“Easily,” I said. Actually, I figured there were closer to ten thousand different slot machines facing us.
I focused my powers again, concentrating, trying to get any feeling, any of my powers to help me find the slot machines we were looking for.
Suddenly, in front of me, I could see a faint orange glow that sort of led off to the far wall and down that aisle. Superpowers still working fine it seemed. Now I’d have to come up with a name for this power.
“This way,” I said, heading with the glow.
We went along the front of the big closed bay doors and then along the wall, moving past old slot machines covered in dust, some protected by either plastic wraps or tarps. All their lights were dark, their colors faded, covered in dust, or completely gone. Many had holes in their fronts from being cannibalized, many had broken arms and broken displays.
“This is damned creepy,” Patty said.
“That it is,” I said. “I see why they call it a graveyard.”
“No kidding,” Patty said.
Even with the bright overhead lights on, the canyons of old slot machines seemed to radiate old age. Though the old slots had at one time been colorful, their colors didn’t seem to have made it here. Everything around us was in shades of gray.
I had the feeling as we moved along that we were walking deeper and deeper into the past. And not just because of the age of the machines around us.
It was something else.
Something very real that my Danger-Ahead Superpower was telling me wasn’t good.
The orange glow stopped at a covered bank of slot machines. Under the faded black tarp loomed a shape that looked like the Saturn Slots we had seen in the security footage.
I stopped a few steps away and motioned that Patty should do the same. “Stay here.”
“You think those are the ones?” Patty asked. “How would you know?”
“Just a hunch.”
I moved the last few steps forward, reached up and grabbed the tarp covering the slots. Then with all my strength, I yanked.
The tarp came easily, spreading into a pile in the middle of the aisle, pushing rolling clouds of dust into the air.
I had stepped back beside Patty as I pulled, and then when the slots were exposed, we both stepped back another two steps.
What faced us couldn’t be there, yet it was.
Four Saturn Slots, with four wooden chairs attached, the bright image of the planet and its rings dominating everything. We had found what we were looking for all right.
But there was a problem.
It was turned on.
Every light on the machines was working, the chrome and brass polished and shining, as if it were sitting on a casino floor just waiting for a customer.
I could feel the attraction to sit down, to just play one nickel.
And I had never once put one coin into a slot machine.
Never.
Ever.
I wasn’t a gambler. I was a poker player.
Around us, the gray of the dust-filled warehouse took on colors reflecting from the machine. Every warning alarm I had in my body went off. It was as if by uncovering the thing, we were spreading its power.
“Why would someone leave it plugged in?” Patty asked, her voice almost a whisper.
“I’m fairly certain it’s not plugged into anything that pretends to be electricity,” I said. “It’s getting its power from something else, somewhere else.”
I could feel them tugging us toward them, as if they were saying “What would it hurt to sit down and just play a nickel?”
I took Patty’s arm and pulled her a few staggering steps backward as the lights from the machine got brighter. Clearly, the machines were affecting her as much as they were trying to get to me.
Suddenly, the warehouse was filled with a man’s shout, echoing through the cavernous space.
“Police! Who’s in here?”
“Far aisle on the right side of the door as you come in!” I shouted. “Hurry!”
I figured the police were here for the same reason we were, and I wanted them to see these machines before they vanished, as I had a hunch they were about to do.
I pulled Patty a few more steps backward down the aisle as the machine started to pulse, its colors gaining and then losing intensity.
Behind us, I could hear the running footsteps of the police.
In front of us, the ghost slots were glowing brighter than any slot I had ever seen, filling all the old slots around them with color and light.
Then, as if I was watching a movie, I saw flashes of images flicker around the slots, different people, different casino backgrounds, clearly even different time periods.
The images came faster and faster as the pulses of light from the slot machine got brighter and brighter.
The image of Ben flashed past, the same as we had seen in the Horseshoe’s security cameras.
Then the image of a middle-aged woman, then a young man and his girlfriend together, then more and more, maybe dozens of people, until suddenly the pulsing light stopped.
The Saturn Slots were gone, an empty space remaining in the rows of old slot machines.
The warehouse went back to a dirty gray, washed out by the overhead white lights.
Patty leaned against me. “Oh, my,” she said softly.
I moved my arm around her waist. Having her that close to me felt right, felt nice. I just wished it were for a different reason.
“Holy shit,” a woman said behind us, her voice a hoarse whisper.
I glanced around at a man and woman standing a dozen steps behind us, still staring at where the Saturn Slots had been a moment before.
The man, a Detective I knew named Johnny State, had his gun out, but it was hanging in his hand, looking very useless.
I turned back to look at the empty space where the Saturn Slots had been a moment before.
It was still empty.
The slots were out hunting.
But what happened to the people they took?
Who was controlling such an amazing monster?
And even a better question yet: What were we going to do to stop it?
Chapter Eleven
THE RETURN FROM HELL
JOHNNY AND I had just finished putting the tarp back in place when the energy of the big warehouse started to change again.
I had had a lot of natural powers before becoming Poker Boy, and one of them was the ability to sense when the energy in something was changing. Usually, I used that sense in a poker game, or when someone was starting to get angry. Now I could feel it in the air around us.
I took Johnny by the arm and pulled him away from where we had been staring at the tarp being held up by empty space, moving us and Patty and the woman, Geneva, even farther away down the aisle.
Suddenly bright colors seemed to flash through the gaps in the tarp and the machines were back. I could feel the pull of them, the desire to have someone come to them and sit down.
“Those things are hungry,” Patty said softly as the four of us backed even farther away.
“Let’s go back to the door,” I said, touching Johnny’s arm to get him to move.
As I touched his skin, I got a sense of Geneva with him as well. For a second it was as if there were three of us in the same head.
I let go of Johnny’s arm and glanced at him as we headed away from the machines.
“Weird, huh?” he said, shrugging.
Clearly he knew I had joined them for a moment.
Geneva had her hand on Johnny’s arm. I knew at once it was touch that linked the two of them, and for some reason my touch had linked me with them for a second as well.
“How long?” I asked.
“Since we met yesterday,” Johnny said.
“Doesn’t work without touch?” I asked.
“Not yet,” Johnny said.
We had turned the corner out of the aisle of old slots with the dangerous machines and the pull from them was almost gon
e.
“What are you two talking about?” Patty asked. “Include the rest of us if you would, please.”
I knew Geneva had understood and been part of Johnny’s side of the conversation, since the two of them were linked. But I doubted they wanted Patty to know, and if they did, they would tell her.
“Oh, sorry,” I said. “Just trying to figure out who could control those monsters back there.”
Geneva laughed. “It’s all right if she knows, since you do, and we are all working together on this.”
All four of us stopped near the front door. It was standing open and the bright light from outside was pouring in, overwhelming the warehouse lights. The inside of the warehouse seemed almost alien compared to the life, the bright light, and the distant traffic outside. I could also feel the warm air flooding in.
Geneva touched Johnny’s arm as she faced Patty. “For some reason, the how or why of which we don’t understand, Detective State and I have a link telepathically when we touch. We discovered this wonderful gift yesterday when we met.”
Johnny was nodding.
Patty stared at Geneva for a moment, then turned to me. “And you knew this how?”
“Got a flash of it when I touched Johnny when steering us away from back there.”
Patty shook her head at me. “You are sure full of surprises.”
“He is at that,” Johnny said, laughing. Then, without giving Patty a chance to ask any questions about what Geneva had told her, he went on. “So what next?”
I shrugged. “We found the machines and now we have more questions than we did before. I’m struggling with someone having the ability to control those things back there, if they are what they appear.”
“And if they aren’t, who’s doing the illusions?” Patty said.
“And why?” Johnny said. “Most of the police department is on this case, tracking anti-gambling groups, religious nut-cases, and anything else they can think of. By now I’m pretty sure that even the Feds are involved, maybe the anti-terrorist bunch as well.”
That all made sense to me. You just can’t have fifty people or more vanish in a week from a city and not stir up everything. It was amazing that it wasn’t all over the television and papers.
“For the moment, we’re the only one’s following these slots, right?”
Johnny nodded. “Geneva was sent to me because someone sent a note to the Sun to have a reporter stand at the Mirage to watch something.”
“So you saw these things take someone?”
“I did,” Geneva said. “The Saturn Slots sort of faded in right over a bank of slots in the Mirage, a middle-aged woman sat down, put in a nickel, and the slots and the woman vanished.”
“Same thing that happened to Ben at the Horseshoe,” Patty said. “We watched it on a security tape that no longer exists.”
Geneva laughed. “We discovered last night that the Mirage’s tape of the area shows nothing, including me standing there.”
“No surprise,” I said. “They are not going to use their own security tapes to condemn their own business.”
“So someone’s directing these things,” Johnny said. “We need to figure out how, or who, or from where?”
My little voice was going off like an alarm bell. This happened all the time when I was about to make a call with a hand in a poker game that was statistically right, yet felt wrong. Once I learned to lay down the hands that my little voice told me to lay down, I started earning a lot more money.
“Back up half a step,” I said. I turned to Geneva. “You said you got a note to go to a place and stand and see what happens. Right?”
Geneva nodded.
“Nothing more? Nothing about kidnapping, or ghost slots or anything?”
“That’s right,” she said.
“So we have a second option,” I said. “Someone might not be controlling those things. They may only be predicting them.”
I looked at the three puzzled faces staring at me and managed to not laugh. “Machines are machines,” I said. “They are governed by programming and statistical payouts. Why wouldn’t a ghost slot be working under the same basic rules? And if that’s the case, it might be logical the slots are following a pattern that someone could predict.”
“Possible,” Johnny said. “But I’m still leaning toward someone in direct control somewhere. This entire mess has the potential of bringing down casinos all over the world. The payoff’s too big to not have someone in control of it.”
Geneva was clearly agreeing with Johnny, and since she was touching his arm, I knew that what Johnny had said went for both of them. Which was fine. We had a fork in the road of possibilities here. They would chase down one, Patty and I and Screamer would chase the other one. For all I knew, it was a combination of both.
“So how long until the lid blows off this thing?” I asked Geneva.
“Not long,” she said. “A day, maybe two at most. Sooner if someone besides us puts the slot machine angle firmly on the disappearances.”
“Okay,” I said. “Johnny, can you keep a lid on this warehouse, not even let the owners in here?”
“I can,” he said. “I’ll get a patrol car out here to sit and keep everyone but the four of us out.” He patted his back pocket. “We have a search warrant. I’ll just say we’re not done searching yet.”
“Make sure the cops you put on this don’t come inside,” I said. “Last thing we need is a cop getting taken by those things.”
“Agreed,” Johnny said.
I kept on talking, sort of taking control of the investigation without really giving anyone else the chance to. “Patty and I have a lunch meeting with Screamer. We’ll follow up on the idea that someone might have the ability to predict a ghost slot and try to figure out who sent you that note.”
“We’ve both got to report back in at work,” Geneva said, “see if anything else has broke.” She smiled. “Don’t worry, not one word that we’ve found these things yet.”
Johnny nodded his agreement.
“Thanks,” I said.
I had no doubt that if the entire mess broke open, she would have to tell her boss, and write the story. And if she was as linked as I thought she was with Johnny, she would leave Patty and me out of it. That had been my deal with Johnny back when I helped him solve that murder case. He’d taken all the credit, I’d helped a guy named Brian get out of jail, and even managed to rescue a Great Dane in the process from a flash flood up in the mountains.
That had turned out to be a good trip to Vegas. Man and dog both safe and free, a new police detective as a friend, and over twenty thousand in poker winnings at the same time. A superhero can’t ask for many better trips than that one had been.
“So how about we meet back here at six?” Johnny said. “Compare notes, see if we can figure out a way to study that thing back there.”
“Six,” I said. “I’ll call you if we come up with anything quicker.”
“Great,” Johnny said.
With that, Patty and I headed out into the bright mid-day sun.
Johnny and Geneva shut the warehouse door behind us and got into Johnny’s unmarked police car. I saw Johnny immediately pick up the mike and call for a car to come watch the warehouse.
Patty and I were back on the Boulder Highway heading into town before the air conditioning actually started to work and fight back the oven-like interior of her car. For the second day I wondered about taking off my superhero costume and then decided against it. Besides, Patty’s car would eventually cool down.
We rode in silence for a few stoplights. I was trying to wrap my mind around the fact that those machines left the warehouse, yet they never really did, since their shape could still hold up a tarp. I had seen a lot of very strange things in my days as a superhero, but nothing like that. I felt I almost needed a scientist to explain what was happening.
Or a magician if the entire thing was an illusion. I didn’t think it was, but yet I couldn’t exclude the chance completely.
Maybe Stan might know how that worked, or know who to ask. I’d have to find him after lunch. Besides, it might not hurt for me to check in with Stan and see if the gods of gambling were having any more luck than the police were.
“Poker Boy, huh?” Patty said as we sat waiting for the third stoplight. “Where’d that name come from?”
I glanced sideways at her. She was half-smiling, staring at the intersection, knowing that she had me pinned.
“It’s just what people have called me for years,” I said. “I’ve been thinking of changing that to Poker Man because of the gray in my hair, but so far I haven’t bothered.”
Patty actually had the decency to laugh and not ask anything more.
Chapter Twelve
A QUICK LUNCH
BY THE TIME PATTY AND I had gotten Samantha and her dog, Sue, out of her room at the Horseshoe Hotel, and the four of us had made it to the little café, it was ten before noon. Madge, the waitress, was there again, along with the woman from the breakfast shift. I managed to keep focused on Patty and her wonderful raspberry smell and avoided looking at Madge when she walked away from our table popping her gum.
Screamer joined us before we even had our drinks, sliding in beside me on one side of the booth and smiling at the two women.
“Hello again, Samantha,” he said. “Police have any luck?”
“Nothing,” Samantha said.
From the way she had been walking and the sound of her voice, I could tell she was tired and very down. In her situation, with a loving husband suddenly gone for no reason, I didn’t blame her. Actually, I thought she was holding up very well, considering the circumstances.
“Well,” I said, “now that all of us are here, let me tell you what Patty and I found out this morning. First off, we met with Detective Johnny State and reporter Geneva Gurwell from the Sun.”
Screamer whistled softly. “You’re playing with fire with Geneva. She’s known as a tough reporter, maybe the best the Sun has.”
“We know,” Patty said. “And Detective State is no slouch either. The good thing for you to know, Samantha, is that just about the entire police department is working on this.”
Slots of Saturn: A Poker Boy Novel Page 7