Dead Man's Hand (27 page)

“Like a fucking Halloween funhouse, if you want to know. Complete with a witch.”

“There are a lot of witches around here,” said a player across the table with hint of annoyance. Ned met his gaze, surprised. Guy looked totally ordinary in a button-down shirt and gold wire glasses. A stockbroker type, the sort who came to Vegas to go wild for a weekend and then went home to his nice, orderly life.

“So there was a woman there,” said Rothstein, casually matching the bet. “Did you catch her name?”

“Uh—something with an M,” said Ned. “Not Mary—”

“Mishka?”

“No. Marie, that was it. She was a fucking bitch, too.”

“Oh, a bitch witch,” said Alma with a brittle laugh.

“What else did you see in the penthouse?”

Rothstein's voice was casual—too casual. He kept his gaze down, looking at the cards. Ned watched him, wondering why he was so interested in Penstemon's digs.

“A mess of cats,” Ned said. “Black cats, and one gray one.”

“Oh, I love cats!” piped up Joanie.

Everyone looked at her for a second, then went back to the game. Rothstein took the pot with two pair, tens and sevens. Next deal, Ned caught a pair of jacks. He raised the blinds.

“So I'm thinking of taking a stroll down the boardwalk, maybe checking out a couple of the other casinos,” he said. “Anyone want to come with me?”

“I'm fine here,” said Rothstein, calling Ned's raise.

The flop was ace queen four. Ned grimaced, then bet twenty bucks. Rothstein called him.

“Alma and I saw the boardwalk this afternoon,” Joanie said. “We rode all the way up and back in one of those chairs.”

“William hasn't seen it, though,” said Alma, rubbing her arm against Weare's.

“A delight I shall have to continue to anticipate,” Weare said, throwing in four pink chips. “Call.”

The turn card was another queen. Everyone but Ned, Rothstein and Weare dropped out. When the river card came up a jack, Ned went all in. Weare folded and Rothstein called.

“Full house, buddy,” said Ned, showing his jacks.

“Nice, but mine's better,” said Rothstein. He turned up ace queen.

“Queens full of aces,” said the dealer, pushing the pot to Rothstein.

“Shit,” said Ned. He glanced up and waved the pit boss over. “Bring me another rack.”

He played a while longer, lost half his rack to Rothstein, won a couple of pots to bring him even again, and couldn't convince any of them to go cruising with him. He stuck some five dollar chips in his pocket and tossed one to the dealer.

“Seeya mañana,” he said, getting up.

They all murmured unenthusiastic goodbyes. Fuck ‘em, then.

He cashed in his chips, then went out to the lobby and left the hotel on the boardwalk side. One of the doormen squealed at him. Ned gave him/her/it a look, which was hard to do when there wasn't a face to look at.

“Yeah, you too,” he said.

He could see other hotels around and a dim glow of light from the boardwalk, but it was all blocked by a lot of trees. A huge garden surrounded the hotel, and the only clear way through it was a path leading toward the ocean. Ned followed it, walking fast until he got out of breath and had to slow down. Fuck, he hated getting old.

He played with the chips in his pocket as he walked. God, it felt good to be playing again, even in this weird-ass place. The strange people and the invisible workers were getting to him, though. He wanted to be in a normal casino for a while. Find some cute girls to hang out with who didn't have tails or fangs.

The path dead-ended at the back of a cheesy little sideshow shack. Ned looked around, frowning, but he didn't see any other way to go, so he tried the door.

It was unlocked. He pushed it open and stepped into a storeroom full of stuffed toys. He picked one up, a pink dragon with orange spikes along its back and googly eyes. A smile crawled onto his face as he thought about how Connie would love a tacky toy like this. Even though she was in college, she still liked kid stuff sometimes.

Jesus, Connie. He still had to do something about her money. He didn't want Randy touching it. To be honest, he didn't want to have to ask his daughter for money, but he missed her. He wanted to talk to her.

He almost turned around right then, but he realized it was too late to call, even though it was two hours earlier in Colorado. Nah, better wait. He'd call tomorrow.

A curtain was pulled back and light spilled in from the front of the booth. A kid dressed in black with tattoos on his bare arms and all the way up his neck looked in.

“Can I help you?”

Not, “What the fuck are you doing here.” Interesting.

Ned put the dragon back in the waist-high cardboard bin he'd taken it from. “I just came from the hotel.”

The kid nodded. “Going out? It's this way.”

He gestured toward the curtain. Ned blinked, then stepped forward.

“Thanks.”

“Not a problem.”

The kid held the curtain aside for him. Ned walked through and found himself in a carny booth, a dart game. Hit the ace, win a prize. The darts would be crummy and badly weighted, the pips on the cards too small to hit easily. Usual scam. Standing at the counter were a couple of people waiting anxiously to lose their money. The kid lifted a section of the counter and Ned walked through.

He strolled north, toward where the Taj was. The air smelled like a carnival, with popcorn and grease and sugar and darker, less clean smells, all overlying a whisper of salt and the strange, heavy humidity from the ocean.

He glanced back and was startled to find he couldn't see the hotel. There was the Tropicana, and farther down the Hilton, but no Black Queen.

Ned stopped and stood frowning. How the fuck do you hide an entire hotel? He hadn't walked that far. He could still see the little carny booth with the dragons. The sign across the top of that said “The Black Queen,” but there was no sign of the hotel behind it.

Fucking weird. This place was freaking him out. Witches and goblins and black fucking cats. He needed some normal.

Turning north again, he walked until he was tired, then got into a rolling chair and told the driver he wanted to go to the Taj. A pang of homesickness struck him. Stupid, but he missed Vegas. Everything here was an imitation of his town. The Sands, Tropicana, Caesar's—all pale shadows of the real things in Vegas. The clientele was a bit different. Atlantic City had six million people living within a short drive, not even counting NYC, so there were lots of little old grayhairs with their oxygen on wheels, feeding their Social Security into the slots.

In Vegas there were regulars too, but there were a lot more tourists, come for a weekend of decadence, happy to unload a heap of cash they'd been saving up for it. The shows were better, the casinos were better, and the mob didn't have its teeth in a deathgrip on the whole fucking town, like they did here.

“Taj Mahal,” said the driver as the chair glided to a stop.

Ned paid him and headed for the casino entrance. Lots of pretty neon and no weirdos. Everyone looked normal. The grayhairs had mostly gone home to bed by now, so it was down to hardcore regulars and a few restless tourists. Ned kept his hand on his roll of cash as he made his way to the bar.

He needed to do some serious partying. He called the bartender over with a wave. It was a big guy, older, salt-and-pepper hair and glasses, looked like you wouldn't want to mess with him. He also had no horns, no claws, and his skin was a normal tan, slightly weathered.

Ned bought a drink, then pushed a twenty toward the bartender. “Can you recommend a good strip joint?”

“Bare Exposure's all nude but it's BYOB.”

“Ah, fuck that. Where's a place with a good bar?”

“Delilah's Den.”

“Thanks.”

He caught a cab to Delilah's Den and felt at home the minute he walked in. Loud music thumped, lights flashed in rhythm, and girls were gyrating on several round platform stages and on the floor. On the nearest stage was an all-American gal with long legs and a cute little cowgirl outfit and bouncy blonde curls. For a second Ned thought it was Randy, and an unpleasant jolt of adrenaline went through him.

He found a table near another stage where an amazon with green eyes and red hair curling down her back was performing feats of gymnastic agility that made him seriously envy her pole. Sitting down with his back to the cowgirl, he ordered tequila and settled in.

A couple of girls joined him before long. One was Hispanic, probably Puerto Rican in this part of the country. The other was white, no tan which was unusual, with brown hair brushed up into a spiky mess and little silver rings through her ears, her nostril, her lip, one eyebrow and her navel.

“Hi, I'm Angela,” said the chica. “This is Red.”

There was nothing red about her that he could see, but whatever. He bought them drinks and stared at Red's black leather halter top, trying to discern the shape of whatever was pierced through her nipples.

Angela chattered and giggled, asking his name, was this his first visit to AC, was he all alone. Standard extraction of key information, he'd been through it before. The alone part hurt, though. Back home, the girls had crawled all over him; they all knew who he was, knew he was a mover and a party guy. Here nobody knew him. Nobody gave a fuck.

“So, Neddy, you wannna lap dance?” said Angela, leaning close and displaying her ample and ill-concealed bosom.

Ned grinned and slid a finger under her bra strap, trying for a feel of her nipple. “Boy, howdy!”

Red slunk a long, pale arm around his shoulders and tickled his ear with her tongue. “Both of us. Private dances, a hundred apiece.”

“Sure, baby,” said Ned, wishing he'd brought some smack with him, or even some coke. “You lead the way.”

Their second round of drinks had just arrived, and they carried them back to a cramped hallway of booths the size of K-Mart dressing rooms, with no doors. Music boomed from overhead speakers. Red led Ned to the very back, pushed him onto the booth's vinyl seat and straddled him.

“Pay up, Neddy,” she crooned.

With slight difficulty, Ned extracted his money from his pocket and peeled off two hundred. The cash disappeared with lightning speed, Angela's into her little sequined purse, Red's into her stiletto-heeled boot. Red got off Ned's lap and stepped back, and as the Doors' “Break On Through” started up over the speakers, heavy on the bass, she reached for Angela's top.

Ned slammed his drink and leaned back while the girls went to town. Angela was cushy in all the right places, tan everywhere. She'd got all the tan Red missed out on. No silicone either—it was all the real thing.

Turned out to be rings in Red's nipples, half-inch silver rings with little silver crosses dangling from them. Ned tried to catch one with his teeth as they brushed by, but she was too good and knew to stay just out of reach.

He got his money's worth, though. His lap was danced upon with a vengeance. Both girls ran their shapely gams repeatedly across his crotch, and to his surprise he actually got a hard on, something that wasn't so easy any more. The girls were a little rough, which he didn't mind, so he just ordered another round of drinks and when Red asked if he wanted more lap dances, he peeled off another two bills.

He called it quits when they offered to get him a lay. Why pay for that when he could get it for free back at Penstemon's place? He'd had a good time here, but he was ready to move on, so he kissed Red and Angela sloppily, tucked an extra twenty into each one's bra, and stumbled out to a taxicab.

“Black Queen,” he said, sliding down in the back seat.

“Where's that? Never heard of it,” said the driver, a black guy who craned his head around to stare at Ned like he was nuts.

“Huh? Oh, shit. Crap. OK, just take me to the Plaza.”

“Got it.”

At Trump Plaza, Ned got out and went through the casino out to the boardwalk. He was too drunk for poker and kind of tired, too. It was colder now, and he shivered as he walked carefully down the boardwalk. Finally he reached the little Black Queen carny booth.

The tattooed guy raised an eyebrow as Ned leaned on the counter. “Long night?”

“Yeah.” Ned stood blinking, peering groggily at the dinosaurs. Dragons. Whatever the fuck they were.

The guy opened the counter for him. “Come on in.”

Ned walked stiffly through and into the back of the booth while the guy held the curtain for him. He paused to look at the stuffed toys again, picked up the pink and orange dragon.

“I want this,” he said. He fumbled in his pocket, came up with a five dollar chip.

The tattooed guy waved a hand. “Take it. Have a good night, Mr. Runyon.”

Mr. Runyon. That was nice. Respectful. Ned gave the guy a smile, hoping it wasn't too loopy looking.

“Thanks.” He waved the dragon, then went out the back door into the chilly night.

There it was, big as the fucking Empire State Building. All the edges of the Black Queen were lit with blue neon. Ned stared up at it, wondering what kind of David Copperfield mirror trick Penstemon had used to hide it from sight from the boardwalk, then remembered Penstemon could probably do Copperfield one better.

He started forward, clutching his stuffed dragon, following the winding path to the hotel. It seemed like he'd been walking for miles by the time he finally reached the entrance. He went straight to the elevator, straight up to his suite.

The hallway was deserted. Even with the carpet muffling them, his steps seemed to echo. Maybe that was just his head. He found his door, rummaged in his pockets for the key card, and finally got in. Staggering over to the couch, he sank onto it and closed his eyes.

Head spinning a little. He waited for it to settle down, then opened his eyes and saw that he was holding the pink dragon on his lap.

Connie. He'd wanted it for her. He'd send it to her, but he wanted to talk to her first, let her know it was coming. Let her know he still loved her.