Vegas Moon

Prologue

I

Jim “Lucky” Peters was in Jamaica, getting a colonoscopy from a Rastafarian proctologist, when his cell phone started buzzing.

“Wha’s that, Hon?” the doctor said to his nurse. “Some sarta buzzin’ sound.”

She located Lucky’s cell phone, frowned, confiscated it. Lucky was half-conscious, and loopy enough from the “relaxing” medicine not to care. What he did care about was whatever the hell Dr. Gayle was doing in his lower tract.

“You’re gonta feel some pressure, now, Mon,” he said.

Pressure?

Understatement.

Was Dr. Gayle drilling for oil? Impaling him through the ass with a flagpole?

“If you’re looking for Jimmy Hoffa, I can tell you right now, he’s not in there,” Lucky said, through clenched teeth.

“Who’s Jimmy Hoffa, Mon?”

“Seriously. You push that thing any deeper, you’ll scratch the back of my eyeballs!”

“Almost done, Mon, and clean as a whistle she is.”

The pain and suffering was all on Lucky, since he decided to forego the anesthetic. Like all his decisions, this one had been a calculated risk.

Lucky Peters knows a lot about risk. And reward, and odds of every sort. He’s a legendary gambler, allegedly worth something above fifty million dollars, the man Las Vegas casinos fear more than any other. More than they used to fear the mob, even. When Lucky sets the line on a game, casino owners hold their breath. When he wins, they shit their pants. On any given day of the week, Lucky’s got a million bucks riding the line. And three times that on the weekend. And historically, sixty-eight percent of the time he wins.

Lucky’s success is based on vigilance, and keeping up with the constant flux in the betting landscape. Case in point: last time he went under the knife he accepted the anesthetic, missed the injury report on Packer cornerback Johnny Sullivan, and it cost him eighty large!

So, never again.

One p.m., still in Kingston Hospital but significantly recovered, Lucky located his cell phone among his belongings and saw he had four messages, all from world-renowned plastic surgeon, Dr. Phyllis Willis. Lucky pressed the replay button to retrieve the first one.

“Lucky, this is Phyllis. Connor Payne is in the lobby of my practice! What should I do? Please call me back!” Dr. Willis sounded frantic.

Suddenly Lucky wasn’t feeling so lucky. A cold chill swept through his body. Connor Payne was an international assassin. If he was in Dr. Willis’s lobby, it could only mean he had information that could eventually lead to Lucky.

Second message started.

“My receptionist told Connor Payne I’m in the middle of a procedure. He doesn’t believe her. He’s giving me two minutes to come out, then he’s coming to get me. Should I call the police? I don’t know what to do! I’m terrified. Please call!”

Lucky closed his eyes. This didn’t sound good.

Third message came on.

“I’m making a corporate decision. I’m in the bathroom, the door’s locked. I’ve got the controller. I’m going to punch in the code and melt his brain right where he stands. I can’t see any other way out of this. Okay, I’m hanging up. I’m going to do it. Please forgive me!”

Lucky pressed the pause button, thinking, Please don’t kill him. They’ll do an autopsy and find the chip we implanted in his brain. On the other hand, Dr. Phyllis Willis was a surgeon. Maybe she could slice his head open and retrieve the chip before anyone finds out what killed him.

Lucky shook his head. That was ridiculous. First of all, the receptionist, Shelby, was a witness. Second, there’d be no reason for Phyllis to slice open the brain of a man who suddenly died in the lobby of her building. If pressed by the police, Phyllis would crack and tell everything she knew. Lucky had half his life’s savings invested in Ropic Industries, a company whose stock had been slipping for months. This type of news could send it into free fall.

Lucky noted the time of the calls. All four were back-to-back, made in the space of three minutes. He reminded himself that whatever he was about to hear had taken place two hours ago. It had already happened, and there was nothing he could do now, but listen how it played out. Lucky took a deep breath, hit the play button on his cell phone.

“Mr. Peters, I-I entered the code. I entered the code, b-but he’s still alive! He’s moving through the office! I-I think he may have killed Shelby! Oh, dear God! There are five people here. Connor Payne is going to kill us all! I can’t believe you never called me back! I’m going to die today.”

Phyllis paused a moment, then said, “I need to tell you something. Two things. First, I don’t regret our affair. I’m glad we did it, because…well, because I love you. I always have and always will. And second, you need to know where I hid the device. Since the code didn’t work, you’ll need the device to re-set it.”

Phyllis paused again, as if listening for Connor Payne. Then she whispered, “Don’t be angry. What I did was really stupid, but—

On the phone, Phyllis suddenly went into full-blown panic mode. “Shit! Here he comes! I-I love you, Lucky!”