With all the preparations made, all that was left was leaving.
Jack gave himself one last look over in the mirror. His black hair looked even darker with the pomade in it, and he ran a hand over it to smooth down a straggler. It left a little oily residue on his hand, and he wiped it off on the handkerchief then stuffed it back into the pocket of his khaki slacks. He tugged on the edges of his light blue polo and let out a breath.
It was time.
He picked up his straw fedora, folded his blazer over his arm and headed for the chamber.
Travers, two security men, and his luggage were there waiting for him.
“You have the watch?” Travers asked him.
Jack patted his pocket.
“You do know that you can’t return without it,” Travers went on. “The chamber will send you there, but you need the watch to return. The eclipse isn’t until the 25th, I’m afraid.”
The Council’s chamber didn’t need an eclipse or a watch to send him, but that was a one-way deal. If he wanted to make a return trip to the present, he’d need to keep an eye on the moon. Traveling with the Crosses, that hadn’t been an issue. They’d been granted a special key from the watchmaker himself. But the rest of the poor schlubs, himself now included, had to wait for an eclipse to activate the watch for a return trip.
“It’s all right. I’ll find something to amuse myself with,” Jack said, earning a disapproving frown.
“This isn’t a game, Mr. Wells. The mission is very—”
“It’s Jack. And don’t have kittens.”
Travers’ frown remained.
“I won’t let you down.”
The bulging vein in Travers’ neck shrank a little.
Jack looked over at the men behind the large control panel on the far side of the cylindrical chamber. “Make it a smooth one, gentlemen.”
Neither of them replied and Travers ushered Jack toward the enormous glass tube in the center of the circular room. Its halves separated for him to enter.
Travers extended his arm, gesturing for Jack to step inside. “No time to waste.”
“Here’s your hat what’s your hurry, huh?”
“Is there some reason to delay?” Travers asked.
Jack laughed and shook his head.
Travers nodded. “Godspeed, then.”
Jack moved onto the platform where his bag was waiting for him.
He turned back around and nodded that he was ready. Travers gave the signal and the two enormous halves of the large glass tube rotated together closing him inside.
The butterflies in his stomach began their preflight checks. His pulse sped up and a wave of adrenaline coursed through his body.
Travers looked at him once more. If he wanted to stop this, now was the time.
Stopping it was the last thing on Jack’s mind. He was ready. Ready for whatever was to come. He nodded toward Travers and barely a moment later he saw the first spark of blue lightning arc from the tips of his fingers and begin to snake its way up his arm. Then everything stopped and the world shook itself apart.
The first thing he noticed when he was himself again was the heat. He could feel the unrelenting sun beating down on him, feel the intense heat on his cheek. A gust of hot wind pushed against him as he opened his eyes. He shielded them against the brightness and the sand caught in the breeze.
The desert stretched out in front of him as far as he could see, but civilization wasn’t far away. Telephone and electrical wires ran from lonely poles across the barren landscape, and he heard the whine of tires on the tarmac behind him. He turned and the whoosh of a lone car on the desert highway blew another hot gust of wind against him. The long, flat blacktop cut its way through the sand toward civilization, toward the city. Just up ahead, an enormous sign rose out of the hard-packed dirt of the median between the long empty lanes of highway. It called out to anyone who could see it.
“Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas Nevada.”
~~~
Jack squinted up at the bright sun and put on his straw fedora. He shifted the jacket from his right arm to his left and picked up his suitcase. It was a good three miles into town from here. If he wanted to get to his hotel before the buzzards got him, he’d better get started.
He walked along the dirt shoulder in front of the entrance to the airport for about fifty yards before he heard the sound of another car coming. He turned toward it and started to walk backwards.
Shifting his suitcase to his left hand, he stuck out his right thumb. The car sped past, the driver never even looking his way. All he got out of it was a mouthful of dust.
Two more cars passed him by before a beat-up old pick-up truck pulled over to the shoulder just past him. He waved his thanks and hurried to catch up.
A man in his late fifties pushed back the brim of his cowboy hat. “Need a lift into town, son?”
Jack took off his hat and wiped his already sweaty forehead on his forearm. “I’d be grateful.”
The man gave a curt nod. Jack threw his bag into the flatbed and climbed into the passenger seat.
The man pulled back into one of the empty lanes of the deserted highway. He glanced over at Jack, giving him a quick appraising look, then squinted ahead at the blacktop. Waves of heat filtered up, blurring the painted lines.
“First time?”
Jack had been to Las Vegas once before, but none of the half dozen or so sprawling resorts had been here then. In fact, not much had been here then. In 1931, Vegas wasn’t much more than a has-been whistle stop and mining town with a few Old West style saloons.
After the Depression hit and his mother had to get a third job taking in other people’s laundry just to make ends meet, Jack left Chicago and headed west looking for work to help out.
He and five thousand other men found it in the desert just thirty miles from here, building Hoover Dam. Men worked during the day and the only place to play hard during the night was Las Vegas. The city lived off their wages, and anything left over was sent home.
The dirt roads and shanty towns he remembered were a far cry from this Las Vegas, Jack thought as they drove toward town. The Strip hadn’t been anything more than a two-lane road then, and now it was a six-lane highway dotted with luxury resorts of every kind imaginable. This wasn’t any Las Vegas he’d ever been to.
“Yup,” he said. “First time.”
The older man’s mouth curved into a knowing smile. “Save enough for a bus ticket home, son.”
Jack laughed. “Good idea.”
He sat back in his seat as they drove up Highway 91 toward the Strip. Empty desert gave way to mostly empty desert until about a mile later they hit the first of the big sprawling resorts.
The Spanish-style Hacienda Hotel was a little plain compared to the rest. In order to grab eyes, and the wallets attached to them, each hotel tried to outdo the last. Outrageous icons rose out of the flat desert. The Tropicana had its sixty-foot tall tulip-shaped fountain and the Dunes its thirty-five-foot tall fiberglass Sultan standing on top of it. Across the street from the Flamingo and its eighty-foot-tall champagne tower was Jack’s destination.
“That’s me,” he said, tilting his head toward the hotel and the oversized oasis in the parking lot, complete with giant palm trees and waterfall.
“Paradise, huh?” the man said.
“Let’s hope it lives up to its name.”
The man laughed. “This is your first time.”
He pulled his truck under the enormous porte-cochère and dropped Jack off.
It looked a little like Hawaii, Jack thought, as he made his way across the large lobby dotted with tropical plants, from orchids to Giant Birds of Paradise. Fake vines curled up the walls between potted palms and one entire wall was nothing but a mural of a deserted sandy beach.
A sign written in elegant cursive welcoming him to Paradise hung over the front desk. “You’ll never want to leave.”
For some reason, that struck him as more ominous than welcoming.
&n
bsp; A woman wearing a short white toga-like dress with gold trim and a thin golden headband smiled at him as she carried a tray of drinks across the lobby floor from the small bar on one side toward a bank of slot machines on the other.
But then again, maybe paradise wouldn’t be so bad after all.
Easels on either side of the front desk advertised the nightly floorshow, the Garden of Eden, complete with scantily-clad showgirls, and announced the 10th Anniversary party in the Avalon Club just over a week away on the 19th.
The 19th. The same night Susan Santo was murdered. Somehow, Jack doubted that was a coincidence.
Checking in got him a room in the Valhalla wing for the princely sum of ten dollars a night. He followed the bellboy back through the large casino, or at least what was considered large at the time. It was about one-hundred feet long and maybe forty feet wide and packed with gaming tables and even more people. Smoke from a hundred cigarettes hovered above them in a noxious cloud before slowly disappearing into the darkness above.
He followed the bellboy along the edge of the casino toward the back of the big gaming room and finally out into the bright sunlight again. It cut into his eyes and he slipped his Ray-Bans back on as they walked through the grounds.
The hotel was set-up in a staggered V-shape, with its point holding the lobby, casino, restaurants, bars and showrooms. The four hundred and fifty guest rooms were divided into two wings that stretched out into the desert. Lush gardens and an impressive swimming pool filled out the space in the middle. The rest of the property, dozens of acres from what he could see, was a green oasis in the desert, complete with golf course, tennis courts, shooting range and stables.
Jack tipped the bellboy and put his suitcase down on the king-size bed. The room was basic, but he didn’t need anything more than that.
He walked over to the balcony and pushed aside the filmy curtain that hung in front of the sliding glass doors. He could feel the heat outside through the glass. At least the room was air-conditioned.
He’d asked for the second floor. First was too vulnerable. It gave anyone with a mind two easy ways to break in. The downside to upstairs was that it limited his ways out.
He stepped out onto the balcony. It was narrow, just room enough for a small table and two metal chairs, and had a privacy wall dividing it from the rooms on either side.
Just beyond the small patio for the room downstairs was a very painful looking cement path. But it was only about ten feet down. It would do in a pinch. He leaned out and looked up. He’d have to find out what was up on the roof. Sometimes going up was better than going down.
He stepped back inside and closed the sliding glass doors behind him. The rest of the room was typical. King-sized bed, dresser, small desk, and table and chair. The walls were painted off-white except for the one behind the headboard. It was covered with a silver and sage colored wallpaper with a vaguely disturbing interlocking pattern.
Good thing the bed faced the other way.
He unzipped his bag and took the guns out of his luggage. He checked them over even though he’d done the same before he left. They’d been out of his hands when the staff packed his bag, and it was always better to be safe than sorry. Especially where guns were concerned.
The guns checked out all right, so he scouted for a decent hiding place. He didn’t want to walk around packing unless he had to, not in this town. He sure as heck didn’t want to leave them lying out in the open either.
The bottom drawer of the dresser had a good-sized hollow beneath it. He taped one there and the other behind the nightstand where he could get at it quickly if he had any unwelcome late night guests.
He put the roll of duct tape on the top shelf of the small hall closet. Never know when he might need that too.
He felt a little naked without his guns, but the last thing he needed was to get pinched by the police, or worse, the mob, if he was caught carrying them inside the hotel on his first day.
Gangsters didn’t like unknown quantities, and a stranger with a gun was high on that list. He’d learned that the hard way. His shoulder actually ached at the thought. He rolled it to work out the memory and the pain. He really had to start learning things the easy way. The hard was … too hard.
He took suits and shirts out of his suitcase, hanging them up in the bathroom then turning on the hot water tap to steam out the wrinkles. If he was going to get anywhere near Susan Santo he couldn’t look like a bum. She ran in finer circles. Circles that had sharp edges, though. The mob.
If he wanted to live long enough to save Susan Santo he’d have to steer clear of them as best he could. But that wasn’t going to be easy. Not here and not with her.
The only thing Vegas had more of than money was mob money. Nearly every place on the strip was owned, backed or controlled by organized crime, and the Paradise was no exception.
According to the dossier, the Chicago Outfit had put up the money to build this little slice of paradise. That made everything that happened here mob business, and mob business was serious business. Jack grew up on the North side of Chicago in the 1920s where Johnny Torrio, Al Capone, and the Black Hand weren’t just stories, they were flesh and blood, especially blood. Even though his family was middle class until the Crash pushed them down a few rungs, he knew the score and it was always in the Outfit’s favor. If Jack wanted to save Susan, he was going to have to tread very carefully.
The job would be hard enough even if she weren’t mixed up in mob business. But Susan Santo wasn’t just mixed up in it, she was married to it. Susan was the wife of Tony Santo, owner, operator and the big boss of the Paradise itself.
Chapter Four
“THIS IS THE ONE, baby. This is the one.”
The man sitting a few stools down from Jack muttered to himself as he put another nickel into the slot machine in front of him. He took a long swig from his cocktail, licked his lips and pulled the lever down.
When it came up another loser he swore softly under breath and took another drink from his highball glass. From the looks of his rumpled suit and the thin sheen of sweat on his face, this wasn’t his first drink or first time losing in Vegas.
He jabbed a cigarette into his mouth with his thumb and forefinger. He squinted as the smoke curled into his eyes. A short cough knocked the long ash from the end of his cigarette and sent it cascading down the front his shirt. He brushed it away with two disinterested swipes of his hand.
He fed the machine another nickel and then swore at it. “All right, you son of a bitch.”
Jack turned away and went back to watching the casino. He would have moved away from the man if the spot hadn’t given him the perfect view of the floor and the path through it. From here he could see people come and go and even catch snatches of conversations. He’d heard tiny bits and pieces about the Santos, but nothing too helpful yet.
He thought about making another pass through the casino floor, but it was thick with people and he didn’t want the eyes in the sky to wonder what he was doing. Above the casino floor was a network of catwalks. Two men stood on opposite sides and watched the action below. There was even what looked like a small room up there, complete with one-way mirrored glass.
And there were plenty of eyes on the floor. They were mostly watching for cheats, but anything irregular would catch their attention. The floormen watched the dealers and the pit boss watched the floormen. Games like Baccarat and craps had even more sets of eyes.
That was a lot of people watching.
For now, he was better off on the sidelines, waiting.
He might get lucky and see the Santos wander through the casino, but what he needed more than that was information. No one knew the lay of the land better than the locals. Now all he needed was one who was willing to talk.
A pretty little redheaded cocktail waitress in one of those half-toga dresses took an order from a well-dressed couple at the craps table. Jack caught her eye when she turned, but someone closer called out to her and with an apologe
tic smile she moved toward them and away from him.
Patience, son.
Jack turned back to his machine and put another nickel in. He pulled the arm and watched as the reels spun. One by one they each stopped with a chunk. Two cherries and a bar. The machine chimed. A winner. Twenty-five cents spilled out into the coin tray.
“All right,” Jack said as he scooped up his winnings.
The sweaty man a few seats down glared at him. Jack smiled and shrugged, but the man only frowned, stuck his cigarette back into his mouth and tried his own machine again. When the reels stopped, it was another loser, and Jack could see his frustration mount.
The man took a long drink this time, draining his glass. He spun on his stool and whistled through the gap in his front teeth. Impatiently, he waved for a waitress.
The pretty little redheaded waitress flattened her lips in that way women all over the world do when they’re not impressed but unable to say so. She arched a thin eyebrow and made her way across the casino floor to the gambler’s side.
“How can I help you?”
He waggled his empty glass in the air, the ice clinking against the sides, and then put it down on her tray.
“Another,” he said. “Less ice, more booze this time, okay, babe?”
He winked at her and turned back to his machine.
Forcing a smile, she turned to head back for more booze and ice when she noticed Jack. She took a few steps toward him and as she did her smile took on a little life.
She might be just what he was looking for.
“Hello,” she said, her eyes taking him in and clearly finding him a lot more appealing than her previous customer. Her lips became just a little bit fuller and her back arched just a little bit more as she tilted her head to the side in a very subtle seduction. “Anything I can get you?”
Jack smiled back and let his gaze wander just enough to let her know he noticed.
Jacks Are Wild: An Out of Time Novel (Saving Time, Book 1) Page 3