something about the recessing U.S. Senate. No surprise, she thought.
The Senate was always out to lunch or recess. It took great reserves of talented men and women to catch elusive serial killers, to bring such monsters into the light of justice; but try to tell that to a Senate investigation committee looking into slashing the FBI's budget.
When their airport curbside limo came to a stop at the light, J. T. pointed out the famous Luxor Hotel and extravaganza. The lingering Nevada sun sent shards of light against its black glass surface, only to create an impenetrable image. Fascinating, more so than any of the steel and glass temples erected to the sky and the almighty dollar, its unusual size and pyramidal shape made it a marvel of human accomplishment and construction. It was the pyramid at Giza replanted here in the American desert. It was a stunning modern-day answer to the Egyptian pyramids, this answer to any of Hollywood's infamous, big-screen Babylons.
Like Vegas itself, it made for a stifling whore, this symbol of how far wealth and power were willing to go for the sake of more wealth and power. Audacious, grand beyond scale, and as gaudy and garish as all of convention- central Las Vegas's megacasinos combined. Like all of Vegas, the Luxor combined gargantuan themes and dreams of 'epic' proportion with a crude commercialism possible only in America, a place where one casino's take in nickels alone on any given day might feed some Third World countries for a year.
But all J. T. saw was the grandeur of this architectural marvel, and all he could say was, 'See what I mean? The city's desperate for a new image as a family-friendly place.'
She cynically nodded and replied, 'Yeah… sure… And what kind of conference can we have, J. T., surrounded as we are on all sides by… by so much… temptation?'
'You, tempted?'
'No, not me… everyone else.'
'Oh, I see… everyone else. You're worried about everyone else… everyone but you.' He laughed and ran a hand through his thick mat of dark hair.
She frowned at his response. 'What's so funny?'
'Jess, do you really think you're immune to gambling?'
'I do and I am…'
'So, you're just worried about everyone else in the forensic science community being able to abstain?'
'Think about it, John,' she quickly replied. She only called him John when she felt annoyed. 'Adewah, Repasi, MacEachern… Sloan, Slaughter, Oleander, for that matter…'
He pictured each of these infamous medical examiners in turn.
She continued, 'They take out bets on which one will find the most unusual and unique stomach contents on a victim in six different categories, E-mailing each other weekly to compare findings, so just imagine them surrounded by slot machines.'
Again J. T. laughed. 'So, big deal. We do the same to ease tensions in the lab… which wound on a stabbing victim will be the first fatal blow, whether a time of death will or will not turn an acquittal into a guilty verdict. Whether a young attending female student will find me attractive or not…'
'Big wooooo!' Now she laughed in response. 'Still, if everyone's at the gambling tables and the bandit boxes, how're the brightest minds in the forensic world ever to come to any consensus about our bylaws, current issues with regard to the witness box, the latest in DNA findings, serious matters of ethics, legislative issues, and-'
'That's your problem, Doctor.' She halted, her eyebrows lifting like birds on the wing.
'What's my problem, Dr. Thorpe?'
'Too damned serious for your own damned good at times, Jessica Coran. Life's short. When do you intend to find time to enjoy yourself, your life?''
'Hey, I had a great time in Athens and Rome with Jim, and now I'm back. I have plenty of fun… plenty…'
'And if Parry hadn't flown down to the Caymans to find you with those two tickets in his fist?'
Her eyes widened. 'I'll be damned. You put him up to it, didn't you?'
'No, no… no,' he denied, his eyes darting, searching for someplace to light, a pair of confused birds let out of a cage. He wondered how he'd gotten himself into this cage.
'And here I thought it was all Jim's idea. Didn't I tell you not to go playing Cupid? You're not that cute… although since putting on a few, you do have a cherubic quality about you.'
J. T., pleased he was only mildly scolded, instantly defended his weight, saying, 'For a man my age, thirty- nine next month'-he lied about his age-'it's not so bad, or so I'm told by my trainer. Axel always says-'
'Axel?' She stifled a laugh.
'Yeah. Axel always says, 'It's good to have a little to burn…' '
'I'll just bet good ol' Axel says that. And just what burner are you working on?' she continued to tease.
He was glad that she had been pleased down in the Caymans when she had reached out and found Jim Parry appearing from nowhere while she, like some real-life Perilous Pauline, had hung suspended over a bevy of hungry, blood-sniffing sharks. Parry had literally saved her from death in the waters off Grand Cayman, a surprise that had been totally unexpected. Then he whisked her off to Athens, where they remained for a week, followed by a second week, in Rome. And for a time, J. T. believed Jessica Coran would never return to D.C., and sometimes he still wondered why she had.
'As for me, when it comes to a gamble,' she was saying now, uselessly pointing in the direction of the Flamingo Hilton, fearing the driver was taking a circuitous route, 'I can take it or leave it.'
'Who's a bigger gambler than you? You gambled and won against Matisak in New Orleans, and you did the same with Tauman in the Caymans. Take it or leave what?' Then he wondered if she had meant Parry and paradise, feeling a bit awkward at putting his foot in it
'Gambling, gambling, and this Mecca for gamblers and people who crave to throw their fortunes, big and small, down the most extravagant 'come on' toilet the world and history has ever seen-that's what I'm talking about.'
'Ahhh, come on, Jess. There's got to be some redeeming factor about Vegas. Every city has some… upside.'
'Well, there is plenty of-'
'Neon?'
'Parking,' she finished.
Jessica was well aware that the low-lying metropolis, nestled as it was on the desert floor, represented the fastest-growing city in America and that its growth had changed its character over the years. However, she firmly believed that all character began with a bedrock that remained intransigent and unchangeable. A city openly spawned on corruption and greed could not deny its roots or heritage by raising temples to the sky, even if they held 'family' attractions within. The central root upon which it all flourished remained human fallibility, greed, and feeding off that greed. Sure, the limbs of the tree had sprawled far and wide from its core-downtown Vegas being the hub from which architects and city planners worked-but there was scarcely a household on the desert floor left untouched by money had from gambling in one fashion or another.
Absolutely, Vegas brimmed full with good and decent people-families eking out a living, children struggling in schools at all levels, playhouses, cultural events, museums, and small pleasures that on the surface appeared to have nothing whatever to do with downtown Vegas or gambling, but then, no place in the city was immune. The entire tax base rested on gambling, and every 7-Eleven, every gas station, Laundromat, Chinese restaurant, and grocery store, as well as the airport, had slot machines for casual 'play.' She imagined it must be an extremely confusing place to grow from childhood to man- or womanhood.
The limo pulled into the Flamingo Hilton drive, flanked by O'Shea's on one side, the Barbary Coast Casino on the other. The Hilton hadn't escaped the towering tackiness of the place any more than the more modern 'erections' here, she thought.
'I'll get the bags, you get the tip,' suggested J. T.
The weather was searing, a torrid 101°F in the shade, and while a wildly gusting wind blew a thin, near- invisible desert veil over everything, it did nothing to cool but rather irritated the skin. They'd been sweating since leaving the comfort of the airport, the driver obviously no good with controls, or perhaps he was saving on gas, or simply had no understanding of air-conditioning. He wouldn't receive a full tip, not from her, despite his familiar woes.
After helping J. T. with the bags, the cabbie said to Jessica, 'Wel-come to Los Veegas, pree-ty la-dy…' His accent, jet-black, sweat-saturated hair, broken-toothed grin, and swarthy skin gave him away as a Hispanic
