brains fucked out and danced on.’ Change that to pranced on. Change it to blitzing.) Oh, them amazing changes. Roll on, river! Roll the dice.
I left the donut shop near midnight and walked downtown. I’d decided to buy a bus ticket to Jim Bridger’s grave in eastern Wyoming with the money Billy had given me. If $50 wasn’t far enough, I’d go as close as I could.
I’d looked up Greyhound’s address in the donut shop phone book, but when I got there, it wasn’t. It had been torn down to make room for a new casino. Funny, I can’t remember the casino’s name, but I remember that the neon outside seemed to pulse, pulse like a gaudy heart. Hypnotized by the rhythm, dazzled by the colors, I tried to decide what this meant. Was it a sign that I should gamble the money rather than play it safe, or was it a temptation that would prove the pain of folly should I succumb?
I was still thinking – hey, it’s a tough choice – when a guy wearing this incredible burgundy greatcoat with gold piping and enormous epaulets grabbed me by the arm, hard, and hissed in my ear, ‘Hustle it somewhere else, Sugar Hump. There ain’t no independents on the strip, and I don’t know you. You want to push some pussy, that’s your business; but don’t hustle it here, take it across the tracks,’ cause if you don’t, you must not like your face,’ cause I can just about promise if you stay here somebody will pull it off and fix it so that no one else will like it either.’
He thought he was doing me a favor, explaining how it was. When he saw I was listening he let go of my arm.
When he finished, I let him have it: ‘Listen, you presumptuous jerk, I’m looking, not hooking. I’m trying to decide if I want to gamble my fifty dollars or get down the line. You wouldn’t know a whore from a horticulture handbook.’ (Girl, you do go on!)
‘What are you saying?’ he snarled. ‘I’m dumb?’
I realized then he wasn’t a pimp standing his turf, but a casino doorman. I said, ‘Not dumb, mistaken. We all make mistakes.’
He started to say something but glanced over my shoulder and shut up. When I turned around I saw why: there was a man six foot seven and a trim 240 who looked just like Jesus if Jesus was a cowboy who’d got dressed up for the big city. He was wearing snakeskin boots that probably moved some exotic species from the rare to endangered list, a western-cut sport coat with a beaverskin yoke, a white cowboy hat with a band of rattlesnake rattles strung on a gold wire, and a solid silver belt buckle in the shape of a gila monster. Knocked me out.
Impressed the doorman, too, or at least drained the nasty from his tone. ‘Evening, Longshot. Still picking winners?’
‘Enough to keep even,’ Longshot said, his voice like polished oak. He glanced at me – just for a second, but he really looked – then back at the doorman. ‘Slow night, Lyle?’ he said, sounding plumb puzzled that Lyle had nothing more interesting to do than hassle an absolutely provocative lady, even if she was a little rumpled and road-grubby.
‘Just telling the sister how it is,’ Lyle shrugged. ‘Spare some grief.’
Longshot’s nod said ‘Understood, appreciated, see ya later.’ He turned to me and said, ‘Ma’am, I couldn’t help but overhear the decision you’re struggling with, whether to put it on the line or use it for getting’ down the line. That’s a rough choice every time you’ve got to make it; I know,’ cause I’m forty-three years old and had to choose a bunch o’ times. My name, by the way –’ scuse my rough manners – is Longshot.’
‘I’m Jennifer Raine,’ I said. (I felt that safe with him.)
He tipped his hat!
So I lifted the hem of my imaginary dress and curtsied.
When he grinned, light danced in his lonesome-prairie, sky-blue eyes. ‘Jenny Raine,’ he repeated softly, as it should be said. ‘Jenny Raine. Sounds close to “gentle rain,” but I bet you can get stormy, too.’
I smiled right at him. ‘Hurricane,’ I warned, but with what I hoped was an inviting smile.
‘Have you made your decision, or are you still mulling it around?’
‘Mulling,’ I said, trying to make it sound as if mulling was something I did with my hips. ‘You said you were a man of experience. Have any advice for the young?’
‘Matter o’fact, I do: Lay it on the line.’
‘Always?’
‘Nope. But anyone in town can tell you that the best thing I have going is my ability to know when someone’s about to break loose and go hog-wild lucky. Jenny, you’re so ripe for a hot roll that I’ll back you ten grand, right now tonight, for half the action.’
‘Nope,’ I said, imitating his flat inflection. ‘But if you’ll match my fifty, anything either of us hits we’ll split down the middle.’
He offered his arm. Lyle, who’d faded back to his post, opened the door as we swept inside.
I know shit about gambling, so I let Longshot choose the game. He led me straight upstairs to a $10,000-limit crap table, took our pooled money, and bought
