When Nolan got back to their hotel suite, he found Sherry pacing, her long blonde hair bouncing, legs flashing; she was in a bright floral baby doll dress that made him wonder if she needed a spanking. Or something.
She froze and her hands turned into fists.
“Where have you been?” she demanded, frowning, really cross with him, then ran over and flew into his arms and hugged him desperately. Since her abduction, six months ago, he’d noticed she tended toward overreacting.
She squeezed him so hard, burying her face in his chest, that he said, “Oww.”
She drew away, frowning again but this time in concern. “Are you all right?”
A knock came at the door, just behind him—he’d barely stepped into the room—and he eased Sherry away, motioned her to one side.
Quickly he went to the dresser and got out his Smith & Wesson Model 10 with its four-inch barrel from between folded clothes. He didn’t have to check it—he knew it was loaded and ready.
The knock repeated, and a voice said, “Sherry? It’s Jon.”
Nolan let some air out, then opened the door and Jon grinned seeing him, but the younger man’s brows went up as he took in the revolver in his host’s hand, lowered though it was now.
“Didn’t you see the ‘Do Not Disturb’?” Nolan asked, but half-smiled and gestured his friend in and shut the door.
Jon, in jeans and a gray t-shirt with an orange Elvis Costello figure on it, joined Nolan and Sherry in a semi-circle, as if they were planning the next play in the big game.
“Sherry called me,” Jon said, nodding at her, “saying you went missing.”
“That’s maybe overstated,” Nolan said, putting the .38 back in his suitcase, “but something happened, yeah. Why don’t we get lunch here somewhere. I’ll fill both of you in.”
In the French Marketplace Café—with its expected wrought iron, red brick and hanging ferns—the trio settled into a corner booth, Sherry in the middle. Basin Street jazz poured in gently over the sound system but could not overcome the ding-ding-ding din from the casino the restaurant opened onto. They ordered lunch portions of Fried Shrimp and Grits (Nolan), gumbo and a shrimp Po’ Boy (Jon), and a Creole Caesar salad (Sherry). While they waited for their food, sipping at Long Island iced teas, Nolan told them of his adventure.
Jon laughed when Nolan got to the part about the casino manager grilling him.
“Happy I’m amusing you,” Nolan said.
“Oh,” Jon said, “I don’t find it funny they pounded you like a minute steak. I’m sympathetic as hell about that.”
“I’m touched.”
He laughed some more. “But what did you think they’d think? You walk around studying their operation, doing everything but taking notes. Of course they thought you were casing the joint!”
Nolan grunted and said, “Who’s dumb enough to try heisting a casino?”
Jon shrugged, sipped his drink. “I dunno. Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin in the movies? Maybe they saw who it was and thought you had one mountain left to climb.”
Sherry was listening to all this, alternately horrified and amused.
When Nolan’s tale had been told, she asked him, “Are you all right? Do you need to see a doctor?”
Her husband shook his head.
Jon said, “He just needs to be held.”
Nolan glowered at him, but was hiding a smile, not very well.
“I wonder if we should check out of this place,” Sherry said, looking around like they were in a haunted house. “Maybe we can find a hotel where hospitality isn’t spelled hostility.”
Jon said, “Right, where your hubby can stroll around and case the joint and take another beating.”
Nolan raised a palm, as if silencing the class. “First, Jon is right.”
“What?” the younger man said, blinking like he’d had water thrown in his face.
“I was a dope,” Nolan admitted. “Walking around like I was memorizing the place. This is a Chicago-run joint. Not surprising somebody recognized me. Blame is mine.”
Jon, not joking now, said, “Those two security thugs you mixed it up with—any possibility they might make a hobby out of you, in their spare time?”
“I wish they would,” he said, not kidding.
Sherry touched his hand. “We don’t want that kind of thing on this trip, do we? This is a boy-girl thing, not boys-will-be-boys. I mean, it’s our honeymoon, for crying out loud. Look, this is a nice enough place, but let’s go somewhere else.”
“Yeah,” Jon said. “You could go to the Flamingo and case that joint. Be sure to tell them Bugsy was a friend of yours.”
Nolan did something that amazed the other two: he laughed.
Then he said, “What you two fail to realize is that I managed something rare in this town.”
Jon asked, “Which is?”
“Yeah,” Sherry said, looking narrow-eyed at him, “which is what?”
He shrugged rather grandly. “Beat the house. Five will get you ten—and I say this as a man who doesn’t bet on just anything that comes down the pike—our rooms…our meals, everything… will be comped.”
“Speaking of meals,” Jon said.
Their food was being placed before them, after which the conversation became limited to how they were enjoying this good lunch, and some talk about how the afternoon would be spent. A deal was negotiated between bride and groom where Sherry would go to the Fashion Show Mall with a credit card and Nolan would look for tourists to fleece in the poker room. As for Jon, he would have to get back, literally, to the drawing board.
They were having dessert—Nolan and Sherry sharing sweet potato pecan pie, Jon a serving of praline bread pudding he wasn’t sharing with anybody—when a male voice called out good-naturedly, “ Hey! There you are! Been looking everywhere for you…”
You might expect the fat man with the big handsome head and small feet to waddle over, but he was graceful, Nolan’s old pal Harry Bellows. In his purple suit, gold shirt and green tie, he stood out garishly even in the restaurant’s self-conscious New Orleans look.
“Sherry!” Harry said, who of course had known her at the Tropical, and he nodded at Jon. “You are a still a stone-cold stunner, young lady! The showgirls in this town better mind their p’s and q’s.…You folks enjoy your lunch?”
With smiles and nods, they all indicated they had.
“Well,” Harry said with a grandiose gesture, “it’s courtesy of the French Quarter Casino and Hotel.”
The big man slid in next to Nolan, who made room, which took a little doing. Harry leaned close, his voice lowering to a near-confidential tone. “Nolan, Nolan, Nolan, old friend, I am so damn sorry. I don’t know what to say.…Are you all right? I…I’m sorry things got a little out of hand this morning.”
“A little.”
“I did my best to curtail it, as you know. Do you need medical attention?”
“Only if we have a second slice of pie.” Nolan put a hand on Harry’s purple coat sleeve. “Harry, don’t worry yourself. Your man Briggs was very gracious about everything. But I had the feeling…” He shrugged.
“What? What, man?”
“Felt like he would like to make it up to us. In some way. Some fashion.”
Harry raised his hands as if he was being held up, which wasn’t far from the truth. “Well, your stay is being comped, of course! And that includes any meals at the Quarter. All that’s on us.”
“Very generous, Harry.”
The handsome face swiveled to Sherry. “But we’re going to make it up to you, too, little lady. I talked to Mr. Briggs—who Nolan met, he’s the top man here—about how disappointed you were to miss out on that Honeymoon Suite. Well, actually we have several of those, and one of them—in our overflow facility out in back—will be available tonight.”
Sherry began, “That’s not—”
“Thank you,” Nolan said to his one-time associate, “that’s a hell of a generous gesture, and we’re pleased to accept.”
Harry beamed. “Good! And if you’d like to extend your stay, at the hotel’s expense, that suite is available through the coming weekend.”
Nolan shrugged. “No downside to a nice long honeymoon. We’re not rushing to get back for anything.”
“Fred can cover for us,” Sherry said, thinking it through.
Harry was saying, “And at our front desk, by late afternoon, your keys will be ready, with directions to your new suite. A bellman will move you. Now. Anything else I can do for you?”
Another shrug from Nolan. “I’m going to play a little poker this afternoon. Can the house stand me to a couple thousand in chips?”
After an almost imperceptible pause, Harry blurted, “Absolutely! Two thousand enough?”
“Four would be even better.”
A nod as if from the Pope. “Four it is.…Now, don’t forget— we dine at Hugo’s tonight at eight. Uh, would your friend like to join us, too?”
“Working tonight,” Jon said. “Backstage.”
“Too bad,” Harry said, almost convincingly.
Nolan asked, “Is Stella going to make it?”
“Yes,” he said, and sighed. “The estranged wife has deigned to spend time with her worthless husband. She’s always liked you, Nolan. You be sure to tell her what a great guy I am. Put in the good word.”
“I’ll do that.”
Harry squeezed out of the booth before he got squeezed any further by Nolan. He went away on his tiny light feet, smiling over his shoulder and waving.
“Nice guy, Harry,” Nolan said.
“You’re unbelievable,” Jon said, smiling, shaking his head. “You really did beat the house.”
“If you’d taken what I did from those clowns,” he said, “you might have gone after more.…So, babe? You like the sound of that honeymoon suite?”
“Well, yes,” she said. “Sounds more private—we won’t have to walk through the casino to get there. But what’s ‘overflow facility’ mean?”
Jon said, “Strictly hotel rooms, no casino stuff. Not even a slot, no lobby proper. Built last year when the casino started taking off.”
Nolan asked, “What can we expect?”
“Three floors of ‘fantasy suites,’ so that should be fun. It’s a nice lure to pull more guests in. People tend to gamble where they stay, you know.”
“Not having enough rooms available,” Nolan said thoughtfully, “is what killed Ben Siegel at the Flamingo, opening weekend.” He shrugged. “Of course, bullets finished the job later in L.A.”
“And here the poor guy,” Jon said archly, “was just trying to leave a life of crime behind and go straight.”
Sherry frowned. “Is that true?”
Nolan shook his head. “Siegel was stealing from other mobsters. Skimming. Never a good plan, except when the boys skim from themselves, to send tax-free money home. Lot of that goes on in this town. Including right under this roof, you can bet.”
“You’re sort of skimming from them yourself, aren’t you?” Jon asked, with half a smile. “Getting comped for rooms and meals and handed all those free poker chips?”
Nolan shook his head. “That’s not skimming. I put my hand out and they filled it, ’cause they wanted to. Because they fucked up by working me over. I still have friends in Chicago, you know. And I have a reputation for getting even when somebody pulls shit like that.”
“Do tell,” Jon said deadpan.
Sherry excused herself to use the restroom, and Jon scooted over to where she’d been sitting and leaned toward his friend.
“Look,” Jon said, “there’s something I wanted to talk to you about. But not in front of the missus.”
“What you started to tell me on the phone?”
“Right.” Quickly Jon explained about his plan to buy Neon Comics and use the shop to underwrite his cartooning career. And the need for thirty grand to do it. “Now, I’m not asking you to invest. Not hitting you up for a loan and certainly not a handout.”
“What are you asking?”
Jon swallowed. He almost whispered, “One last job. One last score.”
“…You have something in mind?”
“No, that’s your department. Not heist a casino, that’s for damn sure.”
Nolan raised a palm. “Setting up scores was never really my deal. Planner’s department, more like it.”
“My uncle’s dead.”
“Right. Got himself killed in this game. One last job? That ends one of two ways— another last job and another and another…or fucking dead. Thirty K for just your end means a pretty big score. No.”
“What if I come up with the right thing?”
“No. I don’t do that anymore. I just got married, remember? My legit business is doing fine. I don’t need the grief or the money. Maybe we can figure out some other way I can help you.”
Sherry was heading over from the ladies’.
“What trouble are you boys getting yourselves into?” she asked, seeing Jon in her place in the booth. She took his.
“None,” Nolan said.
“Catching up,” Jon said.
The check came and Nolan signed his name and room number to it, adding a generous tip.
Forcing a smile, Jon headed off, saying he’d see the newlyweds at the Everly Brothers concert tomorrow night.
Nolan ushered Sherry outside and into a cab to take her to the mall, which was maybe a ten-minute ride. Then he headed back to the suite to shower and freshen up from that little morning workout with Leo and Vin. He left the room in a Quad Cities River Bandits t-shirt with raccoon logo and brown polyester slacks and sandals, this time with socks, to add an air of unsophistication. Downstairs, in the gift shop, he bought a hokey FRENCH QUARTER baseball cap and snugged it on, completing the look.
Tourist season for Nolan should have required a hunting license.
At the end of his afternoon session in the poker room, he was up three grand, plus the four grand the casino had comped him. Not a bad haul, and nobody spotted him for a hustler, or— if they did—chose not to make an issue of it.
On his way back to the suite, to get himself into real clothes, he stopped at the gift shop again and arranged for flowers to be delivered to the honeymoon suite in the fantasy-suites building. That was when he saw Vin in his purple suit heading into the men’s room.
On a whim, Nolan trailed after.
Seven stalls and seven urinals and seven sinks, and business seemed steady if a little slow. He knew under these circumstances getting Vin alone would be tricky, but he might have a shot, since the man wasn’t pissing. That meant, by means of shrewd deduction, the security thug was in one of the shitters.
Nolan smiled.
He ambled along checking under each stall’s door to tally the occupants. Three stalls were empty. Four were a temporary home to patrons of the casino, including (and this made Nolan smile again) an actual apparently genuine manifestation of socks and sandals. Some people.
The space below only one stall door betrayed purple pants on the part of a pooper.
Nolan waited. The smells back here in Latrine Alley added up to a bouquet not likely to rival that of the flowers he’d just ordered for his bride. He waited. He waited some more.
And a flush.
When the stall door opened, Nolan forced it in and into the occupant, then butted it closed again as Vin stumbled backward, startled. Grabbing the purple lapels, Nolan pushed him back, the crapper catching the guy behind the knees and making a stumbling fool out of him. No resistance followed as Nolan smashed Vin’s head into the wall, twice. The casino employee was holding onto consciousness, his eyes rolled up like a broken slot machine window caught between lemons and cherries. Shoving him bodily down onto the seat, Nolan clutched him by the throat and stared into wide eyes swimming with rage and fear.
“I see you again,” Nolan said, “I won’t be so forgiving.”
Then he slapped the fucker a few hard and fast times and slipped out of the stall. A guy waiting for his turn stopped in mid-step, noticing another guy still seated in there, and Nolan raised a hand.
“Not what you think,” he said.
Upstairs, Nolan freshened up, treating himself to his third shower of the day. Then he took a nap till Sherry got back, and when she did, he didn’t even mind the packages and sacks that represented a major shopping spree. He was in just too good a mood to care and, anyway, it was her goddamned honeymoon, wasn’t it?
She had stopped at the desk and got the key to their new suite.
“We’ll drive around to the overflow facility,” she said, dangling the key like a single earring. “We can park right outside the suite, motel-style. You have a good time this afternoon?”
“Not bad,” he said.
A bellman came up to gather their things, which they’d readied for him, and the couple left the suite and then the casino, retrieving the rental Audi. Sherry had been told the way to the extra building and they drove around behind the main hotel to a three-story square structure with the usual Mardi Gras trim; it frankly looked a little cheap. They exchanged troubled glances.
But when they got into the room, they were pleasantly surprised. Yes, it was tacky, but hey, it was a honeymoon suite, right? Heart-shaped bed, heart-shaped Jacuzzi, pink window curtains, pink shower curtain, pink furniture, Valentine’s Day red everywhere else, from carpet to bedspread.
“I think the devil bled to death in here,” Nolan said.
“You hopeless romantic,” Sherry said, hugging his arm. “I love it. It’s so wrong, it’s absolutely right…Oh, flowers!”
They’d almost missed them, as the dozen roses in a vase on a crimson dresser blended in too well with all that red.
Their things arrived, and Nolan tipped the bellman with the casino’s money, and then they tried out the hot tub. Sherry’s slender, curvy shape was what hot tubs were designed for, the water making her smooth surfaces slick and shiny; but they knew from past experience that sex was overrated in a Jacuzzi, so the married couple just lounged in the jetting water and washed themselves and each other. Soaping her lovely body, though, including between her legs, inspired him to get on his feet, which in turn prompted her to kneel in the bubbling water and pay him some attention, till they crawled out and finished the session on a spread-out pink towel on the red-carpeted floor nearby.
And it hadn’t cost him a dime.
“This married life is okay,” he told her from on top of her.
“Isn’t it, though?” she said smiling up at him.
They got dressed for their night out—the reservation at Hugo’s Cellar was for eight—with Nolan in his milk-chocolate Armani suit and Sherry in a black evening gown with gold filigree at the shoulders, a bare back and a side slit. He couldn’t wait till he recovered enough to have her again.
Goddamnit, he loved this woman. He’d let himself love a woman once, a long time ago, and then she got herself killed, and he swore off such foolishness. But his life was different now. He wasn’t some hard guy thief anymore, was he? He’d tried explaining it to Jon.
Nolan was strictly legit these days, with a beautiful young wife—some might call her a trophy wife…well, the hell with them. He loved her. From the ground up, from the hair down.
Life was good now.
They were just preparing to go out for their evening at one of the best restaurants in Las Vegas, where an old friend and his wife would be waiting, when the men in ski masks and guns burst in.