through the front door. Later, they would learn that it had been created by a dry-ice machine and was harmless.
'Where's Nola?' Valentine asked them.
No one knew.
'Let me go, let me go,' Nola screamed at a man wearing a black ski mask who'd come through her window.
Instead, the man knocked her down. Nola felt a cloth bag being fitted over her head, then felt the man toss her over his shoulder and climb out the shattered window. His body was solid muscle. Nola pounded his back until her hands ached. Laughing, her kidnapper slapped Nola's fanny.
'Stop it!' she screamed through the hood.
The ground became macadam. Her kidnapper stopped running and Nola felt him dig a key ring out of his pants pocket, then heard the trunk of a car pop open. He stuffed her into the trunk, forcing her body into the cavity where a spare tire had been.
'Don't worry, honey,' he said, his drawl pure Texan. 'I drilled plenty of air holes. You won't croak.'
Then he slammed the trunk closed. Moments later, the car's tires were squealing. Her kidnapper hit his horn; the unmistakable shouts of the neighborhood kids rang out. Please, God, Nola prayed in the darkness, don't let him hit one of them.
The car went up a steep incline, and Nola guessed they were on the parkway entrance right outside her development. She waited for the wail of police sirens, her last chance. But soon they were speeding down the highway, and she felt the fight leave her body.
Her kidnapper played let's-get-laid music as he drove. Guns 'n' Roses, Van Halen, Aerosmith. Women were horny bitches, and men, beer-guzzling predators. Nola pressed her hands against her ears as Aerosmith's Steve Tyler implored her to 'Sit on my big ten-inch.' She wanted to cry, but her conscience would not let her.
You did this to yourself. You hung around men because you thought they were the answer, that the love of a decent guy was all you needed to be free of the loneliness you grew up with. You opened the door each time they came calling. Nick was the worst, but did you leave Vegas after splitting up with him? No, you had to hang around and prove that you could make it on your own. And how did you do that? By taking a job in his casino and becoming his slave. 'Sit on my big ten-inch' is right.
Twenty minutes later, her kidnapper's car left the parkway. Nola worked the bag off her head and stared at the road through the tiny air holes he had mercifully drilled. They drove for miles without passing another vehicle, and she guessed that they were out in the desert, in a place where no one would ever find her.
The car pulled off the road and went down a long gravel drive. Braking, her kidnapper beeped the horn three times. Nola heard a roll-up metal door being lifted. He drove into a building and the door came down behind them.
Moments later, the trunk popped open and Nola was momentarily blinded by a surge of fluorescent light.
'Rise and shine,' her kidnapper said. Nola climbed out rubbing her eyes, the cavernous interior gradually coming into focus.
'It's not much, but we call it home,' her kidnapper said.
It was a warehouse with bare walls, the air as cold as a meat locker. In the room's center sat a replica of the Acropolis's outdated blackjack pit, the tables arranged in a tight hub. Behind one table stood Frank Fontaine in a red silk shirt, effortlessly riffle-shuffling a deck of cards.
Nola's eyes shifted to a large easel beside the pit. It contained a map of the floor of the Acropolis, the yellow and blue thumbtacks arranged like a battle plan.
When she looked back at Fontaine, he was staring at her.
'Hey,' he said.
'Hey, yourself,' she whispered.
'Big surprise, huh?'
'You're telling me.'
'You okay?'
'I've been better,' she admitted.
'I didn't hurt her none, Frank,' her kidnapper said, standing beside her. He'd exchanged the ski mask for a ten-gallon hat. He was tall and rangy with straw-colored hair and a leathery complexion. A real cowboy, Nola thought. Turning, she slapped the cowboy's face hard.
'You redneck bastard!'
The cowboy smiled like she'd paid him a compliment. Fontaine came out of the pit. To the cowboy, he said, 'Good work.'
'Thanks,' the cowboy said.
Tipping his hat to Nola, the cowboy crossed the warehouse floor, opened a door, and disappeared into the bright sunlight.
Nola stiffened as Fontaine got close, then began to cry.
'Miss me?' he asked.
'Fuck you, Frank-or Sonny or whatever the hell you're calling yourself,' Nola sobbed. She raised her arms and tried to beat her hands against his chest, only to have Fontaine grab her wrists. 'Fuck you and your crazy fucking schemes!'
Fontaine let her cry herself out, then released her wrists.
'I missed you, too,' he said.
16
Valentine stood in the blazing sun and tended to Sammy Mann while they waited for an ambulance to arrive. Nola's kidnapper was as sharp as they come. First he'd gone next door and tied Longo's dim-witted undercover men to a chair. Then he'd crossed the street and pulled a.380 Magnum on Wily and Sammy. Handcuffing Wily to the steering wheel, he'd made Sammy get out; then he'd done a Tonya Harding on Sammy's good leg with the gun's barrel.
'You get a look at the guy?' Valentine asked.
'Wearing a ski mask,' Sammy groaned, lying on the grass.
'Think he was a pro?'
'Uh-huh. All business.'
'Why'd he pick you and not Wily?'
Sammy grimaced, the pain shooting through his eyes. 'Dunno.'
'Think Wily was in on it?'
'No way.'
'How can you be sure?'
'He peed his pants.'
Only after Sammy was strapped to a gurney and getting pumped with morphine did Valentine venture back inside. Longo had dragged everyone into the living room and was pacing the ugly shag carpet, yelling at the top of his lungs.
'This is fucked! We get dragged out here to see some fucking letters that don't fucking exist and get ambushed by some fucking guy no one gets a good look at. It doesn't take a fucking genius to figure out that we were set up. The question is, by who?'
Longo's eyes narrowed as he searched the men's faces.
'It was Nola,' Wily blurted out. He had removed his soiled pants and wore a man's bathrobe he'd borrowed from Nola's closet.
'Nola?' Longo said incredulously. 'The only thing Nola Briggs is guilty of is hating Nick. Judging by the size of that ring, I think the little lady has a real gripe with you, mister.'
Standing in the corner, Nick hung his head in shame.
'Story of my life,' the casino owner mumbled.
