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Fritz Zimholt waited in the conservatory of the Bellagio hotel on an ivory-colored padded bench with his back to the lavish Christmas display. He rested his wooden cane against his leg. He didn’t need it, but it was useful for the image he wanted to project.
Age seventy-four, white neatly-clipped beard, bald on top with white hair covering only the lower half of his scalp, he looked like any of the other old people around him who had lowered themselves exhausted onto chairs and benches, overwhelmed by the opulence, wearied by the crowd.
Fritz had no interest in the holiday display, but it had been hard to ignore. The giant toy soldiers revolving on pedestals made to look like toy drums. The polar bears cavorting on imitation chunks of ice in the fountain’s pond. The oversized elves wi
