Wolf's Deal: A Nick Lupo Novella (The Nick Lupo Series) (12 page)

“You heard
about the second vic?” DiSanto was saying.

She nodded.
“I just walked past the crowd out there. It’s terrible, people being murdered
senselessly. I don’t know how you guys do it, day in and day out.”

DiSanto
chuckled mirthlessly. “Drugs and alcohol. The occasional breakdown.”

She touched
his arm, serious. “Must be hard.”

“You get
used to it on the one hand,” he said. “But on the other, not really. We’ll get
this guy, though. It’s just… well, he’s got a streak going, and the question is
how many more he’ll target before we close in.” He passed a hand over his hair,
smoothing it from its pillow shape. “Nick told me about your ideas. Good call.
He seems convinced you’re on the right track. We never thought about people who
got rejected before being hired…”

“You would
have, eventually,” she said, touching his arm again. “I mean, it just came to
me, maybe because I’m looking at it from the outside.”

“No, that’s
good psychology. You’re a doctor, you know how people think.”

“If I did…
I’d have a lot easier time up on the rez.”

DiSanto
turned to scan a knot of security guys at the far end of the aisle. “I’d better
check in with those guys. I’ll tell Nick you’re around if I see him before you
do. I think he’s here somewhere in this maze. He called me back, so his ass had
better be here!”

“Thanks,”
she said. She really liked DiSanto. She was happy that he watched Nick’s back.
She sensed he was a lot more efficient than his surface persona. The one
persona Nick was always teasing.

He grinned
his boyish grin, but the lack of sleep was making his face sag at the corners
and his eyes seemed nearly glazed.

She watched
him walk away.

Then she
sensed eyes on her and turned, expecting to catch a glimpse of Lupo striding
toward her. But instead it was another tired-looking guy shuffling past. He
didn’t look like a gambler type at all. He seemed watchful. Another cop, she
guessed, dragged out of bed, but she didn’t know him. Half the department was
probably here. She watched him stumble across her field of vision, his eyes
sweeping over her, over the other security people, the gamblers. He seemed to
be aware of everything.

Then he
disappeared around an island of slot machines, and she set about trying to find
Nick.

She went for
her phone but her pocket was empty. Had that moment everyone has, a sort of
What the hell? It should be here!
moment, and patted her pocket as if there was a chance she just couldn’t feel
the plastic and metal slab. Then patted the other pockets.

She’d used
it in the Pathfinder. Then she’d put it on the passenger seat when she
unbuckled her seat belt.

Oh well, I’m either going to find Nick the
old-fashioned way or I’m going to find the truck and get the phone.

She weighed
her options.

Six of one…

She set out
back into the heart of the loud casino environment, figuring she’d either run
into Nick or DiSanto again, or maybe one of the few other cops she knew, and it
would be quicker than going for the phone.

As she
walked, she felt a strange urge to try the beckoning slot machines.

That was funny,
she always listened to
The Turn of a
Friendly Card
, their favorite Alan Parsons Project, and heard it as Eric
Woolfson’s colorful but cautionary tale about the evils of gambling, yet here
she was, reaching into her pocket for a folded bill. They took bills, didn’t
they, the slot machines?
Of course they
do
.

She pulled
out a twenty. Stepped up to a machine with colorful fantasy creatures on its
face, a catchy electronic song with pumped-up bass playing over and over, and a
bunch of rolling cylinders with pictures on each of many faces. She watched as
nearby players fed their machines and imitated them, sliding the bill into the
lit-up slot. It was eaten with a grinding sound and then a series of numbers
popped up on the little window accompanied by a jaunty synthesizer ditty. She
did the math and realized it had counted her twenty as eighty quarters. She
watched another player ignore the old one-armed bandit limb on the side of his
machine and push a button on the face, did the same, and watched the cylinders
spin, mesmerized by the colors and the pictures of fruit and the words BAR or
BAR BAR or BAR BAR BAR flashing by until they all stopped, and nothing
happened. Nothing, that is, except that one was subtracted from her total of
eighty.

Well, that was fast
, she thought. She pushed the button again, watched as the cylinders
spun, stylized fruit and strange little icons rolling until they all stopped
and no two matched. Another single number was subtracted from her total.
Loser, again
.

Almost
without realizing it, her hand reached out and smacked the button once more as
if she had decided to deny the reality of loss. The cylinders spun crazily as
she blinked, trying to freeze them in place with a glance, and this time the
words BAR BAR faced her from all three cylinder windows. The music’s volume
increased, lights flashed, and she watched the red numbers increase by twenty.
Ninety-eight!
She’d won!

She glanced
around. No one was looking at her, but she felt the flush of an unexpected
excitement creeping up on her face.

For a
moment, she forgot that she wanted to find Nick.

Instead, she
reached out for the button and pressed it again.

What are these other buttons?
she wondered.
Bet Max
,
Cash Out
.

Again, she
forgot about Nick.

She reached
out and touched the button. It was warm. She pushed it.

THE ARCHER

He’d
followed the cop he’d seen talking to the extraordinary beauty, but that guy
had joined a group of casino “kops” and they’d shuffled around as a group, then
breaking up to head in different directions. He’d been forced to make a quick
decision. He wanted it to be perfect, but maybe he was expecting too much of
himself.

He followed
two cops as they stalked the aisles, looking for
him
. They had no idea what he looked like, and in fact even if he
happened to have returned, but they were giving it their best effort. He
grinned and played
eeny-meeny-miney-moe.

Which one would it be?

He was torn,
but the itch to do something was growing. It was a strong sensation. He wanted
the crossbow in his hands.

But then he
doubled back and saw that the mysterious woman had propped her amazing ass in
front of a slot machine and seemed lost there, as if she’d never seen one
before.

He stared at
the woman’s back for a minute, lost in thought.

Choices…

He spotted
one of the cops returning, apparently having broken away from the group that
had stalked off toward the outer perimeter of the casino proper. The guy had
just spoken to the same cop who’d hobnobbed with the maybe-reporter chick.
Clearly they were both cops, here to canvass or whatever the fuck they did as
they searched for The Archer.

As they
searched for
him
.

He liked
feeling important. He wondered what the TV news was saying about him. Had CNN
caught on yet? Had he gone national?

This might do it…

The cop he
was following ducked into one of many arched restroom entrances that dotted the
outer walls of the big shed-like casino. It was still early morning, so The
Archer threw caution to the wind (he’d always wanted to say that) and followed
the slender guy through into a long and narrow, dark marble-lined room with a
dozen urinals along one wall, and a half-dozen stalls beyond that, with sinks
and mirrors opposite. It was one of the casino’s smaller bathroom facilities,
and as he’d expected it was empty. He just glimpsed the cop disappearing into
one of the stalls.

How perfect is that?

The Archer
was working on instinct now, instinct and adrenaline.

And inspiration.

His next
target had to be a newschick. He had convinced himself that it would be his
best statement now, at this point in his spree. And they were so smug, always
looking so perfect on camera. They were so self-involved, he doubted they even
understood the stories they read in their breathless tone, winking at the lens.
He thought furiously. He wanted to play it just right, get on the news in just
the right way. If that excellent example of a reporter-type was his destiny,
then he had to listen to what the universe was telling him. But first he had to
get close to her.

If he’d sat
down to think about it, he might have hesitated and most likely rejected his
own his own evolving plan, and the moment would have passed.

But he
didn’t sit down to think about it.

He had to
act now.

He was right
behind the cop, actually closer than he had even realized, and he sped up his pace
and widened his stride until he reached the stall door just as the cop inside
was closing it, rattling the latch.

The Archer
had his stun gun in hand and when the cop whirled about in the stall, his body
was blocked by The Archer’s and the stun gun went to the guy’s neck and he took
the zap, vibrating like a cartoon character until his eyes rolled up in their
sockets. The Archer kept it up and when the current finally stopped the cop
sagged to the tiled floor like a sack of flour. Half unconscious, fingers
trembling and eyelids fluttering, the cop was helpless.

Now The
Archer had a problem. What to do? His instinct was to slit the cop’s throat,
but the blood would be too copious. It would splash all over his clothes,
defeating his purpose. This was why he liked the crossbow – it was almost
impersonal, yet still somehow intimate.

The cop was
still out but twitching, so The Archer closed and latched the stall door and
hunched over the body, pinching the nose shut with one hand, and bringing his
weight to bear on the man’s mouth with the other, cutting off his air until he
came to and started to struggle, his eyes exploding open so the whites were
visible all the way around the pupils. The cop struggled feebly, but The
Archer’s weight and position effectively kept him trapped against the floor
tiles, the toilet, and the lower flange of the privacy wall until the air ran
out, he struggled once more, a last weak effort, and he lost consciousness.

The Archer
continued to wait, pressing down with all his strength, until he felt life
leaving the cop’s feeble body. Then the cop’s bladder loosened and the sharp
ammonia smell of urine twitched The Archer’s nostrils. A couple tense minutes
more to make sure, and then he manhandled the limp body and propped it onto the
toilet, the head lolling obscenely onto the plastic toilet paper dispenser.

It was
almost like his first kill and he appreciated the sense of coming full circle.

The Archer
quickly relieved the dead cop of what he needed, then locked the flimsy door
and rolled out of the stall under the privacy wall before the urine puddle
widened.

Still no one
had entered the restroom, which confirmed that The Archer was merely fulfilling
his destiny.

Called to a higher purpose
.

Perhaps he
was destined to punish the tribes for their callous treatment of people like
him
. Who did they think they were,
playing God with the lives of so many? He had to force the rage down, before it
could bubble up again.

Moments
later he was out on the casino floor, extra weight in his pockets and a feeling
of infinite power.

It was
almost mystical in nature.

But he
couldn’t find her. She had moved, or left, and he wandered up and down the
noisy aisles, panic beginning to creep into his mind and poisoning his newfound
feeling of power.

Damn it!
Where had
she disappeared to? Anytime now somebody would find the dead cop, and then the
resulting lockdown would snag him. If they found the cop’s stuff on him, his
end wouldn’t be the blaze of glory he sought. It would be the universe laughing
at him, rather than granting him that infinite power he had just felt.

Have to resolve this now
, he thought, his eyes roving frantically.

And, in
fact, when he spotted his target he knew he was indeed destined to follow this
path, though it was different yet again from the way it had begun.

Who was
he
to question his destiny?

JESSIE

She watched
her money double on the one machine, and having seen other people do this, she
hit the
Cash Out
button and endured
the jangling coin sound as the slot spit out a claim ticket.

Now what?

She could
cash it in, or walk around for a while and find another machine to slip it into
and try her luck again…