We both looked ludicrous. Hideous.
I fought to shake the picture from my mind and regain my bearings. I glared at her. "Someone ought to give you a spanking."
"You can," she said with a smile. "Let's talk price."
I clammed up, figuring her to be hopeless. With a muttered curse, I muscled my way through the crowd toward the casino.
She practically yelped in shock. Her gaze shot daggers into my back. That satisfied me just fine.
The interlude distracted me so much that I followed a crowd of noise and people into the wrong casino.
Or maybe the right one.
3
The Contract
I stepped into the Casino Grande, realized my mistake, and turned to go. At the edge of my field of view shimmered silver and gold surrounded by a crowd of onlookers. A gasp of amazement escaped from them.
The lady was at the craps table of the Grande tonight.
I wandered over to watch her for a few moments in her deep concentration. She laid down her chips. In a blur of action the rest of the players faded the bets. The dice rattled in her hand for an instant, then scampered across the felt.
Seven.
She let the money lie. It took a little longer for the crowd to cover her bets, but newcomers arrived every few seconds to add to the crush of gawkers and gamblers. She rolled again. The red cubes knocked along the table to stop at six and four.
"Ten," the croupier announced, sliding the dice back to her.
She rolled again. Ten. Several frustrated bettors left the table, looking at her as though she'd robbed their babies of pabulum. She ignored them and scooped up some of her winnings. I scanned the table, found a bet of hers that wouldn't wipe me out, and faded it.
She rattled the dice carelessly in her slender hand and let them loose. Boxcars.
"Twelve," the croupier said with relief, raking in the dice to give to someone else.
Blondie looked directly at me as if it were my fault. One of the boys handed her a tray with her pile of chips. She tipped heavily and left the table.
I picked up my share and sauntered to the bar.
While watching a whiskey sour fill up before me, a familiar metallic sheen approached and slipped into the chair at my right.
"Margarita. No salt." She spoke slowly. A low, intimate tone.
When the bartender slid the drink over to her, she handed him a couple of chips. He looked at them for a moment.
"Lady," he said, "there was a devaluation two days ago. A hundred new dollars is quite a bit."
She smiled and shrugged her lovely shoulders. The barkeep argued no further. A grin spread across his ruddy face.
"Thank you, lady!"
She ignored him to turn to me. "You don't belong here," she said in a quizzical voice.
"Okay," I said, "I don't. And what's a nice girl like you-"
"You're different. You notice me. You see me."
I eyeballed her up and down. Her long legs, as far as I could see, possessed the sleek lines of a professional dancer's. From there on up, she pulled in at the right places and flared out at the righter places. Her piercingly blue eyes imparted a startling power to her defiant visage. Anyone who trifled with her, it read, paid the price.
"You're hard to overlook." I turned back to my drink.
She sipped at her margarita. Her eyes continued to watch me.
"I want to thank you for what you did the other night." She smiled with friendly ease. "Things such as that don't usually happen to me."
"Me neither."
"What's your name?"
"Ammo. Dell Ammo."
She nodded. "It fits." She returned to her drink.
She wasn't going to tell me her name-that much was obvious. I gave the whiskey my undivided attention.
After a few minutes of nursing her drink, she spoke without turning to face me.
"What do you think they did with them? The robbers."
The thieves most likely had been sold to the kink caves on Auberge's lowest level. Both the living and the dead. I didn't think she wanted to hear that.
"I don't know" was all I said. "If you think they're after you, don't worry. They won't bother you again."
She set her glass down. "And what makes you think they were after me?" Her baby blues gazed at me with penetrating force.
"Someone's after you." I leaned back and groped around for a cigarette. "If it wasn't the little rat that happened to point his rod in your direction, then it must have been someone else. Why were you in such a hurry to leave?"
"Wouldn't most people try to run away from a shooting?"
"Most people last night stuck around to watch."
She shuddered. "Death… repels me." She took a long sip of her drink, then gulped the remainder down. The glass returned to the bar with a resounding clank. She stood, gazing toward the craps table.
I grinned. "Going to risk the management's curiosity at this casino, too?"
"Not after the way you changed my luck. I'm going to watch you play."
I shrugged and followed her over. It wasn't as if I'd had any plans for the money. I edged into the playing order behind several quick losers. She moved behind me to watch.
My turn came up fairly quickly. A lot of losers haunted that table. I asked for a new pair of dice, got them, twiddled with them awhile. What money I had went on the table. The crowd faded the bets, and I cut loose with the cubes.
"Nine," said the croupier-a woman my age with an expression of Stakhanovite gloom about her. She slid the dice back to me.
I rolled again. A three and a six. The money piled up, but I let it lay. The onlookers plunked their chips down. I glanced behind me to see Blondie watching me. Her beautiful brow frowned in vague puzzlement, as if the numbers the dice generated were some secret code she had to break. I grinned and returned to the work at hand.
I rolled a seven and left the chips showing. It took longer for the bets to get covered. More rubberneckers drifted to the table, drawn by the noise the others made every time I won.
The dice bounced across the green again. Seven. The crowd gasped. So did I. This time the covering bets came faster. I had to lose sooner or later, didn't I?
Roll. Seven!
A mania seized them. Chips clacked on top of chips, and paper rustled onto the cloth. I grinned at the lady behind me. She smiled and nodded at the dice, urging me on.
A pair of threes. Carefully maneuvering between the piles of chips, the croupier slid the dice back to me. I threw them down the emerald field, a pair of rubies dancing.
"Again six," the woman said.
I was beginning to amaze myself.
I picked up the dice, checked that my bets were faded, and rolled. Two and four.
The crowd had polarized into two factions. The bettors desperately wanted me to crap out. The onlookers cheered for me to roll another six. An intoxicating amount of wealth covered most of the table.
I rolled.
When the crowd gasped, I peered at the dice. A one and a five.
"Jesus Christ," I muttered. As I said it, the one tipped on its side to expose the two spot.
"Seven," the croupier announced with smug finality. I'd been obliterated. Sort of the way I'd be in a few months.
For the moment, though, I had a hundred friends. The gamblers all loved me. They gathered up their huge winnings and offered to buy me drinks, dinners, women.
The lady in silver laughed, her voice tinkling like small clear ice cubes in a glass of purest crystal.
I smiled at her over the heads and shoulders of the happy crowd. "The old man's had a big night and has to go to bed now." I pocketed what little money I had left.
"Don't fool yourself, Mr. Ammo. You're not quite as old as you think. Take a long hard look at yourself when you get home."