Double Blind (24 page)

Ethan didn’t know what to say to all that, so he just looked out over the casino, really looking at it now that he wasn’t reeling from personal tragedy, contemplating imminent doom, or following Randy. He looked, and he saw dark paneling, crystal chandeliers, and a lot of clutter. And, honestly, he saw dust. Dust and damage and a kind of decay that could only be found in a building: peeling paint, worn carpets, faded curtains. Outdated paintings on the wall. Peeling vinyl on the stools in front of the slot machines. Sagging, disinterested dealers and wait staff.

And hardly, he realized, any customers at all.

Crabtree sighed and patted his shoulder as he turned back around. “Come on. Let’s go up to my office and have a chat.”

There was already a litter box in Crabtree’s office when they arrived there, as well as a dish of food and a bowl of water, and Crabtree introduced Salomé to both stations before letting her loose on the floor. She ran immediately to the food dish and ate enthusiastically.

“Close the door please,” he said to Ethan, and gestured to the straight-backed chair with its back to the door. Crabtree himself sat in the sagging olive-green office chair behind a metal monstrosity of a desk that took up most of the room.

Ethan did as instructed and took a moment to survey the office. It was smaller than he had thought it would be, and much shabbier, though some of that seemed to be because it was stuck in the ’70s. It wasn’t retro-chic. It looked like it actually was seventies decor that no one had ever updated. The only nods to the current millennium were the dabbles of technology: a state-of-the-art multi-line phone with cordless receiver and Bluetooth headset were just visible beneath a cascade of manila folders, and a sleek Dell Touchsmart desktop sat beside that. What was possibly a silver Macbook Pro sat on another pile of papers on top of a filing cabinet beneath a kitten poster Ethan was trying hard not to notice.

Crabtree picked up a sleek black binder, regarded it with distaste for a moment, then passed it over to Ethan. “This is the current financial report for Herod’s. Income, expenditures, assets. There’s also a tab which summarizes the history of those same three figures over the past thirty years.”

Ethan took the binder and flipped through it reluctantly. Something told him there was nothing good about a gangster handing you a ledger, but he wasn’t sure what else to do. Still, numbers were numbers, and he quickly lost himself in them, running his fingers down the columns, stopping only to reach down and pet Salomé absently when she tried to climb his pant leg. The casino, it seemed, had done fairly well in the seventies, moderately well in the eighties, and hung on in the nineties. But right around 1994, a bizarre pattern of high growth, great loss, and sometimes inexplicable asset acquisition and disposal emerged.

He gave up trying to dissuade Salomé and picked her up carefully, settling her on his lap as he propped the ledger against the edge of Crabtree’s desk and tried again to make sense of the figures. Eventually, however, he had to give up.

“What happened in 1994?” he asked.

Crabtree grimaced. “Have you met my godson, Billy Herod?”

Ethan shook his head as he stroked the underside of Salomé’s chin. “No,” he said. He thought of, but did not bring up, Randy’s comment about casino theater.

“That’s the year Billy Senior died. That meant that Billy then owned the casino, and that wasn’t a good thing. Billy has no business sense. He treats the casino as one of his playthings. Sometimes it’s a toy moldering in the back of his closet, and sometimes it gets trotted out and banged a bit against the walls. It would have folded long ago, but I’ve kept it propped up, sometimes with my own money. I like Herod’s. I liked Billy’s father. I don’t want to watch this place get run down and sold for spare change so it can become a parking garage. The current economic downturn is the greatest threat this casino has had yet. I’ve done my best to spur attendance and interest, but it’s as challenging as it’s always been to compete with the big guys on the Strip. Herod’s is an out-of-the-way hole, and the few old-timers who came here just for that reason are either dying out or are sick of Billy’s shit.” Crabtree’s lips thinned into a line, and he leaned over the desk. “I want him out. And I want you to help me do that by walking me through some investments.”

Ethan winced as Salomé dug her claws a little too enthusiastically into his leg. “Crabtree—you do understand that I was only a small-time broker? I invested other people’s money into mutual funds. On rare occasions I helped put together some real-estate deals, but nothing like this.”

“You know the business. You know how it works. And more importantly, no one here knows you—and if they look you up, it will appear just as you said. You look absolutely harmless.” Crabtree smiled. “But I think you’re just what I need.” Crabtree took back the binder and pointed to a column. “I have authority to manage the income of the casino and hotel and bar. I’m responsible for paying Billy a percentage, and nothing more. He owns stock, but not much, and while he is the official owner, he doesn’t have the capital to start any real projects. I’m going to change that.”

Ethan frowned. “You’re going to give him
more
money?”

“Yes. And as he notices he has some money to burn, he’s going to turn to you, the man who has helped me cleverly invest my own money, to help him double it. But there is a catch, you see: he can only work with assets, and all money invested through assets remains with the casino
.
You will help him clean up his portfolio. You will help him make Herod’s appear to shine, so that a buyer might want to buy the casino, because only then will he get to have his money.”

Oh, Ethan did not like the sound of this. “Mr. Crabtree, I don’t have a buyer ready.”

Crabtree waved this thought away with his hand. “Of course you don’t. I do. But you can’t divulge your sources.”

“Why on earth would Billy trust me?” Ethan asked.

Crabtree smiled and threaded his fingers over his belly as he leaned back in his chair. “You bluff, of course. It’s poker, Mr. Ellison—just without the cards. You want him invested deeply in this game. It will be, I suspect, the finest game of poker you’ll ever play, with a pot you can’t see yet but will reward you for many, many years to come.”

“You do understand that I’ve only played poker for two days?” Ethan said.

“No,” Crabtree replied. “You’ve been playing poker a lot longer than that. You just didn’t have a formal strategy. That, son, will swiftly change.”

Salomé was licking Ethan’s thumb. He was grateful for it, for the steady, rough brush of her tongue. He turned his palm toward her, and she eagerly gave it the same treatment. He kept his eyes on her ministrations as he spoke. “And if I tell you that I wish to decline your offer?”

His heart was pounding, and he waited for Crabtree to say something out of a movie: “I would advise against that,” or something with more panache, with its own ominous music trailing in its wake. Which was why he was all the more suspicious when Crabtree only shrugged and said, “Then I’ll make this offer to someone else.”

Ethan gave him a quelling look. “But I’ll find cars following me wherever I go, and some night my car will stall, and they’ll discover me a week later, nothing but bones in the Mojave Desert?”

Crabtree laughed. “You’ve seen too many movies. No. If you decline, you’ll go back to Randy’s house, unemployed. He’ll probably keep taking you to bed. He’ll definitely keep teaching you poker. And you’ll do all right, I suspect. You’ll win pots, slowly and deliberately, and you’ll pay him back what you owe him. Perhaps the two of you will even develop some sort of relationship, or at least an arrangement. I suspect, though, you’ll get a sedate little condo of your own, and probably some job investing other people’s money again, and you’ll play conservative pots in conservative games on the weekends for fun. You’ll meet Randy regularly to fuck, and maybe a bit more, and it will all be just fine. You might even be happy. For a while.” Crabtree’s eyes glittered. “I have no need to punish you if you refuse. Because I know you, Ethan Ellison. I’ve played poker all night with you, and I know you, and I know the beast that woke inside you when you left Nick Snow. If you decline my offer and go back to Randy’s house, you’ll punish yourself more exquisitely than I could ever hope to accomplish.” He sobered. “Whichever you choose, I’ve been asked to tell you to please move your car. We have a policy about parking for over twenty-four hours, and if it isn’t gone by 5:00 p.m. today, I’ll have to have it towed.”

His car—Ethan had forgotten all about it. He patted his pockets in a reflexive gesture. “I think Randy has my keys.”

“I can help you around that aspect,” Crabtree said. He rose. “You’ll want to think about my offer, of course. And you’ll absolutely want to meet my godson first.” He glanced at his watch. “I know just where he’ll be.”

Salomé
cried when they left the office.

She tried to follow them out, and when Crabtree shooed her back in, she began mewing plaintively and scratching at the door. The sound tugged at Ethan’s heart, and he turned to Crabtree, waiting for him to do something.

Crabtree only looked at Ethan with amusement. “What do you propose we do with her? Bring her along?”

Salomé let out another plaintive cry, this one pitching deep and burrowing into the middle of Ethan’s belly.
She was on her own outside,
he tried to reason with himself.
She’ll settle down in a few minutes.
But the cries still tugged at him. He said nothing, just stood rigid, listening, getting angry at Crabtree for letting her cry like that. But Crabtree just stood there, looking at Ethan in quiet amusement and something too enigmatic for Ethan to place.

The kitten yelped, a sharp, wounded-sounding cry, and though he knew it wasn’t possible, Ethan swore he heard, “Help!”

“For God’s sake,” he murmured, throwing open the door. He crouched down in time to catch Salomé as she bounded up to him and scooped her up into his arms. He stood, holding her close to his chest as he turned to Crabtree. “We can’t just leave her in there alone.”

“Then I suppose we’ll have no choice but to take her down to the floor,” Crabtree said, smiling as he rubbed beneath her chin. “Do you think you can manage her?”

Ethan paused, aware that he had somehow wandered into a trap. He stammered. “I—I mean, I don’t know. You mean bring her
along
? To the casino floor? And I just hold her?”

“I suspect it’s either that or we’ll have to put her back in my office,” Crabtree said.

He spoke so mildly, even calmly, and Ethan felt awkward because Crabtree was the one who supposedly couldn’t resist a cat, but he was somehow fine with letting Salomé stay alone in his cold, unfamiliar office. It was Ethan who couldn’t bear the thought.

“She might as well get used to it,” Crabtree added gently. “At the shelter she’ll be in her own cage.”

“Shelter?” Ethan repeated, horrified. Salomé used her claws to climb up his shirt and lick the underside of his chin.
Shelter.

Of course she was going to a shelter. Where else would she go?

She licked him again, purring loudly. Ethan shut his eyes in a long blink and stroked her.

“If it helps,” Crabtree said, “I doubt she’ll be there very long. And it’s a very good shelter. You know I wouldn’t send her to her death.”

Ethan nodded, but he was starting to feel very unhinged. It didn’t matter. It was just a cat. A kitten, yes, but—

She nuzzled her cold nose against his chin and brushed a paw against the side of his cheek, and he had to fight for a moment to keep himself composed. For heaven’s sake, what was wrong with him?