Lucky (6 page)

“Sorry,” he said, and smoothed the front of his fly, assuming that the motion would draw her attention to the
bulge behind it. When Lucky’s eyes never left his face, but only turned a shade cooler, and the polite smile on her lips went a shade straighter, he shifted into second gear and tried the ingenuous approach.

“I thought since it was your first night that you’d like a little company while you ate. That’s all I meant. Nothing pushy. Just a little employee association…if you know what I mean.”

Lucky looked down at the chicken salad sandwich in her hands and felt the condensation from her soft drink running down the side of the cup.

How do I get out of this without making an enemy of him?
She could hardly flip this man on his back as she had the pimp on the street who’d accosted her.

“Maybe another time,” Lucky said, and turned away.

It was the seductive sway of her slender hips beneath the form-fitting black pants of the dealer’s tuxedo that made him lose his train of thought. She was gone before he had time to try another line. He shrugged and walked away. She was new, and there was always tomorrow.

Lucky didn’t taste a bite of her food. Every time she tried to swallow she imagined she could feel his hands on her body and his hot breath down her neck all over again, and it literally made her sick to her stomach. It was an odd but definite fact. The Houston girls didn’t take to being handled, not without an invitation. And Lucky was no exception.

When the pit boss strolled through the break room and announced a return to the tables was nearly at hand, she gave up all pretense of eating, thankful to be going back into the comfort of a crowd.

Then, finally, the night was over. With her first day of work behind her and nearly one hundred dollars in tips in her purse, Lucky was walking on air. All her life she’d hated her name, and now in a city where gambling was a way of life, it seemed as if it was going to be her meal ticket to financial security.

Every player seemed to want a piece of the action at Lucky Houston’s table. If they won, they tipped big, telling themselves that it was Lucky who’d brought them luck. If they lost, they tipped even more, as if in some odd, gambler’s superstition that they were appeasing their goddess, Lady Luck.

Lucky hugged her joy close, wishing she had someone at home with whom she could share the news. But it was nearly midnight. Fluffy would long ago have gone to bed. Tomorrow would be time enough to talk.

While she waited for the city bus on the street outside the club, the high wire her emotions had been on began to stretch. All at once, the day’s stress fell in on her with a thump.

By the time the bus arrived and she took a seat, it was all she could do to keep her eyes open until it reached her stop. Determined to stay alert, she sat up straight and stared out a window.

As the bus rumbled through the residential areas of the city, it suddenly dawned on Lucky that parts of Las Vegas really did sleep. In spite of the streetlights, the alleys and shadows beneath the trees and between the houses took on an entirely different appearance. The assumption that she could handle anything began to weaken along with her strength.

Her resolve was gone by the time the bus pulled to her stop. She got off, certain that her blue jacket and slacks would be a beacon for doers of bad deeds, and could hardly walk for searching out every shadow between herself and home. The dark had become a strange and sinister being with which she must contend.

Every sound she heard was an attacker about to pounce. Every rustle in the bushes along the block seemed to be an indication that she was in constant and dire danger. Despite the lights on the streets and the ordinary night sounds of an occasional barking dog or a squalling cat, Lucky felt as if she’d stepped into a nightmare. When the sound of squealing brakes shattered the night air, Lucky bolted into an all-out sprint.

Suddenly, Fluffy’s three-story Victorian appeared like a pink and peeling island of refuge. There in the downstairs window, in plain sight of the path that she took, was a lamp burning bright and yellow, welcoming her home.

Lucky’s eyes blurred with tears, certain that Fluffy had lit it for her. Her dash decreased to a trot as a stitch in her side reminded her that she’d been a frightened fool for nothing. With shaky steps, she climbed the steep staircase to her apartment, then unlocked the door.

Inside, the light she’d left on in the hall was a warm yellow welcome of silence. Sighing at her undue worry and shaky with relief, she locked and chained the door. Safe behind four walls. For tonight, it was enough.

Moments later she’d shed her clothes and crawled into the tub, moaning in relief as water ran hard and hot upon her tired, aching toes. Her tummy growled, but her eyes
burned worse. She was too tired to consider a late-night snack. All she wanted was to go to sleep.

Nick stood at the window of his office overlooking the downtown strip where the Golden Spur, the Nugget, the Lucky Lady, and all the rest burned bright with lights against the velvet darkness of the Las Vegas night sky. White lights, yellow lights. All colors of the rainbow lights. Neon “glory holes” with riches beyond belief, there, just waiting for the lucky man or woman to come along. And as he looked, wondered what quirk of fate had judged his birth should be here, in a make-believe world of impossible dreams.

Here, in every casino, by the hundreds of thousands, people came and crowded around the tables or the machines, waiting for that magical dollar to hit the slot and spill a lifetime worth of winnings onto the floor at their feet.

The city lay in wait for the dreamers, the players who replaced the miners of yesteryear. The ones who left their marks in the hearts of the mountains beyond the city. The believers who were certain that the next shovel of dirt they dug out would unearth the vein that would make them rich.

These were the spirits of many who came to Las Vegas. And if the strike wasn’t obviously imminent, they didn’t quit. They just moved on…to the next table, or the next machine, certain that their luck was about to change.

Nick sighed and rested his head against the window. He hated himself for this doubt that had crept into his soul. He’d loved this frenetic world and the lifestyle that
accompanied it, or so he’d thought, until he’d been told someone wanted him dead. It was then that he began to wonder if it was all worth it. If the luxury of his surroundings and the family wealth was enough to compensate for the fact that someone coveted it, and hated him and his father enough to want to kill.

He’d given Will Arnold the name of Dieter Marx as a possible suspect with the promise that if the detective came up with some information, he would share it with him. Although Paul Chenault still insisted that Dieter Marx was surely dead, Nick wouldn’t…couldn’t dismiss the man’s existence out of hand until he was given proof. He waited impatiently for answers that didn’t come.

“Dammit, Dad. Who is Dieter Marx? What happened between you two that could have fostered such hate?”

“Talking to yourself, Nicky?” Manny asked as he entered the office with the assurance of a trusted friend.

“May as well. At least that way I get the answers I want.”

Manny grinned.

“How did it go tonight?” Nick asked.

Manny threw up his hands in a Latin gesture of amazement and started to talk.

“Fantastic! The new dealer…she is a jewel. I tell you the truth….”

Nick listened without really hearing. He was too busy wondering if Cubby had set the security system before going to bed, and wondering if his father had eaten his evening meal or if he was still brooding about secrets he didn’t seem willing to share.

“…and came away with tips out the ass.”

Nick looked up as the last bit of Manny’s monologue caught his attention. “Whose ass?”

Manny grinned. “A beautiful woman’s, ’
mano
. But you weren’t listening, were you?” When Nick started to apologize, Manny repeated part of his praise for the woman all over again.

“You should have seen her. She handled the pros and the neophytes with the same calm demeanor. Explaining the plays to greenhorns didn’t seem to faze her any more than the constant and increasing bets at her tables. Everyone wanted a piece of Lady Luck.”

Nick shook his head. “I know there’s a connection in there somewhere, Manny, but I’m not getting it. Why would the players want to play at her table rather than one of the others? She’s not nearly the only female dealer we have. In fact, I’d say the majority of our dealers are women…aren’t they?”

“Maybe so, Nicky. But she’s the only one with the given name of Lucky.”

Nick’s eyebrows shot upward as a smooth smile slipped into place. “That can’t be real.”

“Oh, but it is. I saw her identification. Even her sheriff’s card has the name Lucky Houston.”

“Well! I’ll be damned,” Nick said softly. “So Lady Luck has come to work for us?”

Manny laughed. “So it would seem.”

Nick’s smile died. “Good. I can use all the luck I can get.”

“Still no news about the man who hired Charlie Sams?”

Nick shook his head. “Not so far. And the damnedest
thing…Dad has almost clammed up. He gave me a name and then seemed to withdraw. I can’t figure it out.”

“What was the name, Nicky? If you don’t mind me asking?”

“Hell no. I should have told you sooner. Dad said his old friend’s name was Dieter Marx. Ever hear of him?”

Manny frowned. “No. I’m sorry, I don’t think so. But you have to remember that fourteen years separate our ages. When your father opened Club 52, I was only ten or twelve years old and you weren’t even born. You were just starting to school when I started working for your father. I knew nothing of the times before.”

“It’s okay. I didn’t really expect that you would. Go home, Manny. Get some rest. Take tomorrow off if you want. I don’t think you’ve had a day off in weeks.”

Manny shook his head. “No. Not until this is over. Not until I see a smile in your eyes again.” With that, he left, quietly shutting Nick in and the noise out.

E
xcept for Steve Lucas’s presence, the first four days on the job had gone smoothly for Lucky. Things about Club 52 that had astounded her at first, she now ignored. No longer did she notice the players glued to their seats at the slot machines, with plastic buckets of quarters clutched between their legs and glazed expressions on their faces. She’d even quit staring at those players whose faces often bore streaks of dirt caused by their handling so much grimy coin. Now, when someone in the casino let out a screech, she no longer looked up to see if it was out of delight or despair. She was too busy concentrating on her own job.

With little more than an accelerated heartbeat, she’d received and refused a marriage proposal from an Arab prince. Then afterward she had wondered if her heart raced out of fear, or from the shock of his offer, and the pleasures that he had promised.

But at the end of the week, her life went on a sudden roller coaster and all because of a man she didn’t know.

Undetected because of the two potted palms at the hall entrance, she bent over her untied shoelace, and found herself suddenly frozen with fear as she listened to the thick, raspy voice of the man at the pay phone.

He was clearly plotting someone’s death.

“Look! I told you, it’s in the bag.” Woody mopped the fat furrows on the back of his neck with a handkerchief that looked like it had gone about a week past laundry date. “His routine rarely varies. He’ll eat his breakfast with his old man, just like he does every morning. He’ll make a few calls from home and then dress for work. But when he goes outside and starts the engine of that Jag, he and his breakfast will blow sky high and there will be one less Chenault on the face of the earth. You can trust me. They don’t call me Woody the Wire for nothin’ you know.”

Oh, my God!
was all Lucky could think as she ducked out of sight.

While she was debating about going back to work, she heard a sharp click and knew that she’d waited too long. The man had hung up the phone.

Before she gave herself time to reconsider, Lucky knew that she had to see his face. She had to know, because she was going to tell. She took a deep breath and sauntered into the hallway as if she’d just arrived.

The man was short, and his girth seemed to be twice his height. He actually seemed to roll when he walked, like a cannonball on wheels. The Pillsbury Doughboy in pinstripe. That was how Lucky saw him.

When he saw her, Lucky knew a moment of fear. The
look in his eyes was that of a fat, trapped rat. In a spurt of genius, she gave him a wide, flashy smile and winked as they passed, hoping that her flirtatious attitude would distract him from wondering if he’d been overheard. It worked like a charm.

Woody the Wire had known that using the phone here would be risky. But his check-in time with the boss had come before he’d realized. If he left Club 52 to make the call, then he couldn’t play keno. And Woody the Wire loved keno almost more than he loved food.

But when the lady dealer sauntered past the palms like she owned the place and looked him in the eye, he figured he’d been made and was actually considering the best way to kill her…when she smiled.

Then he completely forgot that he’d been in the act of confirming a man’s murder or thinking of hers. Unabashed by the fact that she towered above him in height, he even considered making a date when he remembered what he’d been about to do.

Cursing beneath his breath about the interference of fate in his love life, he waddled past her and out into the main gaming room and disappeared quickly within the constantly moving crowd.

Lucky slipped into the ladies’ room and leaned against the door in shaky panic as she tried to regain her equilibrium.

“Oh, God! Oh, God! Now what?” she muttered. Shock and nerves kicked in as she realized the risk that she’d taken by letting him see her face.

A woman came out of a stall while Lucky was talking to herself in near hysterics, and she realized she had to get
out before she made a fool of herself and the fat man somehow learned that she’d overheard.

Manny! He’d become her mentor. His awareness of Steve Lucas’s unwanted attentions toward her had prevented more than one brawl. He would often step into the break room at a crucial time and prevent the harassment from escalating. Lucky knew it was only a matter of time before something ugly happened between them. But one ugly thing at a time. Right now, she had to tell a man about a murder and hope that it would never take place. She bolted out of the bathroom, anxiety lending speed to her steps.

Manny saw her coming across the floor and saw the look of panic on her face. He went rushing to meet her.

“What is it?” Manny caught her in full stride and pulled her toward the hallway near his office.

Before Lucky had a chance to catch her breath, he began peppering her with questions.

“Is it Lucas? Has he overstepped your boundaries,
chica?
Did he—”

“Manny! We need to talk!”

Her voice was shaking as hard as her body. Her eyes were wide, the pupils dilated to twice their size from the adrenaline racing through her system. And had he not been the macho Latino that he was, the grip she had on his arm could have sent him to his knees.

“Come inside my office. We talk there.” He motioned to one of the managers that he was leaving the floor and taking Lucky with him.

Moments later the door shut behind them and the utter silence of the room made Lucky’s legs go weak.

“Manny…I just heard someone who called himself Woody the Wire talking on the pay phone in the hallway next to the bathrooms. He said that tomorrow a man was going to be murdered.”

Manny reacted as if he’d been shot. He slumped against the back of his chair as he absorbed what she’d just told him, and then he thought of the danger she’d inadvertently put herself in.

“
Dios mío!
Did he see you? Did he know that you overheard?”

That Manny didn’t doubt her story said a lot for the things that went on within the multi-billion-dollar world of Las Vegas.

“No, I don’t think so. But to be on the safe side, when he did see me, I acted like an airhead and actually flirted a little as we passed.”

Manny worried his little mustache with the tips of his fingers as he considered their course of action.

“Good! That is good. But the first thing we should do is call the—”

“Wait! That isn’t all,” Lucky said. She dropped down into the nearest chair to keep from falling and clasped her hands together in her lap as she tried to control her breathing. “The man said that tomorrow…there would be one less Chenault on the face of the earth. I haven’t met him…but isn’t that my boss’s name?”

A slow, steady stream of Spanish invectives matched the stride of his march as Manny came across the room toward her like a bullet. Lucky actually considered ducking when the little man jerked her from her seat and almost dragged her from the room.

“Where are we going?” she asked. In spite of Manny’s short legs, she had to hurry to keep up with his pace.

“To see the boss!” he said. “You have to tell him exactly what you told me. It is imperative that he know of this now…while there is still time to prevent a disaster.”

Lucky’s stomach did a flip-flop as Manny dragged her up the stairs, toward what she’d learned days earlier was the inner sanctum of “The Man.”

Among the employees, Nick Chenault was a name that was said in whispers. Not in fear, but in awe. Proclaimed to be a handsome, unattached man of great wealth and power, he was held in high esteem by the people who worked for him. But at the same time, many remained wary of him too. That much power was always frightening to someone who did not have it.

Manny didn’t bother to knock. So when they burst into his office, to say Nick Chenault was surprised was an understatement. And when he saw the woman that Manny had in tow, he couldn’t believe his eyes. It was the one from the bus station. Only this time, she wasn’t dressed in ragged, hand-me-down clothing. She was wearing one of the tuxedos reserved for the dealers at Club 52.

“You!”

Nick’s and Lucky’s accusations were simultaneous. Manny stared at them as if they’d suddenly grown warts.

“What are you doing here?” they both asked again, and then Lucky shook her head and was the first to stop the farce from being carried any further.

“Good lord, it’s the pimp.”

Nick continued to stare. He couldn’t get past the fact that the waifish woman who’d come off that bus had
turned into an elegant, classy-looking female who now seemed to be in his employ.

Manny was stunned by her words. A pimp? His boss? It was obvious that these two knew each other, but how? Where and when could they have possibly met? He knew for a fact that Lucky hadn’t been in town long enough to run in the same circles as the Chenaults. And although they recognized each other’s faces, it seemed that neither had been aware of the other’s identity.

“You work here?” Nick couldn’t believe she was wearing a dealer’s uniform and he hadn’t even noticed her on the floor.

“Nearly a week,” Manny said, answering for Lucky who seemed to have gone mute.

Nick’s dark eyes narrowed as he looked back at the woman in black. “This isn’t the new dealer.” He stated it with such unequivocal assurance that it made Manny laugh.

At this, Nick flushed. Obviously, it was. While he was trying to get past the embarrassment and shock, he remembered the story Manny had told him yesterday about their new dealer’s latest dilemma on the floor. “She’s not the one the Arab prince tried to buy…is she?”

“Nicholas…I would like for you to meet Miss Lucky Houston, late of Tennessee, now a resident of our fine city. And…your newest dealer.”

“He didn’t want to buy me. He offered to marry me,” Lucky said, slightly insulted by the tone of his voice. And then, as soon as she said it, she was afraid that it had sounded rude.

In spite of the urgency of the moment, Manny couldn’t
resist another grin. Something was going on between these two that he’d waited years to witness. If he didn’t miss his guess, Nick Chenault was slightly smitten. He glanced at Lucky, unable to tell how she felt. She looked as if she could either faint or throw up. She was pale around the mouth and shaking like a leaf.

Nick couldn’t quit staring. The long, ropy braid that he remembered hanging down her back was now wound into an abundant crown on top of her head. He had the strongest urge to thrust his fingers into the mass, search out the pins holding it up, and then stand back and watch it spill around her face and shoulders like so much black silk.

The tuxedo she was wearing made her look even taller than he remembered, but he noticed that she still wore no makeup or jewelry. She had none of the artifice he’d come to associate with members of the opposite sex. But the expression on her face hadn’t changed. She was still glaring at him with a mixture of disgust and disdain.

He couldn’t believe his eyes. Ever since their meeting at the bus station, she’d haunted his dreams and sneaked into his thoughts at the oddest times. Now, here she was, right before him, and he couldn’t think of a thing to say.

Fortunately, Manny could.

“Boss, Lucky has something to tell you.”

Lucky jerked almost as if she’d been slapped. Whatever she’d been thinking died on the vine when she remembered why Manny had hauled her up the stairs like a limp doll. Her expression went from nervous to near panic as she realized this was the man Woody the Wire had been talking about! This was the man who would die!

“You! It would have been you!”

He saw her sway. In seconds, both he and Manny had an arm around her as they led her to the sofa near the window.

“Sit down before you fall down,” Nick said sharply, angry with himself for the feelings bubbling inside his belly. He didn’t want to want this woman. He didn’t even know her. Men his age didn’t
want
total strangers. That went with youth and carelessness that he’d left behind long ago.

Or so he thought, until Lucky Houston turned those wide green eyes his way and cast a witch’s spell he couldn’t resist.

“Now,” he said, “what is it you have to tell me…other than what you’ve already said?”

Lucky flushed, remembering the way she’d cut him down at the bus station with little more than a glance, assuming that he’d been out to use or harm her to suit his fancy.

“You shouldn’t have tried to pick me up,” she said.

Manny had to stop himself from laughing. In spite of where this would all lead, it seemed only to be getting better and better.

Nick nodded. The accusation in her voice held a strong ring of truth. He smiled slightly and sank down onto a seat two cushions over from where she was sitting.

“You’re right, lady. You’re right. I shouldn’t have done…or said what I did. Especially to someone who’d just gotten into town.”

Then he smiled.

And Lucky forgot that she’d heard someone threaten
to kill him. She forgot that only days earlier she’d been invited to join a harem. She forgot that she was long overdue on returning to her table. All she could see, all she could think of, was that when Nick Chenault smiled, his eyes lit from within. For a heartbeat, she imagined she could see straight into his soul. And as she did, she thought that she saw a loneliness in him that matched the kind she felt.

“They’re going to kill you.”

His smile died. First in his eyes. Then on his lips. The skin on his face seemed to grow taut and turn ashen. He inhaled sharply. Without making a sound, he leaned toward her as she sat, pinning her with a hand on either side of the sofa behind her head until their faces were separated by the space of their breaths.

“Who the hell are you? How did you know that? Who sent you? Are you the next plant in Chenault Incorporated? What happened, woman? Did you lose your nerve and decide to switch sides?”

Manny grabbed at Nick’s arm, but not in time to prevent the damage from being done. “No! No! Nicky, you don’t understand. It isn’t like that at all.”

Nick straightened, then spun toward Manny as the fury in his voice echoed within the room.