Double Blind (51 page)

Sam led them out of the living room and into his bed—he stripped Ethan down the rest of the way and tucked him in beside Randy, where Ethan tried again to explain his feelings, but Randy just pushed his face down, and then Ethan saw the fat, pretty cock and forgot what he was going to say. When Sam finally came back into the room, they were fumbling their way into an awkward sixty-nine.

Ethan was never really sure if he came or not. He remembered a lot of kissing. A lot of mouths. Cocks and mouths and cocks in mouths and just mouths and just cocks. There were fingers in his ass at some point, and he remembered telling Sam, no thank you, he did not want to be spanked. He remembered tasting semen, but he had no idea whose it was. There might have been food, but he might have just wished for it. The details were very fuzzy. He was happy, though. He knew that.

He woke with an aching head and a chest that felt too heavy until he realized it was because Randy, his still-pinked ass bare to the air, was using Ethan’s chest for a pillow.

Ethan’s mouth also tasted like all kinds of hell.

Someone moved behind him, and he heard Sam say sleepily, “Here.” An open bottle of water pressed into his hand and Ethan drank greedily and gratefully.

“Thanks,” he murmured, and passed it back. Oh, God, he felt like total shit.

“Go back to sleep,” Sam murmured, wrapped his arms back around Ethan’s chest, and Ethan did.

Caryle
braced her hands on the edge of Ethan’s desk and looked down at him with grim resolution. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but there’s no way around it. We have plenty of small shows lined up. We have drag queens and kings and performers of all kinds. We have dancers and wait staff and dealers, and that’s great. But this is never going to work if we don’t get a headliner.”

Ethan looked down at the spreadsheet in front of him, tapping his pen against the ledger as he frowned at the figures. They were three weeks from opening night, and they were looking at Caryle’s projections for the Butterfly event. They were dismal.

He tapped the pen some more. “Would it help if we changed the name?”

“The name is actually the best thing you have going for you right now. I put some teaser flyers out in a variety of public places, and a lot of people picked them up. I think if you get a model on those, someone androgynous and beautiful, you’ll really have their attention. But you need more than their attention. You need their bodies to come here on your opening night.”

“I still say we want to go after the old model,” Ethan said. “We want them to
gamble.
That’s where the money is here. That’s where it’s always been, and if this place is going to survive, it needs to go back there. Back to the
tables
, too, not those damn slots. They make me crazy. I want to see people at craps. I want to see them at roulette and at blackjack. Above all, I want to see them at poker. I want them in here spending their money. I want to make Bellagio nervous because they’re losing players to us. I want this place to
work
again.”

Caryle gave him a funny look. “I thought you just wanted to get a quick sale?”

Ethan paused, then pressed his lips together. “Yes. Well. Yes.”

Caryle pulled another paper out from the bottom of the stack. “I can get you more dancers, if we want a bigger show. I can get you more wait staff, too, that will do their jobs but be a sort of performance of their own. I think you want to keep the dealers professional, though—don’t dress them up. I know the owner has visions of them tricked out in skimpy things, but you really don’t want people in charge of that much money distracted. I can distract your players in a way that they’ll be happy to be distracted—with my people. And keeping in mind the spirit of the evening, I’m instructing them all to flirt generously with both sexes.”

“Oh?” Ethan said, not expecting that one.

She nodded. “I think you could really use that. If you weren’t already on a theme, I’d say go Bacchanalian, but this actually might be better. ‘Butterfly’ is pretty innocuous. The associations are with beauty and light and love, but what it really is at heart is transformation. So when the guests come in, I think we should offer them some additional transformations. Feather boas. Glitter paint for their faces. Masks. Little things that they can accept or refuse, and lots of choices. And no matter if they’re straight or gay or still trying to figure that out, they can be whatever they want on this night. They can be butterflies too. If they’re women and want to know what it feels like for a pretty girl to smile at them, they can try it. Same with men. Or whatever they like. I can teach my people how to respond to that, how to flirt without making people uncomfortable. But however it happens, this place can be a safe zone. Well—and I’ll get a lot of security, too. Some will be obvious, some not so much. If anyone gets too fresh with anyone else, we can put an end to it discreetly. And we advertise that too. It will keep people in line but also free others. This can be the safe place.” She looked at Ethan expectantly. “Or not. What do you think?”

Ethan carefully pulled himself back down from the glitter-dusted vision she’d painted in his mind. “I think it’s brilliant.”

Caryle beamed. “Great.” She tapped his stack of papers. “Get me a headliner, and I’ll give you the most amazing Butterfly Nights you could ever dream of.”

Ethan watched her go, smiling, waving back at her as she turned in the doorway and gave him an eager thumbs up. He waited, even, until he heard the elevator close and the hallway go silent to assure himself she had left.

Then he tilted slowly forward, bending at the waist so he could rest his forehead on the pile of papers in front of himself in quiet, terror-filled horror.

He could not get a headliner. He couldn’t get a
side
liner. Sam knew more people in Vegas than he did. But even that wouldn’t help, not even if he knew the whole town, because Caryle was talking about a star. A major act. Someone people would line up to see because they knew the name. Also, someone whose schedule was open enough that they could drop into Vegas on absolutely no notice whatsoever, go to a washed-up casino and get paid almost nothing at all.

Ethan whimpered, then banged his forehead a few times against the paper. He was screwed. He had no one to call, no one to ask, beg—nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing—

The phone rang, startling him. Ethan sat up, saw Sarah’s extension and her name flashing on the readout, and picked up the phone. “Ms. Reynolds.” He reached up to pull off a post-it that had stuck to his forehead. “How may I help you?”

“Mr. Ellison. Sorry to disturb you, but I have Mr. Crabtree on one of the external lines.”

Ethan sat up so fast he pulled the phone forward half a foot by the cord. “Put him through!” he said, then tempered himself and added in a more stable voice, “Please. And thank you, Ms. Reynolds.”

“Not at all, Mr. Ellison,” she said, and the line clicked.

Ethan shut his eyes and held his breath.

Crabtree’s Santa chuckle rumbled in his ear. “Well, well, well,” he said. “Ethan Ellison. How have you been?”

Ethan had spent many hours dreaming of what he would say to Crabtree when he spoke to him again: the dressing-down he would give him, the list of complaints, the simple contents of his spleen. And then, more recently, he’d wanted to plead, to beg for his help, to at least have him explain what his plan was, because he was sure there was one. Then he simply hoped there was one. All he knew was that if Crabtree called him, everything would change, because he could ask him questions, demand his help—
something
.

Which was why it was so bizarre that all he could find to say was, “Fine. You?”

“I’m well, thank you for asking,” Crabtree replied. “I’m enjoying the fresh air of the mountains. Back up in your old stomping grounds, in fact.”

“You’re in Provo?” Ethan said, amazed. Utah wasn’t exactly what he would call a gangster getaway spot.

“In American Fork,” Crabtree said. “Near it, anyway. We have a lovely cabin here on Utah Lake. Absolutely beautiful, Ethan. I have no idea how you ever left.”

“We?” Ethan repeated.

“Some friends came with me,” Crabtree said, but there was an X-rated edge to the words that made Ethan fairly sure these “friends” were getting quite a salary for their companionship.

Very
not American Fork.

“I hear there’s to be a party at the casino?” Crabtree went on. “Something about butterflies?”

“Butterfly Nights,” Ethan said. “Trying to drum up business. Billy thinks if he makes a good show, he’ll tempt your buyer himself. I tried to tell him I wasn’t even sure you have one.”

“Oh, I do,” Crabtree said, casually. “But I’m fairly sure he’s safe from Billy. Still, the boy is free to try. Fair is fair, after all.”

Ethan was very sure Crabtree rarely played fair, and on the occasions he did, he likely fixed the outcome first.

“I don’t mind telling you,” Crabtree went on, “that I’m very pleased about the statue coming back. When Ms. Reynolds told me what you were up to, I saw to it personally that you had all the help you needed.”

Ethan had wondered about that. “I did it in part to goad Randy,” he admitted. “Though I really think it could add a lot to the casino again.”

“Yes, I heard about your ‘rub the demon’s penis’ idea. Clever. It will probably work too—at least to make the casino rich. And I am always happy to help goad Mr. Jansen. Well done.”

“Thank you,” Ethan said, because he couldn’t think of how else to respond.

“The whole business is quite good all around,” Crabtree said, “and I don’t mind telling you that I like your style. Butterflies are always nice. And I’m absolutely charmed by your idea to take the casino back into the Golden Age of Vegas. I think my Billy would have loved that. That said, Mr. Ellison, I have to tell you that you’re missing several key elements to make that night a success. To start, you’re going to need an entertainment act which someone has actually heard of. Madonna impersonators and showgirls and boys alone will not bring in the kind of traffic that you need.”

“I know that, sir,” Ethan said, “but the problem—”

“I will get you an act, young man, so put that worry out of your head. But that, boy, is not the
real
problem. Your
real
problem is that you don’t have the right game. Yes, having good dealers will help, but we don’t make money on the floor, not the kind of money you’re wanting. You need a big event. You need a game. You need a classy, high-stakes game to bring in real players with real money. And you need to use one of those high-tech feeds to display the hole cards and get an audience. You’ll want a feed out to Pay-Per-View, too, and a good, high-quality leak to the Internet so people can watch for free and spread the word about our casino. I’ll take care of those things too. But you need to advertise the game, son. And you need to make damn sure you understand it is the
center
of everything you’re doing. Every sequin, every feather, every toke that happens on the floor is all to support this game. Do you understand? Do you
understand
me, Ellison?”

Ethan had no fucking idea what he was talking about. “Are we talking about poker?”

“Of course we’re talking about poker! A game, in Billy’s Room! Invite only, but we put a glut of tickets out on the Internet, somebody reselling them off eBay. We make a big fuss over how they’re illegal, and eBay takes them off, and then they get sold on the streets. That part I will also see to. But as far as you’re concerned, the game tickets need to be legit, and you’ll be checking them carefully at the door. You don’t like that the tickets have gone out, and you suspect some sort of underground activity is organizing it. You won’t say the word mob, because people will think you’re silly. But it’s clear you’re thinking this, when the press talks to you.”

“The press will talk to me?”

“Of course! You’re new! You’re exciting! You’re also possibly crazy, and this whole thing looks like it might come down around your ears any second. That’s good theater! If you don’t have CNN and E! camped out around you soon, I’ll be disappointed. So be sure to play your part, son.”