“Impressive. I believe you said all that in one breath.”
“Good lungs.”
“It’s called logorrhea.”
“You probably think I don’t know what that means.”
I gave her a long up-and-down look. “Are you sure you’re thirty-one, kiddo? You don’t look twenty-one.”
“You should get naked.”
Which I did, and the next thirty or forty minutes were a lot of fun. And I’ve been trained in the art of enjoying the sights without having to take a role more active than helping to get chests really clean, a skill at which I believe I have become more skilled than the average Joe since practice makes perfect.
After the Jacuzzi and shower and toweling off, Lucy piled into a bed and suggested that it would be nice if I piled in after her and held her for a while. Being a good sport about such things, I piled in and let the world of wharf rats and dead gangsta rappers and spooky motels drift off into mental vapor.
We stayed like that for about half an hour, during which time I contemplated, drowsily but happily, what it had meant to dump the IRS and become a world-famous gumshoe. Tried to, anyway.
Then Lucy fell asleep and so did I.
“We should lose ten thousand dollars,” Lucy said. She was on the floor, doing splits that would’ve torn every tendon and muscle in my body from crotch to toes, so I didn’t join in.
“Right. Exactly what I was thinking.”
She laughed. “Not. You were looking at my boobs.”
“Okay, Lucifer, why should we drop ten Gs?”
“Lucifer, cool. To keep the suite, of course.”
I thought about that. Did we need the suite? I liked it, but the investigation appeared to be relocating itself to Arlene’s Diner or Caliente or points in between—like Jo-X’s hideaway if we could find it. But the suite was fantastic, free, and only an hour and a half drive from the Midnight Rider. Besides, losing ten thousand dollars? I couldn’t imagine that much fun.
We got eleven chips, thousand bucks each, cashed one, and she bought another baby-doll outfit—white jogging shorts and a white tank top with spaghetti straps. She was into white clothing. The top was short at both ends—that is to say, both high and low. The plunge neckline exposed enough breast to turn heads, and three inches of exceptionally tight belly showed. She wore white sandals. White looked terrific on her. She was an extremely hot little baby-doll bimbo, having fun with Daddy’s life savings. I told her so and got a big smile with a hint of promise in it.
She tucked an arm through mine and we drew stares—well, she did—as we went through the casino to the same roulette table, which caused a hefty-looking pit boss to ease over. The ball was already whirring around its track when Lucy plunked down a thousand-dollar chip on red, said, “Red, red, red,” and the ball came up black, and someone said, “Well, shuckins.”
Not the same pit boss, but he’d evidently been schooled in the ways of Daddy’s Girl. He looked worried. Lucy put down another thousand on black, said, “Black, black, black,” and the ball bounced into a red slot and stayed there.
“Well, shuckins, Daddy,” she said, pouting up at me.
Then she put all the rest of the chips down, four on red, four on black. Wow. I felt my eyes bug out.
“Uh, Honey Bunch . . .” I said.
She reached up and put a finger on my lips, said, “Shhh, I’m gonna win somethin’, Daddy,” and I saw the pit boss smile.
The ball whirred and the wheel spun and Lucy said, “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon,” and the girl running the wheel gave me a look like I was with the world’s all-time dumbest bimbo and therefore I was the world’s all-time dumbest Wallet, then the ball clattered and bounced around, came to rest on green zero.
“Well . . . shuckins,” Honey Bunch said, staring at the table in disbelief as the girl raked in all eight chips.
Honey looked up at me. “Our room still faces east, don’t it, Daddy?”
“Yep. Still does, Sugar Plum.”
She stared at the table again. “Double shuckins.”
We ate lunch before leaving. Well, I did. Lucy had a spinach salad enhanced with beets, cucumbers, and more kinds of inedible vegetation than you’d find on a Mississippi riverbank. By three thirty we were on the road, headed for Arlene’s Diner and the Spooky Motel. We’d put her suitcase and my travel bag in the Mustang’s trunk, in case we needed a change of clothes.
Lucy drove, because I was still drowsy from the Jacuzzi, the nap, and the lunch, and she wasn’t. For an old broad, over thirty, she was pretty tough. Before we left Vegas, I hit a Walmart and had her buy black pants, a dark shirt, dark blue tennis shoes, clothes for night skulking that she didn’t have. And I stocked up on food and water, bought a small ice chest, a bag of ice.
Still in her white shorts and tank top, Lucy got us headed out on I-15. Without either of us saying a word about where we were going, she turned left onto US 93. No need for words. There wasn’t any real choice of destination. All the activity with Jo-X and Shanna was in the neighborhood of Arlene’s Diner and the Midnight Rider Motel. Somewhere around there, up in the hills, was Jo-X’s private retreat, which I wanted to see, if possible, even if we had to walk in once we reached the tire shredder.
“Four thousand on red, four on black,” I said.
“I couldn’t win one lousy penny. All I could do is lose. I’ll
