Final Destination: Dead Man's Hand Read online

  Then wash, rinse, repeat the cycle. Such were the exciting days and star-filled nights of Arlen Ploog

  It wasn't as if killing eight hours in a laundry was the first menial job he'd ever worked, though. He'd had enough experiences in his life-from gravedigger and dishwasher to motel manager and encyclopedia salesman-to know that he'd always find a way to pay the bills and have food on the table. That kind of “I'll do anything within reason for a buck” survival mentality had served him well enough all these years. Enough to finance the journey that took him cross-country from a rundown Jersey City apartment to an equally rundown Sin City motel room, and still end up with some coin in his pockets when he got there.

  The problem, though, was in keeping that coin in his pockets. The Meadows, what "Las Vegas” basically translated to from Spanish, was a town full of people looking to separate him from his cash, and not even Arlen Ploog could resist the temptations they offered: the jackpots, the grand prizes, the large payouts. And like so many others before him, he truly believed that if he could catch that One Big Break, get dealt that one winning hand, pull down on that one golden lever, the pile of shit his life had amounted to thus far would magically turn to gold.

  But with the way his pursuit of Lady Luck had panned out up to this point, he could have been just as well served by staying in Jersey and pulling on his turnip night and day. It would have amounted to pretty much the same thing, except he'd be in control of how hard he was getting jerked.

  Well, at least the scenery was better in his new digs... if having a direct view into the bedroom of one of the few good-looking hookers left on East Fremont Street counted. Not that he was complaining. “The Imperial” probably sounded to tourists like a ritzy place to hang your hat when they came across its listing among Vegas's multitude of hotels and motels, and maybe it had been at some point. But to look at it now, you'd know right away the dive hadn't seen any major renovations since the Rat Pack raised hell on the Strip, and the neighborhood surrounding it wasn't too far behind. "Urban blight", it used to be called. And for a city that prided itself on its glamorous appearance, dumps like the Imperial were a major embarrassment, and a constant reminder that not all the make-up and boa feathers in the Meadows could hide every blemish on this aging showgirl of a town.

  The weather was nicer, too, if you could tolerate the withering daytime temperatures and the occasional "hundred-year flood”. That was when the rains swept in from over the mountains to dump enough water on the city to flood the streets and turn the shopping mall at Caesars Palace into a miniature re-creation of Venice. For something that supposedly happened once a century, Arlen could count at least two times he'd been caught in one of those downpours during the decade he'd lived here. It was a wonder nobody had ever drowned when the highway underpasses filled with the runoff.

  And the rents were less stressful on the wallet, if you didn't mind living downtown, a crime-ridden area east of the northern end of Las Vegas Boulevard that seemed to rely on drug dealing and prostitution for income as much as the casinos depended on slot machines and blackjack. The mayor had been yammering for years about how he was gonna clean up downtown, was gonna convince the big casino owners and real estate developers to open brand-new hotels and high-priced condominiums along East Fremont; was gonna eliminate crime and drugs and prostitution. Blah, blah, blah.

  The next mayor to get voted in would probably be promising the same things.

  ***

  It hadn't taken Arlen long to get the lay of the land once he'd found a place to call home. As the towering neon sign out front proclaimed, the Imperial specialized in daily, weekly, and monthly rentals, and offered "air conditioning, switchboard, and free television", all the amenities a man could ask for in low-cost housing. Well, almost all the amenities. Better locks on the doors would've been nice; Arlen wound up replacing his after the second break-in cost him his VCR, his boom box, and a six-pack of new socks he'd purchased the day before. He hadn't even gotten the chance to try them on first.

  Complaining to the Imperial's management didn't do any good, and reporting it to the cops seemed like a waste of time. Besides, Las Vegas PD had more important things to focus on. According to the papers, members of Los Angeles's most notorious street gangs, the Crips and Bloods, often made weekend trips to Vegas to keep the Fremont Street trade going, not that there ever seemed to be the slightest indication that sales might be dropping off. You couldn't walk a hundred feet in any direction without running into a dealer asking if you were okay, if you were "straight". And Arlen had learned to politely but firmly say yes in answer and move on, careful to avoid making eye contact, in case that action might be misinterpreted by the dealer and lead to a messy confrontation. Arlen certainly wasn't looking to become yet another crime statistic; there were already enough deaths in Vegas each year without adding another body to the morgue's coffers.

  As for the ladies of the night, the only places to find the really hot chicks were near the big hotels, and most of those girls wouldn't give a second glance to a bony, sallow-skinned guy with nicotine-stained teeth and a suit that went out of style when Miami Vice dropped out of syndicated reruns. Actually, that wasn't entirely true. They probably would give him a second look if he had a sizeable bankroll to flash at them-ugly is ugly, but throw enough cash at a hooker and even the most grotesque fucker can look like Prince Charming-if she squints really hard. Problem was, Arlen never had a wad so big he'd be able to find out what sort of corrective lenses Benjamin Franklin could buy on the Strip. Mostly, he and Andrew Jackson had to settle for the myopic second- and third-stringers who shuffled along Las Vegas Boulevard, offering a Fremont Street experience of a whole other kind.

  That's why it was such a pleasant surprise to discover one of his "neighbors” plied her trade just across from his apartment, and that she didn't look like some burned-out crack whore waiting for a fix. “Tina," she called herself (not her real name, of course), and Arlen had fallen deeply in lust with her the moment he'd set eyes on her blue-minidressed curves. He'd always had a thing for Asian girls (why, he'd never been able to figure out), and this particular beauty had everything going for her: great ass, nice titties, and a decent face; didn't overdo the makeup so she'd wind up looking like a cross between a circus clown and Tammy Faye Baker. Had chestnut-brown hair that fell past her shoulders, and it didn't look like she used extensions, or wore a wig. And she was tall; Tina probably had an inch on Arlen, even without the three-inch soles on her boots that made her tower over him.

  She lived across the back courtyard from Arlen, and he'd always assumed she'd either never realized that curtains were meant to block nosy neighbors from spying on her private business, or just didn't give a shit if they watched. Maybe she got off on voyeurs, he figured, the sexual acrobatics she performed while working on some trick were definitely more interesting than a lot of the crap on TV. And watching a beautiful Asian woman in her late twenties/early thirties, dressed like a Japanese schoolgirl and going down on a guy with all the gusto of a starving man at a Nathan's hotdog eating contest, just never seemed to lose its appeal.

  About three months after he moved in, he finally got to meet her. It happened in the lobby of the hotel. He was heading back to his apartment on a rare night off from work; she was standing near the front desk. He recognized her right away; she didn't, but then, most people rarely took notice of him. She asked him if he'd like a little "sucky-sucky," in probably one of the worst "me so horny" Asian hooker voices he'd ever heard, and Arlen couldn't help but point it out. To his surprise, she hadn't gotten angry; she'd even laughed, as a matter of fact. She explained she put on the voice because most johns wanted an "exotic" girl to fuck, and that had been the first thing to pop into her mind. It seemed to work, though; Arlen had been the first guy in eight years to figure it out.

  But just because he'd seen through her playacting didn't mean he was any less inclined to take advantage of her offer. Andrew Jackson and his buddy, Abe Lincoln, made a short road trip from his wallet to her purse, and she spent the next twenty minutes on Arlen's payroll.

  There was no doubt about his choice of partner this time; this pro was all woman, and not a wig or hair extension in sight.

  It was the first time in quite a while that he'd actually felt like a winner, as pleasurably short-lived as the experience had been.

  Afterward, they chatted a bit as they tidied up. Tina didn't actually live at the Imperial, which made a lot of sense. A smart pro, as Arlen knew, never brought a john home with her--there was always the chance something bad might happen if a guy knew too much about his "date"; being stalked was a rarity among prostitutes, but it did happen now and then, usually with disturbing results. Not to Tina, though. She didn't live in the neighborhood or so she said-and she had an arrangement with the Imperial's night manager: in exchange for a percentage of her take and the occasional “pity fuck” (her words), she got a room which to conduct her business. It was an offer she found hard to turn down. Working the hotel kept her off the streets, and thus off the radar of the vice squad. That her "office" faced Arlen's apartment, providing him with some free after-dinner entertainment, was just a coincidence. A happy coincidence, in his opinion, and about the luckiest thing to happen to him in... he couldn't remember how long.

  His luck hadn't improved all that much since then.

  ***

  "Had enough, Arlen?”

  It was close to noon, according to Arlen's watch. It was impossible to tell otherwise, since casinos like Merlin's didn't have clocks--all the better for them to keep you from realizing how long you'd been gambling, and how quickly you'd lost your money. The other six players had moved on at various points during the morning, but still sitting at the other end of the poker table was
a duded-up, thirty-something cowboy who called himself "Texas Slim" McMurtry. There was nothing slim about McMurtry, except maybe for how he liked his women, and if he was from Texas, then Arlen was the king of fuckin' Siam. The half-assed drawl "Slim” kept slipping out of sounded like it had come from watching too many Yosemite Sam cartoons as a kid. The one time he said "varmint" in passing, Arlen had almost laughed in his face.

  He wasn't laughing now, though. The pot sitting in the middle of the table held two hundred dollars of his cash, and he was down to his last fifty in chips. He'd tried bluffing, tried raising the stakes in the blind hope Slim would back down and fold, but the cowboy hadn't flinched-probably learned how to do that from watching Clint Eastwood westerns. Or Maverick reruns.

  Sure, Arlen could have folded before things started getting out of hand. But he'd been doing pretty well in the early rounds-well enough to be the only other survivor of this impromptu low-stakes tournament-and knowing when to fold 'em and walk away, as Kenny Rogers used to sing about, had never been one of his strengths. Besides, up until the last couple of hands, he'd almost convinced himself this was going to be his time to shine.

  That right there should have been a clear warning sign it was time to pack it in. Self-delusion was the first step in the downfall of every gambler from Vegas to Monte Carlo. Having fallen into that trap as often as he did, one would think Arlen would have learned his lesson. But then, he'd never been the brightest kid in school.

  Arlen pushed the dark wraparound shades he always wore during games to hide his eyes, not to mention his startled reactions to getting dealt bad hands, back onto the bridge of his nose, and reached down to lift the edges of the five cards in front of him. He needn't have bothered to check them; they were the same suck-ass cards they had been when he first got a good look at them.

  Ace of Spades. Ace of Clubs. Eight of Spades. Eight of Clubs. Nine of Diamonds. Pretty much the same hand Wild Bill Hickock had been holding in Deadwood, South Dakota, in 1876, when he got shot in the back of the head by Jack McCall.

  The Dead Man's Hand.

  Kind of appropriate for the last deal of the night, when you thought about it.

  “Arlen?” There was more than a hint of annoyance in Slim's voice now. He was starting to sound less like Yosemite Sam, and more like Foghorn Leghorn.

  Arlen looked up and frowned. "Somewhere you gotta be in a hurry, Slim?”

  The cowboy in the electric-blue shirt and the scorpion-clasped string tie flashed a gold-capped-tooth grin. "Well, a bathroom break sure would be nice. My bladder's been flexin' its muscles pretty hard the last ten minutes or so."

  Arlen shrugged. “So, go take a piss. I'll still be here when you get back.”

  "Now, that's right kindly of ya, pardner," Slim said with a friendly nod, "but I got me a powerful feelin' this here showdown won't last more'n another minute. An' once I collect my winnings, I can take all the time I want waterin' the roses.”

  Arlen sighed. Smug little bastard, isn't he? But he was right, and they both knew it; sitting there and staring at his hand like a chump was only delaying the inevitable. Might as well just get it over with. Let the man go relieve the pressure in his bladder before it exploded. He tossed in his remaining chips. “Call.”

  Slim dramatically laid out his cards on the green felt. Arlen felt a weight settle in his stomach.

  It was a steel wheel. Ace of Hearts. Two of Hearts. Three of Hearts. Four of Hearts. Five of Hearts. A five-high straight, all of the same suit. Sure beat the shit out of Wild Bill's hand.

  Arlen sat back and pocketed his shades, watching silently as the female dealer slid the winnings over to the last man standing. The chips joined the mountain range that had formed on Slim's side of the table during the morning. The cowboy happily tossed a couple hundred-dollar chips to the woman. A nice tip for her services--but then, he could afford to be generous.

  "Thank you, sir,” she said.

  "No, thank you, Brenda," Slim replied. The gold teeth flashed brightly in the low-level lighting. "Y'all have a good day, now."

  Jerk, Arlen thought. If you're gonna play at being a cowboy, you oughtta at least get the fuckin' vocabulary right. "Y'all” is short for "you all"; a real cowboy wouldn't use it unless he was talkin' to a group, not just one person. Fuckin' Jed Clampett wannabe.

  Slim pushed back from the table and stood up. "Figure it's time for me to cash out an' mosey on back to my room."

  Arlen nodded. "Why press your luck, right?"

  "Well, I'd say the only thing that needs pressin' is these here pants I'm wearin',” Slim replied as he pointed to his rumpled slacks. "My luck's doin' just fine.” The sarcastic tone of the question apparently didn't get through to the cowboy's brain-probably because of the shielding created by the ten-gallon Stetson he'd never taken off, even during bathroom breaks.

  As a chip-runner came over to help collect the winnings, Slim walked around the table to address his opponent. "It was a right pleasure doin' business with you, Arlen. Y'all really got me worried there a few times. I even thought about cuttin' and runnin' once or twice... until the cards started goin' my way, that is. Guess that's just how the wind blows sometimes, don't it?”

  "Guess so," Arlen said tightly.

  "I'd consider it an honor to lock horns with you some other time. An' who knows? Mebbe next time you'll be the one comes out on top." He extended his hand.

  Cocksucker, Arlen thought, putting on his best false smile. It's always easy to say shit like that when you're not the one gettin' your ass handed to ya.

  Not that he'd ever known what that felt like. Yeah, right.

  Still, he grudgingly shook hands. Arlen Ploog might have been the king of all losers, but he wasn't going to show he was a poor sport.

  There wasn't much reason to hang around the casino after that. He wasn't completely busted, but when it came to a choice between spending his last few bucks on lunch or sliding it in quarter form down the throat of one of the slots, his stomach always won out. Almost always.

  Arlen walked away from the table, ignoring the dirty look Brenda the poker dealer cut him. What, a two-hundred-dollar tip wasn't enough, he wondered? Greedy bitch. Hopefully, she'd use the money to buy herself a better attitude. Doubtful, though.

  The casino floor was quickly starting to fill up as old ladies with ugly, pastel-colored outfits and with even uglier demeanors moved along the ranks of slots they'd each commandeered for the day's activities. And God help the man or woman dumb enough to try sitting down at one of those "reserved” one-armed bandits—they found out soon enough how quick on the draw some of those old ladies could be with their tongues. And they'd only get the one warning before the screaming started, about how the old dear was working that particular machine, how they weren't gonna rob her of a jackpot, the money was gonna come pouring out of the thing any minute now and she'd be damned if anyone was gonna walk away with her hard-earned money.

  Lesson number one in Las Vegas: Never fuck with grandma when she's got the fever.

  The row upon row of slot machines comprised the outer circle of the gambling maze called Merlin's Tower; the center was where the big games were played-poker, blackjack, roulette, and the like. That's usually where you'd find most of the men, although women's interest in card games had dramatically picked up in the last few years. It probably had a lot to do with all those poker tournament shows that had popped up on cable TV. “A game that takes an hour to learn, and a lifetime to master," the broadcasters always said. Arlen figured he'd get around to the mastering part when he started his second lifetime. God knew he'd wasted away this first one trying to figure it out. It just seemed a damn shame he didn't believe in reincarnation.