by B. V. Larson
I shrugged. “Don’t have it.”
McKesson looked like he wanted to lunge at me from across the table. “Just taking it from me was your sixth felony by my count.”
“You’ve got a fair number of them racked up yourself,” I said, enjoying the process of baiting him for a change. I saw his face grow purple. I knew he couldn’t go back to the station having lost his gun and his suspect. He would be humiliated.
I put up a flat palm to halt his next tirade. “Calm down. I left it in the car. Before you ask, your cuffs are there too.”
The detective showed me his teeth and gave a tiny snort, nodding. “Smooth,” he said. He stood up then and fished inside his coat. I thought for a second he was pulling out a twenty to pay for the meal after all. I was disappointed when he threw down a business card with his name and cell number on it. “If you ever feel like turning yourself in, or you have a wild flash of returning memories, give me a call, Draith,” he said.
As he left, I called out after him, “You want to know how to find me?”
“I’ll find you,” he said, pausing at the door. “All I have to do is follow the trail of bodies.”
I paid the tab with Tony’s folded twenties and walked out soon afterward. Somehow, I didn’t feel relieved in the slightest after my encounter with the law. I now understood much more thoroughly why Holly had told me to avoid them. Still, I had made a connection. McKesson and I had met, sized each other up, and both lived through the experience.
What the hell, I thought. For all I knew, it would blossom into a wonderful friendship. Somehow, however, I doubted it.
I wandered the Strip for an hour or so, thinking hard. There were tourists and palm trees everywhere. The tourists seemed to fit the scene. I tried to recall if the city had always had so many palm trees, but couldn’t. Maybe they were more noticeable because they were moving. Their fronds waved and rattled in the cool autumn winds.
I’d learned a lot about what was going on in this town, and some of it was very hard to believe. I did believe it, however. My acceptance of the situation taught me something about myself. I decided that this had to be one of my personality traits, or based upon a personal philosophy. I knew I believed in playing the cards life dealt me, rather than whining or dreaming about a better hand. I was a pragmatic person. I didn’t believe in witches or aliens—but if you plunked one down in front of me and it performed as advertised, I would change my mind on the spot. Maybe that sort of flexibility had allowed me to survive in this tough city full of strange people, things, and events.
As best I could sum up the whole situation, I was caught up in the center of a struggle between powerful people. They called themselves “The Community” and they were a distrustful, secretive bunch. I was reminded of the organized crime families that had run this city in the past, when this was the center of vice in the nation. In recent years, with the spread of vice into the diffuse online environment, their power had faded somewhat. Something new and possibly worse had come here in their place.
This new power was based, as far as I understood it, on objects or locations. They performed various tricks, such as Tony’s sunglasses making metals soft and flexible. I supposed Meng’s object, that hood ornament, gave her the power to teleport people here and there. I could see how useful that could be. Being able to open a lock was one thing, being able to pop a rival into a room with no exit was quite a bit more powerful. Meng had indicated, however, that her object worked within a domain. I suspected that meant it would only work in and around the sanatorium.
Tony’s sunglasses seemed to be different. They had worked at different spots around the city. Looking back on our conversation, I had to surmise that Meng had decided to let me go with the sunglasses to snoop around for her. Perhaps during our interview, while I sat there smugly with my pistol, she had really been deciding my fate. Maybe it had been within her power to instantly kill me. If she could have sent me anywhere, she could have popped me ten floors up into the air and dropped me onto the concrete. Or, maybe she could have put me into a sewage tank full of bubbling liquid far below the earth to drown. Instant death had been facing me, and I had been blissfully clueless. I guessed she had given me the sunglasses and let me go so I could use them to gather information. So far, they had been a significant help.
After encountering two of these powers, I had to wonder what else was out there. I’d seen evidence of more strange effects. That lava slug that had burned my house had come from somewhere. And Tony had been filled with sand while driving along the street—that could have been Meng, but the street was nowhere near the sanatorium. What about the bum in the painless flames? What about the rest of the dead?
Vegas casinos never close—at least they don’t these days. In the middle of the night, you can walk in and throw your money down. When red-eyed wanderers stagger in and gamble their credit cards over the limit, they always find a smiling dealer to take their money. Even at 3:00 a.m. on a Tuesday morning. Coincidentally, it was six minutes after the third hour of Tuesday when I reached the Lucky Seven.
The casino was huge, but it was mostly deserted. Only a few of the massive salons full of gaming tables and one-armed bandits were still lit and operational. The others were sectioned off with green velvet ropes. Vacuums with headlights worked the carpets in those quiet zones, where the lights were turned down to a dim, flickering blue-gray.
I eyed the tables and the patrons. They were unremarkable for the most part. The gamblers looked liked they’d been in their clothes too long. The dealers and security looked like they were bored and waiting for the night to be over. The only spot with any real life to it was a high-stakes blackjack table at the far end. I saw the little sign that listed the minimum bet at a hundred dollars. I winced at the thought, but walked in that direction anyway.
The most interesting person at the table was a young bride, still in her white wedding dress. Even if McKesson hadn’t given me a hint about who I was looking for, she would have stood out like a lighthouse on a dark shore. She looked about thirty and held herself with perfect posture. Her medium-length blonde hair flipped up where it touched her shoulders. I looked for the ring and the groom, in that order. The ring was there, but the groom wasn’t. Strange, and intriguing.
I bought some chips with Tony’s money, then sat at the table one seat down from the bride. We played six hands, with me betting the minimum each time. I lost each round until the fourth, by which time I was sweating. When I finally won a hand, I let out a deep sigh. The bride glanced at me, and I smiled back at her. She stared for a moment, expressionlessly. Her fingers had those classic French nails—white crescents of polish on every tip.
I proceeded to lose two more hands. It was about then I noticed the bride had never lost. She had a mound of chips in front of her—mostly hundreds and five hundreds. I tried not to stare, but it was hard. I rubbed my eyes, calculating that with my terrible luck, I was going to have to make another trip back to Tony’s soon.
The guy between the bride and me folded up his tent on the next hand. He’d been losing hard too. He threw his cards in disgust, swilled a drink, and slammed down the glass with a thump. Muttering something about “bullshit” and “freaks,” he left the casino and stepped out into the dark streets. I looked after him. Two hands later, everyone at the table was gone except for me, the bride, and the dealer, a Hispanic-looking fellow who was frowning. His mustache seemed to droop farther with every hand he dealt the bride.
She was unbeatable. I knew that couldn’t last long, and I was right. About hand number fifteen, a short guy in an expensive suit and an embarrassing comb-over came to the table and quietly spoke with the dealer. He was a pit boss, I knew. It occurred to me that as much as I’d forgotten the personal details of my past, I still knew the casinos well. Pit bosses were floor managers who watched the games for cheats and made decisions on whether to take outlandish bets. For the most part, they were there to make sure the casino didn’t lose too much money. I knew, fo
r instance, that the moment the pit boss showed up, every camera in the place was recording our every move.
With the pit boss watching, the bride pushed forward fifteen hundred dollars in chips. I wasn’t good at reading women, but I knew this one was angry. Her mouth was small and tight and her eyes were staring at the two men, daring them to reject her bet and close down the table. After a glance of approval, the dealer took the bet and dealt himself a twenty-one right off. The house took her chips, and the dealer looked relieved.
The pit boss wandered off, and I took the opportunity to say a quiet word to the bride. “You know,” I said, “gambling in an emotional moment isn’t always the best way to win.”
“Emotions are all I have left,” she replied without looking at me.
I turned my attention to the dealer next. “Can I side bet on her?” I asked.
He nodded to an area of the table outlined in lime green. I pushed three hundred into the box and the dealer stared at those chips for a second. Resignedly, he dealt out the cards.
The bride and I won, but I was the only one there who was smiling. I lost my own hand, but I’d put only the minimum on that. I did the same play on the next hand, and the next. I had all my money back by that time and a little bit more.
The pit boss came back after a couple more hands and closed the table. I was up by about a thousand bucks by then, so I didn’t care. The bride got a bucket for her chips and headed for the cash-out window. I followed.
“Thanks for letting me ride your luck,” I said.
“It wasn’t luck,” she replied in a wooden voice.
“I know.”
She looked at me then, for the first time. “You work for the casinos, don’t you? You’re the first security man. The pit boss was the second.”
I shook my head. “No. I’m Quentin Draith.”
I held out my hand, but she ignored it. “Jenna Townsend,” she said.
“I don’t work here, and I doubt I ever will now. They hate me too, because I took their money.”
Jenna cashed out her chips. I did the same, but I bought a small bucket of silver dollars. She turned away, but I called to her.
“Mrs. Townsend? You want to mess with this casino in a new way?”
She froze, then turned back toward me, staring.
“I don’t know what problem you have with them, or how you did what you did, but I can add some pain for them tonight.”
“How?” she asked. Her eyes were intense, hungry.
I rattled my paper bucket of silver. It jingled and thudded. “Come with me to the dollar slots.”
She followed me, as did a dozen cameras and sets of eyes, I suspected. I felt a bit nervous pulling this, like I’d stumbled onto part of the late-night terrors going on in this city, but I wasn’t even sure of that. Maybe she was just angry because the hotel dry cleaners had put a burn mark in her expensive dress.
I had a hunch it was more than that, however, so I took a chance. I went to the biggest, gaudiest dollar-slot machine in the place and put five coins into it. Then I reached into my breast pocket and drew out Tony Montoro’s sunglasses. I put them on my face.
Jenna frowned at me. “What are you doing?”
“Pull the handle,” I said. “Now.”
She licked her lips, looking around briefly. Then she did it.
There was a strange sound. It wasn’t right—anyone who heard it would have known that. The handle snapped down, but instead of stopping at the usual spot, at about a forty-five degree angle, it kept going. It came down to a ninety, then past that so it aimed at the carpet. It didn’t go back up again.
I sucked in air through my teeth. I half expected coins to come gushing out, but they didn’t. What happened was worse. The dials on the face of the machine spun, showing fruit—why was it always fruit? Bananas, cherries, bells, and WIN signs flashed by. But they spun on and on too long, and before they were done, the rightmost dial came off its tracks like a wheel coming off a bike. A quick, sharp shrieking sound came out of the machine once, then it quit moving altogether.
I tucked away my sunglasses and stepped away from the machine. Jenna Townsend, her mouth hanging open, stepped after me. The slot machine gave a death rattle that sounded like gears grinding in an old stick-shift truck. A few defeated coins pissed out into the silver tray underneath the monster.
“What the hell did you do?” she asked in an excited whisper.
“Probably ten grand in damage,” I said.
“How did you do it?”
I shrugged and smiled. “Wait a second, you pulled the handle. You must have focused all your rage into that one yank.”
Jenna shook her head. “You’re risking your life, do you know that? I don’t even know you.”
“I’m Quentin Draith. I thought I mentioned that.”
“Draith? Do you run that blog full of crazy stuff online?”
“The same,” I said. “E-mail me sometime.”
She eyed me with suspicion. “I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing.”
“Slots. You want to keep going? Or are you done wrecking this place?”
“No,” she said. “I’m not done.”
“Before we do any more damage, can you tell me why you’re so angry?”
“It’s my husband,” she said. That dead tone had returned to her voice. “He’s gone. They say he just went someplace, but I know what happened. This place ate him.”
Ate him? The words rang in my mind. I nodded slowly, thinking of Dr. Meng. Maybe such a thing could happen. Maybe this woman wasn’t as crazy as she sounded.
“Want to tell me how you did that trick at the table?” I asked.
“You want to tell me how you did yours?”
“All right,” I said. “I made the guts of that machine turn into rubber. The metal went soft, and when you pulled the arm it twisted out of place and broke.”
She blinked at me, shaking her head. “OK then,” she said. “You did tell me first. I—uh-oh.”
I followed her gaze over my own shoulder. The pit boss was coming. He had two chunky members of the Lucky Seven security brigade behind him. Left with little choice, I decided to bluff it through.
“Can I help you?” I asked, meeting his charge head-on.
His face was red and his eyes were bulging. They reminded me of boiled eggs with blue yolks.
“You broke that machine, you freak,” he said. His breath came out in puffs.
“Don’t worry about it,” I said, “this thing has to be under some kind of warranty.”
“You two are coming with us.”
The bride and I were taken by the arm, but she shook free.
“I’m going to start screaming,” she said.
“All right,” the pit boss said, putting up his hands. I could see the wheels turning behind his boiled-egg eyes. He didn’t want any part of manhandling a lovely, screaming bride across the floor. Some asshole was sure to take a vid with his cell and it would be all over the Internet by noon. “You get out now, lady, and stay out. You are banned from this casino for life. Albert, take her to the door and get her into a cab.”
“Just a second,” I said, and I pushed the bucket of jingling dollars into her hands.
“What’s this for?” she asked.
“Your room number. Tell me.”
“Eighteen-eleven,” she said.
I pointed to the bucket of coins. “Be careful with that. You can give it back to me later.”
Jenna gave me a quizzical look, but they led us in two opposite directions after that. I kept glancing over my shoulder at her. She was pretty, but that wasn’t my only concern. I’d put my .32 automatic in that bucket, sloshing around with the silver dollars. I watched to see if she would blow it and pull it out. She didn’t. If she’d noticed the gun, she was playing it cool.
They took me to a pair of double doors that swished shut behind me. I had the feeling they weren’t going to pay my cab fare when they were done with me.
Once we
were through the doors marked “Private,” the beefy guy in the too-tight security uniform tried to twist my arm behind my back. I yanked my hand away. I could have probably taken him with a surprise elbow to the throat, but I held back. After all, my little display had been intended to get the attention of the management, not just to impress Jenna Townsend.
“You gentlemen may not know who you are dealing with,” I said.
The pit boss smirked at me. “You’re a rock star, right? No, maybe an Arab sheik?”
I shook my head. “I’m part of the Community, and I’ve come to talk to your boss.”
His eyes narrowed. I took the time to read his name tag. Bernard Kinley. I figured people probably called him Bernie.
“You’re full of shit,” Bernie said. “I knew it the moment I laid eyes on you. I don’t know what you were pulling back there at the blackjack table—but I do know you broke our most expensive slot machine. I don’t even know how the fuck you did that.”
“I guess they don’t build them like they used to, Bernie.”
This remark didn’t improve his mood. He put his left hand up to stop the security guard and used his right to put a finger into my face. I thought about grabbing, twisting, and breaking it—somehow I knew I could. But again, that wasn’t my purpose in coming here.
“In the old days we would have worked you over and put you out in the alley with the cats and bums. You know that?”
“Yeah,” I said, “lawyers and cameras have ruined everyone’s good time.”
Bernie snorted and we all started walking again. “You are one funny, crazy son of a bitch. You want to see the boss? OK, fine. He’s probably still awake. But you should be careful what you wish for, Draith.”
It was my turn to be surprised. I should have known they would have ID’d me by now. Casinos were paranoid places full of cameras, computers, and unsmiling security types. Money, booze, and lowlifes mixed in every casino, making a volatile brew. They knew who I was all right. Maybe they knew more about me than I did.
We came to a private elevator. We rode up at least thirty floors in silence. When the elevator dinged and the doors opened, I knew I was in a private region of the hotel. There was a lobby outside a single closed door. The burgundy carpets were rich, thick, and framed with green borders. Bernie and his henchman led me to the door and paused. There was a camera dome over the door, with one of those pricey infrared units spinning around inside. The pit boss had the security goon search me. I’d given my gun to the bride, so they didn’t find much except my wad of cash, which they left alone.