Lucky Bastard

by Deborah Coonts

  “Lucky, she is taking care of this problem.” Jean-Charles squeezed my hand.

  “Then you are in good hands,” my father added, effectively shutting down that line of conversation.

  “Sir, if I may?” Romeo stepped into the easy silence. “I’d like to offer my condolences. I understand Shady Slim was a good friend.”

  My father’s face clouded but he didn’t lose his smile. “We knew each other since Benny Binion invited six of his friends to a friendly game at the Horseshoe and started the whole thing rolling. Guess we both grew up with Vegas.”

  “Lotsa changes.” Romeo nodded sagely.

  I resisted scoffing. What could he know? He was so young he sparkled like a new penny.

  “Slim lived pretty large, so I guess he had it coming.” My father poured himself another glass of wine. “The timing was bad though, not that there’s ever a good time to meet your Maker.”

  My father being so forthcoming raised every red flag I had. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was reeling the kid in. But why? Looking for answers I decided to play along. “Why was now any worse than any other?”

  “The long hours of professional poker drove him out of the game—they practically play around the clock now—and it was get out or develop an amphetamine addiction. Without an outlet for those competitive juices, he’d been a bit lost.” My father glanced around the table, his eyes coming to rest on me. “Recently, he’d found a way back in.”

  “What was that?” The rest of the table fell silent as I warmed to the role of straight man.

  “The Internet. He was all gung-ho about offshore poker sites. To hear him tell it, owning one was like printing money.”

  “He owned one?” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Romeo ease his pad and pencil from his inside pocket. Flipping the pad open, he held the pencil poised.

  “Part of one. A small consortium of his friends invited him in to buy a site from that amateur player Lucky perforated last night.” My father chewed on his lip as he thought a moment. “What’s his name?”

  The words caught in my throat.

  Romeo jumped to my rescue. “Kevin Slurry.”

  Brandy looked at me—her eyes had gone all slitty at the mention of his name. “I’m here tonight because of Lucky.”

  “Yes,” my father said as he gave me a knowing look. “Slurry, he was a pretty good player. He won a WSOP bracelet a few years back. I think that’s where he crossed paths with Slim. Anyway, the kid had been after Slim for a while. He said having a legend’s name attached to the site would really grow the brand. I told Slim he should wait until we got some legislation passed that would bring Internet gaming back to this country. Of course, that would raise the price.”

  “He didn’t listen.”

  “No, he wanted in while the price was low.” My father’s emotions filtered through as his voice caught. “They offered me a stake, but I didn’t want it—at least not right now.”

  “How’d Slim take that?”

  “No hard feelings. Besides, I left the door open.”

  “How?”

  “We were working on a plan to bring it onshore, grow the site, offer in-room play to the guests. It’s the wave of the future, why fight it?”

  “But isn’t that illegal?” Romeo always had a nose for nuance.

  “Technically it’s illegal for the banks and other monetary institutions to process payments from U.S. players to gambling sites. The actual site isn’t illegal, but the result is the same.” My father pushed his glass away and leaned back in his chair. Idly he stroked Mother’s hand as it rested on his thigh. “It’s just a matter of time before the legislation is overturned. You’d think our lawmakers would understand it’s more effective to tax vice than it is to try to eradicate it. But, then again, those guys aren’t known for playing with a full deck.”

  “Who got in with Slim?” Romeo asked, keeping his tone conversational.

  I hid my grin—it would take far more than an easy manner, probably handcuffs and a stun gun, to lead that old dog down a path he didn’t want to go. Romeo’s naïveté was charming.

  Unruffled, my father continued letting out the line, baiting the hook. “DeLuca and Watalsky. Those were the main two. There were others, but they didn’t have much of a stake.”

  “Watalsky? River Watalsky?” Now it was my turn to be surprised. “Last I heard he didn’t have two nickels to rub together.”

  “As you know, sweetheart,” my father glanced at me. “All it takes is one hot streak and you’re back in the game.”

  “An interesting group.” I thought for a moment as the table fell silent. The good Mr. Watalsky had been a bit circumspect the last time we talked. Time to nail him down, literally, if that’s what it took. Come to think of it, DeLuca had a lot of explaining to do as well, but that would be a bit touchier. “And Marvin Johnstone?”

  “I haven’t added that piece to the puzzle…yet.” My father’s eyes hardened. “All I know is there was a lot of smack involved. And where there’s smack…”

  “There’s murder,” I said, finishing his thought as if it were my own.

  “Are you two suggesting someone killed Shady Slim?” Romeo couldn’t hide his skepticism. If the Big Boss wasn’t here I’m sure the kid would be a little more sarcastic…I could hear him saying, “You can’t be serious? You’re pulling this out of thin air!” or something to that effect. Instead he calmly finished with, “We have no reason to believe foul play was involved, sir.”

  The “sir’ was a bit much, if you ask me, but my father took the bait. “Look more closely, Detective. Money brings out the worst in people.”

  An awkward silence descended over the group, each of us lost in our own thoughts.

  “You don’t have to tell me that!” Mona jumped into the fray. “The more money they flashed at the house, the more I worried about the girls.” From gambling and murder to hookers. Apparently we were going to hit all the Vegas high points.

  Brandy nodded at my mother and seized the opening. “I know what you mean. When the guys started stuffing Franklins through the bars of my cage, I knew it was going to get bad.” Cage dancing had paid her tuition at UNLV.

  “The men were not gentlemen?” Jean-Charles asked, sounding somewhat appalled. Poor man, he had a lot to learn about Vegas.

  Brandy and Mother both looked at him for a moment as if trying to understand the concept of “gentlemen” in the world they both had worked in.

  Finally Brandy shook her head. “No, the men were, well…men. Men are pretty simple, you know—you get what you expect, most of the time. But the other girls! Once they picked up the scent of easy money, they were like a pack of rabid coyotes eating their own.”

  ***

  Holding up a wall in the corner of the kitchen at Tigris, I worked my ankle trying to increase the range of motion as I watched Jean-Charles and Omer, the urbane Frenchman and the rotund little Turk, their heads together as they traded culinary war stories. The rest of the dinner had passed in easy camaraderie, although I thought Mona and I might come to blows over the last of the vanilla crème brûlée.

  After thanking the staff, we’d said our good-byes. Romeo and Brandy headed to Babel to dance for a bit. Mother wanted a warm bath and a foot rub. Father knew the bit part he would play and he’d looked thrilled at the prospect when he’d let his wife lead him toward home. Jean-Charles insisted he couldn’t leave the restaurant without complimenting the chef. I agreed, so here we were.

  Letting the chefs’ conversation fade into the background, I marveled at how Brandy had gotten away with the “men are so simple” line at dinner. If I’d made that pronouncement, I would’ve been skewered and slow-roasted over an open pit.

  Beauty and youth…an advantage and an excuse. If I knew where to shop, I’d buy me some of both.

  “Hey, I’m glad I caught you.” Romeo’s voice jerked me back to the present.

  At his hand on my arm, I turned to stare into the bright eyes of the young detective.<
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  “I forgot what I had to tell you, what with dinner and…everything,” he threw a furtive glance toward the front of the restaurant where, I assumed, Brandy waited for him. “I like your even numbers theory. Thank you, by the way.”

  “I’m a sucker for love.”

  His shy smile crept out of hiding. I bet he’d be shocked at the number of hearts he’d unwittingly broken with that grin. “Forgot to tell you. I ran the phone numbers from the plane’s satellite phone.”

  “And?” My body had apparently gone into max-conserve mode. The flutter of hope in my chest didn’t even come close to tripping a faster heartbeat.

  “Somebody on that plane called Washington.”

  “Technically, you can’t call Washington—it’s a city, assuming we’re talking D.C. Washington State presents a similar problem though.” I wiped a hand across my face, then leaned my head back against the wall and closed my peepers. This was a dream, wasn’t it? Sort of like that whole “Bobby Ewing died” thing. “Just for kicks, kid, when you call Washington, who answers the phone?”

  “A wee bit pissy, are we?” Romeo said with a grin—I could hear it in his voice so I didn’t waste the energy to look.

  “One of my many charms.”

  “Shady Slim called two folks. One of them works for the DOJ. The other just got paroled out of Leavenworth.”

  “Why are there always two jokers in every deck?” I raised a hand. “Rhetorical. I already know the answer: The powers that be have serious issues with me. And I have a feeling you’re just dangling the bait.”

  “The felon, he had a tie-in with Dane. Apparently our cowboy was the acting MP who busted the guy’s ass on a charge of laundering money.”

  “Any specifics?”

  “The guy gave me the run-around, so I requested the files from the Army, but you know how that goes.”

  We’d get stonewalled, that’s how every game was played inside the Beltway. “And the DOJ?”

  “Not returning my calls.”

  “And we’re all shocked, right? If the Beltway bozos can’t share info in an effort to keep terrorists from our shores, why would they would throw crumbs our way?” I blew at a strand of hair I felt tickling my eyelid. “Dane could clear all of this up, I have a feeling. Sure would be nice to find him and throw him on a rack or, even better, a Judas Cradle.” The thought of Dane being stretched or slowly impaled was somewhat appealing, which did sorta bother me…just a little.

  “A Judas what?”

  “Never mind. It’s too late for torture. I’m thinking dismemberment.”

  “You scare me.” The smile still warmed the kid’s voice. He had way more confidence in me than I did.

  “Heck, I scare myself. Any other glad tidings?”

  “I wasn’t going to tell you this, but…”

  Opening one eye, I raised an eyebrow at him. “Withholding information? So unlike you.”

  “It’s nothing like that. It’s just…” He looked sort of stricken.

  “Romeo, you’re starting to scare me for real. Give it up.”

  “In running trace on the Coke spill in the doorway of Cole Weston’s room, we found cyanide.”

  “That’s not even a tiny surprise.”

  “And we found blood.”

  “Blood?” That got both my eyes open. “Whose?”

  Romeo shrugged. “But, if it’s any consolation, we found it outside the room.”

  “None inside?”

  “No.”

  Again, I blew at that annoying strand of hair. “Do you think we’ll ever start coming up with answers instead of more questions?”

  “Eventually.” He sounded resolute. I took momentary comfort even though I didn’t believe him for a nanosecond. I felt myself tumbling into the morass of cynicism—the first sign of the apocalypse.

  Romeo pulled himself to his full height, and worked the kinks out of his shoulders. “I’m hitting the dance floor. I do some of my best thinking there. Besides, I can’t think of anything else to do.”

  As I watched him go, I didn’t know whether he was pulling my leg or not. Not only had I apparently lost my ability to read people, I didn’t have any answers or theories either. This whole thing was a mess—Dane on the lam, presumably with Cole Weston in tow although the blood confused things, Dane’s wife dead, our Poker Room manager poisoned like a bit player in a Bogart black-and-white, Shady Slim taking a dump (no, I did not grin at that pun), Slurry fighting for his life, Watalsky and DeLuca lying by omission, a mysterious girl on the run, a killer on the loose…and poker the only connection.

  Oh how I hated poker…and all the other games people played.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “I am so sorry.” The Frenchman’s voice at my elbow startled me. I guess I had closed my eyes again. “You look like the standing dead. This is the right way to say this, no?”

  “‘Dead on my feet’ is the idiom I believe you are reaching for.”

  “Yes, yes. This is it.”

  As I looked into his eyes, cloudy with concern, I had the same thought about something all together different. This is it. He is it. But, I’d been wrong before…so, very, very wrong.

  And he was right—I was in the middle of a whizz-bang energy crisis and on the verge of emotional meltdown. It would probably take the Aztec calendar and an abacus to figure out when I’d last had any meaningful rest. A sadistic internal projectionist kept running the film of Kevin Slurry as he fell, leaving me little peace.

  So, this most definitely was not the time to make decisions about the rest of my life. To be honest, deciding what to wear to bed would be a sufficient challenge—deciding whom to take to bed was way outside my current capabilities. So, I punted. “Walk me home?”

  He extended an elbow. “With pleasure. But you must tell me what happened to your ankle.”

  “A brief, but ugly battle with exceptionally high heels. I lost.”

  He looked at me for a moment as if weighing my words. “You must be more careful,” he finally said. The look on his face left me with the distinct impression he saw way more than I told. Or maybe I was just being paranoid.

  “Truer words were never spoken.”

  At this time of night, Vegas would be firing on all cylinders. We eased into the river of humanity in the Bazaar and let ourselves be carried along on the flow enthusiasm toward the hotel lobby. Surrounded by the chatter of excitement and captured in the crush of people intent on having a good time, did bolster my spirits—Vegas magic always had that effect. Too bad I couldn’t tap into some of the ever-present energy.

  “I know you are dead, and your ankle hurts, but perhaps we could rest in the Hanging Gardens for a bit?”

  Even in my depleted state I wasn’t so far gone that I’d turn down a romantic…rest…with a gorgeous Frenchmen who suffered from the delusion that I was special. Clutching his arm with both of my hands, I squeezed and nodded. “The perfect antidote to a semi-dreadful day.”

  Leaning heavily on his arm, we walked together sheltered in the bubble of our own little world. Jean-Charles bent and kissed my forehead, then murmured in my ear. “You did not tell me Chef Omer has allowed me to use his kitchen for the competition.”

  “His kitchen, he should be the one to tell you.”

  Jean-Charles was quiet for a moment as he digested that. “You can trust me, Lucky, just as I trust you. I will not hurt you. And someday you will tell me all these things you hold inside.”

  No one could make those kinds of promises about a fickle future, but I didn’t want to spoil the mood so I didn’t mention it. Instead, I rested my head on his shoulder.

  One step at a time.

  ***

  One of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, the original Hanging Gardens of Babylon had beckoned travelers from far and wide, requiring many days of travel by boat and beast. The thought alone made me hurt. Thankfully, the trip here in Vegas was much shorter and didn’t involve camels. Even though I’d missed the original, I was pretty sure the
Big Boss’s rendition did the ancient version proud.

  Night hung low and heavy under the canopy of trees high above as we pushed through the doors into the only tropical climate zone west of the Rockies. The dampness caressed my skin—skin that was used to being sucked dry in the Mojave furnace. I filled my lungs, savoring the high relative humidity. Water. As a species we hadn’t traveled very far since the first of us abandoned fins and crawled out of the primordial stew. Some of us had moved farther from our reptilian ancestry than others, but I didn’t want to think about that now.

  As I clutched my Frenchman’s arm, his hand covering mine, I let him lead me down discreetly lit paths through lush vegetation. The scent of flowers mingled with the lingering aromas of suntan oil and fruity beverages—vestiges of a day long since put to bed. Water burbled in the darkness as our path followed the waterway that connected our three pools. The bars were closed, the pools abandoned, which suited me just fine. Silence was a welcomed contrast to the endless party called Vegas.

  Even the birds were quiet, but snatches of music drifted past on a slightly cool breeze. Bats winged silently, feeding. I must’ve shivered as Jean-Charles paused and shrugged out of his jacket. Placing it over my shoulders, he wrapped an arm around me. Once again I settled my head on his shoulder, securing his nearness with an arm around his waist. The other hand, I placed on his stomach, comforted in his warmth, the regular rise and fall of each breath.

  “Thank you,” I whispered, afraid my voice would shatter the delicate peace.

  He said nothing, but gave me a slight squeeze.

  Time seemed to stand still—a perfect antidote to the mad rush of the day. I had no idea how long we wandered—for some reason my ankle didn’t bother me that much. Jean-Charles pulled me toward a chaise, then extricated himself from my hold. After he grabbed a clean towel from the tall stack awaiting tomorrow’s sun worshippers, he spread it on the chair and motioned for me to lie down. “We get such little time to enjoy each other’s company.”

  Settling myself, I scootched over to allow room for Jean-Charles. Darkness shadowed his face as he eased in next to me. I couldn’t see what lurked in his eyes, but his features looked relaxed with a pleasant emotion. “If I fall asleep, you won’t be insulted.”