was one thing over which some folks had little control.
The prick at the bar was another matter.
He’d come in twenty minutes into the set, long after everyone else was seated. The banquet hall’s main double doors had been closed at the start of his performance, but this flannel-clad oaf banged them open and headed straight for the bar. There, he got into an argument with the bartender regarding the proper ratio of ice to Jack Daniel’s- loudly enough that Albert could hear the dropped Rs and nasal As of his Masshole accent.
And Albert wasn’t the only person who noticed. A good quarter of the crowd was now training their attention on this blowhard idiot instead of Albert-including, it dismayed him to discover, Stetson-and-BluBlockers on the far side of the room. Apparently, a skilled rendition of a classic vaudevillian act in the vein of Bergen and Winchell wasn’t enough to interest him, but a boorish oaf berating the wait-staff was downright riveting.
That was it. Albert had had enough. Family show or not, it was time to teach this man-and this crowd-some manners.
“Hey, pal! Yeah, you at the bar!” It was not Albert who spoke, but his backup dummy, Rickey. “Is this guy’s act bothering you? ’Cause I could ask him to cool it for a sec while you get this business with the barkeep figured out!” Rickey always was a bit of a dick.
The crowd responded with titters of discomfort. It was always that way when a comic first engaged a heckler; they never knew which horse to back. But Albert wasn’t some novice. He knew how to handle himself in front of hostile audiences. The fact was, he hadn’t felt this alive in decades.
The big man turned his attention from the bar to the stage, flushing with anger but saying nothing.
“Whatsamatter, Tons-of-Fun,” continued Rickey, “fat got your tongue?”
That drew a bigger laugh. The man’s fists balled at his sides, and he seemed to shrink a bit from the attention of the crowd, but still he remained silent.
“Come on now, Rickey,” Albert said, good cop to his dummy’s bad. “Give the man a break. He’s just trying to get a drink.”
“Oh, sure. Take his side,” Rickey replied, and then baited the hook: “Hey, barkeep, what’s his poison?”
The bartender looked at the man, and then the crowd, and then at Albert. After a moment’s hesitation, she said, shaky-voiced from nerves, “J-jack Daniel’s.”
Rickey continued: “Tell you what-how ’bout you give it to him on old Albert here. ’Cause without the Jack, he’d just be an ass.”
The crowd went nuts. Albert smiled. And for just a moment, as he stepped closer to the stage, the man smiled, too, but it was a feral smile-a wild animal baring its teeth in warning. Albert’s stomach clenched at the sight.
When he was a few feet from the stage, the man spoke, low enough so that only Albert could hear. “You’re lucky I’m working, old man, or I swear to Christ I’d shove that doll a yours so far down your fucking throat you’d hafta clench your asshole to make his mouth move. And you can keep your goddamn drink.”
Albert blinked at him, paralyzed in the no-man’s-land between pride and fear. The casino security guards who flanked the stage weren’t quite close enough to hear, but they got the gist and closed in to defuse the situation. But before they reached the man, he shrugged them off, turning toward the exit and storming out. One of the guards spoke briefly into his walkie.
As the crowd settled down, and Albert resumed his set, the man in the Stetson and BluBlockers rose and followed.
20
Alexander Engelmann stood at a roulette table outside the Fountain Room, alternating bets of red and black. Engelmann was not much of a gambler; he chose this game both because its odds were such that one could play for quite some time without requiring additional chips- roughly forty-seven percent on any red or black bet-and because it afforded him an unobstructed view of the entrance to the ballroom in which Purkhiser was to be killed. Engelmann was certain his quarry would reconnoiter the room-but he’d not yet seen anyone who matched the description Morales had given him.
Still, he thought, that did not mean his quarry was not here.
Engelmann absently fingered the cell phone in his pocket. He was tempted to dial his quarry’s burner phone, to see if he could hear it ring nearby-but he knew the potential upside to so brazen an act was too slight, and the downside too great. Cell-phone usage was forbidden on the gaming floor, to discourage cheating; it would be difficult to use his here without running afoul of casino security. And by every indication, Engelmann’s quarry was a cautious man-it was doubtful he would make so egregious an error as to leave his ringer on while on a job. But mostly, Engelmann could not because to do so might tip his quarry to the fact that something was amiss.
“Thirty-five,” called the croupier as the ball rattled to a stop. Engelmann’s fellow players sighed with disappoint-ment-the corresponding patch of felt was empty. “Nobody home.”
A flurry of betting as the wheel was spun again; Engelmann slid one chip, the table minimum, onto red. Then the croupier waved his hand over the table and said, “No more bets.”
That was fine by Engelmann. He was eager for the real games to begin.
When Leonwood burst, red-faced, out of the Fountain Room, Engelmann raised an eyebrow. For a moment it looked like Leonwood was headed straight toward him, and though Engelmann understood rationally that Leon-wood knew nothing of his existence or of his mission, a jolt of adrenaline pricked at his limbs at the perceived threat. But then Leonwood veered left toward the casino’s main entrance, and the moment passed.
Four security guards materialized as if from the cardinal points of the lobby’s inlaid compass rose, flanking Leon-wood but not engaging. Leonwood tried to duck past them, but one stepped in front of him, hands raised in a placating gesture. The guard said something to Leonwood, but his words were lost to Engelmann thanks to the clamor of the gaming floor. Leonwood responded angrily. Engelmann drifted away from the roulette table to better hear their exchange.
“Sir-” the croupier objected because the ball was still in play, but Engelmann ignored him. Anger blossomed in his mind. Anger, and a hint of fear. He couldn’t fathom what this stupid hunk of flannel-draped beef was thinking, making such a spectacle of himself, and he was all too aware that if Leonwood was thrown out, his last-gasp effort to eliminate the Council’s pest was as dead as Engelmann himself would be once the Council got wind that he had failed.
“Sir, I understand you’re upset,” said the guard as Engelmann got within earshot.
“You’re goddamn right I’m upset,” growled Leonwood. “All I wanted was a fucking drink before dinner, and that creepy guy with the dummy started heckling me! What kinda establishment are you running here?”
“Please realize, sir, that the views expressed by Mr. Tuschbaum do not in any way reflect those of Pendleton’s or her employees. I’m very sorry if he offended-”
“If?” Leonwood interrupted.
“-and, if you’ll just calm down, we’d like to make this right, so we could avoid any further unpleasantness.”
“Make this right how?” Dubious. Interested.
“You mentioned you hadn’t eaten dinner yet?”
“That’s right.”
“Then perhaps we could arrange for you a table at Gasparini’s, where I suspect the steak will be to your liking. We will of course refund the cost of the buffet, and tonight’s dinner will be on the house.”