Devil's Luck

by Carolyn Crane

  Well, it was a mirage. Destiny was a cage. It had been a cage for her, and it was for Simon, whether he wanted to believe it or not.

  “If I don’t stop him, or…shift something, he’ll die.”

  The old woman shook her head. “If you love him, you must set him free.”

  “That’s all you got?”

  The old woman grinned.

  Fawna stormed off, trying his phone again on her way to her bike. She went back to his place and pounded on the door, even called Justine for ideas. Justine thought she should wait.

  Later that morning, she tracked down Packard—he was playing chess with Helmut on the sandy part of the Parklands. He didn’t know where Simon was, either, and he laughed when she asked him to guess where he might go when he was feeling upset.

  She sat down and ended up telling them both the whole story, or at least the G-rated parts: how Simon asked her not to peek at his future, but she already had…and she’d called his death stupid and useless. Okay, and she’d told him she never wanted to see him again, and that she would have been better off never knowing him. Oh, she’d been so terrible to him. She pictured Simon lying on her coat. Her words had injured him, yet she’d kept on. She’d felt so frightened for him!

  “You have to find him,” Packard said.

  He seemed worried. Alarm shot through her. “Why? You think that this is something bad?”

  “It’s not good.”

  “You tell me where he is. You’re the one who predicts what people are likely to do.”

  “Simon’s most likely to do the last thing he should do,” Packard said. “The worst and most dangerous thing.”

  It didn’t take Fawna long to go there: “Bobby,” she whispered.

  “He knows about Bobby?”

  She nodded.

  Packard winced.

  Fawna held up a hand and focused into Simon’s near future now—tore into it. She saw him walking through golden doors—shit. “He travels to the Midas Tropicali Casino,” she whispered. “Looks like later this afternoon, early evening. He’ll be there just hours from now.” She jumped her vision further to see him beaten. On his side, on a concrete floor. She gasped, feeling sick. She saw blood bubble out his mouth. A boot rammed into his gut. She wrapped her arms around her stomach. “Later he will be beaten. Terribly.” What was that place? It looked so small and grimy, with shelving lining the walls. Still in the Midas?

  “Not uncommon for Simon,” Packard said, “to be in fights.”

  She jumped her foresight further ahead and saw the scene that she’d first viewed so long ago: Simon lying half under a poker table. She saw him get kicked and tasered, over and over. She saw him clutch his chest, unable to breathe. Dying. Poker chips all around his head.

  When she honed her focus on the surroundings, it was clear that this was Bobby’s back room at the Midas Tropicali—oh, she knew that room well. That carpet.

  “He is taken to Bobby’s back room to be beaten and tasered some more.” For Bobby’s entertainment, no doubt. One of the kickers may have been Bobby. “His heart…”

  “When?”

  “It all happens in six or seven hours. Maybe eight. We have to stop him from entering the Midas this afternoon.” She looked up. “That would at least derail things. If I was there on the ground I’d know what to do.”

  She would find a way to disrupt that fate—at least shift the details enough to buy him time. Then they’d work on changing the currents. She always said it couldn’t be done by an act of will, but she had will enough for an army now. She would make it happen. She would save him whether he wanted it or not. He was her man, and she would fight for him.

  Packard stood. “I’ll make a few calls. Go pack some things. I’ll pick you up at your place as soon as I can.” His hand on her shoulder didn’t comfort her. “We’ll find him. We’ll get there first.”

  She hopped on her bike and rode off. Just as she hit the bridge, picturing Simon lying on her coat with that insolent expression of his, she looked at her coat sleeve.

  The golden chip was gone.

  So he’d taken it the night before—right after she’d told him that she’d be better off if she’d never met him, and that he would die stupidly—he’d taken the chip, aiming to go after Bobby. Oh, what had she done?

  She realized another thing, too: if she had to enter the Midas, she’d get in faster and go deeper without Packard.

  She pedaled furiously to her bank, emptied her sparse savings account, and an hour later, she was waiting on standby for the next flight to Vegas. A few hours after that she stood outside the Midas Tropicali Casino wearing a hat to hide her hair, asking the doormen, who thankfully didn’t know her, if they’d seen anyone answering Simon’s description.

  They had. He’d walked in maybe an hour or two ago, they thought.

  She looked up at the ugly golden structure with its glittery façade and gargantuan pillars. She couldn’t see her own future, of course—she’d be flying blind in terms of her own fate, but she had to get to Simon. She took a deep breath, pulled off her hat, and walked through the doors.

  She beelined back past the slots and the tables. If she headed deep enough, somebody of Bobby’s would bring her the rest of the way. A few stunned faces in the VIP lounge told her it would be soon. She could still walk out.

  But she wouldn’t.

  “Fawna?”

  Hale. One of the old bodyguards, bushy brows raised high in surprise. They’d all known she wanted out. “It’s you,” he said. “We thought…”

  Fawna smiled, as though her pulse wasn’t pounding. “What’s new? Other than me back from the dead, that is.”

  Hale gaped at her. “What are you doing?”

  What the hell was she doing?

  “Does Bobby know you’re back?” he asked.

  “He will.” She grinned. “Is he back there?”

  “Playing. How come you…I don’t understand,” he said.

  “I’m just back, that’s all. I need to see Bobby.” Playing, Hale had said. So nothing had happened yet. They’d move the games for the night if a death occurred.

  Hale held out his hands. “You know the rules.”

  Fawna shrugged off her coat and gave it to him to examine. “Who else is back there?” she asked him.

  “Italian job and a couple others. The Greek. Some frat boy accountant. The Saudi professors.

  Fawna took back her coat. Okay, so Simon wasn’t playing. He’d end up where Bobby was, that’s all she knew.

  Hale took her elbow. Her heart raced as she was escorted back. She slowed. What was she doing? Would she make it all worse?

  Hale shook his head. “Fawna.”

  It was too late. People had seen her with Hale. He’d be dead if he let her escape now. Out the corner of her eye she saw Garby and Goetz descending. More of Bobby’s guys. Now it really was too late. She steeled herself and walked through the next VIP lounge, and then through the golden doors of the very back room.

  And there he was—Bobby—with his fat, fleshy face and his kiwi setup, pushing out of his game pit toward her. Obviously somebody had called ahead, but still, he looked dumbfounded.

  She went to him of her own free will. He grabbed her arm, holding it too tightly. “Where have you been? This is…this is…”

  “I’m back,” she said brightly.

  He seemed unsure of whether to be angry or happy. He lowered his voice. “So that was all a ruse? That doctor—oh, he’s a dead man.”

  “Bobby!” She jerked away. “It was my caper. I fooled them all, and I’m back, aren’t I?”

  He narrowed his eyes. He smelled a trap. He needed a reason. “Where were you?”

  “Just roaming. Sewing wild oats. But I came back. Like the Amish. It’s what I know,” she whispered. “I haven’t felt comfortable anywhere else. This is home. Do you not want me here? Fine.”

  Bobby gripped her arm harder. He was stupid, but he wasn’t stupid.

  She said, “Haven’t you eve
r heard the old saying: ‘if you love something, set it free, and if it doesn’t come back to you, it isn’t truly yours’?”

  “You let me think you were dead.”

  “I needed a vacay. But, the motel life isn’t for me. It’s not like I knew anyone. Look, I want to be a team again. And I saw something for you—wealth beyond measure. I want in on it.”

  He searched her face, still doubting. Really, what was she doing? She had no endgame here except disrupting things enough to delay Simon’s fate. She had no idea how they’d escape after she made her disruption, or even if it would work. It might just be a two-minute delay. It was reckless. Simon would be happy to know he’d rubbed off on her in this way. Oh, where was he?

  “Of course I’ll want some changes,” she said. “Rules. I’m a free agent.”

  He frowned, as if in thought. “We could draw something up.” Of course, he wouldn’t be good for his word. Still, he watched her face, warily.

  “I told you I would be by your side for the future, don’t you remember? This is what I foresaw, and who fights fate?” She lowered her voice and made witchy eyes. “I saw fortune shine upon us. Gold grew from your fingers. A yacht—” she flung up a hand— “like the Taj Mahal.”

  Bobby squinted. He liked a positive vision: it brought out his greed.

  “And you’ll never believe who wins the World Series,” she whispered, casting her eyes upon his poker table, at the cards there. “And by the way, the sun will shine upon your next hand. A house quite full of royals.”

  A big, smug smile formed on his face. He put an arm around her and guided her to the table “I’ve been saving a seat for you, my dear.”

  Fawna said hello to Angelina as they sat. They’d lunched in the past.

  One of the thugs, Blake, rushed out from the storage closet and whispered in Bobby’s ear. Blake’s shirt had blood all over it.

  “Can’t you see I’m busy?” Bobby said.

  Blake whispered again. He seemed strangely animated. A few of the guards did, actually. Something was up in the storage closet.

  “Fine. Then bring the party out here if it can’t wait. He wanted to play, so let him play,” Bobby said.

  The frat boy accountant was removed.

  It took everything Fawna had in her not to cry out as Blake and Scrims dragged Simon in. Blood covered the side of his face and much of his chest. His black shirt was in tatters. But her heart soared to see him alive.

  Scrims tossed a knife to a guard. “He was hiding this.”

  Bobby tsked.

  Simon was stunned to see her, but he was too wily to say anything—she knew that, knew his contours, inside and out. She knew him.

  “Oh, this is a fine how d’ya do!” she complained, looking away in pretend distaste. She had to do something fast. This was close to his fated end.

  They banged Simon down into the pit and onto the empty seat. Bald, burly Scrims seemed to have a thing against him. God, what had happened? But he was here. Bloody, beaten, with one of his eyes encircled in angry pink. But alive.

  More than that—he looked happy.

  Strangely, she was reminded of the knife-swallowing fire-breather, how happy he looked doing his fire-breathing tricks.

  And that’s when she saw the red pinkie ring—on Simon. He would be the one to stab Bobby in the temple! She stared into Simon, quickly read his future—he would leap over the table and stab Bobby in the eye, and Scrims and the other thugs would kick and taser him, not stopping as Simon collapsed under the table, dying.

  Her pulse pounded—she had to jolt the whole skirmish off the track. Bobby began to peel a kiwi. She saw Simon focus on the knife.

  She motioned at him. “Why is this guy here?”

  “He wanted to play earlier,” Bobby said to Fawna. “So I said he could play.” He addressed Simon, then. “I read in a book one time about a zoo in India where the animals were accidentally set free. Tigers, bears, and whatnot. Monkeys. Lemurs.” Bobby droned on, naming all of the animals he could think of.

  Blake was pretty near Fawna. She could get his gun, shoot the place up. She set her intention and inspected the future that would unfurl from that course of action.

  A lot of death. Including Simon’s.

  Feverishly, she ran through other possible actions. None of the futures were good. She was starting to feel trapped.

  Bobby kept on about how the wild animals had all run around the city, but did they venture back out into the jungle? No. They returned to their cages of their own free will, because it was what they knew. And they were fed there, and had beds there. “If you want something, you make it your own, you see,” he said to the table. “Then, when you set it free, it will come back to you.”

  God, she hated Bobby.

  She looked over at Simon, Bobby’s polar opposite. Bloody, beaten. Eyes that strange candy blue. A man so brutally beautiful, it took her breath away. But it was more—she recognized something beyond that brutal beauty, beyond that crazy happiness. She saw his freedom. Even now he was bucking fate. It was irrelevant to him.

  Irrelevant.

  Her heart beat like crazy. It hadn’t been a mirage, that freedom. Fate didn’t have to be a cage. Just because she couldn’t see her way out didn’t mean she couldn’t make a way out, or at least live like there was one. Live free!

  This was the ringtoss all over again.

  Screw fate! she thought. She was through being fate’s bitch!

  Bobby commanded the dealer to deal, and continued on. “I’m a generous man,” he said to Simon. “This little girl here tells futures—very good with the crystal ball, so to speak, and I’m going to have her tell you yours. Fawna, why don’t you tell our guest his fate?”

  Instead, she glared at Bobby, glared into his future, saw the same thing as always—a man’s hand—Simon’s hand—shoving the knife into his eye.

  She turned to Simon and met his gaze. She knew that he recognized the freedom in her, just as she recognized it in him. They were together again, wild and free, flying through the dark in a car about to crash.

  “He dies,” she said. “But not today.” She turned to Bobby and picked up the kiwi knife. “Not today, motherfucker.” With that, she jammed the small, silver blade right into Bobby Barrington’s eye, quickly, and with all her might. It went in with surprising ease.

  She jumped away as Bobby screamed, horribly and began crashing around, knife still in his eye.

  Scrims went for her, but Simon grabbed him and held his gun to his head.

  “Jesus, Fawna!” Hale yelled. “Jesus!”

  Blake raised his hands. A few other thugs converged, guns pointed at Simon and Fawna. The Saudis had Bobby on the ground. There was a hubbub about whether to pull out the knife.

  Hale was there. “You can’t get away with this,” he said to Fawna.

  “We will,” Fawna whispered, “if you want me to call you later and tell you the winner of the next Super Bowl. I’ll tell the five of you.”

  A few of them looked warily at Bobby.

  “Bobby’s done,” Fawna said.

  Simon touched Hale and another guard. Zinging them? A few of them exchanged glances. She was offering them untold riches. Simon was making them reckless. These were uncharted waters.

  “Storage closet,” Hale mumbled. Then, louder, “It’s under control. Somebody call an ambulance.”

  Bystanders looked on in horror, but none of them would talk, as Simon and Fawna were escorted into the bloody storage closet by the five guards. There had been killings in the exclusive back room before. No cameras got beyond those golden doors, and everyone was corrupt.

  The closet light went on, the door slammed. Blake led them all the way to the back. He pulled away a rug and yanked up a hatch—to the tunnels below. She’d been down there a few times.

  “Who wins?” Scrims demanded.

  “I’ll tell you when we’re safe.”

  “Now.”

  “No,” Fawna said.

  “She’s good f
or it,” Hale said.

  “She’d better be.” Blake pointed down the hatch. A metal ladder stretched down into the darkness. “Head start, that’s all we can promise.”

  She turned to Simon. “Can you do it? Get down that ladder?” He couldn’t seem to put weight on one leg.

  “God, you’re gorgeous,” Simon said.

  Her heart felt so big, she thought it might burst. “Go!”

  He lowered himself in and seemed to be going down on one leg. She went after. This could work.

  Simon was having trouble, and he’d hurt even worse as the adrenaline wore off. At the bottom she let him drape an arm around her and she put hers around him, and they made their way down the tunnel, which was a kind of small, gray hallway, like in a submarine. At a fork they went right—she was pretty sure this branch led to an alley well away from the strip.

  “You’re going to be okay,” she said, trying to keep him on a steady clip forward.

  Today, at least. She’d disrupted the future enough to save him today. It didn’t mean that the freight train wasn’t still coming.

  They climbed up another ladder, opened another hatch, and got up on top. Simon wanted to stop, but she forced them to walk a block. They collapsed together in the darkened doorway of a costume shop.

  “Thank you,” he whispered.

  “Me? Thank you. I know what you were doing. Oh, look at you.” She wiped some blood off his cheek. “Look at you.”

  He attempted a smile, but it looked like a grimace. “I’ve gotten through worse.”

  “I know,” she said. His eyes were just slits, and the parts that were supposed to be white were totally red. “Oh, Simon.”

  “Fawna, I’m sorry. I just can’t—I can’t do what you want—”

  “Stop.” She put two fingers over his beautiful, swollen lips. “Shh.” She wiped more of the blood off his face with her sleeve. Then she wiped some blood off his chest, and off the faces of his dragons. And then something came to her—something so monumental in its truth, it took her breath away. Her hand stilled, and she looked into his eyes. “You shouldn’t change. I don’t want you to change.”