Double Blind (56 page)

It took
Ethan several days to realize the full extent of the miracle that Crabtree had pulled off in his booking of what Randy had taken to calling the Oz Triplets. He’d thought it would be impossible to get
anyone
on such short notice, so the idea that he’d gotten anyone of any quality at all wasn’t even something he considered. But he’d been seriously impressed by the inclusion of Olivia Newton-John. He’d almost gone to see her once a few years back when she’d been on tour and stopped in Provo, but it hadn’t worked out. He’d wanted to go with Nick in fact—he couldn’t remember, but he thought Nick had backed out at the last minute, and he hadn’t wanted to go alone.

Now she was coming to “his” casino.

He still didn’t understand how Crabtree had gotten Kylie. Even Billy seemed impressed.

“Kylie Minogue?” the casino owner had said when Ethan had told him. “Shit, she came through here a few years back, and the show sold out right away! You see video of that bird in concert? She is
hot
.”

Ethan had not seen any videos of Kylie, and Sam was only too happy to supply them. And when Ethan had watched the beautiful woman glide across the stage in elaborate showgirl costumes, he had to admit it didn’t get much more classic Vegas than that. She was amazing. She was stunning.

She was far, far too good for a place like Herod’s.

“Crabtree knows the manager, I think,” Randy confided as they sat at a poker table at Herod’s two days before opening night, waiting for the dealer to break in a new deck. “Or somebody close to the manager. Really, I’m not surprised. He knows everyone.”

“But how did he get so many good performers on such short notice?” Ethan asked.

Randy shrugged. “Bribes and called-in favors, I assume. The usual. He probably got a list of who was close, then started pulling strings. Though he knows about Sam and Kylie. That one was a gift, and probably cost Crabtree something big.” He winked at Ethan, then nudged him with his elbow. “Go on, Slick. You’re the big blind.”

Ethan tossed his chips into the pot, then turned a ten dollar chip over absently in his fingers, the glittering
Billy’s!
logo flashing round and round as his fingers spun it slowly. When the betting came around to him again, he tossed his 3 and 2 offsuit into the muck, sat back, and let his mind wander.

It was going well, even he had to admit that. Sam was still a big help, when he wasn’t working, and he was a lot happier, too, because Mitch was due back any day now. His hope was that Mitch made it back in time to see Kylie, but at this point he said he would just be glad to see him, period. Randy helped out more, too, mostly by just lounging around on the couch—always stirring up memories—and telling Ethan, in words and in smiles and gestures, that he was doing a good job. And after a while, Ethan had started to believe him. It was still confusing, and if he slowed down he still felt the urge to crawl back into the hallway closet on the seventh floor, but he was hanging on.

Which, actually, now that he thought of it, wouldn’t be his office anymore. The day before Billy had announced that he’d fired the vacationing casino manager and was making Ethan official. “I’ll have the boys move your stuff down by morning.” He thought it would look better, he’d said, to have Ethan there by the time the buyer showed up.

Then he’d winked at Ethan, and Ethan had to go play craps to calm down.

Like a moth to a flame, every now and again he stopped by the roulette table and bet on black. Every now and again he won, but never regularly, and overall, he always lost money. It was, he decided, just a bad game—for the player. For the casino, it was a gold mine. People couldn’t seem to resist the wheel, couldn’t help themselves from betting on black and red and even and odd and their grandmother’s birthday and their anniversary. People always thought they were due, that it was their turn.

Craps, now. Craps was still iffy, but it was a lot more fun, and he came out ahead more than he did behind. He found he did better if he came with a lot of money to the table, if he felt like he could be liberal in his betting. He would lose two hundred dollars steadily over the period of ten minutes, then abruptly shoot up four. It was wild, and it was fun. And so long as he only bet what he could afford, it really was a game.

It was the same with Butterfly Nights. It had been a nightmare when it had just been him and Caryle and Sam scrabbling over sketches, but now that half of Vegas was caught up in the intrigue and the mystery and the outrage of a tournament going up against the World Series of Poker—once they put in their ante, they got caught up in the bluff just like everyone else. They placed their bets, someone rolled the dice, and they forgot that they might lose everything they’d placed on the Pass Line, forgot that the seven could come anytime at all, and let themselves get caught up in the game.

The next hand gave Ethan the button, and it also gave him A
q
K
q
: Big Slick, with a little something extra. He bet carefully, slowly, and he kept his cool as the flop came down 5
q
6
q
2
q
. He drew the bettors in casually, like it didn’t matter, because really, it didn’t. He had nuts on this hand. He was going to win, especially after 9
r
and J
w
came down. Eventually the pot was so high it was obscene, and everyone folded, everyone but he and Randy.

Randy was studying him, but Ethan just looked at him blankly, patiently, and waited for him to call. Because Ethan knew he would.

“All right, wise guy,” Randy said, and tossed in his chips. “Call. Let’s see how your bad boys do with mine.”

Randy laid down 3
e
4
e
. He had a straight.

Ethan laid down his cards, completing his high flush, and blew Randy a kiss.

Randy grunted, but Ethan caught his grin too.

It was different when they were in bed. When they were alone, Ethan let his anxiety out, and Randy took it, spun it out and sent it away: making him laugh, making him moan. Home with Randy was an oasis and asylum: nothing made him feel stronger or more secure than curling up naked in bed beside him and falling asleep as the cats arranged themselves around them. It was good. It was a waiting time, and it felt safe, and it was good.

And then it was over, because then it was November, and the Butterfly Nights began.

Opening
night for Ethan’s Butterfly Nights, Randy decided as he observed its beginning from his station at the bar in the River, was a pretty clever gig, especially considering the “night” began at noon.

That was actually the most clever part. Caryle, never one to miss a moment for more sequins and special effects, had a huge black canvas tent set up over the sidewalk and all the open parking in the casino’s lot, and “night” started as soon as you gave your VIP pass to the bouncers at the flaps. Once inside, guests were amazed by the twinkling light show and occasional “glitter storm” that tumbled over their heads. Even with the portable air-conditioning units she’d brought in, the place was still scalding, but nobody cared. It was cool in a much more important way, and it was exclusive—sort of. There was a steady business of forgery for the passes down the street in a back alley, and several people snuck in through a gap in the canvas around the back. Caryle instructed the staff not to notice this.

Inside on the casino floor, Mandy—hired away for the night (and Ethan hoped forever) from the Golden Nugget—was doing a bang-up job as the floor manager. She kept the tables rolling and the wait staff hopping, and she gave every guest a smile as they passed that assured them they were aces in her book. She also gave out a few special golden chips Caryle had devised as a promotion, which sent certain customers up to the VIP lounge. In reality, this was nothing more than a high-priced bar with butterfly lap dances available for fifty dollars. Nobody even showed any skin, but everybody wanted one of those golden chips. There were even more counterfeit golden chips than there were fake VIP passes. By the time the fireworks went off at dusk and the general public was allowed in, there would hardly be room to move.

Ethan beamed.

“It’s so much better without the slots,” he said when he stopped to kiss Randy on the cheek. “Don’t you think?”

That had been Ethan’s last, most daring move, one Billy had balked at hard. Every casino knew the slots were where the money was made these days, he argued. And Ethan, bless him, had argued back like Randy had never seen him argue but hoped to see him do many, many times in the future.

“That’s right,” he’d said, leaning over Billy’s desk, his expensive suit coat gaping open, his jaw hard and gorgeous and absolutely unwilling to budge an inch on the issue. “Every casino plays that way, Billy.
Every single one.
Every hotel is huge. Every casino has a mall inside. Everyone has the poker room in the back. Everyone fills the lobby with slots. Everyone has expensive entertainment and expensive rooms and expensive drinks and expensive everything they can make expensive. Everyone is exactly the same—except for us. So everyone who doesn’t want to be like everyone else is going to come to us.”

Billy had still looked ashen when they’d hauled the slots out, put more than two-thirds in storage and the rest in the old poker room in the back. The poker tables were now out front, right as you came in the door—all but Billy’s room, which remained exactly where it had always been, and where it stayed sealed, because Crabtree wasn’t in town.

That would change, tonight—in just under an hour, in fact.

“How’s Sam?” Randy asked, and passed Ethan a bottle of water. Slick wasn’t having anything to do with alcohol tonight.

Ethan sipped at it. “He’s backstage, talking to Kylie.”

“He didn’t just garble when he met her? That’s good.”

“No, he was sweet,” Ethan said. “He was very polite, and she was very charming. He kept saying he didn’t want to bother her, but she just said no, he was no trouble at all, and got him talking. When I left, they were discussing the heart graffiti photos she apparently posts on Twitter.”

“Any word on Mitch?”

“Possibly by the show tonight. Sam says he’s being cagey, but he’s past caring about that just now.”

Randy smiled and sipped at his Dirty Whiskey. “And you, Slick? You ready for your big game?”

Ethan nodded, but he looked a little stiff. “I just wish I knew what he was planning. I don’t want to look like a fool.”

“I’m sure you’ll be fine,” Randy assured him, for the thousandth time. Not that he minded. “Though—speaking of fools, what’s my penance for losing the bet to Billy going to be? You said you had something planned.”

“Oh, that,” Ethan said, and he shrugged. “I promised him you’d be on stage and wearing a feather boa by midnight.”

“Fantastic.” Randy downed the last of his drink, then nudged Ethan with his knee. “What you need me for, baby? How can I help?”

Ethan nodded at the poker tables. “Mandy says people are starting to play, but the head dealer, Kari, has several people singled out who don’t know how to play but seem to want to. Could you run the beginners’ table for a while? Build up their confidence so they move to the five dollar tables?”