At least a while back you could lose a few calories as well as your paycheck at a casino slot machine. Now you lose “long green” in the time it takes a bill, courtesy of Uncle Sam, to be automatically sucked through a slot. And your forefinger can wrack up losses faster than a thoroughbred springs out of a Kentucky Derby gate.
Before our eyes, more cars are wheeling onto the lot in front of the trailer. People from nowhere are screeching in on new and old wheels, setting up shop as an outdoor gaming parlor.
“This,” I declare, “is weird, even for Vegas. ‘Dusk to Dawn.’ That is like eight p.m. to five thirty a.m. I never knew this secret gambling stuff was going on.”
“This is more than weird,” Louise whispers back. “Those are vampire hours. Could something supernatural be occurring?”
Before I can answer, I hear the screech of speeding automobiles hitting the brakes. This unlit side street is suddenly illuminated by headlights that quickly go dark and is lined by parked vehicles, from which clots of four to seven people pour out. Wait. Not just people. Guy people. Of course the male of the species is the most hardened gambler. The female favors better odds than mere chance.
“Oh, my mama’s lumbago,” Louise hisses under her breath. “This has turned into a secret betting parlor under the stars. Even though gaming is legal in Las Vegas, licenses are still required. What the Havana Brown is happening here?”
Normally I know everything, but must confess to ignorance in the current instance. This nighttime carnival must have a rhyme or reason, but I am without a clue in this case.
Although the sun has slinked out of sight for the day, I am not surprised to see some usual suspects strolling onto the frantic scene.
Punch Adcock and Katt Zydeco, who would be dressed to the nine lives were they feline, play hosts, and escort the imported gamblers to various slot machines. Leon Nemo cruises the chaos, his eye on his Rolex wristwatch.
Louise and I watch a few dozen gamers argue about the house rules (only cash and gone by 5:00 a.m.), but the house, well…rules. Even more suspicious, Adcock, Zydeco and Nemo’s cell phone cameras record all the frenetic doings of this elite few on the night crew.
After weary hours of crouching on my fore and aft limbs alongside my far more limber associate, I see the bettors shuffle toward the curbs to depart. Nemo counts out a paltry few bucks, which are pushed into gamblers’ pants pockets as they leave.
Vehicle engines rev at the curbs. The pack of gamblers vanish in a herd of red taillights. Leon Nemo adds to the fan of bills representing the night’s slim “take”, and distributes them among the musclemen scooping up the slot machines on dollies and returning them to the unplumbed depths beneath the ex-antique mall.
He is left with empty hands and a grin we can see even from under the RV.
“This is the most bizarre event I have ever witnessed in Las Vegas,” I impart to Louise’s petite ear, which twitches. “And that is saying something given the over-the-top entertainment on the Strip.”
“That is indeed a first,” she admits. “Oh, I am tired of serving as a stock-still vermin attraction. Tell me we can fold our tents for the night.”
“Agreed. I need time to think on this startling event, which,” I proclaim, “is even odder than when UFOs were reported buzzing the Las Vegas Strip. What is most wrong here, is that I do not see anyone profiting in any way from this night’s events. That is just plain unnatural in Las Vegas.”
“Agreed. An absence of greed is hard to stomach. Oh, my aching pads!”
On Louise’s last comment, we scratch our heads literally and simultaneously, and depart for our separate home, sweet homes.
12
Guardian Angle
Matt was jostled awake by a vehicle speeding over pockmarked roads.
His head ached, his side stitches from the bullet-wound burned, and his jaw felt dislocated. He kept his eyes closed to take inventory. All right. Semi-upright in a car seat, but not buckled in.
Yeah, mobsters dumping a body-to-be would worry about traffic rules.
The rough ride felt like an SUV, not Woodrow Wetherly’s old sedan. Matt guessed he could have been out cold for three minutes, or a quarter of an hour. Would he make his showtime like Woody had promised? Not his worst problem. His closed eyelids sensed the regular rhythm of passing streetlights, intermixed with some vagrant neon, he’d bet.
The driver was exceeding the speed limit for this old, bumpy part of town. In Chicago, winter snow and distributed salt made for spring potholes. In the desert southwest, the summer sun did the same job on the asphalt in its own searing way.
It didn’t sound like the vehicle was on its paved-highway path to a sandy grave in the litter box of the Mojave desert, where all the mobsters hits lay undiscovered.
“You can stop playing dead to the world,” the driver said.
The man’s voice was deep, but he wasn’t Kinsella or Frank Bucek, Matt’s mentor from the seminary. Matt must have hopefully hallucinated someone from his past coming to his rescue.
Yet this voice was so vaguely familiar… It could have belonged to the last guy at a gas station pay booth or an actor on a recent TV commercial.
It rumbled on. “Sorry for the ‘light’s out’ tactic, but a fistful of bad actors were about to clean your clock, so I’m taking the inner workings home for patching up and some necessary adjustments.”
Matt blinked his eyes open and struggled to focus on the driver’s profile. The dark hair was thick and wavy, the nose beaked. He recognized the least likely person he’d expected to hear or see, but the guy talked like a cop.
Matt’s voice came out a dry croak. “Mariah’s new singing coach knocked me out? Why was an ex-cop like you at a dive like that?”
“That’s my line, choir boy.”
“But you will answer it.” Matt made the sentence a demand. “What’s your angle?”
“Lucky for you, I’m up for the head security job at the Goliath Hotel. I was doing some extra-curricular tailing of a guy I thought was sizing up the hotel for a hit. The Lucky Stars bar is a cesspool of what passes for organized crime in this city, which now finds street gangs the biggest policing problem. And who do I see raising a ruckus with six guys but Mariah’s fave candidate for her freshman Dad-Daughter dance escort. Can’t allow the kid’s crush to get a broken nose.”
“A broken jaw is better?”
“That shot hurts you more than it will your looks. We’re heading for your Circle Ritz digs. I always wanted to see the inside of that infamous building.”
“No! I need to pick up my car.” Matt checked the street signs. “It’s not far. I’ll direct you. I guess I should say thanks, Rafi…Nadir, isn’t it? Yeah. I got in over my head.”
“So what’d you do to rile the Lucky Stars’ Silver Senior crook crowd?”
“Those guys really go back on the Vegas crimeline, don’t they?”
“And they are so out-of-date, but not out of cold criminal intent.”
“I’m trying to figure out why my stepfather from Chicago came to Vegas and got himself offed in a dramatic way Bugsy Siegel would envy.”
“Oh, yeah. That Effinger goof.”
“You know about his murder? More gory than goofy.”
“There are some extreme Las Vegas mob-style hits, but, dude, that drowning in the dark of night on a major Vegas attraction is infamous.”
“Really? You say ‘dude’? Man, you must be forty years old.”