by Fritz Galt
There were whoops and whistles throughout the room.
They had a few minutes to kill. Why not see where the act was going. “Let’s grab a seat.” He pulled Earl toward one of the recently vacated tables.
“But Brad…”
“Shush. I’m trying to concentrate.”
Men attempted to hand ten-dollar bills up to the two dancers, but they wouldn’t take the tips. They were far too engaged in their act.
And what an act it was. One woman, call her Ginger for the moment, was clearly the more submissive and ended up on all fours. The sight of her posterior waving in the air brought out a throaty response, the likes of which Brad had never heard ripped from his throat before.
The other, Lola, circled her before squatting down and straddled her back. Lasso spinning overhead, she prodded her steed forward, and they rocked in that manner to the pounding music.
“Isn’t that…?” Earl was trying to say.
Brad rose to his feet and began reaching for a ten-dollar bill when there came a loud bang from the doorway. Something whistled behind his head.
Earl dove under the table.
The crowd treated the sound like the crack of a whip and cheered.
Brad turned to the doorway to see what had caused the report. A man was standing there with a smoking gun aimed directly at him.
But before the silhouetted figure could get off another round, a second shot rang out, this one from one of the private areas. Someone else had a gun and was letting loose. Before Brad could turn to look, he heard a ping and the gun jerked out of the hand of the figure at the door.
The guy looked down at the fallen gun with surprise. Someone had just shot it out of his hand. For a brief moment, the man froze in profile and Brad could see who it was. It was Liang.
But before Brad could react, Liang wheeled around and took off down the hallway toward the back of the club.
Insanely, the two women went on sliding around each other, oblivious of the drama taking place before them. They must have really been into it, judging from the way Lola had slipped backwards on Ginger and had her head buried in Ginger’s rear end.
But who had shot at Liang? Brad ducked and turned to look back at the private areas. His eyes traveled halfway along the row of partitioned rooms. A man in a trench coat stood there, a gun still trained on the spot where Liang had dropped his gun and fled.
Brad didn’t need to remove the man’s tweed hat and turn his collar down to identify him.
“Dad!”
Sullivan slowly emerged from the shadows, removed his hat, and tucked the revolver back into his coat pocket.
“You saved my life,” Brad shouted, and worked his way through the crowd.
Sullivan had already reached for a hand radio and began issuing instructions into it. Brad got close enough to hear the reply on the other end of the two-way. “We’re circling around back now.”
“Look, Earl,” Brad said. “It’s Sully.”
Earl heaved himself off the floor behind Brad, but his attention was glued to the stage. Up front in pulsating red light, the two cowgirls had lost their hats and jeans and were tussling on the floor. It looked like the dance had disintegrated into professional wrestling. The crowd was going nuts and the chicks were grunting away, their hands all over each other, their hair in their eyes.
Wait! Brad knew that arm. That thigh. He waited for some more features to appear from under the dominant Lola. A nose poked out from under a breast, then the entire face emerged, eyes wild with fright. It was May. She was looking around the crowd in search of something.
“May?” He ran toward the stage. “It’s me! I’m okay!”
But she wasn’t turned toward him and her persistent lover was all over her, preventing her from scanning the faces in the crowd.
“Flip her over!” Earl was shouting as Brad ran by.
“Hey. Will you take your eyes off her?” Brad said. “That’s May up there.”
“I know,” he said. “And Jade’s got her in a headlock.”
What? Brad shot another look at the stage. Sure enough, Lola was Jade and she had his Ginger in a firm hold.
“Push her jaw away!” Brad shouted. Wait a second. What was he saying?
He turned back, but there was only a disappointed blonde dancer standing where his father had once stood. Brad turned back to the stage where Ginger was pointing desperately at the far corner.
Brad spun around. Sullivan was advancing on a private room, the slim radio protruding from his hand.
Brad heard a tortured scream from on stage. “Stop him!”
He was confused. Sullivan wasn’t attacking anybody with a radio. Or was it his gun?
“It is my father!” May shouted.
Brad dodged around some tables to get a better look at Sullivan. Was he going to shoot Dr. Yu? A second later, he could make out the white beard of the old Chinese scientist as he withered under Sullivan’s menacing approach.
Brad leaped over a table and reached out for Sullivan’s legs. He grabbed them just before his face smashed against the floor. The two of them crashed headlong into the private room.
The object fell out of Sullivan’s hand and clattered to the floor beside Brad. There was no explosive discharge, only a squawk followed by the clear words, “The suspect got away.”
Brad had just prevented Sullivan from assaulting Yu with a deadly police radio.
“Sorry, Dad.” He regained his feet and tried to wipe the beer stains off his father’s coat. “I thought that was your gun.”
Yu remained unruffled despite the two interlopers stuffed into his booth. Earl limped up and slid in beside the scientist to make sure he had survived. “Enjoying the show?”
Suddenly Brad stopped brushing his father’s coat. “What are you doing here? I left you back on the East Coast.”
“I came for Liang.”
Slowly it all became clear to Brad. Liang had been lying in wait for him to come to May’s rescue in order to kill him. He could see now how foolishly he had walked into Liang’s trap. And Sullivan had seen it coming all the time.
Still, Sullivan hadn’t tipped Brad off. Instead, he must have taken a second plane to Las Vegas, gotten himself into position at a lap dance room, and waited for Liang to pull a gun on Brad.
“You set me up.”
Sullivan lowered his eyes. “It was unavoidable. You were the only way to draw Liang out.”
Brad looked at the stage where May and Jade’s bodies were intertwined in a death grip, and the audience was watching with rapt attention.
“And Liang was using her, too, to get at me.”
“I’m afraid so,” Sullivan said.
Earl slapped the table. “Cheer up, old pal. You aren’t bait. You’re just a magnet for trouble.”
Brad shrugged. He supposed he was. But his thoughts were interrupted by a loud chorus of cheers from the crowd. May had managed to pull a reversal on Jade and was pinning her shoulders to the glossy floor.
“Get some clothes on them!” Brad shouted. He threw himself into the mob scene that rimmed the stage with hundred-dollar bills thrust upward in their hands.
“Wait, Braddo,” Earl called out after him. “You’re blocking my view.”
Chapter 39
Fifteen minutes after May and Jade’s barroom imbroglio, Brad rolled along in one of the squad cars that Sullivan had managed to scrounge up. He sat in the back seat next to May and her father. The two cops in front weren’t busting them, and May didn’t seem the least bit ashamed of her performance that evening. Instead, the cops were following her directions to the motel where she had checked in with Liang and her father.
It was Brad who should have felt ashamed. He had been used by everyone. He felt like a puppet. And he had behaved badly. The events from the Corral played back in his mind like a farce. He was the unwitting dupe who followed his dream girl to the club unaware that she would appear on stage, that Liang lay in wait to kill him, and that Sullivan had played them all f
or fools by flying direct to Vegas ahead of Brad.
There had been a fixed, knowing look on everybody’s face, except his. And perhaps May’s.
He turned to her. “Why were you so upset up on stage?”
“I thought your honorable father was Liang in a coat and he wanted to shoot up my father.” She squeezed the arm of the old guy next to her. “And Jade perverted me from saving him.”
Ah. So that explained the big fight on stage.
He glanced back at the car that followed them. It was a squad car with two more local cops bringing Jade, Earl and Sullivan.
“Are you mad at Jade?” he asked May.
“Not mad,” May replied. “She said it was a good performance.”
“Are you hurt?”
“No. It was a typical workout.”
Brad didn’t want to probe any further. Instead, he focused on the present. He felt vague guilt for dragging his friends and father back to the motel where Liang might be holed up.
If he really wanted to, he could make himself feel guilty for having dragged the whole world into the present economic crisis. If he hadn’t rocked the boat and fallen in love with May, Liang would have had his way with her. That was no more acceptable than the embargos, panic and toppling of governments.
“There it is.” May indicated a shabby motel. “Room 11.” And she clutched the men on both sides of her.
The parking lot was empty. The cop steered for the door marked “11” and came to a screeching halt. He had positioned the car to block easy egress for anyone inside. Both cops jumped out, raised their Smith & Wesson handguns, and pointed them at the door. In the pulsating light of the motel sign and police cars, Brad watched the cops move in. The second squad car pulled to a halt behind them.
May made a move for the door, but Brad pulled her back. “Let the professionals handle this.”
The cops yelled a few things, then banged on the door. There was no response. The motel owner came out with a key, so the cops ultimately didn’t resort to knocking the door down.
Brad urged May and Yu to crouch low out of sight.
The police spent a full minute in the room. No shots were fired. No suspects tried to flee. The cops emerged with their shoulders sagging and their weapons put away.
“He has flown the coop,” the senior officer said with a shrug. “Looks like he never came back to the motel.”
Brad’s heightened expectations led to an immediate sense of remorse. He turned to May to apologize, and saw her lips trembling for the first time. “Don’t worry, my love,” he said.
“I won’t,” Yu returned from the far end of the seat. “We’ll find him.”
May looked up at Brad, and a smile played at the corners of her mouth. “My father loves you, too.”
“Er,” Brad tried to figure out exactly what that meant. “Does that mean you do, too?”
“Of course, silly egg.” She parted her lips, but not in the way that she did on stage. There was no lust in her eyes, only a deep yearning for reconciliation.
Brad moved close and their lips met.
“I think I’ll take a leak,” Yu said, and struggled to open his door. As it was a squad car, there were no door handles on the inside, and one of the police officers had to let him out.
“You coming, too?” the cop asked Brad and May, but got no response.
By the time the two emerged from the back seat of the squad car, the law enforcement officers and Sullivan had set up their temporary headquarters in room 11. Two officers were posted outside the room, and Sullivan was itching to talk to his son.
He pulled Brad aside. “Where would Liang be headed?”
“I can’t read minds,” Brad said, funny as that sounded under the circumstances. Their chances of finding Liang were remote at best.
Who has the wings to fly?
“Oh, cripes,” Brad said. “Has Terry Smith already blown town?”
Sullivan nodded. “He didn’t stay for the rest of the convention.” He pulled a newspaper out of his pocket. “Says his next stop is Honolulu.”
Then you must fly.
It was a painful, wrenching process, but he had to disagree with Xenhet. He was not going to conquer the mountain starting from where he stood, which was at the very bottom.
Yu was just emerging from the bathroom.
“Come along, sir,” Brad said. “We’re going to the convention center.”
The old man looked exhausted.
“You can do this,” Brad encouraged him. “What do you need to communicate with the governors?”
Yu reached into a travel bag and pulled out a baseball bat and a football.
“Sir, I want you to begin concentrating on Governors Stokes and Walsh.”
“I can reverse their thoughts,” Yu offered. “Now that I have May safely back, I can have them announce that the embargos are over.”
“That would be great, but we want to go beyond that. We need to show how their thoughts and behavior have been manipulated.”
“I have some ideas.” Yu had a mischievous look in his eye.
Everyone was sitting around the room, so Brad turned the television on. The local station was broadcasting from the convention center. As long as the images were aired live, he didn’t need the scientist there.
“Can you guide the two governors from here?” He positioned a chair before the tube.
“Of course.”
Brad helped him settle down and handed him the baseball bat, the football and a cold beer. “Don’t change channels. You’ll know what to do when the time comes.”
The old man looked exhausted, but said, “I wouldn’t want to miss the show.”
Brad bent over May, who was sprawled in a chair. He planted a kiss on the part in her hair.
Then he turned to Earl. “Let’s go!”
“Me?”
“Yes, you.”
Earl grabbed his crutches and hobbled outside. “I’m jetlagged, you know.”
They caught a cab heading toward Las Vegas Boulevard. Brad had the cabbie take them slowly past the Convention Center. From a distance, he could see squad cars and unmarked vans ringing the building and beefy-looking Secret Service agents manning all entrances.
“Exactly what do you propose we do?” Earl said.
“We’ve got to get on stage. We need a national audience.”
“And exactly how do you propose we do that?”
“Costumes! Stop at that store!”
The cabbie pulled up to a complex of shops, one of which was called Putting on the Ritz. Inside, people tried on tuxedos, sequined gowns and over-the-top wigs.
Earl pulled his crutches out of the cab. “How do you disguise a broken leg?”
In the taxi ride back to the Convention Center, Brad consulted a book of jokes that he had just purchased at the costume rental shop.
Earl squirmed uncomfortably. His satin tuxedo was tight in certain places, including his belly and the cast on his left foot. “Do you honestly think you can gain a sense of humor in five minutes?”
“Don’t worry.” Brad flipped back through what he had just read. “I’ve got a number of one-liners memorized. The question is, what if you’re not funny?”
“Don’t worry. I’ll adlib. Besides, when all else fails, there’s always our fallback.”
Brad grimaced. “Let’s pray it doesn’t come to that.”
The cab pulled up to the phalanx of Secret Service agents, six men with semi-concealed Uzis standing around the stage door.
“How do you expect to get past them?” Earl said.
“Take a look at this.” Brad pulled a scrap of paper out of the pocket of his costume pants and waved it under Earl’s nose. “It’s from the president.”
He slipped the cabbie a ten-dollar bill and stepped out of the cab. Earl hobbled after him.
“Sorry.” The lead agent stopped them in their tracks. “This isn’t an Abbott and Costello convention.”
Brad calmly punched in the number of the president
’s hotline. He heard the other party pick up just as the agent snatched the phone away from him.
“Who is this?” the man demanded to know. Then the guy’s eyes swam with confusion. “I don’t buy it. I’m hanging up.” A voice barked something in his ear. “Well, I’m standing here with two guys in tuxedos. Name of …”
Brad leaned forward. “Brad West.”
More words assaulted the agent’s ear. “I’ll have to talk to my superior,” the agent said, adhering to the established chain of command. He lifted his left wrist and asked into his cuff for someone named Stew.
While the agent waited for a response, Brad took the phone back.
The president was just getting off another line to his personal Secret Service detail. In the background, he heard the soft tones of a stereo and then a woman’s voice with an unmistakable German accent. “What’s the problem, darling?”
“Good evening, Mr. President and Dr. Fluffenheimer,” Brad said. He proceeded quickly so as not to take up too much of the president’s valuable time. “I need to get past a security detail at the Las Vegas Convention Center.”
“Don’t worry,” Burrows growled. “I took care of it.”
Indeed, when Brad glanced up again, the agent dropped his hand from his earpiece, jumped aside and yelled, “Get that stage door open.”
“Thank you, Mr. President,” Brad said. “And may I suggest that you turn on your television to a live broadcast from Las Vegas.”
His confidence was growing with every passing second.
May pulled a folding chair up beside Jade, who sat in an easy chair in front of the television. Sullivan was standing alone in a corner.
“Come sit down,” May said. “Watch the television.”
“Thanks. I’m fine from here.” He didn’t take his eyes off Dr. Yu.
She looked at her father, whose eyes were closed. Was he actually asleep? She kicked him in the foot, and his head popped up. “Are you awake?” she asked in Chinese.
