Orphan X

31 More Truth than Lies

“What the holy hell is going on with you?” Tommy Stojack asked, conveying himself about his dungeon-lit armorer shop on his rolling chair, shoving himself off workbenches and desks, plucking up a sticky cup of coffee, a wayward screwdriver, a stray round. Beyond the missing finger, he had all sorts of warhorse injuries — titanium pins in various bones, hearing loss, bad knees from too many hard parachute landings. Though he still got around well enough on his own two feet, he could work his black Aeron like a wheelchair.

Evan sometimes wondered if this was practice for later, when his joints gave out entirely.

Tommy scratched at his arms, which were covered with flesh-colored square Band-Aids. “You look like someone pissed in your cockpit.”

Evan took a breath, lowered his shoulders, smoothed out his expression. He was unaccustomed to letting stress show in his face and was glad he’d done so only in front of Tommy. After making arrangements at the Bellagio, Evan had embarked on a flurry of research on his laptop. The address that the second caller, Memo Vasquez, had given traced to a slumlord who owned properties all over California and Arizona, seemingly renting them to illegal immigrants. The number Vasquez had called from belonged to a crappy Radio Shack prepaid cell phone. Good if you were broke.

Or an impostor.

Being illegal was a superb pretext for having no personal information in the system. For now Evan would have to work off Katrin White.

He said to Tommy, “I need to confirm someone’s identity.”

“In the system?”

“She checks out in the system,” Evan said. “I want it from another angle.”

Tommy scratched at his arms again.

“What the hell are those things all over your arms?” Evan finally asked.

“Nicotine patches.” Tommy slurped coffee over a lower lip pouched out with dipping tobacco. “I’m trying to get off the smokes.”

“One step at a time.”

“What I’m sayin’.” Tommy creakingly found his feet, his unoccupied chair rolling back into the shadowed recesses of the shop. “Okay. Who’s this broad you’re trying to confirm?”

Evan called up the photo he’d snapped of Katrin on the futon, the close-up of her sleeping face, and held it for Tommy to see.

Tommy made a gruff sound of approval. “Intimate.”

“I’m trying to help her.”

“Looks like it.” His hand tugged at the scraggly ends of his horseshoe mustache. “Helping women who ain’t who they say they are seems like a fool’s venture to me.”

“A woman who may not be who she says she is.”

“Ah.” The stub of a forefinger circled the air, pointing at Evan in warning. “Tryin’ to play hero, huh?” Tommy’s laugh came out as a half cough. “You wanna be a real hero? Get old. Peel yourself outta bed every morning with your back like this and your knee like that.”

“Okay. But first let’s confirm this ID.”

“That ain’t my bailiwick.”

“She’s a big-time gambler,” Evan said. “Which means she’s done it before. A lot. At a lot of places. I was thinking, you’re a Vegas guy—”

“That I am.”

“—maybe you have a hook at one of the casinos could run some facial-recognition software off this photo. Some places store footage from the floor going back years. See if she’s opened a line of credit, what name that line of credit was under. Like that.”

“If she’s not who she says she is, why do you believe her if she tells you she’s a gambler?”

“The best cover’s composed of more truth than lies.”

“That it is.” Tommy gave a terse little nod. “I know a guy, got a bit of horsepower over at Harrah’s. Let’s see what rocks we can kick over.”

“I’d appreciate it. Want me to text you the picture?”

Tommy’s face wrinkled up in disgust. “I don’t fucking text. E-mail that shit. You know the account to use.” His broad, rough hands restacked a scattering of bullet-mold blocks on the bench between them. “Need anything else? Some Chuck Four?” He reached under the bench, came up with a brick of C4. “The most effective way to turn money into noise.”

“I’m good on explosives.” Evan turned for the door, double-checking, as always, that the security camera was unplugged. “Thank you, Tommy.”

“Hey, man. I’ll call the guy, that’s all. There are no guarantees.” Tommy dug the wedge of tobacco out from his lip and thunked it into a dusty Carl’s Jr. cup. “Only guarantee is we ain’t gettin’ outta this incarnation alive.”