Fortnight of Fear (36 page)

Jack knew then that he would never escape. He would be back at that table, no matter how hard he tried to resist it. Maybe not tomorrow; maybe not next week; maybe not for years. But he would be back. No real gambler could resist the temptation of playing for his very life.

He left the Golden Lode and stepped out on to the hot, brilliantly bright sidewalk. He had started playing Beijing Craps at two o'clock in the morning, and now it was well past nine. For the first time in a long time he felt hungry; and he decided to go back to his hotel room and shower and change, and then treat himself to a meal of prime rib and fried zucchini. He could wear his Armani suit, his
real
suit.

The sidewalk was crowded with shuffling tourists and squalling kids. Las Vegas wasn't what it used to be, back in the days of the mob. Bugsy Siegel would have rolled over in his desert grave to see creches and stroller parks and family restaurants, and hookers being turned away from casino doors. But Jack didn't care. He had found himself the ultimate game, even in this sanitized Las Vegas, and he was twenty-seven again. He had forgotten how much strength and energy he used to have, at twenty-seven – how light and easy it was to walk.

He went up to his hotel room humming along to the Muzak in the elevator.
Raindrops keep fallin' on my head … they keep fallin
' … He boogied along the corridor, chafing his feet on the nylon carpet, so that when he reached out for his doorhandle, there was a sharp crackling spark of static.

To his surprise, however, his door was half-an-inch ajar. He hesitated, then pushed it wide. The room appeared to be empty, but you never knew. There were plenty of scumbags who followed gamblers back to their hotel rooms, and forcibly relieved them of their winnings.

“Anybody there?” he called, stepping into the room. The bed was made, and there was no utility cart around, so it couldn't have been the maids. Maybe the door had been left open by accident. He went over to the bureau and tugged open the drawers. His gold cufflinks were still there; so was his Gucci ballpen and five hundred dollars in small bills.

He was just about to turn around and close the door, however, when he heard it softly click shut by itself. A voice said, “Freeze, buddy. Stay right where you are.”

He stood up straight. In the mirror on top of the bureau, he saw a young man step out from behind the drapes, holding a handgun, .32 by the look of it, although Jack didn't know much about guns.

“Looking for some loose change?” the young man asked him.

“Maybe I should ask you the same question,” Jack replied. The young man came around and faced him. He was pale and thin-faced and haggard, and he was dressed in worn-out denims.

“I'm not looking for trouble,” he told Jack. “Maybe you should turn around and walk back out of that door and we'll forget the whole thing.”

“I'm not going anyplace,” Jack retorted. “This is my room.”

“Unh-hunh,” the young man grinned. “I know whose room this is. This is Mr Druce's room, and you sure as hell aren't Mr Druce.”

“Of course I'm Mr Druce. Who do you think I am?”

“Don't kid me,” the young man told him, raising his pistol higher. “Mr Druce just happens to be my father; and there's no way that
you're
my father, buddy.”

Jack stared at him. “Mr Druce is your
father
?”

The young man nodded. “You sound like you know him.”

“Know him? I
am
him.”

“Are you out of your tree or what?” the young man demanded. “You're not much older than me. How the hell can you be my father?”

“How the hell can you be my son?” Jack retorted. “My son is three years old.”

“Oh, yes? Well, that's very interesting. But right now, I think you'd better
vamos
, don't you, before Mr Druce gets back and finds you here.”

Jack said, “Listen, I think we've gotten our lines crossed here. You must be looking for the wrong Mr Druce. I'm Jack Druce, this is my room, and there's no way in the world you can be my son, because look –”

Jack reached inside his suit for his wallet, and his Kodak photograph of Roddy by the pool. But the young man instantly cocked his handgun and tensed up, and said, “Freeze! Freeze! Keep your hands where I can see them!”

“But if I showed you –” Jack began.

The young man screamed “
Freeze
!” at him, and fired. The bullet hit Jack in the right side of his head, and burst out through the back of his skull. Blood and brains were thrown against the yellow flock wallpaper.

Jack thought,
He's killed me. I can't believe it. The punk's gone and killed me
. He opened and closed his mouth, and then his knees folded up under him and he collapsed on to the floor.

The hotel dwindled away from him like a lighted television picture falling down an endless elevator shaft. Until it winked out.

Shaking, the young man hunkered down beside him, and reached into his blood-spattered coat for his wallet. He flicked through it. Over ten thousand dollars in thousand-dollar bills. Jesus. This guy must've made some killing.

He found a creased Kodak photograph of a small boy next to a swimming pool. He stared at it for a long time.
For some inexplicable reason, he found it disturbingly familiar. Must be the guy's son. It was weird, the way that he'd kept on insisting that his name was Jack Druce.

The young man stood up, unsure of what to do next. He couldn't wait here for his father any longer, and he didn't really have to. He'd only come to Las Vegas to ask him for money, and now he had all the money he could possibly want.

He crammed the bills into the pocket of his denim jacket, and stuffed his handgun back into the top of his jeans. He took one last look at the man lying dead on the carpet, and then he left.

He walked along the sidewalk glancing at every middle-aged man who passed him by. He wondered if he would recognize his father if he ever chanced to meet him. He wondered if his father would recognize
him
.

He passed the Golden Lode Casino, and standing on the steps outside was a young boy, no more than seven years old, wrapped in a black Chinese robe. The young boy was smiling to himself, almost beatifically, as if he were a god.

Roderick Druce smiled at him, and the boy smiled back.

Graham Masterton (born 1946, Edinburgh) is a British horror author. Originally editor of Mayfair and the British edition of Penthouse, Graham Masterton's first novel
The Manitou
was published in 1976 and adapted for the film in 1978.

Further works garnered critical acclaim, including a Special Edgar award by the Mystery Writers of America for
Charnel House
and a Silver Medal by the West Coast Review of Books for Mirror. He is also the only non-French winner of the prestigious Prix Julia Verlanger for his novel
Family Portrait
, an imaginative reworking of the Oscar Wilde novel
The Picture of Dorian Gray
.

Masterton's novels often contain visceral sex and horror. In addition to his novels, Masterton has written a number of sex instruction books, including
How to Drive Your Man Wild in Bed
and
Wild Sex for New Lovers
.

Discover books by Graham Masterton published by Bloomsbury Reader at

www.bloomsbury.com/GrahamMasterton

Burial

Corroboree

Feelings of Fear

Fortnight of Fear

Holy Terror

House of Bones

Lady of Fortune

For copyright reasons, any images not belonging to the original author have been
removed from this book. The text has not been changed, and may still contain
references to missing images.

This electronic edition published in 2013 by Bloomsbury Reader

Bloomsbury Reader is a division of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 50 Bedford Square,
London WC1B 3DP

First published in Great Britain 1994 by Severn House Publishers

Copyright © 1994 Graham Masterton

All rights reserved
You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise
make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means
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printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the
publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication
may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

The moral right of the author is asserted.

eISBN: 9781448212323

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