Smith's Monthly #7

by Smith, Dean Wesley

  That, and poorly placed luggage.

  Every superhero has his weak spot. Superman has Krytonite, Poker Boy has pretty women. Especially pretty women with big, brown eyes who can make a plain hotel uniform look sexy.

  Luckily, I took the fall while in my secret identity of Conway Moore. Conway Moore had far less to lose than Poker Boy.

  The pretty woman behind the desk watched me, trying not to laugh, as I rounded up my kicked luggage.

  “Thanks,” I said, finally getting myself together.

  “You’re welcome,” she said.

  Her smile was different than the one she had greeted me with. I might have been only imagining it, which was very possible, but I think I felt in that smile amusement, maybe attached to a little fondness.

  I turned and headed for the elevator. If I knew what was good for me, Poker Boy and his alter ego, Conway Moore, would stay very far away from that front desk area.

  Yeah, right. And that was going to happen.

  Chapter Two

  A BEAUTIFUL WOMAN AND TROUBLE IS FOUND

  I HAD LEFT MY LUGGAGE in my room, taken a quick nap, and then headed upstairs to get a great steak dinner. Now I was on the way to the tournament, the World Series of Poker, something I looked forward to every year. I had just gotten off the elevator on the second floor and turned to go to the tournament registration, when I saw my first dog of the trip.

  Now, understand, as Poker Boy, I often end up saving dogs as well as people. In fact, it’s a rare adventure that I don’t save at least one dog.

  The dog facing me looked like a mix between a golden retriever and a lab, although I wouldn’t swear to either being in there. It was a beautiful dog, clearly well-kept and its longish golden hair was brushed regularly.

  It was sitting next to a wall, watching everything around it with big, brown eyes. I was having a brown-eyed sort of day. Brown-eyed woman behind the counter, now a brown-eyed dog.

  I didn’t take it as a sign, but maybe I should have.

  There was one of those seeing-eye walker contraptions on the dog’s back, with a handle that was held by a very pretty woman wearing dark glasses. She leaned against the wall as if the wallpaper was giving her strength.

  I had heard of stranger things giving people strength, but not many. Actually, I doubted the wallpaper was helping her at all, since it was a floral pattern that had faded over the years.

  Since she was wearing dark glasses inside the hotel, it meant she was either a poker player, or blind, and from the looks of the dog sitting beside her, I would bet on her being blind, or at least vision impaired, as they liked to say this last decade or so.

  I hesitated in my walk toward the poker tournament and studied her. She was beautiful, in sort of a Midwest, take-her-home-to-meet-the-mother way. Her face was scrubbed, no make-up and her light brown hair was combed and pulled back. She had on black slacks that were well-pressed, and a white blouse which showed just a hint of the white bra under it.

  And there was something wrong with her.

  I stopped and stepped out of the main flow of traffic in the hallway, letting two of the better known poker columnists walk past me talking about a player I didn’t know.

  With tournament poker growing so fast, there were a lot of players I didn’t know these days.

  I studied the woman standing beside her dog. There was something about her that needed help. I would have to use one of Poker Boy’s superpowers to find out.

  Raising my arm like I was trying to fix something caught in the long hair on my neck, I pulled slightly while staring at her.

  Pulling on my own hair was one of my ways of triggering one of my superpowers. That, and focus.

  Mostly focus. I really didn’t need the hair-pulling part, but it acted like a trigger for me and helped. I was still fairly new at all this and any trick helped.

  After a moment of tugging on my hair, the hallway, the carpet, the other people moving about seemed to vanish as everything I could see narrowed down on the woman and my Extra-Vigilant-Vision took over.

  I had always wished as a young man to have Superman’s X-Ray vision. What teenage boy didn’t? What fun it would have been to see into women’s locker rooms, see through women’s dresses, see through walls to know when your mom was coming so that you could stop masturbating because you were staring into the neighbor’s house watching the girl next door take a bath.

  Oh, what fun it would have been to have that superpower as a teenaged boy.

  So when I grew up and became Poker Boy, I thought I might get lucky and manage X-Ray vision, but instead all I could do was Extra-Vigilant-Vision, which was the ability to look at something very closely. I couldn’t see through anything, but as an adult and a poker player, I had come to realize this was almost as good.

  Especially at a poker table when I was trying to discover if a player was bluffing. All I had to do was stare at the player and with my Extra-Vigilant Vision I would be able to see clearly if they were worried, or confident, and then make my bet accordingly.

  The woman under my special superpower vision gave me a lot of clues quickly that something was very wrong with her. She was breathing faster than normal, her bra pushing up against the fine fabric of her white blouse. I could almost see the pores in her skin, which looked pale, as if not getting enough blood. It was also clear that she might start perspiring at any moment.

  Her head moved back and forth, as if trying to listen to everything around her at once. Her hand grasped the dog leader like it was a life-line tossed to someone drowning.

  She looked scared and very worried.

  Suddenly another superpower kicked in, my Ultra-Intuition Power shouted at me, She’s lost. Or has lost something.

  Actually that power doesn’t shout, it sort of echoes, like a deep voice coming up from a canyon into my mind. Imagine the deepest base singer in the Temptations saying to me from a deep, dark hole in the ground. She’s lost-t-t-t-t-t and you’ll have the idea.

  When two of my superpowers start working at the same time, I’m really hard to beat at a poker table. And in real life. This woman and her dog needed my help. That much was clear.

  I dropped out of Extra-Vigilant Vision so I could see if anyone else was around, then stepped toward her. She turned, as if she knew I was coming at her, even though my shoes had made no sound on the carpet of the hallway.

  When a person was blind, the other senses kicked in, often making up for the lost sense. Since she knew I was coming and I hadn’t made a sound, I figured she might have something similar to my Big Nose Super-Sniffing Power. I hadn’t needed to use that superpower very often, but twice so far it had saved the day.

  “Excuse me,” I said before I got very close to her, “you look like you might need some help?”

  For an instant panic seemed to flash over her face, then she got herself under control and asked, “Do you work here?”

  A logical question under the circumstances.

  “Actually, no,” I said, stopping far enough away so that I would give no threatening signs to either her, or her dog, who was looking up at me with a worried look in those big, brown eyes.

  “I’m just here to play in the tournament. My name’s Conway, and I know my way around this old hotel pretty well. It’s a confusing maze, even on the best of days. I’d be glad to help you if you need it.”

  “Actually,” she said, smiling at me, her face relaxing a little under her dark glasses, “I know exactly where I am. But thank you.”

  “Then can I help you find whatever it is that you’ve lost?” I asked.

  I knew my Ultra-Intuition Power had not been wrong. If she knew where she was, then her problem was that she had lost something else.

  My question made her jerk, and again her skin paled slightly, even noticeably without my vision super-power in use.

  “How did you know I am looking for someone?”

  I laughed. “How did you know I was coming toward you when you couldn’t hear me?”

&n
bsp; She thought for a moment, then laughed with me. “Top sirloin, rare.”

  I was impressed.

  “So I assume,” I said, pressing on with her problem, “that you have tried all the regular methods, such as having this person paged? Having an employee check the tournament room? And so on.”

  Modern casinos, and even old ones like the Horseshoe, are extremely easy to get lost in. And without clocks anywhere, and the focus on money and games, time can seem to vanish. People being lost in a casino is a common problem, and usually not one that would require Poker Boy’s help.

  But I knew, without a doubt, and from my Ultra-Intuition Power, that this woman needed me.

  “I have,” she said, nodding. “A number of times, actually. They are starting to think I am nuts.”

  “Who is missing?” I asked.

  Sometimes the best power a superhero has was to simply ask the right questions and then listen very carefully to the answer.

  “My husband,” she said, a look of caring and concern on her face.

  I could tell, by my heightened ability as a poker player and not as Poker Boy, that she really loved her husband. This wasn’t the old tired cliché of the married couple coming to Las Vegas and the husband dumping the blind wife and running off with a Keno girl.

  No, this guy was really missing.

  “When was the last time you were with him?” I asked.

  “We were eating lunch at the café downstairs, the one in the basement.”

  I knew the place well. It too had the feel of an old supper club, but it had been remodeled with the wood posts and low ceilings to look a little like a Carnegie library with tables. The waiters wore short, white aprons over black pants and white shirts and always seemed extra busy, even at times there was almost no one in the place. Every time I ate there I always felt as if I should order something more with my omelet, just to make it worth the waiter’s time and energy.

  “I’ve eaten there,” I said to her. “So what happened?”

  She took a deep breath, clearly blaming herself for what she was about to tell me.

  “I wanted to sit and just finish my tea, so Ben, my husband, said he would just go out in front of the restaurant and play the bank of slots there. He said he’d come back in and get me in fifteen minutes.”

  “He never did,” I said.

  She nodded. “I sat there for an hour, then paid the bill by charging it to our room. I got a waiter to help me get out of the restaurant and up the stairs to the slot machines, thinking Ben had gotten wrapped up in winning and had forgotten about coming back for me. No one around the top of those stairs remembered seeing him.”

  My Ultra-Intuition Power was rumbling in the back of my brain, clearly almost ready to echo me a deep-voiced insight.

  “I had him paged,” she said, “and I had security look for him. About two hours after he vanished I went back to our room and waited until about an hour ago. I don’t know what to do, to be honest with you.”

  “And I know the Vegas police won’t help until a certain amount of time has gone by,” I said.

  Again she nodded. “It took me an hour on the phone to finally get that figured out.”

  My Ultra-Intuition superpower was still rumbling, but nothing was echoing forth from the depths just yet. I still needed a little more information.

  “Did he say which bank of slots he was going up to play?”

  She shrugged. “No, but he liked the really old slots. That’s why he liked staying downtown instead of out on the strip.”

  Ghost slots!

  My Ultra-Intuition shouted at me, the sound echoing around inside my head like my brain was missing.

  “Ghost slots,” I said out loud, not really meaning to.

  “Ghost slots?” she asked.

  “Nothing,” I said. “Would you mind walking me down to the restaurant and showing me anything else you might remember.”

  She cocked her head sideways a little. “I don’t even know you, Mr. Conway.”

  “Actually, the name is Conway Moore,” I said. “And I think you do know me. And could use my help.”

  “Are you the police? Or a detective?”

  “Neither,” I said. “Just a person who helps when someone needs help.”

  She reached out slowly and touched my arm, then my shoulder, then ran her hand over my face, noting my black hat, lack of facial hair, and black leather coat that was part of my superhero uniform I always wear.

  The hat was a Fedora-style and combined with my coat, it seemed to focus my energy when in a casino.

  Then she nodded. “You’re right, I do need your help. And I would be willing to pay for it.”

  I laughed. “Payment is not necessary. I make my money playing poker, and that’s good enough for me. Just say thank you when we find Ben.”

  Again she sort of stood there, clearly running all her emotions and senses about me over in her mind. Could she trust me? Should she trust me? Did she have any better options at the moment?

  Under normal circumstances, this woman would never accept help from some strange man. But Poker Boy has a way of putting people at ease, making them feel as if they know me, without ever really knowing anything about me. I am convinced it is one of the superpowers that goes along with the job, but I couldn’t come up with a decent name for it.

  And I had tried. Ultra-Acceptance Power didn’t feel right. Come-to-me-for-help Power didn’t do it either. For a time I had called it my Trust-Me Superpower, but that sort of went away as any bad name does.

  Plus, I couldn’t call it up at will. It was sort of just there.

  “Okay, Mr. Conway Moore,” she said. “I’ll thank you now for your help, and after we find Ben.”

  “Deal,” I said. It seemed my unnamed, superpower worked even on the blind.

  She stuck out her hand and I grasped the warm, firm grip. “Deal,” she said. “And by the way, my name is Samantha. And this is Sue.”

  She bent down slightly and patted the top of the beautiful golden-haired dog.

  “Sue and Samantha MacDuff,” the woman added.

  “Nice meeting you both,” I said.

  I am convinced we were both glad I didn’t ask the obvious question about why anyone would name a dog Sue.

  And it took every bit of super will-power I had to not say, when she turned toward the elevator, pulling her dog around, “Lead on MacDuff.”

  I didn’t say it, but I wanted to.

  Chapter Three

  A SIDE-KICK JOINS THE FUN

  SAMANTHA, SUE, and I wound our way through the gaming tables and slot machines until we were near the front of the cafe. I maneuvered us into an area out of the way so that Samantha would have a wall to lean against.

  As I had expected, there were no older-looking slots anywhere near the front of the restaurant. In fact, I had been watching for older slots since we got to the main casino floor, and hadn’t seen any.

  “Okay, what does your husband look like?” I asked, just a fraction of a second before I realized I was asking that question of a blind woman. “Oh, sorry.”

  She laughed and patted my arm. “It’s all right. I’ve only been blind the last eight years of my life. And I was already married to Ben before this happened.”

  “Okay,” I said, again restraining from asking about how she had become blind. Instead I focused on the task at hand. “So anything you can tell me would help. Height, hair color, balding or not? And do you know what he was wearing this morning? That sort of thing.”

  She nodded, turning her head slightly to listen as a machine half the room away released a flood of coins, one right after the other into a tray, banging as a loud alarm went off. Casinos always wanted to draw attention to any time they gave away money, but never when they took it. Just good business sense. But any customer with any common sense knew they didn’t build those multi-billion dollar resorts out on the Strip by giving away too much money.

  “Ben stands five-foot-ten,” Samantha said, “weighs about on
e hundred and seventy, and keeps himself in good shape. He has thinning brown hair, with a hairline that has started to recede slightly. He was wearing tan slacks, a brown golf shirt, and deck shoes this morning.”

  “Perfect,” I said. “Will you be all right standing here for a few minutes while I look around?”

  “I’ll be fine,” she said.

  I touched her arm lightly, then turned away, heading down the flight of stairs in to the restaurant. I had to check a few things before I went any farther in helping her.

  A number of times I have had people come to me for help who were actually in no need of help. I wish I had a superpower that could tell when someone was lying or not. But I didn’t, so I had to rely on the old fashioned way, asking questions like a detective would. And even though I had approached her, and everything about her story made sense, I still had to check.

  I found the restaurant manager and within a few seconds confirmed the woman’s story. She and a guy had been having breakfast, he left her after they had finished, and she seemed to wait for him for an hour before paying and asking to be helped up the stairs.

  That was all the information I needed. That, combined with my Ultra-Intuition Power confirmed for me she was telling me the truth.

  “Any luck?” she asked me before I got within ten feet of her. Clearly this woman’s hearing was fantastic, or the steak I had eaten for dinner was still with me.

  “I didn’t see him anywhere,” I said. “And there are no older slot machines anywhere near here.”

  “Really?” she asked, seemingly surprised. “When I came up to the top of the stairs after waiting, the manager asked a few of the people in the area if they had seen Ben. I heard one of them tell him they thought they had seen him playing the old Saturn Slots near the stairs.”

  I glanced at the staircase. No Saturn Slots anywhere to be seen. Just a half dozen video poker games and some newer Monopoly machines. I didn’t want to think about the chance those Saturn Slots had been ghost slots.

  “Let’s go get some more information.” I took her gently by the arm and led her, and her dog Sue, through the tight rows of slots, past the gaming tables, and toward the front desk.