Charlie’d never had a slot go off on her. She didn’t play them that often, but she’d sat next to a jackpot once. So when the clanking racket began in the tray in front of her and the red light energized on top of her machine, she sat in dumb surprise. This is what’s supposed to happen. This is why I came to Vegas. She still didn’t believe it.
But Betty was on her feet, screaming, literally lifting Charlie off her stool, when they both went down. Because Ben Hanley’s battle with his own body knocked them down.
Everybody but Ben Hanley got up eventually. He couldn’t, because he was dead.
CHAPTER 13
THEY TRIED TO tell Charlie that Ben Hanley had had a heart attack. Even she’d dubbed him one waiting to happen.
She had also noticed him drinking her Bloody Mary. He’d downed his and absently picked up hers the next time he reached, his mind more on the arrangement of the fruit lining up in front of him.
She hadn’t thought much about it and couldn’t have touched even a glass of water by this time in her unvacation. Besides, these free drinks weren’t called “well drinks” for nothing. They were pretty well watered. You were supposed to get loose, not comatose.
Amazing how quickly and smoothly she and the Hanleys and Betty had ended up behind that forbidden door. That very door the guards had rushed blindly out of with their blazing flashlights on Evan’s film.
Ben Hanley wasn’t pronounced dead until a good half hour after that door closed Charlie and his family in with him. But Charlie Greene, who had been running into a lot of this lately, knew he was dead before she and Betty managed to get out from under his inert form on the casino floor.
She’d glimpsed banks of TV monitors lining the walls of a room off the hall as they passed to this office. Charlie sat on a couch between Betty and Martha, unable to believe she’d met these people only this afternoon, while a couple of uniformed guards and then a battalion of EMTs tried to resuscitate Ben Hanley.
When they heard the distinct sound of a bone cracking in Ben’s chest, the three women grabbed one another’s hands in an involuntary motion.
“Why do they keep doing that?” Martha whispered, her glasses steaming over at the top, her hand hot and sweaty. “My Benny’s dead.”
“Remember when they resuscitated Pop?” Betty’s hand felt cold and sweaty. “Lived—what?—ten, eleven years in a lot of pain from a cracked sternum. Never did heal.”
“Had to put him in a nursing home.” Martha blinked enormous eyes behind enormous glasses. “Betty and me weren’t about to quit our jobs, neglect our children and husbands to change diapers on somebody bigger than we were. They had to catheterize him every six hours.”
“Cost thousands of dollars a month. He didn’t know who he was, didn’t know who we were either.”
“That’s when Martha and I made a pact,” Betty confided. The sisters promised each other that the first to go would not be forced to linger. But they hadn’t made a pact with Ben Hanley. They also hadn’t noticed many resuscitated people over a certain age being successfully rehabilitated.
“Ben carried on like a baby when his sisters wouldn’t give up their livelihoods to take his mother in when she got Alzheimer’s. And I wouldn’t either.”
“You didn’t give in then, Martha.”
“I’m not giving in now.” Martha squeezed Charlie’s hand and leaned across her to look into Betty’s glasses. “Benny went like he’d want to—enjoying himself on vacation.”
“Yeah. In his favorite place, Las Vegas.”
“Favorite place after Kenosha, Wisconsin, you mean.”
“Right. And doing what he loved best … after fishing. Playing the slots.”
“What do you think we should do, Charlie?”
This was so far out of Charlie’s league, she could only shrug helplessly, but she stood as both women rose to their feet and, lifting their hands in the air—hers too—called for a stop to the degradation of Ben Hanley’s poor carcass.
* * *
Charlie didn’t linger over breakfast in bed, but grabbed a quick shower, read her E-mail, and hurried down to the coffee shop. She didn’t want to be alone in her room this morning either.
People can too die in a casino, and they can be murdered too.
She ordered one egg poached soft, a piece of dry toast, and a cup of hot milk from Ardith, the elderly waitress with the thick ankles who’d served her yesterday.
“You going to do with it what I think you are, sweetie? Because if you are, there’s better remedies for hangovers.” When Charlie didn’t answer she added, “Not even coffee?”
“I’ll eat my breakfast first and then see if my stomach wants coffee, okay?” Everybody’s a doctor. “Please hurry it.”
If someone wanted to murder you, they could have gotten in your room while you slept. Maybe Ben Hanley really did die of a heart attack.
Betty and Martha were sure that’s what it was. “Doctor’s been warning him to stay away from his favorite foods, but he figured life wasn’t worth living if he couldn’t eat what he wanted. Only time he drank was on vacation or with his cheese balls during a Packers game.”
They wouldn’t let her stay with them. “We got each other. And, honey, he was so lucky to go that way and that fast. We’ll miss him, but you don’t know how awful it can be growing too old. You’re exhausted. We’ll write to you from Kenosha.”
And that had been it. These people who’d been in her life for one day, one of them dead because of her, the other two already making plans to combine households.
I’m beginning to feel not only threatened but dangerous to others. Three dead in four days. And four more days to go.
It’s possible Evan’s right about your tendency to believe in conspiracies. You could have nothing to do with these deaths. You could be having panic attacks like Reynelda Goff.
I should leave today. Three dead in four days is a little much for coincidence, or panic attacks, either.
But Charlie and her good sense agreed to have a calm, soothing breakfast before making any plans.
“Good idea,” Ardith told her. “You and yourself done talking?” And with a flourish, she presented Charlie the poached egg already on top of the toast, served in a soup bowl, and a small pitcher of milk. “See, milk’s still steaming. Bone appetite. There’re pills now you can take for ulcers. Know that?”
Charlie did know, but they were for the bacterial kind. Hers was more of the raising a kid half her own age and three people dying around her in four days kind.
Charlie poured the steaming milk over the poached egg on toast and added salt and pepper. She ate slowly, testing her system. It was an inexplicably calming meal that turned other people green to see her eat, but it worked for her. Maybe she’d die early like Ben because she ate what worked at the moment.
Just because Patrick Thompson and Officer Timothy Graden were murdered didn’t mean somebody like Ben couldn’t die mercifully quickly and easily next to her slot machine. Even in a casino.
Nothing like poached egg on milk toast with salt and pepper to bring things into perspective. She used the soup spoon Ardith had brought to finish the last of the milk and looked up to find the older woman standing above her with the coffeepot.
Charlie nodded and her server shook her head as if she’d seen everything. But she poured Charlie a cup of the empowering brew before removing all evidence of the disgusting meal.
Thus fortified, her universe in at least partial balance, Charlie finally confronted the thought of the morning’s E-mail, which she’d answered before heading to breakfast. Libby, Mitch, Larry.
Libby’s car and Eric, the boyfriend, were apparently still alive, because she didn’t mention them. The problem was Perry Mosher. Libby’d been through a series of part-time jobs, usually quitting them in a few months. Charlie had the feeling it was her daughter’s looks that overcame her lousy work record and explained her ability to get another job.
But this was the problem Charlie had dreaded. The
boss couldn’t keep his hands off the kid’s butt. What should she do?
When Libby asked her mother for advice, Charlie knew no answer would suffice. It was a trap. The best answer would be for Libby to keep her mouth shut and quit. Warn her friends to stay away from the creep.
Libby, however, had not been raised to give up without a fight. She worked at a pet supply and grooming store, Critter Spa and Deli, in a small shopping center in a not-too-scary neighborhood.
Charlie had sent back the message, “Tell Perry Mosher to knock it off, and if he doesn’t, look for another job.”
But she knew that was too easy. That kind of harassment can be subtle and excused as a joke, any protest treated like an exaggeration and turned around to belittle and embarrass the protester. Perry didn’t seem dangerous, but he was icky, the thought of him touching Libby disgusting.
Mitch’s message that he had finally taken off from Nairobi—how could you E-mail from Nairobi if the downtrodden were blowing up stuff? What the hell was he doing in Nairobi? She’d checked all the routing information and, sure enough, he was there or had been. Anyway, he expected to be in Vegas by Friday night, Saturday at the latest, and couldn’t thank Charlie enough for suggesting him to Evan Black, whose work he admired to the nth.
Shit, he’s going to decide he owes me again.
Then there was Larry Mann, her assistant—whose butt she wasn’t even allowed to think about touching—with the weirdest message of all. Jethro Larue at the Fleet Agency in New York had asked for Charlie to turn over all files on Georgette Millrose, as he would be her new agent. He’d had the gall to offer terms, which were spitting insults, on possible future subrights income on properties Charlie had sold for Georgette.
Georgette had moved fast. Granted, Charlie hadn’t read her recent books because the speedily displaced editors at Bland and Ripstop had offered to take each opus as it came. Georgette’s historicals were thinly veiled romances without the raw sex.
But the real shocker was that Jethro Larue wanted to represent Georgette Millrose. Charlie’s life was so unexpected, even when she wasn’t dealing with murder.
An incredibly thick wad of bills landed on the table where her poached egg on milk toast had sat a short while before and Art Sleem said, “You won the jackpot last night.”
CHAPTER 14
“THOUGHT YOU WORKED for Louie … at Loopy’s,” Charlie heard her confusion say.
“I get around. Not nearly as good as you.” His curls were not really shoulder-length. They were collar-length, and then only in back. It’s just that he didn’t have a neck. “Me, I’m not lucky like you.” His lips were full and sensuous, a small spacing between his two front teeth, a Roman—no, an Arab hook to the nose. “But you? You been very lucky lately.” A wry, intelligent, aware smile. “Very lucky.”
Red alert. What time of the month is this?
Don’t be silly. Not even you can forget he kills people.
“It’s like wherever you go, people die.”
“Wherever I go?” Charlie took a slug of coffee and sucked air. The cup was empty.
“Let me get you some serious coffee.” Art the thug took a hundred-dollar bill off the top of the roll and handed it to Ardith. “Keep the change.”
There was a serious coffee bar out in the lobby by the sleek black Dodge Stealth. Art Sleem ordered them each a skinny latte. He selected a shaker off the counter. “Nutmeg, right?”
“How did you know?”
“Simple, you look like a nutmeg type.” He sprinkled it on the foamy milk atop her drink. “What about me?”
“Sugar.”
“Right.” And he dumped in enough to kill the foam. “Told you it was simple.” He led her down a couple of carpeted stairs to the very bank of slots where Ben Hanley died the night before. “Sometimes things are simple. Sometimes they’re sheer dumb luck.”
He sounded like an agent. “So you’re not just a bouncer at Loopy Louie’s?”
“Like you, I wear many hats.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” There I am doing it again. Next thing, I’ll be asking him how he feels.
“Well, look at you. Young, beautiful, apparently gifted, a Hollywood agent, girlfriend to superstars. An adventuress who thinks nothing of flying over restricted areas.”
Ben Hanley’s eyes had glassed over by the time she and Betty looked down at him. His mouth open and tongue distended as if he’d choked.
“A woman who plays the dollar slots after winning big at blackjack at two casinos in just two days, instead of the five-dollar slots. We don’t have a profile on your type. We need a profile on your type.”
“Who’s we? And what’s my type?”
“A woman so above money, she forgets a jackpot.”
Charlie had seen death before, and when large men had appeared almost instantly to pick up Ben and escort the rest of his little group away from curious eyes, she’d noticed the wet spot on that carpet. And on Ben’s plaid shorts. He had died in a casino. She should have made known her concern last night that the lethal drink had been meant for her, but she hadn’t wanted to spoil the man’s death for his widow and sister-in-law. They were so pleased at how clean and fast it was. Do people as needy as their parents really linger that long?
“A woman who hobnobs with the high rollers and the hicks of this world, as if they were no different. A woman of great tolerance.”
Charlie repressed the brief memory of her distaste at having to care for her own mother after a mastectomy. If the gods expected Charlie to give up her only life and her sanity to nurse Edwina if she got old and “lingered,” the gods were in for a shock.
“You surprise me, know that?” Art Sleem said. “Why’d you go off and leave your jackpot?”
“We had a little emergency. Somebody died, remember? Right about here.” You must have been here too, to know I’d won and to collect the money. And to maybe lace my drink with a lethal dose of something.
“Nobody dies in a casino.”
“What is it you want, Mr. Sleem?” Another great line.
“I want to help you.”
“Translation, you want to warn me.”
“No, I want to help you understand things.”
“Things like nobody dies in a casino.”
“And things like, nobody’s luck holds forever. Stay away from dangerous places.” They were sitting on stools and he pushed at the carpet with the toe of a hand-polished shoe. “Things like always watch your back, if you don’t. Things like, we don’t like counters here.”
“I’m not a counter. I can’t remember lunch.”
“Things like friends in high places can’t be counted on to save your ass. Like, you and your friends are not free to go wherever you want.”
“Who do you work for anyway?”
“I’m freelance.”
“Freelance killer?”
“Educator. Casinos are private property. You aren’t free to do whatever you want in one.”
“I can’t count cards. I didn’t expect to win all this money. I came here for a vacation and to play blackjack.”
“Restricted areas are off-limits too. You aren’t free to ignore the rules.”
“Know what? I think you’re the one with a problem. I think you’re trying to make me the answer to a question only you know.” If there’s anything to be learned from modern communication techniques, it’s, when in doubt—babble. “Lousy problem solving, Art. You need an educator yourself. And another thing—”
“How is it you know my name?”
“Your reputation precedes you.”
Whoa, that’s your third cliché in the last two minutes.
Oh, knock it off.
“Well, you tell your high-roller friend she better be careful.” Art Sleem was about to say more, but the pit boss with all the turquoise jewelry and the excess hair on the back of his hands came to stand over them. “Hey, Eddie, how’s it going?”
“Just great, Art. This woman bothering you?”
r /> “Nah, just good friends. Good seeing you again, Charlie.”
Charlie was trying to digest this strange interchange when Sleem headed for the revolving door to the real world.
“You’re good friends with Art Sleem?” Eddie was still standing and Charlie still sitting on her stool. She watched his hand flexing.
“No, I don’t know anything about him, but he seems to know everything about me. Does he work here?” Charlie explained how he had delivered her lost jackpot winnings to her table in the coffee shop. “And I saw him in the spa by the pool the other day.”
“You’re a guest here? You lost a jackpot … oh yeah, the guy who got sick in the casino last night. I heard about that—not my shift.”
Actually, Eddie, he checked out, rolled his last dice, threw in the towel, gave up the ghost, and drank his last drink—the one meant for me.
Charlie thought she was talking to herself until he said, “Nobody dies in a casino.”
“Oh. Right. So if he doesn’t work here, how did he get my jackpot? Sleem, I mean.”
“I’ll look into it.” Eddie headed straight for that door to this casino’s secure area that Charlie had been shepherded into with the corpse from Kenosha.
She had never seen Eddie out on the floor here except when Charlie’s high-roller friend had been playing blackjack.
You haven’t been looking for him either.
That’s true. But I will be now.
Does that mean we’re staying in Vegas?
For a little longer. I mean, if Art and his buddies want to kill me, they can certainly find me in Long Beach. Don’t you want to know how much money I’ve got in my purse?
Charlie’s purse was too small to carry that much money comfortably, but before she could count it, Eddie was back. “Charlie Greene, comped to room twenty–one fifteen, Congdon and Morse Representation, Inc.” He read off a sheet of paper, “Residence, Long Beach, California.”
Eddie had another man with him. This one didn’t carry the beef most of these guys did. Tall, skinny, stooped.
“Comped? Richard got these rooms comped? How did he do that?” And here she’d thought he was being generous for a change.