Kicks for a Sinner S3 (26 page)

The other offered a full color shot of long, smoothly curled hair the exact auburn shade as her son and wide blue eyes. Not anything like Howdy’s, her mouth, sitting small and pouty above a stubborn chin, already showed signs of discontent in its unwillingness to smile for the camera. The white graduation gown fell in straight folds down her front and its matching cap crooked at a defiant angle. A pretty girl who couldn’t wait to get out of Oklahoma, Cassie judged.

She paged to the next set of pictures, Howdy’s grandparents. She recognized the white-haired old man in his grandson. They shared the same generous grin, the same mellow blue eyes, even a smattering of freckles across the bridge of the nose, though Howard Angus McCoy the elder’s had faded with time. His wife, Ruth Weems McCoy, stared straight at the photographer with cool, gray eyes and small, pursed lips, her chin just as stubborn as her late born daughter’s. Gray hair, short and severely styled close to the head, did nothing to soften her image. No padded bras for Grandma McCoy, either. Her navy blue dress with its prim white collar sported no unseemly erotic bulges above the waist. She was what she was, take it or leave it. Hard to believe Howdy’s grandfather had taken it.

“I guess she wouldn’t have approved of me,” Cassie wondered aloud.

“Not in those tight jeans, but I like ’em,” Howdy said as he reclaimed his wallet and they left the elevator. “Let’s get a room.”

“I believe Nero’s Palace Hotel is right next door.”

“We aren’t going there. I want to take you to the Bellagio. That’s where Joe took Nell the first time they married.”

“But the Palace is free.”

“I can afford something better, as good as anything Joe would do.”

Cassie linked onto his arm as they left the gloom of the casino where colorful machines pinged and dice rolled from the fingertips of those who’d never gone home. They moved into the already hot desert morning. “You don’t have to be jealous of Joe anymore.”

“Good, then let’s get hitched. I know what wedding chapel Joe and Nell used, too.”

“Howdy, have you ever been in love before? Don’t you think you’re rushing things?”

“I thought I was in love with a Mexican whore once. I can see I had a bad case of lust now. Heck, she went off with someone else, that’s how pitiful I seemed to her. I really do love you, Cassie. Maybe if we get married now, you won’t get around to leaving me later.” He said the last with a slight smile.

She wasn’t fooled by his making a joke of it. “Abandonment issues, Howdy, you have them big time. That’s why you have to deal with your parentage before you can move on to other decisions.”

“If you say so. Will you give me an answer once we’re through with this? If you want a big engagement ring, we can pick one out right now. I’m sure this place has a jewelry store on every corner like Starbucks in Seattle. Joe got his rings right at the hotel.”

Red hair flying, she shook her head. “Ever since Bijou, I’ve had an aversion to big, gaudy rings. Look, we both have our problems. Let’s handle one at a time. First, we find out if Benito Rizzo is your father.”

Howdy took a turn at head shaking. “I don’t see it.”

“Second, we find out if Mariah Coy is your mother.”

“More hogwash.”

They returned to the truck and drove to the Bellagio with its dancing fountains and ceiling of glass flowers. Howdy insisted on a suite. She insisted they make love before sleeping away the rest of the day until that looming three o’clock appointment.

TWENTY-SEVEN

They arrived promptly for the appointment with Benny Rizzo because Cassie had set the suite’s alarm clock for two, giving her enough time to primp and cover her freckles with makeup. Riding up in the Mariah Coy elevator, she posed seductively in front of the poster. “What do you think?”

Dressed as his plain ole cowboy self, Howdy frowned, so unlike him but he found he did it more and more since meeting Cassie. “How come you brought a dress like that to the ranch?”

Not that he didn’t like what she wore. It had one of those halter tops that went behind the back of her neck and held her breasts up without a bra. The back ran low, and he’d done up the short zipper for her not long ago. The skirt, very short, way above the knees, poufed out in swirling layers of green and blue. High heels of metallic gold made her almost as tall as himself, and she wore no stockings on the legs she’d tanned at the ranch. She’d put her hair up in a messy, just got out of bed suggestive style he didn’t care for at all. Dangly earrings of tiny iridescent beads pretty as a peacock’s tail swung from her ears. As usual, her lips were the color of ripe peaches, but she’d ramped up the eyeliner, mascara, and green shadow. Men stared at her on the street, and addicted gamblers took their eyes off their cards for a moment when she passed through the casino for the ride to the top of the building.

“I always bring along one good dress. You never can tell when you might need it. Do I look the part?”

“Of a showgirl wannabe or an expensive call girl?”

She acted a little hurt at his assessment. “I had to dress the part to get us inside the office. Look, I wore panties because you insisted.”

“I’d hardly call what you got on under that dress panties, more like a thong, and Mr. Rizzo won’t ever have the pleasure of seeing it if I have my way.”

“But you will have that pleasure after we clear up the paternity issue.”

His face still burned at the thought of taking off that thong as they got out of the elevator and approached the desk. The blonde raised those thin, penciled brows again. “My, you did clean up nicely, Miss Thomas. Go right in. Mr. Rizzo awaits. Mr. McCoy, take a seat.”

“I don’t think so.” He advanced to the door and turned the knob, allowed Cassie to strut in first out of sheer habit.

The first words his supposed father uttered were, “Out! Only the girl stays. Don’t make me call security.” The man, clad in gray monotone mafia chic, rapped his knuckles against an inlaid mahogany desk to emphasize his order. “You, Cassie, take a seat on the couch.”

Howdy didn’t like the looks of that couch. Both ends scrolled up but the divan had no back, plenty of red cushions though, and a double-wide tufted width that reminded him of a mattress. Cassie sat down, folding her legs the way supermodels did. Rizzo’s black eyes followed her all the way. Without removing his glance from those long, tanned limbs, he repeated, “Get out, kid.”

Howdy stood his ground, the sheriff ready to draw on the villain. “Sir, we aren’t here for an audition. I have reason to believe you might be my father. My mom put your name in the family Bible.”

The black-eyed stare whipped back to Howdy’s open, pleasant face, his wide grin gone missing. “Not the first time I’ve heard that. I don’t see any resemblance. Who’s your mother?”

“Mary McCoy.”

“Means nothing to me.”

Cassie piped up from the casting couch. “How about Mariah Coy?”

The casino owner shrugged. “Now her I’ve fucked more than once, but not lately. She’s getting kind of long in the tooth. But you, you could have a career in Vegas. You sing, dance?”

“Not very well. I’m a psychologist helping Howard McCoy find his father. It’s vital to his mental health.” She rose to stand by Howdy’s side.

Rizzo barked out a laugh. “You’re off my hook. I can’t stand a woman with too many brains. They always want to talk instead of getting down to business by which I mean…”

Howdy moved close to the desk and leaned over it. “We know what you mean. Answer the question, Are you my father? and we’ll leave.”

“I doubt it, but if Mariah is your mother, maybe.” He opened a drawer and sent a business card skidding across the polished top of the desk. “My doctor. He has my DNA on file for cases like this and other possible mishaps. When you deal with gambling, you never know what might happen.” He shrugged his nicely padded shoulders. “If you are mine, I can give you a position in my establishment. Otherwise, don’t try to shake me down for nothing.”

Howdy stepped back a pace, hands on hips, ready to draw. “I have a job, a very good one. I’m a kicker for the Sinners and don’t need your money. In fact, I don’t want you to give me anything, not even a DNA test.”

He folded the card into a triangle and flicked it like a paper football back toward Rizzo. A quick hand with peach-colored nails intercepted it in flight. Cassie smoothed the card out against the desk’s slick surface. “Thank you, Mr. Rizzo. We’ll let you know the results.”

Benny Rizzo smiled, his teeth glaring white against his olive complexion. “Hey, I’d like to have a kid in pro football. What do you think the odds are of Billodeaux taking another Super Bowl?”

Howdy answered before he could stop himself. “Not this year. The team is rebuilding.”

“But sometime down the line, a missed field goal could change the outcome of the big event, right?”

“I always do my best, sir. I’d never throw a game.”

Rizzo found that statement and Howdy’s solemnity hilarious. He laughed until tears ran down a jaw already blue-black with early beard shadow and blotted his face on a pale gray pocket square. “See, I tell you, no son of mine. Get outta here. But I just gotta ask—you have panties on under that getup, honey?”

Cassie hitched her hip on the edge of the desk and swayed close to Mr. Rizzo’s prominent nose. “You’ll never know.”

“Sassy,” Rizzo said. “I do like sassy.”

“That’s what they call me. Come on, Howdy, we really are outta here.” She put an extra sway in her walk that both men could appreciate as she went to the door.

“If you can’t handle her, son, send her to papa.”

“I think I’ll manage without your help.”

Howdy rushed to block Rizzo’s view of Cassie’s backside and closed the door with a slam that startled the secretary and made her muss the red nail polish she applied. “I guess you won’t need a second appointment?”

“No, we’ll just leave a message.” Cassie summoned the elevator.

Once safely inside the metal box, Howdy slammed his hand against the wall, leaving a palm print behind on the immaculate space. “I don’t want that man to be my father. Give me the card so I can tear it up.”

“No way.” Taking a cue from Mariah Coy who vamped at them from her poster, Cassie shoved the card deep between her breasts.

“Cassie, give me the card or I’ll go in after it.”

“No, you won’t. You’re too much of a gentleman. Besides, we need to know who you are really.” She gazed at herself in the glass covering the picture of Mariah. “I may not sing or dance, but I think I could be an actress. I played the role of sultry slut fairly well.”

“Stay a psychologist because if Benny Rizzo is my dad, I’ll need a shrink for the rest of my life.”

* * * *

Since this was Vegas, the nurse who took the sample showed no surprise at their request for a DNA test. Must happen all the time. Expect the results at the end of the week, she said. Mr. Rizzo had phoned ahead and would pay the bill. By five p.m., Howdy and Cassie stood before the white medical building flanked by two palm trees and wondered what to do next.

“Since you’re all dressed up, you want to take in a show? Celine Dionne, maybe? Or Donny Osmond. My grandma liked him,” Howdy suggested.

“I’m more in the mood for cabaret. Let’s get some dinner, then go see Mariah Coy. Even if she isn’t your mother, we can go back and say we were served breakfast by a celebrity.”

“I really don’t want to do that.”

“Come on, Howdy. We’re in Vegas. Let’s gamble a little, stuff ourselves with lobster, and watch Mariah perform.”

He humored her. They went back to Nero’s Lounge, played the slots and won a paltry number of coins compared to the ones they put in the machines, but broke even at blackjack. The Golden Room had small, chilled lobsters on the buffet and shrimp almost as large. Howdy ordered a bottle of Dom Perignon at one-hundred fifty dollars a popped cork with complete panache thanks to the lessons received from Brian Lightfoot.

“Is this where you get me liquored up?” Cassie asked, smiling at him over the rim of a bubbling flute.

“Yep. We could get married between Mariah’s acts. Maybe she’d agree to be your bridesmaid.”

“Sorry, I did rash and impulsive with Bijou. Never again. Besides, my mother made it clear after that fiasco I must marry in the Church with every Thomas alive in attendance to make up for her embarrassment.”

“You think she’d accept a Baptist? I know she likes me. She saved me extra dessert on Good Friday, hid it from the ravenous hoard of your family.”

“Being used to Joe, Connor, and the Rev, she thinks you’re too thin for a football player, but yes, she does like you.”

“You couldn’t marry Joe in your church. He’d be a divorced man.”

“In my childish fantasy, I thought he’d buy an annulment.”

“And make his kids illegitimate. I don’t think so.”

“Me neither, not anymore. Nell has the life I thought I wanted, and I was willing to go after Joe to get it. I feel almost as ashamed as the day the two of them rescued me from Bijou.”

“Be glad Joe turned you down, or you might be implanted with his triplets right now and not sipping champagne with me in Vegas.” Howdy gave her one of his broad, loopy grins.

She raised her glass and clinked it against his. “To us.”

“Right, to us.”

They finished off the bottle because Dom Perignon was not a wine to be wasted and made their merry way to the lounge to get a front seat for Mariah Coy’s act. When the lights dimmed over the audience and brightened on the stage, their waitress appeared sitting atop a white piano with an accompanist wearing the de rigueur tuxedo and a drummer and bass player filling out the stage.

Creative makeup and kind lighting softened her lines and removed ten years from her face. A tight black gown so low cut it barely covered her nipples helped distract from her age by luring the eyes of male viewers elsewhere. She had her long, showgirl legs crossed, a backless stiletto high heel dangling from one toe. Making love to the mic, she crooned a selection of steamy songs, then slid off the piano to do a red hair tossing Tina Turner strut around the stage on a couple of faster pieces. Clearly winded, Mariah returned to lounge against the baby grand for a smoky version of
Fever
to close the show. Adequate applause rewarded her performance, but she did not return for an encore song. Instead, the band slid into a blue note, the cue to bring out the aging jazz trumpeter who waited in the wings.