written all over them strolled through the main door separately. They reunited as soon as they were inside. Amateurs.
I let my gaze wander back to the gaming floor. The owner and the pit boss were approaching the craps table.
Just before they got there, as if she had eyes in the back of her head, the golden lady scooped up most of her winnings and nodded courteously to the table. She made a straight line for the cashier.
To get there, she had to pass the owner. I braced myself for the quiet scene about to occur. It didn't. Instead, the owner and the pit boss drifted right past her, a sort of glaze coming over their eyes.
Reaching the table, the owner simply glanced around with a dull expression, counted the remaining chips, and quietly berated the pit boss. The fat man ran a hand through his toupee and shrugged. They went their separate ways.
The silver lady glided toward the cashier at about the same rate as the three jittery thugs in monkey suits. I looked around for guards. The only two visible were on the other side of the room taking care of a drunk.
When the unwholesome trinity reached to their waistbands, I knew what had to be done.
I shouldered my way over to the cashier, getting there ahead of Blondie to place my hulk between her and the approaching hit team. A calculated misstep permitted her to collide with me, spilling her chips.
The hoods had their guns out by the time the chips clattered to the floor. They clustered around the cashier, propositioning him. Blondie stooped to recover her goods.
'Next time why don't you watch-'
I crouched down, drawing my auto from its waistband holster.
'Keep down, beautiful, we're in for fun.'
One of the little men socked somebody who had stepped up to the booth. A woman screamed, and the crowd surged backward.
The crooks panicked. One whipped about and pointed aimlessly at the bystanders, stark terror showing behind his eyes. Another one joined in, while the third continued to fill a sack with orange paper. The guards tried to push their way forward from the rear without catching the crooks' attention.
They were too busy to notice me, so I drew my aim upward. At about that time, the ugliest, most ill-dressed of the three slowly shifted the aim of his muzzle in my direction. I figured that the cloudy look in his eyes arose from his amateur standing.
Blondie gasped behind me-more in disbelief than in fear.
I fired.
The first creep fell, a bloody gap blooming red like a rose in his lapel. I snapped my aim over to the second squirt just as the guards used my diversion to rush forward and point their neural interruptors.
We were on the fringe of the field effect those things emit. I went numb. I would have been sure it was a heart attack or a stroke if I hadn't known better.
The two remaining thugs dropped, their lights knocked dim by the interruptor beams.
'We've got to get out,' a voice behind me whispered.
Suddenly, out was what I wanted to get above all else. I rose up. Determining that I could walk without too much effort, I made tracks for the exit.
The guards seemed too busy to notice me, even though a crook lay dead at their feet and a .45 dangled in my right hand. One of them looked blankly at me, then turned back to the corpse and its snoring partners.
At the doorway, I turned to Blondie saying, 'Hey-your chips-'
She was gone.
I scanned the casino for a moment. Not there. I turned to look down the hallway. A silver figure strode unnoticed down the corridor.
