Smith's Monthly #14

by Smith, Dean Wesley

  “Stout,” David said, “are you thinking what I think you are thinking?”

  I nodded. “Seemed like a good idea to me.”

  “But if it works,” David said, “and the old bartender stays alive and keeps the jukebox, then you may not be here. Did you think about that?”

  I just tried to smile.

  “And did you think about the chance that we would be gone, and that would mean...” He turned to look at Elaine and she nodded that she understood. It was because of the jukebox three years earlier that David had been able to go back and save her from dying in a car wreck. If the jukebox wasn’t in the Garden Lounge for me to send David back, Elaine would be dead.

  “But there is a real good chance it won’t work out that way,” I said. “And Elaine will be as alive as she is now and all of us will be right here, drinking. Besides, if we hold onto the jukebox when the song ends and the world switches, we remember the old timeline. That’s how I remembered you two when you didn’t come back.”

  “But you don’t know if Elaine will stay for sure, do you?”

  My stomach felt cramped and my hands were sweating. “No, I don’t.”

  Billy cleared his throat. “I came here because you said you might be able to help me. I’m just kind of wondering what this is all about.”

  “It’s about taking one hell of a chance,” David said.

  “It is at that,” I said. “But not for you, Bill. The chance is ours. What we need you to do is simple. There was a song playing on a jukebox when you shot old Danny. Remember?”

  Bill nodded.

  I picked up the sack from the back bar and pulled out the record. “And this was the song. Right?” I held the label and title up for him to see.

  Bill again nodded, this time real slowly. There was a shocked look on his face as he stared at the old record. Then he looked up at me. “How did you know? There is no way that anyone could have...”

  “Too long a story to explain right now. But if you would just trust me, I think you may have a miracle handed to you this Christmas evening.”

  “I don’t believe much in miracles,” he said, still staring at the record.

  “Well,” I said, glancing over at where David and Elaine sat with worried expressions. “I do. So you are just going to have to trust me.”

  God, if I said that one more time I wasn’t going to believe it either. I just wished I felt as sure of what I was doing as I sounded.

  I led Bill down the bar to the jukebox, opened up the lid and put the record in its place. Then I reached around back of the jukebox and plugged it in.

  The colored lights flickered on and a slight hum and the smell of burning dust came from behind the jukebox. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a quarter and handed it to Bill. “Your miracle,” I said.

  He looked at the quarter and then at me. “You’re nuts, you know. I knew I shouldn’t have come here.” He started toward the front door.

  “Wait,” I said. “Everyone wants a chance to go back and correct their mistakes. Don’t you?”

  Bill stopped and turned back to face me. “Of course I do. I wished it every day for twenty-eight long years. But I ain’t no fool and damned if I will be taken for one. What is done is done. And that is the way it is and should be.”

  “Sometimes that is the truth and sometimes not.” I said. “I’m just offering you a chance to make up your own mind. Nothing more. It is up to you to take it.”

  “Mr. Stout, I personally think you are as crazy as they come and I met some crazy ones behind the walls.” He glanced down at the quarter in his hand. “But I suppose you have got me this far, I might as well finish your damn game and let you all get your laughs.”

  I only hoped we would be laughing when this was over.

  He moved back to the jukebox and dropped the quarter in.

  “All you have to do,” I said. “is punch E-34 and think about the night you killed Danny. But give us just a second.”

  I quickly hurried around behind the bar and slipped industrial strength ear-plugs to everyone sitting there. “Put these on and think of playing golf or snow skiing or something different when the song starts. Otherwise you’ll end up back last Christmas Eve.”

  “No chance,” Elaine said and stuffed the earplugs hard into her ears. “But are we going to see that scene again this year?”

  I shrugged. “Don’t know. With Bill here anything is possible, I suppose.” I nodded to Bill. “Go ahead.”

  He shook his head in disgust and turned to the jukebox. Carefully he punched up E-34 as I did everything I could do to think about the last round of golf I played.

  It worked. The only one of us who disappeared out of the bar that Christmas Eve was Bill Webster. As the song started, he blinked twice and then, with a sad frown on his face, he was gone.

  And the murder scene did not show up again.

  For that I was grateful.

  SIX

  I motioned for everyone to grab their drink and move over to the jukebox. I could barely hear the song through the plugs so I watched down through the glass until the record was almost over. Then I motioned for everyone to touch the jukebox. I knew without a doubt that Billy would not kill Danny if he had a second chance. But what I didn’t know was how Danny being alive would change the history of the jukebox.

  If the history of the jukebox did change and I never found it in the back hallway of my first bar, would we be here now, holding onto the jukebox or not?

  I didn’t really know.

  I tried to smile at David beside me, but he was focused on Elaine, as if his pure mental energy would keep her there. I hoped beyond hope that it would.

  Carl was standing near the back of the jukebox, with one hand on the chrome and the other on his drink. As the song ended he raised his glass in a toast motion.

  The air around the jukebox shimmered.

  And Bill appeared.

  I thought for a moment I was going to faint.

  He looked over at the bar where we had been sitting and then turned around and faced our stunned faces. He had come back. How the hell had he done that?

  I pulled the earplugs out as fast as I could, but David had beat me to the question. “What happened?”

  Bill smiled and then laughed a low, almost mean laugh. “I shot the son-of-a-bitch again.”

  “What?” was all I could manage to say as both David and Elaine backed away from him.

  Again Bill laughed, only this time I could tell he was thinking back to what had just happened. “You know, Mr. Stout, I just didn’t believe you until I found myself standing there with my daddy’s big heavy gun in my hand pointed at old Danny.”

  “But why did you shoot him again?” I asked. “If you knew where it would take you?”

  Bill shrugged. “At first I didn’t think I would. But I kept the gun pointed at him and just sort of stood there and listened to that damn song and looked at old Danny and thought. I thought about how I had killed him the first time and about how I had paid my debt. And I thought about the little apartment I have now and my job down at the Elks Club cleaning up.”

  He faced me directly. “And you know something, I’m a hell of a lot happier now than I was then. My old man was beating me all the time. I was holding Danny up for enough money to get out of town and away from my daddy and his big fists. Well, killing Danny did that for me too. It got me away from that son-of-a-bitch and his fists. He never hit me once after that.”

  Carl just shook his head and I moved over to a stool and sat down.

  “So you shot Danny again?” Elaine asked.

  “Yes ma’am,” Bill said. “As far as I am concerned, he was dead thirty years ago, so I really wasn’t shooting anyone new or alive. But, I did remember what Stout and David here were arguing about. I remember Stout said something about that if I didn’t shoot Danny, you might die and he might lose this bar. Now that would be killing somebody new and I just couldn’t do that.”

  Both Elaine and David just s
tared at Bill with their mouths slightly open.

  Bill stepped toward me. “I’d like to thank you for a real nice gift, even though it didn’t work out. Not that I pretend to understand exactly how you did it. But as they say on the TV, it is the thought that counts.”

  He reached out and shook my hand. “Maybe I’ll stop by sometime for a drink,” he said and then laughed. “But only if you promise me one thing.”

  I felt more lost than I had in years, so all I could do was nod.

  “Promise me you won’t play that song while I’m here?”

  Finally his words got through the shock I had felt when I saw him reappear. I started to laugh and he joined in and so did Carl and David and Elaine.

  “I’ll do one better than that,” I said after a moment. I stood and leaned over the jukebox and unplugged it, Then I opened the top and took out the old record and with a quick flick of the wrist smashed the record over the edge of the planter beside the jukebox.

  “How’s that?” I asked.

  Bill laughed. “Looks as if you got yourself a new customer.”

  Both Elaine and David applauded and Carl said, “I’ll drink to that.”

  It took both David and me to stop Elaine from hitting him.

  In the first of four parts, Poker Boy and his team must confront the worst enemy they ever faced. The dreaded Slots of Saturn once again.

  But the Slots of Saturn died years before. How could they be back?

  The sequel to the novel The Slots of Saturn, this short novel appeared first in Fiction River.

  THEY’RE BACK

  A Poker Boy Short Novel

  Part 1 of 4

  CHAPTER ONE

  Not Possible, but Fact

  “The Slots of Saturn are back,” Stan, the God of Poker said to me as he slid into the booth beside Patty.

  I laughed and pointed out the window. “Pig just flew by. Pink, a ribbon on its tail. Really flapping hard.”

  Patty giggled and shook her head.

  Stan said nothing, didn’t even laugh at my stupid joke.

  “Wait, just saw another.”

  Again he didn’t laugh or even shake his head in disgust, which he often did when I got really silly.

  Both Patty and I just stared at him, waiting for his punch line. He had just said that the Slots of Saturn were back. That had to be a joke with a really stupid punch line, because those monsters were not a laughing matter.

  But no punch line was coming, at least none that I could tell. Trying to get a read on the God of Poker was just about impossible. He had the best poker face on the planet and with his tan slacks, button-down brown cardigan sweater and short brown hair, he could make himself invisible in a crowd without any powers at all.

  “Sorry, Poker Boy, Patty,” Stan said. “I can’t believe it either.”

  “Serious?” I asked. “No flying pigs with pink ribbons?”

  “Serious,” he said.

  Patty and I had been having a quiet lunch in my invisible office, floating high over the Las Vegas strip. I should have known a wonderful day like today would have a crisis in the middle of it.

  Just not this crisis.

  Any crisis would be fine except this one.

  Patty and I were both dressed in casual jeans and light shirts to spend the day together, since she had a day off from her job at the MGM Grand Hotel front desk. I still had on my black leather coat and fedora-like hat that was my uniform as a superhero. I just didn’t feel comfortable going many places without them.

  We had plans to tour the Mob Museum that both of us had wanted to see for a year, but hadn’t found the time. Then we hoped to have a nice dinner and then go back to her apartment, watch a movie, and see what happened next.

  I had been looking forward to that “next” part of the plan all morning.

  And lunch in my office had seemed like a great way to start a relaxing and fun day together.

  My invisible office floated a thousand feet over the Las Vegas Strip and consisted of four walls of windows and a diner booth smack in the middle of the room. The red vinyl booth had soft seats and could hold eight around the table with room enough for another two to pull up chairs on the end. It was patterned after Madge’s imitation 1960’s diner my team had met in for years down near Fremont Street in downtown Las Vegas.

  An invisible door led from Madge’s Diner to this office so that Madge, the waitress (who was also a superhero in the food service part of the gods) could wait on us in here. It was also the entrance for those without teleportation powers.

  My office actually served as more of a clubhouse for the members of my team more than anything else. Sitting up here at night on a chair with your feet up on the railing looking out over the city and The Strip was always amazing and relaxing.

  After hard days, a lot of the team members did just that.

  There was also another invisible door that led to Patty’s apartment where we stayed while in town. When we completed our new home we were building in the Oregon Coast Mountains, I would put in a direct door to this office from there as well.

  Since Patty didn’t teleport, that would allow her to get back to Vegas anytime she wanted from our new home in Oregon.

  Patty Ledgerwood, aka Front Desk Girl, was my sidekick and partner and the woman of my heart. We met the first time The Slots of Saturn ghost slots had attacked the city. And we had been a pair ever since.

  Now it seemed the ghost slots were back.

  Not possible, just not possible.

  I just wasn’t going to let myself believe it yet.

  Madge came through the door from the diner with my cheeseburger and Patty’s salad and a big basket of fries. She had already brought us both a large vanilla milkshake to share and had Stan’s favorite strawberry shake on her tray as well.

  She slid lunches in front of us and gave Stan his shake. Then she slid the fries over to an open spot at the end of the table and turned to leave without saying a word.

  The fries only meant one thing. Laverne, Lady Luck herself, was on the way and had ordered ahead.

  So the ghost slots really were back, even though that was completely impossible.

  A moment later Screamer, the other original member of our team, and Ben, the oldest and yet newest member of our team appeared and slid into the other side of the booth facing me and Patty.

  Screamer had taken part when we rescued over a hundred people from near death in the Slots of Saturn the first time. But wow, that was a long time ago.

  Ten years ago, to be exact.

  Screamer had the ability, among other things, to get into someone’s head and read their thoughts and transfer those thoughts to others. He was a superhero working on the law enforcement side of the gods.

  Ben was a god himself, just as Stan was. Ben had been the God of Lamplighters for centuries, but as they didn’t need lamplighters as a profession anymore, he had faded. He had spent a lot of time over centuries reading and he remembered every detail. I got him moved over to work with the Gods of Books and Libraries to get him healthy again, and he had became a critical part of our team. He knew history and he knew all the politics and history of the gods. I couldn’t believe how much he had helped us so far.

  “So what Stan said is true?” I asked, looking at Screamer.

  “We got ten people missing so far,” Screamer said, nodding, “and my sources with the police think it might be a few more.”

  “But how?” Patty asked, her voice sounding as stunned as I felt. “We all three stood there outside that warehouse and watched those three slot machines be hauled off to be crushed and destroyed.”

  I glanced at Stan, who only shrugged. “We don’t know, but we’ve seen security images of the Slots of Saturn appearing and taking someone and vanishing. Just as they did the first time. Exactly, actually. Same spots in the casinos. The locations they appear, that we know about, we now have blocked off.”

  “So they really are back?” I asked, the fear crushing any idea I had of takin
g a bite out of my cheeseburger, no matter how good it smelled.

  “It seems that way,” Stan said. “And we checked and they are not returning to the old Standard Machines warehouse.”

  “So we don’t have any idea where they are stored this time?” I asked. That was how we had managed to deal with them the first time. We found their home.

  “No clue at all,” Lady Luck said, appearing and pulling a chair up to the table. She didn’t grab a fry, but instead just sat there, staring at me.

  And when Lady Luck just stares at you, that is not a good sign.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Searching for a Clue in the Past

  Ghost slots had been a myth or urban legend in Las Vegas since slot machines started to become popular. The myth was that a person could pour their entire soul into the machine and thus vanish into the machine.

  In other words, slot machines took the souls of people.

  I had walked by enough people glassy-eyed in front of slot machines over the decades to think there was some gems of truth in those legends.

  And then ten years ago I discovered ghost slots were very, very real when the Slots of Saturn started to attack.

  The Slots of Saturn were a three-seat set of very old, very tall slot machines with incredibly-beautiful images of the rings of Saturn all over the machines. You actually had to pull the handle and coins rattled out into the metal tray when you won. They were old machines, retired in the late 1980s and stored in a giant warehouse called a “graveyard.”

  That’s where we had found them through an incredible series of lucky events and teamwork. That day the team had managed to save over a hundred people from the ghost slots.