Sammy Keyes and the Showdown in Sin City (15 page)

I find the liquor store no problem and go inside like I’ve got all the business in the world being there and spot the pay phone next to a rack of skanky magazines. And since I don’t know how long it’ll be before I get booted, I dial Casey’s number quick and keep my back toward the register.

“Come on,” I mutter after the fourth ring, but no one answers.

So I hang up quick before the voice recorder clicks on and eats my money, then I recycle the coins and try again.

And again.

And again.

Finally I give up and try Billy’s number, and on the third ring I hear, “Yallo?”

“Billy!”

“Sammy-keyesta?”

“Yes—have you seen Casey?”

“Uh, negatory. I figured he’d be with you today.”

“Oh, maaaaan!”

“What?”

“I’m an idiot.”

He laughs. “Which is why we’re friends!”

“I’m serious, Billy.” I take a deep breath. “Look, if you hear from him—”

“Wait—you haven’t seen him at
all
?”

“No. I … uh … I’m kinda outta town.”

“Outta town? So he hasn’t given you—” He clams up. “How far outta town?”

“Uh … would you believe Las Vegas?”

“Nevada?”

“Yeah. Nevada. It’s a long story, okay? And I can’t get into it other than to say Casey will know why I’m here. Is there any chance you can track him down and tell him I’m sorry?”

“Sure.”

“Thank you! And I’ll see you on Monday, okay?”

“You mean Tuesday!”

“Oh, right! I forgot we had a three-day weekend.”

He laughs. “You
are
messed up, Sammy-keyesta!”

I laugh, too, and for one brief shining moment after we hang up, I feel happy.

That’s the magic of Billy Pratt.

But two seconds later I’m feeling worse than ever. And after standing there with my gut in knots for a few minutes, I finally break down and call the one person I always seem to turn to when I’m in trouble.

Hudson.

Trouble is, he doesn’t answer his phone, either.

And since
that
makes me feel even
worse
, I talk myself into calling Grams. I mean, I know I’m mad at her, but I also know she must be worried.

And that Casey for sure called her to find out where I was.

Trouble is,
she
doesn’t answer the phone,
either
.

So, great.

I’ve totally struck out.

I try to forget about neglecting Casey and being abandoned and force myself to get back on track. I dig up Pete’s number, but after four rings it rolls over to voice mail. And I’m sure not going to hang around a skanky liquor store waiting for him to call me back, so I don’t leave the number. I just hang up. But then I start thinking that maybe he’s in a busy place and didn’t hear his phone, so I try again.

And again.

And finally I give up and decide to check back at the place where I’d found him the night before. So I leave the liquor store and trudge up the street past the accordion lady and Planet Hollywood and what feels like miles of people to Paris Las Vegas and around the bend.

Too bad for me, the Elvises have left the sidewalk.

“Maaaaaan!” I cry, and now I really
am
panicking. The city lights are up, the sun is down, and I have no idea where to turn, who to call, or what to do.

I don’t know what I was thinking.

Well, actually I do.

I was thinking that I could cruise the streets of Las Vegas and find Elvis.

Smart, huh? But since I couldn’t reach Pete by phone, and since he was the only possible connection to either Candi and Heather or my mother, I had to try.

I rode my skateboard whenever I could, keeping my eyes peeled for Elvises of any kind. Big ones, mini ones … If there really was an Elvis Army, any of them might know where Pete was and why he wasn’t answering his phone.

But the Strip seemed to go on forever, and the farther I went, the fewer people there were out walking, which was good for riding, but when what I was riding through was pretty much just trashy women and bums, I started wishing for more people, not less.

Construction forced me to cross the street, and when I came to a place called Circus Circus, it
really
felt like I’d hit the dregs. Where the rest of the Strip was flashy and huge and
tall
, Circus Circus was a building in the shape of a red-and-white big top tent and looked like it had been
there forever. Also, instead of fancy fountains or statues or palm trees like the other places had, Circus Circus had a lot of cement, and next to it was a weedy lot surrounded by chain-link fencing. I half expected to see a sad, lonely elephant with a big headdress in the lot, but it was pretty shadowy and all I could see was broken bottles and a bunch of shriveled-up weeds.

Now, not only do I have bad history with places that have chain-link fencing and shriveled-up weeds, I really didn’t think Elvis would be hanging around a vacant elephant yard. So I finally turned around and started back the way I’d come.

It’s funny how you can space out when you’re riding a skateboard. Well, unless you’re really
moving
, and then you’ve got to concentrate. But since I was already familiar with the route, and since the sidewalks at this end were pretty open, I wound up riding along on autopilot. And pretty soon I’m back to thinking about how I’d been ditched.

Me!

Ditched!

And by a
mother
.

What kind of mother ditches a thirteen-year-old, let alone in Vegas? It didn’t matter that I was her daughter’s archenemy. She’d stolen my tip—well, that was the only thing that made sense—and then abandoned a thirteen-year-old, one who’d been very polite and helpful, especially considering the snotty way her daughter had acted, and left her to fend for herself in a town full of gamblers and drunks and strippers!

Not that me being safe was
her
problem, but come on!

We were supposed to be working together!

Now, yesterday I would have expected this. But I really thought we’d made some progress. Candi had been pretty normal—especially considering that until this Vegas trip, she’d always come at me like a rabid hissing cat. And Heather
had
gone a whole half hour without calling me loser.

But after I’d mentioned the pin, things had apparently reset to pre-Vegas. Probably because Heather was afraid I would say other things that would knock a hole in the wall of lies she’d built up about me.

What’s funny is, before sitting down to eat with Heather, I hadn’t thought about the pin jab in ages. It had happened over a year ago, and she’d done a bunch of way more vicious things since then, so the jab had sort of faded in my mind.

But now I was thinking about it again, wondering why in the world she’d done it in the first place. I mean, a person doesn’t just go off and jab another person with a pin because they won’t give them some lunch money. It wasn’t like a stick-’em-up where she said, Give me money or I jab you! It was more like a stick-and-
run
where I’d already said no and she’d used that as an
excuse
to jab me.

So as I’m rolling down the Strip, I rewind to that morning when we first met. Heather had been talking to an eighth-grade guy named Taylor when Marissa and I had stepped up to ask for help finding our homeroom. And although Heather had snubbed us and made a crack about
my high-tops, Taylor had been friendly and helpful, which had totally backcombed Heather.

I didn’t get it, that’s for sure. It’s not like we were flirting with Taylor. We were just sort of nervous and lost. But it seemed to flick some possessive switch in Heather’s brain, and before you know it, she’s jabbing me with a pin and I’m punching her in the nose.

After that she became Psycho Heather, constantly looking for a way to get back at me. I always said it was because she didn’t like my shoes, since I really couldn’t explain how she could be so bent out of shape over a war she’d started.

But now the picture of Heather and her dad flashed through my mind, and for the first time I could see that the road through Heather’s Valley of Hatred started
before
I stumbled onto it. That there were signposts
behind
Taylor’s Gulch or the Cliffs of Casey. Signs I hadn’t seen before, because I’d entered the valley from a side road and had concentrated on getting
out
instead of looking back.

“Wow,” I gasped, because as I looked back through the valley now, there was a giant flashing neon sign that was impossible to miss.

W
ARREN’S
E
XIT
.

The girl in the picture with Warren was not the girl I knew. She was carefree and
happy
. And knowing Heather now, there was something really … 
sad
about seeing how she used to be. And as I rode along picturing her with that sunny smile and her arms wrapped around her father’s neck, it hit me that maybe that’s where it all came from.

From trying to hold on.

From being forced to let go.

From feeling left behind.

Abandoned.

That thought actually knocked me off my skateboard and made me pull over. It’s like I couldn’t even hold it in my head, let alone ride a skateboard or even
walk
with it echoing around up there.

Whatever had happened between Candi and Warren, Warren had left, and Heather had been left behind.

Sort of like Lady Lana had left me behind.

And it wasn’t that Warren had actually
abandoned
Heather, but people would say the same thing about my mom. Lady Lana checks in, “tries to communicate,” and sometimes actually visits. And
she
would say that at least half our problems come from me being “disengaged” or “antagonistic” or just plain “bratty”—words I’d have no problem using to describe Heather.

I tell you, when you find some deep connection between you and your archenemy, it is scary stuff. And really, I didn’t know what to do with this little revelation. I’d had a pang of sympathy for Heather when I’d seen the picture of her and her dad, but now?

This was worse than a pang of sympathy.

This was us in the same boat.

Us rowing with only one oar.

Us trying not to drown in our little oceans of hurt feelings … which had somehow merged into one gigantic ocean of mixed-up hurt feelings.

I was back in the busy part of the Strip now, so I just
stood off to the side, blinking and thinking and wanting to go back to not having made this connection. I mean, this made things so
complicated
. It was much easier when Heather was simply psycho.

After trying to make sense of everything flashing through my brain, I found myself wanting to
talk
to Heather.

Crazy, I know!

I mean, for one thing, she wouldn’t listen. She’d call me a loser and shut me down before I could get out what I wanted to say.

And … I didn’t really
know
what I wanted to say.

There was so much Heather didn’t know about me. And she wouldn’t believe I really understood her situation unless she did know. But I couldn’t tell her anything without risking everything. If she ratted me and Grams out, we’d be kicked out of the Highrise, and Grams couldn’t afford to live anywhere else.

And how could I risk that—
why
would I risk that—just to patch together some sort of peace with Heather?

A peace she would probably just reject anyway.

My brain felt really muddled, and I stood there for the longest time, trying to sort things out. And even though part of me kept reminding the
other
part of me that I’d been
ditched in Las Vegas
by Heather and her mother, my new little revelation kept getting in the way of being totally ticked off.

Which ticked the first part of me off big-time!

I mean, come on!

I’d been ditched in Sin City!

Finally I started down the Strip again. I was obviously getting nowhere standing around thinking, and since I was having zero luck tracking down any Elvises, I wanted to get back to the pay phone and try calling Pete again.

And maybe Grams.

And Hudson.

And definitely Casey.

Because even riding my skateboard couldn’t keep that panicky feeling from bubbling up again. It was now dark, I was exhausted, and I had no plan.

I did keep my eyes peeled for other pay phones, but I didn’t see any, so I eventually wound up back at the liquor store.

The guy behind the counter was busy watching his surveillance monitor, so I slipped over to the pay phone, and the first thing I did was call Casey. I just wanted to
talk
to someone, you know? And Casey was my number one choice.

There was no answer, though, so I tried Hudson.

No answer there, either, so I stared at the phone for a long time and decided not to call Grams. I wasn’t really
as
mad at her anymore—not that I knew why—but it seemed kind of heartless to call her and tell her what was going on. It was better for her to think I was mad at her and in Las Vegas with Marissa and her mother than to know the truth.

I also thought about calling Marissa, because she had to be home by now, only that felt selfish. She had plenty of worries of her own without me piling on, and besides, if she wasn’t home dealing with McKenze madness, she was
probably getting ready to escape to the Valentine’s dance with the rest of my friends.

So I skipped Grams and Marissa and called Elvis. And after the second ring, I about jumped for joy when I heard, “You’ve reached the King!”

“Pete!”

“Who’s this?”

“Sammy!”

He hesitates. “You’re not calling from the usual number.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve been ditched. I’m guessing they tricked a tip out of you.”

“Tricked a—well, that would explain why you stood me up.”

“I stood you up?”

“I waited for you in front of the Hard Rock like we agreed. You were gonna square up for the tips. I was booked to do an appearance at a party, so I couldn’t wait around forever, but when you didn’t show up and didn’t answer your phone, I figured you’d gotten what you wanted and stiffed me.”