Lucky (3 page)

Nick’s path had been chosen for him long ago when he’d witnessed his own parents’ love for each other. If he couldn’t have a marriage like that, he didn’t want one at all.

He left the house and was on his way to the police station before he realized he would be two hours early for his appointment with Detective Will Arnold, Narcotics Division, Las Vegas Metro.

“Look who just came in the door.”

Will Arnold stared over the rim of his coffee cup, taking care not to swallow too much of the scalding brew as he watched the Chenault heir enter Las Vegas Metro with purpose in his step.

“I knew he was coming,” Will told his partner, and then he sauntered back toward his desk, leaving Nick Chenault to find his own way there.

When Charley Sams had been arrested for dealing, the detective’s first instinct had been to suspect the employer, namely Chenault Incorporated. But after yesterday’s seven-hour interrogation with Sams, he had a completely different opinion of the situation. In fact, if what he suspected was true, Nick Chenault was in trouble all right. But not from the law. From old enemies.

“Detective Arnold?”

Will turned and waved his coffee cup toward the empty chair beside his desk. “Have a seat, Mr. Chenault. You’re early.”

Nick didn’t apologize or offer an explanation as to why. He went straight to the point.

“Have you read the morning paper?”

Will Arnold shrugged. “Parts of it. UNLV won the quarterfinals last night. Hell of a game. Wished I’d seen it. But I was on duty.”

The reference to the University of Las Vegas’s college basketball team was just as deceptive as the man’s rumpled exterior. Nick found himself staring into a pair of cool, hazel eyes. Will Arnold was no one’s fool. He liked that. Suddenly, Nick felt comfortable with this interview, even though he’d spent the previous night stewing about it.

“Why haven’t you charged Charlie Sams for dealing narcotics? Who leaked that crap to the paper about Chenault Inc. being the money behind the man? If you suspect us, then why haven’t we been arrested? Did Charlie say…?”

“Mr. Chenault, would you care for a cup of coffee?”

Nick took a deep breath, skidding on his next set of thoughts as he heard the warning behind the request.

“No. But thanks,” he added. “What I would care for are some answers. My father isn’t well. This stuff is making him crazy. I don’t want to get a phone call in the middle of the day telling me he’s had another stroke because of this stress.”

Will nodded. “I understand. And I appreciate your concern for your father. I will admit that when we made the arrest, the connection between employer and employee did cross my mind.”

He grinned at Nick’s angry flush, suspecting that, under other circumstances, he and this gambling man could have been friends.

“So…” Nick prompted.

“So I’ve changed my mind, Mr. Chenault.”

Nick leaned back in his chair and returned the grin. “Please…call me Nick.”

Will Arnold laughed. It was unexpected, but so was the man at his desk.

“So what’s the scoop about Sams?” Nick asked. “I’ll do whatever it takes to clear our name.”

Will frowned. It was past time to reveal his hunch. And while it wasn’t normal protocol to relate the subject of a suspect’s interrogation, in this instance, keeping it to himself could have serious consequences for the Chenault family.

“Who hates your family?”

Nick was so surprised by the question that for a moment, he couldn’t speak. And then he shrugged.

“No one…anyone. I don’t know. Hell, Detective, I run a casino. For the few that win big, hundreds more lose more than they can afford. Sometimes they blame me instead of themselves for not knowing when to quit.”

Will shook his head. “No. It’s bigger than that.”

Nick sat upright in the chair as a chill moved across his skin. “What’s bigger than that?”

“The plot to ruin you and your family.”

Nick frowned. “I don’t believe you.”

Will shoved a typed copy of Charlie Sams’s interrogation in front of Nick and leaned back in his chair.

“Read that. Then tell me you don’t believe.”

Nick picked up the stack, then began to read.

Five minutes later, he dropped the last page in place and looked up. The flush of anger that Will had watched come and go on Nick’s face while he read was now replaced by a grayish cast.

“Oh, Jesus,” Nick said softly. “Who? Who in hell hates this much? Who would want to plant a spy like Charlie Sams in my family just so he could funnel out everything he learned about us? We have few secrets, Detective. And none of them earthshaking, I can assure you.”

Will shrugged. “All I know is…Charlie Sams doesn’t want to be released, because he swears he’ll be killed for getting greedy and peddling drugs on the side. He was supposed to be a watchdog for some nameless entity who wants what you have. He says if he’s bailed out, he’ll never live to see his court date.”

Nick’s fingers curled around the arms of the chair as he considered the contents of the interrogation transcript. “I don’t get it. If he’s told you all of this, then why didn’t he name the man who hired him and be done with it?”

“According to Sams, he doesn’t know the man by name. Only by a voice over the phone. He got paid by direct deposit into a checking account, which by the way, does exist, as do the records of money being regularly transferred into it. He swears he doesn’t know squat…except, of course, that your days are numbered.”

Nick stood up. As far as he was concerned, the interview was over. He’d learned much more than what he’d come to learn.

“What are you going to do?” Will asked.

Nick looked down at his watch. “Go to the casino and do about five miles on my Nordic Track while I still can. I want to be in good shape when I die.”

Will laughed in spite of a premonition that the statement might be more truth than jest.

“Just be careful of who you trust,” he warned.

Nick’s sardonic smile disappeared. “I’m
always
careful. That’s why I’m still alive and single.”

“You like?”

Lucky almost shivered with delight at her own reflection.

“My God,” she said, staring at herself in first one mirror and then the other. “Is that really me?”

The saleswoman grinned. “Honey…it’s you in spades.”

Lucky grinned. Considering her background and chosen career, the description was apropos.

“I don’t think they’ll turn me away at the casinos now,” she said. The saleswoman hovered with pride, looking more and more like a fairy godmother with every passing second.

“Oh, they’ll let you inside, honey. But they may never let you go. You are, as my grandson would say, one hot babe.”

Lucky’s smile came from the inside out. If only the people in Cradle Creek could see her now. And at the thought, a little bit of regret slipped into place alongside her joy. If only Diamond and Queen could see her like this.

Stop that!
she told herself. She didn’t have to see her sisters to know that she was still in their hearts. Just as they were in hers. It was an accepted fact that Johnny Houston’s girls were as thick as the thief the people of Cradle Creek had claimed him to be.

“How much do I owe you?” Lucky asked.

“You get changed while I total this up. All in all, honey,
you’re one whale of a shopper. You’ve got four fabulous outfits for less than the price of what one of these cost new.”

Lucky all but danced to the dressing room and into her clothes. She’d been wearing hand-me-downs for years, so this was nothing new. But they hadn’t been designer originals.

Less than an hour later, she got off at the bus stop, holding her breath against lingering diesel fumes as the Metro transit pulled away. Lost in thought, she started walking the block and a half toward home.

Her head was full of fanciful visions of one day returning to Cradle Creek and, in a flagrantly foolish gesture, buying the whole town and renaming it something like Houston Holler. Just the thought made her giggle. Because of daydreams, she almost didn’t hear the cries for help.

Lucky rounded the corner of the aging three-story building, aiming for the steep flight of stairs that would take her up to her apartment. Her foot was on the bottom step when she heard the cry, and at first, imagined it was just a cat mewling in distress.

She listened again. Then again. And when she broke out in a cold sweat of fear, she dropped her parcels and raced around the corner of the house, frantically searching for a window to see into, or a door that would open. The last time she’d listened, the call for help had been distinct.

“Help! Oh, help! Please…somebody help me.”

Lucky pressed her ear against the side window, unable to see through the old, gauzy curtains.

“Oh no,” she muttered, trying without success to push the window up. It was either locked or hadn’t been opened in so long that it had grown to the sill.

Now that she knew that it hadn’t been her imagination after all, she had to face the fact that the voice sounded feeble and weak. But it was definitely female. And she was either in pain or in danger. This only increased Lucky’s agitation at being unable to gain entrance.

“I’m here,” Lucky called aloud, rapping sharply on the window, hoping to get the woman’s attention. “What happened? Are you hurt? Do you need an ambulance?”

“No, no! No ambulance,” the woman groaned. “Just come help me up.”

Lucky didn’t hesitate. “How can I get in?” she asked.

“Thank the lord,” the woman groaned, and this time when she shouted out, her voice was louder…stronger, simply because help was at hand. “The front door is locked, but if you come around to the kitchen, you can crawl in over the sink.”

Lucky didn’t wait for a second invitation. Her long legs quickly covered the distance around to the other side of the house. In no time, she spied the partially open window just above an untended oleander bush.

“Good grief.”

The window was open all right, but the bush in front of it was a good six feet in diameter and halfway up the side of the house.

“Here goes my last pair of jeans,” she said as she struggled through the bush to the window above.

Just as she’d feared, the bush did its part in impeding the rescue, but when she finally reached the window, the
screen obligingly came off in Lucky’s hands. With a grunt, she boosted herself through the small window and came face-to-face with a spitting black tomcat who arched his back and began dancing sideways across the cabinet for effect as Lucky slid across the sink. She threw out her arms in reflex just before she went head first onto the faded linoleum.

“Here! I’m in here!” the woman cried, giving Lucky no time for apologies to the cat who’d taken instant offense at her arrival.

Lucky closed the window behind her, giving the cat no chance of escape. It would be all she needed, to have to call 911 for the woman, and then be forced to chase her cat through an unfamiliar neighborhood.

Following the sound of the woman’s voice, Lucky sprinted through the rooms, getting only brief, but vivid impressions of faded velvet, limp black fringe, and gilded wallpaper that dully reflected the half-lights burning in the shadowy rooms.

“Oh my!”

It was enough said. Lucky never missed a beat as she bent down and with a grunt, lifted a massive, overstuffed chair off of the elderly woman’s prone body. She expected blood and broken bones. What she got was a fluff of molting feathers from the black boa wrapped around the upper half of the old woman’s face, and a yellow satin dressing gown sporting several days worth of food spills. She knelt at the woman’s side and cupped her head in her hands, while scanning the room for a phone to call for help.

“I fell.”

Lucky smiled. She couldn’t help it as the old woman began struggling to her feet under her own steam.

“You should let me help you,” Lucky said, trying not to stare at the odd blend of peroxide and henna crowning a face of inestimable age and unbelievable paint.

“Then do it, girl, and be quick about it. I’ve been lying down here for four hours. If you hadn’t come when you did, I would have peed in my pants. And I haven’t done that since I was four years old. I’m old all right,” she muttered. “But I haven’t lost control of anything but my figure. That went to hell after the war.”

Lucky didn’t argue. Nor did she ask which war. She was too busy helping the faded floozy toddle toward a small bathroom down the hall. The woman disappeared inside, shutting the door firmly between herself and her rescuer, and did what nature had been telling her she needed to do for hours. Minutes later, she exited the bath with a smile that made her face look years younger.

“The pause that refreshes, don’t you know,” the woman said. And then peered at Lucky, as if seeing her for the first time.

“I know you. You’re my new renter.”

Lucky stared openmouthed. “You’re my landlady? But I thought that—”

“Pooh! I list with that realtor because I don’t want to mess with interviews. Had plenty of them in my day. Don’t like to take them. Rather give them, if you know what I mean.”

Lucky didn’t, but had a feeling she should.

“My name is Lucille LaMont.”

Lucky bit her lip and when the woman’s fixed stare became a glare, started to fidget, suddenly certain that she’d been expected to recognize the name. Shamefaced, she had to stand, knowing that her silence was an admission of her ignorance.

The old woman shrugged, blaming the lack of respect on the young woman’s age, and hobbled her way back into the living room to inspect the damage, if any, to her chair.

“My name is—”

“I know what you call yourself. But no one is named Lucky. What’s your real name, girl?”

Lucky grew still. Suddenly, childhood shame and cruel taunts came out of hiding and stuck to her belly with sick persistence.

“It
is
my name,” she said quietly.

Lucille LaMont hadn’t lived to be eighty-four without knowing when she’d put her foot in it. But because she
was
that old, she didn’t figure she owed anyone much of an explanation.