by P. R. Frost
Tacky of her to wear her costumes out in public. She even had the mottled pastel body makeup to match the pinks, greens, blues, and yellows of her costume. What was her producer thinking?
Chapter 5
Elvis Presley first played Vegas at the New Frontier Hotel in 1956. He closed after one week of a two week gig.
“I HAVE TO CHECK in with the conference people and get my schedule by five,” I grumbled as I got out of the taxi at four thirty.
You will change your clothes, dahling, Scrap insisted.
No sign of Mom back at the room. She must still be with the massage therapist in the spa on the top floor.
“Of course. I’ll even look professional.” I shook out my layered maroon peasant skirt with the handkerchief hem and the light pink embroidered gauze blouse.
Scrap snorted. That might look professional at a con, babe. But this is a writers’ conference. Go for the navy blue suit.
“Yuck. I didn’t even pack it.”
But I did!
Scrap’s chortle made me cringe. The brat had too much control over my life.
Slacks, pale blue tuxedo front blouse, rope of gray freshwater pearls, and your navy flats, he instructed, pointing to each item in the closet or on the bathroom vanity.
I growled at him, but obeyed. Like most of the gay men I knew, he had a better fashion sense than me. For that matter, most of the straight men I knew had a better fashion sense than me. I loved threadbare jeans and Tees. Jeans are neutral. Color combinations didn’t matter.
But I always felt better looking my best. Scrap took care of me in more ways than just in battle.
Conference Registration looked like chaos with only a hint of organization. That hint set it above and beyond the normal SF/F cons I attended. Along with the clothing people wore. Scrap was right. These people took professionalism to heart. Lots of suits. An occasional pressed golf shirt and khakis. No jeans at all.
At a con, I’d expect any one of these people to work for the hotel.
Tanya, the liaison for the pro writers nabbed me seconds after I stepped off the elevator on the mezzanine. She led me to a small room to our left, away from the knots of attendees waiting for their badges.
“We have a full house this weekend,” Tanya bubbled. A tall and leggy woman with café au lait skin, she ate up the distance to the Green Room with ease. I had to work my hips almost painfully to keep up; either that or run. Most undignified and unprofessional.
“We sold every single spot three months ago,” Tanya continued with hardly a breath for air. “We’d raised the rates to keep the attendance to pro and truly serious prepublished writers. I hope you don’t mind that we added a second session of your ‘Is It Love or Sex’ workshop.”
Inwardly I groaned. Outwardly I smiled. “That’s fine.” I got paid by the hour in the classroom with these people.
“While you’re here, we have simple sandwich makings and veggie trays at lunchtime in the Green Room, cold cereals for breakfast, to cut down on your expenses. I understand your mother is with you?”
“Yes. She’s prepared to foot her own bills.”
“Oh, she’s welcome in the Green Room, too. I know how writers have to struggle to stay above water in today’s world.”
Tanya had no way of knowing that Mom had inherited a considerable fortune from Darren Estevez. The wills he had drawn up at their elopement backfired. He didn’t inherit my home (a highly contested piece of real estate among the Powers That Be from other dimensions).
The 275-year-old saltbox rambled with additions and renovations from succeeding generations. It also sat smack dab in the middle of two acres considered neutral since before people came to the area. The energy of the place made it possible to open a new demon portal there. The Powers That Be didn’t want a Warrior of the Celestial Blade living on site. Nor did they want a demon turning it into a bed and breakfast retreat for others of his kind.
Darren thought Mom owned the house jointly with me. I owned it outright with no mortgage, thanks to my deceased husband’s life insurance. Darren’s plan was to murder me so that my half went to Mom, then murder Mom so that he’d inherit the house as sole owner.
Fortunately, an insane witch with a grudge and a criminal history murdered Darren before he could do the same to me and Mom.
“I’ll pass on your invitation to Mom,” I told Tanya politely.
“Since the conference doesn’t officially begin until noon tomorrow, would you and your mother care to join the staff of Writing Possibilities for dinner? We and a few of the other professional writers thought we’d sit in the lounge adjacent to the casino. They serve food from the restaurant there and we can catch the first act at seven.”
“Sounds like fun.” It did, since Mom and I weren’t hying off to see “Fairy Moon” tonight. Or ever most likely.
“Excuse me,” Tanya stopped a cocktail waitress when she rose from her practiced dip to serve a drink to a spindly man in his mid-forties at the round table for ten.
They had a magnificent air filtration system. I hardly smelled the smoke in the casino at all.
“What can I get ya, sweetie?” the waitress, asked in a friendly drawl. Her accent might have started in Alabama, but decades in the west had given it an edge. She was made up and suitably coiffed for her job, but looked like a fit and firm sixty. Her body had filled out and begun to droop a bit, despite the bright red corset, off-the-shoulder peasant blouse, and short black skirt. The frilly white apron and cap made token reference to the hotel theme. But that corset—some twelve-year-old boy’s idea of a wet dream.
“Don’t stare, dear,” Mom said. “This is like an old folks home for cocktail waitresses and dealers.”
Sure enough, a quick glance around the casino showed that most of the staff moved at a reasonable pace and showed more gray hair and plumpness than allowed at the few places on the Strip I’d visited in search of show tickets. Most of the employees at The Crown Jewels Casino were treading water until they could collect Social Security.
“I thought a jazz combo played here tonight,” Tanya said. She stared at the karaoke machine on a fold-out metal table at center stage.
“This ain’t the Strip, honey. Groups like that get a better paying gig and they don’t always bother tellin’ us they won’t show up for work. What’cha want to drink, dear?”
“Oh.” Tanya looked really disappointed. “I guess I’ll have a margarita. Can we order food from you, too?”
“Drinks only. I’ll send over a gal from the restaurant.”
“I’ll have a glass of Riesling. What about you, Mom?” I asked as we sat down. I took the place next to Tanya. Mom sat between me and a tall woman in her mid-fifties.
“Whatever you’re having, Tess,” Mom replied. She busied herself settling the full skirt of her black dress and draping her knitted lace shawl just right. That way, she didn’t have to speak to the other woman.
“Hi, I’m Jack Weaver. I write police procedural mysteries,” Mr. Tall and Spindly leaned across the table with his hand extended.
I returned his firm handshake. “Tess Noncoiré. I write science fiction and fantasy. This is my mother, Genevieve Noncoiré.” (I gave her the preferred Québécois pronunciation of Jahn-vee-ev.) Mom hadn’t had time to change her name to Estevez before Darren’s murder, so she never bothered.
“And I’m Jocelyn Jones, I used to write historical romance, got burned out, and now I’m ghosting Penny Worth’s autobiography,” the tall woman next to Mom said. She indicated a well-preserved older woman on her right as Penny Worth.
Ms. Worth took in each of us at the table with an assessing glance, smiled coyly. and said, “My name may be Penny Worth, but I’m valued much higher than that in select circles.” She winked at me.
“Huh?” Mom whispered.
How did I tell my mother, a French-Canadian-Catholic-June Cleaver, that Ms. Worth was a prostitute? From the glitter of tasteful diamonds on her hands, ears, and around her neck, I guessed she’d been a
high-priced call girl in her day and invested her earnings wisely. She might even still work for the occasional long-term client.
“Penny?” Mom quizzed the other woman. “Penny Haydon, New York City, third-floor walk-up on Eighth in the Village?”
“Yes,” Ms. Worth hesitated. “Ginny?”
They squealed in delight and half hugged across Jocelyn Jones. In seconds, Mom and the writer had switched places. The animated conversation changed Mom from quiet, mousy, and depressed, to a younger vibrant version of my mother I’d only glimpsed briefly when I was growing up.
I began talking shop with the two published writers and four unpublished writers, grateful I didn’t have to stop and explain vocabulary to both Mom and Ms. Worth. After only half a drink, we busied ourselves with our food—sandwiches and salad, nothing fancy. The conversation lagged.
“Tess,” Mom said to the table at large. “You sing. Why don’t you try the karaoke machine.”
“Good idea,” Tanya jumped in, looking relieved that her party might be saved after all.
Yeah, let’s sing! Scrap chimed in. He bounced back to my shoulder from the top of a bank of slot machines halfway across the small casino. They got any filk on it?
Filk is the folk music of Science Fiction/Fantasy. A lot of it is parody to familiar tunes, some quite original tributes to favorite authors and characters.
He studied the back of the machine as if he really could operate it. Good trick since he’s transparent and only partially in this dimension. Some things, he managed to touch and manipulate. Like his black cherry cheroots and feather boa. Most things he passed right through.
I gave the dreaded machine a long and distrustful stare. My delay earned me a sharp elbow in my ribs.
“Okay.” I nervously approached the two steps up to the twelve-by-twelve stage flanked in black curtains. Singing my heart out in a filk circle at a con with twenty other people is one thing. Performing for this group something else entirely.
The last time I’d sung solo had been “Ave Maria” at the wake of a dear friend; followed almost immediately by “There’s A Bimbo On The Cover Of My Book,” the greatest filk ever.
I studied the long list of songs, mostly from the fifties and sixties. I knew filk words to a lot of them, very few of the original. Would this audience appreciate the parody? I doubted it. Finally, I found one I thought I could vamp my way through as long as the machine gave me the words.
Not as much fun singing about a lonely outlaw with commitment issues when I’d rather tell the story of a popular car with design flaws. I may have slipped on one verse. Jack Weaver’s muffled guffaw was my only clue.
Until Mom came up and grabbed the microphone from me. She rolled her eyes at me, then she spotted the song she wanted on the screen.
“Stormy weather,” she crooned in her rich contralto. She caressed the words with a velvet tone that hinted at depths of passion.
Mom? Passionate?
Ms. Worth sat up and listened more closely. A hush fell over the tiny lounge. Even the noise from the casino seemed to mute.
You’re a projecting empath, too! Junior Sancroix’s words came back to me. So, apparently, was my mom.
I sat there, mouth agape in wonderment.
Knew it, knew it, knew it, Scrap giggled. He hung from a ceiling lamp and waggled his wart-bestrewed butt at me.
Settle down! How can you be drunk if I’m not drunk?
We’re not drunk, babe, just high on life and music and—and Mom.
I flashed my gaze from Scrap’s antics back to Mom. The strap of her little black dress slid slowly down her shoulder in a seductive invitation.
What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Whoo—ee, this is going to be fun.
“What happened to my annoying, conservative, fussy, control freak mother?”
Darren Estevez happened to Mom.
“Is she still in demon thrall?” Definitely unstable.
Darren, and his foster son Donovan, had the ability to reach into a mind and lull doubts, anger, and inhibitions. I’d seen Donovan quell a riot with a smile.
No answer. Scrap flitted from chandelier to chandelier, making the imitation flame light bulbs flicker among the faux crystal drips. The already dim lighting faded, making the spotlight on Mom more dominant.
I needed to get her off that stage and back to normal.
“Not yet, dear.” Ms. Worth reached across the table and placed her hand atop mine. “Let her finish. She needs to do this.”
“Stormy Weather” came to an end, but not my stormy temper. I sat there, alternately seething and applauding my mother as she sang sultry torch song after whimsical show tune after sweet ballad. Each piece ended to rounds of enthusiastic applause. The lounge filled and the casino emptied, just to listen to my mom.
“If she’s still in demon thrall, then she’s spreading it,” I murmured.
“It’s a happy thrall,” Penny Worth said. “The best singers and working girls have it and know how to use it.”
That got my attention.
Chapter 6
In 1967, Nevada passed a law allowing corporations to own casinos. Now it is extremely rare for an individual to own a casino lock, stock, and barrel.
“WHAT DO YOU KNOW about demons?” I whispered, wishing that Jocelyn Jones wasn’t sitting between us. This conversation needed to be private.
“Oh, sweetie, all men are demons given the right incentive,” she laughed, a soft trilling sound that sent shivers up my spine and raised goose bumps on my arms.
“Or she’s a projecting empath, like you are,” a new voice said quietly. A male voice, rough around the edges like he didn’t use it much.
I turned away from the table to find Breven Sancroix standing just behind my left shoulder. In a lot of folklore, this is the place assigned to Death. That’s Death as an entity rather than the state of nonbeing.
Fortitude, his huge imp, perched on his left shoulder. The nearly invisible beast lifted his long, fully formed wings in an elegant gesture that masked his shifting to a new more aggressive stance. The many warts on his spine and chest seemed to ripple and catch the briefest red glow from the candle lamp on the table. His skin had aged to a dusky patina.
I doubted that chubby Scrap with his stubby wings and bandy legs would ever reach this level of maturity and grace. He was just a scrap of an imp after all, a runt who should have died before his fiftieth birthday. Through sheer determination my imp now boasted a few warts earned in battle as well as nearly one hundred years of life. (Imp years. I had no idea how they converted to human years.)
My face lost heat. “Mr. Sancroix, what are you doing here?”
“My nephew lives here.”
He pulled out Mom’s chair and sat, careful to let Fortitude whip his tail and wing tips behind the back before settling.
Did the big imp weigh anything in this dimension? When Scrap rode my shoulder, he barely made an impression on my senses. Fortitude might prove a substantial burden, even on Breven Sancroix’s broad shoulders.
“Just visiting, then?”
“I may move here. The climate soothes my arthritis. I sold my farm in Pennsylvania. We . . .” He glanced at the uninformed humans about the table. “I’m getting on in years and no longer wish to work the place alone. Junior would rather live and work here.”
He didn’t look arthritic to me. He moved with the power and suppleness of a much younger man. I found it hard to guess his age. Weathered skin from many years working out of doors, and a tightness about his mouth, suggested late middle age pushing sixty maybe. The scar running from temple to jaw that matched my own, looked old and faded. He’d been a Warrior of the Celestial Blade a long time. Looks can be deceiving, especially in us Warriors.
I stand five feet two inches and barely weigh in at one hundred ten pounds. Most people say I look tiny and frail. I’ve felled a dozen half-blood (Kajiri) Sasquatch demons twice my size. I’ve conquered full-blood (Midori) Windago. In a pinch, without any weapons but a se
t of car keys, I laid out two teenage muggers in a dark parking lot. I run nearly every day and fence three times a week when I’m home.
My scar still looks raw and angry to my eye after three years. So I cover it with makeup even though mundanes can’t see it.
“What does your nephew do that he can afford to live in a hotel in Vegas?” I asked.
“He owns the hotel.”
That stopped me cold. “He seems very young to own such a . . . prime piece of real estate.” Off the Strip, the buildings and businesses wouldn’t command the same value as the major operations, but any casino and hotel in Vegas had to be worth a lot more than I could ever dream of making as a writer, even holding on to my place on the best seller lists.
The bellhop hadn’t said anything about Junior owning the place. Was he protecting the man, or didn’t he know?
“Long story short, he inherited a piece of it and managed to . . . acquire the remaining shares.” Breven Sancroix looked almost embarrassed.
“Did he use his talent as a projecting empath to coerce the other owners into selling at a vastly deflated value?” I raised my eyebrows at him.
Breven Sancroix looked away.
“Better question, did Junior tell you about his little problem on the flight here from Chicago?”
Did I say that I don’t believe in coincidence? The Sancroixs, uncle and nephew, began to look like the stalker I’d sensed.
“No, he didn’t. What happened?”
“Your nephew has a problem.” I scanned the bar for eavesdroppers. Every eye and ear concentrated on my mother as she reached into her repertoire for yet another steamy ballad of lust and betrayal.
This time Sancroix lifted his own eyebrows in question.
“This is a conversation best held in private.”
“I’ll keep an eye on your mom, sweetie,” Penny Worth said. She patted my hand again. “She’s safe with me.”
