Blake Crouch: Grab

She started walking.

10

Next morning, Letty cabbed out to an IHOP in the xeriscaped burbs, several miles west of the glitz of the Strip.

The emotion of the previous night still clung.

She felt different. Better. New.

Suit up and show up.

Isaiah was waiting for her.

Coffee and a newspaper.

He set the paper aside as she slid into the booth.

The waitress brought coffee.

When she was gone, he said, "There's no way you're this badass Jav told me about."

"I'm sorry."

"You're sorry? For what? Costing me seven or eight mil? Don't worry about it. Ain't nothing. S'all good."

"The club was a bad approach," she said. "You guys were getting mobbed by women. Richter was done with that scene before I ever showed up."

"So what? You let his mood effect your performance? You're amateur, you know that?"

"I had a bad night. It had been a long time since—"

"Oh, so you out of practice? That's the excuse?"

"You ever have a bad night, Ize?"

"No, that's not an option for professionals."

"I can still do this."

"You out your mind? Think I'm gonna let you take another crack at fucking this up? Last night was it, aiight? Anytime today, Richter gets the call. I could get a text from him right now. Then it's showtime. We done. Game over."

Letty leaned back in the booth. Held her hand to the coffee mug until her skin burned.

"What's he doing today?" she asked. "Richter."

"Just chillin'. Waiting for that magic call."

"And where exactly is he 'just chillin'?"

"Pool at the Wynn."

The waitress returned. "You folks ready to order?"

Letty was already scooting out.

Isaiah said, "Where you going?"

She smiled. "To buy a bikini."

# # #

The Wynn pool was wall-to-wall, even at 10:30 a.m., the crowd combating hangovers with mimosas, Bloody Marys, champagne cocktails.

She circled twice before spotting him.

Tucked away in a row of private cabanas.

Anonymous beyond the bikinis, board shorts, and occasional banana hammock.

Richter was oiled and soaking up the sun, a thin gold chain glittering in his chest hair, eyes hidden behind sunglasses. Two other men she recognized from the nightclub sunbathed beside him.

She walked to the bar at the far end and ordered three champagne cocktails. The bartender didn't want to lend her a tray. A twenty-spot sealed the deal.

It was a hike back to Richter's cabana. Letty could feel the scorching heat of the white pavement coming through the soles of her bejeweled Escada flip flops. The bikini wasn't really her style—a skirt-bottomed black and white striped two piece. Nor was it an exact match for the pool cocktail waitress swimwear. But it was close.

She moved away from the main pool, up the walkway leading to the private cabanas. On full alert now. In all likelihood, there was a personal waiter assigned to each cabana.

She approached a man in white board shorts and an open shirt.

One of the waiters?

She smiled but he passed without acknowledgement.

Richter's cabana stood at the end.

Reggae music sweetened the air.

She veered toward it and slowed her pace, squinting through her Jimmy Choo shades to absorb every detail.

Three men. Chairs side-by-side in the sun. Too scaldingly bright to see into the cabana, but she couldn't imagine Richter's phone would be inside. He was waiting on a critical call. The phone would be close. Within reach.

She stopped at the foot of the trio of beach chairs and smiled down at Richter and his men. Richter was in the middle. The one on the left was a hairy beast of a man with the fat-over-muscle build of someone who'd earned their conditioning from life experience, not a gym bike. Someone who possessed the brute core strength to physically break you. The man on the right was younger and leaner, but still carried plenty of brawn. It squared with Isaiah's story—these weren't techie savants hired to pull a sophisticated vault break. Richter was lining up big scary men to storm a hotel room and take down an army of casino thugs by force.

They all wore sunglasses, and she couldn't tell if they had noticed her yet.

Letty cleared her throat.

Richter tugged out his earbuds.

He's listening to music. Which means his phone is in his pocket, headphones plugged in. Extra challenge points.

He said, "We didn't order those."

"Gentlemen, these are compliments of the Wynn."

Letty took a step forward, letting the front of her left flip flop snag on a lip in the pavement.

She went down hard.

The tray dumped onto Richter's chair.

Two of the champagne flutes shattered against the concrete.

The third splashed across Richter's lap.

He jumped up and swore.

Letty struggled to sit up.

She'd nailed it. Bloody knee and everything. She clutched it and made a whimpering sound.

"Oh my God. Oh my God, I am so sorry."

She glanced up at Richter. He was staring down at her. Where she'd expected rage, she found concern.

"You all right?" he asked.

"I hurt my knee."

"Yeah, that looks nasty."

His phone. He was holding it now.

She reached up to him with both hands.

Put it down. Put it down.

He hesitated for a split second and then dropped his phone on the chair cushion.

"Let's get you up out of this glass."

"They're gonna fire me," Letty said as he pulled her onto her feet.

"Nobody's getting fired."

Blood ran down her leg and she could feel a shard of glass embedded in her skin. She staggered back and collapsed onto the end of Richter's chair. His phone lay right beside her, specked with beads of champagne cocktail.

"Does it feel like you cracked anything?" Richter asked.

All three men knelt in front of her, studying her knee.

"I don't think so," she said as she slipped the dummy iPhone out of her bikini bottoms.

"I'm just worried if my boss sees this, she'll fire me. I'm already on probation."

Dropped it beside Richter's phone.

Tugged the earbuds out of his phone's jack—

"She's a total bitch."

— plugged them into the dummy.

Richter said, "Bill, would you get her a towel please?"

She palmed his phone, slid it back into her briefs.

As the large, hairy man hustled into the cabana, Letty stood up.

"What's your name?" Richter asked.

"Selena."

"You're not going to get into any trouble over this, okay? I'm not going to let that happen, Selena."

"I just feel bad I ruined your day."

"You didn't ruin anybody's day. Simple accident."

Bill returned with a towel.

Letty wiped the blood off her leg and wrapped it around her waist.

"I better go get washed up," she said. "I'll send someone to clean this mess. Again...I'm real sorry."

"Forget it."

And then she was walking away from the cabana, the piece of glass tingling in her knee—a sharp, bright sting—but she didn't care. Richter's phone jostled against her ass and this moment was the closest thing to being high that she'd felt in months.

11

Letty saw him standing under an overhang of trees in the lobby of the Wynn. He barely looked old enough to be in college. Black Chuck Taylors, baggy jean shorts, a gray Billabong hoodie.

She pulled Richter's phone out of her bikini and walked up to him.

He smelled like pot, his eyes red with a stoner sheen.

"Mark?"

"Letty?"

She handed him Richter's phone, said, "I'm in 812. How long?"

"One hour."

"I need you to bust a move. This thing is only halfway done."

Riding up in the elevator, she called Isaiah.

"I got it," she said. "You heading over?"

"On my way."

"Let me know how it goes. I'll be back down as soon as Mark drops off the phone."