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“I’m recording this. I recorded that meeting with the congressperson.”
I turned to her. “You little mole, you.”
“Mole?”
“Spy,” I said.
I retrieved the tablet, stopped the recording, and called Felicia. I told her where we were and that as wild as was the story I was sharing that moment, we had an audio that—I had a feeling—would knock her blooming socks off.
* * *
The world always is changing. Sometimes we can sense the gravitas of what is occurring, but often it takes an earthquake—and here I am speaking metaphorically, though you can appreciate the literalness of what I am suggesting—for us to feel the tectonic plates shifting beneath our feet. Las Vegas. FBI agents and assets. Cryptocurrency.
Betsy: my sister.
The house was a crime scene, and so we were escorted outside, the cul-de-sac illuminated by the flashing lights from three squad cars. Apparently, there were other members of the Vegas PD, in addition to Felicia and Patrick, who hadn’t been bought with Futurium coin.
Felicia was done asking Betsy, Marisa, and me questions. “It’s the damnedest thing,” I said to Betsy. “I never expected to die in there. They might have planned to kill us. But I never saw it.”
“No?”
I shook my head. “I expect, if I die young, it will be in a car crash. Perhaps not a Mercedes in a tunnel. But a Mini with the top down. I flip and…well, you know, it’s one fuck-all of a mess.”
Betsy was rubbing her daughter’s back, and she said, “I love you, Sis. I really do. But…”
I waited.
“Never mind,” she murmured. “This isn’t the time or the place.”
“No. Go ahead.”
“Okay. That poor woman. Princess Diana? Do what you do onstage. I get it. Do what you want. But offstage? Let her ghost go.”
“I…can’t.”
“You can. Diana doesn’t have to be your Valium. Not anymore.”
Everyone from Futurium was gone now. Arrested. Butthe Vegas PD, the FBI, and even some FBI task force known as CART—the Computer Analysis and Response Team—were searching Frankie’s slot machine dacha. To the east I could see the iridescent Wedgwood of Las Vegas, a chimerical nimbus built on cacti and sand. My sister was spot-on: Diana was my drug of choice, more important to me than the actual pills I popped.
“Betsy?” This was Marisa.
“Yes, sweetheart?”
“Will I get back my tablet?”
The FBI had it. They were thrilled with my niece. She was going to be interviewed a lot in the coming days, more FBI and more police, and by the press. She would be excellent. She’d already talked to a pair of agents, and to Felicia and Patrick from the LVPD. What she had done was not merely brilliant; it was heroic.
“We’ll get you a new one in the morning,” Betsy replied. “One where everything works. And the cloud will have—”
“I know.”
“How are you doing, my little love?” I asked her.
“Okay,” she answered. She was quieter than I had ever seen her, and she would be for what remained of the evening.
One of the paramedics who’d checked in on us earlier stopped by. He was about to leave and wanted to say goodbye. “Welcome to Las Vegas,” he said to Betsy.
We both looked at the young man.
