Lucky Bastard

by Deborah Coonts

  But I didn’t want to think about that now. I couldn’t think about that now.

  I needed to figure out where I stood on Mr. Paxton Dane. Assuming I swallowed his story, there were gaps in time and evidence at the scene, not to mention a circumstantial case that was starting to look pretty incriminating. And the whole song and dance about Sylvie needing money didn’t jibe with her Jimmy Choos—not only the shoes but the fancy handbag as well. Of course, they could’ve been gifts, but…any way I looked at it, the man had murderer written all over him. And I didn’t have to be Judge Judy to figure out that’s exactly where the police would take it. They had to.

  But Dane couldn’t be a killer. Could he?

  I’d seen enough of life to know that we all could resort to homicide if properly provoked. After all, my mother, Mona, had pushed me perilously close so many times that now my neurons automatically flipped to the pissed-off position when excited by the electrical snap of her aura.

  Had Dane crossed the line?

  After ducking up the service stairs to the mezzanine, I paused at my office door. Stilling myself, I turned my focus inward.

  When all else failed, I’d learned to trust my gut instinct, my intuition. It hadn’t let me down yet—at least not when I’d been smart enough to listen.

  This time, obviously under the influence of a serious case of wishful thinking, my gut told me Dane couldn’t be a killer. A creep maybe, something he shared with most of the Y-chromosome set, but he wasn’t a shoe-wielding madman.

  My gut also told me the stakes were, well, life and death. Death for his wife and life without parole for Dane.

  I needed answers and I needed them fast. Once Romeo started poking around, I’d be SOL. Nothing made casino people clam up faster than a bunch of nosy cops.

  ***

  After a quick dance between the droplets in my office shower, I dressed for battle, trading flannel and fuzzy slippers for silk and Ferragamos. Although it was only 4 a.m. give or take, my day had started, like it or not.

  With one last glance in the mirror on the back of the closet door, I fluffed my hair, not entirely sure the woman who looked back was, in fact, me. My hair had been bottle-blond for so long, I still wasn’t used to the natural light brown, the result of a fairly recent makeover. Despite the improvements, recent history had taken its toll. Wrinkles had sprouted, creasing previously unmarred skin. My eyes were tired. My expression, cautious. My smile, a memory.

  No doubt some of this was due to Teddie—I had handed him my heart and he…well, he left. And when he’d left, he had taken a part of me. I leaned closer to my reflection and narrowed my eyes. Apparently he’d taken the good part.

  We had unfinished business, that man and me. And, when I saw him again, I hoped I’d be smart enough not to shoot him, but all bets were off—taking the high road wasn’t my best thing.

  After making a halfhearted attempt with some eye shadow, blush, and other still-foreign potions, I gave up. Nothing was going to save this face. Not today, anyway. Guess I’d have to count on my blue eyes and high cheekbones to keep from scaring small children. Not much to hang the shreds of feminine vanity on, but it was all I had, so I went with it.

  In a vain effort to look polished and professional, I stuck the big, square-cut diamonds in each earlobe—gifts from my mother in a weak moment. Then I latched around my neck a large matching diamond on a platinum chain, a gift from myself in a weak moment.

  Out of ideas for further self-improvement, I kicked the closet door shut on my reflection, grabbed my sweater from the back of a chair, then shrugged into it as I made my way to the front of the office. The message light on my assistant, Brandy’s, desk phone blinked—a scolding red eye in the semidarkness.

  I ignored it. It was probably bad news and I’d had enough of that already.

  Bounding down the stairs two at a time, I pushed through the fire door at the bottom into the main lobby of the Babylon. At this time of night, it was a veritable mausoleum—okay, not quite the right metaphor. Briefly I squeezed my eyes shut, but, being very visual, I couldn’t chase away the sight of the girl, Dane’s wife, Sylvie, on the car.

  Covering ground with long strides, I charted a course through the casino. With a practiced eye, I took stock of my surroundings—tonight with a bit more attention to detail than usual. Of course, I didn’t really expect to find a murderer lurking behind a potted palm, but with me, hope always sprang eternal.

  The Babylonian theme redolent in the rest of the hotel was on full display in the casino. The carpets, brightly colored woven mosaics grand enough for a royal’s tent, provided a comfortable cushion, muting the noise in addition to setting the stage. The walls were painted a dark, rich purple and trimmed with gold. Torches, real flame encased in blown glass at the ends of bundles of faux reeds, hung from the walls and the columns dotting the casino. They cast a subtle, flickering light, as inviting as logs on a fire.

  Multicolored cloth tented above Delilah’s Bar, which sat on a raised platform in the center of the casino. A wall of water cascaded down a sandstone wall behind the burnished mahogany counter. Flowering bougainvillea climbed trellises, giving the space a hidden, secretive feel.

  Action in the casino was winding down. Guests filled no more than half of the stools in front of the slots. Play at the various tables had been consolidated. Piped-in music, a low, thumping beat, struggled in vain to keep the energy level high. Only a few brave souls, too drunk or too tired to go to bed, still pressed buttons on the video poker machines set into the bar top in Delilah’s. The baby grand in the corner sat silent, abandoned.

  Teddie used to play that piano.

  I shut my heart to the pain as I sailed past.

  A lone bartender wiping a glass with a rag returned my nod. Cocktail waitresses shivered in skimpy uniforms as they balanced on high heels. I caught myself looking at their feet—not one of their most ogled body parts, I felt certain. I didn’t think I’d find a pair of Jimmy Choos. They weren’t exactly work shoes designed for a day spent on your feet. Nor were they within financial reach of the normal working girl—well, maybe the working girls, but not the cocktail hostesses. Although, in Vegas sometimes those lines blurred.

  Stilettos graced the feet of the few girls who remained—they were part of the uniform, the illusion. One pretty young thing sported a pair of kick-ass, bright red, there’s-no-place-like-home slingbacks with peep-toes. She looked world-weary and anxious—it was long past a decent hour. Probably a new hire stuck on the graveyard shift, but those shoes were grade A. When she turned and walked away, I glimpsed a red sole. Loubous! I was momentarily overcome with shoe lust. However, heeding the call of duty, I resisted stopping to ask her where she had bought them and kept looking. No sparkly Jimmy Choos. Not a one.

  And one was the critical number. Since I actually knew where one of the shoes was, I was only looking for its mate. How would that work? I had no idea. Where was Prince Charming when I needed him? He had plenty of experience with one glass slipper.

  Guess I’d leave that to the police as well—the shoe part, I mean. Despite my miserable track record, I still felt I could handle the Prince Charming part.

  Self-delusional to the end. A fitting epitaph.

  But I wasn’t going to think about that either.

  ***

  In contrast to the subdued vibe of the casino, the Poker Room was firing on all cylinders. The mood was hushed, but energy shimmered off the crowd clustered at the railing dividing the Poker Room from the main casino. Worried about cheating, most casinos prohibited nonplayers from huddling too close to the action. Ours was no exception. Tonight the throng was at least three deep.

  The thousand-dollar buy-in Sylvie had played in had finished up—the table was empty. Presumably a winner had been declared and the players had wandered off to find more action, celebrate their winnings, lick their wounds…or die on the hood of a Ferrari.

  Vegas, the town of endless possibilities.

  The high-stakes marq
uee action played out at the tables nearest to the railing. At the front table eight players matched wits and nerves at a high-stakes game. Among the players I recognized two pros, both trying to look bored as they listened to music through earbuds, and a top-ranked amateur who had won a World Series of Poker bracelet several years ago and made serious money through an offshore Internet poker site he’d formed. Two of our regular high-roller whales were seated across from each other. One of them looked less than confident—a fact I felt sure had the pros circling like wolves around a wounded fawn.

  The other players hadn’t hit my radar, but among them was an older woman. I liked it. High-stakes poker was notoriously unwelcoming to women, as if somehow a dose of estrogen would completely counteract all that testosterone and render the men ineffectual. Oh, if wishing would make it so!

  Each player carefully guarded the stacks of chips in front of him, the number and color of which provided an easily readable measure of the player’s success. It looked like the amateur was just joining the game. One of the pros had drawn the most blood, but the older woman was holding her own. All in all, the stacks weren’t too disparate in size or color, so the game was just ramping up. Far from an expert, I did a quick calculation. Each stack ran to the hundreds of thousands.

  Hence the crowd. Hence the energy.

  As I eased through the small, gated entrance, raised voices captured my attention. One of the voices seemed a bit garbled, yet while the words weren’t sharp, the anger came through loud and clear.

  The other voice, low and demeaning, I recognized instantly. It belonged to our longtime Poker Room manger, Marvin J. Johnstone—a pain in the ass who kept his job simply because the casino manager was too scared to fire him. I would have been delighted to can his ass, but from my perch on the corporate ladder, such a task was beneath my pay-grade.

  Marvin, who preferred to be addressed as “Marvin J.” but who was mostly not so fondly referred to as “the Stoneman,” had attached himself to the Big Boss, our fearless leader, back before the earth was cool. As the Big Boss moved from property to property, clawing his way up the food chain, so too did Marvin. But Marvin, a parasite living off the host, reached his high-water mark at middle management, where he had been abusing the staff ever since.

  He was a small man, nattily attired in black tie. With sallow skin, a long pinched face, and closely set, dark eyes, he reminded me of a ferret—well, a ferret with a really bad comb-over.

  The Stoneman and a young man in blue jeans sporting a head of shaggy dark hair, a soul patch under his lower lip, and an angry stare, faced off behind the lone open chair at the high-stakes table.

  “Forgive me, sir,” the Stoneman said, not looking the least bit sorry, “you may not play at this table.”

  Arms moving animatedly, the young man opened his mouth and spoke, but the words sounded as if they’d been spoken under water.

  Red faced with a sheen of perspiration, the Stoneman raised an eyebrow as he ran a finger under his collar, tugging as if it were too tight. He crossed his arms, a look of exaggerated patience tinged with a hint of disdain settling over his features. Clearly, Marvin considered dealing with the young man an act of kindness worthy of canonization.

  With his patience obviously held by a thin tether, the young man whirled to a man standing behind him and began signing rapidly. I never knew anger could infuse silent, signed words. When the young man was done, he whirled back to the Stoneman as his friend interpreted for him.

  “Mr. Johnstone, my friend here has all the prerequisites with this hotel to participate in this game. I can only assume that you are denying him the open chair because he is deaf.”

  “He doesn’t have the star power to play at the premier table. I mean, who wants to watch some…handicapped kid play?”

  My anger instantly redlined. My eyes closed to slits as I advanced on our Poker Room manager. “Is there a problem?”

  The Stoneman started to bite off a reply, but when he saw me, his eyes widened and he clamped his mouth shut. Wise man. I had him by about six inches, thirty pounds, seventy IQ points, and multiple rungs on the corporate ladder.

  The young man’s interpreter needlessly explained the situation. The Stoneman, flying in the face of every corporate policy I was aware of, and I knew them all—I’d written the book—was using his own biases to deny a legitimate player, fully vetted and fully funded, a place in the primo game.

  Because the kid was deaf.

  And, in doing so, he not only exposed the hotel to legal ramifications, he offended me on every level.

  I turned to the Stoneman, pulled myself to my full height, conjured Donald Trump, and said simply, “You’re fired.”

  Normally firing people gave me hives. This was not one of those times.

  The room fell silent. The games stopped.

  Marvin J.’s already red face flushed crimson as he breathed heavily, putting a song in my heart. Hey, shallow is my middle name, I take my jollies where I find them—a character flaw I’ve learned to embrace.

  Defensively, the young poker player took a step back, giving us space.

  “You can’t fire me,” the Stoneman hissed. Nervously, he wet his lips with his tongue. I half expected it to be forked.

  “I just did. You’ve been begging for it for years and tonight you happened to hit me when I am hardwired to the pissed-off position.” And the planets had aligned to make me the right person, in the right place, at the right time. How I love synchronicity. But I didn’t say that part. Holding his gaze with mine, I flipped open my phone and pushed talk. “Security, please send a team to the Poker Room. Mr. Johnstone has been fired and I wish you to escort him off the premises.”

  “You are a god among mortals,” Jerry said with an awe-filled chuckle. “Once the staff gets wind of this, you could be elected emperor.”

  “A thankless job. More work, less pay, and generally terminated with a beheading.”

  “Giving credence to the adage that no good deed goes unpunished.”

  “Perfect, I just love being the proof to a cliché.” Actually, cliché whore that I am, that did have a sort of perverted appeal, but I’d never admit to it.

  “Your security team is twenty seconds away.”

  “Thanks.” Enjoying this far more than I should, I snapped my phone shut with a flourish and repocketed it.

  “The Big Boss will have your head,” Marvin spluttered, his face mottled, his breath coming in short gasps. When he leaned in, his breath smelled like Amaretto or something nutty and his eyes were a bit wild. I wondered if he’d been drinking. “Just because you’re his daughter…”

  My eyes narrowed even more as I lowered my voice and whispered into our now former Poker Room manager’s ear. “Before you play that card, I’d think it through.”

  Marvin snapped his mouth shut and for the first time, realization dawned in his eyes. His demeanor changed, his face softened. He wrung his hands as he looked up at me with those tiny, feral eyes. He squinted like a rat seeing the sun after a night in the sewers—or like a man with a serious hangover. He was sweating pretty good now—beads of water trickled off his forehead. “There’s been a misunderstanding, Miss O’Toole. You’re reading this all wrong. I was planning to call someone from the list, so the young man couldn’t have the seat.”

  “Policy states you resort to the list to keep the table full only if you don’t have any qualified players waiting to play.” I raised a questioning eyebrow at the young man. “Mister?”

  “Weston,” the interpreter said.

  “Mr. Weston is to take the chair.” I waved to the two security guards pushing through the throng at the railing. “And the only misunderstanding is yours, Marvin. A grant of power does not include the license to abuse it. You’re finished here. And if you don’t leave now, I’ll see that you’re finished in Vegas.” I’d always wanted to say that. And, much to my delight, I sounded like a petty hood from one of those horrible old mobster movies. That wasn’t my Vegas, but I was hav
ing fun, so I went with it. However, I did resist rolling out my Robert De Niro impersonation. “But I wouldn’t go too far, the police are going to want to talk to you.”

  One of the guards grabbed Marvin by the arm and urged him toward the exit.

  The guy was a reptile, but he was smart enough to know my threat was far from hollow. “I’m not done with you,” the Stoneman spat as he allowed the guard to lead him away.

  All eyes followed the threesome until the crowd swallowed them. No one said a word as I sighed and blew a lock of hair out of my eyes. Boy, getting to be the one who finally fired the Stoneman! I was living at the foot of the cross.

  The sound of clapping broke the silence. Starting in the back of the room, at first only a few hands came together. Then, like a wave hitting the shoals, the sound grew until the whole room joined in the crescendo. Startled, I slowly rotated. Everywhere I looked I gazed into smiling eyes. The staff, the players, all stood as they applauded…me!

  Rachael, the assistant Poker Room manager, rushed to my side. Not yet out of her twenties, she looked at me through red-rimmed eyes as big as saucers. Puffy and bloodshot, her eyes reminded me of long nights spent dealing with people betting more than they could afford to lose. “You have no idea what you have done,” she said, her voice breathless as if after a long sprint.

  I rolled my eyes and swiped at that stubborn strand of hair once again. “I have an idea,” I sighed. What I had done was create one more major pain in the ass to be dealt with. Preferring dignity, Marvin might have left the room quietly, but he wouldn’t go without a fuss. Poker room manager was a cherry job. Most would sacrifice body parts to keep it. I had no doubt Marvin J. Johnstone was no exception…and the body parts sacrificed would be mine. The rodent would take a few bites out of my ass before I was rid of him.

  Oh well, that’s why they paid me the big bucks. Not to mention, my ass could use a little whittling.

  “Rachael, you are now the acting Poker Room manager. Can you handle that?”