Murder by Chance (Betty Chance Mystery) (8 page)

Ding-ding-ding-ding-ding sounded the nearest slot machine while small flashes of light bounced around the vast space. Accompanying the noise were thousands of other dings coming from a thousand other machines. It was a little past ten in the morning and the casino was in full swing. Every seat was taken and anxious onlookers circled the blackjack tables like paparazzi near the red carpet. Except this time, there were no million-dollar photos of celebrities to be shot. There was only the chance to be near the action, and perhaps if they were lucky, join in.

Betty inhaled deeply. The years of stale cigarette smoke that permeated the carpet and walls made her feel at home. She adored the musty odor of a casino. Her addiction to nicotine remained hidden deep within her. But she was committed to stay an ex-smoker. Being in a casino was as close to lighting-up as she’d ever get.

Betty scanned the room, looking for her clients. She knew most of them on sight, but was afraid a few of the new ones might get past her. She wished she’d handed out nametags but most of her customers disliked them. Hannah, of course, complained that men used the tag as an excuse to peek at her ‘you-know-whats’. One male passenger complained that Betty should have known his name immediately, considering what he paid for the charter. Betty made the decision early on it would be wiser just to learn her passengers names and faces as quickly as possible.

After working with seniors for so long, she’d begun to realize they all looked alarmingly alike, just as all babies looked cute and cuddly, even the ugly ones. Perhaps it was nature’s way of protecting the most vulnerable, to make every baby adorable, and to make every adult over the age of seventy look like they could be your beloved grandparent.

Betty headed toward Poker Alley with its rows of video poker machines. It took her only a minute to discover Mrs. Kotval sitting at the quarter slots.

“Good morning,” she said to her client who was playing one nickel at a time, the minimum amount allowed on the twenty-line nickel machine. If Mrs. Kotval played the maximum allowed per spin, it would cost her a dollar. By betting on only a single line, she saved ninety-five cents. Of course, if any of the other nineteen lines revealed a winning sequence, it wouldn’t matter. Her five cents would be casino history.

Mrs. Kotval swiveled around in her seat, tugging at her pale green sweatshirt embroidered with the words ‘
Keep my grandma off the streets! Take her to a casino!
’ A photo of her granddaughter was captured in a cross stitched frame on the front.

“Hello Betty,” Mrs. Kotval said with a big smile, her dentures gleaming like cultured pearls. “Know what? I’m only down two dollars and I’ve been gambling for three hours. Isn’t that wonderful?”

Betty nodded. She loved gamblers who were realistic. The ones who looked at gaming as recreational and not an investment portfolio.

“Good for you,” Betty said before explaining the reason she was there.

“Does that mean I am a suspect?” Mrs. Kotval asked, hopefully. “That would be so wonderful. I could tell my grandchildren. They watch
Murder She Wrote
every time they visit. They gave me the Special Edition DVD collection for my birthday.”

“Then you’ll be happy to know you are a suspect, Mrs. Kotval.”

“Really?” Mrs. Kotval’s eyes lit up.

“Everyone is,” Betty admitted giving her a reassuring smile.

Betty noticed Mrs. Kotval’s look of surprise turn to disappointment. She regretted having said it. Clearly, Mrs. Kotval was enjoying the suspicion.

“I can’t wait to tell my family,” her client beamed. “For once I’ll be like those wicked women on TV. My grandkids won’t call me Angela Lansbury anymore! I’ll be more like Joan Collins.”

It took Betty only a few more steps to discover another rider. She leaned in close to the seventy-seven old woman playing Double Bonus Video Poker or DBVP as the die-hard gamblers referred to it. Betty said loudly, “Mrs. Browne?”

The tiny sprite exhaled a blast of cigarette smoke that rushed to join the massive thundercloud swirling overhead. The woman bent and rubbed her cigarette out in an already overflowing, red plastic ashtray.

“What can I do for you, dear?” Mrs. Browne asked absently, not turning around to see who called her name. With one hand she fiddled with her hearing aide while her other hand tapped the Max Coin button. Every hit of the button cost her a total of one dollar and twenty-five cents.

Betty continued, “I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that the sheriff wants to interview all of my passengers this morning.”

“Why, that would mean stopping everyone from gambling,” Mrs. Browne said and shot Betty a withered pout. “I haven’t had a straight yet this morning, much less a royal flush.”

“You’ll still have plenty of time for gambling,” Betty assured her.

Mrs. Browne looked down at her pale, spindly hands. “Time is the one thing that most of us seniors do not have, Betty.”

Betty was accustomed to her clients complaining about their age. It didn’t come as a surprise. Betty whined about her own aging as well.

“Don’t you want to hear the good news?” Betty asked.

Mrs. Browne quipped sternly. “If it’s about religion, I’m not interested.”

Betty chuckled. She loved that old people said whatever they wanted to, regardless of the consequences. She announced in an upbeat tone, “The entire tour’s been given complimentary show tickets. You can see Boris the Baffler for free.”

“But I see Boris right now, dear,” Mrs. Browne responded, and proceeded to hack up an unfiltered tsunami as she pointed to the main entrance of the casino.

Betty’s eyes followed the direction of Mrs. Browne’s nicotine stained and blue-veined spindly digit. She expected to see yet one more life-size glossy advert. Instead, what she saw was far more impressive—Boris himself was being escorted through the casino.

His entrance was worthy of kings. Had he been sitting astride a white horse, Betty felt his appearance could not have been grander. Boris stood at the top of the steps that led to the casino floor in an unbuttoned, black lame jacket that covered a partially unbuttoned white silk shirt. The shirt’s collar was stiff and turned upward. The chest hair that peaked through his clothing was covered by two gold chain necklaces that could easily tow a Ford Fiesta in winter. An extravagant rhinestone belt buckle shaped like a lightning bolt held up his pristine and pressed white silk pants. The fact that most of his fingers glittered with opulent rings was almost as interesting as the handcuffs that locked his wrists.

An entourage of short, paunchy uniformed security guards surrounded him. Their presence only heightened Boris’s stature and regal demeanor.

That guy deserves an Oscar
! Betty mumbled before laughing out loud.

Suddenly, the soft rock Muzak overhead changed to the sound of heralding trumpets. Except for a few hardcore gamers, nearly every head in the casino turned to watch the procession.

Boris reached the middle of the room and stopped. Holding his cuffed hands over his head, he surveyed the room. His presence was so overwhelming that Betty noticed a few women gasping. A few others giggle. The men chuckled. One or two mumbled, “give me a break”.

The entertainer swirled sideways and stared directly at a large, black haired woman sitting in front of a dollar slot machine. Betty could have sworn the woman gave him an evil glance. But then the lady’s demeanor changed and she smiled widely at the mind reader.

Good God
, Betty wondered,
did the entertainer use mind control off stage as well?

“What is your name, darling?” Boris asked in a thick accent that reminded Betty of the Slavic storekeepers in her neighborhood. But there was a twinge of Russian in it as well. Perhaps even English. Boris sounded as if he grew up moving quickly from one country to another. His voice was strong enough to reach across the room.

“Conchita Catalina Mendoza de Arroyo,” the woman answered in a brisk Spanish accent. “I am here on a tour of the Americas. In Madrid, I was a famous Flamenco ...”

Boris’ hand shot up immediately in a stop position. Conchita bit into her lip hard, as if it were almost impossible for her to stop her babbling.

With a flourishing bow Boris informed her, “You’ll be happy to know you’ll soon win a jackpot.” Murmurs of amazements and scoffs of disbelief rippled through the gambling crowd.

“A jackpot?” she asked, using her arms in a bent and upward position as she snapped her fingertips, in a classic Flamenco dancer stance.

“Si!” Boris growled back, his face a bit stern for the occasion Betty thought.

Conchita spun around on the stool and pressed a button of the one-arm bandit on the Wild Cherry slot machine. The reels spun and stopped. A cluster of bars, blanks appeared. Not a single cherry had materialized. Conchita hit Max Coin again and another three dollars disappeared from her seventy-six dollar credit posted on the machine. There was only one bar. On her third try and subsequent loss, Boris shrugged to the crowd and walked away.

The woman continued pushing the button on her slot machine. Boris walked only a few feet down the aisle before he stopped. He folded his arms across his chest and adopted an omnipotent smirk. He turned his head slightly and looked behind him, toward Conchita. On her next try the self-proclaimed former Flamenco dancer hit a jackpot of one thousand dollars.

The crowd around her burst into yelps and applause. Boris continued his parade, the security guards in close proximity. Suddenly, a man seated at a slot machine, dressed in overalls and a flannel shirt put his hand in front of Boris to stop the processional.

The grizzly gambler said, in a loud, irritated tone, “Help my wife win. She’s never won more than five bucks in her life.”

One of Boris’ eyebrows shot upward in disbelief. “That’s not true, Sir.”

“Sure it is,” he insisted.

“No it isn’t. She won your heart, didn’t she? That has to be worth more than five dollars,” Boris told him.

Instead of a satisfied sigh, a loud grunt came out of the man’s mouth. He said, “Trust me. I ain’t no prize.”

“Sure you are. You’re a retired plumber with a good income and ...”

The man’s eyes opened wide. He asked, “Hey, how did you know that?”

Boris ignored his question and said, “And you’ve been married for twenty-nine years.”

“My God, you can read minds!” the man sputtered.

“And you read
Playboy,
” Boris paused in a dramatic fashion and then added, “for the articles, of course.”

The burly man’s wife mouth dropped opened in shock, while he sputtered, “Okay, you can stop right there.” Avoiding his wife’s eyes, he continued, “You win. I’ll buy a ticket to your damn show.”

“Thank you,” Boris said, and continued down the aisle. As he did, dozens of gamblers asked him to predict when they would hit a jackpot or tell them their fortune. He only nodded slightly in recognition of their requests. He spoke to no one until he reached the end of the aisle and stood directly in front of Betty.

His hazel eyes looked at her with a mischievous glint that bordered on leering. Boris was at least twenty-years younger than Betty.

She decided to be as bold as Boris. “Are you reading my mind?” she asked, giving him a look that suggested he was.

He answered, “You’re very brave, aren’t you? I like that in a beautiful woman.”

Betty played along. “I like that in a beautiful man.”

“You’ll need help getting inside your hotel room, no?” he purred, his words dripping with possibilities.

Betty was surprised when she found herself becoming flustered. Was this Euro Trash actually making a pass at her? A woman old enough to be his mother? (Well, his sister; Okay, his mother.) And shamelessly in front of a crowd? At the same time, suggesting she needed help, his
help
to get into her hotel room? What else would he think she needed once they were inside?

Betty laughed at the thought that she might be on the prowl. She’d read that older women hitting on a younger guy was in fashion. Cougars they were called. Too bad she couldn’t tell Boris that the only clothing she was interested in removing was good-old fashion support hose. Even then, it would only be to soak her aching feet.

“Ah, but you do,” he teased seductively. “As always, you’ve lost your room key.”

Betty immediately put her hands in her pockets to retrieve the key. Nothing. She quickly opened her purse and rummaged. Nothing. She laughed out loud. What she thought was a come-on was just a part of his act. It was true. She had lost her hotel key.

Boris started to walk past her, but stopped even with her. He leaned over and whispered into her ear, “Don’t worry. Your business will not suffer because of the homicide. In fact, you’ll be more successful than ever.”

Betty almost fell over in shock. But she was surprised even more when he added, “And yes, Liberace would be very jealous of my outfit.”

Could Boris actually read minds? She’d thought the burly,
Playboy
reading ex-plumber was just a shill, someone who was paid a few bucks to act surprised. But there was no way Boris could know her thought about Liberace’s ghost.