The Librarians and the Lost Lamp (9 page)

“All right,” he said, grinning from ear to ear. “Now we're talking.”

He was in his element. Easy money, fun, style, and a total lack of responsibility … who could ask for anything more?

“You sure this is the right place?” Baird asked him. “There's no shortage of ritzy casinos on the Strip, not to mention elsewhere in Vegas. The Bellagio, the Excalibur, the Luxor, et cetera. Plenty of places for Dunphy to gamble his new fortune away.”

“Please!” Ezekiel placed a hand over his heart, as though mortally wounded that she would even think to doubt him. “Trust me, I know the security systems of every big casino like the back of my hand.” He flaunted his customized smartphone. “Took me all of ten minutes to hack into their databases and find out that an Augustus Dunphy was checked into a penthouse suite here at Ali Baba's.”

“Doesn't mean he's not cruising the Strip,” Stone pointed out, “hitting all the other hot spots.”

“True,” Baird said, “but this is best lead we have at the moment. Good work, Jones.”

“You expected anything less?” he replied. “This is Ezekiel Jones you're dealing with.”

“So you keep reminding us,” Stone said crankily.

Ezekiel shrugged off Stone's remark. Why shouldn't he show off how awesome he was? Modesty didn't become him.

Leading the way, he followed the crowd into Ali Baba's Palace, where some poor bloke dressed in a plush camel costume greeted guests and posed for pictures; rolling his eyes, Ezekiel guided the others through the palatial lobby to where the spacious gaming floor offered no end of eye-popping diversions and games of chance, all served up with a faux Arabian flavor. Slot machines, roulette wheels, and blackjack tables sprouted amidst the exotic decor. Cocktail waitresses dressed like harem girls, complete with gauzy veils, wound sinuously through the packed casino, delivering drinks to the gaming tables. Flashing lights and ringing bells added to the hubbub and laughter, nearly drowning out the piped-in Middle Eastern Muzak. Framed posters advertised an “adult” belly-dancing revue, playing twice daily.

“Oh, for Pete's sake,” Stone grumbled. “Give me a break.”

Baird glanced at him. “Something wrong?”

“Everything's wrong,” he griped. “They call this an Arabian palace? Look at it: it's a mishmash of styles and designs from over six hundred years of Islamic art and architecture, and from all over the Middle East. They're jumbling early second-dynasty Umayyad motifs with late Abbasid refinements, thrown together completely at random.” He pointed indignantly at a decorative tile banner curving above a nearby archway. “See, those are fourteenth-century Persian arabesques, but the intertwined calligraphy is early Arabic script—ninth-century gliding Kufic, to be exact—and complete gibberish to boot.” He shook his head in dismay. “Unbelievable.”

“Lighten up, mate,” Ezekiel said. “It's a playground, not a museum.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Stone said irritably. “But they could at least try to be a bit more authentic when it comes to the decor and architecture. Would it have killed them to hire somebody who actually knew something about classical Islamic art and design?”

Ezekiel chuckled at how worked up Stone was getting about the phony Arabian trappings of the casino. It was funny how seriously he took his beloved art history jibber-jabber sometimes. “Kind of think you're missing the point here, mate.”

“We're Librarians,” Stone insisted. “We're supposed to care about this stuff.” He looked to the third member of their trio, who had kept quiet up until now. “Back me up on this here, Cassie … Cassie?”

Concern crept into his voice, displacing exasperation, as Cassandra was found to be transfixed by the overpowering sights and sounds of the casino floor, staring wide eyed at the garish spectacle. Her eyes were unfocused, her head swaying atop her slender neck. Her breathing quickened until she was almost hyperventilating.

“Patterns,” she murmured under her breath, so that Ezekiel had to strain to hear her over the general clamor. “Patterns and probabilities. Too many probabilities … calculating odds, counting cards, double or nothing, let it ride. Einstein said that God did not shoot dice with the universe, but quantum theory begs to differ. Progressive slots build to exponentially bigger jackpots. Roulette wheels keep on spinning; the odds against correctly betting on a single number are thirty-five to one, but American wheels have a single zero and European-style wheels have two. Two of a kind, two pairs, too many games, too many ways to win or lose.…”

“Oh, crap.” Ezekiel recognized the symptoms. “She's in meltdown mode.”

Along with her brain tumor, Cassandra suffered from synesthesia, a condition that often caused her senses and synapses to get scrambled when she took in too much stimuli at once. She saw numbers as colors, smelled mathematics, and heard science like music in her ears. Auditory and visual hallucinations impinged on her senses, which were cross-wired to her photographic memory. At such times, she could get lost in her own rapid-fire calculations and streams of thought, resulting in a cerebral chain reaction that put her more or less out of commission. This hadn't happened in a while, however, and Ezekiel had thought she'd gotten the problem under control … until now.

“It's the sensory overload,” Stone diagnosed. “All this glitz and gaming. She can't process it all.”

Makes sense,
Ezekiel thought. Casinos were supposed to be over-the-top and disorienting, the better to part you from your hard-earned cash.
No wonder Cassandra's blowing a fuse.

“Can you talk her down?” Baird asked Stone urgently. “You've done it before.”

“I'll give it my best shot.” He took Cassandra gently by the shoulders and maneuvered himself so he blocked her view of the gaming floor. “Cassie? Cassandra? Listen to me. Just look at me and tune everything else out. You hear me?”

She blinked, as if she was trying to concentrate on what Stone was saying, but some sort of mental static was getting in the way.

“I'm trying, but…” She teetered unsteadily. Her eyes spun in their sockets, trying to take it all in along with whatever mathematical magic was going on in her brain. “Percentages, possibilities, profits and losses…”

“Never mind that. Just let it go. You can do it. I know you can.”

Ezekiel wasn't sure about that. This was as bad as he'd seen Cassandra for some time. What if Stone couldn't snap her out of it?

Baird looked worried, too. “Maybe we should just get her away from here and come back later?”

“No!” Cassandra blurted. “I can manage. You don't need to coddle me. I just need a minute to get my thoughts under control.” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Focus … focus … focusing … the Clipping Book, Dunphy, from the Annex to the chapel to the trailer to here…”

Ezekiel rooted for her.
Come on, Cassandra. Shake it off.

It took more than a moment, but she somehow managed to pull herself together. Her eyes opened and she exhaled as she looked at her teammates instead of the bedazzling bedlam of the casino. She still looked a little shaky, but better than before.

“Okay,” she said weakly. “I'm back.”

“You sure you're okay?” Baird asked.

“I think so,” she replied. “Sorry about that. I just didn't expect it to be so … overwhelming.”

“Don't beat yourself up about it,” Stone said. “You're hardly the first person to lose their bearings in Vegas.” He snorted at the glorious excess surrounding them. “You know what they say: what happens in Ali Baba's Palace stays in Ali Baba's Palace.”

“Unless it ends up on YouTube,” Ezekiel said to lighten the mood. “Not that Cassandra's spell was terribly view-worthy.”

“Thanks,” she said. “I think.”

As ever, Baird tried to get them back on mission. “Any thoughts on how to find Dunphy in this mob scene?”

“We could just stake out his room,” Stone suggested, “and wait for him to show up.”

Ezekiel couldn't think of a more tedious prospect. The last thing he wanted to do in Vegas was camp out in a hotel corridor. Talk about a wasted opportunity, especially when he had a much better plan.

“Forget that,” he said cheerfully. “I know just where to find him.”

“And where is that?” Baird asked.

“Not playing the slots or anything penny-ante, that's for sure. He's living his dream here, being a high roller at last. He's going to go where the serious action is. High stakes, big players, lots of attention, the works.”

“Which is?” Stone pressed him.

“Just follow me.” Ezekiel set off across the floor of the casino, never doubting that the others would fall in behind him. He strode briskly through the invigorating chaos and commotion, enjoying himself thoroughly. “I know exactly where to find him … or I'm not Ezekiel Jones.”

*   *   *

Ezekiel's instincts proved correct, as he led them unerringly toward a raucous, high-stakes craps game that seemed to be attracting a whole lot of attention. Squeezing through a mob of whooping spectators, Baird spotted Dunphy seated at the table, blowing on a pair of dice. She recognized him at once from the photo in the news clippings. Dunphy was better dressed now, and he had a slightly better haircut, but he still gave off the air of somebody who spent too much time in casinos. An obviously fake spray tan suggested that he didn't get much sun in real life, and his designer clothes were already rumpled. He was a slight, scrawny fellow, with fuzzy red hair, googly eyes, and a weak chin, whose rather comical features were brightened by his beaming expression. He was obviously having the time of his life.

Just as Jones predicted,
Baird noted.
I've got to give it to him: he knows his stuff, all right.

A huge stack of chips rested in the chip slot in front of Dunphy, not far from a posted sign stipulating that the minimum bid at this table was a daunting twenty-five dollars. More chips were stacked on the green felt table, which was surrounded by a low padded wall. Giddy spectators cheered him on, while a skimpily clad server comped him to a free drink. He tipped her a green chip, while fiddling with a penny that he kept rolling back and forth between the fingers of his free hand.

“Let it ride!” the crowd chanted. “Let it ride!”

Dunphy grinned, basking in the spotlight. “What the heck? It's only money.”

Tossing the dice with one hand, he bounced the dice off the far side of the pit. The audience and other players gasped in dismay as he crapped out by rolling a three. A dealer collected his previous winnings, but Dunphy shrugged off the loss. Wagering more chips, of recklessly large denominations, he rolled the bones again and came up with a winning seven. Cheers erupted as the dealer paid off.

“Now that's what I like to see!” Dunphy said.

Playing boldly and betting all over the board, while soaking up the adulation and attention of the crowd, he swiftly built up his winnings to where they'd been before—and then some. Dice bounced across the table. Brightly colored chips piled up before being exchanged for even higher value chips.

“Looks like his winning streak is still going strong,” Stone said, “more or less.”

Baird was reluctant to jump to conclusions. “Could be he's just on a roll. It happens.”

“No, not like this,” Cassandra said, frowning. Her eyes lifted upward, studying her invisible calculations. “He's not winning every throw, but he's still beating the odds to a degree that is statistically impossible, even allowing for random chance. The house, at the very least, should have an edge of 1.4 percent, so that the longer he plays, the more he should lose, and that edge goes way up the more aggressively he plays. Gus is betting recklessly, challenging the odds on every throw, but he's still winning like they're slanted in his favor.”

“Check out that lucky penny he keeps fiddling with,” Stone said. “Wanna bet that's our magic talisman?”

“Not necessarily,” Ezekiel said. “Might just be his personal good-luck charm. Lots of gamblers have them.”

“Then why are we here?” Stone said. “Admit it, Jones. You were wrong about the horseshoe thing.” He held out an open palm. “Pay up, man.”

“Not so fast, mate. I'm not conceding defeat until we've confirmed that coin is the real deal.”

“What else could it be?” Stone said. “Get real.”

Baird intervened. “I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm with Jones. We need to get an official ruling before we act on our assumptions.” She backed away from the craps table. “You three keep an eye on Dunphy—and that penny—while I consult with Jenkins. Maybe he can shed some light here.”

Retreating from the frenetic clamor of the gaming floor, she sought out a (relatively) quiet corner in which to make a phone call. An outdoor courtyard, adjacent to the gaming floor, offered a portion of peace and privacy and she dialed up the Annex on her phone.

“Colonel?”
Jenkins answered immediately.
“How may I assist you?”

She quickly filled him in on their investigation to date. “So are we on the right track here? Is there really such a thing as a lucky penny?”

“Absolutely. Pennies, silver dollars, doubloons, dinarii, drachmas, not to mention lucky socks, jewelry, and undergarments. Humanity has been using magic to try to manipulate the laws of probability since before we discovered fire, with profoundly mixed results. And the likelihood of such charms actually working has surely increased since wild magic was let back into the world.”

Baird nodded to herself. Once upon a time, as she understood it, magic had been more or less confined to certain rare sites and relics, making it much less prevalent in modern times than in ages past, but then a diabolical secret society known as the Serpent Brotherhood had conspired to reactivate long-dormant ley lines and cause “wild” magic to flow unchecked back into the world at large, resulting in a huge uptick in magical activity and a lot more work for the Librarians. Maybe Dunphy's lucky penny had been kick-started by that worldwide influx of loose magical energy as well?