Chances

  Dario paid the fare and got out, carrying his dinner suit in a plastic bag over his arm. The cab roared off, and he stared at the neon-lit hotel in the distance. A sparkling white palace. It must have cost millions and millions to build. And he got a lousy two hundred and fifty a week.

  Things were going to have to change. Tonight.

  Resolutely he walked toward the hotel.

  Lucky did not usually feel nervous. But tonight was different. Special. She was dressed, ready, and shivering like a fourteen-year-old on her first date.

  When the door buzzer rang, she jumped. “Who is it?” she called.

  “Costa.”

  She opened up the door and hugged him. “I love you,” she said emotionally, “for giving me the chance to do what you knew I could do.”

  He hugged her back. She twirled around the room. He had never seen her look so vibrantly beautiful. “Champagne!” She sparkled. “Now, I know you don’t drink it, but just for tonight—for me.”

  “The bubbles give me indigestion—” he began.

  “Nonsense,” she objected, handing him a glass. “Let’s drink to the Magiriano. May its casino outgross any other in the whole of Las Vegas!”

  They clinked glasses. Then Costa said, “And to Gino—who planned the whole thing.”

  She turned away from him, her face clouding over. “Don’t try to spoil my evening.”

  “Lucky,” Costa said softly, “without your father none of this would have been possible. You can’t keep up this grudge against him forever.”

  “Why not?” she demanded.

  “Because one day he’ll be coming back and taking over. And then you’ll have to learn to accept him and his ideas.”

  “He’ll never come back,” she said airily. “It’s been too long. They’ll never let him back.”

  “I’ll see to it that they do.”

  She stared at Costa blankly, silently wondering how she could convince him that Gino was better off staying where he was. The door buzzer prevented her from saying anything.

  “It’s Skip,” a voice called through the door. “I wondered if you’re ready to come down yet. Got a whole bagful of celebrities that I want you photographed with.”

  She threw open the door and regarded the fast-talking public relations man coldly. “I told you,” she said patiently, “no personal publicity.”

  “I know, but I thought tonight, being the opening and all—”

  “No, Skip. Definitely not.” She closed the door firmly in his face. Why had she ever gone to bed with the creep? He came as fast as he talked. She turned to Costa and held out her arms. “Let’s go see if it’s all holding together. I’ve had nightmares this past week that the whole place will collapse in a heap of rubble and I’ll be sitting in the middle stark naked with everyone screaming ‘Schmuck—we told you a woman couldn’t do it!’”

  Costa took her arm and escorted her to the door. “Lucky,” he said solemnly, “one thing they’ll never call you is schmuck. I can promise you that.”

  Marco watched them approach: Lucky, electrifying in black, her eyes full of arrogant wildness, her breasts partially exposed in the revealing dress she wore; Costa, a proud old man, clinging to her in a possessive way.

  He strode toward them as they paused in the doorway. The party had been going on for some time, an impressive turnout of superstars, producers, tycoons, sports personalities, hookers, con men, entertainers of all sorts.

  Marco reached Lucky, kissed her chastely on the cheek. “You look… very ordinary,” he joked.

  She grinned. “Where’s Helena?”

  “Funnily enough, she’s not here.”

  “Why not?”

  He held her eyes intently. “You know why not.”

  “I do?”

  “It’s a special night, isn’t it?”

  “You’re still a married man.”

  “Listen”—he leaned close and his voice was very low—“I think it’s about time you made an exception.”

  Her heart was beating like she had just got through jogging ten times around Times Square. “I never make exceptions,” she murmured huskily. But she knew she would. Tonight.

  “There’s always a first time, isn’t there?”

  Their eyes clicked together like dry ice sticking to skin.

  “Is Enzio here yet?” Costa asked impatiently, not liking what he sensed was going on.

  “Yeah—arrived a few minutes ago. I was just going to buzz you.”

  “Come on, Lucky,” Costa said. “Let’s go see him.”

  She smiled. “Sure.” Lightly she touched Marco on the hand. “Later.”

  Warris Charters observed carefully from his staked-out position at the bar. An older slyer Warris Charters. Forty-one, to be exact. He looked different. For a start he had dyed his hair black and his eyelashes. He had also developed heavy debauched pouches under his eyes and his perfect teeth had spread, leaving nasty aging gaps.

  The last nine years had not been kind to him. Being thrown out of the Cannes villa in a raging storm had not been good for his health. He had developed a dangerous case of pneumonia and ended up in a charity ward in a local hospital He nearly died, not that anyone would have cared.

  As soon as he was better, he attempted to contact Olympia. An impossible task. When the parents of a rich girl want her to vanish, she vanishes, and tough shit to anyone who tries to find her. After a while he gave up looking and moved in with a friendly hooker working the end-of-season tourist trade. In December he moved to Paris with her, where she had forgotten to mention that she had a resident pimp. Warris ended up in the hospital again, this time with two broken ribs.

  He finally limped home to Madrid, where he took up with his old group of friends: pushers, junkies, hopheads. He made a living arranging live sex shows and then raised the money to make a porno movie. The male star dropped out at the last minute and Warris stepped in—hence the dyed hair. He had some scruples. Also a mother someplace. Wouldn’t do to get recognized.

  The movie was a vague hit in Europe. It gave him enough money to get back to America, where he made more of the same in a converted garage in Pasadena. Stars were not hard to find. Girls flocked to L.A. to get in the movies. Some of them were not too particular about which movies. He made a passable living, had an erotic sex life, and all the while longed to become legitimate again. He still had the script of Kill Shot—Pippa’s movie, but now his. Who could ever prove otherwise? The writer was dead seven years. He had done a little checking up.

  Kill Shot was still a viable commercial property as far as he was concerned. Of course, it needed a few changes here and there, but the story was a grabber. Time had not changed that.

  He had thought long and hard about how to get it together. Financing a movie was like walking a tightrope backward across the Grand Canyon—not easy. And then one day it had all fallen into his lap like a golden shower. He was in Vegas with a black hustler and her cardsharp boyfriend. They had been cruising the hotels when the black hustler had pointed a bony finger and said, “You see that jive-ass chick over there? That’s Gino Santangelo’s daughter. Can ya dig it? They say she’s got balls like her old man. Wow! I’d sure like to lick ’em!”

  Warris had looked. And double-taked. And looked again.

  Lucky.

  It couldn’t be.

  It was.

  Lucky Saint. Lucky Santangelo.

  Pippa must have known. Why hadn’t the dumb cunt told him?

  Then it all started going click-click-click in his head. When Pippa had first handed him the script she had told him it was a true story: the life story of Gino Santangelo. Who knew anything about Gino Santangelo then? The only news Warris ever read was in Variety. But the name had stuck over the years. Like Mickey Cohen, Meyer Lansky, it was a name you knew but didn’t really know….

  He had made it his business to find out everything he could. When he had enough information he decided to go to Lucky with the script and have her get it to her father. His hunc
h was that Gino would either want it made—in which case he would be happy to finance it—or he wouldn’t want it made—in which case he would be happy to finance any other script of Warris’s choice with the provision that all copies of Kill Shot were destroyed.

  It was a no-lose situation. And Lucky was the connection to make it happen. Only it had to be done on a personal level—and she wasn’t easy to get to. Finally he had managed to buy an invite to the opening-night party from a part-time porno queen who was a permanent fixture on Tiny Martino’s guest list. He had paid her a hundred bucks and thrown in a fuck for good measure.

  Now here he was, ready and waiting to make his play. And what a play it was going to be. An ace. Either way he would win.

  Dario checked into the hotel, took a shower, put on his dinner suit, and made his way downstairs.

  He saw no one he knew, and no one knew him. He went to the bar and ordered a scotch. Christ! Who needed this? He just wanted to talk to his bitch sister and get the hell out.

  Rudolpho Crown grabbed Lucky by the arm as she passed by his table. He was drunk, his slick hair hanging over his forehead in sweaty strands. “We did it, little lady, we did it,” he slurred.

  She pulled her arm away abruptly. There had not been one month when Rudolpho Crown had not been late with his money. During the long months of the union strike he had tried to back out altogether, and she had been forced to remind him of her original threat. Now it was all drunken leers and “We did it.”

  “Aren’t you gonna sit an’ have a drink with me an’ my friends?” he slobbered. “They all wanna meet you. They all heard lots an’ lots about you.”

  She inspected his friends briefly. The men seemed like a bunch of cheap hoods, and she didn’t like the look of any of them. The women at the table resembled Hollywood hookers on a bad night. “Sorry, I can’t stop now,” she said, a chill in her voice. “Have a good time.” She moved on past their table.

  Costa muttered, “I don’t like that man.”

  “Who does?” Lucky replied. “But his money ain’t bad.” She waved at Tiny Martino, who was with a fifteen-year-old movie tot and her mother.

  “Disgusting!” Costa breathed.

  Lucky laughed. “No—just life.”

  Enzio rose to greet her. He enveloped her in an affectionate hug. “Congratulations!” he breathed. “You did it.”

  Her eyes sparkled. “I did, didn’t I?”

  “You sure did. But I always knew you had it in you.” He raised his glass of Jack Daniels. “Never doubted you, Lucky, not for one friggin’ minute—’scuse my language.”

  The next few hours she was on a high. She was queen, all right, and loving every minute of it. She table-hopped, danced, chatted. Somewhere along the way Dario appeared. She was genuinely glad that he had come. “Why didn’t you call? Let me know you could make it?”

  He seemed stiff and ill at ease. “I want to talk to you,” he said tightly.

  “Come sit with me later,” she suggested, before being swept off for another dance.

  She mingled with the famous and the infamous. Danced, ate, drank, had a wonderful time. At midnight she personally threw the first pair of dice on the top crap table and started things rolling. The doors were opened to the general public, and the invited guests were all ushered into the “White Room,” where English rock-soul superstar Al King entertained them. He had a throbbing rasping voice that brought chills to her spine. He was white but he sang soul the way it should be sung, black and hot and searingly sensual.

  Afterward there was a fireworks display around the M-shaped swimming pool, and the younger wilder guests stripped and flung themselves into the pool. Lucky was tempted to join them. But she knew it wouldn’t look good. She must control her wilder impulses. She had worked for and won respect. Couldn’t blow that. Couldn’t become dumb available pussy.

  So she stood beside the pool, and smiled, and watched, and knew that the evening was a raging success.

  Dario skulked around the sidelines of the party, brooding. Come sit with me, indeed. The bitch hadn’t sat all night.

  He watched her, standing by the pool, glittering with jewelry that must have cost a small fortune. Who did she think she was? It was childish, but he had a sudden strong desire to go and push her into the water. He decided to do it. Why not? She was so full of herself, swanning around the place like a queen bee.

  He started forward, but as he reached her she turned and said, “Dario. There you are. I was looking for you.”

  Liar!

  “It’s been such an impossible night. Why don’t we have breakfast in the morning?”

  He bit down sharply on his lower lip. “I wasn’t planning on staying that long.”

  She raised a sardonic eyebrow. “Oh? And what pressing engagement do you have to hurry back to?”

  Bitch! Bitch! Bitch!

  “O.K., breakfast,” he mumbled. “There’s plenty I have to say.”

  “Good. It’ll make a nice change. Ten o’clock, the Patio restaurant.”

  He stared at her, his blue eyes bitter and full of jealousy. Then he opened his mouth to say something cutting.

  Warris Charters chose that particular moment to make his approach. He strolled between them, his voice honeyed with fake charm. “Little Lucky Saint! Who would have thought it!”

  She looked at him blankly. “Who are you?”

  “Who am I? You have to be joking.”

  She glanced quickly to the shadows. Boogie was there, should she need him. “Are we going to play guessing games, or do you want to tell me your name?” she asked sharply.

  He ignored the sharpness in her voice. “Are you going to honestly say you don’t remember me? I taught you to drive. I taught you a lot of things. You, me, Olympia—the three musketeers.”

  She peered at him. “Jesus Christ! Warris fucking Charters! What stone did you crawl out from? And what happened to you? You look terrible!”

  Dario took a good look at the object of his sister’s insults. He didn’t look so terrible to him. Rather handsome, actually. And the bags under his eyes were sexy as hell.

  “Nice to see you haven’t changed,” said Warris dryly.

  “Oh, I’ve changed all right. You can be sure of that.” She paused, then added thoughtfully, “What do you want, Warris?”

  “Why should I want anything?”

  “Come on. Cut out the ‘I’m just here to say hello’ bullshit. What do you want?”

  He glanced quickly at Dario. “A private talk.”

  She indicated the party going on around them. “I’m not in the mood for private talks. Some other time.”

  “I have something you’ll want to see”—he stopped meaningfully—“your father will want to see.”

  What could Warris Charters have that could possibly be of any interest to her or Gino?

  “I’m not interested.”

  “You will be when you know.”

  “So stop playing Mister Secret and tell me.” She waved vaguely toward Dario. “It’s O.K., he’s my brother. You can talk.”

  Warris took a second look at the surly blond boy. He had noticed him earlier, sitting by himself at the bar, and had wondered if he was an actor… and, if so, if he would be interested in doing a little porno work. Good thing he hadn’t asked! “I have a film script. It’s the story of your father’s life. I think he should see it before I go into production.”

  She yawned. “So send it to him—nobody’s stopping you.” She saw Costa and waved. “Good night, Warris—wonderful to see you again.” She was off in Costa’s direction without a backward glance, leaving Dario and Warris standing together.

  “Shit!” muttered Warris angrily.

  Dario sensed that there might be a way to get to Lucky here. He wasn’t sure how, but he certainly intended to find out. He stuck out his hand. “I’m Dario Santangelo,” he said. “Maybe I can help you.”

  She had hardly seen Marco all night. A smile across the room, a look. He was working the room as she
was. Being nice to the right people, spreading the charm, keeping a sharp eye on everything that went on.

  When she was introduced to Al King, the singer, Marco had miraculously appeared by her side and steered her gently to Enzio’s table. Al King had a reputation. So did she. Marco was determined to keep them apart.

  Five minutes later, Al King had three attentive women swarming all over him. Lucky noted with a grin that Marco had supplied a brunette, a redhead, and a blonde, just to make sure he hit the jackpot. He needn’t have bothered. However attractive they were she did not like going to bed with stars. They were doing you such a big favor, sharing the hallowed organ that millions of women lusted after. The hallowed organ had usually done a touch too much mileage, needed careful direction and excellent reviews. The performance was never up to standard, especially in the close-ups.

  Enzio had his blond girl friend sitting on one side of him and the young lady with the large breasts, who had attracted his attention earlier, on the other. “You satisfied?” he asked Lucky warmly.

  “It couldn’t be better.” She glowed.

  “Good, good.” He leaned forward and whispered in her ear. “You know who that dirty shit Crown brings here tonight?”

  Automatically she twisted her head and stared at Rudolpho Crown’s table across the room. The occupants were drunk and loud. “Who?”

  Enzio made a face. “Maybe it’s better I don’t tell you now.”

  “Who?” she demanded.

  “He brings with him the Kassari twins.”

  She felt herself go cold. “I don’t believe you.”

  His tone was mild. “You think Enzio Bonnatti lies?”

  “No, no, I didn’t mean that. It’s just that I don’t believe it’s possible he would do such a thing.”

  “Yeah, it’s possible. The man is a stupid fuck. Maybe he don’t know. I’ll have someone fill him in on the facts of life.”

  The Kassari twins. Pinky Banana’s sons from his first marriage. Lucky had never met them. She never wanted to meet them. Their father had murdered her mother. And Gino had disposed of Pinky. She had forced it out of Costa. Enzio had told her also.