Double Blind (15 page)

Randy settled back in the passenger seat of his truck as Mitch drove them through the streets of Las Vegas. “But this is Sam’s first job after graduation, right? His first stint on the touring nurse circuit? I thought you were going to do short hauls here out west while Peaches got started?”

Mitch nodded grimly. “And then the market got tight, and jobs dried up until I found this one. It’s not just good money: it’s a connection to some long-term jobs that can lead to other ones, and it will help me be able to be more flexible with what contracts I take while Sam is working somewhere. We talked it over, and we decided we’d just get Sam out here early, maybe make a little vacation of it before I went down to LA and made the run. It’d be just a week I’d miss once he actually got started, and we figured with you here it’d be easier.”

“Sounds about right,” Randy agreed. “What happened?”

Mitch’s hand tightened on the wheel. “We came on a wreck in the middle of Nebraska. Bad one. Tractor-trailer all mangled, driver—” He shook his head. “It turned even my stomach, to tell you the truth. And Sam—” Mitch cut himself off.

Oh, Jesus. “Sam went batshit, didn’t he?”

“Like nothing I’ve ever seen,” Mitch said, and it was clear the sight of a mangled trucker had been nothing compared to whatever Peaches had looked like unglued. “He was fine at first. Okay, not fine, but he was still himself. Then all of a sudden we were in the mountains, heading for Vail, and he just breaks down. I thought it was the mountains again, because you know how he gets with heights. But no, this is ten times worse, and he’s crying so hard he throws up.
Blood
, Skeet. He threw up
blood.
I took him to the hospital, it scared me so bad.” He ran a hand through his hair. “It’s some sort of repressed trauma, according to the doctors. Something to do with his mom. Makes no damned sense to me, because his mom fucking died of cancer not a car wreck, but he’s convinced now that I’m going to die just like that on the way to Kentucky, and he’ll never see me again. Which is horseshit. I’m more likely to die driving around Vegas. But there’s no talking to him, not right now, and the fuck if I know what to do with this, Randy. They gave him these pills to take for anxiety, and they’re even worse—he just stones out, and then he looks at me and cries.”

Randy could imagine, and he didn’t like it. “Can you get out of the run, or get somebody to cover it?”

“No.” Mitch ground out the word in a terse bite. “I’ve tried, but no. And the long and the short of it is, it’s clear he’s going to be like this if I so much as drive up to Reno. They said at the ER something about never really processing his mom’s death and transferring that to me. I don’t know. All I know is he’s tearing me up, and I don’t know what to do to help him.”

Randy wished he had an answer for him, but he didn’t. “Shit, Old Man.”

Mitch snorted. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance Prince Charming there in your kitchen is a psychiatrist?”

“Fuck, he might be,” Randy said. “I never got around to asking.”

“And yet I notice he was about to get quite a fancy brunch,” Mitch drawled.

Randy shrugged. Then he nodded at the corner. “Turn here. My bike’s at Herod’s.”

Mitch grunted. “You still working for that fuckwad?”

“He keeps me entertained,” Randy replied.

“He’s an asshole.”

Randy raised his eyebrows. “So am I.”

“Not like him,” Mitch said, and pulled into the parking lot. “And I don’t like that gangster he keeps in the attic, either.”

Randy undid his seat belt and turned to Mitch. “Listen, we’ll figure out what to do for Sam. At any rate, yes, I’ll be here for him. You don’t have to worry about that.”

Mitch nodded gruffly. “Don’t want to get in the way of whatever it is you have going with Mr. Handsome.”

“I don’t know what I have going with Mr. Handsome,” Randy replied, “but whatever it is, it’s not coming before Sam, especially with all this.” He opened the door to the truck and started to slide out.

“Where’d you meet him?” Mitch asked.

Randy grinned. “Roulette table at Herod’s.”

“You played
roulette
?” Mitch said, eyes wide.

“I did, and I won,” Randy said. “But a word of warning: don’t bet against Slick. He’s got one hell of a poker face.”

“He plays?”

Randy nodded. “A little. I started teaching him last night, but he’s got a real feel for it.”

A smile played around the corners of Mitch’s lips. “Match made in heaven, looks like.”

Randy rolled his eyes. He held open the door, ready to close it, but first he asked, “You heading back home, or running out to the distribution center?”

“Home,” Mitch said, “by way of the Tobacco Outlet.”

“Oh, good. Keep nursing that cancer, Old Man, and you can die like his mom after all.”

Mitch flipped him off, and Randy shut the door. He watched Mitch pull away, thinking of everything that he’d told him about Sam, letting it roll around in his head, and then he shook his head and headed for his bike.

But halfway there he stopped and turned around, pocketing his keys as he wove his way through the cars and toward the side entrance to the casino, to the back stairs that led to Crabtree’s office.

Randy
didn’t know what Crabtree’s real name actually was, and he didn’t ask because he’d heard a rumor that if you found out, you’d end up dead in the gutter by the morning. He doubted this was actually the case, but he did know that there was a strong association between Crabtree and gutters as a general rule.

Crabtree was not, Randy knew, a bad man. He’d been in the mob, yes, and some said he still was. He’d been a ghost all his life, never appearing in photos, never really joining society, always hanging out on the fringes. Randy suspected he had several other names he’d used over the years, aliases and covers and red herring identities which kept him well away from the Feds’ notice. Probably a lot of them were out of circulation now, because mostly Crabtree hung out in his office pushing paper around, doing what he could to keep the casino from going completely belly-up. He stayed far enough to the side, though, that nobody really realized what he was doing and started asking too many questions. Randy knew Crabtree hated what Billy had done to the place, but even if he would have dared to usurp his godson, he could never own the casino outright with his history, not with the way casinos were regulated. So he stayed on the sidelines, milling around, nudging Billy back into the lines when he wandered out too far. And he did all this from the office which Randy headed for now.

The office was a tiny corner of the sixth floor, a little hovel full of desk and Crabtree and three zillion posters of cats—most of them kittens.

Crabtree pointed proudly to the new one behind him on the wall as Randy walked in, a fluffy ball of orange fuzz blinking up from a bed of impossibly green leaves on a poster that looked like the sort of thing Randy remembered from Scholastic book club orders as a kid. Randy found it distasteful and borderline disturbing. But he smiled at Crabtree and nodded in approval. “Very nice. Very, very nice.”

“I found it at a flea market on the way in this morning. Isn’t it precious?” The gangster beamed at the poster for another moment before turning back to Randy. “What can I do for you, Jansen?”

Randy glanced at the chair across from Crabtree’s paper-strewn desk, then looked back at Crabtree for permission to sit, which the older man granted with a nod. Randy inclined his head in acknowledgement, sitting back without fully relaxing. You kept on your toes with Crabtree.

“I remember you told me once,” he began carefully, “that one of your covers for working in the Business was that you were a practicing psychiatrist.”

Crabtree blinked, then laughed, a belly-rumble that shook his whole body. “Therapist, son. But yes. I did that for a time. I was actually licensed for that one.” He arched an eyebrow. “You taking your defeat at Roulette Man’s hands that badly, Skeet?”

Randy set his teeth. This was a bitter pill that just kept coming back to be swallowed, wasn’t it? Or maybe it was more like one really long, rancid dick. He shifted uncomfortably on his seat. “It’s Sam,” he said, gruffly. “He and Mitch showed up this morning. Something’s wrong with Sam, and it’s got Mitch all torn up.” He sighed. “Me too.” He rubbed the side of his face. “They were told he should see somebody. But I don’t know anything about this shit, Crabtree. How do you find a good therapist? One that won’t fuck him up more or lock him up?”

Crabtree looked amused. “This is very interesting. First you try to throw a bet, then you
lie
about it, and now you’re in here worrying about Sam Keller like a mother hen. Who are you, and what have you done with I-don’t-give-a-shit Randy Jansen?”

Randy tried not to react, but it was like knowing somebody had just thrown a spider at you. It was hard to stop thinking about so many wiggling legs. Crabtree wasn’t guessing. He
knew
everything he’d just said. “You had us followed?” The question,
Why?
tumbled immediately after, and it was an important one. Why, indeed, would Crabtree bother sending people to watch Randy flirt with some guy from out of town? Randy gave up trying to poker face Crabtree and aimed an angry finger at him. “You have no fucking right to tail me, Crabtree. Yes, we’ve had some nice fucks, but I am not your bitch, and you do
not
fucking put shadows on me!”

“I didn’t have anyone follow you,” Crabtree drawled, looking highly amused. “I just took a guess, and it’s interesting to see that I was right.”

In hindsight Randy realized Crabtree’s amusement was a relief, because it wasn’t generally wise to shout at the gangster. He sat back in his seat and forced himself to calm the fuck down. “Okay. Yes, I tried to throw the bet. Yes, he figured that out and threw it himself before I could. Happy?” Randy frowned. “That’s too much detail for you to have guessed. Goddamn it, Crabtree, you
did
follow me!”

“Not you, no.” Crabtree leered. “I’m looking forward to seeing your luscious little bum in a pair of hot pink twink shorts in a few weeks. If Billy gives up on his Gay Nite, I’ll tell him I’ll collect on the bet for him in a private performance.”

“The color was not part of the bet,” Randy said, but his mind was still turning over Crabtree’s confession.
Not you.
That meant he was following Slick. That threw Randy even more, and he opened his mouth a few times, trying to protest, but he couldn’t seem to find his footing.

Crabtree leaned back in his chair and threaded his fingers over his ample belly. “You working this evening?”

Randy nodded absently. “I was supposed to do some engine work at the distribution center, but I’m going to call in vacation and promise to make it up on the weekend. Billy’s got me on prop for tonight, though, and that he won’t budge on.” He frowned at the gangster. “Why?”

Crabtree shook his head. “I’ll see to it that you aren’t working. Go home and clean your house and make something fancy for dinner, Jansen. I’ll be over at seven.”

Randy felt the blood drain out of his face. “Crabtree—”

“Oh, and pick up some sealed decks downstairs on your way out, in case I forget to bring some. I hear your new boy is quite the up and comer at Hold ’Em.”