Owl Dreams

by John T. Biggs

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Shorty paused at the entryway of the Durant Casino Resort just before the point of no return. He checked at his watch. Eleven A.M., a slow hour for gamblers, the ideal time to intimidate the help. If he stood there much longer, he’d arouse suspicions. No doubt security cops were watching him already, sitting around their high-dollar digital television screens wondering what in the hell had gone wrong with the picture.

  The double doors were polished glass. If Shorty turned his head just right, he could see the reflection of a dark green, stolen vehicle with a killer behind the wheel. It was superimposed on rows of colorful video poker machines. Comfortably supernatural, like an image of Jesus burned into a piece of toast. When Shorty came out again, Archie would be waiting. That idea would scare the hell out of most people.

  Time to go inside, where sin earns its wages.

  The casino air was thick and cold. It carried hushed conversations, the sound of jackpot bells, and the scent of cheap whisky. Unsatisfying, not at all like the air of Riverside Gardens Cemetery. Big Shorty lurched across the floor. Blood pulsed in his wrists and fingertips. He swallowed imaginary saliva. If this was what fear was like, Shorty didn’t care for the sensation. As he moved further into the interior of the casino, the nature of the background noise changed. With every step, the conversational murmur diminished, and bells rang less frequently.

  Security guards took positions between the rows of slot machines. Big Shorty counted four of them, sturdy-looking Indians fresh from weight rooms and target ranges. Their fingers brushed across the holster flaps fastened over their pistol grips. They flinched with each thump of Shorty’s stump pads on the casino floor.

  The guards’ malaise made him feel better. This was how it should be. People should fear the gigantic black man who walked without legs, not the other way around. Even death feared Big Shorty. That’s why grandpa

  hummingbird liked to hover over his shoulder.

  The tiny spirit had been with him a few minutes earlier, but flew away when Shorty passed through the glass doors of the Durant Casino. The interior was too cool and dark; the interplay of chimes, whispers, and nearly subliminal music was hypnotic. A ghost bird would never willingly enter a place so similar to the Land of the Dead.

  Big Shorty noticed with some satisfaction the patrons of the casino had all stepped back. The bravest were no closer than thirty feet. Seen from the video cameras above, they would form a perfect circle with Shorty in the exact center. That was how fear translated into plane geometry.

  Shorty moved his bubble of fear through the assortment of gambling machines to the poker and the blackjack tables. What would management make of his systematic erasure of their morning profits? He could bankrupt this casino if he became a regular; eventually, that would occur to the management too, and they would send someone to talk with him.

  A sacrificial lamb. Shorty rotated on his stumps like a ballroom dancer executing a pivot turn. It was smooth and graceful and totally horrifying to everyone who watched. The radius of the circle of fear expanded by another foot. The four guards were safe behind a wall of patrons now; they formed the vertices of a crude square. More emotional geometry—not the most ideal shape for a firing squad.

  Big Shorty heard an unsteady voice demanding entry through the barrier of frightened gamblers. “Coming through. Coming through. Coming through.”

  The voice lost its tremor by the third repetition. Its owner was a twenty-something, Hollywood-handsome Choctaw man in a grey Armani suit with a red silk power tie. He made a series of arcane hand signs that were apparently clear to the security guards. One of them said, “Show’s over folks,” and the circle lost its integrity. In a few seconds the background noise resumed its previous tone, and the slot machine bells chimed again.

  “Can I help you?” the low level manager asked Shorty.

  “Not exactly politically correct, are you?”

  The manager shrugged and introduced himself. “My name is Thomas.” He started to extend his hand, but interrupted the gesture of friendship in mid motion. He brushed an imaginary piece of lint from his jacket.

  Shorty waited several seconds for a last name that he knew would not be forthcoming. “Don’t get many people like me in this place do you Mr. Tom?” There were many ways to intimidate managers. A compound approach might be the best way to soften this one up for the kill.

  “What . . . sir?”

  Managers liked to keep customer interactions short, shorter still with racial minorities, shortest of all with handicapped racial minorities.

  “It is difficult to hear in this place.” Big Shorty raised his voice to a level suitable for announcing a fire. “Don’t get many people like me here, do you?” On one wall of Shorty’s caretaker’s cottage was a print of Edvard Munch’s The Scream. Mr. Tom’s face became a reasonable facsimile of that painting.

  “No! I mean it’s not that at all!” The manager looked around to see if his indiscretion had been witnessed by anyone higher on the food chain than himself. “It’s not that at all.” His denial sounded slightly more reasonable the second time around.

  Shorty lurched a half step forward. Then another half step. The manager struggled to hold his ground. He teetered like a man balanced on the ledge of a tall building.

  “Well, what is it then?” Big Shorty knew that hidden cameras were recording his interaction with Mr. Tom. The scene would probably be incorporated into required casino sensitivity training. Shorty’s face would be pixilated, and his voice would be distorted to protect his privacy. As if anyone watching would notice his face or remember his voice.

  Big Shorty cupped his right hand over his ear, pretending Mr. Tom’s labored breathing was a garbled message.

  At last the manager summoned up an all-purpose pearl of wisdom. “I’m sorry.”

  A sincere apology fits almost every situation. But Shorty wasn’t about to let Mr. Tom off the hook so easily. “What does that mean? Sorry for what?”

  Mr. Tom started to speak, but choked on his words. He stumbled back a step. His eyes searched out the security guards, but they were busy looking at the floor.

  “The guards won’t help you, Mr. Tom.” Big Shorty smiled, showing the manager all the gold in the back of his mouth. Shorty thought of it as durable dentistry, but he knew what the manager would think.

  Shorty lowered his voice so that only the manager could hear. “Give it up, Mr. Tom. This crippled nigger ain’t goin’ nowhere till you give him what he wants.”

  “What is it you want? Whatever it is, you’ve got it.”

  Big Shorty unfolded Xerox copies of Marie Ferraro’s photograph and Hashilli Maytubby’s driver’s license. “Tell me where I can find these people, and I promise you’ve seen the last of me.”

  It was an offer too good for the manager to resist. He studied the picture of Marie for a few seconds—no joy. He looked at Hashilli’s driver’s license photo.

  “Aha!” Mr. Tom finally had a bone to throw to the big/short terrifying black man. “I can’t be sure, but this photo looks a lot like a member of the Alcoholic Beverage Commission.”

  As Shorty expected, the commission member had a different name.

  “Mr. Allunare,” said Mr. Tom. “Sicilian, I believe. Looked his name up—it means crescent moon.”

  Bingo!

  As it happened, ABC member Mr. H. Allunare had paid a surprise visit to the Durant Casino Resort that very morning. “I’ll take you to him.” Mr. Tom started walking toward the back offices where the ABC representative was busy going over liquor inventory. He moved like a panicked Olympic speed walker. He came to an abrupt halt, and was in the process of composing a politically correct apology for his burst of speed when Big Shorty slammed into him and knocked him to the floor. Mr. Tom sputtered the first half of a spontaneous statement of contrition when Mr. Allunare emerged from behind the bar.

  The Sicilian ABC officer swirled a glass of whisky in his hand like a stage prop. ABC cops always researched the
Scotch whisky thoroughly before signing off.

  As soon as he saw Big Shorty, he tossed the fifteen-year-old single malt back like a tequila shooter. He moved in a wide arc around Shorty, putting as many patrons and gambling machines between them as he could.

  “Mr. Allunare,” the manager called out from the floor. “Wait, this man needs to talk to you.”

  Mr. Allunare drew a snub-nose revolver from somewhere inside his standard ABC Board issue checkered sport coat.

  Big Shorty moved toward the man in quick jerky movements. The casino seemed to shake in concert with the collisions of his stump pads against the carpeted cement floor. Shorty knew this was impossible, but Mr. Allunare must have felt it too. He stumbled as he brought his weapon into a double handed shooting position.

  The three shots sounded like balloons popping inside the casino, but the slugs were real enough. The bits and pieces of plastic and metal cascading from the slot machines were proof of that.

  Three more shots disappeared into the darkness of the casino, and then the hammer of the pistol fell onto a spent cartridge. Mr. Allunare threw his revolver at Big Shorty with the style and skill of a preteen who was not quite good enough to move beyond the peanut league. The gun bounced on the indoor-outdoor carpeting of the casino floor harmlessly. It didn’t take one second off Big Shorty’s time.

  Mr. Allunare barely beat Shorty through the entryway, but his speed increased dramatically when he reached the parking lot.