FOUR
“Come onnnnnn, Brysy. Give mama a little coin for the juke box!”
Bryson turned his head towards his whiny “date” (Tiffany? Amber? Who remembered?). He cursed himself silently. This evening, he’d broken a cardinal Vaughn family rule: never boast in the strip club about heavy pockets. He could perfectly picture his father, Hughie .V, leaning forward in his beloved rocking chair to dispense his typically (unsolicited, nonsensical…) sexual advice: “Broads are like dogs. They can smell fear, and they follow money.”
“Baaaaaaby. I know you want to dance with me. Just a couple bucks, eh?” Tiffany was grinding her slender hips against his groin, but Bryson couldn’t summon the energy. He looked up at this incidental companion: she was a tawny, scrawny redhead with close-cropped hair and long eyelashes. Amber was pretty enough, but for once in his life, he found that his mind was haunted by another woman: Romy Adelaide. He liked rolling her name around in his head—Romy Adelaide, Romy Adelaide, Romy Adelaide…
“Here, just take fifty,” Bryson said. “And why don’t you go get yourself some dinner?” He kissed his date on the cheek. “I’m really not feeling up to a long night.” The woman’s face hardened at the insult, but when he handed her the cash he could see that she wouldn’t protest further. She shot him a last rueful smile before leaving the honky-tonk.
“AS I LIVE AND BREATHE!” hollered Rigel from down the bar. Whenever he came through Vegas, Bryson was obliged to stop in at ‘Ricky Dee’s,’ off the boulevard. Rigel Mathers (a.k.a., Ricky Dee, “in the country parlance”) was a longtime friend to the Devils Aces, and as good as a Vaughn brother from back in the Reno days. Though Rigel’d left the club to start a business in the big city, the Aces considered Ricky’s a special haven. Even if the establishment’s proprietor was a consistent loudmouth busybody.
“You’re in no position to be shunning tail so fine,” Rigel said, still several decibels above an indoor-voice. “That’s not the Bryson Vaughn I know.”
“People change, Ricky.”
“You know you don’t have to call me that. What’s gotten in to you?”
Romy Adelaide, Romy Adelaide, Romy Adelaide… “It’s nothing. I just have a lot of work to do.”
Rigel snorted. “Since when have you ever had work to do, son?”
“Since the Big Man put me on a casino case.”
“A CASINO CASE?!”
“Lower your voice!” Bryson flicked his bottle top in the direction of his friend. “Can you keep a secret, Rick? For real this time?”
Rigel’s face readjusted. Loud though he might be, Bryson knew a good friend when he had one. “You can trust me. I won’t breathe a word.”
Bryson swallowed. “The Devils’ have got wind of something strange going on up at The Windsor.”
“Funny money changing hands?”
“Exactly.”
“Isn’t that supposed to be one of Lefty DiMartino’s joints? Guy is B-A-D.”
“Yup.”
“Guy’s like a modern day Al Capone.”
“Yup.”
“So what are you gonna do to him?”
“Get as close as possible,” Bryson said. He lifted a cigarette from the inside of his jacket and placed it between his lips. “Suss out the scene. Went by there today to get a lay of the land. See if I still remember how to...well, shall we say ‘improve my odds with astute mathematics.’”
“Goddamn card-counting sonofabitch!” Rigel yelled. Several customers glanced up from their beers. “And I’m guessing your little feathery fixture, she’s just a perk? Of this so-called JOB?”
“I didn’t even know the lady’s name, sir.” Bryson inhaled deeply. A moment of silence passed between the friends.
“You do seem preoccupied.”
“Well…”
“I mean, outside of work. You should get back out there, find yourself a nice woman. Or two. Or three,” Rigel started a titter which evolved quickly into a guffaw. Then he fondled his wedding ring. “Don’t know what I’d do without Stacy. Just remember, B, when you’re chasing road and toppling the mafia—love of a good woman. That’s the hardest thing to find.”
Bryson stubbed out his cigarette in a lone glass ashtray. He placed several crisp bills on the bar, picked up his coat and slid on his sunglasses before grinning at his friend. “I know it,” he said. “Or in any case, I’m beginning to.”
He’d recognized her immediately, of course—but the look on her face as she’d searched to place him in her memory had been too much to pass up. That was the same face she’d made the day after he hadn’t shown up for some stupid science class project back in high school: a face full of longing and intelligence and confusion. He’d never once been with a woman who made faces so complex, who allowed the world to keep them so very puzzled.
Of course in high school he’d been a cad of the highest degree—but he had noticed her. He’d noticed her blonde hair, natural and shining while the other girls’ were mini-Marilyns, made from a bottle. He’d noticed her full pink lips which never seemed to smile (again, the world was likely too puzzling a thing for a girl like her to smile about). He’d been distantly aware of her tragic childhood, which seemed to make her brains and guile the more impressive. He could also recall now plenty of time spent staring at the heavy-looking scoops of her breasts.
He didn’t date complicated girls. He didn’t really date at all. He was Bryson Vaughn, of the Devils Aces: women came his way freely, and he loved them in equal measure the way he loved bodies in general. But there was something about Romy Adelaide, the blackjack dealer at The Windsor. There was something about her inquisitive eyes the color of lake water, and her trim hips wobbling nervously above a thick ass and long, long legs. He wanted her for longer than a single night. He wanted to smell her and taste her and lick her and tease her through mornings and afternoons and evenings uncountable, because something about her face said he’d never be bored with a woman like her. And so, with a grand new resolution, Bryson Vaughn pledged to topple The Windsor. He wanted to save beautiful Romy Adelaide from all her tortures, and then he wanted to have her, and then he wanted to keep her.
Bryson kicked away his bike’s kickstand, and let the revving engine soothe what had become a massive erection pushing against his slacks. He took a deep breath of the dirty city air before shoving off into the night.