Face of Death

Zoe and Shelley moved down their row together, walking quickly, though not quickly enough to lose concentration. Time was of the essence. The quicker they brought him in, the less chance there was that he might somehow get away.

Zoe’s eyes picked up different state plates, more Missouri and Kansas than any other. The tally ran on in her head without her bidding, the numbers appearing next to each vehicle. None of them the right one.

There was a crackle on the radio in Zoe’s hand, and she lifted it to hear the message. “We’ve got it. Far left row, mid-level. Vehicle is unoccupied.”

Zoe and Shelley looked up, the heads of the two other teams swinging in unison toward the furthest row in the lot. One hand waved in the air briefly, indicating the position of the car.

Zoe lifted the radio to her mouth. “We go in,” she said. “You two stay with the vehicle in case of his return. If that happens, communicate with us immediately. The rest, with us.”

They met at the entrance in a rush, all on the alert, wide eyes and stiff postures. There was a tension in the group, the kind of nervous energy triggered by the knowledge that the confrontation was soon to come.

“What do we do?” Shelley asked, yielding to Zoe’s superior experience and knowledge. Moments like these reminded Zoe that her partner was not as seasoned as she sometimes came across.

“Two groups,” Zoe said, looking around to check that everyone was listening. “Half with me, half with Special Agent Rose. I will go in the front entrance, the other team in the back. From there, we fan out. Leave one person behind at each exit. You all have your printouts?”

There were nods from all four of the local cops, and from Shelley.

“Take one last moment to study his face again before we enter,” Zoe instructed them. “As soon as you see him, get on the radio and let us know his precise location. We will converge on him for arrest.”

There were murmurs of assent and understanding all around as they each opened their phone screens or pulled out folded pieces of paper from their pockets to check Jimmy Sikes’s image.

As they did, Zoe approached a member of the security staff belonging to the casino, flashing him her badge quickly in a way that concealed it from the view of passersby. After a few exchanged mutters, he took a spare radio from her hands and rushed it to his own control center.

Then they parted ways, three bodies in each direction, Shelley looking back at Zoe for a brief moment as if for reassurance. Zoe nodded to her, and Shelley turned to carry on.

Zoe steeled herself with a deep breath as she approached the entrance. The other team would need more time to get to the back of the building. They did not need to rush, not yet.

But that was not why she hesitated. She hesitated because she had been inside a casino before, and she knew what it did to her. What was about to happen to her mind.

She glanced quickly at the two cops beside her to check they were ready, and walked forward, pushing through the wide wooden doors and into noise and dim chaos.

The lighting was low, deliberately murky to hide the stains and to trick customers into losing track of the time of day. The room was wide and long, set up in different divisions, some beyond her view. The slot machines, some of them tall and showy, blocked almost everything on the right side. To the left were card tables and other games, and a bar stretching along it all that allowed patrons to walk up and get a drink whenever they wanted.

And, of course, the old casino classic: a meandering path which only ever led straight to the next gambling opportunity, rather than giving them a clear direction across the room.

Zoe took a breath, trying to keep her bearings. Trying not to let the numbers, the noise of machines and people and low lounge music, and the heady atmosphere of evening that almost immediately overwhelmed memories of the bright morning outside, get the better of her. They were everywhere she turned. She strode past a blackjack table, calculations appearing in her head as she saw all five sets of cards on public display and knew that the player seated to the right should hit, because there was an eighty percent chance of him getting the low-value card he needed to top up his score of sixteen.

On her other side, the glowing numbers above a slot machine declared a jumbo jackpot available across an interstate network, almost up to a record figure. The woman sitting there, playing a dollar at a time with resolute determination, must have known just as Zoe did that the machine was ripe to pop.