“Back up half a step,” I said. I turned to Geneva. “You said you got a note to go to a place and stand and see what happens. Right?”
Geneva nodded.
“Nothing more? Nothing about kidnapping, or ghost slots or anything?”
“That’s right,” she said.
“So we have a second option,” I said. “Someone might not be controlling those things. They may only be predicting them.”
I looked at the three puzzled faces staring at me and managed to not laugh. “Machines are machines,” I said. “They are governed by programming and statistical payouts. Why wouldn’t a ghost slot be working under the same basic rules? And if that’s the case, it might be logical the slots are following a pattern that someone could predict.”
“Possible,” Johnny said. “But I’m still leaning toward someone in direct control somewhere. This entire mess has the potential of bringing down casinos all over the world. The payoff’s too big to not have someone in control of it.”
Geneva was clearly agreeing with Johnny, and since she was touching his arm, I knew that what Johnny had said went for both of them. Which was fine. We had a fork in the road of possibilities here. They would chase down one, Patty and I and Screamer would chase the other one. For all I knew, it was a combination of both.
“So how long until the lid blows off this thing?” I asked Geneva.
“Not long,” she said. “A day, maybe two at most. Sooner if someone besides us puts the slot machine angle firmly on the disappearances.”
“Okay,” I said. “Johnny, can you keep a lid on this warehouse, not even let the owners in here?”
“I can,” he said. “I’ll get a patrol car out here to sit and keep everyone but the four of us out.” He patted his back pocket. “We have a search warrant. I’ll just say we’re not done searching yet.”
“Make sure the cops you put on this don’t come inside,” I said. “Last thing we need is a cop getting taken by those things.”
“Agreed,” Johnny said.
I kept on talking, sort of taking control of the investigation without really giving anyone else the chance to. “Patty and I have a lunch meeting with Screamer. We’ll follow up on the idea that someone might have the ability to predict a ghost slot and try to figure out who sent you that note.”
“We’ve both got to report back in at work,” Geneva said, “see if anything else has broke.” She smiled. “Don’t worry, not one word that we’ve found these things yet.”
Johnny nodded his agreement.
“Thanks,” I said.
I had no doubt that if the entire mess broke open, she would have to tell her boss, and write the story. And if she was as linked as I thought she was with Johnny, she would leave Patty and me out of it. That had been my deal with Johnny back when I helped him solve that murder case. He’d taken all the credit, I’d helped a guy named Brian get out of jail, and even managed to rescue a Great Dane in the process from a flash flood up in the mountains.
That had turned out to be a good trip to Vegas. Man and dog both safe and free, a new police detective as a friend, and over twenty thousand in poker winnings at the same time. A superhero can’t ask for many better trips than that one had been.
“So how about we meet back here at six?” Johnny said. “Compare notes, see if we can figure out a way to study that thing back there.”
“Six,” I said. “I’ll call you if we come up with anything quicker.”
“Great,” Johnny said.
With that, Patty and I headed out into the bright mid-day sun.
Johnny and Geneva shut the warehouse door behind us and got into Johnny’s unmarked police car. I saw Johnny immediately pick up the mike and call for a car to come watch the warehouse.
Patty and I were back on the Boulder Highway heading into town before the air conditioning actually started to work and fight back the oven-like interior of her car. For the second day I wondered about taking off my superhero costume and then decided against it. Besides, Patty’s car would eventually cool down.
We rode in silence for a few stoplights. I was trying to wrap my mind around the fact that those machines left the warehouse, yet they never really did, since their shape could still hold up a tarp. I had seen a lot of very strange things in my days as a superhero, but nothing like that. I felt I almost needed a scientist to explain what was happening.
Or a magician if the entire thing was an illusion. I didn’t think it was, but yet I couldn’t exclude the chance completely.
Maybe Stan might know how that worked, or know who to ask. I’d have to find him after lunch. Besides, it might not hurt for me to check in with Stan and see if the gods of gambling were having any more luck than the police were.
“Poker Boy, huh?” Patty said as we sat waiting for the third stoplight. “Where’d that name come from?”
I glanced sideways at her. She was half-smiling, staring at the intersection, knowing that she had me pinned.
“It’s just what people have called me for years,” I said. “I’ve been thinking of changing that to Poker Man because of the gray in my hair, but so far I haven’t bothered.”
Patty actually had the decency to laugh and not ask anything more.
Chapter Twelve
A QUICK LUNCH
BY THE TIME PATTY AND I had gotten Samantha and her dog, Sue, out of her room at the Horseshoe Hotel, and the four of us had made it to the little café, it was ten before noon. Madge, the waitress, was there again, along with the woman from the breakfast shift. I managed to keep focused on Patty and her wonderful raspberry smell and avoided looking at Madge when she walked away from our table popping her gum.
Screamer joined us before we even had our drinks, sliding in beside me on one side of the booth and smiling at the two women.
“Hello again, Samantha,” he said. “Police have any luck?”
“Nothing,” Samantha said.
From the way she had been walking and the sound of her voice, I could tell she was tired and very down. In her situation, with a loving husband suddenly gone for no reason, I didn’t blame her. Actually, I thought she was holding up very well, considering the circumstances.
“Well,” I said, “now that all of us are here, let me tell you what Patty and I found out this morning. First off, we met with Detective Johnny State and reporter Geneva Gurwell from the Sun.”
Screamer whistled softly. “You’re playing with fire with Geneva. She’s known as a tough reporter, maybe the best the Sun has.”
“We know,” Patty said. “And Detective State is no slouch either. The good thing for you to know, Samantha, is that just about the entire police department is working on this.”
“And more than likely the FBI as well,” I said.
“On Ben’s disappearance?” Samantha asked, turning her head toward Patty.
“His, and a lot of other disappearances over the past week,” Patty said, putting her hand gently on Samantha’s. “It seems that whatever happened to Ben has happened more than fifty times this past week.”
“Started nine days ago,” Screamer said. “Sixty-seven people officially missing, another dozen maybes, there could be even more. And that’s all I was able to get the entire morning.”
I glanced at Screamer. Clearly his sources had gotten us the same basic information Patty and I got from Stan and Johnny and Geneva.
“Over seventy people?” Samantha asked, her voice soft.
“Looks that way,” I said. “That’s why so many people are working on this, which is a good thing.”
Samantha nodded. “I guess so.”
The silence filled the booth. I wasn’t letting myself believe that those seventy people might be dead. Even though I had seen Ben disappear on that tape, I had to believe he was still alive somewhere. Otherwise, this was going to be one of the biggest mass-murders in modern times. But until I learned otherwise, I was going to go on the belief that we were rescuing people, not trying to stop a killer.
“W
e also found the Saturn Slots,” Patty said. “We watched them vanish and return right up close.”
“You’re kidding?” Screamer said. “You saw the ghost slots where they lived?”
“That we did,” I said.
“Oh, man,” Screamer said, “you two have more guts than brains. Those things are monsters.”
“That they are,” a man’s voice said from beside me at the end of the table.
All four of us turned like our heads were on the same string.
Stan was pulling up a chair to sit, moving carefully to avoid Sue on the floor.
I didn’t know what to think. In all my life I had never heard of a gambling god joining someone for lunch. I supposed they had to eat, but having a god at lunch just seemed downright strange.
Besides that, the service was going to be damned slow, since everyone in the restaurant and outside the restaurant was frozen in place. Clearly Stan had moved our table into a place between moments in time. Luckily, Madge was on the other side of the café and had been coming toward us when Stan arrived.
After Stan got settled, he reached across in front of me. “Screamer, great to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you.”
Screamer shook his hand. “Stan, the pleasure’s all mine.”
“Patty,” Stan said, turning to her, smiling. “It’s been a while.”
“Stan,” Patty said, smiling back. “Nice seeing you again.”
I stared at the woman I had met across the front desk at the Horseshoe like she was an alien. She clearly knew Stan better than I did, and from the smile she gave him, they had a history I wasn’t sure I wanted to know about.
I am a poker player. I am supposed to be able to read people, get a clear idea of who they are, what they are going to do in any situation. Patty and Stan had just shown me my reading powers when it came to Patty were non-existent. I had met a couple of people over the years that could block my reads, but not many. Not many at all. And for some reason, I hadn’t thought of Patty as one of those people. But she was. She could block my reads on her without me even knowing I was being blocked.
She was good.
Very good.
I glanced across the table at Samantha, who had a puzzled frown on her face.
“Samantha,” I said, “the man who just joined us is named Stan. Stan, Samantha.”
I figured there was no point in trying to tell her he was one of the gods of gambling. She had enough weird stuff to deal with as it was.
Samantha brought her hand up to shake Stan’s hand and he took it.
“Very nice meeting you,” he said. “Even though you aren’t a gambler. But rest assured, this group can get your husband back if anyone can.”
“Thank you,” Samantha said. “I’m slowly starting to believe that. And I don’t think I really want to know how you shut down every person and every noise around us, do I?”
“Nothing harmful, I assure you,” Stan said, a smile on his face that Samantha couldn’t see, but I was sure she knew was there.
She nodded and asked nothing more.
“So,” Stan said, turning back to face me and Screamer. “You found the home of the ghost slots.”
“Right where they were supposed to be,” I said. “They sort of left and came back while we were there.”
“Sort of is right,” Patty said.
Stan looked at her, then back at me, as puzzled as I ever wanted to see a god be.
“The things were covered with a tarp when we found them,” I said. “Patty and I pulled the tarp off just before they vanished. But then Geneva realized that if the things were coming and going, they couldn’t have been under a tarp, so Detective State and I put the tarp back into place, showing that some invisible part of the slot machines stayed in the warehouse.”
“Now that’s damn weird,” Screamer said.
“But you couldn’t see anything that was there?” Stan asked.
“Nothing,” I said. “But that heavy tarp was being held up by something in the shape of the Saturn Slots. And when the slots returned, the tarp didn’t move one bit.”
“And there was no person sitting in one of the chairs?” Screamer asked.
“Nothing the tarp showed in form or movement,” Patty said.
“Magic trick,” Samantha said. “Sounds like a magic trick Ben and I saw back before we were married at the Mirage. Those two men with white tigers did that sort of thing.”
“It’s a standard magic illusion,” Stan said. “But there’s nothing magic going on with these machines. That much I can tell you. We’ve checked that side out.”
Screamer, Patty and I were all nodding. If a gambling god said it wasn’t something, it wasn’t. They had sources I didn’t want to think about, and more than likely those sources had gone into the world of magic, talked to the gods that controlled magic and illusion, and got that cleared.
“So,” Screamer said, “if it’s not an illusion, what’s powering those things?”
Stan looked at Screamer. “That’s a good question. We haven’t looked into that side of this yet. I will meet with Burt and Laverne as soon as we get done here to have them go after that side of things.”
With the mention of Laverne’s name, I wanted to almost bow my head. I could see Patty’s eyes get big as well at the name. When Stan talked about Laverne, he talked about Lady Luck herself, the General Manager of all Gambling.
“Good,” Screamer said, clearly as stunned as I felt at Stan’s off-handed mention of Laverne.
“Stan,” I said, “you mentioned there were other teams working on this.”
“Sure,” Stan said.
“Detective State and Geneva Gurwell are one team, right?”
“They are,” Stan said. “They were given some powers to help them.”
“Well,” I said, “have you heard the information they have about someone pointing Geneva to a place where the slots would show up, before they showed up.”
Now it was Stan’s turn to stare at me, and again it felt as if I was being read by the best poker player on the planet.
“I didn’t know that.”
“Detective State and Geneva are working on the angle that someone can control the machines,” Patty said. “We’re going after the chance that someone can predict the things.”
“Any suggestions on that?” I asked. “Who we should talk to, who might be able to predict or control ghost slots?”
“I can’t imagine anyone controlling those things,” Stan said. “Not even Maggie, who’s in charge of slots, knows how or why those things work. They have been a thorn in the side of her department since slots were invented.”
“So I want to know,” Samantha said, “how machines can take my husband and all these other people? Where do the people go? Where’s Ben right now?”
“We don’t know that either I’m afraid,” Stan said.
“If the machines are being controlled, they might be dropping the victims off in a third location,” Patty said.
“But if they aren’t controlled and someone is only predicting them, that’s going to help us as well,” I said.
“Talk to The Bookkeeper,” Stan said. “He might have been the one who sent the note to the Sun.”
I had never heard of anyone called The Bookkeeper, but clearly Patty and Screamer had from the looks of disgust on their faces.
“Where can we find this guy?” I asked.
“He’s got a home out in West Las Vegas,” Patty said, before Stan could answer. Her voice seemed suddenly angry and clearly disgusted. On this topic, I was having no problem at all reading her.
“Don’t like the guy, huh?” I said, smiling at Patty.
“No one likes the guy,” Patty said. “He’s a pig.”
“Amen to that,” Screamer said.
“Well, at the moment, he’s still our best lead,” I said. Then I turned to Stan. “You’re going to check on the power source question, right?”
“I am,” Stan said. “I’ll find you and let you know what
we come up with.”
“Thanks,” I said.
I turned to Screamer. “Would you use your sources and find us the best old-slot technician you can find. It needs to be someone who can work on the slots as old as those Saturn Slots. And someone who can still move and get things done.”
Screamer nodded. “Sure, but why?”
“If these things really are just out-of-control machines functioning on statistics and mechanics, we’re going to need someone who knows what makes them tick.”
“Gotcha,” Screamer said. “And you and Patty get The Bookkeeper.”
“Oh, yuch,” Patty said.
“And what can I do to help?” Samantha asked.
I stared at Samantha for a moment. It wasn’t often that someone I was trying to help asked to help in the process. In this case, I didn’t blame her one bit. If I had been in her position, I would have wanted to help as well, but I had no idea what she could do at this point.
I glanced at Stan and he was smiling, staring at her.
“Let me help,” Samantha said. “Anything. Sitting in that damn hotel room just waiting for something to happen is going to drive me crazy.”
“Samantha,” Stan said, before I could come up with some lame reason for it being important that she stay in the room. “I want you to focus on me for a moment, the sound of my voice.”
Samantha turned toward Stan and nodded.
Suddenly Stan’s right hand flew out as if to slap her in the face.
Samantha moved instantly, letting his open hand pass by her without touching her.
“I think she’s ready to help you,” Stan said, smiling at me.
“What did you do to me?” Samantha asked, clearly stunned at whatever was happening.
“I couldn’t give you your sight back,” Stan said, “so I just opened up your existing senses a little bit. You had already opened them a great deal since losing your vision. Now, just trust the information you are getting.”
“I’m already used to doing that,” she said. “Thank you, I think.”
Stan laughed. “Don’t mention it. It’s not often I get to help someone who doesn’t play poker.”
Smith's Monthly #7 Page 15
