“Not bad, Frank,” Danny allowed. “And that’s all I can say about it.”
Frank nodded. “It’s all right. Just passing the time while we train up. Obviously, we’ll be busy when the time comes. All this secrecy, our paramilitary training, that fun sleight of hand stuff with Mulholland we did last week. This Cold War is replacing actual war, and I’m sure we’ll be off fighting it at some point.”
“You think?” Danny said neutrally.
“I don’t think it’s an accident that I now know every language spoken between Berlin and Moscow. When are you going to clue us in on the rest of all this?”
Danny slowly put his rib down and wiped his hands carefully with his napkin before responding. “I don’t like keeping you in the dark, Frank. I really don’t. But that’s not my call. I can ask, but it’ll have to go all the way to the top. It’ll take a while.”
“Who’s at the top?”
The two stared each other down for several moments before Maggie interrupted them, plopping down next to Danny. “Either of you seen Ellis? This whole thing was half his idea. Can’t find him anywhere.”
Frank waved it off. “Probably moping in his bunk, or on the phone with his family. Something where he doesn’t have to deal with the rest of us.”
“When’s the last time you saw him?” Danny asked.
Maggie had to think about that one for a moment. “Just after morning exercises, I think. He said he was going to the machine shop to work on a few things.”
Danny frowned and glanced down at his plate; it looked to Frank as if he was trying to remember something. Danny turned and motioned for one of the MPs, who came over immediately. “I need you to find Longstreet. Take a few men. If you can’t find him, I need to know ASAP.”
Fifteen minutes later, Area 51 went into full lockdown.
“We don’t get lots of Southerners out these parts, especially hitchhikers,” the truck driver said as the pickup bounced down the dirt road. “How’d you get out here, son?”
Ellis smiled at the man. “Took a wrong turn, probably a few more after that, then ran out of gas. Just lucky you were heading to Las Vegas, same as me.”
Ellis engaged the driver in conversation for the entire two hours it took to get to Las Vegas — he often found it better to be friendly than not, even if you didn’t mean it. In retrospect, he probably should’ve applied that lesson to Cal Hooks — even if it was only to get his hands on decent food — but frankly, he found the entire idea just too distasteful. Those folks in the North and Midwest and California just didn’t know the proper order of things. They hadn’t seen what the South had become. They didn’t know, and trying to correct them was pointless. Sometimes, you just had to draw a line in the sand and stand your ground on the right side of it.
Cal’s powers, though, were something else, having experienced it firsthand. To be able to heal or kill was something special, he’d give him that. But Ellis knew his own Enhancement was far more versatile in the right hands. His hands, specifically.
The driver dropped him on the very edge of town, ostensibly so he could use the can. Instead, Ellis walked toward town with an eye to the ground, looking for just the right-sized pieces of rock — small, but not too small. Maybe an inch per side, tops. He found six of them and stuffed them in his pockets as the road began to turn into a street, with buildings on either side.
It was dusk by the time Ellis made it to Fremont Street and Las Vegas’s burgeoning casino strip — Glitter Gulch, they called it. There were already folks out and about in short-sleeved shirts and linen pants. It reminded him of his summers in Mobile. He’d get there soon enough. First things first.
The sign said PAWN spelled out in garish lightbulbs. Inside, a middle-aged lady sat sweating behind a barred counter. Ellis had no doubt there was a shotgun somewhere behind there with her.
“What’cha got?” the woman said tiredly. Ellis couldn’t help but smile at the thought of the poor souls who’d been on the other end of that question through the years, a parade of losses trying for one more stake, or maybe just a bus ticket home.
“I have this, ma’am,” Ellis said, pulling a rock from his pocket and squeezing it tightly for a moment before setting it on the counter.
The woman’s eyes widened. “Where’d you get that?”
Ellis smiled. “Had some luck in a private game,” he said. “Care to get your scale so we can come to a price?”
Ten minutes later, Ellis walked out with a wad of bills in his pocket. He went to the other two pawnshops in town, repeating the trick, then checked himself into the suite at the Hotel Apache, ordering the most expensive items on the room service menu and a bottle of Kentucky bourbon. He thought about calling home but decided it’d be better to show up unexpected, relishing the thought of the look on Sarah’s face as he walked in the door. Tomorrow, a plane ticket and home.
Tonight, bourbon and sleep in a real bed.
The pounding at the door woke him at 3 a.m.
“Do you have any idea what ungodly hour it is?” Ellis shouted as he staggered toward the door. “What do you want?”
“I’m sorry, but there’s a problem with your bill, sir,” the voice came from the other side of the door.
Ellis peeked through the peephole and saw a young man in a bellhop uniform looking nervous. And so he should be, waking a man in the middle of the night.
“How can there be a problem with my bill when I paid cash?” Ellis grumbled as he unlocked the door. “I even paid the room serv—”
A huge hand knocked Ellis backward into the room. It was attached to an even bigger man wearing a suit and shiny shoes, walking through the door as if he owned it. Two other men, only slightly smaller but just as well dressed, stood in the hallway. The bellhop was nowhere to be found.
“Who the hell are you?” Ellis said. “What the hell is this?”
The man turned on the light, revealing a squared-off face with a big chin and a bigger scowl, topped with slicked-back jet-black hair. “The problem with your bill, Mr. Ellis Longstreet, is the manner in which you paid it,” the man said with a distinctly odd accent, like a New Yorker crossed with… something else. Something foreign, like in a movie.
Ellis clambered to his feet and did his best to stand his ground, despite the indignity of being in his underwear. “And when is cash an issue?” he demanded. “Are you the owner?”
The man ignored the question. “The issue is how you got the cash. Those were three pretty nice nuggets of gold you had there, Mr. Longstreet. I saw them earlier tonight. Really impressive.”
Now Ellis was confused. “You own the pawnshops, then? I can assure you, they weren’t stolen. I won them, fair and proper, in a private game earlier today.”
The man gave Ellis a smile and shook his head. “And there’s where you went wrong, Mr. Longstreet. I run all the private action in this town. And I got a piece of most of the legal action, too. Nobody’s ever seen you before you walked into that pawnshop. So, I’ll give you one more chance. Where’d you get the gold?”
“I… I found it,” Ellis said, his hands fluttering now. “Out in the desert. My car broke down, and I saw it along the side of the road as I hitchhiked. Seemed like Providence was looking out for me after all.”
The man in the suit considered this a moment. “All right. Seems like you need to get your car. I think we can help you there. We’ll take you to it, and you’ll show us where you found these nuggets. We’ll even be sure to get you a tow truck. How’s that sound?”