Randi pointed at a headless body about halfway between them and the helicopter. “We’ll go on my mark. But on the way, we’re picking up that body. I want an autopsy.”
“An autopsy?” Deuce said incredulously. “I mean, I don’t have a medical degree or anything, but I’m pretty sure the cause of death was the bullet in his chest or the fact that his freakin’ head is gone!”
“I didn’t come all this way to leave empty-handed.”
He fired a few additional rounds, more out of frustration than from any hope they would dissuade the sniper trying to zero in on them. “I swear, Randi. Someday, when no one is looking, I’m gonna kill you myself.”
4
Las Vegas, Nevada
USA
TRUE TO HER WORD, Janine had gotten them seats four rows from the front. She had a natural pushiness that, combined with her youth and beauty, tended to part a crowd pretty well.
“I wonder if he finally got new glasses,” Janine said, putting her hand on Smith’s forearm. “We have a pool at the office and it’s up to more than five hundred bucks.”
Her question was answered a moment later when Christian Dresner strode onto stage and stalked toward the lone lectern at its center. The Coke-bottle glasses he’d been wearing since the eighties were still there, as were the suit and tie that he seemed to have bought around the same time.
The truth was that Dresner looked as out of place as Smith did in this crowd. Not only the clothes, but the graying blond hair worn in such a shaggy, haphazard style that many people believed he cut it himself. In Smith’s mind, though, everything seemed carefully calculated to diminish the almost cartoonishly square jaw, the heavy shoulders, and the still-narrow waist. With contacts, a decent tailor, and a coupon to Supercuts he would look like a spectacularly successful Nazi eugenics project.
A light applause erupted and Dresner seemed a little uncomfortable, losing himself for a moment in securing a Bluetooth headset to his ear. In fact, this was only the fourth public appearance in the notoriously shy genius’s career.
While comparisons to Steve Jobs had been obvious, Smith had always thought Willy Wonka was a more apt analogy: an odd recluse who suddenly burst on the scene with something incredible and then retreated to the safety of the factory.
“I want to thank you for coming,” he said in the slight German accent that he’d never shaken off. “I hope you’ll be as excited about my new project as I am.”
The screen behind him came to life with an image of a hand holding a device that looked a little like a gray iPhone with no screen.
“Electric cigarette case?” Janine said, nudging Smith in the ribs as a confused murmur rose up around them.
He honestly didn’t know. A tiny switch and a blue indicator light were visible on the right side, but other than that it was just a graceful piece of plastic.