by Alan Cook
“No.”
“Your mom is never going to forgive me for corrupting you, but here goes. This kind of poker is called five-card draw because you get dealt five cards, and then you can draw to replace any or all of them. Aces are high, deuces, that is twos, are low. You have to get at least a pair of jacks to win. Other winning hands, in order of increasing value, are two pairs, three of a kind, straight, flush, full house, four of a kind, straight flush.”
“Now tell me that in English.”
“In English, what we’re always trying for on this machine is four of a kind, because it pays eighty to one, which is better than most machines. We use our other wins to maintain our capital so we can go for the big one.”
Shahla caught on much too quickly. Soon she was pressing the buttons herself, and playing with minimal guidance from Tony concerning how many cards to draw. After ten minutes, she hit four eights and screamed as the credit counter tallied up the score.
“Congratulations.” Tony pushed the button to get the cash out of the machine. Quarters came gushing into the tray. He picked up one of the paper containers available for that purpose and scooped all the coins into it. He said, “Now we can go home.”
“Already? We’ve only just begun.”
“Any time you hit a sizeable jackpot, you cash out and start over. That way you keep your perspective. Even when you’re only playing for quarters. But this is a good time for us to leave. We’ve got a long ride.”
When they exchanged the quarters for bills, Tony figured they were about seventeen dollars ahead. Not much, but winning was better than losing.
Shahla said, “Of course, that money belongs to you because we were playing with your money to start with. Now I want to play a little with my own money so I can keep the winnings.”
She pulled a five dollar bill out of a small purse she carried.
“What if you lose?” Tony asked, but Shahla was already returning to the machine, where she inserted the bill in the slot.
“This is a good experience for a listener on the Hotline,” Shahla said. “After all, many of our callers have addictions of one kind or another, or compulsions, as they call them. I want to see what it feels like to lose. Will I want to throw good money after bad?”
Tony decided to let her lose her five dollars, and then they would leave. There wasn’t going to be any testing of compulsions. He stood by her side while she sat in front of the machine.
After playing a dozen hands, Shahla got an interesting deal. “Wait,” Tony said as she pressed the buttons to hold all her cards. “Let’s take a look at this.”
“I’ve got a flush,” Shahla said. “Five spades.”
“I know, but look at what else you have. You have the ace, king, queen, and ten. In other words, you are one card short of a royal flush which pays 250 to one.”
“Ooh,” Shahla said, taking another look at the cards. “So I have one chance in…”
“Forty-seven of drawing the jack of spades because five cards have already been played from a fifty-two card deck.”
“I want to go for it.”
They stared at the cards for a while, not wanting to spoil the anticipation. Finally, Shahla drew one card.
“I can’t look,” she said. “Tell me…”
Tony peeked at the credit counter. It was going crazy. She had drawn the jack of spades. “You did it.”
Shahla jumped up and down screaming. Then she threw her arms around his neck and lifted her legs off the ground.
“Calm down,” Tony said laughing, as he tried to keep his balance. When she let go of him, he pressed the button to cash out and scooped the quarters into the cup. “If you look too much like a teenager, you’ll blow your cover.” He started toward the cashier.
“Where are you going?”
“Now, we’re really going home.”
“But I might win some more.”
“You’ll get the opportunity to know what it feels like to quit when you’re ahead. That will give you empathy for your callers who can’t do that.”
Shahla grumbled, but Tony was adamant. He pocketed the three twenty dollar bills, plus a five and a couple of ones that he received from the cashier, telling Shahla that he would give the money to her when they got home.
She threatened to take more money out of her purse, but Tony said, “I’m leaving, and I’ve got the car.” He walked away.
Shahla caught up to him and said, “You are really mean. I’m never going to Las Vegas with you again.”
“Shhh,” Tony said suddenly, turning to face her. “Look over my right shoulder.”
Shahla peeked over his shoulder and said, “It’s Paul. And he’s got a girl with him. Should we go talk to them?”
“Wait. Describe the girl.” Tony kept his back to Paul and the girl.
“She’s blonde. She’s quite tall. And pretty. She looks something like…Joy.”
“That was my impression, too. Of course, it probably means nothing.”
“That he likes girls who look like Joy? Or maybe he really hates them.”
“What are they doing?”
“They’re going over to where we just came from, where those video poker machines are. He’s got his arm around her neck, as if he’s aching to strangle her.”
Tony turned his head and could see the pair, walking diagonally away from them. Paul did have his elbow resting on the girl’s shoulder, with his forearm curled in front of her neck. Innocent though it might be, if you could picture him as a killer, it looked scary.
“We should follow them,” Shahla said urgently, taking the thought right out of his brain.
“But if we want to learn anything, we need to be incognito.”
“I look different from what I did at the coffee shop. Turn your T-shirt inside out.”
Tony glanced down at the front of his shirt, which had the words “San Diego” on it and a picture of a beach and palm trees. If Shahla could undress in public, he could too. He pulled the shirt over his head and put it back on wrong side out.
“Now put on your dark glasses.”
He took them out of the case in his pocket and put them on. He glanced at Shahla. “Put on yours, too, so he can’t see your eyes if we get close to them. They’re a dead giveaway.”
Shahla took her dark glasses out of her purse and put them on. She said, “One thing more. I’m going to change your hairstyle. Sit down there.” She pointed to a chair in front of a slot machine.
Tony did as he was told. She took a comb out of her purse and fooled with his hair. She chuckled and said, “There. He won’t know you now.”
“What have you done?”
“Don’t worry. It looks good. I got rid of your cowlick.” She put away the comb and said, “How shall we do this?”
“It would be nice if we could get close enough to listen to what they say.”
They approached the video poker machines and saw Paul sitting in front of one. The girl stood beside him with a hand on his shoulder. The adjoining video poker machine was free.
“Do you think we can sit at that machine without being recognized?” Tony asked, speaking softly.
“You sit down, and I’ll sit on your lap, facing away from them. If we don’t say anything, Paul won’t recognize us.”
Tony took a few quarters out of his pocket that were left over from their play. He approached the machine from behind Paul and sat down in the chair while Paul was engrossed in a deal. Shahla quickly jumped up on his lap with her back to Paul. All Paul would be able to see of Tony if he looked over was a profile. Tony noisily threw his quarters into the tray and put one in the slot. He would play slowly so they could mostly listen.
He had to play with one hand because the other one was around Shahla’s waist. He was conscious of Shahla’s closeness to him. At first, Paul and the girl said nothing. He could tell from the noises of their machine that Paul was playing steadily.
After a couple of minutes, Paul said, “I’m not having any luck today. I found
an interesting cliff overlooking the city. Come on, I’ll show it to you.”
Paul got up and walked away with the girl.
“He’s going to push her off a cliff,” Shahla said, jumping down from his lap. “We’ve got to stop them.”
CHAPTER 20
“I left some money in the machine,” Tony complained as they tried to keep the two in sight.
“Hurry up,” Shahla said, taking his hand so they wouldn’t get separated while navigating their way through a line of people who were waiting to see a show. “We don’t want to lose them.”
“This might be totally innocent.”
“Or it might not be. The way he talked about the cliff….”
Paul and the girl went out the door of the hotel. Tony and Shahla followed them as fast as possible. Outside, swarms of people walked along Las Vegas Boulevard in the light of the still-hot setting sun.
“Which way did they go?” Shahla asked.
“I don’t see them. Oh, there they are.” Fortunately, Paul’s head stuck up above the crowd. “They’ve turned on Tropicana.”
Tony and Shahla weaved their way through the pedestrians, trying to regain visual contact with Paul and the girl, who had disappeared around the corner. The pursuers also turned right onto Tropicana Avenue and saw the other couple again, loping along at a swift pace. The girl seemed to have no trouble matching Paul’s long strides.
“Maybe they parked in the same lot we did,” Tony said. He slowed down as the traffic thinned, away from the Strip. Fewer people between them and the pursued made their chances of being spotted greater. Shahla dropped his hand and slowed down beside him. He noticed that she wasn’t even breathing hard. She must be in good shape from cross-country.
Paul and the girl walked past the lot where Tony’s car was parked.
“We’re going to need a car if we want to follow them into the hills,” Tony said, hesitating as they approached the entrance to the parking lot. “But if we get the car now, we’ll lose them.”
“You get the car,” Shahla said. “I’ll stay behind them.”
“How will I know where you are?”
“I’ll call you. My cell phone is in my purse. Give me your number.”
Tony always carried a pen with him. He scribbled the number of his cell phone on the back of a business card he pulled from his pocket and gave it to Shahla. He said, “Be careful. Don’t let them know you’re following them.”
“Don’t worry.”
She took off at a trot to regain the distance she had lost. Tony hoped Shahla wouldn’t attract too much attention by running in a dress. He had misgivings about leaving her and almost called her to come back. He’d better get the car as fast as he could.
He ran to the car and started it. Another car was backing out of a parking space behind him—and the driver was taking his sweet time. Tony fumed, but he knew that blowing his horn would only aggravate the situation. When he finally drove out onto the street, Shahla and the other couple had disappeared. Where were they? He had promised Rasa to protect her. He warded off a surge of panic. He had to trust her. She was a smart girl.
He drove slowly, looking for a sign of any of the three. When he figured he had driven farther than they could have walked by now, he circled the block. Five minutes went by without a sighting. Why hadn’t he written down Shahla’s cell phone number? He stopped the car to work on a plan.
His cell phone rang. He punched the talk button and said, “Tony.”
“They’ve gotten in a car and driven toward the hills.”
“Where are you?”
Shahla gave an intersection. Tony remembered that one of the streets she named crossed the street he was on. He was only a few blocks from her. Relieved, he gunned the engine and took off. He spotted her within two minutes. He pulled the car up beside her, and she jumped in.
“Quick, write down their license plate number before I forget it.”
Tony took the card she was still holding and wrote the number Shahla dictated.
“Which way did they go?”
“Toward the hills.” Shahla pointed. “They’re in a gray Honda.”
“So is the rest of the world.”
“I think I’ll recognize it.”
Tony drove as fast as the traffic would allow. The sun was just setting behind the hills they were approaching, so spotting the car would be that much more difficult. Still, there only seemed to be one road that went up into the hills. And Paul had to go in that direction if he was going toward a cliff. The traffic was heavy enough so that Tony doubted that he could catch Paul. Maybe it was just as well. They would drive uphill for a while and then turn around and go home.
The views got better as they drove. This must be the right direction. Paul had mentioned a view of Las Vegas. But what chance did they have of actually spotting the car?
“I think I just saw it,” Shahla said.
“Where?”
“Parked beside the road.”
She must have sharp eyes. It was now quite dark. Tony said, “Do you want to check?”
“Yes.”
It took him several minutes before he found a place wide enough to allow them to turn around. He pulled off the road, waited for traffic to go by, and swung a sharp U.
“Go slowly,” Shahla said, as they rounded a curve. “I think it’s near here. There it is.”
Tony stopped opposite the car Shahla pointed at and pulled off the road as far as possible. They got out and crossed the pavement to a turnoff where the car that Tony now could identify as a gray Honda was parked. He compared the license plate number to the one he had written down. They matched.
“Good work,” he told Shahla. “Now where did they go?”
“There’s a path,” Shahla said. “It leads up that hill.”
The dirt path disappeared into the desert foliage and the dark.
“You wait in the car,” Tony told Shahla. He handed the keys to her.
She refused to take them. “I’m not going to let you go up there by yourself.”
He knew from experience that she meant what she said. “Okay, this is what we’ll do. There should be enough light from the moon to follow the path. I’ll go first. If I hold up my hand, stop.”
“All right.”
At least she didn’t argue. Tony started up the path, slowly, avoiding rocks and roots that made the footing tricky. He was relieved that it wasn’t especially steep. The night air was chilly—it cooled off rapidly in the desert—but he wasn’t going to take time to go back to the car for the sweatshirt he had brought. And Shahla wasn’t complaining. They walked uphill for several minutes in silence. Then the path leveled off, and Tony saw an open space ahead. And moving shadows; they must be people. He held up his hand. Shahla obediently stopped.
He beckoned for her to come up beside him. He bent down and spoke into her ear. “There are at least two people there. In order for us to get close enough to hear them, we’ll have to get behind that rock.”
A rock large enough to hide them stood fifty feet ahead. Tony moved toward the rock, staying silent and close to the ground, to keep from being silhouetted against the moonlit sky like the two figures he was watching. It was difficult work. He crouched as low as he could, but sometimes he had to get down on his hands and knees, amid small but sharp stones. He kept looking back at Shahla. She remained at his heels, stuck to him like a tick. He hoped her dress—Rasa’s dress— wasn’t getting too dirty.
Several times he saw a flash of light coming from the direction of the two people. The first one startled him, but then he realized that they must be taking pictures.
He could hear voices, but he couldn’t make out words. Probably a man and a woman. When they got to the rock, he felt more secure. At least they weren’t exposed. Tony put his finger to his lips as Shahla hugged the rock beside him. He inched forward so that he could see around it.
What he saw almost made him gasp out loud. A girl—she was now lit well enough by the moon so that he could
tell—was standing right at the edge of a cliff. Behind her he could see city lights—Las Vegas. It looked to him as if one step and she would be over the edge.
Shahla leaned against his back so she could see. She put her mouth to his ear and said, “She’s going to fall over the cliff. And what is she wearing?”
Not much, as Tony could see now. It looked as if she was wearing a bra and panties. She must be cold. He spotted Paul—the angular silhouette could only be Paul—a few feet away. He had something in his hands, probably a camera.
“Now the bra,” he heard Paul saying.
The girl didn’t argue; she immediately took off her bra. Paul was aiming the camera. There was a flash. Another flash. Each flash momentarily lit up the girl. It was the blonde, no question about it—and she was beautiful.
After taking several pictures, Paul told her to take off her panties. And she did. Without any fuss. Tony was perplexed. This was too easy. Especially for someone he had said was a new girlfriend. Paul took more pictures.
Shahla said, with her mouth to Tony’s ear, “He’s got her underwear. Now he’s going to push her off the cliff.”
Was he? Was this what Paul had done to Joy? Convince her to pose for him in the nude? Pretty girls were vain about their figures and susceptible to flattery, but Joy hadn’t even known him—had she? What was going to happen next? Should he intervene?
They heard Paul say, “That’s enough of that.”
Paul placed his camera on the ground and started to walk toward the girl.
Shahla spoke into Tony’s ear, loud enough to hurt his eardrum. “He’s going to do it now. Stop him!”
Tony sprang to his feet and ran toward Paul. The girl screamed. Tony lowered his head and hit Paul with his shoulder, at waist level, the full weight of his body behind the blow. Paul crumpled to the ground, and Tony fell on top of him. Tony lay dazed for several seconds. Paul didn’t move either.
Then he realized that the girl was standing over him, yelling at him. “What are you doing?” she shouted, again and again. He was aware that she had picked up something. A rock. She was going to hit him with a rock. He staggered to his feet and raised his arms. She threw the good-sized rock at him with both hands. It was a weak throw, and he evaded it.
