However, what the tacky pictures of Elvis and poodle-skirts on the walls often meant was decent food and large portions. Monster portions, actually. A burger in a place with a bubbling jukebox (always a replica of a real bubblier) was extra big, with more fries than an Idaho potato field.
And God forbid you order a milkshake with your burger. Unless your body had a high tolerance for sugar and milk, don’t order a milkshake in a place with fifties memorabilia on the walls. It will be so good you’ll have to drink it all, and so big you’ll regret doing it. So the safest course is just not order one.
Since I was still full from my wonderful steak, I ordered an iced tea and nothing more from a woman who looked like she might have actually been a waitress since the fifties. Her face had more ravines than the Grand Canyon and her lips were painted bright red, with a gloss that made them seem to extend off her face. Her bright blue eyeliner contrasted with her large black hair and pink waitress uniform with the name Madge clinging to the top of her large right breast.
Madge, chewing gum and without a word, took my drink order, Patty’s order of a salad and diet coke, and Samantha’s order of a cheese sandwich and coffee. Then she nodded to Sue and spoke for the first time. “I’ll bring the dog a dish of water.”
With a pop of her gum, she turned and headed for the kitchen.
My gaze followed her for a moment, wishing almost instantly I hadn’t. My mind shouted, “Don’t look!”
But habit wins, and even if I am a superhero, I am a male. I couldn’t help myself, honest. I looked at Madge’s ass moving under the tight skirt as she walked away. Her ass was large and sagged in places a woman’s ass shouldn’t sag. It was also clear that Madge wore bikini underwear under her pink uniform. Even through the uniform it looked like that underwear hurt.
I knew, without a doubt, the image of Marge’s ass would haunt me for the rest of the World Series of Poker.
Madge walked past a row of sit-down video poker machines, the type seen everywhere in Nevada and many other states. An elderly woman sat at the second one, her big black purse beside her, her attention focused on the screen, her hand shaking every time she made a play.
She had thinning, gray hair done up in a type of bun, and was wearing an older-style long cloth coat that looked like it had seen better days back when Madge was young and could wear bikini underwear without shocking guys like me.
When you play live poker against other players in a poker room, or home game, skill is everything. You win what the other players and your comparative skill allow you to win. But poker machines are set to pay the house a given amount, called an edge, just like a slot machine. Sure, it might be set loose, meaning it will return to the player ninety-nine out of every one hundred bets made, but it still kept that one bet. And given enough time, those one bets built huge casinos.
Most video poker machines were not set that loose.
On a video poker machine, you could knock that edge down some by making good decisions, but you could never really beat the machines day in and day out, no matter what any book (written by a guy making money from writing a book) told you.
Studies have shown that of all the slot machines, for some reason, video poker was the most addictive. The theory was that it engaged the player more than just yanking on a crank, or pushing a button and watching wheels spin. And that engagement turned into a form of gambling addiction.
As I watched, the old woman reached into her big black purse, pulled out a ten-dollar bill, and fed it to the machine, which yanked it from her trembling fingers.
I had no idea what that woman’s story was. She might be very rich and very lonely, and playing that machine was just her way of passing the time.
Or she might be playing a part of her retirement funds with that last bet, allowing herself only ten or twenty or thirty dollars in losses every time she played. She might have that kind of control. Most people did.
Or maybe that was food money she had just put in there.
Or money she had gotten from selling something she had owned for decades. Maybe she was one of the growing numbers of elderly that were addicted to the machines and unable to get away.
Or not want to get away.
For many people, playing the machines gave life reason, and hope, and excitement where there was none. It was a reason to get up in the morning, something to look forward to the next day. The excitement of the big wins made them feel alive for a short time.
Las Vegas (and every casino in the world) was full of men and women like that gray-haired woman sitting at that machine. They all played for their own varied reasons, just like I played live poker for mine.
But it was said that men and women like her created the ghost slots. Or at least so the theory goes. At some point in the past, I was sure that someone had spent weeks, or even years, playing the Saturn Slots, begging them, cussing at them, talking to them, pleading with them, day in and day out. Those slots had become a person’s life, had given them both joy and misery.
Sometimes for months, sometimes for years, a person can pour his or her life force into a slot machine, until finally the time came when not only did the machine have all the person’s money, but it held their entire being.
The numbers of people who died every year in Las Vegas playing slot machines was another well-kept secret, but it happened so often no casino thought much about it. There was always another live body to take the cold one’s place.
But who were these people who died? No study I had ever seen had looked into it, but I was sure that most were just tourists who had heart attacks. But a few were regulars, local residents, gambling addicts who made one machine a part of their life, and of their death.
And in that death, when some person gave a slot machine everything they had, the theory was that the machine took on a life of its own.
But like any slot machine, it must be fed. Only ghost slots don’t need money, they need more life.
I’m a superhero and I have no idea where my powers come from. Half the time I can’t even figure out names for the powers I have. As a person given superhero powers to help others, I know that there are many strange things in this world. And having ghost slots was not beyond my belief system.
But I also understood that a person does not have to be kidnapped by a ghost slot to lose themselves, their lives, and their loved ones to a machine.
It happened all the time, all over the world.
As I watched the old woman with the big black purse, she pulled out another ten-dollar bill and the machine ate it like a hungry animal.
She didn’t even seem to notice.
Chapter Six
ANOTHER SUPERHERO
IT BECAME CLEAR, in very short order, before Madge even got back with our drinks, that Samantha was not going to believe Patty and me about what happened to her husband.
We tried to tell her, honest we did, but our story sounded wild and far-fetched, even to me. I couldn’t blame her for not believing us. She was blind, hadn’t seen anything, and now had two people she had just met telling her that they had seen her husband taken away by ghost slot machines, but that the tape they had seen it on had been destroyed.
Yeah, right.
It would be simpler for her to believe we were trying to pull a scam on her than the story we were telling her.
Madge delivered our drinks and turned away. I managed not to look at her ass, but the image of the first look was still with me clearly. And it was when I was trying to push the image of Madge in tight bikini underwear out of my mind that I realized I knew how to get Samantha to believe Patty and me.
I needed the help of another superhero.
“You have a cell phone?” I asked Patty.
She looked at me with those big brown eyes questioning me, then nodded.
The silence in our booth was cut only by the sound of Elvis singing “Hound Dog” on the jukebox. Patty handed me the phone and I dialed a number I had memorized a few years back.
The voice
on the other end said, “Yeah?”
“Screamer,” I said. “I need your help.”
“Where are you at, Poker Boy?” Screamer asked, recognizing my voice at once and not making me identify myself in front of the women.
“A diner down off the mall on Frontier. Across from the Horseshoe.”
“Madge working tonight?” he asked.
“She is,” I said.
“Whatever you do,” Screamer said, “don’t look at her ass.”
“Too late,” I said.
“No wonder you need my help,” he said. “I’ll be there in five.”
And he hung up.
“Who is Screamer?” Patty asked as Samantha shook her head in clear disgust. I had no doubt that she was about to get up and just leave.
“Screamer is a guy named Toledo Moss. He’s been a friend of mine for years.”
“Toledo Moss?” Patty said. “The same guy who helps the cops all the time?”
“The same guy,” I said. “He does that for free. Mostly, he makes his living working with casinos stopping thefts.”
Actually, what I didn’t want to tell either one of them, especially Samantha, was that Screamer had a superpower. He could take the image from one person’s mind and transfer it into another person’s mind. Such a superpower made him a very strong weapon in solving all kinds of cases, especially if there wasn’t enough proof, or a body had been hidden.
Screamer could take the image of the crime from the suspected criminal and transfer it into the cop’s mind, and then the cop would go out and find the evidence that would stand up in court.
I was sure that taking of thoughts like that had to be protected under the Constitution in some fashion or another, but I doubt the original framers had given superpowers any thought. Just to be safe, though, Screamer never ended up in court on any case he helped solve, and no one really claimed what he said he could do actually worked.
It just did, and the cops and casinos that hired him left that alone.
“So how is this guy going to help find Ben?” Samantha asked.
I didn’t answer, or brush off her question, because at that point Madge brought the food. And by the time she had turned to go back into the kitchen, Screamer had pulled a chair up to the table so he was between Patty and Samantha.
Screamer looked to be about forty, had a smile on him that woman said was to die for, and could stop a truck with his intense, green-eyed gaze. As far as I knew, he had never married, and with his ability to get inside another person’s head, I wondered how he even managed to get close to many people.
I know a lot of my superpowers did not have off switches, but at least my powers needed me to be near a Casino and have my coat on to work. I couldn’t imagine what kind of mental screens he must have developed if his powers worked all the time.
“Toledo Moss,” I said, “meet Patty from the Horseshoe, and Samantha MacDuff, a guest there.”
Samantha extended her hand and Screamer took it, gently shaking it while saying, “Nice meeting you.”
Then he added, “I’m sorry about your husband. We’ll find him.”
I nodded. It was always a real pleasure as a superhero to see another superhero at work.
Screamer turned and took Patty’s hand.
“Patty Ledgerwood,” she said, smiling.
I was smiling as well. I now had her full name.
“Nice meeting you,” Screamer said, his eyes lighting up at her touch.
My eyes would light up at her touch as well. I just hope Screamer didn’t fall in love with her mole. I sort of felt possessive over that small spot on her neck since it had helped save me from being killed in dull-office-land.
“You’re father’s Alvin Ledgerwood, from the Dunes?”
“He is,” Patty said.
“Tell him I said hello next time you see him. I hope his retirement is going fine. I worked many a case with him.”
“He loves the free time,” Patty said, “but he misses the work.”
So now I knew that Patty was not only strikingly beautiful, but she was from an old-time Vegas family. No wonder she knew about ghost slots.
He let go of Patty’s hand and then looked at me. “I see we have a little problem explaining what happened to Ben.”
“Could you help?” I asked.
“I’d love to,” Screamer said.
He again took Patty’s hand, smiling at her, then reached over with his other hand toward Samantha.
“Mrs. MacDuff,” Screamer said, his voice level and contained, “I’m going to show you something that Patty and The Boy here saw.”
Without giving her time to say a word, he touched her arm.
She froze, her head up as if she was seeing something through the blind eyes and dark glasses.
Then, just at about the same length of time it had taken me and Patty to watch the ghost slots appear and take Ben, Screamer pulled away from both women.
Samantha shuddered, then sort of got smaller. After a moment she asked, “How did you do that?”
“It’s my special gift,” Screamer said. “I just took what Patty saw on that monitor and put it in your mind. I don’t have the ability to alter anything.”
“It felt like I was standing inside her. I know what she was thinking and seeing and feeling.”
Oh, I would have loved that, but I didn’t say anything.
She sort of turned her head so that if she had vision, she would have been looking at Patty. “I feel as if I invaded you. I’m sorry”
“I don’t mind,” Patty said, reaching across the table and untouched food and patting Samantha’s arm.
“What you saw happened exactly that way,” Screamer said. “If you just think about it for a second, you’ll know I’m right.”
Samantha shook her head and sat there for a moment. “So you’re telling me you believe what you just showed me? How do I know you’re not all in some sort of scam?”
Screamer smiled at me, then turned to talk directly to Samantha. “Ghost slots are not a laughing matter, and not something to be discounted. Ben was taken by ghost slots, of that I have no doubt, and these two people sitting with you are good people. You’ve got the best trying to help you get your husband back.”
I wanted to thank Screamer for the glowing endorsement, but again I stayed silent.
“I’ve worked with the police a number of times over the years,” Screamer said, “and would be glad to give you some names to call to confirm who I am. And trust me, Patty here has family that has been around this town almost from its old mining days.”
He stayed silent about me, which I think is just fine. It’s hard to explain Poker Boy, and right now Samantha was dealing with believing ghost slots. One thing at a time.
“It’s just so hard to believe this happened,” Samantha said, shaking her head.
“It happened,” Patty said. “It’s the first time I’ve seen it on tape, but I’ve been hearing about it my entire life. With the security cameras in casinos, I’m sure a lot of people have seen it. It just wouldn’t be good for a casino’s business to let out that this happens.”
“So where is Ben?” Samantha asked. “Where did those machines take him?”
There was a long moment of silence, then I said softly, “That’s what we’re going to find out.”
“As soon as we eat,” Screamer said, leaning back and indicating that Madge should come take his order.
Madge made it over and took Screamer’s order for a burger and fries, hold the onions, and I added a piece of cherry pie, since enough time had gone by that I could fit dessert around that candle-lit steak.
I suggested that Samantha eat, since she was going to need her energy to help us find Ben, and with that push she did.
I sat back and sort of studied the group as Screamer kept the two women entertained with a story about Patty’s dad and a guy who had figured out a way to rob a casino of a thousand a day.
Almost every one of my adventures had a team. Very seld
om did I solve a case completely alone. And from the looks of it now, this adventure had its team. A blind woman and her dog, a beautiful woman sidekick and her mole, a superhero named Screamer, and me, Poker Boy.
Those ghost slots didn’t stand a chance.
Assuming, of course, we could find them. Ghosts of anything were never easy to track.
Chapter Seven
WHAT NEXT?
ALWAYS A GOOD QUESTION
AFTER TOLEDO MOSS, a.k.a. Screamer, finished his burger and iced tea, he looked at me. “Well? What next?”
So far the conversation over eating had been on anything but Ben and ghost slots. We had talked about the hot weather for April, I told them about the cab driver, and Samantha even told us how she got Sue a few years back for a birthday present from Ben. But I knew we had to figure out what to do next, so while the others had been talking, I had been planning.
Sitting silently and thinking is what any good poker player is good at. In fact, in no-limit hold-em tournaments, where a player’s entire buy-in could be lost in one dumb play, I liked to just toss all my hands away for the first half hour to an hour and just sit back and watch players. That way I knew how a player acted, what he was likely to do, before I went up against him with my money.
So even with the wonderful talk and Patty being so close, I still managed to do some thinking, and had an answer for Screamer.
“Can you talk to your contacts at some of the major casinos around town?” I asked Screamer. “See if there have been any reported sightings of Ben and the Saturn Slots this afternoon and evening.”
He nodded and I faced Patty and those brown eyes. “Could you have the Horseshoe’s security team keep a close watch on that location near the stairs where the slots took Ben. Maybe they like the place. If they come back, we want to know when and how often.”
“They’ll do it for me,” she said.
“Good thinking, Poker Boy,” Screamer said, nodding, his gaze on something not in this room. “See if we can spot a pattern, maybe figure out where the slots and Ben are going to show next.”
Slots of Saturn: A Poker Boy Novel Page 4