He’d suckered Jackson into agreeing to the deal, for the sole concession of introducing him to a hot redhead-an introduction, and nothing more. After that, they were on their own. So it wasn’t like he was selling out Miranda, he told himself. More like he was using her as bait-bait that was in no danger of even a nibble, since obviously once Jackson saw her, the whole sordid business would be over with. Not that Miranda was some kind of guy repellant. But Jackson wasn’t going to waste his Vegas weekend on a mousy, bookish stringbean, no matter how entertaining, and Kane doubted whether Miranda would last more than ten minutes with the smooth-talking, peace-loving, hemp-weaving Jackson before getting up and out.
No harm, no foul, and plenty of money soon to be rolling in. All in all, Kane decided, a good day’s work.
“So how do I get in good with this chick?” Jackson asked, as they stepped onto the pool deck.
Calling her chick would surely be a great place to start, Kane thought in amusement. This could be more fun than he’d thought.
The pool area was mostly empty. A few kids were playing Marco Polo in the shallow end, splashing and screaming. Kane caught one kid cheating-climbing out of the pool and running to the other end before diving back in, just as he was about to get tagged. Underhanded-and brilliant. It brought back fond memories.
“I don’t see her,” he said, wondering if it had taken her longer to get back from the spa than she’d expected. His gaze skimmed across a row of women lying in the shade: old lady with her knitting, desperate housewife with curves several sizes bigger than her suit, skinny twelve-year-old trying to look like Britney, and… whoa. Kane nodded appreciatively and drank in a pair of perfect, delicate feet, each toe painted a deep shade of red, slim, pale legs, lime green bikini board shorts, a flat, taut midriff and barely there bikini top and-
Their eyes met, and she propped herself up and waved.
“Tell me that’s your redhead,” Jackson said in a hushed voice.
Kane could hardly believe it, but… “Yeah. That’s Miranda.”
Jackson slapped him on the back. “Nice, dude. I knew I had a good feeling about you. Let’s do this.”
Kane led Jackson over and they sat down on an adjacent chair. He couldn’t stop staring: Everything about her looked the same as always. She was still just Miranda-but looking at her from across the pool, as if she were a stranger, it had been… deeply weird. He tried to shake it off. Bikini or not, pedicure or not, sexy half smile or not, this was still Miranda. Just Miranda.
“Stevens, I’d like you to meet a good friend of mine,” he said as she set down her book and extended a hand.
“You can call me Miranda,” she told the drug dealer, touching her face self-consciously. Her skin looked almost like it was glowing.
“Jackson,” he said, shaking her hand. The dealer checked out her book. “Anna Karenina?” he asked, raising his eyebrows. “Not quite beach reading.”
Miranda waved her hand toward the giant waterslide and the plastic palm trees. “Not quite the beach,” she pointed out.
“It’s one of my favorites,” Jackson told her. “I love the way Tolstoy uses the theme of the moving train to propel us through the book.”
“Really?” Miranda asked, her eyes widening in surprise.
“Really?” Kane echoed. What was going on here?
Jackson began explaining his take on Tolstoy and why he preferred him to Dostoyevsky (“Crime and Punishment is thought-provoking, to be sure, but War and Peace changed my life…”) but liked Chekhov best of all, especially on his “dark days.” Miranda listened in rapt amazement.
Kane couldn’t bring himself to listen at all. Nor did he pay much attention when Miranda offered her own criticisms of the novel and then shifted from fiction to current events, analyzing the latest move by the Russian president, while Jackson jumped in with a comparison to nineteenth-century geopolitics. Instead, Kane watched. He watched Miranda nervously play with her hands, picking at her cuticles with sudden, sneaky plucks as if no one could see. He noticed her smoothing down her hair and grazing her fingers across her lips, and he noted that when Jackson made her laugh, he briefly rested his hand on her skin-first on her arm, then on her thigh. Kane spotted her blushing, and caught Jackson sneaking more than one glance at the low neckline of the bikini, always darting his eyes back up to Miranda’s before she picked up on his distraction.
And finally, he couldn’t take it anymore.
“Jackson, can I talk to you for a minute?” he asked.
“Kinda busy here,” Jackson said, without turning his gaze from Miranda.
“It’s important.” Kane stood up and waited for Jackson to follow. “We’ll be back in one minute, Stevens. Promise.” He pulled Jackson across the deck to the other side of the pool, where the Marco Polo game had morphed into netless water volleyball. “What are you doing?” he hissed.
“Reeling in the catch of the day,” Jackson leered. “You were right, she’s as spicy as they come.”
Kane winced. This had to be handled delicately-but it had to be handled. “But all that stuff about Tolstoy, politics-where did you…?”
“You gotta play to the audience,” Jackson explained. “Let them think you’re on the same wavelength, and then-” He shook his head. “You think all this hippie crap is my idea? My girlfriend’s all peace, love, happiness, bullshit-but if it keeps her happy to dress me like granola boy, well, you do what you gotta do, am I right?”
“Your… girlfriend?” Kane wondered why his brain was moving so much more slowly than usual.
“Yeah, she’s getting in on Monday. But till then, I figure I can have a little fun, and Miranda’s perfect-or she will be, once she loosens up a little.”
“Look, Jackson, I know I said she was your type, but I really don’t think-”
“I owe you one,” Jackson said, clapping Kane on the back. “But now, how about you get out of here and leave us to it.”
Kane was stuck. He couldn’t afford to alienate Jackson-but he couldn’t just let Miranda walk into the lion’s den wearing a necklace of raw meat.
You don’t owe anything to anyone, he reminded himself.
Words to live by-words he always had lived by-but that didn’t make them true.
The Tonky Honk was half bar, half coffeehouse, and all hipster. The nexus of the Vegas indie rock scene-at least, according to Star la, a self-described expert-it was packed, even in the middle of the afternoon, with world-weary aspiring poets sipping anise and off-duty house bands knocking back shots. Papers lined with song lyrics and guitar chords lined the walls, a floor-to-ceiling tribute to a million impossible dreams. And, on a small stage in a dark recess of the bar, a four-piece band played interminable songs about flat tires and worn-out toothbrushes, each bleeding into the next in a tedious litany of trivial torments. According to Star la, the Tonky Honk was a Vegas institution, occasionally attracting legends like Tony Bennett for a post-concert drink. (Reluctant to admit she didn’t know who that was, Beth just ooh’d and aah’d along with the rest of them.)
Beth slumped in the corner of a back booth sipping a weak espresso while the guys drowned their sorrows in a seemingly bottomless bottle of whiskey. Star la, of course, matched them drink for drink.
She was regaling them with backstage stories about a bunch of bands Beth had never heard of, all of whom had apparently passed through Vegas-and through Star la-in the past year. Fish, Hale, and Reed couldn’t get enough of it.