Car Service
by Russel Lutz

vol 3
num 7

Waxing gibbous.

 I love that term.  North Dakota State University (Fargo) let me breeze through an Astronomy course for my one science requirement, and that is the only thing that took.  Waxing gibbous.  At first, it just sounded dirty to me.  “I’m waxing gibbous in here!  Give me a minute!”  Dirty and silly both.  Even better.

 Then I learned what it actually means.  It’s the phase where the moon is almost full and getting fuller.  It’s that time when the nights are bright and will remain bright for days to come.  In my line of work, waxing gibbous is a good thing.  It means I’ll be doing well.  The night is my friend.

 That’s the phase the moon was in as I stepped out of the little America West puddle jumper that flew me from Vegas to Reno.  It was one of those planes that isn’t big enough to attach to an umbilical from the terminal.  I had to walk down a narrow flight of jittery steps to the asphalt of the airport and walk into the building through what looked suspiciously like a fire exit.

 In case you’ve never been there, Reno isn’t that much of a place.  It’s got a sort of cowboy charm, I suppose, but it’s nothing to write home about, particularly compared to Vegas.  I slung my carry-on over my shoulder and made my way through the sleepy airport as fast as I could to meet my driver.

 You might think it’s pretentious to have a driver.  In my line of work, though, with the strange hours and the unfamiliar locations, it’s a blessing.  A blessing I say!  I hadn’t ever been to Reno before, and this guy was supposed to be the best.  I like having the best.

 Believe it or not, I’m a professional gambler.  That finance degree from USD wouldn’t have paid for itself in ten years if I had become an accountant.  No, I needed to take a bolder path.  I’ve got a head for figures.  I can read people.  I can control my emotions.  Those three things add up to “professional gambler.”

 A lot of people think that I must be some kind of con artist.  If that were true, I’d be making a lot more money than I am.  If I clear $60,000 a year, I’m doing really well.  I even pay my taxes.  Well, I pay most of my taxes.  But I don’t cheat, not in the game.  Really, I don’t. 

 There are some casinos that would disagree.  They actually call counting cards at Blackjack cheating.  I don’t understand that at all.  It’s not like I bring a PDA to the table and keep track of the cards in a little program that spits out the optimal plays for me.  I just remember what I see on the table.  What they call “cheating” I call “not playing stupid.”

 Some people think that walking into a poker game and playing dumb for an hour and then playing smart for an hour is cheating – that it’s a con.  I’m not marking the cards or working with a partner or reading the numbers off the other players’ glasses or anything.  I’m actually giving the other guy a chance to win money before I take it all back.  If he was smart, he’d quit while he was ahead.  What they call “cheating” I call “playing poker.”

 What with all the terrorist stuff going on now, in airports no one can meet you at the gate anymore.  I had to go out to the street to find my driver.  A tall man stood by the curb, thick bodied but not fat, with an intense crew-cut and a frowning face plastered on a square of a head.  He had on a dark suit, only a year out of style.  He held up a sign that read “Joe K____”

 “I’m Joe.”

 “Handy.”  He held out a hand in the most disinterested way possible.  I shook it heartily.  I like people to like me.  And not just because it’s good for business.  Though it is.

 “This yours?” I asked, gesturing towards the silver Audi A6.  Handy nodded, taking my shoulder bag and dropping it in the trunk.  “I figured you for a Beemer or a ‘Cedes man.”  I said it light and airy, waiting for him to shoot back some smart ass comment, let him feel like we’re friends.

 Handy didn’t answer.  He got in on the driver’s side.  He didn’t even offer to open the door for me.  He was starting to annoy me.  I climbed into the rear.

 “So, what do I get for $500 a day?” I asked.  I was being a little childish, but this guy wasn’t really making my day, and it had been a long day.

 “I drive you.”

 “That’s it?”

 He didn’t turn to look at me.  He didn’t even try to make eye contact through his rear view mirror.

 “If you would rather not retain my services, please feel free to get your bag.”  He punched a button and the trunk lid bounced up.

 “No.  That’s fine.”

 “Would you mind closing the trunk?”  He asked it so simply that I was halfway out the door before I realized what I was doing.  I closed the trunk with a loud slam and got back into the Audi.

 “You don’t have to slam the trunk.”

 “Whatever,” I said.

 I slid down in my seat, enjoying the feel of the leather, if not the silvery color.  I figured I’d get a little shut-eye while we drove to the hotel.

 “Here are the rules,” he said.

 “Rules?”

 “I’ll drive you whenever you want, wherever you want.  If we leave the United States, my rates will double for the days we’re away.  Please take note of the dial.”

 In between the front seats was a little pedestal.  Mounted on it was a two-inch wide metal dial.  The numbers from 1 to 10 were etched onto it.  The numbers 1 through 3 were painted red, 4 through 7 were in yellow, 8 through 10 were green.

 “Okay.  What’s that for?  Some kind of meter?”

 “Whenever I am driving, you will determine my style on this scale.  Do you watch movies?”

 “Sure.  Who doesn’t?”

 “1 is Driving Miss Daisy.  9 is Ronin.”

 “Huh.  Cute.  What’s 10 then?”

 “10 is higher than 9.  In addition, notice the color coding.  If I am in a red part of the scale, I will drive in a style that guarantees no interference from police.  In the yellow, I do not guarantee we will not be stopped though I will attempt, if possible, to minimize that risk.  If indicated by a patrol car that we stop, I will stop.  You will reimburse me for any traffic tickets at a rate of 150% of the fine.  In the green--”

 “What?  150%.  You’re trying to con me?”

 “No.  That is the rate.  If you don’t want to pay for any tickets, keep the dial in the red.”

 “Fine.  What about the green?”

 “In the green, I will attempt to evade capture by the police.  I am generally effective at that, but if we are stopped, the fine will likely be higher.”

 “Yeah, you expect me to believe all this?  You’re not even driving an A8.”

 “This is an RS6, with a 4.2 liter, 450 horsepower engine.  I know what it can do.”

 “Okay, fine.”  I turned the dial up to 3.  “Go nuts.  Take me to Harrah’s.”

 Handy pulled away from the curb and made his way out of the airport.

 It was about 1:30 in the morning.  I don’t usually take flights this late, but things in Vegas were getting a little… tense, let’s say.  There are a lot of casinos in Vegas.  And even though their security is top notch, it’s not like you can’t do a few different things in different places and not really tip your hand as a serious player.

 Unfortunately I got a little greedy, and I got noticed, and the manager of the Mirage had a little talk with me in his office… with a handful of goons backing him up.  He made it very clear that I needed to make myself scarce, not just in his casino, but in Vegas in general.

 I plan on keeping an eye on the trades to find out when he moves on.  Then it’ll be okay for me to come back.

 Since I wasn’t welcome in Sin City for the time being, my plan for the next few weeks was to make a run through the Pacific Northwest.  I’d start in Eugene and make my way up I-5 through Portland and Seattle, up to Vancouver.  There are dozens of little casinos in that corridor.  I wouldn’t be making great money, but it’d pay the bills.  And Vancouver is a nice enough town to take a few days off.  Maybe I could brush up on my French there, too.  Someday I’d like to go to Monte Carlo, but without the language skills, no thanks.

 Reno was really just a way station, someplace I could get to quickly from Vegas.  Someplace I could to a little business, too.

 I noticed there was music playing as I dozed off.  I couldn’t tell who it was, because it was one of those New Age guys, like Vangelis or Tangerine Whoever.  Some time must have passed because the car stopping woke me up.  Handy popped the trunk and got my bag for me.  He gave me his cell number and told me to call when I wanted my next ride.  I mumbled something at him and went into the hotel.  In a fog I booked my room, went up and crashed on the bed.

#

 The Harrah’s in Reno is a pretty nifty casino.  I don’t generally spring for the suites, but this time I was feeling low and I wanted a little pick-me-up.  The bedroom was what you’d expect from any Holiday Inn in a major city.  Presentable, but boring.  The sitting room was a little nicer.  I could get five guys around the table comfortably if I wanted to host a game.  I don’t like to host games myself, but I’ll do it in a pinch.

 I washed with the little bottle of shampoo and the too-small bar of “deodorant soap” and dried with the scratchy towels.  The suite had a balcony, so I went to the curtains and pulled them back…

 The sun was in the wrong place.  It was much too low in the sky.  I knew I had slept longer than, what, only six hours?  My Movado was on the bedside table in the other room.  It was seven. 

 I realized it was seven p.m.  I was late.  I threw on some clothes, grabbed my key card and my money clip, and ran to the elevator.

 While I descended with a couple who looked about a million years old, I fumbled through my card holder for Handy’s number.  I hoped he wasn’t yacking with friends in a bar someplace.  I needed to get going.

 His phone rang only once.

 “Handy.”

 “We’ve got to get going.”

 “When?”

 “A-sap.”

 He hung up on me.  I almost called him back, but I figured if he’s the best, it must be for a reason.  If he could have the car around front in fifteen minutes, I could still make my appointment.  Of course, the last thing I want when I’ve got a big game lined up is to show up late and out of breath.  Bad mojo. 

 I checked my hair in the dull-gold reflection of the elevator doors, gave the little old couple a winning smile, then zipped out onto the casino floor.

 If there’s one thing I know how to do, it’s navigate a casino.  The seemingly haphazard layout that dazes and befuddles your average visitor is all too clear to me.  Taller slot machines ring the main floor areas, subtly shepherding people toward the lower, more pleasing spaces of the table games, where the real money gets lost.  Walls are gently curved to send people in circles.  Here’s a tip if you ever want to leave a casino: watch which direction most of the people are walking, and go the other way.  You’ll be at an exit in no time.

 It couldn’t have taken me five minutes to get to the front driveway.  I stood there for half a minute before I heard a honk.  Handy’s silver Audi wasn’t pulling up.  It was parked by the curb and ready to go.  I hopped in the back seat.

 “Peppermill.”  I turned the little dial up to 5.  I wanted to see what “yellow” driving looked like.  As Handy pulled the car into traffic on Virginia Street, it felt about like I normally drive.  Aggressive, but not ridiculous, you know?  The music was different, too.  One of those 70’s singers who’s a little bit country and a little bit rock and roll.  I can never remember if the guy’s name is Pete Seeger or Bob Seger.  The one from the pick-up truck commercial.  That guy.

 “You sleep in here?” I asked.  Handy spared me a brief glance in the rear-view, then returned to his driving.

 The Peppermill is a run of the mill – no pun intended – casino on the south side of downtown Reno.  Normally a place like that isn’t worth rushing to get to, but I had a reason.

 When I first started gambling for a living, I tried not to spread myself too thin.  Whenever I got into a game, I went.  If I had a conflict, I begged off.  This was a big mistake.  The thing is, these games, particularly the informal private ones, get cancelled all the time.  If I scheduled six hours of poker for one night and I got half that to actually happen, I considered myself lucky.

 I was starving.

 Then I realized, the trick is, like the airlines, to overbook.  One game falls apart?  No problem.  I’ve got a back up.  I’m covered with a fuzzy, warm blanket of fiscal security… if I win.  Which I do.

 So, while I was in Vegas this last time, I was making connections – as always – and this rich kid named Trent invited me down to Reno where he was persona grata at the Peppermill VIP Lounge because his dad owned five percent of the place.  The “VIP Lounge” in any casino is where the rubber meets the road.  I could – if I didn’t get too greedy again and get myself thrown out of another city – make a killing.  But when you’re the “+1” on a guest list, you’ve got to walk in with the one who brung ya.  And that was Trent.  And he was going to be there at 7:30.  And I didn’t want to be late.

 Handy pulled up in front of the Peppermill at 7:13.  I started to think maybe this guy was the best after all.

 Trent was easy to spot: one of those young punks with too much cash who thinks looking like you’re from Italy equals looking good.  He was sipping a cosmopolitan by the Lounge entrance chatting up a girl in a short top and a long skirt.  I couldn’t tell which of them was wearing more silk, but I suspected Trent had the bimbo beat.  Someone with less experience with this kind of scene might think the girl was a pro.  She wasn’t, at least not really.  When a sixty-year-old guy in black slacks and a white shirt strolled by and entered the Lounge, her gaze followed him like a puma stalking a squirrel.  She was in the game for the big prize: a husband who was old and rich.  She was slumming with Trent, probably trying to make herself look good.

 “Hey.”

 Trent turned to me and smiled his big, dumb smile.  He actually flipped his hair at me.  As a professed heterosexual, he was not making the grade.

 “Dude, you made it.  Let’s go in.”  He said goodbye to the girl and we made our way past a sizeable bouncer into the inner sanctum.

 It’s all about red in these private gambling rooms.  Red red red.  It must work for them, but it seems dumb to me.  Red means danger.  Red means stop.  Apparently red also means gamble many thousands of dollars.

 Trent was the youngest guy in the room, and the only one who bothered trying to look rich.  A table to the left was filled with older guys – including the man in the black pants – playing a fast paced game of – get this – Spades.  I saw ten thousand dollars change hands after the final trick.  People will gamble on anything.  I hoped there were some poker players in the back.

 Trent paid homage to his old man, a red-haired, sweaty guy who was losing money at the Spades table.  Then we moved farther into the back.  The path was obvious; move to where the smoke is the thickest.

 The table was set for six.  Four men were already there, smoking: three with cigarettes, and one with a monster stogie.  The guy with the cigar was the leader of this little pack.  They might have been brothers, as similar as they all looked.  Dark hair and beards, Slavic features, the kind of faces that appear to be transmitting the emotion of anger when completely at rest.

 The leader, with the cigar, looked even angrier and hairier than the rest, wearing an open-throated red shirt that in any other room would have been way too loud.  His name was Cedric.  I guess his parents didn’t know he was going to end up needing a better name than that.  Cedric introduced his brothers/partners/friends, whatever they were, but I didn’t really take note of them.  There were going to be at most two winners at this table: me and Cedric.  And maybe only one.

 We sat and started the game.  Cedric wanted to keep it simple.  “Five card draw,” he growled in a voice that, even though it wasn’t really accented, you tended to hear some vaguely Southern European accent in your head.  “A man’s game.”

 So I stifled the coughing I so desperately wanted to do – from the melodrama and the smoke equally – and settled into Phase 1: wherein the tells of the players are made known to Joe at the cost of about half his bankroll.  I couldn’t lay it on too thick, or Cedric would have caught on, I knew.  No fool he.

 Trent was easy pickings.  He seemed as unconcerned with maintaining a poker face as he did with losing his money hand over hand.  Cataloguing his tells was an exercise in the obvious.  Smile = good hand.  Frown = bad hand.  Honest to God, when he had a great hand he would giggle.  Good job, Trent.

 But the others, the hairy Slavs, were another matter entirely.  I just couldn’t get a read on them.  It was a little bit creepy.  The three underlings weren’t good players.  They could bluff better than most professionals I’d played with for sure, but they didn’t understand the probabilities of the game.  They went for inside straights too often.  They avoided possible flushes when they should have broken a low pair.  I let them win a few, just for form’s sake, but I didn’t need tells with these guys.  They weren’t a concern.

 Cedric, on the other hand, was like a lion on the hunt.  Cool as a vodka gimlet, he worked the angles like a pro – better than a pro.  After he had doubled his money I decided playtime was over, and moved to Phase 2: wherein Joe develops an amazing “lucky streak” and recovers his losses.

 For an hour almost every hand went to either Cedric or me.  I recouped my losses… and Cedric’s pile of chips grew larger still.  It was grueling playing against him when he was such a mental blank to me.  Trent eventually bowed out, claiming he had a “lady friend” waiting.  That left just me, Cedric, and the boys.

 Time for Phase 3: wherein Joe schools the table.

 If I thought I could use my poker skills to turn the tide of this game, I was fooling myself.  I played my little heart out, but Cedric changed his tactic.  He started to guard his brothers/partners/friends with tactical bluffing.  It was astounding the amount of money he lost just so it wouldn’t go to me.  I almost called him on it, but after each strategic loss he would bare his teeth in a hideous grin and I’d think about him as a lion again and think to myself, “next time…”

 And then something happened that I don’t like to have happen because it really throws off my timing.  I actually did have an amazing lucky streak. 

 I drew two threes-of-a-kind in a row. 

 I pulled to a straight. 

 A full house, King high.

 Another three of a kind.  I was on fire.  And then, the unthinkable happened: here are the cards I got – Ace of Diamonds, King of Diamonds, Jack of Diamonds, Ten of Diamonds, Ace of Clubs. 

Now, in all of the games of poker I have ever played I have never gotten an honest-to-goodness Royal Flush.  I’ve pulled, right out of the deck, a Straight Flush to the Queen once.  Once.  I’ve gotten four Aces twice in my life.  But never the Granddaddy of them All, the Royal Flush.

 With the cards I had, the right play is to hold onto the Aces.  They’re high enough of a pair that I shouldn’t break them… but I really wanted that Flush.  And if I could get the Royal Flush…

 “One.”

 “One?” Cedric asked.  As luck would have it, he was dealing.

 “One.”  I carefully slid my Ace of Clubs, face down, toward him.  He slapped a new card onto the red felt.  I put one index finger on the card, and slid it to my side of the table, ever so gently.  Then I did something really, really dumb.

 I took my other four cards and set them down on the table, still face down.  I very methodically moved the new card into the middle of the little pile, then I picked them back up again.  The four Slavs were watching me like hyenas peering at a wounded wildebeest.

 I don’t suppose I have to explain which card I got.

 Cedric was angered by my little show.  I suppose.  He kept that freakin’ emotional mask up almost to the end.  He took no cards, satisfied with the five he had.  We wagered.  And wagered.  And wagered.  If his voice or mannerisms didn’t allow him to vent his frustration, the size of his bets certainly did.  The others had folded long ago, but we kept upping the pot, the chips clattering on the table until a very tall pile waited for the winner of this hand.

 He could have bought the pot.  He had more than I did.  He could have slid the rest of his chips into the center of the table and dared me to take out an IOU or sell him a kidney or something.  I really respected him for not doing that.  Instead, he bet just enough to make me put everything on this hand.

 I had a weird moment when I realized that we might have to split the pot.  He might have had the Royal Flush in Spades or Hearts.  So much work expended just to split that massive pile of chips in half again and keep going?  It would have broken my heart!

 But then, what else could this guy have?  He wasn’t betting just to call my bluff.  He must have had something good.  I wanted to see it.  I needed to see it.  I shoved the rest of my chips into the middle of the table.  There was a serious amount of cash laying there.

 “Call,” I said.

 As the callee, Cedric had to show me his cards first.  That son-of-a-bitch had a Straight Flush to the King… in Spades.  He was only one card away from the best hand in Poker.  Finally, the mask came down, and a look of feral triumph beamed from his face… for about three seconds.  I dropped my cards on the table.

 It was so quiet, I now know what a cigar sounds like as it burns.  Cedric nearly burned that stogie down to nothing on one pull.  I hadn’t realized it ‘til then, but a big crowd had gathered behind my back to watch the hand and they all held their breath.

 “That… isn’t… possible,” Cedric coughed, smoke spilling out of his mouth.

 “My lucky night, huh?”

 The old guys started patting me on the back, making old guy noises about how that was the second best hand of Poker they had ever seen, except for this one time, back in ’75, when…

 I smiled and nodded and gathered the chips – the many, many chips.  A conscientious steward in a red jacket who had been completely invisible all night appeared with a chip tray.  He methodically lined the chips up in the tray.  I caught sight of Cedric, who was seething with rage.  I could see it right there on the edge of his trembling lips, on the tip of his slobbering tongue: “cheater”.  But he couldn’t say it, not in this room full of important men who were lauding me.

 The steward took the tray away.  I grasped his arm, throwing a brief sour note into the proceedings.  The man did not take offense.  “I will return with a check.”  I nodded, and let his arm go.  Everyone was quick to excuse me, since I clearly had never gambled at this level.  Or at least, never gambled and won at this level.

 That was the longest fifteen hours of my life, waiting ten minutes for the steward to come back with that sweet, sweet slip of paper.  I had a dozen sexagenarians – and that’s not nearly as good as it sounds – on one side, being really nice to me, and four menacing Slavs on the other side, glaring at me.

 I finally got my check, tipped the steward handsomely with a handful of leftover chips that hadn’t fit in the tray, said my goodbyes, and left the room as casually as I could.  Cedric & Company followed. 

 I stopped at the bar and had a beer.  Cedric & Company waited for me ten feet away. 

 I strolled through the casino, dropping the occasional coin into the occasional slot machine.  Cedric & Company… you get the idea.

 I pulled my cell from my jacket pocket and dialed.

 “Handy.”

 "You ready?”

 “Yes.”

 As I hung up, I noticed that Cedric was also on the phone.  He was good.

 I sauntered – as cool as you please – out the front door.  Then I sprinted across the sidewalk for the Audi and hopped in.  The wolves ran for their car, a black BMW 7-series – natch.

 “Lake Tahoe.  And step on it.”

 He pulled out into traffic, with the BMW right on our tail.  Left here, right there.  Cedric stuck like glue.  Soon we’d be on the highway, on our way out of town, and we still hadn’t lost them.  Eventually, we’d be out of the sight of witnesses, and the gross injustice I had committed would be redressed by Cedric and his brothers/partners/friends.

 And now we were coming up behind an eighteen-wheeler, loaded down with lumber, stopped at a light.  Things did not look rosy.  “Do you think we can loose these guys?” I asked.

 “Not on 5,” Handy said without a bit of emotion.  Cedric might have been good, but Handy was really good. 

 I dialed up to 8, the first number in the green section.  The music changed from Bob (or Pete) Seeger to Metallica.  Handy immediately pulled the oldest trick in the book: he slipped into the right lane, slalomed around the truck which was just now lumbering into the intersection, then turned left, in front of the truck and across four lanes of traffic. Yeah, we almost got crunched between the semi and a Lincoln Navigator coming from the other way, but the operative word is almost.  It’s the oldest trick in the book for a reason.  It tends to work.  The Beemer was stuck, unable to get around the truck.

 In my mind’s ear I could hear Cedric howling in anger.

#

 Lake Tahoe is one of those places that you hear people rave about, but you think it just can’t be as good as they say.  Like Paris, or San Francisco.  Did you ever hear anyone dis San Francisco?  No.  And they never dis Tahoe either.

 After my brain calmed down from the adrenaline-fueled high of the chase, which made me feel like an eight-year-old after his first ride on a rollercoaster, I ticked the dial back down into the yellow and settled in for the ride to Tahoe.  The road was narrow as it slipped through the hills, up and up, reminding you that you’re not going to just any old lake, you’re headed to a mountain lake.

 The moon was really bright, almost full now.  That drive was just the best of my life.  Really.  You might think that sneaking out of a strange place with a small fortune and evading a troupe of goons intent on doing bad things to you might have altered my perceptions a bit.  Trust me.  Reno to Tahoe is a great ride at night bathed in moonlight.

 The desert hills don’t look bleak, they look magical.  You can’t see your destination; it’s always just around the next bend.  Or maybe the next.  Even telephone poles take on a mystical quality.  I saw a hawk soaring just below a canopy of brilliant stars.

 Too soon, it ended, and we got to Caesar’s.  It’s the first casino you hit on the road into Stateline, the town on the edge of the lake where one can gamble, if one is so inclined.  Don’t go to the Tahoe Caesar’s expecting a high-country version of the ultra-glitzy one in Vegas.  You won’t get it.  But it’s a good place anyway.

 All I had on me was my wallet and the check from the Peppermill.  I thought about asking Handy to drive back to Reno to get my things from the room at Harrah’s.  His stoic glare through the driver’s side window told me that would be a bad idea.  While I was here, I’d buy what I needed: clothes and toiletries… and a suitcase.

 #

 Now, you’re probably thinking that my whole life is just a series of shady gambling adventures that involve running out of town.  It really isn’t.  Two nights in a row, that was basically a record for me.  Now it was time for a vacation.  Going to Caesar’s wasn’t because I wanted to make another killing.  It was more out of habit.  That and comfort.  I feel comfortable in a casino, even if I’m not gambling.

 Another late night check-in, another suite, wonk, wonk, wonk.  You’ve read this part already.  But the next morning, I didn’t wake up late.  I woke up early – if you can accept nine o’clock as early.  I slipped down to the lobby and sniffed out a shop where I could buy a swim suit.  Today was about lying in the sun.  Today was about not gambling, except maybe with skin cancer.  I even called Handy and told him I wouldn’t need him until dinner.

 I picked up a paperback to not read out by the pool as I worked on my tan.  Just me and the sun.  It was glorious.

 I wasn’t looking for a woman.  Really, I wasn’t.  Not that I have a problem with women.  A couple of girlfriends have told me I look a little like Sting, with my short, blond hair and my sharp nose.  On the other hand, a couple of guys have told me I look like Rick Ocasek.  I guess I should be glad it wasn’t the other way around.

 “You mind?”

 I slid one eye open to see this blonde hovering over me, pointing to the lounger next to mine.

 “G’head.”

 I closed my eyes because the last thing I needed was to have this leggy, flawless-skinned, tan and lovely beauty wrecking my restful and much needed vacation time.  Let her and her perfect 34-C breasts enjoy the sun.  Let her apply special sunscreen to those red, pouty lips without any interference from me.  What did I care that she had a little button nose that made her look like Cameron Diaz’s cuter sister?

 I didn’t care.  Not one bit.

 “I haven’t seen you around,” she said in a voice like honey harvested in the wild straight from the hive.  I didn’t open my eyes.

 “Just got in,” I mumbled.  She meant nothing to me.  Soon she would realize that and leave.

 I heard her rustling around on her lounger.  She wasn’t leaving but maybe she’d doze in the sun and I could get back to not caring whether she lived or died or had any tan lines.

 “Do my back?”

 As I opened my eyes and looked over at this woman lying prone on the lounger, holding out a bottle of suntan oil to me, with her hair pulled up into a clip and her top untied to reveal a back that did not, in fact, have any tan lines I learned a very important life-lesson:

·        If a woman has designs on you, playing it cool just fans her flames. 

 Having, through past experience, already learned that pursuing a woman who has designs on you will also fan her flames, today’s lesson leads me to the corollary:

·        If a woman has designs on you, you might as well give up.  You’re screwed.  Literally.

 Being the gentleman that I am, I cannot in good conscience describe in detail the extraordinary quality – and, if I may be so bold, quantity – of sexual exploits that this stunning woman and I enjoyed during that very long and enjoyable day.  Suffice to say that we learned a little something about the limits we were willing to exceed in the furtherance of pleasure, and exceed them we did.  Oh, my, yes.

 In fact, I didn’t see the sun again until late in the afternoon of the next day, when I strolled down to the casino with this goddess on my arm.  She complained that she needed to meet some friends for dinner and promised she would make it up to me later.  I was – and am – completely unaware of anything she could have done to top the night before… but I was more than willing to find out.

 Ten minutes later, I saw Trent again.  Actually, he saw me first; otherwise I would have hotfooted it out of there, and fast.  But he smiled and sauntered over, smelling of expensive cologne and wearing a shirt that I really couldn’t believe was designed to be worn by a man.

 “Hey there, Friend!”  I hate it when people use the word “friend” as an honorific.  But I smiled.  I still didn’t know what – if any – connection Trent had to Cedric and the Boys from the other night.  “Heard you had a little trouble with Cedric,” he offered.

“Yeah.”

  “That guy…”  Trent shook his head in commiseration, and then carefully repositioned his hair for maximum effect.  “I should have warned you about him.  But he never loses, so I didn’t think it’d be a problem.”  Trent laughed off my near-death experience, then invited me to an early dinner.  He had that look like maybe he was thinking I reminded him a little of Sting.  I made sure there were going to be other people with us.  When he explained it was a party, I agreed to join him.

 The table in the back of the posh restaurant was ringed with men, only men.  Manly men.  From the wet-behind-the-ears variety like Trent, all the way up to the one-foot-in-the-grave variety.  Introductions were made and I remember at least one of them was named Cornelius but all the rest flew past me.  I remember faces, not names.

 There were drinks before dinner, then there were drinks with dinner; finally after dinner, there were brandies and cigars.  I couldn’t quite piece together who was related to whom, or who worked for whom, or what the connections were.  It was one of those parties that just seems to form by spontaneous combustion.  And as is so often the case when a bunch of well-to-do guys are drinking and smoking sans wives, the bawdy stories came out.

 One man claimed to have bedded a set of triplets.  The punch line to his lengthy and graphic story was that only two of the triplets were women.  I didn’t know whether I was supposed to laugh or be horrified.  The crowd laughed, so I joined in.

 Another man, in his sixties, claimed to have done it with a different woman every hour, on the hour, during Woodstock.  While most people marked their time at Woodstock by the bands they saw playing, this guy marked it by the women:  Clarice the long-limbed redhead, Chyoko the demure yet kinky Japanese, Randi the tall and muscular black woman.

 Not one to be outdone, I told them about the blonde.  My tale wasn’t one of multiple partners, but it had an immediacy theirs lacked because it had all happened in the past thirty hours or so.  In fact, this dinner was merely a rest stop on the Train of Love.  They loved it.  It was great.  I felt like one of the boys, and for once I didn’t have to toss a rolled stack of twenties onto a felt-topped table to get that feeling.

 The dinner long gone, the crowd of guys took their cigars out to the bar to continue the festivities.  There was talk of football and stock markets and politics.  I explained to Trent how the Electoral College works.  Well, I tried to.  I was pretty drunk.  But so was Trent, so it didn’t matter.  That’s when the blonde snuck up behind me and started to nibble on my ear.

 Through the delicious tingling she caused in my entire body, I couldn’t help but notice Trent’s smile vanished.  Then a coldness completely unrelated to the girl ran up my spine.  She was Trent’s girl.  Or maybe his sister.  That would be bad.

 “Oh, man.  Dude.  I’m sorry,” I stammered at him.

 “Don’t apologize to me,” Trent said.  Now I saw his face was white.  He wasn’t angry, he was scared.  The man behind him was glowing beet-red with anger.  The Woodstock guy.  The guy, who, I now remembered, was named Cornelius.  What an extremely valuable piece of information, I thought to myself.

 “Daphne,” Cornelius said.  I prayed to God above that she wouldn’t say in return—

 “Daddy!  This is Joe!”

 “We’ve met.”

 It wasn’t silent, of course.  We were in a bar on the fringe of a bustling casino at rush hour.  The murmur of ten-thousand patrons was the bedrock upon which was built the siren song of slot machines paying their jackpots, the buzz of automatic card shufflers, the blare of dance music from the club across the way.  But there was no sound within ten feet of me and Daphne.  We were in a kind of inverse blast zone.  A sphere of total, inimical silence.

 The thing I focused on wasn’t the way Trent moved gracefully out of the line of fire, or the way the other older guys lined up behind Cornelius like an aging football squad, or the way the bartender picked up a house phone to call security, or even the way Daphne pulled her hands off of me like I was burning with a highly contagious fever.  I focused on the fact that I didn’t believe that I could have gotten into a situation where I had to run out of casinos three nights in a row!

 Then I remembered that last night I hadn’t run anywhere; I was with Daphne.  I smiled briefly.

 Then I ran.

 Cornelius and his buddies didn’t bother to chase me.  It would have been undignified.  It would also have been useless.  I could take any of them in a steeplechase, which is what I had to run.  Remember, this was a casino at rush hour.

 No sedate walking tour with my pursuers following calmly at a judicious distance this time.  I had to beat the clock, the clock that said “this is how many seconds you have before they’ve notified all the guards at every exit that you must be stopped.”

 You see, I managed to partake of Forbidden Fruit.  Was she the daughter of the owner of the casino?  No.  Was she the daughter of the Mayor, or the Town Councilman, or the Governor?  No, sir.  Daphne was the daughter of the Director of Security for Caesar’s Tahoe.  Security, of all the departments that run a successful – or even unsuccessful – gambling establishment is not to be fooled around with.  I wasn’t going to get a stern talking to or a black eye.  I was going to get six pallbearers and a eulogy.

 When I ran, I ran with a purpose.

 I ploughed right through a densely packed family of Vietnamese, knocking them down like bowling pins.  I literally vaulted a child of three who was holding one hand of each of her parents – what was she doing in a casino anyway?  When I came up to a row of elderly women pushing walkers, I laughed out loud at my luck and backtracked around an archipelago of Pai Gow Poker tables.  It wasn’t some sense of decency that made me avoid the women.  I just figured I’d break a leg trying to get through those walkers.

 I pulled my cell phone from my pants pocket and hit the speed dial.

 “Handy.”

 “Be out front, ready to go, with the rear window down.”

 Handy hung up.  No question.  No argument.  This guy was getting a monster tip.

 The first actual guard appeared in my way.  He looked like a Fed, with his black suit and tie.  He wasn’t wearing shades, but you could tell he wanted to be.  I had to juke my way around him, almost slamming sideways into a bank of video poker machines.  He started chasing me while talking into his lapel mic.  Now it was getting interesting.

 The next guard – this one in the same outfit but built like a linebacker – tried to tackle me from the side.  I caught him in my peripheral vision quickly enough to brake to a halt so he could tumble to the ground right in front of me.  I leapt over him.  He was about to get up when the first guard yelled, “Stay down!” and he hurdled the fallen linebacker, too.

 The wide bank of glass doors at the entrance, with the sun sinking below the horizon in the distance, was like the lost city of El Dorado: golden, beautiful… and unobtainable.  I was, at this pace, only three seconds away from the exit.  It was guarded by five new guards, all in the same black suits, ready for me.  Guard Number One and the linebacker were right behind me.  I was trapped.  It was the end.  Buh-bye, Joe.

 The cliché is for your life to pass before your eyes in a situation like this.  I didn’t get that.  I did ponder that I had made a killing in Vegas, then a bigger killing in Reno, then had fantastic sex in Tahoe.  All in all, I was ending on a high note.  But there was one, little, nagging, incomplete detail that I just had to attend to.  I had to see what Handy driving at level 10 looked like.

 A bellboy – or whatever they call them now – came trundling past with an empty luggage trolley, one of those big brass ones that can hold a month’s worth of luggage.  Well, a month’s worth of luggage for a guy, anyway.  I ripped the thing out of his hands and hopped on.  But I didn’t just ride it like a surfboard or something.  I set it spinning, too.

 The guards behind me were now out of the running.  The floor was marble, so I got the thing going pretty fast.  The guards ahead of me tried to grab me, but their hands kept getting swatted away by the brass uprights as the trolley swirled past them.  One brave guy in the middle tried to hold his ground, but the combined weight of me and the cart knocked him to the floor.  I scrambled over him, fighting some serious dizziness, and straight-armed my way through the front entrance.

 The A6 waited, engine purring like a wild beast, the window down, as requested.

 I’d love to say I did a Superman through that open window, but at the last second I chickened out and used the door instead.  I had a couple of seconds to spare because I’d caused a fair amount of chaos in the lobby.

 Handy pulled out immediately.  I just managed to turn up the dial to 9 before I slipped on the leather and got wedged behind Handy’s seat on the floor.  Handy sped out of that driveway faster than a car should be allowed to go.

 “I think we’re gonna have company soon,” I yelled, still trying to get myself up off the floor so I could put on my safety belt.  The way Handy pulled onto Highway 50 at about 50 convinced me I didn’t need to see 10 driving.  9 would do me just fine.  The first time Handy pulled into on-coming traffic to pass a camper, I almost fainted.  The second time, I just said a little prayer and hung on for dear life.

 Behind us came a fire-engine-red Cadillac Escalade.  This thing was a monster.  If any vehicle that could carry a half dozen armed thugs had a chance of catching Handy’s A6, this was the one.  And since Highway 50 wasn’t anything like a straight stretch of road for more than fifty yards between here and Carson City, their chances were just that much better.

 The sun was down.  Twilight had descended.  Handy weaved through evening traffic, on a twisting mountain highway in the most difficult light conditions imaginable.  Just a couple of miles outside of Stateline, there’s this short tunnel through the mountainside.  Handy shot into that tunnel while changing lanes and came within inches of a motorcyclist who, stupidly, didn’t have his headlamp on.  The cyclist saved his own life by pulling to the shoulder before the Escalade barreled through the tunnel.

 Those TV shows where the bad guys shoot at the hero hanging out of their car windows?  That didn’t happen.  They knew better than to waste the bullets.  They also knew that a lucky shot could have caused a relatively fatal accident for everyone involved.  Score one for the instinct of self-preservation.

 I glanced at the speedometer, but looked away when I saw three digits glowing brightly behind the steering wheel.  I turned my attention back to the road.  Some jerk with xenon headlights came at us very quickly down the mountain.  In the millisecond that the on-coming car was along side us, with the relative speed of the two cars about 180, I saw Cedric in the driver’s seat.  He was driving the black BMW from the other night.  He had his posse with him.  I saw him… and he saw me.

 I laughed out loud.

 “What is it?” Handy asked.  He still hadn’t broken a sweat, but he was clearly more tuned in than I’d seen yet.

 “More company.”

 I watched with stunned fascination as the BMW skidded to nearly a halt in the middle of the highway.  It spun around like a top, the white smoke of the burning tires quite visible in the gathering starlight.  Now Cedric was on the chase as well.  I hoped that the two competing pursuers might just collide and save us the trouble of fleeing.

 Handy continued to accelerate when and where possible, but the twists and turns of the highway came fast and furious here.  We were climbing up and out of the bowl of Tahoe.  There wasn’t anywhere to turn off.  It was simply run away or get caught.

 The Beemer caught up to the Escalade in record time.  Cedric tried to pass the Cadillac on the left.  He almost collided with a VW coming down the mountain from the other way.  When the path cleared again, he tried to pass, but the Escalade edged over the center line.  Those guys in the SUV didn’t want any interference.  In a weird way, being that valuable a quarry made me proud.

 A serious squeal of brakes and my head snapping back reminded me I wasn’t just an observer of this chase.  I looked ahead and saw that Handy had swerved around a deer.  I watched as the others kept coming with no indication of swerving.  The deer ran out of their way.  The deer was okay but we had lost some ground.

 We reached something like the plateau of the trip, and the moon, now full, peeked over the horizon to the east.  I could see the Escalade so clearly now that I could make out the driver.  He looked like the same kind of soulless mercenary as the guards in the casino.  His goal was to bring my head back to Cornelius.

 The BMW pulled around on the right, kicking up dust on the shoulder.  The Escalade swept right a little, but he didn’t want to lose any speed on the dirt.  The Beemer had a much better engine, and it seemed Cedric didn’t mind dorking up his alignment for his revenge.  He stayed on the shoulder, inches away from the mountain itself.

 In the moonlight that peeked over the trees, I thought I saw something strange about Cedric.  He seemed to be pursing his lips at me.  Odd thing to do.  Then he yawned.  Why would someone yawn in the middle of a high-speed chase?

 The others in the BMW yawned, too.  Except, it didn’t really look like they were yawning…

 “Turn down the music,” I said to Handy.  We were listening to some sort of god-awful goth crap.  Nine Inch Nails or Marilyn Manson or someone.  That’s what level 9 music sounded like.  He turned it down – though not off.  Now I could hear what was going on in the BMW.

 “Yeah, they’re howling.”

 “Who are?” Handy asked, trying to get a peek at them in his side-view mirror.

 “The werewolves.”

 The moonlight splashed fitfully on the black car through gaps in the trees above.  It was like a trick in a cheesy old horror picture, flashing the lights on and off like that, so they could show the transformation from man to beast in quick snapshots instead of one seamless cut.  Look, the actor has some extra hair!  Oh, now he’s got big teeth!  Hey, that looks like a puppet! 

 Hollywood never got werewolves right.  Now I could see why.  How do you simulate that?

 Even with his snarling, slobbering snout and fur spouting everywhere, I could still recognize Cedric at the wheel of the BMW.  He looked right at me and roared.  He hit a button to open the sun roof – or moon roof, as it were – so that one of the others could climb onto the roof of the car.

 The driver of the Escalade was still watching us, but the guard riding shotgun saw what was about to happen, and yelled.  The werewolf perched on the BMW, his fur flying in the wind under his flapping silk shirt, then leapt across, claws puncturing the door and roof of the SUV.  The guard in the passenger seat tried to pull a gun, but got brutally mauled through the window before he could get off a shot.

 Flashes from guns in the back merely made the werewolf angry.  I assumed these guys weren’t packing bullets made of silver.  The creature roared as he climbed through the side window and disappeared into the interior of the Cadillac.  I could see the SUV bounce slightly on its suspension as the guys in the back were taken care of.

 Meanwhile, the BMW had pulled back onto the highway, ahead of the Escalade and right behind our Audi.  Cedric remained behind the wheel, and another werewolf climbed out of the moon roof, facing the SUV.  I watched as the driver pulled his pistol and fired through his windshield at the crouching beast.  One bullet went astray and passed through the Audi’s rear window three inches from my head.  Pebbles of safety glass showered down on me.  Two other bullets went completely wild.  Three went right into the werewolf.  Those bullets were enough to make it take a single step back. 

 Or maybe that step back was simply preparation to jump, and jump he did, clutching the top of the SUV with his forepaws, resting rear paws that sprouted from the bottom of his black slacks on the bumper, completely obscuring the driver from view.

 Finally, the Escalade slowed.  It didn’t look like there would be much left of those guards.

 The BMW continued to follow, right on our tail.  Cedric growled something unintelligible to the one in the backseat, who bounded into the front.  Cedric climbed out the driver’s side window as the other one took over the controls.  During the switchover they lost a little distance.  They gained it again quickly. 

 We were headed towards a vicious curve.  That meant we would have to slow down.

 “Handy.”

 “I see them.”

 “You have a plan?”

 “Depends.”

 Cedric, his long tongue lolling out of a muzzle smiling with glee, pounced onto the back of the Audi.

 I clicked the dial up to 10.

 The music switched over to Vivaldi.  The Four Seasons.  Summer.

 Handy pulled the wheel over hard to the right and pulled on the parking break.

 The Audi spun 90 degrees, sliding sideways off the pavement and toward the cliff.

 Cedric clung to the car with one set of claws embedded in the roof.  He raised his other paw to strike at me through the destroyed window.

 Handy popped the trunk.

 Cedric’s hindquarters flipped up.  He lost his grip and rolled off the Audi.

 The BMW closed fast.

 Handy released the brake, righted the wheel and punched the gas.  The Audi regained traction inches from the drop off and accelerated out of the way so fast the trunk closed on its own.

 The BMW ran Cedric down before shooting off of the edge of the road into the darkness below.

 I looked out the back of the Audi at the empty road behind us.  I took several deep breaths before I clicked the dial back down to 2. 

 I listened to James Taylor the whole way back to Reno as I attempted to calculate Handy’s tip.

 #

 Handy picked me up early the next morning at Harrah’s.  I had a seat on an Alaska Air flight to Eugene at 10:04.  During our lovely level 4 drive to the airport, I leaned forward between the front seats to talk to him.  I kind of wanted to understand things a little better.

 Like what the hell happened last night.

 I was careful not to nudge the dial.  I enjoyed listening to Peter Cetera squeak his way through some of Chicago’s greatest hits.

 Handy didn’t acknowledge my presence at all.  I should have said something like, “So, nice job with the werewolves, dude!”  Just to see what he’d do.  I didn’t have the guts.  How lame am I?

 I had to break the silence somehow.

 “You take plastic?”

 “Visa, MasterCard, or Discover.”

 At the arrivals curb, he ran my Discover card through his machine – one of the old ones that take a carbon imprint – then handed me the slip.  “Car Service – 4 days – $2,000” it said in neat printing.  I added the tip – even robots like Handy must have some way of having fun, I hoped – and signed it.  After I handed it back to him, he immediately went back around to the driver’s side of the car.

 No “Thanks for the tip!”  No goodbye.  No manly, back-slapping hug.  Not even a nod.  He was just going to drive away.  Amazing.

 I turned to enter the terminal and heard him behind me.

 “Sir?”

 He was standing there, as if at attention.  It was the first time he had called me anything, the first time he’d done more than give me orders.

 “Yeah?”

 He was wearing shades, so I can’t be sure.  His mouth didn’t move a millimeter, but I kind of got the feeling that his eyes might be smiling, just the tiniest bit.

 “Recommend me to your friends.”

 To show him – again – that I wasn’t stingy, I gave him a big smile in return.

 “Sure thing, Handy.”

 - the end -

Photo:
Ian Schlueter

bio: Russell Lutz made his novel publishing debut with Iota Cycle in June of 2006.  His short stories have previously appeared in several webzines and magazines, including Byzarium, The SiNK, scifantastic, anotherealm, silverthought and AlienSkin. He won the 2005 SFFWorld First Place prize for short fiction. His story "Athens 3004" appeared in the short fiction anthology Silverthought: Ignition.  He lives, works, reads, writes, watches movies and ponders the imponderable in Seattle.