“If not you, perhaps someone far worse than you.”
“
“I want
“Why did El Demonio Torbellino say there was a demon inside her that only he knew how to raise, Christophe?”
“Perhaps because it’s true? For God’s sake, toss out your anti-unhuman prejudices and call me Snow. Even Delilah does, and she hates my lily-white guts.”
“Why?”
“I’m sure she can enumerate my sins better than I can or want to. Ask her. Unlike Brigitte, she talks, fluently and frequently.”
Ric was done discussing his girlfriend with Christophe. “Why would the
“By then the character was both monster and martyr. The monster part was wrapped around the heroic Maria in that robot’s pseudo-metal skin. Perhaps your role is to draw out benign parts of her being: the role of Maria, the idealistic enslaved workers’ advocate, or Brigitte, the nubile young film star. You seem to have a gift for bringing out unsuspected depths in naive young women.”
Ric paused with the rim of the tall Bloody Mary glass at his lips. “You just want to use me and the Silver Zombie against your Vegas Strip rivals and Torbellino . . . and the Immortality Mob, I’m thinking.”
“Of course. But they’ll all want to enslave you for even more distasteful ends. Your life is in grave danger if you don’t gain the protection of a major force in Vegas.”
“My life has been in danger since I was four years old. No risk, no gain,” Ric said.
He drained the Bloody Mary before setting it down on a table.
“Your commercial instincts are second to none,” he told Christophe, “but there may be more seriously heavy players at work in Vegas than even you suspect.”
Christophe stood too. He was taller than Ric, but not by much. Ric suspected some lost Cuban blood in the water-dowsing peasant Montoyas.
The rock-star mogul’s eyes, and therefore expression, remained concealed by dark glasses, but a hand went to his throat as if touching a talisman. The neck collar’s vibrant pink rubies? Were they more than gemstones, as the vivid bruise might be something more?
Ric knew his hint had shaken the usually controlled stage performer. He also figured the babe who’d given ‘Snow’ that royal purple hickey must have been showgirl-tall, or wearing spike heels. An ex-FBI guy observes the little things.
“I’ll think about your offer,” he told Christophe.
“What does that mean?”
“What I said.”
Chapter Six
RIC KNEW HE had to figure out what was best for . . . a robot. She was even more zombielike than the walking dead he’d raised since a small child.
After the penthouse elevator deposited him on the main casino floor, Ric headed for the Inferno Bar in search of a dapper fellow in white tie and formal black morning coat, whose face and hands were as black-and-white all over as his nineteen-thirties’ monkey suit.
It was a fine point whether Nick Charles, the lush detective, held up the bar or it held him up.
Built like a giant aquarium with glass sides, the bar had a long top of polished wood carved into demonic faces. The scene below the bar top was a Hell in miniature, with tiny capering demons leaping within the same corona of colored flames that circled the hotel’s exterior.
Nick Charles had leaned a hip on a red enameled steel stool and rested his crooked right elbow on the bar. He was rapt at the moment, gazing into a martini glass holding something liquid and bright blue.
Ric had stopped in front of him, himself a wall of well-tailored pale linen suit. As a respected private consultant on finding suspected murder victims, he dressed the part.
“Well,” Nick Charles blessed him with an approving sideways look. “If it isn’t Cesar Romero back from working a case with Charlie Chan in tropical climes. What may I do for you, young man?”
Ric shot his suit sleeves to reveal Day of the Dead grinning-skull cuff links, then leaned a hip on the adjoining barstool. “They had a Chinese detective in the old movies, and a soused one. Why not a Latino one? Why not Cesar Romero or Ricardo Montalban as a private eye?”
“Because they had Zorro, who was far more interesting.” Nick Charles’s forefinger stabbed a drunken
“What?” Ric demanded, surprised.
“Bartender.” Nick Charles raised his free forefinger and gestured to Ric. “A Blue Coast martini for my new friend.”
Ric stifled a smile and a sigh. The famous film detective was just a shill for selling drinks these days, now that the Immortality Mob had merged his onscreen image with a 3-D zombie body.
Ric accepted the gaudy drink, and eyed it before sipping. “Is this a Delilah Street Special?”
“Lord, no, my lad. Her Silver Zombie is a marvel of delicate blue hue with a noose of electric Blue Curaçao at the bottom and top. The Inferno Bar doesn’t have rights to that recipe. She didn’t invent it here, just the Albino Vampire and the Vampire Sunrise. So the management is trying to push this abomination, a
“Any
“A common saying . . . oh, you mean port as in
“Naughty Nicky,” said the willowy brunette CinSim who draped a manicured hand and winsome face over his shoulder. “What’s this about your ‘second favorite wife’? Are you aching for a second favorite
Nick left his glass on the bar and put his hands up. “I’ve got a second life here and now, you audacious woman. That was just a figure of speech, wifey dear.”
“I know Delilah’s figure very well,” Nora purred, curving her nails into his well-padded jacket shoulder. “
Before Nick could defend himself, Ric said, “Delilah’s my
“Well said,
Ric eyed the couple, back and forth. They liked to spar and probably “spark” too, in the old-fashioned way of public snuggling and private whoopee.
“I need to know something,” Ric began.
“Nicky is the best man for the job in every bar in Manhattan or Vegas,” Nora said, using her long forefinger nail as a swizzle stick. She offered her bluish finger to Nicky, who dutifully tasted it, then nodded thoughtfully. “Needs curing another ten minutes.”
Ric shook his head at the byplay. “
“The ball and chain just told you,” Nick said. “I’m the smartest sloshed detective in the business and she’s the sassiest siren on the planet. And rich too.”
