Samantha also looked clean and freshly dressed in a tan blouse and skirt and sandals. She had on her black glasses, but none of her movements indicated she was blind in any respect. Stan’s help with her other senses had given her back her freedom of movement completely.
“Feeling better?” I asked her.
“Still a touch green around the gills,” she said. “But getting better by the moment.”
“So it’s proven,” Patty said as we all turned and headed out the door and into the warm afternoon heat. “Men do take longer in showers. I even had time to make copies of the list we got.”
She handed me a copy.
“I didn’t know it was a race,” I said, giving her my best disarming smile. “But under the right kind of pressure I can be pretty darned fast with a bar of soap.”
Samantha snorted, but Patty just smiled at me and said nothing. I had no idea what she was thinking at that moment. She was impossible for me to read in any fashion.
Right at that moment, I would have traded a bunch of my superpowers for Johnny and Geneva’s ability to be hooked up to Patty in thought. I could only hope that Patty was thinking of me in the shower, in a nice way.
The image of Patty in the shower with me, handing me the soap with that smile of hers made me trip over the curb and stumble.
“You all right?” Patty asked as she moved around her car.
I nodded, not trusting myself to say anything at that moment. Every time I turned around, this wonderful woman was surprising me, making me stumble, making me have wonderfully rude thoughts about her. I couldn’t remember the last time a woman had had this kind of effect on me.
Maybe it was the raspberry.
Maybe it was one of her superpowers. I sure hoped to find out at some point, after all this was over.
With me in the co-pilot seat and Samantha in the back, Patty expertly drove her car out the old Boulder Highway toward the warehouse where the ghost slots lived. The next location The Bookkeeper said the slots would show was in an old casino out on the same highway at a little after seven this evening.
I planned on giving a copy of the list to Johnny so that he could have the area in that casino guarded to keep anyone else from being taken. But I really hoped to find a way to stop the machines before then.
We rode in silence through a few stop lights, then Samantha asked, “Do you think Ben is still alive?”
Patty glanced up into the rearview mirror, then at me.
I turned as much as my seat belt would let me turn to face Samantha. “I don’t honestly know,” I said. “What does your gut tell you?”
“That he is,” Samantha said.
“Trust that feeling,” Patty said.
“I agree,” I said. “There’re a lot of things in this world that happen and are not easily explained. One is the connection between a couple in love. It’s as powerful a sense as the ones you are using to see without your eyes. Let that feeling come forward and you’ll know your answer.”
Samantha was nodding, clearly lost inside her own head.
“The connection is real,” Patty said. “If you know he’s still alive, then he is.”
“Thank you,” Samantha said, her voice quivering a little. “And thank you both for helping me.”
“It’s what we do,” Patty said as she accelerated the car away from a stop light, weaving through traffic like an expert.
I turned back around to watch the road ahead. The last thing I needed at this point was to get motion sickness. A car-sick superhero wasn’t going to be much good to anyone. Facing backward in a car always made me carsick, even one being driven as smoothly as Patty was driving.
The clock on Patty’s dashboard said ten minutes until five. We were going to be an hour early for the six o’clock gathering. I hoped Stan and Screamer would both show up early as well. The information they had gone after was going to be critical in how we stopped these machines. We needed to get the machines to spit back out the people it had taken, or find where they had been taken to, then figure out what was powering the slots, and how to turn them off.
I had no clear idea how any of this was going to work, but my sense was to trust the team and it would all come together.
In the warehouse parking lot the only car was a marked police car sitting directly in front of the door. When Patty pulled up and stopped, one of the officers climbed out and walked toward the car.
Patty put her window down, letting in a blast of warm air. She smiled at the officer. “I’m Patty Ledgerwood.”
She indicated me, then Samantha. “This is Conway Moore, and Samantha MacDuff.”
The officer nodded. “Detective State says you have clearance to go in. He’s on his way here. Should be arriving in less than ten minutes.”
Patty glanced at me, then smiled at the officer. “We’ll wait for him out here.”
“I’ll tell him,” the officer said, then turned and headed back for his car as Patty slid up her window and turned up the air conditioning to cool the car quickly.
“Nice in here,” Stan said from the back seat.
“Cripes!” Samantha said as Patty and I spun around to see Stan sitting next to Samantha in the back seat.
“Ring a bell or something next time,” Samantha said, both her hands on her chest. “Not sure if my heart can handle that again.”
Stan laughed. “Sorry about that.”
For the first time, I actually thought that moving up the ranks to one of the gods might be a good idea. Stan’s ability to pop in and out and move around without cars and planes would sure save a lot of time and money. I could play in the World Series and sleep at nights in my own bed. But I doubted the trade-off would be worth the politics and infighting that went on among the gods.
“How are the enhanced senses working for you?” Stan asked Samantha
“Perfectly,” Samantha said. “I hope you’re not going to take them away after we solve all this.”
Stan laughed. “Of course not. But we may ask you to help us once in a while in trade.”
“That’s a deal I can live with,” Samantha said.
“Power?” I asked Stan. “Any idea what is powering those ghost slots?”
“Nothing from this plain of existence,” Stan said. “Bernie in maintenance tried to trace the power from the things in there, but couldn’t do it. It’s like the power circles back in from inside.”
Bernie was the gambling god in charge of casino maintenance and operations. I had heard his nickname was Back-up Bernie.
“So shutting the power off to those things from the outside isn’t an option,” Patty said.
“Afraid not,” Stan said.
“Something about that circling thing,” I said, releasing my seat belt so I could turn and face Stan in the back. “Any chance the power is coming from the people it has taken.”
“You mean like the myth says?” Patty asked.
I nodded.
“Possible,” Stan said. “Bernie couldn’t find any yes or no on that either. This has got him as stumped as the rest of us.”
I hated it when gods said they were stumped. It made me feel even less capable of saving Samantha’s husband and all the rest. What could a minor superhero do that the gods couldn’t do?
“Sorry I couldn’t be of more help,” Stan said. “Good luck in there.”
“You’re not coming in with us?” I asked, but by the time my question reached the back seat, Stan was gone.
“Someone’s got to put a bell on him,” Samantha said. “So he can warn us when he’s coming and going.”
“So the gods are as clueless as we are at this point,” Patty said, turning to look at me with those big brown eyes of hers. “Any ideas?”
“A few,” I said.
I didn’t add that all my really great ideas concerned her naked in a shower and me holding the soap.
I didn’t have a clue what to do about the ghost slot machines, saving over seventy lives, and stopping the ruin of the entire gambling ind
ustry.
“Great,” she said. “Because I sure don’t.”
At that moment, Johnny and Geneva drove up beside Patty’s car and stopped, followed closely by Screamer’s car. It seemed it was time to get to work and do some superhero-type deeds, if I could just figure out which deeds we needed to do.
Chapter Fifteen
A (SORT OF) PLAN FORMS
ALL SEVEN OF US moved into the warehouse and stood just inside the door in a large circle, surrounded by thousands of dead slot machines.
The place was warm, but not as hot as outside, and it echoed, giving all of our voices a feedback quality. The warehouse smelled of dry dust with a faint burnt electrical odor over everything. The big space would have given me the creeps even without the ghost slot machines living back along the side wall.
Patty stood beside me on my right, Samantha on my left.
Johnny and Geneva stood across from me. Both had occasional looks in their eyes as if listening to something in the distance. They weren’t touching, but if I had my guess, their power to hear each others thoughts didn’t need touch anymore.
Screamer stood to Patty’s right with a grunge-looking man with long hair black pulled back, a nose ring, and tattoos showing on most areas of bare skin, including a naked woman along his neck that twisted and moved every time the guy turned his head. He wore jeans and a loose shirt and looked like he hadn’t had a good meal in years. He carried a beat-up blue backpack in one hand and an unlit cigarette in the other.
Screamer had introduced him as Brian, but said everyone just called him Tech, since he was so good with computers and machines.
I had expected Screamer to bring an older man, someone who had actually worked on the old-style slot machines back before everything went computers. But if Screamer thought this guy could do the job, then he could do it.
I started off by asking Johnny and Geneva what they had discovered. They gave a quick rundown of how they had eliminated any last thoughts of this being a magic trick, then told us about their meeting with Rees, a major magician, often finishing each other’s sentences as they spoke.
“Wow,” Tech said, staring at Geneva and Johnny. “You actually talked with Rees “The Mechanic” in his home?”
“Yeah,” Johnny said, clearly half-disgusted at the question.
“He’s the best there is, man,” Tech said.
“So anything come of the meeting with him?”
“Just that he was surprised about the people being taken when the machine is showing a jackpot,” Geneva said.
“Real surprised,” Johnny said.
“You sure on that jackpot part?” Tech asked Geneva.
Both her head and Johnny’s nodded like they were being pulled by the same string.
“Rees said that being taken, actually losing on jackpots just isn’t the way the machines work.”
“What’s that mean?” Screamer asked Tech about a half second before I could ask him the same question. The security tape we saw of the machine taking Ben out of the Horseshoe wasn’t set at such an angle that we could see the reels on the face of the machine Ben was playing.
“Man, it means that someone got inside those old things and reset a half-dozen different settings on the reel board.”
“So someone is behind this after all?” Johnny asked.
“No kidding,” Tech said. “No other way a machine can get set like that. Can’t happen accidentally that’s for sure.”
“Why’s that?” I asked, wanting to be very sure.
Tech stared at me for a moment. “There’s a solenoid on the reel board that works like a switch to determine jackpots. I don’t even think a normal solenoid in one of these old sixties machines has a setting for full payout every time. There wouldn’t be enough coins in the machine for one, and second there would be no reason to even have such a setting designed in. No, this is special work here by someone.”
I wasn’t sure I understood exactly what he meant, but I nodded and let it go for the moment.
Johnny indicated we should hold on a second, then pulled out his cell phone and made a quick call. When someone answered he identified himself, asked for a Captain Walk, then said, “Captain, I’ve got a lead on the disappearances. I need someone to get the records from Standard Slots on anyone granted access to the old Valley Slots graveyard warehouse.”
He listened for a moment, then said, “Just the last month should be enough. Thanks.”
I nodded to him as he clicked his cell phone shut, then turned back to Tech. “So how do we change those settings back?”
“And get my husband out of that thing,” Samantha said. “If that’s where he’s at.”
Tech shrugged, causing the naked woman on his neck to contort into a very unnatural posture. “I figure we first got to check out what’s powering the whole mess, shut that off. Do that and I can open up the machine and reset everything, maybe replace that faulty solenoid.
I stared at him. I had seen those machines come and go, once on a tape, once up close. I couldn’t imagine anyone simply walking up to one of them and opening the front.
“Are we going to need a key to open the things?” Screamer asked.
Tech held up his old backpack. “Got that, buddy.”
“In case we can’t stop these things quickly,” Patty said to Johnny, “You need to get some people at these locations at these times.”
She handed Johnny a copy of the sheets that The Bookkeeper had given us showing where the machines were going to appear next.
“You found out who is controlling these things?” Geneva asked, glancing at the paper in Johnny’s hand as he read it.
“No,” Patty said, “but we know who sent your newspaper that first note. A guy called The Bookkeeper who uses math to predict these things.”
“And you are sure he has nothing to do with this?” Johnny asked.
“Completely,” I said.
Johnny nodded. “So we have about two hours until the machines shift, if this is to be believed. So what do we do next?”
“I suppose we see if Tech and I can get the face of one of those things open.”
At that moment Johnny’s cell phone rang and he answered it, listening for a moment before saying, “You’re sure?”
He listened again for a short moment, with the rest of us standing there in the warehouse staring at him.
Then he said “Thanks.”
He clicked his phone closed and shook his head. “The last man to be in this warehouse was almost three weeks ago. A guy named Harry Timmer.”
“Oh, man,” Tech said. “Old Harry’s been missing for three weeks.”
“That’s what my Captain just said.”
“You know him?” Screamer asked.
“Sure,” Tech said. “Everyone in the business knows old Harry. He’s a retired slot tech from the days before computers took over the machines. He liked working on the old mechanicals, fixing them up and selling them as novelty items. He was always scrounging for parts. Made some good money doing it too.”
“So he’d know how to reset the slots?” Johnny asked.
Tech laughed. “He could make those old machines dance if he wanted. But, man, if you’re thinkin’ he’s behind all this, you’ve flat lost it. Old Harry wouldn’t hurt a fly, let alone use the machines he loved for something like taking people.”
“Maybe he was forced to,” Johnny said.
Tech shook his head, making the woman on his neck dance the twist. “I can’t see him doing this.”
“So let’s go take a look at these things,” I said. “Johnny, you and I will take off the tarp. Tech, you see what you can see, but don’t touch them just yet.”
“Got you it in one on that,” Tech said.
I led the group to the far aisle and down toward the ghost slots. I could see faint colors coming from under the tarp, pulsing like a warning light. And the closer we got, the closer I wanted to get, as their unnatural attraction was pulled at me even through the tarp.
Patty, Geneva, Samantha and Screamer stopped about twenty paces from the machines, leaving Johnny and me and Tech walking slowly at the machines like three old-west marshals headed toward a gunfight.
I could feel the pull of the things getting stronger with every step. A little voice in my head was telling me to sit down, just play a little.
What could it hurt?
Tech stopped across the aisle facing the slots and stood waiting as I went to the far side of the machines and carefully grabbed the tarp without touching any metal.
Johnny did the same on his side and then nodded at me.
“Now,” I said.
We both yanked at the same time, pulling the tarp down and away.
The entire warehouse again lit up with the rainbow of colors coming off the glowing Saturn Slots. The things seemed to have so much energy that they were pulsing.
“Oh, man,” Tech said, stepping back.
“Cripes,” Screamer said.
The moment the tarp was gone the pull to sit down and play was fantastically stronger. I could feel myself struggling with the desire. And I had no doubt I wasn’t the only one feeling it as Geneva stepped forward and took hold of Johnny’s arm and drew him a few steps back.
Over the years as Poker Boy I had run into my share of things I wanted to just run away from. But as a superhero, I just had never done that. I guess running scared just wasn’t part of the job description. But that said, right at that moment, I wanted to run as fast and as far from those machines as I could get. However, I think I was so scared my feet didn’t want to move.
So I just stared at the machines, at the blinking lights, at the bright colors, at the incredible image of Saturn and its rings dominating the area over the machines and the four wooden chairs.
I took a deep breath and dug down deep into what made me a good poker player. I had been stared-down by the best players in the world, bluffed and intimidated, yet I had always remained cool and level, no matter how much money had been at stake.
Smith's Monthly #7 Page 17
