“They’re ready,” Geneva said. “Two minute intervals just like before. I’m timing you. Just say the word.”
Patty leaned her head back and squeezed my hand that she was ready.
“Now,” I said.
“Triggering payout now,” Geneva said.
Patty slowed time as I stood ready to stop time completely for the three of us.
A long few seconds later a shape started to form in the chair in front of Screamer. Just as before, Screamer waited until the very instant Tech was all there, then shoved him out of the chair and onto the tarps as Samantha’s form started to take shape.
Samantha was suddenly fully there and again Screamer got her out of the way just in time for a man’s shape to start to appear. This was the guy taken at Circus Circus before we could stop it from happening.
Screamer got him out of the chair and onto the tarp with the other two as we waited.
No one else. At least yet.
“We’re clear,” I said.
Patty let the slowed time drop and the three of us rushed to help Geneva get the people off the tarp.
Tech was still out cold, but breathing well.
Samantha was moaning and holding her head, but she also seemed all right. The man from Circus Circus just looked confused. He was clearly a tourist. He had on a bright red shirt and Bermuda shorts, with white tube socks and black leather shoes. His hair was thinning and his skin was slightly burnt from too much time in the sun on his first day in town.
“Stand over there and don’t move,” I told the guy, using my best authority voice.
He meekly nodded and backed to a position against the opposite side of the aisle, his eyes wide.
“How much time?” Patty asked.
“Forty-five seconds,” Geneva said.
“Here we go,” I said.
I turned to Patty. “You ready for one more group?”
“I am,” she said.
This time I reached out and took her hand as we moved into position behind the old wooden chairs of the Saturn Slots.
“Ten seconds,” Geneva said. “Johnny wants to know if you’re ready?”
“We’re ready,” Patty said, tilting her head back and starting to concentrate.
Geneva counted it down just as Tech had done. “Now.”
Patty closed her eyes and took us into slowed-down time.
A second later Johnny’s form started to appear in the chair. I could feel Screamer brace his feet and the moment Johnny was fully there, Screamer shoved the big detective hard toward the tarps, barely getting the man out of the way before a young woman started to appear.
This woman had been in the slots almost as long as Harry, and the moment she appeared she was like a wet rag being shoved from the chair.
Then finally, one last form started to take shape.
The Saturn Slots started to hum, the noise even louder in slow time, climbing quickly to a high-pitched sound that made me want to put my hands over my ears. I managed to not do that, keeping a firm hold on Patty’s hand and Screamer’s belt.
I could feel the pavement shaking under my feet as the ghost slot fought to keep its last source of energy.
Finally, the figure of an older man I assumed was Harry appeared completely in the chair.
Screamer knocked him sideways and onto the tarp with Johnny and the young woman.
He moaned and lay there, breathing.
He was alive.
We had got them all out alive.
In front of us, the ghost slots sat, dark and very silent.
The pull to sit down and play that had been a constant was gone.
“We’re clear,” I said to Patty, squeezing her hand lightly. “And we’re finished.”
She opened her eyes and let us slide into normal time.
“It’s dead,” she said, staring at the machine, her voice sounding almost shocked that we had actually beaten the thing.
“Very, very dead,” Screamer said.
I just stared at the ghost slot.
A few moments ago, it had been a dangerous monster. Now it was just four old, worn-out slot machines. Still dangerous, I would bet, but as long as no one played the things, they couldn’t harm anyone.
They had no energy, no human to feed them and drive them to take and take and take.
I glanced down the row at all the other old machines sitting along the wall, stacked in rows in the huge warehouse. How many of these slots had taken the life force from someone in the past and now just waited to be fed again?
I suddenly very much wanted to be out of this graveyard and back in the bright lights and activity of a poker room. I very much wanted to be risking tournament chips instead of people’s lives.
The Saturn Slots sat there, staring at me with the three reels showing small Saturn jackpots.
I stared back, knowing that this time we had beaten the machine.
This time.
But as anyone will tell you in Las Vegas, you can’t beat the machines over the long haul.
And I didn’t even want to try.
Chapter Twenty-two
A HAPPY ENDING (WITH FOOD)
AFTER STARING at the dead slot machines for the longest time, Patty put her arms around me and gave me the biggest, most wonderful hug I ever remembered getting.
That hug broke my deep thoughts about slot machines and the nature of life, and took me right to wonderful daydreams about showers and bars of raspberry soap.
Screamer suggested a few moments later, after Patty stopped her hug and let me take a breath, that everyone meet at the diner off Fremont Street. He said he would go ahead and make sure Madge kept the place open for them.
Everyone agreed, but Johnny and Geneva weren’t sure they were going to make it. Johnny had a lot of work ahead of him and Geneva had to report in to her boss Adam, although Geneva said there was no chance she was writing about what actually happened.
Johnny and I and Patty and Geneva had a quick huddle and agreed that no slot machines should be officially mentioned, that the case of all the missing people would just remain an unsolved mystery in the files of the police.
Johnny asked just how he should explain where all the missing people came from. Patty just smiled and said, “Tell them you found them in the warehouse, and if anyone pushes the point, tell them to ask the kidnapped victims where they were, see if anyone believes that.”
I had no doubt all this would be the main topic of gossip around town. And Johnny would again be a hero on the force.
Once again, I got him to agree to not mention my name in any fashion. Patty asked for the same thing, and he and Geneva both agreed.
I had never felt such fantastic relief as I left that warehouse and followed Patty quickly to her car, avoiding any talk with any of the police.
One hour later, after a quick shower alone in my own room, I joined Patty and Screamer and Ben and Samantha and Tech at the diner across the street and around the corner from the Horseshoe.
We were the only customers in the place, and the closed sign was in the window. They had pulled a couple of tables together to make a large one right in the center of the place. Madge was waiting on them and was even smiling as she popped her gum and brought everyone drinks and food. I had no idea what Screamer had offered her to keep the diner open late for us, but whatever it was, she liked it.
I slid into a chair beside Patty and she gave me a big smile and a squeeze of my hand.
Her eyes lit up with the smile and the touch of her skin lit me up.
Everyone was laughing and talking and enjoying the moment. After all, it wasn’t often you got to celebrate saving the lives of over a hundred people.
Twenty minutes later, to all of our surprise, Johnny and Geneva showed up, walking in hand-in-hand and smiling from ear-to-ear.
“How did you two escape?” Screamer asked before I could as the two pulled out chairs and sat down.
I couldn’t imagine how much paperwork Johnny was going to have to do with
solving this many kidnappings behind him.
“Dinner break,” Johnny said.
Geneva laughed. “We gave them no choice. And it’s past the morning edition deadline. Adam wants to take his time on how we come at this one.”
“Don’t blame him on that,” I said.
I could just imagine how bad any decent newspaper would do if they printed a story about ghost slot machines. They’d be the laughing stock of the industry, no matter how much proof they tried to offer. And besides, this was Las Vegas, and the Sun was the main newspaper. No smart newspaper would print something that would kill the golden goose. I can see why Adam wanted to be careful and not rush into print with anything.
Suddenly, I felt the now very familiar feeling of time stopping around the table. Madge was on her way across the room, frozen in mid-step. The sound of an old Buddy Holly song was gone.
“Great work, people,” Stan said. “You are an amazing bunch, let me tell you. Laverne and all the gang working the casinos sent me to thank you all.”
Screamer and I and Patty and Samantha just sat there. I know I was stunned, and by the way Patty’s mouth was hanging slightly open, I would have bet she was as well.
Tech, Ben, Johnny, and Geneva just looked confused. They had no idea who this person was who had just stopped time and walked up to the table.
They had no idea who Laverne was.
Lady Luck herself had sent her thanks. I had no idea what that meant, but I sure had my hopes.
“I want to thank you, Stan,” Samantha said, “for what you gave me.”
“You earned it,” Stan said. “I hope you and your husband decide to move back here. The security forces of some of these casinos could sure use your special powers, as could those I work with once in a while.”
“We were actually talking about that on the way here,” Samantha said, smiling at the shocked look Ben was giving Stan.
“Great,” Stan said.
Stan then turned and looked directly at me, his gaze cutting through every thought I had.
“Poker Boy, I still owe you for that Christmas thing. Now I owe you for this as well. Don’t forget to collect if you need to.”
“I won’t,” I said.
Stan took Patty’s hand and kissed the back of it lightly. “A pleasure, as always. I owe you as well, and look forward to your collecting.”
Patty had the decency to just blush and say nothing.
Stan then pointed to Screamer. “No rest for the weary.”
“What’s going on?” Screamer asked, pushing his chair back and standing.
“Police just caught a guy they think buried his wife alive somewhere out in the desert,” Stan said. “Sorry to take you from the party, but they need to find out where he buried her and try to get to her to see if she’s still alive.”
“That’s it for me,” Screamer said, smiling to the group as he moved to stand beside Stan. “Next time, everyone. And Poker Boy, tell Madge I’ll make it up to her later.”
He gave me a smile that let me know I didn’t want to ask exactly what he was going to make up to Madge.
“Thanks, Screamer,” I said.
“Yes, thank you,” Samantha said. “For helping bring Ben back to me.”
“I’ll see you around I’m sure,” he said to Samantha. “Maybe we can even work together on a case some time.”
“I’d love that,” Samantha said.
“Again, congratulations, everyone,” Stan said. “And thank you from us all.”
With that, the Buddy Holly song started back up, Madge kept coming toward us, and Stan and Screamer were gone.
Patty and I spent most of dinner, between wonderful laughing and bad jokes about old slot machines, explaining who the gambling gods were to Ben, Samantha, Johnny, Geneva, and Tech, and why it was so special to have Lady Luck herself thank us.
It was somewhere in the middle of my mixed-berry pie that Patty reached over and put her hand on my leg under the table.
Oh, at that moment I felt better than if I had won the entire World Series of Poker. So many thoughts, so many emotions were going through me that I just about had a melt-down right there.
Patty leaned over, her hand firmly on my thigh, and whispered softly in my ear. “Don’t eat too much dessert.”
I wanted to ask her why, but just barely managed to turn and look into her eyes instead.
“I’ve got a very special dessert for you back at my place,” she whispered. “It includes a long hot shower and a bar of raspberry soap.”
She pulled back slightly so I could look into those wonderful brown eyes of hers. I could tell instantly that she was very, very serious.
I started to ask her how she knew about the soap and shower of my dreams, then realized that she was a superhero. She was Front Desk Girl. More than likely, one of her special powers was to sense someone’s wants and needs. Over the time we had been together, I had been giving off a lot of clues. Even the most rank of poker players could have read me and my emotions when it concerned her. No doubt her superpowers had me read right from the start.
I pushed the remainder of my pie away with a firm push that sent it into the middle of the table.
She laughed. “I take that as a yes?” she asked.
I put my hand on top of hers and squeezed, then with a smile I turned in my chair to face where Madge was standing and shouted, “Check!”
Later that night, I practiced my new superpower ability to stop time, making the shower and the wonderful-smelling bar of soap last a very, very long time.
The next morning, Patty went back to work, with a promise of a very special late dinner after the tournament was over.
I signed up and played in the three-thousand-dollar-pot-limit hold-em tournament. I got knocked out a little after eleven that evening, after my pair of black sevens caught another seven on the flop to make a set. I got all my chips in and was ahead in the hand until the guy who had called me with a pair of fives caught runner-runner hearts to make a heart flush.
So much for doing favors for Lady Luck.
But that night, staring into Front Desk Girl’s wonderful brown eyes, I knew right then and there that I was the luckiest person alive, and sometimes there was more to life than winning a poker tournament.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
USA Today bestselling author Dean Wesley Smith published more than a hundred novels in thirty years and hundreds of short stories across many genres.
He wrote a couple dozen Star Trek novels, the only two original Men in Black novels, Spider-Man and X-Men novels, plus novels set in gaming and television worlds. Writing with his wife Kristine Kathryn Rusch under the name Kathryn Wesley, they wrote the novel for the NBC miniseries The Tenth Kingdom and other books for Hallmark Hall of Fame movies.
He wrote novels under dozens of pen names in the worlds of comic books and movies, including novelizations of a dozen films, from The Final Fantasy to Steel to Rundown.
He now writes his own original fiction under just the one name, Dean Wesley Smith. In addition to his upcoming novel releases, his monthly magazine called Smith’s Monthly premiered October 1, 2013, filled entirely with his original novels and stories.
Dean also worked as an editor and publisher, first at Pulphouse Publishing, then for VB Tech Journal, then for Pocket Books. He now plays a role as an executive editor for the original anthology series Fiction River.
For more information go to www.deanwesleysmith.com, www.smithsmonthly.com or www.fictionriver.com.
Look for These Other Titles from Dean Wesley Smith
The Poker Boy Universe:
Novels
The Slots of Saturn
They’re Back
Short Stories
The Old Girlfriend of Doom
Dead Even
Gambling Hell
Luck Be A Lady
Sighed the Snake
The Smoke That Doesn’t Bark
The War of Poker
Fighting the Fuzzy-Wuzzy
Nonexistent No More
Daddy is an Undertaker
Pink Shoes and Hot Chocolate
Shootout in the Okey-Doke Casino
Dried Up
The Empty Mummy Murders
Living Time
Not Saleable For Sale
Just Shoot Me Now!
For the Balance of a Heart
Sign up for the WMG Publishing newsletter to receive updates about new releases, bonus content and more at wmgpublishing.com
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
About the Author
Other Titles from Dean Wesley Smith
Copyright Information
Slots of Saturn: A Poker Boy Novel Page 15