For almost five minutes I leaned against the sink and shivered, waiting for her to come in.
But she didn’t.
My mind was scrambled and I didn’t know what to do.
Just get out of here and get to work.
I nodded, got undressed, and got in the shower. Two minutes later I shut the water off, got out, and wrapped a towel around my waist. I then opened the bathroom door and looked down the hallway at the living room. Everything seemed quiet.
Quickly walking to my bedroom, I got my dealer outfit on, hurried out of the house, and drove to work. The tables were already full when I walked into the casino at 8:20 p.m., which was a great sign. A busy night meant a fast and profitable night. And for the first three hours everything went nice and smooth. No difficult patrons, good tippers, and we’d apparently hired two new cocktail waitresses from the gentlemen’s club down the road that were pretty decent eye candy. In fact, it was such a good night that I’d almost forgotten that I was either being haunted or having a total mental breakdown.
And then just after midnight I felt a cold breeze circle around me. The image of her limp body flying into a snow bank at the side of the road flooded my mind and suddenly I couldn’t even add up the cards. A dealer who couldn’t concentrate would be axed real quick and I glanced around to see if someone could take my place. My heart started to pound again and a cold sweat broke over my arms and back. I’d never had a reaction like this to her, but other than last night and in the kitchen today she’d never actually approached me before.
“I’m sorry, folks,” I stammered. “I’m going to have to find another dealer for you; I’m not feeling too well.”
I hurried away from the table, nearly bumping into Frankie as I made a beeline straight to the lobby.
Frankie grabbed my shoulders with hands like two iron vises. “You OK, kid?”
My breath was fast, almost to the point of hyperventilating, but I managed to say that I just needed some air and Frankie let me go. I quick-stepped through the lobby, barely hearing Cami say hi to me, and through the revolving door out into the parking lot. I put my hands on my hips, looked up at the sky, and sucked in the cool night air. I turned and ran towards my car at the far right side of the parking lot. Running as I breathed a mile a minute was almost like trying to walk on water but I made it to the car without collapsing and looked back.
She was about twenty feet away, coming at me with her hands reaching out.
I jumped in the car, twisted the key, and burned rubber out of the lot onto the highway. When I got home I packed two bags, took the twelve grand and brick of gold I kept in the wall safe, and then got back in the car and hit the road again.
I went west for a couple of miles and then merged on to the M7 North. After about ten minutes my body relaxed and my racing heart slowed back to normal. I rolled down the window and the desert breeze soothed my face and blew through my hair.
For the next six hours I drove north, crossing into Idaho as a big orange sun appeared over the mountains west of me. I’d heard Boise was nice but it wasn’t far enough. If I pushed through without stopping I’d be in Montana in another six hours and that should be plenty of distance—at least for a while.
And who knows, if those ghostly visits were just my stressed mind playing tricks on me, then maybe escaping casino life and getting onto the ski slopes would keep her away for good. And if she was real, well it took her two years to find me in Vegas so hopefully it’d be a good year before she caught up with me again.
I glanced in the rearview mirror at the purple Nevada skyline and then back at the now sunlit stretch of highway ahead of me.
But either way, it is hard to escape your past.
And in the end, maybe I will or maybe I won’t
Only time will tell.
I lit a cigarette and snapped the black Zippo shut. The stone tower seemed a hell of a lot taller in person than it had in the pictures. Squinting my eyes, I stared up at the wisp of cloud that had settled in front of the black opening at the top where everyone had either been thrown out of or jumped from.
“What do you think, boss? Thirty stories?”
I looked over at Matt, the show’s cameraman. “That’s probably about right,” I said. I took a puff of the cigarette and blew smoke towards the gray sky. “All those poor suckers that took the express train off that thing. Now that’s what you call a death cult.” I flicked the cigarette onto the ground and smothered it with my shoe. “The dum dums will love this one.”
The dum dums was my pet name for the show’s audience.
I turned toward Chad and Goldie who made up the rest of my crew. They had set everything up about thirty feet from the tower. “OK, guys, let’s get this thing going; I want to be out of here before dark.”
I walked to where Chad was holding the boom mic and
