do for little Ava?”
“You can talk to me about The River.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I believe you’ve been involved, perhaps inadvertently, in a fraud perpetrated by some people playing on The River. I would like a chance to talk to you about it.”
He twitched, turning his head away from her. “Get away from me,” he said.
“Mr. Douglas, that isn’t helpful. If you can give me fifteen minutes of your undivided attention I’m sure we can sort this out.”
“What’s your name again?”
“Ava Lee.”
“Get away from me, Ava Lee.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” she said.
He stared down at her. “Don’t make me call security,” he said, lowering his voice. “I can have you carted off.”
“If that’s necessary, then do it,” she said.
He hesitated and looked up at the ceiling. “Where are you staying?” he finally asked.
“Here.”
He looked at the host, who was pretending not to listen. “Is my seat open?”
“Waiting for you, sir.”
“Ms. Lee, I play poker for a living, and that’s what I’m going to do right now. I’ll be finished around midnight. If you’re still here, then maybe we can talk.”
She thought about her options. “Okay, I’ll be here.”
“See you then,” he said with a nod.