The sodden clothing crumpled, empty, to the ground.
Within moments, the wind began to shriek round the stones, as if the very earth were keening for the loss of its warden.
And in the sodium twilight of the town below, the dogs began to howl.
CHAPTER ONE
Coyote Makes His Mark
T
HE COYOTE LOPED
through the brush of the Mojave desert, toward the heat-rippled vertical smudges of civilisation in the distance.
He loved the rocks, the sand, this shrub here, that abandoned, half-buried shopping trolley over there. He loved it all.
He looked at the sinking sun and grinned. He did that. Him. He gave sunlight to the world. He stole it from right under Owl’s wing. Some might consider it a mere etiologic tale, but every word of it was true. It was in books and everything.
And here, in the Mojave desert, mortals had briefly created their own man-made sun. The power of creation and destruction, once held to be the purview of gods. Some gods didn’t like that. Not Coyote, though. He admired humans for it. How far they’d come since he stole fire for the People. He found them fascinating.
He raised his nose into the wind catching the scents, searching for something. He found it, stopped, inhaled deeply and licked his chops. Women in ranches. Like hens. Heh. A coyote in the hen house. He tried to smile although he’d never quite got the hang of it. It looked like he was just baring his teeth, but inside... inside he was smiling. Lewdly.
The serenity of the desert evening was shattered by a loud, shrill fart.
“Shut up. Nobody asked you,” said the coyote, flicking his tail.
To his left, a cluster of small rocks toppled from an outcrop.
“And the world agrees with me!” the coyote declared with satisfaction.
He sat and watched from a vantage point as the sun set and the lights of the town flickered into life below it. The Sky Beam pierced the evening sky.
The coyote sighed, flicked his tail and headed down into Las Vegas.
E
YES OPENED HESITANTLY
as he surfaced to consciousness. Reality trickled in. He took in the small environment about him; snapshots of indeterminate ground, like a NASA Mars robot testing its camera. He waited for his focus to adjust, while his senses flooded with data—mostly pain—until he was drowning in it.
He was slumped against the side of a dumpster in a puddle of his own piss. His chinos were wet and cold at the crotch. He put a hand to his head. His fingers came away covered with tiny rust flakes of dried blood. Unable to breathe through his nose, he prised a dried plug of bloodied snot from his nostril with a fingernail and the iron tang caught the back of his throat as he hawked up.
He needed a little help here. He patted himself down. Nothing was broken. Sore, yes. But not broken. No wallet. No ID. No hotel key card. Great.
Something bobbed to the surface. A name. Green. Richard Green. It was quickly followed by the floating memory turds of recent events.
He let out a groan.
No matter how stubbornly he tried to flush them away, the unsavoury facts of his life remained.
A month before, he had had a small but comfortable flat, a safe, if boring, job and a girlfriend, Becky. He’d been happy. Well, not happy exactly, content maybe. But you couldn’t be happy all the time. Happiness was moments. Brilliant moments to be sure, but they never lasted. They were the highs, the peak of the wave. Contentment was more of your cruising altitude. Only he’d nosedived from contentment into despair.
Britain had been dogged by outbreaks of misfortune. ‘Bad Luck Britain!’ the tabloids cawed, gleefully cataloguing the latest misfortunes: a refinery fire in the North East, fourteen dead; three dead from a collapsing church spire in the Midlands.
And six months ago, the tide of bad luck lapped Bridstowe; a multiple pile-up on the bypass, a young kiddy gone missing, the local team on a losing streak that would cost them the final if they couldn’t pull their bloody finger out, a swingeing round of cuts from the council. And then, without warning, he was laid off from the electrical chain store where he worked. That was when Becky left him. At least, he had his redundancy pay. That was something.
“You’ve never done anything with your life. Now’s the chance,” his mates had said down theDesk and Jockey pub. “Go to Las Vegas, live a little!”
Dave had gone on a stag do. It was proper brilliant, apparently.
It was pointless trying to argue over the blare of the HDTV music channel on the flat screen above their heads, so he’d nodded and grinned, unconvinced at the time, as Dave regaled them with tales of the luck, loot and lewdness to be had. Slightly pissed, a crooked smile slewed across Richard’s face as he listened, and the idea grew on him. He staggered back from the pub a little the worse for wear. Before he’d had a chance to sober up and consider the proposition, he’d toggled on his tablet, booked the flights and the hotel.
He’d show Becky.
Oh, yeah. He’d shown her all right. At first Richard didn’t realise he could move and, when he did, it hurt. He levered himself upright, leaning heavily on the dumpster, and staggered into the street.
There sidewalk hawkers taunted him with flyers for ranch houses, brothels and escorts. Gaggles of women staggered down the street in impossibly high heels, clutching popcorn-sized buckets full of Margaritas.
Richard glowered at them all right now. He resented Las Vegas with every fibre of his being. He begrudged every cheery raucous shout and smiling face. He hated the gaudy neon lights and huge monumental edifices to greed that rose from every corner.
Las Vegas had shrugged off the resentment of millions of losers; chewed them up, parted them from their cash and their dreams, and spat them out. It didn’t notice one more.
Richard Green wandered the Strip in a daze, his mind fixated on the stranger who had got him into this mess in the first place, and his vitriol reserved for the one place that got him into this mess in the first place, the Olympus.
“‘Trust me, I have a system...’” he muttered to himself in a mocking whine. He shook his head in disbelief at his own gullibility. “Fuck.”
F
OR THIRTY YEARS,
the Olympus had been the biggest draw in Las Vegas, popular with tourists for its amazing light show. The Bellagio and Luxor both attempted to ape its grandeur and its sheer opulence, but ultimately paled into insignificance. Still, the sympathetic magic worked, up to a point.
Set back from Las Vegas Boulevard, a curved avenue lined with statues of athletically posed Greek heroes led up to it and, nestled within the curve, a full-sized Parthenon sat in front of the hotel complex.
Atop the seventy-floor, white, ancient-Greek-themed building, was a classical Greek temple. This acropolis was as far above the tourists below as the gods were above mortals, and just as unreachable. Each evening, a bank of clouds rolled out from the summit of the Olympus, an ephemeral stage for an aerial Light Spectacular, a show of musical thunder and multicoloured lightning flashing within the clouds, while CGI spectacles were projected up onto the cloud base as Greek myths played out above the tourists’ heads.
In the Parthenon, half naked, bronzed and oiled Spartans flexed and posed for the tourists, with refrains of “This. Is. Vegas!” to the squeals of delight from giddy women old enough to know better, but old enough not to care.
It was top of the list for every tourist and Richard had been no exception. It was all part of the genuine Las Vegas experience. The brochures said so. Not that he could afford to stay there. Still, it was something to tick off his list.
Richard pushed through the crowd of tourists, the space filled with the chirps of cameras and smartphones pecking at the sights like ravenous gulls.
The foyer of the hotel complex was the size of an international airport check-in hall, although more opulent and with more Doric columns and marble floors. It could have been the lobby for heaven itself.
At the far end of the foyer, a waterfall dropped several storeys into a river. Bridges led over it to the main complex: the Golden Fleece Casino, the Elysium Lounge and Bar Lethe.
Beyond was a labyrinth of slots, full of Mino-tourists. Row upon row of machines beeping and chirping like one-armed idols as the faithful ploughed offerings into them.
“It’s a joyful sound, isn’t it?” said a voice at his shoulder. He turned to see a tall, lanky man, dusky skinned with a prominent hawk-like nose and long, black hair pulled back in a ponytail.
Richard frowned. “Pardon?”
The man, who could have been a Native American, cocked his head at the sound. “You’re British. Love the accent.”
“Uh, thanks.”
Richard made to walk away. He didn’t really want to get into conversation.
“Your first time in Vegas?”
“That obvious, huh?”
“You look lost.” Coyote held out his hand. “They call me Kai.” He smiled a self-assured smile. A Danny Ocean smile. It oozed charm and affability. It was the easy smile of an old friend, the older brother Richard never had. The smile washed over him. This was a man he could trust.
Disarmed, Richard took his hand and shook it. “Richard. Richard Green.”
Kai’s eyes twinkled, lighting up with an easy smile. “So, Richard.” A hand dropped on his shoulder as they eyed the slots together. “Want to be a winner?”
“Christ, yes.”
They walked though the aisles of slots across plush carpet that did nothing to muffle the electronic beeps, whoops and musical cascades. They passed the Elysium Lounge and headed up the wide stairs that swept toward the Golden Fleece Casino, where a spotlit gold-coloured fleece hung in pride of place on the wall, like a trophy.
Richard hesitated.
So far he had been sensible. Sure, he had his redundancy pay, but he wasn’t going to lose it all in Vegas. He wasn’t stupid. Gamble only as much as you can afford to lose, he’d heard once. He figured how much of his money he could afford to burn and decided that was his limit. So far, he’d lost a chunk but had managed to make some of it back. He wasn’t willing to risk too much more. Safe, dependable, boring old Richard. That, he had decided bitterly, was ultimately what cost him Becky.
Kai winked at Richard and tapped his prominent nose. “Trust me, I have a system,” he said. “You’ll get your capital back plus a share of the winnings.”
Richard found himself at the casino ATM, surprised to realise he’d withdrawn his entire redundancy package. Sod it. He was going to be quids in. Sod Satellite Electricals. Sod Becky. He was a winner and Kai had a system. He couldn’t lose. His confidence was unassailable. They made a beeline for the blackjack tables. Some other players nodded as they took their seats.
“Gentlemen,” acknowledged the dealer. With a practised hand, he slid them their cards.
Kai, a shit eating grin on his face, glanced at each of the players in turn.
So much for a poker face
, thought Richard.
Chips crossed the table, more chips and cards crossed back. They stayed for a few hands. Richard noticed Kai slip his hand into his jeans pocket. What was that, some kind of device, a card counter maybe? Shit. Alarmed, Richard glanced around, hoping no one else had noticed.
Kai caught him in the beam of his smile and everything was all right again.
Richard watched as Kai raked in their winnings and pushed his chair back.
“Thanks, fellas.”
They moved on to baccarat. Richard didn’t even know what baccarat was. It was just something James Bond played. Was it James Bond? Probably. Strangely, he didn’t know much of anything. Couldn’t think. It was as if someone had taken his brain out and stuffed it with cotton wool. But that was okay. He had Kai.
Kai, his hand still straying to his trousers, was sufficiently cunning to lose often enough not to arouse suspicion.
Richard remembered the clatter of the roulette ball. The chips stacking up, pile after pile. Kai knew what he was doing.
Then Richard had a sudden attack of lucidity, like a small eddy clearing a patch of fog in his mind. He looked around. Kai was nowhere to be seen. Sod Kai, his money had gone too. Anxiety wringing out his insides like a wet flannel, he prairie dogged, glancing around the casino.
Two well dressed men, casino security, moved towards him like sharks through the sea of gamblers.
“If you’d like to accompany us, sir.”
Of course he would. “Thank god, I’ve been conned. Someone’s made off with all my winnings.”
“Our footage showed nobody else.”
Confusion clouded Richard’s face. “What? But he was here. He took all my money. Aren’t you going to get my money back?”
One man deftly guided Richard away from the tables and towards the casino entrance. Still, Richard was convinced that they’d soon have this sorted out. After all, they had CCTV. All sorts of security. Bound to.
“Let’s take this somewhere else, sir. We don’t want to cause a scene.”
Scene? Richard blinked. “But surely you don’t think—I’m the injured party here. I’ve been conned in your casino. I demand that you do something about it.”
People glanced at the raised voice as they passed various gaming tables.
“We’ve had a complaint about you slot walking.”
“Slot walking? I don’t even know what that means.”
They escorted him past the golden fleece, out of the casino and through the slots hall. Richard’s face flushed with anger and embarrassment. Any attempt to stop or turn was met with a firmer pressure by the hand on his shoulder, steering him as surely as a tiller.
A golden fleece? Yes, it bloody well had been.
K
AI WATCHED AS
Richard was escorted out, and had a moment’s guilt. No, not guilt, indigestion. He looked up at the golden fleece. He wondered what the punters would think if they knew it was the genuine article. He grinned, a coyote in sheep’s clothing.
O
UTSIDE,
R
ICHARD TURNED
and looked back at the hotel entrance. The two security men stood there, eyes fixed on him, as if they were trying to turn him to stone. He took an experimental step towards them. One adjusted his weight marginally—hands held low, palms facing in—and Richard thought better of it.