Sam grinned. “Well, you’re pretty good at it. If that helps.”
“It does.” Ethan sat back, looking around. “Well. It seems we have a plan. Now how do we get it started?”
Sam considered this. “What about this Sarah person?”
“Sounds like a good place to start to me.” He scratched the cats under the chin, then rose. “Want to come with me to the casino, Sam?”
“Can I drive?” Sam cringed. “Oh God, I just sounded like a teenager.”
“It’s okay. If you really want to gross yourself out, you’re technically young enough to be my son.”
When Sam made a strangled sound, likely thinking of the many sexual positions they’d shared the night before, Ethan laughed and tugged him off the bed.
“Come on, Sam. Let’s go play. And yes, you can drive.”
CRABTREE’S SECRETARY SENT them to the Duffy Talent Agency off Sahara Avenue, which was, amazingly, still open. They were greeted by a warm, friendly looking woman who came up to them as they walked in. “How may I help you?”
“Yes—” Ethan looked down at her name badge and faltered as he saw the word C-A-R-Y-L-E spelled out. “Yes—Karl, I—”
“Carol,” the woman corrected, still smiling. “It’s an alternate spelling.”
“Absolutely. Caryle, we were wondering if you could help us plan an event for Herod’s Casino. Do you have a few minutes to discuss it, or should we come another time?”
Caryle did have time, and she settled them in her office, where she made them tea and gave them cookies while they talked. Ethan told her the goal for the casino’s sale and the plan for the “Butterfly” event, which Sam helped explain. Ethan waited for her to tell him it was a terrible idea. But she didn’t. She said it sounded brilliant, and she couldn’t wait to get started.
Ethan figured he needed to be up front with her. “My budget is abysmal. I haven’t even started considering what repairs and upgrades need to be done.”
“To be honest with you, I could use the work and the publicity of this kind of thing.” Caryle sighed. “I’ve been hanging on, but it just keeps getting worse.” She tapped her finger against her desk. “You know, I have a friend who might be able to help you with putting a good face on the casino for a budget. Do you want me to give you his card?”
“Please.”
Caryle searched in her drawer while she went on. “What you want for this, Mr. Ellison, is mystique. Where you don’t want to scrimp is in advertising, and you want to start as soon as possible. Get yourself a logo, something sort of Cirque du Soleil, something that says fun and club and sexy—and androgynous—and gets your theme in there. Someone in a butterfly costume, maybe. I’ll send some things over to your office tomorrow. I’ll have a list for possible acts sent over too, and times available. Ignore the rates—we’ll work them out.”
They shook hands, exchanged numbers, and then Sam was driving them again. “Where to now? Home?”
“No. Back to the casino.” Ethan paused. “Wait—the house, then the casino. I want to change my clothes first.”
Sam glanced at his khaki pants and button-down shirt. “You look fine.”
“I don’t want to look fine, Sam. I want to bluff.”
Sam grinned. “Gotcha. I suppose I should change too, huh?”
“Whatever you want.”
Sam did change, but just into a button-down blue shirt and dark jeans. He fussed with his hair a bit too, brushed his teeth then declared himself ready.
“Whoa,” he said when he saw Ethan.
Ethan wore all black. Black suit, black shirt, even a black tie and black shoes. The only hint of color was in his watch, which was polished silver and slipped out occasionally from his cuff when he lifted his arm. It was a nice suit, well cut, and he knew he looked good in it. As Sam stared at him, Ethan smiled and held out his arm.
“Ready to go?”
Ethan drove this time, but he parked a little ways away so they walked up the street, gathering attention, not climbing out of a Mazda and coming around from the back. He nodded at the doorman and smiled at the floor manager as he went in. Then he stood in the entrance with Sam and studied the casino. He saw the beauty of it beneath the neglect. But he saw, too, how few people were there.
Sam, seeing it too, winced. “If you get a lot of decorations, wings and things, that might help.”
“The trouble is whoever buys this won’t make an offer without a proper inspection. And they aren’t going to buy it because we have a great party.”
“You said Crabtree had a buyer in mind.”
“That doesn’t mean there actually is one.” Ethan stared at Billy’s craps table, remembering. He took Sam’s hand. “Come on.”
He went upstairs to Sarah’s office, but of course she was gone for the day. He poked around in closets, even ended up down in the basement, but he didn’t find anything.
“What are we looking for?” Sam asked, after half an hour of searching.
“A demon.”
Sam’s eyes went wide. “Any in particular?”
“A marble one. With horns. And a big fig leaf.” He paused. “I think it was gold.”
“Huh. Have you asked Randy? Because he’s downstairs in the poker room—”
“Randy is not a part of this. In fact, don’t even tell him I searched for it, please.”
In the end they got Sarah’s number by bribing several waitresses and a janitor, who went to a bellhop who sent yet another waitress to a high roller who knew it and gave it to them. Sarah didn’t seem bothered by their call at all. “I’m sorry, Mr. Ellison. I should have given you my home number myself. How can I help you?”
“Do you know where the statue of the demon is?”
She laughed. “I do. It’s in that cupboard I showed you, behind the towels. Did you need it for something?”
“Yes. I need to get it installed right away, right in the place where it was.” He held his breath and waited for her to tell him that was impossible.
“Of course. I’ve always missed the fountain. Would you like me to make some calls for you?”
Ethan smiled. “That would be lovely.” Once they hung up, he grinned triumphantly at the ceiling.
Sam smiled too. “Find it?”
“I think so. Come on.”
They went up the stairs again, moved the plant, and opened the secret door. They moved the towels. Then they moved some more towels.
There were a lot of towels.
“How far back does this thing go?” Sam asked, once twenty-five or so teetered on Sarah’s desk.
“It used to be a room. I don’t see any statue, though. Unless it’s really small?”
Sam crawled inside. “There’s a light switch in here.” Ethan heard a click. Sam gasped.
Ethan leaned in, worried. “You okay?”
“Holy. Shit.”
“Sam?” Ethan moved in deeper, saw the light and the room, and his jaw went slack.
Sam stood in the middle of a small but significant storage space, in the middle of which was a ten-foot-tall golden demon with three-foot-long horns and—
Yes. A fig leaf.
A big, big fig leaf.
Sam lifted it up and whistled. “He’s happy to see us.”
The demon had no pupils in its eyes, just golden sockets. It had a snout too, making it look almost like a cow, and it even had a ring in its nose. But beyond this, he was all male—broad chest, huge, sculpted muscles, and a flat stomach that tapered to his fig leaf. He was terrifying and beautiful at once.
Ethan studied the fig leaf a moment. “Let me see it.”
Sam grinned and slid the green silk covering aside, revealing the full majesty and slight grotesqueness of the beast’s huge, half-erect, and gleaming golden cock.
Ethan leaned over the edge of the shelf and into the room that shouldn’t have been there, staring at the statue which had been taken away. He could see it, could see how it could all work, could see even Sam’s Butterfly working. A Butter
fly extravaganza with drag queens and a raging horndog of a demon in a fountain. Touch his cock and you’ll win big. It would be a crock of shit, but people would buy it. And once they bought it, they’d believe it. It wouldn’t always work, but neither did craps or roulette. It would be part of the story. Part of the mystique.
As would be Butterfly, and Herod’s. They’d come to see it, if the bluff was good enough. And if enough of them came, so long as no one asked to see his hand, he’d win.
He could see it. He could totally see it.
Ethan grinned. And then he laughed.
“Come on, Sam. Let’s go downstairs, and I’ll buy you a drink.”
ETHAN DELIBERATELY KEPT them away from the poker room. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to see Randy, but rather he didn’t want to see him just yet.
“Would you be willing to help me this week?” Ethan asked Sam as they sat together, Sam with a strawberry margarita and he with his gin and tonic. “I don’t want to pull you away from starting at the hospital early, though, if that’s what you want to do.”
“No, I want to help. I do need to do orientation, and it’d be a good idea to do a few shifts next week to sort of wade in, but I’m loving this. It’s like planning a huge party. I’m totally in.” Sam stirred his drink and studied Ethan. “I’ve been meaning to ask you—how exactly did you and Randy hook up? I mean, I know you’re living with him, but you seem like you’re kind of just getting started.”
Ethan considered how to answer and decided he would give Sam the edited truth. He didn’t want Sam to know quite how dark he’d been. Though thinking that made him pause even more. He wasn’t dark anymore, was he? He was more of a gray, and sometimes…sometimes he was whatever color normal was.
Randy did that to you. Randy’s the one who helped lead you back to normal. Maybe even closer to normal than you’ve ever been.
Sam’s cheeks pinked. “Sorry. I don’t mean to butt in.”
“No, it’s fine. Just…complicated. He picked me up at the roulette table, over there, after I lost my last five dollars on black.”
Sam paused, straw still in his mouth, eyes wide. “Your last at all?”
“The only thing I had left was my car,” Ethan admitted. And a gun. He wondered what had happened to that. “I didn’t have a tip, so I left a ring, and somehow Randy got the dealer to bet against it, and the next thing I knew we were in here, at the River. It took off on its own after that.”
“Why did you do it, though?”
Now it was Ethan’s turn to stir his drink and stare into it as the ice swirled around. “Because a long-term affair of mine ended badly.”
“Love affair? A guy?”
“Yes. We were together for a long time. But he’s married. I realized he was never truly going to be with me, not in the way I wanted, how much of my life I’d thrown away for him, all so I could be with him a few times a month.” He stirred the drink more aggressively. “It made me a little upset.”
“You mean, he was married to a woman, right? Like a beard?”
“Still is married. And yes, to a woman. Because in the olden days we didn’t even dream of marrying each other.”
Sam looked downright grim. “Sometimes I want to go up to all the assholes who want to take my marriage away and make them say it to my face. They carry on like it’s going to change something, and it hasn’t, and it won’t. It just means I get to be married to Mitch.” He glared at the margarita. “Sorry. You were telling me about you?”
But Ethan had to soak in Sam’s passion, his anger. The insistence he, Sam, should have every right his peers did. Ethan wondered when it was he’d lost that self-respect for himself, when and where and why he had given it away, trading it for stolen moments with Nick.
He didn’t know. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know.
Ethan reached over and took Sam’s hand. “I’ve enjoyed getting to know you, Sam. Both you and Mitch.”
Sam gave him a wry look. “Even though I molested you before I even said hello?”
Ethan chuckled. “Maybe especially because of that.”
They sat in companionable silence until a woman who sounded very much like Kylie sighed in Sam’s pocket.
“It’s Mitch.” Sam pulled his iPhone out, and his face lit up when he saw the screen. “He’s at Blythe.”
He looked so relieved. So bright. So happy.
I want that. I want exactly that. Feeling brave, he added, I deserve that.
A loud feedback screech drew their attention across the room, where a woman stood on a small stage with a microphone. “Hello, everyone. I’m Jess, your happy host. Who’s ready for some karaoke?”
Sam turned to Ethan, eyebrows in his hair, grin a mile wide. Laughing, Ethan rose from the table and went with him to the stage.
RANDY HEARD THE singing as he rounded the corner and headed to the River, and he cringed. Goddamn it, it had been a sucky night. He’d gotten three bad beats in his games and had to deal with the sleazy asshole who alternated between racial slurs, sexist remarks, and blatant homophobia. All he wanted was a drink and some peace and quiet, but fuck no, not on karaoke night.
“Boys, boys, boys!” someone shouted over the music.
Someone kind of familiar.
“Boys, boys, boys!” It came again, and this time Randy heard someone trying to sing something after that, something about drinks in bars. As one, two voices warbled badly, “Whoah-oh-uhaoah,” and then there was even more laughter.
Randy moved faster. He’d known it was them just from their voices, but when he saw—Whoah-oh-uhoah was right.
There they were, the beautiful pair of them, Slick living up to his name, all in black, his shirt undone and a black tie dangling loose around his neck. Sweating and laughing, singing Lady Gaga at the top of their lungs, they were clearly having a wonderful time. So was everyone else in the bar, all of them crowded at the edge of the stage, cheering them on.
They saw Randy, fumbled their line as they cheered him forward then picked up the song in time to chant, “We love them! We love them!” in eager, off-key chorus.
Randy waved at them, then went up to the bar, ordered a beer, and settled in to watch. When they called out once again at the chorus, he saluted them with his longneck. “Love you too.”
Chapter Eighteen
IF THE THERAPY was why Sam was so much better, Randy was all for it. Especially since in the second session they didn’t talk about him at all, just Sam’s mom.
The session still upset Randy, though, and later that afternoon while Ethan and Sam clicker-trained the kittens, he took a ride in the desert to clear his head. When it didn’t work, he headed to the Stratosphere. He lucked out because the woman working the ticket counter knew him, so she let him go up for free. Partly because of that and partly because he thought maybe some thrill would get rid of his agitation, he bought tickets for the rides.
He liked the Big Shot, where hydraulics shot riders up a tower like a rocket before stopping them from going off the top and bringing them gently back down. It was a ride popular in a lot of amusement parks, but this one was on top of a sixteen-hundred-feet-high tower above the Strip. X-Scream was billed as a giant teeter-totter on the edge of the observatory—essentially you sat in a small car and tried not to lose either your lunch or your mind as it shot you over the edge. Insanity basically strapped you in, tilted you sideways, and spun you over the Strip.
Randy saved that one for last, because it was the best. While he spun above the world and his fellow riders screamed and threatened to throw up, Randy let his mind go.
It bothered him that Sam had lost his mom. Right now it bothered him a lot. He’d empathized when he’d first heard the story, but today he’d listened to Sam talk about how great she was. The woman had been nothing short of amazing. Battling a debilitating disease, she still managed to raise an intelligent, competent young man and beat off, from the sounds of it, any homophobia that came his way. She’d been so strong, so supportive, so—shit, she was a
fucking list of superlatives. It got way under Randy’s skin that she worked so hard and then got picked off by cancer. If this had been a movie, he’d have walked out and demanded his money back. It sucked. Even when he finished on the tower, even after he stood on the edge and tried to let the wind take his thoughts away, they clung to him. What happened to Sam and his mom was wrong. It made him itch just thinking about it.
What was fucking weird was how Sam didn’t seem to see that.
He teared up sometimes when the therapist pushed on the wrong spot, but it was nothing huge to him. After he wiped a few tears, he tended to go stony until Laura redirected to a more comfortable subject. Randy didn’t want to tell her how to do her job, but the more he watched Sam not break down, the more agitated he got.
During the second week of sessions, he couldn’t stand it anymore. “Look, why don’t you let it out, Sam, and be done with it?” He turned to the therapist. “With all respect to your training or whatever—I mean, shit, it can’t be good for him to keep all that in. When are you going to tell him to spill it?”
Sam regarded him in total confusion. “Let what out?”
Randy had to choke back a laugh. “Seriously? Seriously?” He turned to the therapist. “Don’t tell me you can’t see it.”
She gave him a thoughtful but otherwise unreadable look for a few seconds. The woman would be dangerous at a poker table. “I’m not sure. What is it you see, Randy?”
There was a trap there, Randy was sure of it, and he regretted saying anything at all—until he looked at Sam. There it was, so close to the surface he couldn’t bear it, and he gave up. “Sam, just be sad already.”
The words might as well have been a switch, the way they made the walls go up. “Sad about what?”
“Your mom. Her dying like that. You having to be alone.”
“You don’t think I’ve been sad? You think I didn’t feel that?”
Randy glanced at the therapist, but one of the plants would have given him more feedback. Shut up and don’t say anything. Don’t say another damn word. It was smart advice. He wished he could take it.
Double Blind Page 26
