Michael Connelly - Void Moon

When she went on break she waited near the cashier's window and watched Max watch the Asian gambler. Eventually, the mark slid off his stool and called it a night. After a few moments, Max followed suit and started trailing the Asian. He turned off after watching the Asian step onto an elevator.

And that's when Cassie made her move. She walked right up to him.

"I want in," she said.

Nonplussed, Max just looked at her.

"I don't know what it is you're doing but I want to learn it. I want you to teach me. I want in."

He looked at her for a few more minutes and then a small smile curved his mouth.

"My name's Max. You want to get a drink or is that against the rules for the dealers here?"

"It's against the rules but I just quit the rules."

Now his smile widened into a grin.

As she dealt the cards on the table Cassie periodically checked the screen on the receiver/recorder. When she checked at one o'clock the glow of the television still lit the room. But Hernandez was sprawled across the bed and under the covers with his face turned away from the screen. She noticed that the light from the screen was steady. There was no flickering from changing images. She knew that he was asleep and the pay movie he had been watching was over. On the television screen was probably just a blue screen or the unchanging movie menu.

She checked her watch. She figured that by two forty-five Hernandez would be in the deepest part of the sleep cycle. She decided she would go in at three. That would leave plenty of time for her to be in and out before Leo's void moon began.

She slid the playing cards back into their box and returned it to her bag. She decided to do something she knew put her at unneeded risk and that Max would have never done. But she felt she needed to do it. For Max and for herself.

CASSIE made her way through the still crowded casino to the cocktail lounge off the hotel lobby. It was crowded here as well but the table she wanted was empty. She sat down and looked out across the gaming room but no longer was really seeing it. She was remembering Max and the run they had had, how the Sun and the Review-Journal had called them the "high-roller robbers" and the Las Vegas Casino Association had put a reward up for their arrest and conviction. She remembered how after a while it hadn't even been about the money. It was about the charge it put in their blood. She remembered how they could stay up the rest of the night making love after a job was finished.

"Can I help you?"

Cassie looked up at the cocktail waitress.

"Yes. A Coke with a cherry in it and whatever you have on draft."

The waitress put down napkins, one in front of Cassie and the other opposite her spot at the small round table. She smiled in a world-weary sort of way.

"Is somebody coming or is the second drink to keep the hitters away?"

Cassie smiled back and nodded.

"I just want to be alone tonight."

"I don't blame you. It's a mean crowd tonight. Must be the moon."

Cassie looked up at her.

"The moon?"

"It's full. Didn't you see it? It's burning brighter than any of the neon they've got around here. A full moon always adds an edge to things around here. I've been here long enough. I've seen it."

She nodded as if to cut off any debate on the subject. Cassie nodded back. The waitress left then and Cassie tried to ignore what she had said and concentrate her thoughts on remembering the night six years before when she had sat in the same spot at the same bar. But no matter how hard she thought of Max's beautiful face she could only focus on the bad that followed. She still marveled at how a moment of wonderful joy then could be the same moment that incited so much pain and dread and guilt now.

She was pulled out of her reverie by the cocktail waitress, who was putting the drinks down on the napkins. The woman put down a piece of paper and left. Cassie turned it over and saw she owed four dollars. She pulled a ten from her pocket and put it down.

Cassie watched the bubbles floating up through the beer and forming a half-inch layer of foam at the top of the glass. She remembered the foam in Max's mustache that night. She knew deep inside that what she was going to do this night was as much about Max as about anything else. She had come to believe that somehow there would be a lightening of her guilt, a redemption for all that had gone before if she did this thing right. It was a crazy thought but it was one she had secretly grabbed on to and now seemed to have placed as high as all others. The thought was that if she did this right she could reach back across the tide of time and make up for things, even for just a moment.

She picked up her Coke and looked around to make sure no one was watching. She caught a woman staring at her but then quickly realized that she was looking at her own face in the mirrored wall at the back of the lounge. Because of the wig and the hat and the glasses she had momentarily not realized who she was looking at.

She quickly looked away. She picked up her glass, reached across the table and tapped it lightly on Max's glass of beer.

"To the end," she said quietly. "To the place where the desert is ocean."

She took a sip and tasted the small hint of cherry. She then put her drink down and got up from the table. She left the lounge and walked back through the casino to the elevators.

She followed the ritual. She didn't look back.

AT 3:05 A.M. Cassie Black opened the door to room 2015, looked both ways, and came out into the hallway with the desk chair. Her disguise was now gone. She wore black jeans and a tight black sleeveless T-shirt. Around her waist was the small fanny pack with the tools she would need. She placed the chair beneath the wall sconce next to the door of room 2014 and stepped up on it. After licking her gloved fingers she reached over the lip of the sconce and turned the light bulb until it went out. She then moved the chair to a spot below the sconce next to 2015 and turned that bulb out as well. She returned the chair to her room and came back to the hallway with an empty black pillowcase and the night-vision goggles hanging from a strap around her neck.

She closed her door against the flip-over lock so it would not close all the way and then stepped across to Hernandez's door. She unhooked the DO NOT DISTURB sign and lowered it to the floor. She raised the card key, checked the time on her watch, and then slid the card through the electronic reader. The little green light on the door handle's face plate glowed. She silently turned the handle and began pushing the door open.

There was a slight click and then the earthquake wax made a sucking sound as it gave way and the flip-over lock came off the doorjamb. Cassie's fingers came through the opening crack and grasped it before it could fall or rattle against the door. At the same moment she heard the clip from Hernandez's electronic alarm fall from the doorjamb, the alarm silenced by Cassie's tampering. She swung herself around the door and then carefully and silently pushed it closed. She unhooked the flip-over bar and placed it down on the carpet. She stood up and held still a moment as her eyes adjusted to the darkness of the suite and she felt the rush run through her. It had been a long time but she remembered the feeling well. The adrenaline was searing through her blood. She felt its soft and welcome finger move down her spine. It seemed as though all the fine blond hair on her arms was standing with the electric current.

Finally, she moved into the suite and scanned the living room. She found it empty as expected and focused her attention on the double doors leading to the bedroom. One of them had been left open and from the room beyond came the sound of deep and heavy snoring. Leo had been on the money again, Cassie thought. Hernandez was a snorer. It was like having an early-warning system built into the caper.