Deadly Gamble

by Linda Lael Miller

  “Somebody get security!” one of the box boys yelled.

  A rent-a-cop appeared, overweight, his uniform shirt speckled with white powder, most likely doughnut residue.

  “Did anybody see what happened?” he huffed.

  “I did,” said the old lady, stepping between Heather and me.

  I shook free of box boy #1.

  Heather struggled in the grasp of #2.

  “What?” asked the security guard—Marvin, according to his name tag—dusting off his shirt with one hand.

  “This one,” answered the geriatric she-hero, pointing to Heather, “was harassing that one.” The arthritic finger moved to me.

  “You’ve got that right,” I said huffily, tugging at the hem of my Be a Bad-Ass at Bert’s T-shirt. “It’s a fine thing when a person can’t even shop for frozen dinners without being attacked by some maniac. I’ve got a good mind to take my business elsewhere after this.”

  Marvin and the box boys looked hopeful.

  Heather started to cry. “She stole my husband,” she said, with more lip wobbling.

  Marvin, the box boys and the old lady studied me thoughtfully.

  “She’s nuts,” I said. “Certifiable. Over the edge. And furthermore, her husband is a jerk.”

  “One of these days,” Heather said, “I am going to kill you.”

  Public opinion swung in my direction.

  “I rest my case,” I said.

  “Did you steal her husband?” the old lady wanted to know.

  “No,” I replied, ready to wheel into the sunset with my frozen dinners and what was left of my dignity. “And if I had, I’d have given him back.”

  With that, I pushed my shopping cart between them and headed for the checkout stand. I didn’t start shaking until I was safe in my secondhand Volvo, with the windows rolled up and the doors locked.

  Back at Bad-Ass Bert’s, I carried my groceries inside. Eight frozen dinners, a litter box and a bag of absorbent pellets.

  “I wasn’t sure,” I told Chester, who was waiting for me when I lugged the stuff through the door. “About the litter, I mean.”

  Chester sniffed the bag curiously.

  “Of course,” I reasoned, because I needed to hear a voice, even if it was my own, “if you don’t eat, it follows that you don’t poop, either.”

  “Meow,” Chester said.

  “Thanks for hanging out,” I answered.

  “I wish you felt that way about me,” Nick said.

  I swung around to see him standing next to my bookshelf, which was beside the computer, where I kept my sizeable collection of Damn Fool’s Guides. Unfortunately, there wasn’t one dealing with dead people—trust me, I’d looked the day before, when I stopped to get the Tarot tome, but Near Death Experiences was the closest thing—or crazy female stalkers, either.

  “Now what?” I demanded, letting the kitty litter and the plastic box topple to the floor. I clutched the bag full of Lean Cuisines to my chest, like a shield.

  Nick was perusing titles. “The Damn Fool’s Guide to Dating,” he mused, running a finger along the spines. “Tantric Sex. Raising Ferrets.” He paused, looked me over closely, and with compassionate concern. “Ferrets?”

  “It was a passing fancy,” I said, and started for the kitchen.

  He followed, of course, and so did the cat.

  “Tantric Sex?” Nick pressed.

  “I’m single and over twenty-one,” I reminded him, jerking open the freezer section of the refrigerator and tossing in the week’s meals, bag and all. “And what are you doing here, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  “Just a friendly visit,” he said. Then he opened the cupboard, took out the Oreos and sniffed them. A look of pathetic longing crossed his face.

  “Here’s an idea,” I said, whacking the freezer door shut with the flat of one hand. “Go ‘visit’ your mother.”

  “Your attitude is very unbecoming, you know,” Nick said. With a sigh, he put the Oreos back in the cupboard. “What did my mother ever do to deserve this…rancor?”

  “Well, first of all,” I replied, ticking number one off on my finger, “she gave birth to you. Second, she stuck her nose into our business every chance she got. And third, she saw to it that I got bupkis in the divorce.” I paused. “Oh, and then there’s the way her head sprouts snakes at the most unexpected moments.”

  “You don’t like her,” Nick said, sad and surprised.

  “Don’t take it too hard, but I don’t like you very much, either.”

  “If you knew the trouble I have to go to, to keep a charge,” he replied, quietly stricken, “you wouldn’t be so rude.”

  I grabbed the coffee carafe, poured out the stale stuff I’d never gotten around to drinking earlier and cranked on the faucet. The pipes rattled. “If that little illusion gives you consolation, Nick,” I said, “you just go with it. And while you’re at it, why don’t you tell me what the hell you want? As long as it isn’t sex, I’ll give it to you, and you can move on to the next plane of existence, or whatever it is you dead people do.”

  Any self-respecting spook would have been insulted enough to vanish, but not Nick. He grinned, pulled back a chair at the table and sat down. “No sex, huh?”

  “Not on your—life,” I said.

  “Bummer,” he sighed.

  “Don’t you have something to do? In the train station or whatever it is?”

  Another sigh. “I’m stuck in the depot until I deal with you,” Nick said, and he looked just earnest enough to be telling the truth.

  A clear indication that he was lying through his perfect teeth.

  “Are you sleeping with that biker?” he asked.

  “That comes under the heading of None of Your Damn Business.” I sloshed the water into the top of the coffeemaker, spooned some Starbucks into the basket and jammed the carafe onto the burner.

  “A biker, for Christ’s sake?”

  “Tucker’s not a biker. He’s a cop. Narcotics division.”

  “At least his name rhymes with my opinion of him.”

  “Gee, and your opinion matters so much.”

  “You didn’t used to be so hard.”

  “Well, you haven’t changed at all.” I leaned against the counter, folding my arms. Chester wound his silky way around my ankles. “You’re still an arrogant, self-centered ass.”

  “I have changed, Mojo.”

  “Right,” I agreed tartly. “You’re dead.”

  “That was a low blow.”

  “It’s true, isn’t it?”

  “I’m trying to help you.”

  “How? By scaring me out of my wits? By undermining my sanity?”

  “I brought back your cat.”

  I looked down at Chester and, on impulse, scooped him up. He felt so real, and pretty chunky. Whatever they were feeding him on the other side, it was sticking to his ribs.

  Suddenly, I wanted to cry. I knew I’d loved Chester once, and I was dangerously close to loving him again.

  “You never got to say goodbye to him,” Nick said.

  I buried my face in white, warm fur. “He can’t stay,” I mourned.

  “No,” Nick agreed gently. “It’s a frequency thing. These appearances are pretty tough to sustain. But he’s not dead, Mojo. He’s alive, but in a whole different way. That’s the point.”

  Chester’s fur was damp, where I’d cried on him. “It’s the same with you.” Statement, but it had the tone of a question.

  Nick nodded. “The difference is, when he goes back, he’ll be able to get onto a train and go on to whatever his idea of heaven happens to be. I’ll still be stuck at the station.”

  I was grudgingly intrigued, if not necessarily sympathetic. I’d loved Nick completely, and he might as well have torn my heart out of my body and backed over it with a UPS truck. “Why?”

  “Unresolved issues,” he said, with yet another sigh.

  I studied him, still holding Chester as close as I could without squashing him. “What kind of
unresolved issues?” I asked suspiciously.

  “You trusted me. You loved me. And I betrayed you. I have to earn your forgiveness.”

  “Is that all?” I sniffed, reluctantly set Chester down on the floor, straightened again. “Okay. That’s easy. You’re forgiven. Now, kindly hop on the Starlight Express and stop showing up in my apartment.”

  If I hadn’t known better, I would have sworn Nick was being sincere. He actually looked remorseful. “Sorry,” he said. “It isn’t that easy. You can’t just toss off a platitude. You have to really mean it.”

  “Shit,” I said.

  He looked like a kicked puppy. “Was it that bad? I remember some really good times together.”

  “Do you?” I grabbed a mug down off the shelf. No sense getting two; if Nick couldn’t eat Oreos, he probably couldn’t drink coffee, either. “Maybe you’re confusing me with your secretary—excuse me, executive assistant. I caught you boinking her in a construction trailer once, remember? Or maybe it’s that sweet young thing in the condo down the hall from ours. The one who always wanted you to fix something. Or—”

  Nick put up a hand, rose wearily to his feet. “I’m sorry, Mojo. What else can I say? I can’t change the past.”

  Tears stung my eyes. “Get out, Nick.”

  He was gone in a blink.

  And Chester went with him.

  “YOU’VE BEEN CRYING,” Greer accused, when I showed up at her mansion outside of Scottsdale at five to six that night, bringing along a bottle of Chardonnay donated by Bert. A glorious Arizona sunset blazed crimson and pink and apricot on the western horizon.

  “No, I haven’t,” I said. It was a partial truth, anyway. I’d spent the afternoon at my computer, coding and billing, and the May rent was a sure thing. I’d also gone through a whole box of tissues.

  Greer looked rich—and skeptical—in her floaty flowered skirt and pink matching top. Her blond hair was in a French braid, and I wondered how she stood so straight, with Dr. Pennington’s diamond weighing down her left hand. I figure the jewelry alone keeps Scottsdale chiropractors operating in the black.

  “Your eyes are red,” she said.

  Once, I would have spilled it all. Told Greer about Nick and Chester. But Greer was different now that she was married. The change was subtle, but I wasn’t imagining it.

  I had to tell her something, so I went with Lillian, the three Tarot cards, and my chat with Uncle Clive. Maybe, I thought, after a glass of wine I might even get as far as Crazy Heather and the supermarket caper.

  Listening intently, Greer led the way across the brick-paved portico and through the open doors at the top of the steps. The house alone covered more than ten thousand square feet of prime desert, and the art inside was museum quality stuff. The furniture was tastefully expensive, and I could see the back patio in the distance, through a set of glass doors. Nothing but the best for Greer Pennington, world-class trophy wife.

  Okay, so maybe I sound a little mean-spirited. I loved Greer, but she could have been a lot more than some old fart’s pampered wife, and that bugged the hell out of me. Before Alex, she’d put herself through art school, worked for other people for a while to learn the ropes, then gone on to start and run her own design firm. She’d been successful, too, after a rocky start.

  When Alex snapped his fingers, though, she’d sold the company without even a mild protest. In fact, she’d seemed relieved. And that was what bothered me. Not that Greer was set for life, at least financially. I was happy for her. No, it was the way she’d given up on her own dreams. Put on a costume, learned the lines and played the second wife as if she’d never done all that hard work to make something of herself.

  We settled ourselves in cushioned patio chairs, under a sloping tiled roof, near the sparkling pool. Greer checked out the wine label, smiled charitably and carried the bottle into the kitchen by way of yet another door.

  When she returned with two crystal glasses, I figured she’d pulled a switcheroo, probably dumping Bert’s Chardonnay down the sink and filling the goblets with something French or Napa and ridiculously expensive.

  “Should you be drinking if there’s a chance you might be pregnant?” I inquired.

  Greer looked away for a moment, then looked back. “Not to worry,” she said, reaching for her glass. “I am definitely not pregnant.”

  I knew she wanted a baby, to make her happy home with Dr. Pennington complete, and I felt a pinching sorrow behind my heart. “I’m sorry,” I said, and I meant it.

  Greer downed a couple of sips—more like gulps—of her wine, and gave a gurgling, disjointed little laugh. Nothing was funny, and we both knew it, but Greer liked to pretend. Maybe it was a survival mechanism.

  “You told me on the phone this morning that you didn’t feel well,” I said. “Have you been to a doctor?”

  “I’m married to a doctor.”

  Didn’t I know it? “You have shadows under your eyes, and I think you’ve lost weight. What’s going on, Greer?”

  She sucked up some more wine before answering, and when she did, she ignored my question entirely and presented one of her own. “Do you think it’s because of—well—things I did when I was young?”

  I scrambled to catch up. “You mean your not being pregnant?”

  Greer looked around nervously, as though the editor of the country club newsletter might be crouching behind the cabana, taking notes, or lurking on the other side of the towering stucco wall enclosing at least an acre of backyard. The windows of the guesthouse, opposite the pool, caught the colors of the sunset and turned opaque. “Yes,” she said, and it seemed to me that she’d gone to a lot of trouble, scoping out the landscape, just to say one word.

  “Lillian had you checked out at a free clinic in Vegas, remember? You were fine. No STD’s, no residual effects whatsoever. It wasn’t the hooking, Greer.”

  She tensed, and what little color she’d had drained from her cheeks. “Keep your voice down!”

  “Sorry,” I said, chagrined. I always felt out of place at Greer’s, and I tended to put my foot in my mouth. “You’re alone here, aren’t you? Carmen is gone for the day?”

  Carmen was her housekeeper—a very nice woman, but not much for overtime.

  Greer nodded miserably. “I didn’t mean to snap,” she said.

  I patted her hand. “It’s okay.”

  She fortified herself with more wine. I decided it was probably cramps that made her look so woebegone and beaten. “Nothing in my life,” she said, “is ‘okay.’”

  CHAPTER

  4

  I ’d love to report that Greer and I got right to the heart of things, over our dinner of thinly sliced smoked salmon, gourmet bagels and cream cheese with capers, and settled all our collective and individual problems, but we didn’t. Greer drank wine—first hers, then mine. She shook her head when I told her about Heather and the supermarket incident, and said I ought to move to a civilized neighborhood.

  What one had to do with the other was beyond me then, and I still don’t exactly get it.

  I tried to communicate. I really did. I told her about Lillian and the Tarot cards, and running into Uncle Clive at the nursing home.

  She recalled that he was a state senator and wondered aloud if he and his wife would ever make the trip up from Cactus Bend to attend one of her gala parties. It wasn’t so much that Greer was uncaring; she just couldn’t seem to get any kind of grip on the conversational thread.

  I would have been better off talking to Chester, and I don’t think the evening did much for Greer, either, except perhaps to provide some brief respite from whatever was weighing on her mind.

  At eight-thirty, I thanked my sister for her hospitality, said my goodbyes and left. Greer was a lonely, shrinking figure in my rearview mirror, standing in her brick-paved driveway, watching me out of sight.

  I was too restless to go straight home. I knew the cat was gone, and if he’d come back, the chances were all too good that Nick was with him. I wasn’t up to an
other dead-husband fest, so I headed for one of my favorite places—the casino at 101 and Indian Bend.

  Talking Stick was doing a lively business that night, its domed, tent-shaped roofs giving it a circus-type appeal. I parked the Volvo at the far end of the eastern lot and trekked back to the nearest entrance, my ATM card already smoking in my wallet.

  Inside, I pulled some money at the handy-dandy cash machine next to the guest services desk. A security guard gave me a welcoming wave; I won a lot, though I was usually careful to keep the jackpots small, so I wouldn’t attract too much notice, and it had gotten to the point where everybody knew my name.

  “Cheers,” I told the guard as I breezed by, weaving my way between banks of whirring slot machines beckoning with bright, inviting lights. I passed the Wheel of Fortunes, with their colorful spinners up top, and the ever popular Double Diamonds, which were always occupied. I used to play them a lot, but then the powers-that-be cranked the progressive jackpot down by a thousand bucks, and it became a matter of principle.

  I passed the gift shop and the bar and came to the blackjack tables, lining either side of the wide aisle. A shifting layer of cigarette smoke hung over everything like a cloud. I’m not a smoker, but hey, the poor bastards have to have somewhere to hang out.

  Brian Dillard, one of the blackjack dealers, stood idle. My jerk-o-meter went off like a slot machine on tilt, but I stopped anyway. Discretion may be the better part of valor, but discretion, like truth, sometimes gets more hype than it really warrants.

  Brian checked out my jean jacket and cotton sun-shift, as if there were a dress code and he got to decide whether I met it or not.

  “I saw your ex-wife at the supermarket today,” I told him.

  Brian made a visible shift from lascivious to nervous. “Heather?” he asked weakly, keeping his voice down lest a pit boss overhear. Personal exchanges are not encouraged in any casino I’ve ever been to, especially if they have dramatic potential. If you want to get the bum’s rush, just make a scene.