- as money-making was just one game after another and women just something to do between games - was his responsibility to those who trusted him. You could bring the boy to the land of high-rollers and long-gammed showgirls, but you couldn't take the stolid, solid, Magee Main Street values out of the boy. No matter that he was a Magee in name only.
"The fact that it's my bad doesn't change a thing," he told Cal. 'The business will be more secure away from the casinos' radar. And hey, you'll like Palm Springs. It's green there."
Cal shrugged. "I don't go outside much."
Hence the sickly neon-tube tan, Johnny mused. He pushed back his leather chair to prop his feet on top of his desk and then cross his ankles, conveying the image of a man in complete control of his business, his emotions, his world. Which, of course, he was.
"You need to get out more, Cal. Take up tennis or golf. The place I bought has a sweet three-hole practice course right outside the front doors of the guest bungalows. You'll enjoy the course, the exercise, the whole setup."
Cal appeared to consider the idea, the sunlight winking in his glasses as he slowly nodded his head. "That's what I thought. This move has something to do with that house."
"No!"
"You've been checking the real estate listings for almost a year. You snapped up that address the nanosecond it went on the market."
"How did you - " Johnny slammed his feet to the floor. "Have you been hacking into my files?"
"Exactly what kind of friend do you think I am? I haven't touched your computer files." Cal had the nerve to look offended, even though Johnny knew for a fact that the younger man's fingertips should be registered as weapons lethal to privacy laws. "I've been eavesdropping on your half of your telephone calls."
"Damn it, Cal - " Johnny started, then broke off, forcing himself to take a breath. Where the hell was his poker face when he needed it? Sucking in more air, he reminded himself of his cover story. He'd prepared it weeks ago, and there was no reason not to trot it out now.
"Look, I chose Palms Springs because of my brother. I told you he works near there and that he just got married. I'd like to be closer to him and his new wife."
Cal kept looking back. Then one brow rose above eyeglass frame to take skeptical refuge beneath a shaggy fringe of hair.
Johnny frowned. "Besides, there's the syndicate... You know I'm right about that. The sports books won't take our action if they get wind of who we are and what we're doing."
It wasn't that their business was illegal, but the Nevada casinos were like any buck-ninety-nine, all-you-can-eat buffet on the Strip - they had the right to refuse service to anyone. And they didn't like to service consistent, very consistent and very big, winners. As it was, the syndicate had to avert attention by constantly rotating those who marched up to the windows at the casinos' sports books to physically place the bets.
"So the move's about Palm Springs."
Johnny shrugged. "Didn't I just say that?"
"And that house." Outside their windows an airplane flew by, its tiny reflection mirrored in Cal's lenses. "That specific house. Don't bother denying it."
So Johnny shrugged again, aware that the microprocessor inside his friend's skull was busy decoding and analyzing all input data. To preclude providing anything further, he looked down at his desk and faked an interest in the Kansas City paper again.
"What I can't figure is what it has to do with that woman. That Tea Caruso."
Johnny kept his gaze on the front page photo from the Chiefs-Texans matchup without really seeing it. Tea Caruso. He'd never laid eyes on her outside of two fuzzy stills he'd found in the newspaper archives on the web - and even then she'd been no more than a smudge of a face in a crowd. But he had a feeling that...
Searching for a way to describe it, he looked up, his glance happening to land on the clock atop one of the lunching tech-heads'desks. 1:09:09.
Shit. Shit shit shit. He ground his teeth against the icy-blade sensation that the simple series of numbers sent scraping down his back.
That's why he was moving to Palm Springs, to the house where his father had lived sixteen years before. Because those same numbers had been plaguing him since his last birthday, showing up out of nowhere to unearth