"Did I win?" Coyote asked Minty.
"No, now you have to roll another eight before you roll a seven or eleven."
Coyote rolled again. The dice showed a pair of fours.
"Eight. Winner. Hard way," the stickman chanted. The dealer placed a stack of black chips next to Coyote's bet.
"Ha," Coyote said, taunting Minty Fresh. "See, I am good at this game."
"Very good," Minty said with a smile. "You roll again."
Coyote placed the remainder of his chips on the table. The dealer immediately shot a glance to the boxman, who looked to Minty Fresh. Minty nodded. The boxman nodded. The dealer counted Coyote's chips and stacked them on the pass line. "Playing twenty-one thousand."
Coyote threw the dice.
"Two!" the stickman said. The dealer raked in Coyote's chips and handed them to the boxman, who stacked the racks in the table bank.
"I lost?" Coyote said incredulously.
"Sorry," Minty said. "But you didn't crap out. You can shoot again."
"I'll be back," Coyote said. He walked away and Minty followed him through the casino, into the lobby, and out the door. Coyote handed the valet ticket to a kid named Squire Jeff, then turned to Minty, who stood by the valet counter.
"I'll be back with more money."
"We'll hold a place for you, sir," Minty said, relieved that the Indian was leaving.
"I was just learning your game, shade. You didn't trick me."
"Of course not, sir."
Squire Jeff pulled up in the Mercedes, got out, and waited with his hand out. Coyote started to get into the car, then stopped and looked at the valet. He took the pouch from his belt and poured a bit of powder into the kid's hand, then got in the car and drove away.
Minty felt a wave of relief wash over him as he watched the Mercedes cross the drawbridge. Squire Jeff, still holding his palm out, turned to Minty Fresh.
"What am I supposed to do with this?"
"You could snort it."
Squire Jeff sniffed at the powder, then wrinkled his nose and brushed the powder from his hand. "Fucking Indian. You work inside, right?"
Minty nodded.
Squire Jeff looked Minty up and down. "You play any ball?"
"One year, UNLV."
"Injury?"
"Attitude," Minty said. He walked back into the casino.
CHAPTER 25
Wheels, Deals, and the Persistance of Visions
Las Vegas
Calliope sat in her car shivering and watching. She was parked up the street from a Vegas Harley-Davidson shop where she had once gone with Lonnie on a delivery for the Guild. The street was deserted, and dark except for the odd glow of neon in the window of a closed pawnshop. Litter danced in dust devils of desert wind that had grown cold through the night. Calliope curled up in the driver's seat and tried to cover herself with one of Grubb's blankets. The smell that came off the blanket, a mix of sour milk and sweet baby, made her sad, and even though she had stopped breastfeeding months ago, her breasts ached for her son.
She caught some motion out of the corner of her eye: two figures coming out of an alley onto the sidewalk: men. They were walking toward the car. Calliope slid down in the driver's seat. The mother instinct, the feeling of righteous invincibility that had filled her when she had come here, was leaking away. Right now she was not protecting her child; she was afraid for herself.
As the men approached she saw that they were young toughs, swaggering with their own willingness to violence, even as they staggered from the effect of some drink or drug. She slid farther down in the seat, and when their shadows fell across the car's hood she twisted down and covered herself with Grubb's blanket. She heard their footsteps scrape and stop at the car, heard their voices above her.
"Check out this motherfucker."
"Some tall dollars here — there's a grand in tires on this thing."
"Pop the hood."
Calliope heard someone trying to open the door.
"Locked."
"Hang on a minute, I saw a brick back a ways."
Footsteps away. The car rocked with the continued yanking at the door handle. Calliope could hear the keys swinging in the ignition. The second man was coming back. Her breath caught. She waited for the crash. Sweat trickled down her forehead and dripped onto the gearshift knob.
"No man, not the windshield. You can't drive it with a broken windshield."
"Oh, right."
Calliope braced herself for the impact of the brick, then something in her mind screamed NO! Her feet were still on the pedals. She pushed the clutch and gas to the floor, reached out from under the blanket, and turned the key.
The Z roared to life, thundered, then screamed as she kept the gas to the floor. She sat up and glanced at the two startled men, who were cowering a few feet away. Instantly their surprise turned to anger and the taller of the two raised the brick. Calliope popped the clutch and fought to keep the car straight as the tires burned off on the asphalt. She heard a loud crack behind her and felt splinters of glass hit her from behind.
She power-shifted through three gears, turning over the tires and kicking the car sideways with each slam of the shifter. By the time she backed off the gas the speedometer was threatening 110. There was a thumping coming from the engine and a high-pitched wailing coming from somewhere. She looked into the rearview mirror to see the hole in the back window and, behind it, flashing red and blue police lights.
She hesitated only long enough to throw Grubb's blanket off her shoulders, then slammed the Z into third, floored it, and said a quick prayer to Kali the Destroyer.
If Lonnie Ray Inman had ever made the connection that whenever he read the words American Standard, spelled out in cornflower blue against white porcelain, he felt a sudden urge to urinate, he might have understood why Grubb, upon seeing white plastic bundles piled haphazardly on the motel-room floor, crawled doggedly to, and whizzed gleefully on, twenty thousand dollars' worth of methamphetamine. To Grubb, the bundles looked like Pampers, a fine and private place to pee.
"Jesus Christ, Cheryl," Lonnie yelled. "He crawled out of his diaper. Can't you keep an eye on him for a fucking minute?"
"Fuck you. You watch him, stud. He's your kid." Cheryl threw a pillow at Lonnie as she stormed naked into the bathroom.
"You were the one that said you'd make a good mother. Throw me a towel."
Cheryl stood in front of the mirror working her jaw back and forth. "Get your own towel. I think you fucked up my jaw."
"I did? I didn't do shit."
"That's the problem, isn't it?"
Cheryl had been lolling Lonnie's limpness around in her mouth for an hour, trying to get a reaction out of him, when she heard a sharp crack in her right ear and felt a painful grating in the back of her jaw.
Lonnie grabbed a towel off the rack and went to where Grubb was happily splashing away on the drugs. Lonnie picked up the baby and put him on the bed, then went back to clean off the packages.
"Oh, Christ. Cheryl, clean up the kid, will you?"
"Fuck off."
Lonnie stormed into the bathroom and grabbed her by the hair, yanking her head back until she was staring up at him. He spoke to her through gritted teeth. "You clean up the kid now or I'll snap your fucking neck. You understand?" He yanked her head back further. "I've got to turn this shit early in the morning and then ride to South Dakota, and I need to get some fucking sleep. If I have to kill you to get it I will. You understand?" He relaxed his grip on her hair and she nodded. Tears welled up in her eyes.
He dragged her out of the bathroom and threw her on the bed with Grubb, then threw the towel in her face. "Now clean up the kid."