Tara Holloway 03 - Death, Taxes, and Extra-Hold Hairspray (26 page)

Nick steered me toward a craps table where a boisterous crowd was gathered. The group was an interesting cross section of society, including an older Asian couple in matching track suits, a stylish young black man in an expensive silk shirt, a heavyset middle-aged woman in a gauzy batik dress, and two thirtyish white men in jeans and casual golf shirts. One of the white men glanced over at Nick, a condescending smirk on his face as his gaze roamed over the wild hair and sideways hat.

Nick laid two twenties on the table, one in front of himself, the other in front of me. “My treat,” he said.

“Thanks.”

The dealer exchanged Nick’s bills for colored chips, setting one stack in front of Nick, another in front of me. Nick picked up his stack and placed several chips on the felt. The other players likewise placed their bets. When I failed to place a bet, the dealer looked at me expectantly.

I looked up at Nick, holding a small stack of chips in my hand. “What should I do?” I’d never played craps before. The numbers and words on the felt were incomprehensible.
Field? Pass Line? Don’t pass bar?
What the heck did they mean?

Nick guided my hand to a rectangle in which the word “Come” was written. He leaned down and whispered in my ear. “When a lady’s with me, she’s sure to come.”

I didn’t doubt his words for a second. I dropped my chips where he’d indicated.

One of the other players rolled the dice. When the dice stopped rolling, the people surrounding the table cheered. I had no idea what had happened, but when the dealer set another stack of chips next to mine, I realized I’d won and cheered, too.

A waitress stepped up to the table. The low-cut bodice of her skimpy black uniform left little to the imagination. “Cocktails?” she asked, offering a flirtatious smile to the male players at the end of the craps table.

Nick waited his turn while the other players, including me, placed their drink orders. He’d just opened his mouth when the waitress turned and walked away, tray held aloft.

“Wait!” Nick called after her. “You didn’t get my order.”

She kept on walking.

Nick turned to me, an expression of disbelief on his face. “What the hell just happened?”

Clearly, he wasn’t used to being ignored by women.

“It’s your disguise,” I said. “You look like…” An idiot is what he looked like, but I couldn’t very well tell him that, could I? I settled for, “Like you’d be a lousy tipper.”

We played for several more minutes, every come bet I placed paying off. Nick hadn’t been kidding.

The waitress returned with the drinks. When she handed me my red wine, Nick plunked a five-dollar tip on her tray, buying her attention.

“Gosh, thanks,” she said, smiling up at him. “Can I get you something?”

I took a sip to hide my grin as Nick ordered a bourbon.

Fifteen minutes later, I was up by two hundred dollars but Nick had run out of chips. I tried to split my winnings with him, but he refused.

“You won it fair and square,” he said, pushing my hand away, refusing the bills I’d offered.

“But I was betting with your money. And you told me what bets to place.”

“True.” He cocked his head, his eyes intent on mine. “So, you going to start doing everything I say now?”

“Hell, no.”

“I didn’t think so. Not sure I’d want you to.” He shot me a wink. “Let’s try the slot machines.”

“My treat this time,” I insisted, pressing a twenty-dollar bill into his palm.

The place was packed now. We wandered through the smoky haze, making our way up and down the aisles, having difficulty finding any available machines. We finally spotted a quarter slot along the back wall. The stool in front of it was unoccupied. Nick gestured for me to take the seat.

I stepped over to the machine, Nick trailing me. Just as I was about to sit down on the stool, the bald, elderly man seated at the adjacent machine stuck out a wrinkled, liver-spotted hand to block me, nearly burning me with the cigar stump gripped between his fingers.

“Back off,” he spat. “I’m playing that machine.” He jammed the button with his crooked index finger, ash falling from the cigar onto the seat of the stool. While the reels spun, he turned to the machine in front of him and punched the button to activate that device, too.

A sign on the wall overhead noted that the casino reserved the right to limit play to one machine per person. Still, the machine didn’t seem to be paying off and I wasn’t sure I wanted to sit next to someone smoking a stinky cigar anyway. Besides, thanks to August Buchmeyer, I’d had my fill of crotchety old men lately.

I let the old coot keep his precious machine, but I treated him to a raspberry.
Pfft.
He gave me one right back, nearly losing his dentures with the effort.

“Jackass,” Nick muttered as we stepped away.

A woman playing a dollar machine three seats down pushed the button to cash out.

“Give it a whirl,” Nick said.

I slid onto the stool as soon as the woman’s butt cheeks vacated it, the pad still warm from her body heat. Nick stood behind me to watch.

After inserting a single, I reached up and pulled down on the arm. The machine emitted a loud
rat-a-tat-tat
as the reels spun, the images a blur before us.

The first line clicked into place. A red 7.

The second line clicked into place. Also a red 7.

I held my breath.

The final line clicked into place. Another red 7.

A loud buzzer sounded and a light on top of the machine began to spin.

“Holy moly!” Nick hollered. “You won twelve hundred dollars!”

The old man looked our way. The buzzer was too loud for me to hear what he was saying, but judging from his lips, he’d formed a string of curse words. I waggled my fingers at him.

Nick glanced his way and chuckled. “You reap what you sow, dude.”

A uniformed attendant came over, congratulated me on my win, and led me to the cashier’s cage to collect my payout. The cashier asked for identification and handed me a pen and a form to fill out.

“You’ll owe taxes on your winnings,” she said. “You know how the IRS is.” She rolled her eyes.

“Yes, Marlene,” I said, reading her name from the tag on her chest. “I know exactly how the IRS is.” I pulled one of my business cards out of my wallet and handed it to her.

She read the card and turned red, all business now.

I completed the form, turned it over to her, and collected my check.

Nick pulled his vibrating phone from the front pocket of his pants. Another text from Josh. Nick held his phone up so we both could read it.

Fudher id leavinf thw casini.

“What the heck does that mean?”

“Fischer is leaving the casino,” Nick translated. “It also means Josh had one too many free drinks.”

We headed downstairs and made our way up the ramp to the exit. Half a minute later, Nick’s phone rang. Nick answered, putting it on speaker so I could hear, too.

“He’s walking somewhere,” Josh said, his voice slurred. “He’s not going back to the parking garage.”

“Keep following him,” Nick said, “but for God’s sake, don’t let him figure it out.”

We waited a few more minutes, then received another text from Josh.
He wenr in Hustlr clib.

Despite the misspellings, it was clear what Josh meant. Fischer had gone into the Hustler Club, a topless bar a block away.

“I was wrong,” Nick said. “Fischer’s not a church mouse or a tomcat. He’s a horn dog.”

I smiled. “This was almost too easy.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Like a Virgin

Keep following
, Nick texted back to Josh.

As long as we were at the casino, we figured we might as well enjoy the buffet. We feasted until we risked a stomach rupture, then returned to the car, moving it to the parking lot of the Hustler Club where we could keep an eye on the front door. Flowing in and out was a steady stream of men, ranging from groups of fresh-faced college boys to solitary gray-haired geezers.

I put a hand on my too-full tummy. “I don’t think I’ll ever want to eat again.”

“‘All you can eat’ is a marketing ploy,” Nick teased, “not a challenge. I told you that second dessert was a mistake.”

I hadn’t been able to decide between the bread pudding and the chocolate pie, so I’d tried both. In retrospect, that may not have been a wise decision. The waistline of my pants now dug into my extended belly.

A half hour later, the doors flew open and two enormous bouncers with buzz haircuts tossed Josh outside. Josh stumbled forward, falling to his hands and knees in the entryway, a goofy smile on his face despite the manhandling he’d received. A group of businessmen walked up and one of them helped Josh to his feet.

Josh gave him some type of awkward salute in thanks.

“Josh!” I called out the window, waving my arm. “Over here!”

Josh looked our way and raised a palm in acknowledgment. He staggered to the car, pausing every few feet to put a hand on a fender to steady himself.

“Uh-oh,” I said. “He looks wasted.”

Josh fell against his car, then yanked the back door open. “Hey!” he hollered into the car. He fell into the backseat, his usual stiff movements now loose limbed. It took him three tries to close the door. The first time his hand slipped off the handle, the second time his leg was in the way. On the third attempt, he finally managed to get the door shut properly.

He stuck his head between the front seats, putting a hand atop each seat to support himself. “There were boobies everywhere!”

“Boobies?” I repeated, shooting him a stern look. “Seriously?”

Josh ignored me. “When you pay them money, the girls will dance at your table and bump up against you and you can see their boobies up close!”

I looked at Nick. He was fighting a grin.

“But you can’t touch them,” Josh said, holding up his hands as if to demonstrate, “or the bouncers will throw you out!”

“I take it you learned that the hard way,” I sniped. “Really, Josh. You’re what, thirty? You act like this was the first time you’ve seen breasts.”

“It was!” Josh cried. “I’m a virgin!”

Nick lost the fight with the grin. “A virgin, huh? That explains so much.”

“It certainly does.” I turned back to Josh. “Did you get some good photos and video of Fischer?”

He gave an exaggerated nod, then lurched forward and made an odd sound.
Urp.

Nick leaped out of the driver’s seat, opened the back door, and pulled Josh across the seat and out the door again just in time for Josh to empty his stomach onto the parking lot.

“Lovely.” I turned my head away, but unfortunately it didn’t drown out the retching noise. Thank goodness he’d only had drinks and hadn’t joined us at the buffet.

Several minutes later, when we were convinced Josh had completely emptied his stomach and perhaps even coughed up part of a spleen, Nick helped him back into the backseat, sliding the seat belt across him and clicking it in place. Josh promptly wriggled until the belt loosened a bit. He lay down across the seat. “Night-night.”

Nick climbed back into the driver’s seat and turned to me. “What now? Should we head back to Dallas or get a hotel room?”

I wasn’t sure I was up for a three and a half hour drive back to Dallas. After sitting most of the evening, first in the car and then in the casino, my butt was asleep and my back was sore. But I wasn’t sure a hotel was a good idea, either. I didn’t have a toothbrush or makeup with me, let alone a clean pair of panties to put on in the morning. But I did have a spare toothbrush and panties at my parents’ house, which was only an hour and a half drive away. Besides, my mother had been begging me to come for a visit.

“We can stay the night with my parents,” I said. “Head west. I’ll show you where to turn.”

I hoped my mother had taken her estrogen pill today. Seeing Nick might send her into another hot flash.

Josh snored in the backseat as Nick ditched the wig, I ditched my hat and mask, and we headed out toward Nacogdoches.

“What’re you going to do with your winnings?” Nick asked. “Buy yourself some diamond earrings? Put a hot tub on your patio? Maybe take a vacation in Hawaii?”

“Nope, nope, and nope.” I told him I planned to donate the funds to the animal welfare group that was taking care of Buchmeyer’s chickens. “And maybe call a handyman out to fix my creaky stair.”

Nick eyed me for a moment, a soft smile playing about his lips. “You and that chicken had something real special, didn’t you?”

The low-gas warning light came on. Nick pulled into a Texaco station and filled the car.

Josh raised his head. “Are we there yet?” He put his head back down and was asleep again before I could answer.

Gassed up now, we turned down the highway that led to my hometown. As we approached the northern outskirts of Nacogdoches, the lights of a roadside honky-tonk shined up ahead. Judging from the number of pickups in the parking lot, the joint was jumping tonight.

When we reached the entrance of the gravel parking lot, Nick turned in, raising a cloud of dust behind us. “I want to celebrate,” he said. “Let’s go scoot our boots.”

I wasn’t wearing boots. Besides the sequined tank top, I was still dressed in my suit pants and business loafers. But properly dressed or not, Tara Holloway was no party pooper.

Nick grabbed his cowboy hat from the dash and we climbed out of the car, making our way under the Christmas lights that were strung from the metal roof of the prefab building to a nearby oak tree. The sign on the side of the building indicated the place was currently called the Bar None, but in earlier incarnations it had been known as Uncle Rowdy’s, Junior’s Gin Joint, and Nasty Nellie’s. I’d drunk my first beer here. Tasted like bull piss. My brother happily took it off my hands and bought me a margarita instead.

Nick handed a ten-dollar bill to the man at the door to pay our cover charge and we headed inside. Despite the fact that the place bore a new name outside, the inside hadn’t changed much over the years, if at all. The same band graced the stage, performing the same songs they’d played thousands of times. The same scarred wooden tables sat scattered haphazardly around the room, the same mismatched chairs surrounding them. The same mechanical bull stood in the corner. The same rednecks and roughnecks milled about. The place smelled the same, too. A mix of beer and sawdust, like the cage of an alcoholic hamster.