The Heist

basically do all the things you usually do when you want to distract and manipulate a man.”
    “I don’t do those things!”
    Nick gave her the thousand-watt smile and rose from his seat.“I have total confidence in you. Meet me in the lobby at nine A.M. sharp. We need to go shopping.”
    “What are we shopping for?”
    “Sexy clothes that will make you irresistible to Derek Griffin.”
    “No problem,” she said. “Is there a Kohl’s or Walmart around here?”
    “We’re going to aim a little higher than that.”
    “Where are we shopping?”
    “Where a spoiled, rich heiress would,” Nick said.
    “Spoiled, rich heiresses aren’t on FBI expense accounts.”
    “Neither are you,” he said.
    El Paseo was the Rodeo Drive of Palm Desert. It was a wide, palm-lined street of swanky shops, galleries, restaurants, and lush flower beds improbably situated on a patch of bone-dry desert that General George Patton had used to prepare his troops for battle in the Sahara. But now, instead of tanks and jeeps rumbling across the parched earth, battalions of sun seekers in Mercedes-Benzes and Jaguars cruised for prime parking spots.
    The shopping experience on El Paseo was about the same as Rodeo Drive when it came to the stores with their ultraexpensive brands. The only difference here was the fleet of yellow seven-seat courtesy carts that went up and down the street giving free rides to retirees too frail or too burdened with shopping bags to manage the one-mile stretch of glitz on their own.
    Nick and Kate had chosen to forsake the ride and walk, and Kate was lagging behind.
    “Could you pick up the pace?” Nick said to Kate. “We just got lapped by someone dragging an oxygen tank.”
    “I hate shopping for clothes,” Kate said. “I liked when I was in the military and all I needed was camouflage gear.”
    “Shopping can be fun. Especially when it’s for a con. It’s the first step in creating a character. Isn’t there anything you enjoy buying? Lingerie? Shoes? Jewelry?”
    “Shoes are okay. I don’t have to take my clothes off to try them on.”
    “You don’t like to take your clothes off?”
    “It’s the lighting in the dressing rooms. It makes you look fat and anemic. And pulling clothes on and off wrecks my hair.”
    Nick put his hand on her head and ruffled her hair. “Like this?”
    Kate jumped away. “Stop it! I have enough hair problems without you making it worse.”
    “Maybe if you ran a brush through it once in a while.”
    “Maybe if you’d keep your hands off it!”
    Nick grinned and hugged her into him. “Are we a team, or what? Stick with me and I’ll get you to enjoy taking your clothes off.”
    “You’re flirting with me.”
    “Stating a fact,” Nick said.
    First stop was a boutique with a French name and staffed by extremely thin young women with slicked-back hair and lots of eye shadow. Nick picked out a Michael Kors silk racerback tank top from the first display table he saw and handed it to Kate.
    “You would be a knockout in this,” he said.
    She held the tank out in front of her for inspection. Simple, stylish, and practical. Perfect for a relaxing lunch, a brisk walk on the beach, or hand-to-hand combat.
    “I like it,” she said, “but it’s four hundred seventy-five dollars. I can get a tank top for twenty-five dollars at T.J. Maxx.”
    “It’s not the same.”
    “Yeah, one is reasonably priced and the other is insane.”
    Nick took three of the tank tops from the table and handed them to the salesgirl, who was lucky she didn’t tip over, since the combined weight of the garments was probably greater than her own. “We’ll take these.”
    “No, we won’t,” Kate said.
    “You need those clothes.”
    “Fine, but we’ll get them at T.J. Maxx.”
    Nick pulled her aside out of earshot of the salesgirl. “No, we won’t. You need designer clothes, shoes, and accessories to instantly sell your cover to anyone who lays eyes on you. If you stroll off the plane in Bali wearing three grand worth of clothes and dragging a Louis Vuitton bag behind you like a gunnysack in a country where the average monthly wage is less than fifty dollars, you will do that.”
    “This is so totally wrong,” Kate said.
    “Obviously you opted out of the honey trap class when you were in SEAL boot camp.”
    “It conflicted with the one on nose breaking and eye gouging.”
    Nick added a $900 red silk sarong dress and an $800 cashmere T-shirt and handed the salesgirl his