Murder in Vegas

ODDSMAKER by Edward Wellen

Going down, I lifted my indoor shades brow-high to double-check, by the dim light of the elevator car, my final draft of the Dulcimer’s morning lines.

The numbers hadn’t rearranged themselves since my last. look. I still felt uneasy about them, but they were the best I could do with what I had. I stifled a sigh and slid the shades back in place.

I got out at the gaming floor, holding the printout close to my vest out of habit but ready to post at the sports book.

Then I spotted Betty. Betty Lyons, who runs the beauty salon concession and is her own best ad. Betty, who makes my heart beat faster.

To keep from seeing her, I had skipped our daily dawn session at the Dulcimer’s fitness center. Now I jammed the printout in my pocket and made myself one with the potted plant bookending a stand of slot machines.

Betty flagged a passing cocktail waitress and spoke over the ambient whirr and buzz. “Sally, have you seen Al Milledge?”

Wearing the uniform smile, Sally glanced past Betty, straight through the space in the greenery, into my shades.

A better-than-even bet: I shook my head.

It paid off with a nice ambiguity. “Sorry, Miss Lyons.”

I curved a limber green limb to mime a tip of the hat. Into my mental tickler file went: Tip Sally some spendable green.

Betty nodded ambiguous thanks. Sally went on her smile-lit way. Betty briskly mounted the stairs to the beauty salon on the mezzanine, all the while maintaining her stakeout of the sports book.

“Do you mind?” A woman with a paper cup of quarters elbowed in to arm-wrestle the end slot machine.

“Luck, lady.” An ambiguous wish.

Wasted on a mind set on hitting the jackpot at the end of the dream rainbow. She was already deaf to all but her deposited quarter. In her world, I existed only as an impediment. When I gave her elbow room I ceased to exist.

In my world, the problem was to reach the sports book uncaught. Close by, an exit to the parking lot offered itself.

Trouble was, I’d have to step outside the Dulcimer, pick my way through the parked cars, re-enter by another door. I could take the unconditioned furnace blast that would hit me. But the light…

I had blocked just how bad it had been the last time I ventured outside the Dulcimer during daylight hours. So I found myself betting that though my shades were neither UV-proof nor wraparound, if I moved fast enough, I could beat-or at least bear-the light.

The door opened for me. UV hit straight on and raw sunlight edged in. The explosive dazzle brought back why I stayed indoors during daylight hours.

After a few unsteady steps, I made for a palm tree. Fake but not a mirage, and cast real shadow.

I never reached that oasis. I bumped into a hurrying figure, scattered in semblance but solid in substance, and my shades jarred off.

A laid-back drawl. “Watch where you’re going, friend.”

Fractured light flashed, splinters of sunlight pierced. In a zigzag jungle of chrome and glass, headlight-eyes sprang to false life and burned into mine. I froze like a deer, unable to see or stir.

“Sorry.” My own voice jump-started me. I bent to feel around for my shades and we bumped again.

“No, Al. I’m sorry. I didn’t see it’s you… Don’t move… Here you go.”

He handed me the shades. I put them on, for all the good they did me. I saw after-images of the same scattered semblance of a man. But the laid-back drawl had finally sunk in. “Thanks, Chuck.”

Charles Everett Owens, multibillionaire CEO of DBA, the juggernaut conglomerate, oddly without his entourage.

I have two points in the Dulcimer Hotel & Casino, and had met Chuck Owens when he dickered with the board a few years back for controlling interest. But the Nevada Gaming Control Board began a media-prodded look into the Dulcimer’s alleged mob ties. Chuck lost interest in any kind of interest. He backed out, cartooned as saying, “Tain’t that I need the taint.” It surprised me. He could’ve put himself forward as a white knight and got himself a very sweet deal. And me a nice profit. But he had smiled at my paltry two points at our first meeting; I overcame the temptation to make the suggestion. Not the first time pride has cost me.

Now a clamp on my elbow. “Let me lend you a hand, Al.”

The friendly butcher in my home town had a way of remarking on the weather-“Nice day out, ain’t it?” or “Seem like it’s gonna rain?”-as he made to weigh the meat. That was your cue to look out. To turn your head and look out through the store window, if you were foolish. If you were wise, to keep your eyes on the scale and look out for his thumb.

I couldn’t keep an eye on Chuck’s friendly hand; I could wonder what was in it for him to spring to my aid. Many a collision is a collusion; the two of us had been in a rush. My time was merely measurement, his was MONEY.

“Appreciate it, Chuck. Can’t see a thing for the light.” My eyelids felt grainy, my eyeballs red hot, and for once I was not too proud.

The vise tightened. “My pleasure, Al.”

He had the build to build on, and more than likely a state-of-the-art exercise room and a world-class personal trainer. He surely felt, and showed he felt, like a guy in great shape.

“Thanks, Chuck. I’ll be fine once I get back inside.”

Back in we went. But he didn’t let go.

Just as well. I wasn’t fine. Everything was a blinding blur.

“Where we heading, Al?”

I didn’t want Betty to see me this way. “The elevator. Penthouse floor.”

Before we covered much carpet, Chuck’s grip transmitted sudden stiffness and we stopped dead.

A solid but wavery shadow blocked our path and a gravel voice backed it up. “Are you okay, Mr. Milledge?”

I grinned. “I am now. Chuck, meet Doug Page, our chief ofsecurity. A touch too much of the sun, Doug; Mr. Owens is lending me a hand.”

“Oh. Sure. Sorry I didn’t recognize you, Mr. Owens.”

I felt Chuck shrug. “No law says you have to. It’s good to see the Dulcimer’s security so quick off the mark.”

“Thanks, Mr. Owens.”

“Say, Doug.” My free hand fished the morning-line sheet out of my shirt pocket. “Will you give this to Joanna at the sports book?”

“Glad to, Mr. Milledge.”

Chuck started off with me, then stopped, also with me. “Oh, Page. Would you tell the front desk I’ll be in Mr. Milledge’s suite for the next few minutes? After that, I’ll be in my room if there are any calls.”

“Sure thing, Mr. Owens.”

Chuck steered me to the elevator and pressed the top button. A pair got on with us. On the ride up I caught a whispered “That’s Al Milledge” and a whispered-back “Zat so?”

His grip tightened, but he waited for the couple to get off before he spoke. “The price of fame.”

“Yeah.” I couldn’t help needling him. “How soon they forget, though. I didn’t hear ‘That’s Chuck Owens.’”

The smiley voice broadened its cheeks. “That’s because you can’t see my beat-up outfit and my week’s beard. I’ve been desert-ratting.”

“So that’s why Doug moved in.” Here I’d been thinking of Chuck Owens with the styled hair and the custom tailoring, extremely personable and eminently presentable.

“I must’ve looked like some loser putting the arm on the great Al Milledge.” By the tone, a fat grin shaped Chuck’s voice. “Page let me see the bulge of his gun when he braced me. Good man. A suspicious mind in a strong body.”

The car made its final stop and we got out.

“Mind if I ask why the desert-ratting?” Just making conversation as I gestured toward my suite.

“Every now and again I need to get away from civilization. Call it rest and recreation. How about you, Al? Aside from your little foray just now, do you ever leave the Dulcimer?”

“Haven’t got sick of it yet.” I came up against a door. “Here we are.”

I got out my card key, felt for the electric lock. On the second swipe I faced the magnetic strip the right way through the slot. Once inside, I turned and held out my hand.

“Thanks, Chuck.”

“I’m coming in. To see you safe, and to talk.”

“Fine.” If he wanted to pick my brains, I wanted to pick his. I pointed to where the wet bar ought to be. “Help yourself while I find the eye ointment in my medicine cabinet.”

“Take your time, Al. Mix you anything?”

“Plain soda, thanks.” I wanted a clear head while dealing with him.

I guessed he felt the same way. I heard no stirring or shaking while I tended to my eyes.

After we raised glasses, I beat him to the punch with what had been on my mind. Within the past week, three of the biggest bookies in Las Vegas had gone missing, leaving a big hole in my calculations.

“Chuck, I’m worried about Rinker, O’Dea, and Todman. Have you heard anything?”

“Exactly what I meant to ask you. I’m left dangling too. Laid bets with all three. Got no feedback. Reason I’ve hopped to Vegas.” The drawl drew closer. “When’s the last you heard from any of them?”

“Monday night Todman phoned to ask what I knew about Goforit. I drew a blank, so I stalled him; said I’d get back to him in a few minutes. Figured Goforit was the name of a horse. But when I checked the records I couldn’t find a Goforit in any stable. Called back to tell him so, but Todman never answered.”

“Cops ask you about that?”

“No. I felt it was confidential, so didn’t report it, and apparently the cops haven’t traced his calls.” Bookies and oddsmakers tend to use cutouts to spare tender Fed ears when we might seem to be tendering betting advice.

“I see your point, Al. The-”

Teletype chatter interrupted. Weekend scores coming in. Though I had put gauze pads over my eyes, I brightened. This iswhen it all comes together, and I could barely rein in my drive to pore over the figures.

Chuck’s smile-shaped voice. “The man of action.”

I swung my head around for a blind look at the devices that keep me in touch with the sports world. “I guess I do cover a fair bit of action.”

“A man of virtual action, I should say. I bet you love the stats better than the players and the teams and the games.”

The words were mild but the scorn in his tone stung.

My real world was this room. True, I had an easy life at the Dulcimer. Everything I needed was at hand. But my world was a solipsistic construct, narrowed by an eye condition and a loner inclination, ruled-no, inhabited-by a man unable to share it with the woman he loved…

I heard Chuck making to leave my world. I stood up and put on a grin. “You got me pegged, Chuck. I factor in the pulled groins and the muddy tracks and the shaved points to arrive at the numbers, but the numbers themselves are whole and clean and elegant.”

“Keep crunching ’em, Al. See you around. Take it easy.”

I stuck my hand out and braced myself for a bonecrusher but he seemed not to have seen it.

After he left, I stood rooted inside the door, unclasped hand still outstretched.

Take it easy, the man had said. Disdainfully.

Did I already take it too easy? Deep down, did I fear to go out there and put myself on the line? Had I walled myself in with a psychosomatic ailment?

I tore free. Found my phone, thought to hell with eavesdroppers, dialed by feel. Reached the unlisted number of Lee Vandemark, a Wall Streeter of some note. Made with the amenities.

Then, “Lee, what’s your take on Chuck Owens?”

Vandemark’s tone changed as he shifted a quid pro quo in his cheek. “Funny you should call right now, Al. I’m taking a good friend out to Aqueduct in a few minutes. It would be nice if I had a winner to impress her with. Is there a hayburner you like?”

I grimaced. An oddsmaker doesn’t pick winners. An oddsmaker sets odds to make events even. Like everyone else, Vandemarkmisunderstood. He expected me to make like the Delphic oracle.

“Give me a minute, Lee.” I visualized my morning line and made my pick.

The fifth at Aqueduct was a 1-1/16 mile race for fillies and mares. The $150,000 purse would draw decent competition. Miss Sugar, a dark chestnut filly in good condition, had shown she could run on sod, was comfortably weighted. Yet most bettors trying to handicap the race would be passing her up. What they would see as a negative was a positive. Her last race had been seven furlongs on dirt against colts and geldings, and she had eaten their dust. Still, she had fought for her head to make more speed. This meant the rider was saving her for her next race. As far as equine speed and endurance go, seven furlongs on dirt equates with 1-1/16 mile on grass. So now, running against her own kind, and with the crowd underrating her, she would win at the best possible price. Price didn’t matter to Vandemark; he wanted a winner. But all the public selectors had overlooked Miss Sugar, so that she was an overlay, had a longer price than her real chance of winning. To me, she seemed a shoo-in-unless the saddle slipped after a half mile and the jockey couldn’t handle her properly, and unless a thousand other mishaps.

I spoke with assurance but crossed my fingers. “Bet your wad on Miss Sugar in the fifth.”

“Meshugge?”

I corrected him. He thanked me. I got him back on track.

“So, Lee, the bottom line on Chuck Owens?”

“Thinking of buying DBA stock? Don’t quote me, but I wouldn’t. He’s spread himself too thin. Built a house of cards. Has to come up with a lot of cash soon or fold his hand.”

“Does he own property in the desert around Vegas?”

Thoughtful silence, then, “Owns personally, directly? Not that I know of. But at several removes he controls Goforit.”

Goforit. Todman’s last talk with me. “What the hell is Goforit?”

“A ghost town.” We wound up the amenities. Goforit. A ghost town, not a horse. And Chuck Owens had chosen not to set me straight on that.

I asked around, starting with the Dulcimer’s concierge.

Goforit turned out to be a gone and almost forgotten straggle of deserted buildings along a lone dusty street in the middle of miles and miles of miles and miles. Goforit stood a half-day’s drive north of Las Vegas, on a desert track that ran off a side road west of US 95. Goforit’s hopeful founders in 1872 thought they were in California. Goforit, the whole ruined and abandoned shebang, went for chump change a dozen years ago when Caravan Pictures bought the ghost town with the idea of using it as a film location and tourist attraction. But Caravan itself had given up the ghost, become a shell corporation with just the rights to its old films and a few odds and ends like Goforit. And Chuck Owens’s DBA had acquired the successor shebang for inflated chump change.

As soon as I could see comfortably, I looked it up on the Internet. In a brief flurry of publicity that I had missed at the time, Caravan had touted its plans for Goforit, though the Web site had faded with Caravan. But the ghost of the Web site was cached, and I found thumbnails of Goforit. The full-size images showed your generic western street: shots of the buildings lining it, from the livery stable at one end to the undertaker at the other, with the saloon and the hotel and the bank in between, and the boothill off to one side.

My doorbell rang. The peephole imaged a distorted Doug Page. I let him in.

“What is it, Doug? No trouble, I hope.”

“Just making sure you’re okay, Mr. Milledge.”

“I’m fine, thanks.”

“You look better. Thinking of going out?”

“What makes you ask?”

“The concierge tells me you been inquiring about ghost towns.”

“A particular ghost town. Goforit.”

“Yeah. He says he told you Goforit is private property, no trespassing, but he has a whole list of other ghost towns around here you’re free to visit.”

“Not interested in other ghost towns. Goforit or bust.”

“Some special reason?”

You can never be sure of a man’s price, but so far Doug had a good track record for trustworthiness. I leveled with him. “Just before Todman went missing, he phoned me and mentioned Goforit. Todman’s a friend, and I’d like to nose around there, sniff what I can sniff.”

Doug let out a heavy breath. “Todman’s a friend of mine too.” His glabella creased; he pinched his philtrum. “Tell you what; I got time coming, and a new Hummer itching for a workout. If you’re game, I’ll drive you there and help you look.” Again the workout with the space between the eyebrows and the indentation under the nose.

Before I thought, I said, “You’re on.”

“Great. We can leave in an hour, if that suits you.”

I nodded.

He turned, turned back. “Slap on sunscreen and insect repellent, wear Western boots and a Stetson. I’ll get spring water and picnic lunches from room service and gas up.”

“Fine. By the way, Doug, is Chuck Owens still at the Dulcimer”

“Yeah. Booked as Bud Kesten. Comped for as long as he wants.” He shook his head at himself. “I know the A list; I shoulda made him on sight.” He cocked his head. “Thinking of asking for his help?”

Already I regretted mentioning Chuck’s name. “On second thought, I better not. His time is too valuable.”

While I changed, I caught the Aqueduct results. Miss Sugar had been scratched. Vandemark couldn’t fault me for that.

Doug returned as I secured my braided-leather bolo tie with its turquoise-nugget-center Navajo-silver slide. A gift from Betty. Seldom worn because of the “tie” connotation but reassuring now on leaving the Dulcimer.

He looked me over. “All set?”

I nodded, and passed him a Mapquest printout of the way from the Dulcimer’s mosaic threshold to the dead heart of Goforit.

He grinned and drew pints of spring water from a pocket of his bush jacket. “Gotta keep ourselves hydrated.” He uncapped them barehanded, handed me one, raised his. “One for the road.”

I lifted mine and drank.

A throbbing headache knocked me awake. I felt weight on my wrists. I traded inner flashing for a squint at outer glare, and saw shiny handcuffs. I shot up-in my mind. In body, I sat up stiffly. Upon a bunk in a jail cell. At the head of the bunk, touching the wall, my Stetson rested upside down, my wraparound sunglasses folded inside. I put them on.

My cell was one of a pair, with matching glassless barred windows that showed the thickness of the adobe bricks.

In the other cell a bundle of clothes lay on the bunk.

I swung my feet to the floor, balanced myself upright, and stumbled to my window. Endless desert stared pitilessly back; its hot breath blew past. I could put words to its whisper: Thirsty? Too bad.

I turned from the voice of the sand breeze to the ticking of a clock. It hung beside the door in the facing wall. The minute hand quivered at ten to twelve. Nausea hit me. I dry-heaved in the chemical toilet.

The bundle of clothes in the other cell twitched and sat up.

Doug Page.

He rose painfully. A black eye, a sheepish look. He opened his lopsided, puffy mouth as though to speak, but only blood trickled out. He sleeved his lips two-handedly; handcuffed like me.

I eyed him stonily, accusing him with my gaze.

He turned his head away, admitting guilt. He had slipped me knockout drops and delivered me to Chuck Owens.

Bootsteps broke the heavy silence.

Doug stiffened, then backed into the far corner of his cell.

The door opened. I saw the sheriff’s tin star before I saw the sheriff’s tan face.

Chuck Owens. An outsize revolver weighed down his gunbelt. Another gunbelt and holstered revolver hung over his left shoulder.

I found as I spoke dryly what speaking dryly is. “What role you playing, Chuck? Kidnapper? Holding me for ransom?”

Chuck smiled broadly. “Ransom? A drop in the bucket. A pee in the sea. If you want it by the numbers: You’re under arrest. I’ll read you your right.”

“Supreme Court cutting ’em down to one these days?”

“I’m the Supreme Court.” His right hand slapped his holster. “You have the right to outdraw and outshoot me-if you can.”

“Trial by gun duel? What for?”

“Same as Page here. Your life.” He thrust the spare gunbelt through Doug’s bars. “Here, Page. Take your weapon.”

Doug shrank farther, trying to be the shadow of himself.

Chuck dropped the spare to the cell floor, made a lightning draw and triggered a thunder shot. I had heard of the new Smith & Wesson’s.50-caliber Magnum revolver. Now I had both seen and heard it.

A new hole through the adobe wall let in daylight. The blast had blinded me to the fact that he had nicked Doug’s left ear; he could have blown it off.

Doug touched his dripping ear, looked dully at his bloody fingers, wiped them on his bush jacket, shuffled forward as though shackled with leg irons, bent for the gunbelt, tried but failed to get it around and on.

Chuck leaned against the facing wall, arms folded, watching patiently-too patiently, enjoyably-till Doug figured out a way. Doug stretched the gunbelt across his bunk, lay down, brought the ends together over his waist, and buckled up.

A slow, steady creaking outside brought a twisted smile to Doug’s face, a mere twitch, as though he had for a flash forgotten his fix.

The creaking continued. Not the swinging of weathered signs or loose-hanging doors in the breeze, but a heavy tread and the agony of put-upon boards. Then one last loud creak, and silence.

Chuck grinned and glanced at the clock. Five minutes to noon. “Showdown time.”

He unlocked Doug’s cell door.

Doug’s wounded mouth withdrew into his last line of defense-tight silence. Without looking my way, he shuffled out, still as though shackled.

I strained to hear beyond the closed door. At noon on the dot, Chuck’s voice rang out. “Go for it!”

A full minute passed. An empty full minute. Then one thunderous gunshot. Hard upon its echo, a creepy giggle.

Chuck slid a beaten copper tray into my cell, then leaned back under three o’clock.

I couldn’t muffle belly rumble, but damned if I’d rush to grab food and drink. I gave the thick ham on rye, the beaded can of Sprite, and the polished Granny Smith apple a bored glance, waited a few long beats before picking the tray up. Slowly I carried it to the bunk, slowly seated myself, slowly pulled the tab, slowly swished a cold mouthful before slowly swallowing.

Now I could speak without croaking. I nodded at Doug’s cell. “Why?”

“Because I can.”

“No. The real reason.”

“That is the real reason. I need to and want to. And because I can, I do. Business and pleasure. Dual reason, duel method.” Chuck smiled boyishly. “You’re wondering how I select my-uh-opponents. Never at random. Serially. One thing leads to another. Take Rinker, O’Dea, and Todman. Couldn’t let ’em put the squeeze on me for my losses. Gave each his chance to settle accounts. And you were next in line.”

“Why me?”

“Because I respect you. You’re the likeliest guy in Vegas to figure out what’s happening and who’s behind it. So you were already my mark when Page interposed himself. Don’t weep for him. He jumped at the chance to put the snatch on you. Another twofer; I’ve offed a double-crosser, forestalled a shakedown.”

“He had it coming. But I can do without your respect”

“In a way I’m doing you a favor. You’ve been playing the game of life with abstractions. Now face up to reality, play with your life.”

I put the apple core on the tray beside the empty Sprite can and fat stripped from the ham.

He beckoned for the tray.

Damn. He was too watchful; I had no hope of slicing it through the bars at his Adam’s apple.

On his way out, he paused and turned. “Since you’re playing under a handicap, I’ll give you a rare treat. I’ll be back at five and show you around Goforit.”

After his footfalls faded away, I tested the window bars. Blistering to the touch. I found a handkerchief in my otherwise empty pockets, padded a hand, tested again. Shakeproof.

The edge of my bolo slide served to flake adobe from the base of the central bar.

At six to five, I knocked off, and brushed and blew the handful of dust outside.

Chuck’s face loomed in the window. “Chip away, Al. The bars are set deep, top and bottom.”

Small satisfaction that some dust had got on his face.

On our way out through the sheriff’s office, Chuck tossed his key ring into a desk drawer.

The open air closed in on me. But this was the shady side of the street, and the Stetson and the sunglasses helped hold daylight at a tolerable level.

Across the street, the Nye County Trust was another adobe building. All the rest were warped and weathered frame unpainted the gray of time. One fresh touch: ugly bright blue bench in front of Jeff’s Hardware.

No signs or doors creaked in the hot breeze.

Nobody in the street. No body in the street.

A big rusty spot in the dirt marked the ex. From that point the track of a single wheel bit its way out of town. Chuck seized my left arm and swung me around. “This way, Al.”

From the sheriff’s office, we clomped along the wooden sidewalk formed by the joined porches of Goforit’s establishments. Past the hardware store, the barber shop, the feed store, then down steps to the ground and past the smithy, to the building that marked Goforit’s end or beginning: Scanlon’s Livery Stable.

Chuck let go to swing the high doors wide. I moved on my own into blessed dimness.

No neighs, no restless hooves, no swishing tails, no horsy smells. And hitching racks along the way had been unused. Goforit was a no-horse town. That didn’t surprise me. What surprised me: no horseless carriage, no Hummer.

Chuck had knocked out the stalls to make the stable a hangar.A Sikorsky helicopter and drums of aviation fuel took most of the space.

I cleared my throat. “You flew Page and me here?”

“That I did, Al.”

An oversized mattress filled one corner. A trapeze-like contraption hovered two feet above the mattress.

I pointed. “That where you bed down?”

He laughed. “Hell, no. I rough it at the hotel. That comes next.”

A faint clatter grew louder.

Chuck grinned. “C’mon.” He stepped back outside and megaphoned through cupped hands to someone up the street. “I’m here with Milledge.”

By the time I joined him, my fingertips had picked up oily grit from the drums and smeared it over my cheekbones, under my sunglasses. We passed the smithy and stepped onto the wooden sidewalk.

Down the middle of the street came a beachball of a boy in undershirt and shorts. He pushed a toy wheelbarrow. A toy shovel and a toy cooler rattled in the barrow. He packed a toy gun. But as he came closer, the toy objects grew mansize and the boy became the most man I’ve seen in the flesh. He’d’ve busted a carnival weight-guesser’s scale. I’d say between seven hundred and eleven hundred pounds. (Some spread, I know, but I’m no weight-guesser.) That explained the oversize mattress in the livery stable. The high and wide doors would be his only fit.

Chuck turned to me. “That’s Bud Kesten, Goforit’s caretaker. Goes with a ghost town: he’s not all here.”

Bud had sharp ears and a high, wheezy voice. “Yeah, I ain’t all here.”

He giggled. “Sometimes I goes up the trail a piece, and sometimes I goes down the trail a piece, to freshen them ‘Keep out’ signs.” He pulled at his undershirt to unforeshorten his tin star. “I’m deppity sheriff.”

Chuck stopped us at the hotel. I made out the faded fancy letters of “Posada” over the door. We waited for Bud to come abreast.

“Hose everything down, Bud.”

Bud stopped, sweating profusely. He was probably older than the thirty he looked. Fullblown flesh nullified facial wrinkles,but clearly he pondered. He brightened. “Gotcha, sheriff. Don’t want flies.”

“Good man.”

Bud eyed his vast shadow wistfully, as though wishing he could benefit from casting it, then trundled manfully by dry cracked watering troughs and rickety hitching racks on his way to the stable.

Chuck ushered me into the Posada, past the untended reception counter, waved me upstairs ahead of him, and unlocked the first door we came to.

At the sudden chill an ah! escaped me.

He grinned and pointed ceilingward. “If you had come to in the Sikorsky, you’d’ve seen the solar panels on the roof. Power for air-conditioning, electric lights, refrigerator-freezer in the shed out back that Bud can walk into.” He gestured to a desktop computer. “And you’d’ve seen the satellite dish that links me to DBA and the Web.”

On the screen a gopher popped up from a hole here, surveyed the emptiness, disappeared, popped up from a hole elsewhere.

I looked around at the furnishings. Chuck had skimped on nothing but good taste.

When I turned back, the screen saver had given way to the DBA logo. Chuck typed in “Fourtwoone.”

“Pretty careless of you, Chuck. I see your password.”

“What does that tell you about the odds, Al? It oughta shake you that I don’t care.”

But he blocked the screen with his body as some numbers scrolled.

They put him in a bad mood, confirming Vandemark’s assessment. I winced. Chuck would take it out on me. And did.

“Let’s get on with the damn tour.” He hustled me out and down.

The Last Chance Saloon. Pushing through the batwings triggered the player piano. Ghostly fingers tickled the ivories.

Chuck saw I didn’t recognize the tune. “Stephen Foster’s ‘Voices That Are Gone.’”

“The words are gone too.”

“Good point. I’ll commission Marlene Dietrich to sing the lyrics.”

“She’s long gone.”

“Don’t play smart, Al, and don’t play dumb. Money can do anything. I’ll have a computer whiz program Dietrich’s voice.”

“Good for you.” I spoke absently, taking in the long bar. The brass spittoon at the foot of it and the bung-starter on the shelf behind it looked good to bean Chuck with but were out of reach. Chairs and tables were at hand. I heaved a heavy sigh and rested my palms on a chair.

Chuck saw but said nothing, even looked away.

I nerved myself to put everything I had behind the swing and found myself hefting hardly anything.

He whirled with a ready fist, then smiled as I gently set the chair down.

“A breakaway.” He waved his hand around. “Goes for most furniture in here. Made of yucca wood. Caravan Pictures used them in barroom brawls to clobber stunt men harmlessly.”

We cast long shadows as we jaywalked across to the Nye County Trust building.

Inside, behind the high carved-oak railings, a huge iron safe stood against the wall. Chuck put a hand on the dial, then faced me and raised an eyebrow.

I remembered his password. “I’ll stick with a winning combination: DBA. Four, two, one.”

“I’m gonna miss you, Al.”

“In more ways than one, I trust.”

He twirled the dial, pulled the safe door wide. “Here’s your trust.”

I cleared my throat. “Some tourist attraction. An empty safe.”

He reached in. I heard the click of a hidden catch. He began to swing the safe away from the wall. He stopped himself, raised a listening hand.

Creaking neared.

He strode to the bank entrance, leaned out. “Bud!”

A wheezy sigh. “Yeah, sheriff?”

“Fetch two cans of Sprite.”

Another wheezy sigh. “Yeah, sheriff.” Creaking faded. Bud Kesten, deppity sheriff, spectator, gravedigger, and gofer.

Chuck shut the front door and came back. He swung the safeall the way and we passed through the opening into the hidden vault.

My skin crawled. Mounted trophy heads. Many more than three. Chuck had a long, hidden history. But my gaze fixed on the missing bookies. Rinker, with his heavy-lidded eyes; O’Dea, with his bandido mustache; Todman, with his frozen grin. Peering out of portholes in a Stygian vessel. I pulled my gaze from the heads and took in the rest of the room.

I played the friendly butcher. I pointed to a strongbox resting on a shelf. “What’s in the box?” His cue to shift his look to the box.

“Diamonds for a rainy day.” He smiled big at the box.

I edged back, set myself to whirl and leap for the opening.

Without turning his head, he reached out and held me from darting out and sealing him in with his diamonds and his trophies.

“Not so fast, Al. I wanna show you where you go. Right next to Todman. That’s your rightful spot, not Page’s.” He squeezed the nape of my neck. “Now we can head back.” Sly stress on “head.”

The walk shook to Bud’s tread as we left the bank. He’d made good time.

Bud handed us cold cans of Sprite and we cut across toward jail. I fumbled with the tab, nearly let the slick can slip through sweaty palms, nursed the drink super-carefully, all to fall behind and put a giggling Bud between myself and Chuck.

I spoke casually, but tried to get it all in before Chuck could shut me up. “Bud, do you know there’s a vault behind the old iron safe? Dial four-two-one, reach in for the catch, and you’ll find a box full of diamonds.” I speeded up both my words and my feet as Chuck started rounding Bud. “I bet he’ll add your head to those in the vault if he catches you even peeking into the bank, so get him fir-”

I barely had time to tighten myself against what I felt coming. It was worth the knockdown blow. Chuck, with his no-loose-ends philosophy, now had to kill Bud as soon as he found a replacement. And Bud, no matter how sluggish his body, now had the frantic thought planted in his mind. I had changed the dynamics of their relationship. I hoped it would change theodds in my favor in my very near future. I looked up from the ground at Chuck and felt like smiling, but my face told me I must look like Doug.

Chuck hauled me up by my bracelets. “Brought it on yourself, Al. You had to try and wake up sleeping dogs.”

“See what he thinks of you, Bud? A sleeping dog.”

Bud wheezed a halfhearted chuckle and pushed me along.

“Wait.” Chuck planted one hand on my chest and slapped me with the other.

My sunglasses flew off. He stared at my smudges.

“How the hell-” He grabbed my joined hands, pried open a fist. My fingertips told him. “The drums in the stable. Gotta hand it to you, Al. You put one over on me.”

I couldn’t see how it happened; he moved and my sunglasses cracked and ground under his feet.

“Sorry, Al. An accident.”

As he locked me back in my cell, Chuck bowed like room service. “Your last-meal request, sir?”

I squinted at him, unable to tell if his face matched his words. His concern for form, sane or insane? I answered, sanely or insanely, “A candlelight supper with a lovely woman.”

A specific woman. Betty. I could hear her voice: Al, I need commitment. And I could see her face when my words would not come.

Chuck brought me back. “Be serious.”

“I am serious.” I was seeing the light-and the light hurt.

At seven p.m. Chuck slid the last meal into my cell. The room had a ceiling bulb, so the memorial candle burned palely in its glass on the tray. I failed to appreciate the steak dinner and the vintage claret.

Full in body, empty in spirit, I waited till Chuck had gone. Then I used the bolo slide to slice a pair of one-eighth-inch slits in the brim of my Stetson, and frayed the edges. With the brim pulledlow over my eyes, and the cheekbone smears reducing glare, I would not be shooting blindly… if I had time to draw and shoot at all. I hit the hay with that happy thought.

Riding to the rescue, the cavalry raised a drumming thunder and a storm cloud of dust. The commander held up his gloved hand, reined in, and the troop stopped. The thundering ended, the cloud rolled over men and horses. They grew as grainy as the dust, and all vanished.

I sat up, made out nine-thirty, and tried to piece it together. An outside cue had entered my dream and awakened me to the all-too-real Goforit nightmare.

Bootsteps and the outer door creaking open and Chuck’s voice ushering people in. “Inside, friend. Step right in, honey. Fear not, your motorcycle’s perfectly safe.”

The rattle of keys.

The inner door opened. A biker couple. Male: mid-thirties, bandanna’d head, nose ring, shaved hash marks in his eyebrows, steel-studded belt. Female: teenage, cropped hair, bellybutton ring, shrinkwrap Levi’s. Both dusty and weary and didn’t have to be stoned to look spaced-out.

They stopped dead and stared at me while Chuck opened the other cell.

“Enter, folks.”

The guy found his voice first. “You’re arresting us? What for?”

“Trespassing on private property. Ignoring the warning signs.”

“Hold on, Sheriff. I told you we lost our way to Death Valley. We followed a desert track, it got dark, we saw your few lights.”

“Step in, make yourselves comfortable. We’ll straighten it out tomorrow.”

“No room at the Posada?”

“Want another charge? Resisting arrest.”

The girl tugged the guy’s arm. “Let’s get some sleep. I’m dead.”

They went in. Chuck locked the cell and left.

The guy looked at me. “What you in for? Spitting on the sidewalk?”

“You won’t believe me.”

“Sure I will. That hick sheriff is running a tourist trap, collecting phony fines.”

“That hick sheriff is Chuck Owens, head of DBA. Goforit is his private game preserve. He stages gun duels and collects human heads.”

The bikers locked gazes and busted out laughing.

Chuck came back with two pairs of handcuffs. He beckoned me close, rolled his eyes toward the bikers. “Want your dessert now?”

I glanced at the girl. She grinned at me. I answered Chuck’s arched eyebrow. “Thanks, but no thanks.”

He shrugged and moved to the other cell.

The guy smiled. “Sheriff, are you really Chuck Owens?”

Chuck smiled back. “That what this touched-in-the-head feller’s been telling you?”

“Yeah.”

Chuck tossed the handcuffs into the cell. “Pick ’em up and cuff each other.”

They stared at him.

He put his hand to his holster.

Now they began to believe me.

A restless night. Lots of tinkling in the chemical toilets.

Ten to noon. Chuck passed the spare gunbelt through the bars. The bikers huddled and watched. I tuned them out.

A quick learner, I stretched the gunbelt across my bunk, lay down, and buckled up.

I rose. Chuck was leaning beside the clock. I reached two-handedly for my weapon. He didn’t stir. I pulled the gun. A double-action Smith & Wesson.38 revolver. Unloaded but cleaned and oiled. I pulled the trigger. The action was smooth, the hammer had its pin, each trigger-pull cocked the hammer, positioned the empty cylinder.

“When do I get the bullets?”

“Where. Outside. Just before the draw. Any more questions?”

I raised linked hands. “How fair is this? Kinda hard to make a fast draw tethered to myself.”

Chuck snorted. “Carpe diem: die carping. That’s gonna be your epitaph. Listen up, Al. I make the rules. Remember, it’s the only game in town.”

I nodded. “The odds are with the house-even one built on sand.”

“Yeah, yeah. To answer your question, I’ll give you the key, then back up twenty paces while you unlock. Now stop stalling.”

Chuck arranged us in the middle of the street.

The wooden sidewalk shook and creaked as Bud neared the bench in front of Jeff’s Hardware. A final ominous creak as he settled himself to watch. The hot desert breath wafted the strong scent of an after-shave lotion our way.

Chuck took a big sniff. “Hey, Bud, wearing that stink for the girl? You’ll gas her to death before you crush her.”

Bud giggled.

Chuck rattled six bullets in his fist under my nose. “Hand me your gun.”

I wrestled the revolver from its holster. “How do I know they’re not blanks?”

He uncoiled his fist. “Carping to the end. Pick one.”

I had kept my head bowed for brim shade. I stabbed blindly.

He inserted the bullet, aimed at my head, hooked the trigger, grinned, swung the gun a touch, held steady, squeezed off the shot. It burned past my ear.

His voice cut through the ringing. “One shot wasted. Price you pay for carping.”

He finished loading the gun, shoved it hard in my holster. My fingers itched to touch the gun butt lightly to feel if Chuck’s thrust had made the front sight catch in the leather. But better not hand him an excuse to fire before I was ready.

He handed me the key. “Now I back away twenty paces while you free your hands. Then I say, ‘Go for it.’ And we draw and fire.”

Now seemed Bud’s moment, unless he was just as much of a nutcase as Chuck, or unless his gun was just for show, to ease his gun out while Chuck focused on me.

Bud giggled expectantly.

I ducked my head lower, squinted through the fuzzy slits.

Chuck backed away. “One… two… three…”

The key felt hot from his hand and sweaty from me. I made it skitter in search of the hole.

Bud giggled.

The key slipped my fingers. I went down on one knee, groped to miss it.

Bud continued to giggle. Chuck reached “Twenty” and waited. I counted on Chuck’s patience-or enjoyment-and he didn’t let me down.

I swiped wider and wider for the elusive key, till my twists brought my locked hands to the gun butt. Then I drew and fired without getting up, taking aim through the slits.

Chuck had his gun out, too late. His figure jerked and I placed two more shots and he fell.

That left two for Bud. Odds were Chuck wouldn’t trust Bud with live ammo, especially after the seed I’d planted. But I couldn’t take chances. Still on one knee, I twisted to face Bud.

He sat frozen, his jowls hanging, too stunned to go for the equalizer at his equator if he could. He made a sitting target, and I took my time to kneecap him twice. He toppled off the bench with a thunderous thud. It would take his trapeze to pull himself up.

I shoved myself upright and moved with shaky knees. I made sure Chuck was dead, went through his pockets for the key to his Posada suite. Then I checked Bud’s gun. Found it empty. He groaned and looked pitiful. I felt no pity. For a beached whale, yes; not for Bud.

After locating and using the key to my handcuffs, I would have fitted them on Bud. No chance, and really no need. He would keep.

I passed through the Posada to the refrigerator-freezer shed out back, found Doug Page’s head in the cooler I’d seen in the wheelbarrow, retraced my steps, climbed the stairs, let myself into Chuck’s suite, sat down at his computer and instant-messaged Nevada and Federal authorities.

At the sheriff’s office I got the key ring out of the desk drawer. The bikers heard the jingle and were huddled in the far corner. They stared at me as if seeing a ghost. A welcome ghost.

Leaning into the Dulcimer’s front desk, Betty spoke to the clerk. “Any news of Al Milledge?”

I tapped her on the shoulder. She whirled.

We gazed hungrily, thirstily. Often words get in the way of what we want to say. Our lips met and spoke for themselves.