Torch Song: A Kickass Heroine, A Post-Apocalyptic World: Book One Of The Blackjack Trilogy (4 page)

“So you heard we had an opening in the restaurant. Riverboat Queen says you’re good.” She tapped a thick, tapered finger on the letter. I would have loved to read it, but couldn’t very well ask.

“I can do the job for you.”

“It’s not much of a job. Just serving.”

Oh no, I wouldn’t let her get away with that. “I heard you’re also looking for a singer.”

“Ah. Yes.” She squinted at me. “You’re a singer. That’s right. So it says. What do you sing?”

“Anything you want. Torch songs, slow rock, blues, jazz…”

“The lounge is new. It isn’t open yet. We need a server more.” She hesitated. “For right now anyway. Until it opens. And I can’t give you an exact date on that yet, I’m afraid.”

“I can do both.” I handed Judith a phony resumé, bumping my forearm against one of the paperweights on the edge of the desk. It didn’t move. It seemed to be stuck.

Pushing the sheet of paper back at me across her wooden plateau, Judith smiled for the first time. She looked like a friendly blue moon. Against my will and better judgment, I liked her.

“Don’t really care about a list of serving jobs or whatever you’ve done before. None of my business. The reference from the Riverboat Queen is enough. You go see Waldo in the restaurant, he’ll put you to work, tell you what you need to know. I’ll talk to my sister about an audition. She handles all that kind of thing. If you’re good enough, you’ll sing here, too.”

“Is Waldo there now?”

Judith nodded. “Just look for the maitre d’. If you have to look too hard, he isn’t doing his job.” She chuckled at her own joke. Then she reached in her desk drawer and pulled out a new-looking plastic room key. “Here you go. For your room. Up on three. Part of the pay.” That was a nice perk. “Now run along. Go see Waldo.” With a wave and a grin, she dismissed me. I stood and began to leave— but couldn’t resist a question.

Touching a finger to the paperweight I’d brushed against, a little winter scene with skaters, I asked, “Are these, uh, cemented to the desk?”

“For heavens sake, no!” Judith gripped the snowy scene and yanked. The globe came away with a pop. She showed me the bottom. “See? Suction cups. What good would a glued-down paperweight be?” She shook her head, implying that I was some kind of idiot.

The maitre d’ was a pudgy man with a thick neck, heavy-looking legs and arms that he moved slowly, and black stripes in his straight, chin-length, dirty-blond hair. He was dressed in a plain blue suit with a short double-breasted jacket. I introduced myself.

“Well, I’m the man you want to see, all right. Waldo Coleman. Maitre d’.” He seemed proud of both his name and his title. He nodded as if he were agreeing with himself about his job. “You say you’ve talked to Judith?”

“Just came from her office. She said you’d put me to work here in the restaurant.”

“You bet.” He grinned. His teeth were large and white. Despite the grin, his gray eyes stayed neutral and appraising. “Can you start now?” It was five o’clock. The place didn’t look busy yet, but dinnertime was fast approaching. Waldo was clearly eager for help.

An elderly server dressed in black, the only one I saw, hovered at a table nearby where two customers sat studying big menus. He was small, his shirt’s overlong sleeves half covering his hands.

“Is that what you want me to wear? I don’t have a black shirt.”

“White’s fine. With black pants. Got some?”

“Yeah. In the car. I just got here half an hour ago. From the Delta.” No harm in repeating the lie. “Haven’t gone up to my room yet.”

“Plenty of time for that later. Change in the ladies’. Just outside the door on the left.”

I hadn’t planned on starting work instantly, but I couldn’t beg off by saying I’d been driving for 10 hours. The Sacramento Delta, and the riverboat I’d supposedly worked for, were no more than a couple of hours away.

I told the grinning Waldo— well, at least he was cheerful— that I’d get the clothes, change, and be back inside twenty minutes.

Fifteen minutes later, dressed in white shirt, black pants, and soft, sturdy shoes, I began working the all-but-deserted five-table station at the back of the room.

The work wasn’t hard. For the first couple of hours, until around eight, only three of my tables were occupied at any given time. Tim, the gray-haired senior waiter, said it would probably pick up later.

“Sometimes on weekends, it’s really— well, you’ll see. People come from all over. I had someone yesterday who said he came from Northern Redwood, up in Oregon, but I don’t know if I believe that. People will tell you anything.” He sighed, then patted my arm, just the way Gran does. I felt a rush of affection for him, and a touch of homesickness.

“I have to say I’m sure glad you’re here. After the last one quit I like to worked myself to death, honey, let me tell you!”

I started to ask him why he or she had quit, but I couldn’t get a word in. Tim rattled on.

“Oh, my god, what am I thinking of? Here, I’ll carry that.” He reached for the tureen I’d brought out of the kitchen.

“No, really, Tim, that’s all right.” I held tight to the hot soup.

He pulled his hands back, but shook his head. “You should let me help.”

“You’ve done enough, Tim.” He’d helped me set up, made sure the busboy took good care of my tables, told me about the customers he knew, and generally had made a helpful pest of himself. Sweet old guy. About Gran’s age, too. I wondered if they’d like each other.

“But you look so peaked, honey. First night on the job, I understand how that can be.” Peaked? A little tired, a little hungry, but peaked? Did I look that bad? At that moment my stomach growled loudly enough to startle Tim and remind me that I’d had no dinner. I mentioned the problem to him. He told me to sit down, take a 15-minute meal break, and he’d bring me a sandwich.

“Then I’ll just get right back to work,” I promised.

“Well, okay, but I don’t want to lose you.” He glared toward the kitchen. “Just be sure to stay away from Waldo, honey. Okay? I’ll put in that sandwich order for you now.” He swept away to the kitchen. Stay away from Waldo? What did that mean?

Stars and Stripes

Jo spotted Samm out on the floor. He was dealing five card stud at table two. When she walked up, a ten-high straight was taking the hand. The winner, a woman wearing a black jumpsuit with silver bugle beads around the cuffs, wasn’t even smiling. Jo recognized her. Winning, losing, up, down, even, it didn’t seem to matter. Her scarred face was frozen into inscrutability. A regular for the last couple of months. Jo had heard she was a fixer, maybe even that true rarity, a good one. Was it possible to get the elevator running again? And those 60-year-old toilets on the third floor… The woman nodded to her. She nodded back.

“Come see me when you have some time,” Jo said. “There may be work for you.” The gambler smiled, the scar down her cheek a deep crease. Jo caught Samm’s eye.

“Take a walk with me, Samm.”

He waved another dealer over to take his place. Jo led Samm out the front door and into the warm night, the lights of Blackjack casino dimming and scattering the stars.

They both attracted admiring glances, Jo with her bright blue brocade waistcoat, her velvet knickers, her sleek helmet of short black and deep gold hair. Samm with his wide shoulders in the ruffled white shirt, his black vest, shiny boots, clever, exotic, angular olive-skinned face.

Several locals nodded as they passed. Jo knew the nods were likely for Samm, a more public figure than she was and more well-liked.

She touched his arm. “Judith says you’re getting restless.”

“Restless? Yeah. I feel like we’re never going to do anything but plan and bullshit.”

She shook her head, smiling. He caught the look and grunted, irritated. Samm was a born soldier, a sword that chafed in the sheath. His passion and daring didn’t attract her any more, but she still loved him for it.

And beautiful. Those cheekbones. The dark almond eyes. She and Samm were the same age, close since they were ten, lovers in their twenties. A long time ago.

He had never changed. He still played a rash game of poker, she observed and planned, loving the sly slow games of power and politics.

A shout behind them. Sam whirled around, took a step back. Just a man selling bread. She had begun to move forward again when a toothless bearded man dressed in filthy denim appeared out of the rubble across the street and jogged to the Blackjack side. She caught an angry, flushed look as his eyes flickered over the people around them and settled on her. He touched the knife at his hip, half grinning. She glared back and touched hers. He swerved and disappeared inside a cheese shop. He’d find a pocket to pick tonight. Samm caught up with her. He hadn’t noticed the quick and silent exchange.

“We were talking,” he said, “about war.”

“We’re not ready. And war’s not the goal. You know that.” Jo’s older sister Judith said warfare was like a rock rolling downhill. The right size, the right shape, the exact right course, and you get where you want to go. Any of those elements missing, you’ve got chaos, damned thing bumps around all over the place and stops halfway down.

The army was a distraction and a deterrent but the real war was political, a war of spies and influence and social control.

“You can’t expect an army to sit around on its ass. They’re getting hemorrhoids for Christ’s sake.”

She laughed. He grinned back at her.

“You need a day on the road, wear off some of that testosterone.”

“Doing what?” He looked hopeful.

“Sacramento. The first new vax batch is ready.”

A lab down in Redwood, just outside of the old capital, had agreed to bootleg vaccine for them for a high price.

“Too bad I can’t take the troops with me.” Jo could just see that. Fifty of them trotting down the western road. She grinned and he smiled back. “I’ll go right away.”

“Good. But don’t go waving the stuff around in every tavern en route just so someone will try to take it away from you.”

He laughed. “You know I never pick fights, Jo. I’ll bring it home safe and sound.”

If only she could send that aggressive energy to the Sierra Council. Or even to the local lame-duck Tahoe cabinet. But he had no interest in political office, which was a terrible shame with his looks and charisma. He would win any election, look and act and speak like the leader he was, charm the few citizens who believed votes counted as much as influence and money. But he stuck stubbornly with his own passion, and even if the army was secondary in her plans, at best, he could put it together as no one else could. She wished she had three of him, and maybe an extra to take over for the dead Tahoe mayor. Poor bastard.

They walked around the corner and cut back through the Blackjack parking lot, half-filled with six-passenger buses and single and double-passenger cars, the bright-colored plastic shining under the tall white lights.

He grabbed her hand. “Come with me.”

There was that old heat again. He would never give up; it just wasn’t in him.

“No, Samm. I’ve got a lot to do here.” He sighed, dropped her hand. “Take some time off. Carouse. I won’t expect you until Thursday morning.”

“Carouse?” He laughed. He gave her a quick cool kiss on the cheek and turned toward the lot, heading for his own floater. She headed toward the building, slowly, reluctant for once to quit the evening air for the clangor of the casino.

Her home shop stood like a bright dwarf among dead giants and burned rubble at the western end of the old strip. The old ones, Harvey’s and Caesar’s and Harrah’s, had been built for a bigger tourist trade. They’d been built for a massive power grid, too. Those still standing were dark, left to crumble, the casinos closed. She wished she could either get them up and running again or just tear the damned things down like they’d tried to do in Vegas before they ran out of workers. People came to Tahoe for a good time; relics of the crowded past were too depressing.

Blackjack was wide and long and three stories high, bleeding light from every door and window, noise from every chink and crack.

Judith was wise and she was clever and that was why the Colemans owned Blackjack and pieces of the relics and a couple much smaller independent casinos on the strip near Stateline. They had only one real competitor: Scorsi’s Luck, opened thirty years before in a motel down past the old California line. She felt acid burn the back of her throat, felt her mouth twist in disgust. Scorsi.

Back to work.

Jo had just touched the door of Judith’s office when it jerked back and Judith’s two kids came out, Lizzie pushing ahead of Drew, bumping into Jo.

“Watch it, kid,” Jo growled.

At seventeen, the girl had passed through her sullen victim phase and now seemed to be caught up in a dominance game with her two-year-older brother. But not with her Aunt Jo. Lizzie mumbled an apology.

Jo waved it away, ruffled the girl’s stripes, and stepped inside her sister’s office.

Judith, holding a cup of that imported San Francisco black tea she liked so much, sat behind her six-foot desk, squeezed into her oversized and overstuffed green chair, looking like a beefsteak tomato sitting in its own leaves, big and round and powerful in her red dress.

“Want some tea?”

Jo shook her head. “Just wanted you to know Samm’s gone until tomorrow. Sent him to pick up the vax. And I’ve got a fixer coming to see me. I hear she’s good.”

Judith looked pleased. “When?”

“When she has time.”

They both laughed again. “Could be months,” Judith said.

Jo shrugged. She half turned. “I’m going down to talk to Waldo now. See you later.”

“Good luck. You tell him from me I’m sick of losing the help because he’s a lecher. Costs too damned much.” She held up an index finger, scanning her desk. “Oh… wait, there was something…” She fanned a pile of papers like a poker hand and jabbed at one scribbled note with a blunt forefinger. “Yes. Rica Marin. Came from the Riverboat Queen over on the Delta. They say she can wait tables and she can sing, too. Just sent her to Waldo.”

“Sounds good.”

“We’ll see. Why don’t you check her out. See if she really can sing.”