Shannon took a thrilling breath and grabbed Antonio’s hand. “It’s all perfect. More beautiful than anything I’ve ever seen done in twenty minutes, and I’m from Hollywood. Look at that moon – gorgeous.”
Antonio nodded. “I’m not one to brag, but it did take a few phone calls to get that moon scheduled for this evening.” His BlackBerry buzzed and he answered. “This is Antonio.”
“This kid’s a prick.”
Antonio excused himself from Shannon and stepped a discreet distance away. “I’m glad everything is going well. I’m here with Miss Moon now, who is anxiously awaiting his arrival.”
The limo driver grunted. “She must be on heroin like everybody else in that business. This walking boner has rolled down his window five times to flirt with girls at stoplights. I had to take backwoods roads so he would knock it off.”
Antonio suppressed a smile. “Excellent. When do you anticipate arrival at the casino?”
“If he doesn’t jump out to fuck a deer we’ll be there in fifteen, maybe twenty minutes. I’m flooring it to stay on schedule.”
“Very good. Call me when you enter the property.”
“One more thing. Aside from the slut mobiles, I’d say there’s a least three media vans following me, not to mention an SUV with about ten antennas and a dish on top of it.”
Antonio cringed inwardly, cursing Damien Valentine. “We’ll be prepared. Thank you.”
“Let me tell you something else. If this punk doesn’t tip me I’m grabbing the first television camera I see and I’m telling the world what a first class moron this kid…”
“See you then,” said Antonio, ending the call and turning to Shannon. “Brandon is on schedule. They had to detour for traffic, but he sends his love.”
She inspected his face. “You’re lying.”
“Guilty,” admitted Antonio. “Traffic wasn’t that bad.”
She laughed. “You should have been an actor.”
“Who says that I am not?” Offering his arm to her, Antonio escorted his young guest into the living room where there was a glass of champagne waiting on a silver tray. “As I promised, Miss Moon. One glass of Roederer Cristal.”
“If you don’t stop I’m going to kidnap you and take you with me to L.A.” She took a sip as she picked up her cigarette pack. “Damn. I’m out. I think I mentioned it to Max but then I spilled my drink all over his pants. Could you…” She stopped talking and instead stared at a gold Cartier cigarette case in the head butler’s outstretched hand.
“Compliments of Max,” said Antonio. “I believe you’ll find your brand inside.”
Seemingly speechless, she turned the case in her hands. There was a pink diamond on the side and she pressed it. The case opened smoothly, like it was taking a breath. Resting within were twenty perfectly aligned cigarettes behind a knotted pink ribbon. “Wow. This pushes back my resolution to quit smoking at least three months.” She kept staring at the case. “It’s just beautiful. How sweet is he?” She withdrew a cigarette and allowed Antonio to light it for her. “Max is your protégé, isn’t he? I can tell he looks up to you.”
“We have spent a considerable amount of time together over the years.”
“So you guys are friends?”
Antonio realized he was answering that question for the second time in the same evening. “Yes, we are.”
Shannon clicked the Cartier case closed. “Do you guys hang-out outside of work? Go to clubs. Pick up chicks. Stuff like that?”
Antonio laughed. “I work a considerable amount of hours. I spend my free time in quiet pursuits.”
“Is he married? He kind of freaked out when he saw me naked. Only married guys are that twitchy.” She took another drink of champagne. “He mentioned a girl. Trixie, right?”
Antonio watched her casual mannerisms very closely. “Though I hesitate to delve into such subjects in regards to anyone, whether their acquaintance is of a personal or professional nature, I may make an exception if I were privy as to the reason for your curiosity.” He arched an eyebrow at her to punctuate his point.
She arched her own eyebrow back at him. “I can do it pretty good, huh?”
“Very impressive.”
“Oh Antonio,” she sighed, dropping down to the leather sectional and dribbling champagne across her peasant blouse. “Shit.” She took Antonio’s offered handkerchief and patted at her breasts. “Who knows where I come up with half the stuff that comes out of my mouth? Maybe I’m just nosy. It’s a Hollywood thing.”
“In that case, Miss Moon, I will respectfully decline answering your question.”
“I knew you were going to say that.”
The opaque vases arrived along with a gumless Stacey who was now wearing eye shadow, wet lipstick, and to the surprise of Antonio, no longer wearing a bra beneath her uniform shirt. Her nipples protruded as if they, too, were anxious to meet Brandon.
“Thank you Stacey,” said Antonio. “You may go. I’ll place these myself.”
Stacey’s eyes searched the room hungrily. “I’ll do it.”
Antonio took the box of vases from her. “Have a nice evening, Stacey.”
Shannon stepped up beside him and took in an eyeful of Stacey’s uniform shirt. “Gee, does it feel cold in here to you, Antonio?”
Antonio directed Stacey to the door. “Thank you again.”
As the door firmly closed Shannon said, “Brandon brings out the inner slut in the best of them.” She turned the Cartier case in the light. “Okay, what if I wanted to know because I thought he was cute?”
Antonio gave the vases to one of the chef’s assistants. “Then I would inform you that Max is not married.”
“Are him and Trixie serious?”
“That discussion would be better had with Max. I’m sure you understand.”
“The butler code of silence?”
“Good old fashioned ethics, Miss Moon.” Antonio answered his BlackBerry. “This is Antonio.”
The limo driver said, “We’re here.”
“Did you arrive to the casino with your escorts intact?”
“A whole convoy.”
Antonio informed Chef Carlson that dinner would be served in less than ten minutes. To Shannon he asked, “Would you like to accompany me downstairs?”
She fell back onto the couch and pulled the champagne bottle from the ice bucket. “Antonio,” she said, “there’s not enough umbrellas in the world for what you’re about to see.”
Chapter Twelve
Antonio barely made it into the porte-cochere.
It was like stumbling upon the red carpet at a music awards gala. More accurately, it was like being trapped on the red carpet during an emergency evacuation of a music awards gala.
The valet port was packed with paparazzi, fans, spectators, innocent bystanders and somewhere, he hoped, security officers. It was a bobbling mass of teenage heads out of which stuck hands holding picture phones. Photographers climbed onto the roofs of gridlocked cars. Behind him a wave of latecomers were attempting to barge their way out of the lobby’s glass doors. In front of him the frenetic horde of teenage girls raised their cell phones like an offering to the gods and pressed him, the pagan interloper, continuously back from whence he came. One in particular convulsed against him so lewdly he was afraid someone might see them together. When a random elbow cracked into his jaw he knew that he must move onward with all haste, or perish.
Going back through the doors would be impossible. He expected them to shatter at any moment to expunge the teens from the lobby. Going forward was surely to face one’s own mortality. He had to get Mark Ford on the phone, but first the limousine driver. When he attempted to retrieve his BlackBerry his fingers plunged into someone’s waistband. He yanked his hand free. The young lady didn’t seem to have noticed.
He leaned as close to her as he dared and shouted, “Excuse me, Miss!”
She stopped jumping and screamed into his face. “This is fuckin AWESOME!”
“Would y
ou be so kind as to get my phone!”
“HUH?”
“My PHONE. Please get my PHONE.”
The young girl’s cheeks were slapped red from exhilaration. Her head dropped quickly and hands fumbled at his pocket, then at his rear end, then at his waist. She bounced back into view. “HERE YA GO!”
Antonio grasped it tightly in both hands. “Thank you very much! And please watch your language.”
“This is fuckin AWESOME!”
“Yes, quite awesome,” said Antonio as he fitted his BlackBerry tightly to his ear.
He could barely hear the limousine driver. “…a zoo…”
“Is he IN THE LIMO with you?”
“…trapped in here.”
“Have him CLIMB THROUGH to the FRONT SEAT with you.”
“…with me? Why?”
“Roll down the BACK WINDOW so they will think ONLY THE MANAGER is inside the limo. Do you understand that?”
“…inside the limo?”
“Yes!”
“Getting out!”
“No! Do NOT get out!”
“No me! Him!”
“Who?”
“…idiot is getting OUT.”
“I thought you said you CAN’T GET out?”
“…sunroof…”
Antonio lowered the BlackBerry just as the visage of Brandon rose above the crowd like a levitating messiah. The dome of the porte-cochere resonated with the screaming of BranFrans as cellular flashes lit the night like bursts of lightening. His image flickered in the constant shutter-clicks of photos, as if he were materializing into this world from a different reality. With the crazed motions of a being erupting from his worldly constraints, Brandon ripped off his tank top and threw it into the crowd. A dozen hands swallowed it whole. He raised his muscled arms over his head and shouted something completely inappropriate considering the average age of most of the young women in attendance.
Antonio stabbed buttons on his BlackBerry.
The answering voice: “Where the hell are YOU?”
“Trapped. Where are you?”
Mark Ford answered: “I’m in the shrubbery. Can’t move any closer. I was thinking about getting a machine gun.”
“Call the police.”
“Some fourteen-year-old just grabbed my ass.”
“Mark!”
“What?”
“Call the POLICE.”
“Well it’s not her fault – I kind of stuck it out towards her…”
“Call the POLICE to control this MOB.”
Pause. “The real police?”
“YES!” The glass doors behind Antonio finally gave way and slammed into his spine, propelling him headfirst into the crowd. “CALL THEM NOW!” He clutched his BlackBerry tightly before the riptide of madness sucked him towards the limo in a slurry of waving arms, sharp-edged hips, and whiplashing pony tails.
Brandon was screaming over the deafening shouts of his fans. “If you want my SEX in your SEX then you’re gonna hafta putta HEXON ME…”
Directly in front of Antonio’s suicide rush, two girls ricocheted off one another and left a two-foot void in their wake. He dove for it. Another throng of fleshy midriffs enveloped his person. To his right a redheaded girl dropped her camera and bent over to pick it up. Antonio hiked up his trousers and stepped over her into another fist of teenage angst that held him tightly. He was barely two rows away from the limousine, but here the battlements were strongest: a solid wall of interlocking BranFans with matching t-shirts and hot pants was reinforced by a layer of battle-hard paparazzi, both willing to shed blood and possibly die on the battlefield. Just as Antonio was considering dismissing his qualms about physically moving people out of his way, Brandon stomped across the roof of the limousine towards the trunk. The fans followed him en masse. Antonio threw himself between two BranFans, knocking into the shoulder of a paparazzo, his right arm briefly ensnared in the man’s shoulder bag, then quickly extricated his extremity just as the passenger side door of the limo popped open.
The driver shouted from within: “ANTONIO!”
He dove headfirst into the leather interior. A stampede of rushing fans slammed into the door, crashing it shut, a few faces hitting the window and smearing it with lipstick.
Antonio arranged himself into a sitting position and took inventory of his appearance. He was missing two buttons from his jacket sleeve and his tie had somehow come undone. He retied it using the visor mirror. “Thank you,” he said to the driver.
“Look, I know you guys got a mess on your hands here, but I’m missing other calls. The longer I sit around the more money I lose, know what I mean?”
Antonio fitted his BlackBerry safely into the belt holster. “Bring down the privacy panel. I want to speak to Brandon’s manager.”
The driver hit the button. “Can you get us outta here?”
“No, but I’ve called in reinforcements.”
The back of the limo was dark save for the glow of a laptop screen illuminating a man’s face and eyeglasses.
“Sorry to interrupt, sir. Are you Martin Kline, the tour manager?”
“Look,” said Marty. “I know you’re pissed off about all this but the kid does what he wants to do. I’m not his parole officer or his momma, not that he would listen to either one of them any more than he listens to me.”
“If you don’t mind,” said Antonio. “I’m coming back to try and arrange a safe retreat.”
Marty waved him over. “Come on in, the water’s fine. Who are you anyways?”
Antonio swiveled around and stuck his feet through the privacy window and leveraged his body up and over, emerging on the other side sitting opposite the tour manager. “Antonio Cruz, Head Butler. Welcome to the Native Sun Casino.” He pressed a button on his BlackBerry and asked, “Would you like a refill on your drink, Mr. Kline?”
“You bet. And call me Marty.”
“Hello Sonny. It appears that I’ll need your help after all.” He constructed a fresh drink from the contents of the sidebar. “Report to the recycle room on the lower level. When you hear the limousine honk, raise number three bay door. You will have to be ready to lower it again immediately. Have two golf carts waiting in the freight elevator. Security top and bottom, plus handlers en route. One more thing. Procure from retail a Native Sun Casino baseball cap and nylon jacket. Thank you, Sonny.” He splashed a touch of Perrier over the scotch and ice, and then handed it to Marty. “I think you’ll find that the carbonation will settle your stomach.”
“How did you know my stomach was acting up?”
“The roll of antacids on the seat next to you.”
“That kid’s given me an ulcer. Hey. Do you think I say fucking wrong, I mean, grammatically speaking?”
Antonio was about to answer when the wail of police sirens cut through the din of BranFans. “I think it’s time for Brandon to join us.”
Marty took a healthy slug of his drink. “I guess I should go and get him.”
“I don’t think that will be necessary.”
Brandon’s legs dropped through the sunroof, kicking in the air until they found the seat, followed quickly by his bare torso and flushed face. “Somebody called the cops!” He dropped into the seat. A black bra sailed through the sunroof and into his lap. He picked up and sniffed loudly. “Smells like teen titty!” He suddenly noticed there was a third person in the limo. “Who are you?”
“Antonio Cruz, Head Butler. Welcome to the Native Sun Casino.” Antonio reached into his inner jacket pocket and produced a slightly smashed clipped white rose. “It suffered some damage during transport,” said Antonio. “But Miss Moon sends her love.”
Brandon glanced at Marty and then flung the bra back through the sunroof. “Thanks,” he muttered, taking the rose and putting it to his nose, staring at Antonio over the spread of petals.
Antonio turned and said to the driver, “We’ll be ready to leave in a moment. We’re going around the back, down the delivery route to Recycle Dock Three.”
&
nbsp; Through the tinted windows the broad backs of Connecticut State Troopers could be seen forming a barrier around the limo.
Antonio’s BlackBerry buzzed. “This is Antonio.” He listened for a moment. “Brandon,” he said finally, “please move over on the seat, sir. Just a bit to your right.”
Brandon frowned. “What for?”
A foot clad in a brown leather Oxford plunged through the sunroof and stamped down on Brandon’s groin.
Brandon screamed in perfect pitch, his body jackknifing.
The foot was followed by the body of a man who, when he was finished climbing through the sunroof and sitting on the seat, said, “Hey Antonio, how’s your night going?”
Antonio nodded in greeting. “Interesting. And yours?”
Mark Ford found the button for the sunroof and pressed it. “I just got hit in the face with a black bra.” He looked at Brandon, who was curled up on the seat, moaning. “What happened to him?”
Antonio said, “He was assaulted by your right foot.”
Marty laughed. “At least now he has a reason to grab it.”
Antonio said to the driver, “We’re ready to move.” He extracted the garbage bag from the trash receptacle in the side panel, and filled it with ice from the wet bar. He handed it to Brandon. “For your injury, sir.”
As the limousine slowly rolled through the crowd, Brandon cradled the ice bag in his lap; eyes squeezed shut, teeth chattering.
Antonio asked, “Mark, did you happen to see our Asian nemesis out among the throng?”
“No, but I was distracted by the jail-bait brigade.”
Marty looked up from his laptop. “Are you talking about the Kamikaze Cam?”
“I’m afraid so,” said Antonio. “He is on premises, but we have security and surveillance on the look out. As soon as we find him he will be expelled from the property.”
“Good luck,” said Marty, and tossed back the last of his drink.
“My nuts,” moaned Brandon. “M-m-m-my nuts are in my guts.”
“Hey,” said Mark. “That rhymed. This kid is good. What do you think Antonio?”
“I think we may all be able to identify with that particular feeling before this weekend is out.”
CASINO SHUFFLE Page 9