began to loosen, and the pain went away.
“Feel good?”
“Great.”
“I took lessons.”
“I’ll bet you did.”
Angel’s fingers departed Jack’s shoulder and found his thigh. Again, she went to work on him. Again, Jack felt a prick of pain. Before long, a feeling that was a long way from pain replaced it.
“I really am sorry about tonight,” Angel said. “You were really brave, protecting your dog that way. When I saw you do that, I just knew you couldn’t have been part of any scam that might hurt Spike.”
She took a deep breath. “I really really miss Spike. We’ve never been separated, not even for a day. He’s the one constant thing in my life, the one thing I can really count on. I know it’s crazy to feel that way about a dog, but Spike is. . well, he’s a lot more than just a pet.”
Jack didn’t say a word. He didn’t need to. He was concentrating on Angel’s fingers as they kneaded his thigh muscles, concentrating on that feeling that was a long way from pain-
Angel whispered in his ear. “They hit you somewhere else, didn’t they?”
Jack nodded, settling back, his eyes still closed.
Angel moved closer.
A collage of sound-Angel’s throaty chuckle, almost girlish; water bubbling merrily in the hot tub; desert wind whispering through the surrounding palms.
The patter of Bally loafers on concrete.
Jack’s eyelids flashed open like a couple of window shades that had been yanked really hard.
Steam wafted from the tub, hiding the lower half of the man who stood at water’s edge, but to Jack it didn’t look like steam at all. It looked like smoke. It had to be smoke. Because the man staring down at him looked way too much like Lucifer.
“You two look like a lobster dinner.”
“Yeah, Freddy, I guess we do.”
“Don’t be mad, Grandad,” Angel said. “It was my idea.”
Freddy G stared at Jack, then at Angel. She didn’t say another word. The casino owner snapped his fingers, and one of his boys handed Angel a towel. No one got a towel for Jack.
“The boys will drive you home, Angel.”
“No. I’ll drive myself.”
Angel started walking. She was still dripping wet, the towel draped over her shoulders. Freddy’s bodyguards trailed her without a word.
When they were alone, Freddy G pulled up a lounge chair and leaned toward Jack. “We had a call from the dognappers.” The casino owner’s face bore no sign of emotion as he spoke those words, but there was a definite tremor in his voice as he asked Jack, “What’s this I hear about you holding a ransom note?”
FOUR
It was a long night, and Jack spent it thinking about Piranha.
That was Freddy’s fault, of course. Before leaving Jack’s place with the dognapper’s ransom note tucked in the inside pocket of his Brioni jacket, Freddy told Jack a little story.
Freddy said, “Sometimes I think that Vegas has changed a lot in the years since I first come here, and sometimes I don’t think it has changed at all. Like these theme casinos we got lined up and down the Strip-all these little Disneylands. We got pirates and we got New York City and we got the Cowardly Lion and the Scarecrow and that mousy bitch with the braids and we even got her little dog Toto, too.
“But really, we always had that kind of stuff. Vegas has always been Disneyland, only with tits. Jay Sarno knew that.
“Sarno was the guy who started Caesars Palace. You never knew him, Jack. But let me tell you, he was something. The Roman Empire fell a couple centuries ago, but Sarno kick-started the sucker. He not only brought it back to life, he made it pay.
“He had vision, Sarno did. More than these guys today. That’s what made him different. These guys today, everything they do is fake. Plastic. Remote-controlled. It wasn’t that way with Sarno. Everything he did was real. He even
“Like for instance Sarno had this plan for Caesars first-class restaurant, the Bacchanal. Jay was gonna have a big pool in the middle of the room, all the tables situated so the pool would be the center of attention. Not that he was gonna forget about the cuisine-a meal in this joint was going to be as close to a Roman orgy as you could get and still keep your clothes on. None of this eat-your-cold-primerib-and-let-me-make-a-decent-tumaround-time-on- your-table shit that maitre d’s pull these days. No, Sarno wanted course upon course upon course, the whole experience enhanced by a wine list that would set the most jaded sommelier’s little medallion jingling.
“When the diners were reaching their culinary climax, so to speak, the house lights were gonna dim, and the pool in the center of the room would be illuminated, one bright spotlight aimed at a suckling pig hanging over the water by a chain. There’d be dramatic music from hidden speakers. Trumpet fanfares and such. Shit that would make you think of Kirk Douglas in
“Then the little oinker would descend, and when it was close to the pool’s surface and the water started to chum beneath it and the music hit its crescendo and the piggy started to squeal so loud that those blaring trumpets sounded like whispering flutes, why then the chain would release and that poor little porker would make one hell of a splash.
“At that moment, a hungry school of piranha which had waited patiently beneath the surface of the pool would chow down on our pal Porky the Pig.
“Fuck your bread and circuses. Jack, this idea was the real deal, the real Las Vegas right there for everyone to see at a hundred bucks a plate.”
Freddy sighed. “What a fucking great idea. But that’s all it ever amounted to-an idea. As it turned out, Sarno couldn’t get permission to import the piranha. Nevada Fish amp; Game shut him down. But it would have been something, that restaurant.
“I like to think about it, Jack. Fact is, the older I get, the more I think about it, because I can never quite pin the whole thing down the way I want to. I’ll start off thinking about pigs fattened for the kill. Then I’ll think about guys who do up the chains and the stiffs who pay to watch those chains come loose. And I’ll end up thinking about piranha, and how they only do what they’re built to do.
“I ain’t sure what it adds up to. Not yet. But I’m gonna keep on thinking about it. And I figure the time has come for you to start thinking about it, too.”
Jack thought about the story long into the night, long after Freddy had departed. He thought about that suckling pig hanging from a chain, and he thought about the people watching it.
Some of them might see the little porker as a living thing. They might feel their expensive dinner churning in their guts as that chain let loose. Even so, they wouldn’t look away. Horrified, amused, or fascinated-every one of them would watch.
And the piranha would do what piranha do, unrestrained by morality or emotion. They wouldn’t feel a damn thing for the pig. To them, it wasn’t anything more than a slab of bacon with a pulse.
Jack knew he could never be a piranha, but he didn’t want to be a pig hanging from a chain, either.
He wondered if there was something in between. He thought of Freddy and all the things he owed the casino owner, and how his stubborn pride had gotten in the way of those things when Freddy sent him on an errand boy’s job. Too much pig and not enough piranha and he’d screwed that job up. Screwed it up for Freddy, and Angel, and a Chihuahua named Spike.
It seemed the more he thought, the less he knew. But the time had come to stop thinking so much. Whether it was Kate Benteen or Freddy Gemignani or Angel or a Chihuahua named Spike, it was time to put the pedal to the metal and get down to business.
