With Angel it didn’t seem like a put-on. Of course, Jack had to admit that he really didn’t know her at all. But he was beginning to think that maybe he wanted to know her. His phone sure as hell wasn’t ringing off the hook. He was beginning to think—
No. He wasn’t thinking at all. In fact, he was real tired of thinking about anything.
Angel was still wearing her T-shirt. Now it was wet and nearly transparent, but no one needed to feel embarrassed because Angel was still wearing that black brassiere, too.
Jack wore a pair of old boxing trunks. The tub jets were going full blast. Hot water bubbled against his sore shoulder and leg. He’d been hit plenty of times before tonight, but never with a baseball bat. The Jacuzzi jets, as well as a stiff drink, were dulling the pain.
“You ever have a mai tai before?” Jack asked.
“This is my first.” Angel raised her Fred Flinstone jelly jar glass and took another sip. “Here’s to Fred . . . and Barney Rubble, too.”
“Don’t forget Dino.” Jack shook his head. “Sorry about the glass. It kind of ruins the effect, but your friends broke my Sneaky Tiki collection.”
“Yeah . . . well . . . I’m beginning to see that I made a mistake about you. And that’s not an easy thing for me to admit.”
“Hey, you’re a rich girl. You can make it up to me. A couple hundred bucks at an antique store and you can replace my entire collection of Sneaky Tiki glassware. Get lucky at the right thrift shop and you might even find a real steal.”
“You really like all that old Trader Vic’s stuff, huh?” She chewed on a piece of pineapple. “Anybody ever tell you your place looks like the Tiki Room at Disneyland?”
“Yeah. The editors of Better Homes & Gardens. They’re doing a spread on my place next month. Tiki chic. It’s going to be all the rage.”
Angel smiled again. Her smile looked really different without the makeup. She didn’t exactly look younger, but maybe a little more innocent. And Jack knew that impression was a few clicks south of accurate because—
Angel came across the tub. Jack didn’t do anything to stop her. She massaged his bruised shoulder. Jack closed his eyes. A prickle of pain jabbed him to the bone as her strong fingers worked deeper, and then his muscles began to loosen, and the pain went away.
“Feel good?”
“Great.”
“I took lessons.”
“I’ll bet you did.”
Angel’s fingers departed Jack’s shoulder and found his thigh. Again, she went to work on him. Again, Jack felt a prick of pain. Before long, a feeling that was a long way from pain replaced it.
“I really am sorry about tonight,” Angel said. “You were really brave, protecting your dog that way. When I saw you do that, I just knew you couldn’t have been part of any scam that might hurt Spike.”
She took a deep breath. “I really really miss Spike. We’ve never been separated, not even for a day. He’s the one constant thing in my life, the one thing I can really count on. I know it’s crazy to feel that way about a dog, but Spike is . . . well, he’s a lot more than just a pet.”
Jack didn’t say a word. He didn’t need to. He was concentrating on Angel’s fingers as they kneaded his thigh muscles, concentrating on that feeling that was a long way from pain—
Angel whispered in his ear. “They hit you somewhere else, didn’t they?”
Jack nodded, settling back, his eyes still closed.
Angel moved closer.
A collage of sound—Angel’s throaty chuckle, almost girlish; water bubbling merrily in the hot tub; desert wind whispering through the surrounding palms.
The patter of Bally loafers on concrete.
Jack’s eyelids flashed open like a couple of window shades that had been yanked really hard.
Steam wafted from the tub, hiding the lower half of the man who stood at water’s edge, but to Jack it didn’t look like steam at all. It looked like smoke. It had to be smoke. Because the man staring down at him looked way too much like Lucifer.
“You two look like a lobster dinner.”
“Yeah, Freddy, I guess we do.”
“Don’t be mad, Grandad,” Angel said. “It was my idea.”
Freddy G stared at Jack, then at Angel. She didn’t say another word. The casino owner snapped his fingers, and one of his boys handed Angel a towel. No one got a towel for Jack.
“The boys will drive you home, Angel.”
“No. I’ll drive myself.”
Angel started walking. She was still dripping wet, the towel draped over her shoulders. Freddy’s bodyguards trailed her without a word.
When they were alone, Freddy G pulled up a lounge chair and leaned toward Jack. “We had a call from the dognappers.” The casino owner’s face bore no sign of emotion as he spoke those words, but there was a definite tremor in his voice as he asked Jack, “What’s this I hear about you holding a ransom note?”
IT WAS A LONG NIGHT, AND JACK SPENT IT THINKING ABOUT PIRANHA.
That was Freddy’s fault, of course. Before leaving Jack’s place with the dognapper’s ransom note tucked in the inside pocket of his Brioni jacket, Freddy told Jack a little story.
Freddy said, “Sometimes I think that Vegas has changed a lot in the years since I first come here, and sometimes I don’t think it has changed at all. Like these theme casinos we got lined up and down the Strip—all these little Disneylands. We got pirates and we got New York City and we got the Cowardly Lion and the Scarecrow and that mousy bitch with the braids and we even got her little dog Toto, too.
“But really, we always had that kind of stuff. Vegas has always been Disneyland, only with tits. Jay Sarno knew that.
“Sarno was the guy who started Caesars Palace. You never knew him, Jack. But let me tell you, he was something. The Roman Empire fell a couple centuries ago, but Sarno kick-started the sucker. He not only brought it back to life, he made it pay.
“He had vision, Sarno did. More than these guys today. That’s what made him different. These guys today, everything they do is fake. Plastic. Remote-controlled. It wasn’t that way with Sarno. Everything he did was real. He even dreamed real. Flesh and blood dreams, if you know what I mean.
“Like for instance Sarno had this plan for Caesars first-class restaurant, the Bacchanal. Jay was gonna have a big pool in the middle of the room, all the tables situated so the pool would be the center of attention. Not that he was gonna forget about the cuisine—a meal in this joint was going to be as close to a Roman orgy as you could get and still keep your clothes on. None of this eat-your-cold-primerib-and-let-me-make-a-decent-tumaround-time-on-your-table shit that maitre d’s pull these days. No, Sarno wanted course upon course upon course, the whole experience enhanced by a wine list that would set the most jaded sommelier’s little medallion jingling.
“When the diners were reaching their culinary climax, so to speak, the house lights were gonna dim, and the pool in the center of the room would be illuminated, one bright spotlight aimed at a suckling pig hanging over the water by a chain. There’d be dramatic music from hidden speakers. Trumpet fanfares and such. Shit that would make you think of Kirk Douglas in Spartacus.
“Then the little oinker would descend, and when it was close to the pool’s surface and the water started to chum beneath it and the music hit its crescendo and the piggy started to squeal so loud that those blaring trumpets sounded like whispering flutes, why then the chain would release and that poor little porker would make one hell of a splash.
“At that moment, a hungry school of piranha which had waited patiently beneath the surface of the pool would chow down on our pal Porky the Pig.
“Fuck your bread and circuses. Jack, this idea was the real deal, the real Las Vegas right there for everyone to see at a hundred bucks a plate.”
Freddy sighed. “What a fucking great idea. But that’s all it ever amounted to—an idea. As it turned out, Sarno couldn’t get permission to import the piranha. Nevada Fish & Game shut him down. But it would ha
ve been something, that restaurant.
“I like to think about it, Jack. Fact is, the older I get, the more I think about it, because I can never quite pin the whole thing down the way I want to. I’ll start off thinking about pigs fattened for the kill. Then I’ll think about guys who do up the chains and the stiffs who pay to watch those chains come loose. And I’ll end up thinking about piranha, and how they only do what they’re built to do.
“I ain’t sure what it adds up to. Not yet. But I’m gonna keep on thinking about it. And I figure the time has come for you to start thinking about it, too.”
***
Jack thought about the story long into the night, long after Freddy had departed. He thought about that suckling pig hanging from a chain, and he thought about the people watching it.
Some of them might see the little porker as a living thing. They might feel their expensive dinner churning in their guts as that chain let loose. Even so, they wouldn’t look away. Horrified, amused, or fascinated—every one of them would watch.
And the piranha would do what piranha do, unrestrained by morality or emotion. They wouldn’t feel a damn thing for the pig. To them, it wasn’t anything more than a slab of bacon with a pulse.
Jack knew he could never be a piranha, but he didn’t want to be a pig hanging from a chain, either.
He wondered if there was something in between. He thought of Freddy and all the things he owed the casino owner, and how his stubborn pride had gotten in the way of those things when Freddy sent him on an errand boy’s job. Too much pig and not enough piranha and he’d screwed that job up. Screwed it up for Freddy, and Angel, and a Chihuahua named Spike.
It seemed the more he thought, the less he knew. But the time had come to stop thinking so much. Whether it was Kate Benteen or Freddy Gemignani or Angel or a Chihuahua named Spike, it was time to put the pedal to the metal and get down to business.
Morning dawned, literally and metaphorically. Jack didn’t know where he stood on the piranha-pig scale, but he did know that he was hungry.
He wanted donuts.
THE LITTLE BASTARD WOULDN’T EAT.
Harold Ticks ran one hand over his bald pate and swore under his breath. What he really wanted to do was yank his .357 and plug the Chihuahua, but he wasn’t going to do that.
No. The furry little bastard had to stay alive for one more day. After that Harold knew that little ol’ Spike was a goner.
Tough luck, muchachito. Tomorrow night Harold would have a half a million bucks in cold hard cash. Man, what a trip. Harold Ticks rolling in the long green. Mr. Harold Ticks, moving among the money men in their Giorgio Armanis, investing in some shit that earned twenty percent. Senor Harold Ticks, a gringo ready for some serious Mexican-style kickin’ back while he watched the money roll in just like a warm Pacific tide.
But that was tomorrow. Right now Harold had to take care of business. And that meant getting the fucking can opener and opening another can of dog food.
This Harold did. He flipped the top of the can into the garbage and emptied a gelatin-spackled lump of turd-colored food into the Chihuahua’s bowl.
The dog sniffed the food and looked at Harold with its big brown saucer-eyes. Harold gave the little bastard a big smile and sniffed the empty can encouragingly.
“It’s good fucking stuff, Spike,” Harold said. “It’ll make you a fucking world beater. A couple bites of this and you’ll fuck like a German Shepherd. Turn your little pene into a ball bat. You’ll have hardcore pitbull bitches screaming for mercy, believe you me.”
The dog licked its muzzle and coughed feebly. Its spindly legs quivered and shook like pencils at a senior citizens’ art class.
The little bastard gave in and settled down on all fours, whining. Swearing under his breath, Harold tossed the empty dog food can into the garbage with all the others. Damn. Ten bucks’ worth of dog food wasted.
Harold’s ten bucks, too. Every penny. None of the others had chipped in on it. Just like with the tuxedo—the limo driver’s outfit he’d used to fool that asshole Baddalach. Harold had spent nearly a hundred bucks on that, every dime straight out of his own pocket. Plus a deposit he was going to lose because things were much too toasty to show his face in Vegas.
Harold wasn’t going into town. Not with Freddy Gemignani’s greaseballs sniffing around. The odds of getting caught like that were probably pretty fucking infinitesimal, because Vegas was a big place. But Harold Ticks wasn’t going to buck those odds. He was going to play this cooler than an Eskimo.
So ten bucks on the pup chow and a hundred-plus on the tux. Plus he’d gassed up the limo on the return trip to Hell’s Half Acre. There went another twenty-plus. And this shit wasn’t exactly tax-deductible. Not that Harold had seen many IRS forms, but he was stone fucking sure that there wasn’t one for expenses—dognapping.
But that was okay, really, because if things went the way Harold wanted them to, he was going to come up kickin’ it in the end. Half a million bucks. Hey, we’re talkin’ thick pockets. Plush. Fresh. Completely frosty.
Harold liked the idea of that. Come drop day his skinflint compadres would learn what was exactly what. They’d find out how a badass alumnus of Corcoran State Prison’s gladiator wars cuts up the swag with a bunch of clueless taters who didn’t ante up.
Clueless taters. Yeah. That’s what they were. Daddy Deke and his big bad Mama, daughters Lorelei and Tura, too. All of them. One big bucket of white trash, their skulls filled with crazy ideas fried up in the Mojave Desert sunshine.
They were expendable, as far as Harold was concerned. Especially the bitches, who grated on him something fierce.
Except for Eden. Eden was different. She was special. She had everything her sisters had and then some, but she wasn’t a desert rat. Eden could think. And so maybe the wiring in her head was a little twisted from growing up with a bunch of nuts in the nuke-proof concrete bunker Daddy Deke had built in the middle of nowhere. So what? Get tight with a body like Eden’s and a man had to expect to make a few concessions.
But Eden didn’t matter. Not now. Not with the damn mutt coughing. Huddled on linoleum the color of a mud puddle, shivering, looking all sick.
“C’mon, Spike.” Harold nudged the bowl under the dog’s nose. “Those pitbull bitches are waiting. Eat up.”
The dog coughed. Harold sweated. Maybe the pug was right. Maybe the dog really was sick. Man, Baddalach had warned them. Maybe Spike really did have lung cancer.
But maybe the dog was really okay, too. Maybe it just had a cold or something. And shit, everybody knew that Chihuahuas were nervous little fucks, almost as bad as French poodles. Maybe Spike was just freaked out about being dognapped.
Well, it wouldn’t matter after tomorrow. As long as the dog stayed alive until drop time, everything would be fine and dandy.
Shit. It was pretty fucking crazy. Kidnapping a Chihuahua, holding it for ransom. But Harold was sure that Gemignani would pay up. Maybe not at first. But once phase two of the plan kicked in and Harold ran a shuffle on the old Guinea . . .
The Harold Ticks shuffle. It was a good one. Harold was going to do an end run around the casino boss. He had set up Gemignani with the first ransom note, but all further communications would go directly to Angel Gemignani’s suite at the Casbah.
And Angel would bite. Harold was sure of that, just as he was sure that Angel could get her hands on a half a million bucks in a hot minute. He had the Gemignani tramp cased good. She loved that Chihuahua more than anything. She never went anywhere without her little Spikester. He was always right there in the mix. Even when she visited a man behind closed doors.
Harold almost laughed. Man, that was a good story. The one about Angel and Spike behind closed doors. According to the coconut telegraph, the Spikester was quite the little Hercules. When he wasn’t sick, anyway.
Spike whined. Harold knelt, knees cracking under his weight, and patted the little bastard’s bony head. Those big brown eyes looked up at him again. Man. Harold co
uldn’t take them right now. He rose and looked out the little pillbox window.
Dirty fucking window, but that didn’t matter. This was a dirty fucking land. Nothing but desert and scrub, a useless patch of Joshua trees and tumbleweeds separated from the highway by forty miles of literally bad road. Useless. Hell, the government couldn’t even give this shit to the Indians. Hadn’t even tried. At the dawn of the nuclear age, they wouldn’t even test the fucking atom bomb here, and it was damn sure that the Russians weren’t going to waste one on a big hunk of nothing during the cold war. Try convincing Daddy Deke of that one, though. He’d come along in 1966 with a brand new bride and plans for a concrete homestead. What a tater, a big ol’ spud who looked at this scab of dirt and saw a grade AAA nuclear-proof Promised Land.
Some fucking promise. Harold called the place the Radiation Ranch. To him, the whole set-up was as useless as tits on a—
Gunfire stitched the silence. Lorelei and Tura were out there somewhere, off behind the rise. Dressed in their leather bikinis, early morning Mojave sunshine baking their finely boned skulls, brains shriveling like apricots in a food dehydrator, machine guns kicking in their hands.
Yeah. Harold had them nailed. Guns but no brains. Sure, they had bodies that wouldn’t quit. But grow tits on a tater, and you’ve still got a spud.
Harold knew how to handle spuds. That’s why he carried the .357, a twin to the gun he’d used on Jesus all those years ago. He’d blown the postman’s fucking tater head clean off. Just like Dirty Harry. Huge gun kicking up a huge fucking slug, only Harold didn’t waste his breath with all that do-you-feel-lucky-well-do-you-punk shit. Hell, no. He was a cowboy, Harold was. A stone fucking killer. A cowboy robot. Forget Yul Brynner in The Magnificent Seven; think Yul Brynner in Westworld.
Harold stared at the slick lump of dog food and remembered what had happened to Jesus’ head out there in the woods. Busted up white bone and raw flesh smearing red as it splattered the green green grass of home.
The Ten-Ounce Siesta Page 6