Lucky Now and Then (Lucky O'Toole Vegas Adventure)

by Deborah Coonts

  His concern was nice—unnecessary, but nice. “We’ll be fine, thank you.”

  He nodded and turned to go, although I could tell he wasn’t happy leaving us there. He had no way of knowing that this rooftop was my backyard . . . literally. The Babylon—my father’s hotel—was home. Actually, the three of us lived at the hotel, my parents in one apartment, me in a smaller one next door. While I liked the convenience—my job kept me on perpetual problem-solving duty—it had pretty much driven a nail in the coffin of my life. Of course, my former life had pretty much been torched anyway.

  Teddie—a one-man firestorm.

  He had lived in the apartment above mine in the Presidio, a high-end apartment building not far from the Babylon. A tower of steel and glass, it would be visible from my current perch, if I chose to look. I didn’t.

  Teddie and I had leveraged a best friendship into a love affair. I knew it had been a mistake from the beginning, but I’m easily led astray by love. The short of it is, it was great, then it was gone. Teddie left, vanishing into a life as a touring rock star and leaving nothing but memories. It still hurt like hell.

  “She just disappeared.”

  “What?” I turned back to my mother, my thoughts having a hard time regrouping. “Who?”

  “Eugenia Campos.” My mother darted me with a quick scowl. “Were you thinking of someone else?”

  I ignored her jab. I’m sure she could tell she had scored a bull’s eye—she just had that knack. “Disappeared. That’s what everyone says. But a mother of a small child doesn’t just willingly vanish, leaving her child.”

  “She was a conniving, heartless bitch.” The venom in my mother’s voice went beyond jealousy. No, there was something way more powerful there. “Just because she gave birth doesn’t mean she was a doting mother.”

  “Point taken. Did Father demand a paternity test?”

  Mona pursed her lips as if this was the first time that idea had been broached. “Not that I know of.”

  “I wonder why?” I shelved that thought for later and shifted gears. “Let’s say your assessment of Ms. Campos’s character is accurate.” I tugged at the shawl that had slipped off one of her shoulders, securing it around her. “By all accounts, Eugenia was on the cusp of getting everything she wanted. Father was willing to support both her and her son, to treat the boy as his legal offspring. If that was the case, why would Eugenia leave with nothing?”

  “She got scared?” Mona offered the weak explanation, but even I could tell she didn’t really believe it herself. “She tried to kill us, remember?”

  “How could I forget?” A bomb . . . exactly like the one that had nearly killed me today.

  “I always thought there was something about that day you never told me.”

  I recoiled in shock. “Really? Like what?”

  Mona looked at me: her eyes were troubled. “I don’t know. For weeks after, you had terrible nightmares. Everyone said that was normal, a natural effect of the trauma. But it wasn’t like you.” She waved her hand in dismissal. “Maybe I was just seeing ghosts. Vegas was like that then, dangers lurking in corners, behind parked cars, everywhere. Probably my imagination running wild. That’s what your father always said.”

  I cast back in time. Hazy memories, diffuse, like looking through a thin veil, I couldn’t find any clarity. “I don’t remember—not the explosion, not the dreams, none of it.”

  “You were pretty traumatized. You fainted. I remember that—scared me to death. And when you came back around, you remembered nothing. The doctors all said it was a normal type of amnesia.”

  “Coming within a whisker of death can have that effect.” I’ve been close enough to death a couple of times to feel the Grim Reaper’s breath on my neck, so I knew what I was talking about.

  “They said you just needed the right trigger to bring the memories back. Something is blocking you.” Mona’s simple observation raised a host of possibilities.

  But did I really want to know?

  1982

  Las Vegas

  Albert Rothstein stood, feet planted shoulder width apart, hands on his hips, fighting worry and his growing anger as he looked out his office window. He’d been a fool to let them take him last night . . . an arrogant fool. Now he had more problems than a wet spring and a delayed building project.

  Boogie Fleischman. A wart on the world’s ass. Rothstein ached to kill him, but he had to think. Crider and the trigger man—they were serious complications. But every problem had a solution. He just had to find it.

  Then there was Mona. Fifteen when Lucky was born? That couldn’t be true, could it? If so, that little complication might prove a bit more difficult.

  He tried to park his worry for the moment. From four stories up, the view out his office window allowed him to survey the entire project. Behind schedule—thanks to a wetter than normal spring—they’d starting pouring the foundation only last week. Despite the gaping hole and only the bare bones of a structure taking shape, Rothstein could picture the building rising in front of him.

  The Lucky Aces. His dream. His future.

  Goddamn it, he’d done it. And he’d be damned to an eternity in hell before he let them take it from him.

  All those years of fighting, of scratching out some respect, of trying to play the game but keep his nose clean, fear had been his constant companion. Fear of a bullet in the back of his head if he stepped on the wrong toes. Fear of being caught in the Kefauver net and thrown in with the wise guys he’d had to do business with. But life had played out for him, and somehow he’d convinced Mr. Thomas and his bank to lend him the money. That along with a serious dose of junk bonds, a new financial instrument. He was about as far from a Wall Street suit as it was possible to be, but Rothstein had done his research. Although sounding too good to be true, apparently junk bonds were the real deal. A risky deal, but one with odds well within his tolerances. A betting man, he understood odds. The hotel was all that mattered. Albert Rothstein shook his head and pressed his lips together. For a kid from the wrong side, life was really looking up. Or it had been until his little trip to the desert. They thought they had him. They always did. But they’d underestimated him before.

  He glanced at his watch. 4:14. He’d better hurry if he wanted to be on time. Grabbing his jacket off the coat tree in the corner, he took one last glance around, then flicked off the lights. He still wasn’t used to running his own show . . . and his office was bare bones compared to the lush digs he’d had as Operations Manager at the Desert Inn. But this office, with its metal desk, chairs he’d pulled from the curb in front of one of his neighbor’s houses, and an old couch with a couple of busted springs even Goodwill didn’t want, was his . . . all his. With a worried glance at the photo of Mona— the mother of his child and the love of his life, her head thrown back in laughter—he pulled the door behind him. Those guys in the desert couldn’t be right—if she’d been underage, she would’ve told him. The hint of his returning smile lifted the corners of his mouth as he shrugged into his suit jacket. His family, his hotel. Who would’ve thought it?

  Jimmy G’s Bar and Grill wasn’t far. Mona and Lucky would be waiting. And Jimmy would make sure their secret was safe.

  Matilda, his secretary, stopped him on his way through the vestibule. Her hand over the mouthpiece of the telephone receiver, she extended it toward him. “It’s for you.” Her lips, painted red, pursed in seriousness. Her bleached blond hair piled on her head and teased within an inch of its life just screamed former Strip dancer, which was true. What Matilda lacked in office skills she more than compensated for with ambition and a desperate need to better herself. Albert Rothstein could identify. So there they were, two unlikely allies in the mad scramble up the ladder of life.

  “Not now. I’m late.” He buttoned the middle button, then reached for his fedora.

  “She says it’s important.”

  Chapter Two

  July 2012

  Las Vegas

  MOTHER
and I found Father exactly where the paramedic had told us we would: in his apartment, propped up on the couch, with what I guessed to be a triple dose of single malt clutched in his right hand. Shirtless, his torso tightly bound in thick white surgical tape, he looked ready to spit nails . . . or shoot somebody. Not that I was surprised or anything—the day hadn’t been without its challenges.

  Despite looking a bit tattered around the edges, with the butterfly holding closed the cut over his cheekbone and the bruise blooming underneath it, he still oozed a masculine appeal. Handsome, with chiseled features and a body to match, salt-and-pepper hair cut short, and eyes that could shift from warm to deadly in a blink, he emanated a vital, virile force, like a lion winged by a hunter’s bullet.

  Not killing him had been Albert Campos’s first mistake.

  Although I’d long ago grown accustomed to his presence, today I recognized something new—something feral—something I hadn’t allowed myself to see before. Wearing blinders, especially where loved ones are concerned, was one of my best things. Of course, I’d always known my father was a man who solved his own problems, but I had never seriously contemplated exactly what that might mean.

  “Where have you two been?” His gravelly growl lacked its normal force. Those broken ribs probably put a bit of a crimp in his bluster, and thankfully, they would keep him moving slowly so he couldn’t do anything rash. Not that he would, but I’d learned long ago it was never wise to underestimate the lethal capabilities of a cornered animal.

  Mother rushed to his side. As she lowered herself to sit on the edge of the couch next to him, he winced but still managed to look happy to see her. His wife clutched at his free hand, holding it tightly for a moment in both of hers. Then she extricated one of her hands and reached to touch his face lightly before smoothing his hair—normally every follicle would be in place, but today his hair looked as ruffled as I felt. “Oh Albert, what a day.” Her simple words carried a whole conversation, pregnant with unspoken emotion.

  My father lifted my mother’s hand, pressing the back of it to his lips as he shut his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, love had replaced the hint of feral I’d seen there. Like an evil spirit banished by an exorcist, his tension fled and his posture eased as he settled back into the pillows under his shoulders, holding her hand in his lap.

  “Are you comfortable?” I asked, feeling like an outsider.

  His eyes swiveled to me as he took a sip from his glass. “I’ve been better. You?”

  “There’s an epidemic of that going around.” I stepped to the bar and poured myself a liberal splash of Wild Turkey 101. As I raised the glass to my lips, I was surprised to see my hand was shaking. I sloshed the liquid around my mouth, savoring the heady aromas, then swallowed as I glanced at my reflection in the mirrored wall behind the rows of bottles. Other than a smudge of soot on my cheek and a red scrape on my chin, I looked like myself: light brown hair touching my shoulders, side-swept bangs that tickled my blue eyes, which, come to think of it, were a trifle larger than normal. High cheekbones and full lips bracketed by smile lines completed the me I knew myself to be. Somehow I found that comforting—a constant in a world that was shifting like sand under my feet.

  Needing a dose of normal, I let my eyes sweep around the vast room—three thousand feet of high ceilings and burnished hardwood floors, dotted with bright colored, hand-knotted Persian carpets made from the finest spun silk. The walls were either painted a warm peach or were upholstered with leather and featured lesser works by the Grand Masters from the Big Boss’s large collection, which was housed in a special gallery in the Bazaar, the Babylon’s row of exclusive shops. Brass sconces and appropriately focused spotlights lent comforting light and subtle accents to the art. Clusters of chairs, sofas and tables made from hides of various beasts, exotic woods and leaded glass occupied the carpets making the vast room warm and somehow homey. This being July, the movable fireplace remained unlit and tucked into a corner, but I had known the Big Boss to lower the temp on the air conditioning and light the fire. “Vegas, it’s all about setting the stage,” he used to tell me. I smiled at the memory.

  A bit calmer now, I turned and wandered back, rejoining my parents. I took a chair near the end of the couch. The three of us said nothing for a bit as we took in the view out the wall of windows. A runway of neon, the Strip stretched away from us. No matter how many times I looked through this glass, I never tired of the Strip.

  Vegas, my town . . . my home. I belonged here and I wasn’t about to let anyone, alive or dead, mess with my magic.

  I kept my eyes on the view. “Consider the Campos matter closed. As you said, no use disturbing old bones.” Only after I had said the words did I allow myself to look at my father. I waited until his eyes met mine and I was sure I had his undivided attention. “There’s something between you and Boogie Fleischman. I don’t know what it is, and I don’t want to know. But it isn’t good, that’s easy to see. So I’m telling you to take your own advice: let it go. If you can’t do it for you, or for Mother, do it for me. By my way of thinking, you owe me that much.”

  That got a grudging half-grin out of him. The set of his jaw and the tick that worked in one cheek hinted that the bad blood ran deep. After a moment, he lifted his glass to me. A simple gesture seemingly lacking in appreciation—I’d pretty much saved his ass today, after all. But between us, gratitude and thanks were inappropriate.

  No, the Rothsteins took care of their own.

  It was just what we did.

  Vegas

  1982

  Eugenia Campos tugged the heavy earring off her right ear. The gold veneer of the cheap trinket had worn thin in spots, exposing the pot metal underneath. She sneered at the bit of junk as she placed it next to the phone, then dialed the number she knew by heart with her knuckle—she wasn’t going to spoil a great nail job, not even for Albert Rothstein.

  Her heart hammered. Her life depended on getting this right. Boogie had said so and she believed him. Closing her eyes against the memory of his fingers digging into her arm, the dead look in his eyes, the booze on his breath, she filled her lungs with air, then let it out slowly, summoning a composure she didn’t feel. But she could fake it . . . hell, she’d been faking everything for so long that she’d forgotten what was real.

  She pressed the receiver to her ear when she heard the number ringing, tapping one perfectly manicured fingernail on the chipped Formica countertop as she waited. Pretty soon she’d have real gold—lots of it—no more of the cheap stuff. No, she was done with cheap: cheap jewelry, cheap hotels, cheap men.

  Eugenia Campos was moving uptown.

  After several rings, a woman answered. “Albert Rothstein’s office. May I help you?” Eugenia sneered. That uppity Matilda Delacroix.

  “Put him on.” Eugenia didn’t waste party manners on people who didn’t matter.

  “He’s on his way out the door and he’s in a hurry.” Matilda’s voice turned chilly.

  Eugenia squared her shoulders, pulling herself together. “It’s important. Real important. I got news he’s gonna wanna hear.”

  She heard muffled voices as Matilda’s hand covered the mouthpiece. Then Albert’s voice boomed over the line. “This better be good. Make it quick.”

  “You really should treat people better, Albert.” Eugenia kept the tremor out of her voice. “You kick a cur, they’ll bite you.”

  “You’re getting your cut.” Eugenia could almost picture him as he propped his butt on the corner of the desk and shifted the phone to his good ear. “Now, what’s so important?”

  “The attorney general, he wants to meet.”

  “Davis? I just had lunch with him yesterday. He didn’t mention anything.”

  “At the club, I know.” She could hear the irritation in his voice, the dismissal. She bet he was tugging at his tie—he’d started wearing them every day now that he was hitting the big time, owning his own place and all, and he hated the things. Like a noose just asking for some
one to pull it tight. Makes it damn easy for someone to string you up. His words, not hers, but they’d made her smile, as if he could glimpse his future. “This ain’t exactly something you want thrown around at the Las Vegas Country Club, is it?”

  Silence signaled the point was hers.

  “There’s some trouble from back east. Like I said, the A.G. wants to meet.”

  “Fine. When?”

  “Now.”

  “Not possible.”

  “Well,” Eugenia cooed. “You know those big shots are busy people. Davis had a moment in his schedule where he was free from his handlers. You understand why he wants this to be . . . private.”

  Silence once again.

  Eugenia felt a bead of sweat trickle between her breasts. She reached a finger down the crevice and flicked it away. Sweat stains on her best dress wouldn’t do . . . and satin stained worse than anything. Davis had told her she looked just like Jackie O. She wasn’t sure who he meant, but he’d made it sound like a compliment so she’d taken it as such. “He said it would be quick.” She cringed as her words rushed out making her sound flustered and hurried. Nervously, she reached for her other earring, tossed it on the counter with its mate, then shifted the phone to her other ear.

  “Where?”

  That one terse word made her relax—he’d taken the bait. She shifted the phone, then cooed, “Mama Farino’s. The booth in the back.”

  * * *

  Ignoring the drunk huddled in the corner, Albert paused in the doorway of his office building to admire the framework of Lucky Aces. Yes, it was coming along nicely, and once it was pretty far along, he’d turn the wrecking ball on the office building. The location was perfect for a multi-level parking garage.

  Slapping on a pair of Ray-Bans, he strode with purpose the half block to Fremont Street. Thankfully, the traffic was thin, although the sidewalks were filling with folks looking for the evening’s action. The neon signs blinked at him: Binion’s, the Horseshoe—Glitter Gulch they called it. The sign he planned for Lucky Aces would put them all to shame, and it would be right on the corner, exposed to not only Fremont Street traffic but the cars on Las Vegas Boulevard as well. He could close his eyes and see it. It had to be the best . . . the biggest and the best.