The Sands was long gone now, demolished and replaced by a new casino. But the underworld code of calling a hundred-dollar bill or chip a bumblebee remained. Anyone who used the term had been around a while.
Cassie made sure Paltz got a good look at the money and then flipped the backpack closed just as a barmaid came to the table.
"Can I get you something?" she asked Cassie.
Paltz answered for her.
"No, she's fine," he said. "We're just gonna go outside and then I'll be right back. I'll need another beer then, sweetheart."
The barmaid walked away and Paltz smiled, knowing that what he had just said would leave the waitress thinking that they were going outside to complete a sexual transaction. This didn't bother Cassie because it played into her cover. But what did annoy her was his calling the waitress "sweetheart." It always bothered Cassie when men called women they did not know by endearing names they didn't mean. She bit back on an urge to call Paltz on it and started sliding out of the booth.
"Let's do it," she said instead.
Once they were out the door Paltz led the way to a van parked at the side of the bar. He unhooked a set of keys from his side belt loop and unlocked the sliding door on the passenger side. The van was parked so that the open door was only a few feet from the side wall of the bar. No one could look into the van without coming right up to it. Cassie understood this to be good and bad. Good if Paltz was going to be legit with her. Bad if this was a rip-off.
Paltz climbed into the van and signaled Cassie to follow. The front cab was partitioned off with a wall of plywood. In the rear of the van two bench seats faced each other across a work area. Various tools hung on hooks protruding from punch boards on the walls and five-gallon buckets contained more tools, equipment and rags. Cassie hesitated in the open door. She was carrying close to ten thousand dollars in cash in her backpack and was being beckoned into a van by a man she had not seen, let alone dealt with, in more than six years.
"Well, you want it or not? I don't have all night and I thought you didn't either."
Paltz pointed to a medium-sized American Tourister suitcase that was on the floor. He picked it up and sat down on a bench seat with it on his lap. He opened it, raising the lid against his chest so that Cassie could see the equipment displayed in foam cushioning in the case.
Cassie nodded and climbed into the van.
"Close the door," Paltz said.
She slid the door closed but kept her eyes on Paltz as she did it.
"Let's do this quick," she said. "I don't like being here."
"Relax, I'm not going to bite you."
"I'm not worried about getting bit."
Now that she was closer, Cassie looked at the case again. Pieces of electronic surveillance equipment were placed in cutouts so they would not move during transport. Cassie recognized most of the pieces from prior use or from electronics magazines and catalogs. There were pinhole cameras, a microwave transmitter, a receiver and several pieces of related equipment. There was also a pair of night-vision goggles.
Like a door-to-door salesman, Paltz waved his arm in front of the display and started his spiel.
"You want me to go over everything or you think you've got a handle on it?"
"Better show me everything but the NVGs. It's been a while."
"All right, then, let's go from image capture to picture delivery. First, the cameras."
He pointed to the upper half of the case. Four small black squares with open circuitry and circular centerpieces were displayed in the foam rubber.
"You've got four chip cameras here – should be enough for any job. When we spoke before you didn't say if you needed color but – "
"I don't need color. I don't need audio. I need clarity. I need to read numbers."
"That's what I figured. These are all black and white. The first three you see here are your standard pinhole board cameras. When I say standard, I mean Hooten L amp;S standard. Nobody puts together a better board right now. With these you get four hundred lines resolution from a linear electronic iris. Very clear. Runs four to six hours on a dime battery. How's that work for you, timewise?"