by Jonas Saul
He started for the back door, waving at colleagues along the way, and hit the bar on the door without seeing Hank again. Relieved, he pushed the door open and nearly bumped into Hank.
“Whoa,” Eddie gasped and reared back.
Hank’s smiling face gleamed with pleasure as he placed one hand on the open door and one on the doorframe.
“Eddie, last chance. After tonight, you’ll be gone.” He glanced over his shoulder, then back at Eddie. “If you’re nervous, I assure you, no one will ever know. Then you’re gone. I’ll be kind and considerate. And I give a mean pegging. Or I can receive, whatever works for you.” He smiled wide.
Eddie’s stomach, already knotted up, twisted another way, weakening his knees.
“Hank, I’m straight. Seriously. Listen, no offense, but I don’t swing that way.”
“No offense taken,” Hank said. He let go of the door and backed off a few steps. “It’s just … you know.”
Eddie stepped outside and moved sideways so he couldn’t be boxed in by Hank again. Hank’s behavior surprised him. There had never been a signal, a sign of any kind that Hank would come onto Eddie so strong tonight. Eddie was sure he couldn’t have caused this by condoning Hank’s previous behavior.
“What do you mean by, it’s just, you know?”
Hank appeared preoccupied as he looked around the parking lot. Eddie followed his eyes and saw Wallace’s car, but no Mark inside yet. Mark was supposed to be waiting for Wallace to come out this very door in about fifteen minutes with the million dollars from the cage. Time was running out as he stood there talking to Hank about being gay, but he was curious to find out what led Hank to think he’d be into it. And he still had over ten minutes.
“It’s just,” Hank started. He met Eddie’s eyes. “Remember the employee Christmas party?”
“That?” Eddie exclaimed. “I was drunk.”
“I know. But you made me feel special. Everyone crashed. You and I stayed up all night, drinking. When we finally fell asleep, we woke up in each other’s arms. You had a leg wrapped around me. I called you a few times after that—”
“I remember.”
“But you didn’t want to go out. I don’t know. I guess I just thought you were curious.”
“Curious?”
“Yeah, like bi-curious or something.”
The erection started again. Shit.
“No, Hank, I’m not bi-curious. I’m sorry. We were drunk. I’ll hug anybody when I’m drunk.”
“Then let’s go out tonight as work friends and that’s it. We can get drunk, if you know what I mean.” He giggled, then bit his lower lip.
“I’m not going out to get drunk the night before my flight to England, Hank. I’m going home. And seriously, I’m not curious.”
Hank pointed at Eddie’s crotch. “It seems he disagrees. You have no idea what I can do with that.”
Eddie felt naked in front of Hank. He turned away and started for his car.
“Goodnight, Hank,” he said. Then, over his shoulder, he added, “Have a good one. Enjoy your life.”
Halfway to his car, the employee door opened and closed behind him. He turned back and saw Hank was gone.
“Holy shit, that was creepy,” he muttered.
Once in the darkness between parking lot lights, he turned toward Wallace’s car and saw Mark in the driver’s seat.
Perfect.
Everything was going as planned. Nothing had derailed the plan. He would get the money and be enjoying it on a beach hundreds of miles south by the morning. He could get Hank’s ideas out of his head with the first prostitute he hired tomorrow night. Eddie just hoped he didn’t make a mistake and get a woman with a dick—a she-male tranny—because in the end, transsexuals weren’t women with dicks, they were men with tits.
He rapped on Wallace’s car window. Mark rolled it down an inch.
“You good?” Eddie asked.
Mark nodded. “All set.”
Eddie tapped the glass twice with his hand. “We got this,” he said and turned away.
“Hey,” Mark said.
“Yeah?”
“What did Hank want?”
“You really want to know?”
Mark nodded, not taking his eyes off the employee entrance of the casino.
“My dick.”
Mark shot his head sideways. “What? Really?”
Eddie nodded. “He felt since I was leaving, his secret would be safe.”
“Oh. Crazy.”
“Anyway, let’s get our heads back in this. Less than ten minutes left.”
Mark laughed a small chuckle.
“What?” Eddie said as he backed away from the car.
“Let’s get our heads back in this?” Mark repeated.
“You know what I mean.”
“Sure I do.”
Eddie headed for his car. When Mark was lying dead in the street, he would know exactly what Eddie meant. He would learn in one swift lesson the kind of man Eddie was.
“Laugh all you want at my expense, asshole,” he whispered. “Let’s see who gets the last laugh.”
Chapter 5
The taxi drove close to the ocean, the moon reflecting a ribbon of light across the surface. Hotel lights along the road cast their glare on the shore. Under other circumstances, Sarah would be overjoyed to be in such a gorgeous place with Aaron. But not today. Today, she was weak, tired, sweating profusely, had an upset stomach, and was headed for trouble. The Vivian kind.
Vivian, Sarah’s sister, had been dead since Sarah was only a few years old. When Sarah was eighteen, Vivian began talking through her from the Other Side, channeling messages, ominous notes about future events, future crimes. Sarah quickly learned to answer the call and ultimately grew to love what she did. Vivian had pulled her out of a lot of scrapes and near-death experiences, but she’d also sent her into harm’s way several times.
Now, whenever it pleased Vivian, she could drop into Sarah’s consciousness at will. Their hunt for human traffickers led them to Toronto, Amsterdam, and finally Athens, Greece, where Sarah thought it was over. But by some strange twist of fate, the people Sarah hurt in Toronto were connected to the Enzo Cartel in Mexico. They had kidnapped Aaron to get to Sarah and it had worked. But now the cartel was dead and gone, Aaron was back—minus the finger they had cut off to send to Sarah as a message—and it was time to move on. But Sarah couldn’t move on right away. She needed to deal with the addiction to the stuff they’d shot her up with. Once she got settled in the hotel, she was confident this heroin business would be easy to beat. If anyone could beat it, she could.
The taxi stopped in front of the Rosarito Beach Casino Hotel and Aaron paid the driver for the forty-five minute ride. Then he ran around to the other side and helped Sarah out.
On wobbly legs, she held Aaron’s arm and moved toward the stairs that led to the lobby. Before entering the lobby, she took one last look down the road from the way they had come.
The four-door sedan, the one she was sure had followed them, was parked two blocks away on the other side of the street.
“Wait,” she said.
Aaron stopped. “What is it?”
“That car.” Sarah pointed. “It’s the same one. I’m sure of it.”
Aaron followed Sarah’s pointed finger with his gaze. After a moment, he shook his head. “No, couldn’t be. Neither Parkman nor Darwin have cars like that.”
“So it isn’t them? If not, someone else followed us.”
Aaron moved to block her view of the car. “Sarah, it’s over. You’re on vacation. No one followed us. Either that’s not the same car, or it’s a rare coincidence that those people were coming to this hotel, too.”
“You or me?” Sarah asked.
“You or me, what?”
“One of us is walking to that car. One of us is going to talk to the driver, or if there’s no driver, at least mentally record the make and model and license plate number. One of us will remain on duty even though we’re on
vacation. One of us will watch our backs. Just in case.”
He stared at her a moment too long. “I’ll do it. But I know I’m right. There’s nothing going on, Sarah. All is well in the world again. You’re safe, honey. I’m here. And that’s why I’m going to check it out for you.” He walked away from her backwards. “Be right back.” He started for the car at a brisk pace.
He looked good in form-fitting jeans, a slight swagger of his manly hips, his upper body built tough from years of rigorous training. Aaron was her man, there to protect her. Yet she hadn’t fully accepted that yet. She was the protector. She was the aggressor. What would that look like in their future? Would she have to soften for them to be successful as a couple? Or would he?
As Aaron hit the halfway mark between Sarah and the four-door sedan, its headlights flicked on. The engine roared to life. Aaron broke into a run, but before his feet struck the pavement twice the car was halfway through a U-turn. It fishtailed, bumped the curb, the trunk lifting a foot, then settled back to the road as the driver gunned the vehicle and sped away.
He waved his arms after the car in a what the fuck gesture. After a moment, he walked back to Sarah.
“Looks like you might have been right,” he said. He took her arm. “You want a different hotel? I mean, now that he’s gone he won’t see us walk up the street.”
Sarah thought about it. She considered Vivian’s message. Should she stay and look for a heroin dealer as Vivian told her to? Or actually be on vacation and hide in another hotel? Would she ever get a vacation where she’s one hundred percent away? Could she ever escape Vivian? Did she really want to escape Vivian? She loved what she did. Couldn’t wait to right wrongs, fix things, help people who needed it and dole out consequences wherever required. It offered her a rush unlike anything else.
“No. We stay. We don’t change our plans for anyone. Whoever that was will return and then we’ll know why they followed us. Or Vivian will tell me. Doesn’t matter. I need the room. I need the bed. I’m exhausted.”
“Okay. I’m with you.”
With one last look over his shoulder, Aaron led Sarah into the lobby of the hotel and checked them in for a week. Once they got their room keys and entered the elevator, Vivian came back.
In a rush, she explained to Sarah that a man named Wallace was going to die tonight. He couldn’t die. Another man would die in his place. And yet another man was dead, but he was coming back. But before all that, Sarah needed to buy heroin. The dealer was in the casino.
Vivian, that’s too confusing. The dealer is in the casino? What the hell? Aren’t casinos filled with dealers? How the hell am I supposed to find the right one? Blackjack? Poker?
It was time to go to work. But how? She had no idea where to start or really what to do except look for a dealer. Aaron would never let her out of his sight. She only had twenty minutes before it was too late.
Hurry, Sarah!
What?
Vivian’s message made her woozy, overwhelmed her. Sarah decided that now, on the elevator, was a good enough time to vomit. Although it was coming whether she liked it or not.
Her stomach clenched and shot bile up her throat and out through the fingers she had clamped over her mouth. It hit the carpeted floor of the elevator before she could stop it.
As she dropped to her knees, a hand pressed against the wall of the elevator, Vivian pleaded for her to hurry.
It’s almost too late. Sarah, I need you to act!
Sarah closed her eyes as Aaron grabbed her arms and hauled her off the elevator.
And the ideas began to flow.
And she knew what to do.
And Sarah was back.
Chapter 6
Blair Turner surveyed the crowd. His crowd. His clients. They were the best kind. Transient. Nomadic. Most people gambling in the casino were on holiday. They were here for a good time and he could supply that in spades.
Now eighteen, he had built a small business as a supplier to the wealthy using this casino and one other as his main focus of distribution. Did it matter if he got caught? No. Would he rot in a Mexican jail? No. Because his mother was one of the richest women in this part of the country. Her contributions to the Mexican government virtually assured preferential treatment. He knew that first hand. He’d been arrested for trafficking drugs twice without a single charge sticking. The most amount of time spent in jail was an overnighter while he waited until the paperwork was filed.
Jane Turner, his mother, didn’t like him much. In fact, she professed to hate him without ever telling him why. But she would never remain idle as he suffered and she’d never leave him in a prison to rot. His father died so many years ago, he already forgot what the man looked like. But none of that mattered now and neither did his parents. As far as he was concerned, his mother was his get-out-of-jail-free card. Literally.
When he wanted to go to school, she refused. When he wanted to read, she didn’t allow him to buy books. When he wanted to run away at fourteen, she sent a team of detectives after him and brought him back, locking him in his room for months. She was a cruel woman that would steer him to either madness or drugs. By the time he was sixteen, he was experimenting routinely with drugs. Since she didn’t allow him to advance himself intellectually to prepare for the world, he turned his entrepreneurial skills toward the drug market. Now, at eighteen, he was known to several of the pit bosses and dealers as a friendly. Not to be harassed. To be endured, allowed. Some said selling drugs wasn’t up to community standards. But Blair Turner would point out to those naysayers that it’s the community that keeps him in business.
He straightened his jacket and started across the casino floor toward the three-card poker tables. He would start with poker, chat up a few guests, zero in on his clientele, and set up a transaction. Because of the cameras throughout the casino, a quick sale would take place out back in his Camaro, in the employee parking area, and everyone would be content.
A smile crossed his lips. Tonight would be a good night. The casino was full. The waitresses looked great. The dealers were nodding at him, and his favorite poker table had a spot available in seat one where he always sat. If he got on a good streak going, his cards wouldn’t be affected in seat number one by gamblers getting up or sitting down at the table.
“Evening, Jessica,” he said to the dealer.
She smiled. “Blair.”
“Hot night? Good cards?”
Two of the players, as white as a Brit in winter, shook their heads. An old couple sat in spot six and seven. They didn’t appear too talkative.
He dropped two hundred on the table, got his chips, and played ten on the pair plus and ten on his bet. When Jessica dealt his three cards, he dropped ten on the backs of the cards without looking and sat back to wait, scanning the crowd.
“Playing blind?” Jessica asked.
“Yup. Works best for me. You need the queen or higher to qualify which doesn’t happen all the time. Lately I’ve found blind works very well.”
“Suit yourself.”
Two men across the pit sitting at a Caribbean stud poker table looked like they could use some uppers. A woman playing blackjack was in need of a joint. No question the drunk guy at the Wheel of Fortune machines was good for a couple of grams of hash. He was a regular customer. Even if Blair lost the two hundred playing blind, he’d clear a grand before the night was out.
Jessica flipped the dealer’s cards. A queen, king, three, off suit. She grabbed Blair’s cards and turned them, one by one. An eight, a nine off suit, then an ace. He won his ante, and bet.
“Nice,” he said. “See. It works for me.”
The white Brits weren’t as happy. They’d stayed with a king, ten and a queen, eight.
Jessica retrieved the cards and prepared to deal another hand. Near the cashier’s cage, the blackjack pit boss Wallace Stern, one of his best customers, fidgeted with something on his jacket. He looked over his shoulder, turned back, checked his watch and straightened his jacket. W
hy was Wallace in the cage tonight? Filling in for someone?
“You in?” Jessica asked.
“Oh. Yeah.”
Blair placed his bet and looked back at the cage. From thirty feet away, Wallace looked nervous. Scared. Blair prided himself on his ability to read people, their mannerisms, gestures, twitches. His goal to work in law enforcement when he was younger hadn’t faded, only blocked by his mother. Until then, if it ever happened, he would continue to read people to determine who used drugs and who didn’t.
