Lucky Catch

by Deborah Coonts

  * * *

  Ensconced on a stool next to the kitchen sink, I tried to be brave as Mona dabbed at me with a wet cloth. What is it about being ministered to by your mother that causes instant regression? Memories flooded over me, and once again I was a child. Despite her shortcomings, Mona had cared, although her mothering skills deviated drastically from societal norms. Still, she had done her best, which was all any of us could do.

  Before she’d hauled me up here, I’d called the Barrymore and set up dinner for Brandy and Romeo—even reserving one of the last two hamburgers. Now, if I could just catch a killer. I needed to think.

  Mona jumped into the silence, a reverberating gong echoing, rippling like waves on a wavetable until chaos killed the calm and quiet in my mind. “Do you remember when you fell off that motorcycle?” She stepped to the sink, rinsed the cloth—the water ran red, which surprised me—then started gently wiping down my hands again.

  “What?” Keeping up was proving difficult, as usual.

  “Billy Lane’s.” She didn’t look up. Her eyebrows pinched together, she focused on her work.

  “That was a minibike.” Reflexively, I jerked my hand back a little as she hit an especially tender spot.

  Entwining her fingers around my wrist, she retook possession of my hand. “Regardless. I’d forbidden you to ride the thing, so you did it anyway. That’s when I knew you’d be okay.”

  “Really?” I scoffed.

  She shrugged. “Well, either okay, or dead.”

  My family, so warm and fuzzy. “As I recall, you beat the tar out of me with a mesquite switch. Stung like hell.”

  “Well, I had to act like I was in charge, but I appreciated that you had some guts, a willingness to tackle life.”

  That was an interesting revelation, one I had no idea what to do with. “What made you think of that?”

  She looked up and narrowed her eyes. “You’d lost that for a bit, but I see you’re back. Don’t ever let anyone take that from you again.”

  What could I say? She was right.

  Mona went back to work on my cuts as she chattered, once again in a light tone. “When Billy laid that bike over your leg got caught underneath, remember?”

  I shivered. I really hadn’t until she mentioned it. “I left a bunch of skin on that blacktop.”

  “And we both picked rocks out of your legs for a couple of days.” Mona turned my hands over so the palms faced up. “You did almost as good a job today on these hands.”

  “It was important.”

  She paused and gave me a long look. “So I understand.” Her voice held the hint of an attaboy. “But don’t let the scrapes dim the spirit.”

  “I got it. No need to rub it in.”

  Mona raised one eyebrow, then hit my open wounds with the iodine.

  “Damn,” I hissed as I sucked air in through gritted teeth and winced against the pain.

  “Honey, I know it hurts.” She sounded like she was sort of enjoying the whole thing, but I might have imagined it.

  I took a deep breath as the piercing sting turned to numbness. After taking several more hits, I beat back the blur of pain. “Have you told him yet?” I asked, deciding it was time to go on the offense.

  Mother scowled, and her lips got all pinched.

  “I didn’t think so.” I was warming to the task of rubbing it in when my father’s voice sounded behind us.

  “Told who what?”

  Mother and I both jumped. Mona turned and graced him with a loving look, which seemed a bit pained to me. My look, I’m sure, was completely pained.

  Looking every inch the casino owner in his steel-gray power suit with a faint pink pinstripe, white shirt, pink tie, diamond collar bar, and lingering summer tan, my father rifled through some papers in his hand as he ambled into the kitchen. Pausing, he stomped on the waste can, popping the lid, then eighty-sixed the whole lot of them. He beamed as he kissed Mona with meaning, then gave me a paternal grin. “Are you two plotting the overthrow of a small nation?”

  Mona looked nervous, and her normally powerful voice tightened to a reedy shrill. “What makes you think that?”

  My father started to fire off a retort—I could see it in his eyes—but his mirth fled when he caught sight of my hands. Standing next to me, he reached to touch them, then thought better of it. Instead, he squeezed my shoulder. “Looks like you lost the battle.” His eyes rose to mine—I saw my pain mirrored there. “Should I ask?”

  “Probably not, but I didn’t lose.” I pulled away from Mona’s ministrations. Flexing my fingers, I assessed the damage. A manicure was out of the question for a while, but I still had reasonable functionality. “Thanks, Mother.”

  “They’re numb right now, but they are going to hurt like hell later. You never had very dainty hands, and this didn’t do them any favors.” When Mona giveth, she always taketh away, which at times made me love her, and at other times want to shoot her. Today, it was a toss-up.

  Putting an arm around his wife, my father pulled her close to his side. “Now, what is it you’re keeping from me?” He held up a finger as she started to shake her head in denial. Batting her lashes, she looked at him with wide-eyed innocence, which he waved away. “Don’t play those games with me. I know all your secrets, remember?”

  “Perhaps not all.” The words were out of my mouth before my minimal filter could kick in.

  He gave me an appraising look. “Do I need a drink?”

  “Make it a double.” I tried to keep my expression neutral, but failed miserably. Mona gave me a cornered-animal look, but I was immune to the plea.

  My father switched tactics, now all sweetness and light. “Come, ladies, let’s sit by the window while I pour libations.” He grabbed Mother’s hand. “Remember, confession is good for the soul.”

  I followed behind. “I’m just glad you don’t have a window to throw her out of. Although you share the blame in this one.” That sounded harsh, even to me, and I wondered where it came from. To be honest, I was conflicted about having siblings—I was still trying to adjust to having a father to complete the family, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to share. Which, of course, was stupid—my father didn’t strike me as a stroller-pushing kind of guy, and besides, we’d always have business—it’d be a long time before one of my siblings could wax poetic over the nuances of a balance sheet. And I was all for anything that kept Mona occupied and out of my hair. Irrational, I know, but I felt comfortable being conflicted.

  Mona took the couch, burrowing into the soft cushions, then piling pillows around her. She kicked off her ballet flats. Curling her legs to the side, she massaged her swollen feet. Turning my back to her, I faced the view of the Strip—it always took my breath, centering me somehow, as if all those lights were tiny beacons of hope and prosperity . . . signs that everything was right with the world.

  Moving my focus in closer, I watched my parents reflected in the large plate glass wall—a reversed, backward image of my life. It reminded me of the first porn movie I saw—the 8 mm film had been spooled backward and upside down. I’d been eight. A couple of the girls at Mona’s had shown it to me. Mona was apoplectic. I never saw those girls again. Funny, I hadn’t thought of that in decades.

  My father handed a glass to my mother. “Fizzy water and lime.” Then he stepped in next to me.

  I took the proffered tumbler. “101?”

  “It’s never good to mix one’s poisons.” My father knew me too well.

  “Depends on what kind of forgettin’ you’re looking for.”

  He shot me a concerned look, and I smiled and shook my head in reply. He looked relieved. “Have you found Jean-Charles yet?”

  “Working on it.”

  My father shared my view . . . and my love of Vegas. Sin City ran in the Rothstein blood, which was both a curse and a blessing. “This city is a place of redemption, you know.”

  His observation wasn’t what I had expected. “Redemption?”

  He shrugged in an embarrassed sor
t of way. “The Indians believed the desert was a place of rebirth. I’ve seen it play out enough to feel they were on to something.”

  I thought about everyone I knew, myself, my parents. Were we all seeking redemption? And what about that Vegas urban legend that said that once you adopted Vegas as your home, you could leave, but you’d never stay gone—was that part of it? I’d certainly seen that play out time and time again. Teddie was the latest example. How I wished he’d stayed gone. But then, I was glad he hadn’t. Apparently, conflicted was becoming my normal state. One thing about Teddie, though, he was definitely running from the demons of his past, one in particular: his father. I so got that. Teddie’s father pushed me perilously close to thinking that, if I strangled the life out of him, the resulting jail term would be a good trade. “You may be right.”

  My father took a sip from his drink, an old single malt—I could smell it. “Any theories?”

  For a moment, I was lost. “About?”

  “Jean-Charles.”

  “A few. He’s leading me on a treasure hunt.” I took a sip of corn mash. “At least, I think he’s the one leading me around by the nose.”

  My father stopped gazing out the window, turning a concerned look my way. “Don’t you go chasing killers, galloping off on your own like the Lone Ranger. Romeo is with you on this?”

  To argue the detective’s and my relative abilities to catch the killer and live through it with my father was a no-win situation, so I didn’t rise to the bait.

  My father didn’t seem worried at his inability to prod me to verbal thrust and parry. “Can you trust your chef?”

  “Trust. Now there’s a word I’ve tripped over fairly frequently in the last few days.” I took a fortifying slug of bourbon. “You’re on the list of suspects, by the way.”

  “Will a noble justification reduce the sentence?” A hint of a twinkle brightened his concerned look. He knew me well enough to know I couldn’t hold a grudge for long, especially where he was concerned. As I’ve said, forgiving is the easy part. Forgetting? Not so much.

  “You guys are ignoring me,” Mona harrumphed as she patted the pillows around her, building further fortification. “Can’t you stop talking shop for even a few minutes? When the two of you put your heads together, I feel left out.”

  I turned back to my view—this wasn’t my show, and I’d probably have a hard time resisting a gloat or two.

  Taking his cue, the Big Boss took a seat next to his wife. “I’m sorry, dear. Now, what is it you didn’t want to tell me?”

  Mona’s reflected face clouded, which made me smile. She was the only woman I knew who couldn’t multitask. Irritated at being ignored, she’d forgotten the consequences of having the light of my father’s attention shining on her. While she worked up the necessary courage, I stepped to the bar and grabbed a bar towel, returning just in time.

  “Albert, honey.” Mona patted his hand resting on her knee. “You know this baby thing?” Her other hand drifted to settle on her belly, an instinctive protective gesture I found curiously endearing.

  My father gave her an amused look as he raised his glass to his lips, seemingly enjoying this whole thing.

  “Well—” Mona took a deep breath, then let it rush out, the words tumbling with it. “We’re having twins.”

  My father froze, his glass slipped through his fingers. Hitting the wood, it bounced, but didn’t break. I knelt down and began wiping up the mess with the bar towel. My father looked at me—life clearly hadn’t registered completely yet. I shot him a smirk. “I’m like a Girl Scout, always prepared.”

  His eyebrows crinkled. “I think that’s the Boy Scouts.”

  “There’s a difference?” I made that sound like benign question.

  “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”

  “Immensely.” I think I even giggled as I finished wiping up and tried not to think of the sacrilege of twenty-five-year-old single malt wasted. Pushing myself to my feet, I felt a huge grin split my face—my father didn’t seem to share my mirth. “More than I thought I would. There’s some sort of karmic justice in all this that I’m finding fun.”

  Mona patted my father’s knee. “Really, Albert, what’s one more?”

  A stunned look was all the answer he could muster as he leaned back into the embrace of the soft cushions. His hand shook when I handed him a new glass with a generous splash of scotch. Glazed, her turned to his wife. “Are you okay? Anything the doctor is worried about? Do you need bed rest? What?”

  Mona thought for a moment.

  I knew she was weighing her options, working the angles. Then she leaned back and patted her husband’s hand. “I’m fine, dear.” In an unusual show of understanding, my mother didn’t push my father further, leaving him time to process. Instead, she turned her smile on me, freezing my blood.

  “Oh, Lucky, there’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about.” Her voice held a normal, everyday chatty tone. Not good.

  I eyed her warily. “What?” I stretched the word out.

  Mona didn’t miss a beat. “Did Miss P. tell you about my political fundraiser? My pack is so excited about it.”

  “You have a PAC?”

  She looked at me as if I’d been lapped in the race of life . . . more than once. “Of course, doesn’t everybody?”

  “I don’t.”

  Returning to the present, apparently at peace with his wife’s latest bombshell—either that, or he was building up a tolerance—my father brushed a strand of hair from her forehead. “Mona, honey, I think you mean your posse.”

  Confusion flitted across her face—it didn’t last long, understanding wasn’t something my mother was particularly concerned with. She waved airily. “Whatever they are called, they are happy about it.”

  “Have you cleared everything with Smokin’ Joe and requested the proper permits from the city?” Smokin’ Joe owned the largest XXX video emporium this side of Reseda. When she still ran the brothel in Pahrump, Mona had been his best customer. I had been her runner—the glamorous life of a hotel VP. I turned to my father. “Smokin’ Joe’s place is in the city, right, not the county?”

  Back in the day when the mob ran things, rumor had it that they had “influence” with the county commissioners, but less so with the city council. As you can imagine, this didn’t sit well with the baseball bat and machine gun crowd. So, in a stunning political move, the mob kept the lower end of the Strip from being annexed to the city. Of course, back then, the lower end was a narrow strip of nothing on the way to California. Now, it was the money end, festooned with megaresorts that channeled the lion’s share of tax money to the state. The county still controlled it, along with the Paradise Town Council, technically the “town” that the lower Strip fell within, resulting in the curious situation where the mayor of Las Vegas had no control over the part of the Strip everyone thinks of when they picture Las Vegas.

  Visibly more relaxed now, my father pursed his lips as he contemplated my question. For some reason, I got the impression he was working real hard not to smile.

  Mona motored on. “We’ve generated such interest with the girls doing their thing and all that we’ve changed venues.”

  “Doing their thing?” I felt panic rising. “Since we’re talking working girls from the brothels in Pahrump, could you be more specific?”

  “This will be a bake sale, Lucky.” She gave me a stern look, which meant only one thing: she was lying.

  Before I took up the sword and engaged in battle, I decided to get all the strategic info I could. “A bake sale.” I pointed to my father. “You’re a witness.”

  He gave me a noncommittal shrug, which told me where his allegiance lay if push came to shove.

  “Traitor,” I hissed at him through a tight smile.

  “I sleep with her. As history has proven, there are all manner of horrible things a woman can do with sharp instruments while a man is sleeping.”

  That visual, I could’ve done without. “Where are
you planning on holding this . . . bake sale?” I asked my mother.

  She straightened and threw back her shoulders. “Drink and Drag!”

  “The drag queen place?” I tried to get my mind around the idea of a political fundraiser in a bar/bowling alley where the servers were men in drag or in their underwear. Frankly, it was one of my favorite places to go, and I didn’t want to see it sullied with the stench of political bottom-feeders. “Will they still let me bowl for free if I do it in my underwear?”

  “Of course.” Mona pshawed. “They do that for everybody, so don’t think you’re that special.”

  “I wouldn’t dare to presume such a thing.”

  She frowned slightly at the sarcasm, but it didn’t stop her. Clearly warming to her story, Mona tried to lean forward, but was stopped by her burgeoning belly. “There’s something even better.” She sounded like a co-conspirator planning a daring raid.

  I held my breath and waited for impact—I probably even cringed a little.

  My father was no help. He couldn’t hide his grin now, and his shoulders shook in silent mirth.

  Mona clapped her hands like a kid presiding over her birthday cake. “Teddie’s going to be the headliner.”

  My glass hit the floor.

  My father burst out laughing. He grabbed the rag and knelt to wipe up the spill.

  At a loss, I stared at the liquid spreading across the burnished hardwood. Scotch, then bourbon—I wondered if that would bring out the shine, or kill it. Panic had derailed the logic train.

  He looked up at me—a tear rolling down one cheek caught the light. “Still think she’s a laugh a minute?”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Forrest rushed to greet me when I pushed through the doors of the Presidio. A mountain of a man, he had played defensive end for some Steel Belt football team, I couldn’t remember which. Now, he defended the residents of the Presidio against the outside world.

  He’d gained a bit of weight in the few months since I’d darkened his doorway. Now, his jacket strained at the seams as it fought to cover the layer of softness over what had been a hard, muscular frame. Any vestige of vanity seemed to have fled—he had given up tending the little hair he had left, preferring to trim it to a short fuzz. His smile was still bright, his skin dark, his presence comforting.