The cage manager was well-groomed, well-mannered and impossible to surprise. The sight of a couple of characters in Halloween costumes with a bag of gold they wanted to change into money didn’t so much as turn a hair. He laid out the terms for them as if this happened every day. Looking around the casino, Jerry reflected that maybe it did.
Ten thousand dollars maximum,” the manager told them. “Market less twenty-five percent.” He shook his head. I’ll tell you right now you can do better in most of the pawn shops.”
“We need some walking-around money.”
The manager shrugged. He led them around the corner, past two armed guards and into a small room where a clerk was waiting for them with a tabletop full of machinery.
The clerk was not as well groomed and considerably less mannered. He took the coins and ten by ten put them in a large piece of equipment in one corner.
“Neutron spectroscope,” the manager explained. “We get a lot of Asian customers with gold.”
It took time to test the coins and more time to count out the cash. In the process Jerry had to sign a statement saying who he was, that the gold was legal and that he had paid all the applicable taxes. He noticed that the manager didn’t ask them for identification.
“Now do we begin our search?” Bal-Simba asked as they threaded their way back through the casino.
“Now we go get our credentials,” Jerry said. “That will take a good chunk of this money.”
“Excuse me,” said a woman’s voice off to one side. Both men turned and took a blinding light full in the face.
“Thanks,” said a shadowy form perfunctorily as she lowered her camera and pushed by them.
Bal-Simba bunked as he tried to get his sight back. “What was that?”
“That was a reminder that we need some different clothes.” Jerry frowned. “But that’s going to take more time and…” Then his rapidly returning sight fell on an arcade of shops off beyond the registration area. “Come on. It’ll be expensive, but we need to save time more than we need to save money.”
The shopping arcade angled off from the registration area leading to one of the hotel towers. Beyond the frozen yogurt shop, the jeweler’s, the furrier’s and the “art gallery” selling brightly colored paintings whose kitsch was only exceeded by their prices, was the men’s store Jerry had known had to be there.
The place had an Italian name that Jerry thought was some kind of sausage, but he wasn’t picky. The interior was all white and old gold and decorated in a way that for some reason reminded Jerry of a tapestry woven of polyester. The salesman was tall, lean and dressed in an extreme version of Italian style. He was also showing a five o’clock shadow.
“May I help you?” he said in tones that indicated he probably couldn’t, but he was going to go through the motions anyway.
“Uh, my friend and I need some clothes.”
The man looked them up and down. “I’ll say.”
“They lost our luggage and all we have left are our costumes. We need something for street wear.”
“Hmm,” the man said. “Hmm,” he said again. “Hey, Meyer, can you come out here a minute?”
Meyer was a wizened old man with thick glasses set low on his nose. His trousers were dusty with chalk and he wore a tape measure draped around his neck like a shawl.
“They need some street clothes,” the younger man told him.
Meyer looked them over with an obviously professional eye. “Come on back into the fitting room and let’s see what we can do.”
“He keeps me around for color,” the old man confided as he led them into the back. “Pfafh! Like I’m a museum exhibit or something.”
Like its inhabitant the back room wasn’t nearly as fancy but looked a lot more businesslike. Meyer whipped the tape measure off his shoulders and began to lay it against Jerry’s body. “My nephew. He should have learned his trade at his father’s knee—God rest him— but instead he goes off and gets an MBA. An MBA! Better he should learn tailoring to run a haberdashery, no? But kids, you can’t tell them anything. So, you want suits or what?”