So Damn Lucky (Lucky O'Toole Vegas Adventure Book 3)

by Deborah Coonts

  Marik clapped his hands. The music stopped. “Almost,” he said. “Myrna, you have to get your panel aligned with the marks on the stage. If you don’t, we will all be sent back to the Ukraine and the gulag.”

  A lithe girl with the requisite Vegas assets—presumably Myrna—gave a nervous half-curtsey and rushed back to her spot.

  Propping one butt-cheek on a crate in the semidarkness, I watched Marik as he cued the music and they performed the illusion again. Tall and trim, he wore loose-fitting jeans with holes in both knees, and a sweatshirt torn to expose an alluring hint of chest muscles. His long, jet-black hair was pulled severely away from his face and tied back into a tail reaching to his midback. Large dark eyes, tilted at the corners, dominated the flat planes of his face. His slightly oversized nose and thin lips completed the picture, giving him an exotic, feral look.

  Even though I could tell Marik was aware of my presence, he worked his staff through the illusion several more times until he was completely satisfied. “Bravo,” he said, then dismissed his assistants and the elephant with a wave. “Tomorrow, same time.”

  Only after drinking his fill from a pitcher of water and draping a white towel around his neck as if the whole magic thing was so terribly trying, did he grace me with his attention. “A nightmare from the past, have you come to haunt me again?”

  “Get over it Marik. We were young, doing the best we could. It was a long time ago—too long to spend the psychic energy holding a grudge.” Apparently groveling wasn’t part of my repertoire today—either that or my give-a-damn had gone on the fritz.

  “Perhaps. But I understand you owe me a pane of tempered glass.”

  “I figured you owned the Houdini thing. I didn’t know anyone else who would have the interest and the money. Did you teach Dimitri how to use it?”

  “Even I don’t know its secrets,” he said, as if this fact was a crime against nature—impossible and highly irritating.

  “Then explain why Dimitri had it onstage with him. Did you know he was going to try the trick?”

  “Of course not. He wanted it for good luck—something of Houdini’s. Dimchka was a friend—not the best magician, but a good man. He didn’t deserve what he got.”

  “And what did he get?” I had a hard time seeing the great Kovalenko, international superstar, and poor, sad Dimitri hanging with the same crowd.

  “Someone killed him, I assume,” Marik said with a shrug, but his eyes held a challenge.

  What kind of challenge? I had no idea. I sighed and looked around the warehouse. I felt like a puzzlemaster surrounded by pieces, none of them fitting together as if they were from different puzzles. “Dimitri was my friend as well,” I said after a few moments. “Although I only knew him through work, I tried to take care of him.”

  “He told me that.” Marik grabbed my hand, pulling me off the crate. “Come, let’s have some wine and, as you Yanks say, bury the hatchet.”

  “Preferably not in my back.” I followed him to the elevators on the far side of the warehouse. “Have you heard about the words Bart Griffin is parsing out each night?” I asked as we rode to the top floor.

  The door opened to a vast, unobstructed space with wooden floors that looked original—bearing the marks of time—brick walls and fourteen-foot ceilings. Support columns dotted the expanse with clusters of furniture the only dividers. Light and an incredible view of the Strip streamed through the far glass wall. Marik headed for a half-circle bar extending from a sidewall. “Do you still drink Wild Turkey?” he asked.

  “My drug of choice,” I said, flattered he remembered. “Bart Griffin?”

  “Yes.” Marik filled a tumbler with two fingers of bourbon and pushed it toward me as I perched on a stool. “First, ‘pray be quick,’ then last night ‘pray tell.’” He poured himself a glass of bloodred wine then motioned me over to the couch.

  “Pray tell?” I asked, as I took a seat. Marik settled beside me. We both drank in the fabulous view of the Strip. “Do you have any idea what all that means?”

  “No, but it sounds like the sort of code magicians use for mind-reading tricks. Ten words, each word is assigned to a number from one through ten. The magician is blindfolded; an assistant wanders the crowd, and selects an item. As they hold it up, the assistant engages in a running commentary with the audience and the magician. To listen to it, it seems like ordinary conversation.”

  “But the code words are sprinkled in, and the corresponding numbers indicate a letter in the alphabet—one for A, two for B, etcetera—thus spelling out the item the assistant is holding,” I finished. “I saw someone do that on television once—I never knew how it worked.”

  “That’s how,” Marik grinned.

  While not classically handsome, he was exotic, radiating an animal magnetism. I’m sure it was a finely honed part of his act, and I’d have to say it was effective. But, then again, my opinion couldn’t be trusted—my libido was running my life.

  “Have you ever seen anyone read minds without resorting to the usual tricks?”

  “No, but I understand there are those who can.” Marik gazed at me over the top of his glass, the expression in his eyes unreadable.

  “So, how do we interpret the phrases from Bart Griffin’s show?”

  “Find the key.”

  ***

  Dreading the evening ahead, I’d spent more time than I intended visiting with Marik. We’d made our peace, reminisced, then drank a toast to the two kids from humble beginnings we both had been. Friends who “knew you when” were treasures we both had come to appreciate.

  Miss P still manned her desk even though the dinner hour fast approached.

  “Are you seeing to the magician’s dinner tonight, or am I?” I asked, as I breezed through the outer office. I stashed my bag in the closet and took stock of my desk. The paper fairy must have been on vacation—I could still see black walnut.

  “I thought I’d take it,” Miss P said from the doorway. “Jeremy’s chasing some lead tonight, and I understand Teddie has put in an appearance.”

  “Only until tomorrow morning, so nothing to throw a party over.” With thoughts racing, too nervous to sit, I stepped to my office window overlooking the lobby. “In fact, we are having dinner with his parents tonight.”

  “Oh,” said Miss P, a strict adherent to the if-you-don’t-have-something-nice-to-say-don’t-say-anything rule.

  “In the Burger Palais, the only restaurant with available seating at a reasonable hour.”

  “Oh.”

  “Could you try to get GiGi Vascheron on the phone?” I asked. “I’d like to go see her at her office tomorrow afternoon sometime.”

  “You closed her show—I’m not sure she’ll roll out the welcome mat. I understand there’s an overabundance of showgirls in the job pool right now.”

  “Then it’s a good thing she has a day job,” I snapped.

  “I didn’t mean to imply—”

  “I know. I’m sorry. This has not been a good day, and I’m losing my smile.”

  The phone rang. Miss P leaned across my desk and answered, “Customer Relations.” Her eyes widened. “Yes, Sir, she’s right here. Yes. Right away, Sir.” She slowly recradled the phone.

  “That wasn’t someone calling himself the Devil, was it?” I asked, hope springing eternal.

  “Worse. The Big Boss… and he’s spitting nails. He wants you in his apartment… now.”

  “His timing is impeccable. I could use a good fight.”

  Chapter Ten

  THE Big Boss started in on me the minute the elevator doors opened and disgorged me into the thick of battle. “How dare you invite your mother and not include me? A family dinner with Teddie and his parents? I have every right to be there.”

  “What makes you think that?” I said, my voice low, my words measured, my eyes narrowing.

  “We’re family,” he bellowed. He still hadn’t learned to run for the hills when my eyes got slitty.

  His shout brought Mona runni
ng into the room.

  I motioned her back to where she had come from. “Get out, Mother. This is between me and The Big Boss.”

  “Lucky, some of this is my fault.” Mona wrung her hands, a stricken look on her face, tears in her eyes.

  “Not now! Go!”

  Mother obviously got the slitty-eye thing—she retreated down the hall, out of sight.

  “Lucky, I’m your father.” The Big Boss had regained control of his voice, but there was fury in his eyes… and hurt.

  I so got the hurt part.

  “My father? Really?” Quivering with barely controlled anger, I clenched my fists at my sides as I stared him down. “All those Christmases, where were you? Not even a card. Do you have any idea what that was like?”

  “Lucky, I—” The fury leaked out of him, leaving him deflated.

  “Let me finish.” Keeping my voice under control took most of the energy in my depleted stores. Not crying took the rest. “I was just a kid,” I continued, the hurt a hard, hot ball in my stomach. “I couldn’t understand why my father didn’t want me. Why he didn’t love me enough to even think of me on my birthday. All those years, all those hours, with my nose pressed to the window, waiting, my heart breaking.”

  I needed a drink, so I did the honors, leaving my father standing there, his face blank. After throwing down a finger of whatever I had poured into the glass—Scotch, I thought—I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. I didn’t like Scotch. Fighting the memories, I took a deep, shaky breath. So long ago, yet so real, so visceral.

  “And when I was fifteen and Mother sent me away. I needed you so badly… but you didn’t tell me, even then.” I swiped at a tear as my anger flared, “The two of you—so selfish, thought only of yourselves. And now,” I stalked over to him and jabbed his chest with my finger, as my voice hardened to a knife-edge, cold and deadly as a steel blade. “Now you think you can wipe it all away—pretend it never happened, ignore the devastation you wrecked on a little girl… your daughter.”

  He started to say something, but wisely decided against it.

  “Here’s a news flash, Dad: The little girl is a grown woman now. You waited until it suited you to claim me as yours. Now you can goddamn well wait until I’m good and ready to claim you as mine.”

  I turned and ran for the refuge of the elevator. The door closed. I sank down the back wall until I sat on the floor, then the dam burst. Years of pent-up hurt and anger flooded to the surface.

  My head in my hands, I surrendered—deep, racking sobs shuddered through me like a tornado through a house—ripping, tearing.

  I vaguely remember barking at some guests, telling them to stay out when the elevator stopped at an intermediate floor. After that, I must have stopped the elevator between floors somewhere.

  I don’t know how long I’d been there, alone with my misery, when the familiar voice of Jerry, our Head of Security, said, “Lucky? You okay?” Tinny and thin, his voice came over the speaker in the ceiling. One of his minions monitoring the eye-in-the-sky cameras must have alerted him to a problem in the elevator.

  “Do I look okay?’ I growled, as I swiped at my eyes with the sleeve of my sweater.

  “You look like you could use a hug from an old friend.”

  Yes, that was exactly what I needed. “On my way,” I said as I released the elevator.

  As good as his word, Jerry met me at the elevators and wrapped his arms around me. My head on his shoulder, he held me tight, squeezing the last of the pain until it was only a bad memory. Funny how the touch of a friend could set the world right again.

  Out of tears, I was left with the sniffles and the dry, racking gasps that linger after everything else is gone, washed away by the flood of emotion.

  Jerry handed me his handkerchief as he led me to his office and shut the door. “The snot rag is only slightly used, shouldn’t be a problem.”

  Ignoring him, I gladly plopped into the chair he held for me. Leaning my head back, I stared at the ceiling. “What a day.”

  “Mind if I smoke?” Jerry asked.

  “Of course I mind. You’re killing yourself.” My head snapped up as I leveled my best frown—which was probably pretty scary about now—on him.

  The smiling eyes of my friend met mine. No cigarettes. His hands were empty.

  “You are seriously warped, jerking my chain at a time like this,” I said, but couldn’t help rewarding him with the smile he was looking for. “You know me way too well.”

  “I oughta, I’ve been putting up with your act for over fifteen years now.”

  Jerry was right, we went way back… almost to the very beginning. A tall, thin black man, bald as a billiard ball, and steady as the winter rain in Seattle, Jerry had been my port in a storm more times than I could remember—a surrogate father when my own had shirked his duty.

  Leaning back in his chair, he put his feet on his desk. “From the looks of you, I’m guessing The Big Boss got the worst of that round. Between you and me, he had it coming.”

  A few ticks of the clock passed before the light dawned: Of course Jerry knew. Like I said, he’d been there from the beginning. “Why didn’t he tell me?”

  “That’s a question for your father, not me.”

  “Who else knows?” I felt control returning—anger simmered under the surface—a productive fire, fueling a sudden, overwhelming urge to set my life right. There were things to be said…feelings to be honored… dreams to fight for.

  “No one who would ever breathe a word.” Jerry shot his cuffs, then laced his fingers behind his head—a glint of gold sparkled at his wrist… a gold Rolex. “This call is yours, Lucky.”

  I liked the sound of that. Brushing down my skirt and sweater, I levered myself out of my chair. Surprisingly, I was steady on my feet. “Thanks for the rescue.”

  Jerry tipped his head.

  “Oh, I’ve got something else I could use your help on… and I promise I won’t cry.”

  “Name it.”

  “I don’t want you to break any rules, or invade anyone’s privacy, but I want you to tell me when a couple of our guests leave the building and when they return. I wouldn’t be averse to knowing who they talk to as well. Can you do that?”

  “Piece of cake,” Jerry agreed with a smile. “I’m loving this facial-recognition software.”

  My phone rang as I turned to go. Flipping it open, I pressed it to my ear. “O’Toole.”

  “Lucky,” Miss P said, her voice hollow, shattered. “It’s Flash. And it’s not good.”

  ***

  “Where is she,” I shouted as I burst into the emergency room at UMC. Heads turned. A nurse glared. I couldn’t give a damn. “Federika Gordon?” I grabbed a nurse who tried to scurry out of my reach.

  “Are you family?”

  Our eyes locked for a moment as I glared at her.

  “Okay, I’ll take you back,” she said with a nervous glance over her shoulder.

  ***

  Flash, my sister but for a quirk of biology, reclined in a hospital bed, barking orders. Her face the color of raw meat, her head bandaged, her eyes swollen, she shouted, “I want out of here, now!” Spying me, she brightened. “They won’t give me my clothes! I can’t go anywhere in this friggin’ gown.”

  I’d never known my friend to be hindered by modesty, but I wasn’t going to point that out. “The nurse told me they want to do some kind of scan to check for internal bleeding. If they don’t find any, then you can go, so relax, let them do their jobs.” Fighting the rage that simmered just under the surface, I pulled a chair next to her bed and took her hand in mine. “What happened?”

  Some one, some thing, had seriously crossed the line. And they’d pushed me from anger to revenge—a much more dangerous emotion.

  Laying her head back, Flash closed her eyes. “I don’t really know. I was just leaving work—I’d parked my car on the street—stupid, given the neighborhood and all. I was in a hurry. They snuck up from behind. I never saw them.”

&n
bsp; “How many?”

  “Two, I think.” Opening one eye, she gave me a wry smile. “Some reporter I am. I couldn’t even give a description to Romeo. In fact, the only thing I could tell him was they both were average height, nothing extraordinary.”

  “That’s a start,” I offered.

  Flash gave a snort. “Really narrows it down, doesn’t it?”

  “Do you know what they were after?”

  “Not what. Who.”

  “Really? Who?”

  Flash raised her head and looked at me. “You.”

  “Me?” My blood boiled over.

  Flash held out her hand, emptying it into mine. “They told me to give you this as a warning to stay away.”

  Opening my hand, I stared down at an Eden medallion.

  ***

  Teddie was dressed and ready to go when I made it home. “You’re late.”

  “And you’re surprised?” Anger still coursing through me—how dare those assholes come after my friends—I stripped as I strode toward my bedroom, dropping articles of clothing as I went. Halfway there, I stopped and retraced my steps, stopping in front of Teddie. I pulled his lips to mine and drank deeply, enjoying the sensations that shot through me—the sizzle only a simmer, but still there despite my anger and disappointment… my hurt, his distance. Apparently simmer was all we had left. Then I shrugged him away. “Nice to see you, too. How was your afternoon? Mine was the pits, thanks for asking.”

  He followed me into my closet. “Is that your way of telling me I’m being a jerk?”

  “Jerk wasn’t exactly the word I had in mind.” I rolled first one stocking down my leg, then the other. “Let’s just say, I’m seeing hints that, in your case, the whole like-father-like-son thing is rearing its ugly head.”

  Teddie reared back as if I’d slapped him.

  “You have left me in limbo far too long,” I said as I poked him in the chest for emphasis. “I don’t know where we stand or what to do about it. However, I have a strong impression you quit on us some time ago. When, exactly, were you going to let me in on it?”