Nonexistent No More: A Poker Boy story Read online

  Nonexistent No More

  A Poker Boy Story

  Dean Wesley Smith

  Nonexistent No More

  Copyright © 2013 by Dean Wesley Smith

  Published by WMG Publishing

  Cover Design copyright © 2013 WMG Publishing

  Cover art copyright Dejan Veljkovic/Dreamstime

  Smashwords Edition

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

  Chapter One

  Who knew that Wolfgang Sucker had a wife? A Mrs. Sucker.

  And since Wolfgang was a blue-skinned Searchlight, if I had thought of him having a wife, I would have assumed that Mrs. Sucker would be blue as well.

  Wrong. Mrs. Wolfgang Sucker was bright pink, and depending on the light, the pink shifted to bright purple, very bright purple. And she had wide brown eyes instead of blue eyes.

  Just as the first time I saw her husband, I first saw Mrs. Sucker walking toward me across the lobby of the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. I was leaning against one of the stone pillars in the lobby waiting for my girlfriend and sidekick, Patty Ledgerwood, aka Front Desk Girl to get off work.

  Stunning didn’t begin to describe Mrs. Sucker, even though no one in the lobby seemed to even notice her, and they should have. Every man in the room should have been staring. Her body suit, or at least I hoped it was a body suit, blended perfectly with her pink/purple skin making her look to be a very bright nude, only with no real details showing.

  Maybe she didn’t have any of those details. I just didn’t know. In fact, what I knew about Searchlights wasn’t much, other than they were very, very powerful.

  She stood as thin and as tall as her husband, at least six-six, and she couldn’t have weighed more than one-hundred-and-twenty pounds.

  And I was sure that most of that weight she carried on the front of her chest.

  She was the wet dream of every modeling agency on the planet. Even with the bright pink/purple skin color. It was just weird how the color kept changing from shade to shade the closer she got.

  And on her completely bald head she had the same patterns of white marks as her husband. The patterns shifted as she moved her head slowly from one side to the other, making different scenes.

  Searchlights were a race that no one in the superheroes and gods seemed to know much about, or even where on Earth they lived. They seemed to exist in nowhere land.

  The Searchlights were called the guardians of the human race, and usually worked with the different deities when a problem threatened humanity.

  I first met her husband, Wolfgang Sucker, during the big fight against the Fuzzy-Wuzzy bugs from another dimension. He had been assigned to the Gambling Gods, and since as Poker Boy, I work for them, I got a chance to work with him.

  “Poker Boy,” the female Searchlight said, her voice as raspy as her husband’s, and her breath just as bad. “My name is Emmanuel Sucker, the wife, as you humans would call it, of Wolfgang Sucker.”

  I wanted to back away to get out of the smell of rotted garlic and dead fish that was her breath, but instead I somehow managed to bow slightly as is a traditional show of respect when talking to a Searchlight.

  Then I said, “Very nice to meet you.”

  “My husband spoke highly of you and your team in our last mating.”

  I opened my mouth to say something, then closed it and decided that a nod was safer. I was learning far more about the Searchlight society and relationships than I wanted to at that moment. And any question I might ask might cause a lot of problems – or more likely, answers I just didn’t want to hear.

  And I didn’t need my imagination going any farther thinking about a tall pink woman and blue man mating, constantly turning their heads from side to side.

  “I need to talk to Front Desk Girl, if you don’t mind?” Emmanuel Sucker asked.

  “Of course,” I said. “Would you wait here while I jump and get her? It will take only a moment.”

  She nodded.

  I knew exactly where Patty was, and could have easily marched the ten or fifteen steps to the front desk and asked for her, but I wanted to practice my newly discovered superpower of jumping around in space.

  And besides, when a Searchlight started asking to talk with other superheroes, it usually meant they wanted to talk to the major gods as well. And that meant something very bad was about to happen to humanity in general.

  So I winked out, appearing beside Patty in the employee lounge at the same moment taking us out of time so that no other employee saw me appear.

  Taking myself out of time used to be my most fun superpower before I learned how to jump around in space. Now I was doing both and that just made me happy. It’s not often a simple poker player can learn to teleport and step between moments in time.

  Around us a half-dozen of Patty’s co-employees were frozen in positions of that moment in time. One woman was chewing on a candy bar and her mouth was half open and it wasn’t a pretty sight.

  “I love doing that,” I said, smiling at the Patty’s wonderful brown eyes. She had her long brown hair let down and was wearing the standard black slacks and white blouse of the MGM front desk employee.

  “You are getting pretty good at it,” Patty said, smiling and kissing me. “Just like many other things.”

  I think I blushed. In fact I was sure I blushed. And that simple hint of suggestion almost made me forget about Emmanuel Sucker standing in the front lobby.

  “We have a problem,” I said. “Did you know Searchlights have mates?”

  “No, I didn’t,” Patty said, frowning. Even with a frown on her face, she was the best-looking woman I had ever seen.

  “Well, they do, and Emmanuel Sucker, Wolfgang Sucker’s wife, is out front in the lobby and wants to talk to you.”

  Patty’s eyes got wide. “Me? Why?”

  “I didn’t ask.”

  Patty was a superhero like I was. There was little if any reason a Searchlight would ask for one of us.

  Then I looked up and shouted “Stan! Need help!”

  Patty nodded and I flicked us back to a position in front of the Searchlight, then took all three of us out of time so we could talk without all the noise of the lobby.

  An instant later, Stan, the God of Poker, joined us, going through the ritual slight bowing to the Searchlight.

  Then Emmanuel Sucker, her bald purple head moving slowly from side to side, the patterns on her head moving and changing, bowed slightly to Patty. “Thank you for seeing me.”

  Patty bowed slightly in return. “It is my honor to meet you. What can we do for you? Is there a problem we are going to need help with?”

  “To be most honest,” Emmanuel said to Patty, the patterns on her head seeming to move slightly faster than normal, “I only need your help concerning a problem with my husband.”

  I glanced at Stan, who looked as shocked as I felt.

  As far as the little bit of history I knew, no Searchlight had ever come to just talk with one superhero before. They always contacted superheroes first to be taken to the higher gods of each deity. Sort of like going to a servant to be taken to the Queen.

  “That will be no problem,” Patty said. She turned to Stan. “Can you jump Mrs. Sucker and myself to the meeting room off the main corridor near the lobby? I will call for you when we are finished.”

  Stan nodded, and an instant later the two wo
men were gone.

  “You have any idea what that is about?” Stan asked.

  “No more than you do,” I said.

  He nodded, then said, “I had better tell Laverne and Patty’s boss what’s happening.”

  Then he too was gone.

  Chapter Two

  I let myself drop back into real time.

  The sounds of the lobby of the MGM Grand smashed into me. It was always a shock going from the complete silence of between-time and back to real time when it came to the noise. All the people who had been frozen in mid-stride or mid-sentence a moment before were now suddenly moving and talking again.

  I stood against the stone pillar off to one side of the grand lobby, no longer waiting for Patty to get off work, but to work her superhero magic with a Searchlight.

  I had a sinking feeling about this, and I couldn’t tell if that sinking feeling was one of my superpowers trying to warn me, or my normal guy worries about his girlfriend being in some sort of trouble.

  I was just starting to try to sort that out when Stan appeared again and took us back out of time, freezing all the movement in the lobby and silencing all the noise.

  “I talked to Laverne,” he said. “She didn’t seem worried, and told me to keep her informed.”

  Laverne was Lady Luck herself, one of the most powerful gods anywhere.

  “Did you tell Judy what was happening?” I asked.

  Judy was the God of Hospitality, the top deity that covered everything to do with lodging and guests staying anywhere. Patty was a superhero under the hospitality gods, working directly under the God of Front Desks, Benson, just like I worked directly under Stan, the God of Poker.

  “All Judy said was she was wondering when this was going to happen,” Stan said, “and told me to keep her informed as well.”

  “What was going to happen?” I asked.

  Stan shrugged. “Now you know exactly as much as I do. Neither of them would say another word.”

  “Did you know Searchlights were married?” I asked Stan.

  “I assumed they had something like that, otherwise how would they have little Searchlights.”

  “I thought they lived forever.”

  “No one lives forever,” Stan said. “Even Gods have to be born.”

  I just shook my head as Stan dropped us back into real time and everyone in the lobby started moving again and the noise of regular people doing regular things washed over us.

  We both leaned back against the stone pillar and using the skill of calm that all good poker players have, we just waited while Patty talked with the bright pink Mrs. Sucker.

  But I had to say, the curiosity was killing me.

  And the worry for Patty was making my stomach twist into knots.

  Chapter Three

  About fifteen minutes of intense worry later, Stan nodded to something I couldn’t hear and jumped us both to the meeting room.

  Patty was alone, sitting at the head of the long oak table in the ornate MGM Grand meeting room. The only sign that Emmanuel Sucker had been there was the lingering odor of her bad breath.

  Patty looked worried and tired. I had rarely seen her look like that.

  “She wants a place to live,” Patty said, looking up at me and giving me a tired smile. “And a job.”

  Okay, I had to admit, my mouth sort of gaped open at that. The idea of a Searchlight wanting a job was just nuts. They were the beings that Gods bowed to, that watched over humanity against all the threats that might harm us regular people.

  Why would Emmanuel Sucker, a Searchlight, need a place to live and a job?

  Patty signed and said, “She wants to live here in Vegas for the next twenty-one plus years. She likes it here. And she’s pregnant.”

  Like that was going to explain everything.

  “You mean Wolfgang kicked her out for getting pregnant?” I asked.

  Behind me Laverne and Judy both laughed.

  Stan and I both spun around, moving quickly aside to let Lady Luck and the God of Hospitality closer to Patty. There was a real disadvantage to jumping through space. You could really sneak up on someone. And those two had snuck up on both me and the God of Poker.

  Lady Luck had on a black pants suit and black business jacket and looked like every powerful businesswoman tended to look. And she was thin enough and had her hair pulled back tight, making her look like she was even more in control of everything.

  Judy, on the other hand, looked like everyone’s image of a matronly grandmother. She was even wearing an apron over her plaid dress. And Judy was way, way overweight, something you didn’t see often in the Gods.

  “How far along is she?” Laverne asked Patty as she and Judy sat down on either side of Patty.

  “Two months,” Patty said. “She and Wolfgang were picked for the honor right after the battle with the Fuzzy-Wuzzy.”

  “So we’re going to have to move rather quickly,” Judy said, nodding and smiling like this was the best news she had ever heard. “She’s going to be leaving home within the next month at most.”

  Patty nodded. “She says she’s already beginning to change. She feels she has less than a week.”

  Both Laverne and Judy nodded sagely, clearly thinking. About what, I had no clue at all.

  I glanced at Stan and he was looking just as puzzled as I felt. But darned if I was going to ask any more stupid questions after my last one.

  “First things first,” Judy said. “We need to get her a house that she can use for a home for the next twenty-one plus years at a rental payment. The Searchlights will not take any charity from any human or god, even though they help us all the time.”

  Laverne nodded and turned and looked at me. “Poker Boy, would you mind being Emmanuel’s landlord? You and Patty could find her a comfortable home and get her approval before buying it. And make sure it’s in a good school district.”

  Now it was Patty’s turn to look puzzled at me.

  I had just kept forgetting to tell her that even though I lived in an old double-wide trailer next to a casino in the Oregon coast mountain range, I was very, very rich. She had always just assumed I was a poor poker player. Actually, my poker playing had made me very, very rich; I just seldom spent any of my money.

  I had always meant to tell her, but the subject just never came up.

  “I’d be honored to do so,” I said to Lady Luck.

  Laverne nodded. “Make sure her rent is reasonable, but not too low.”

  Then Laverne turned to Judy, the God of Hospitality. “You think Emmanuel could find a job in your area?”

  “I’m sure she could,” Judy said. “But with those looks and that build, she might be better served dealing cards. Tips would be a lot better and she would be more comfortable then with the monetary aspects of living here.”

  I wanted to know how a bright pink bald woman who always turned her head slowly from side-to-side and had horrid breath could deal cards, but I kept my mouth shut again.

  “Actually, Judy” Laverne said, nodding, “you are right.” Lady Luck turned to Stan. “After Emmanuel is settled, I’ll leave it up to you to teach her how to deal poker so she is ready to go after the baby is old enough for her to go to work. I’ll loan her some money to last her until then.”

  “A couple of quick questions,” Stan said.

  I wanted to say, “Thank you.” I had a hundred questions, but I just didn’t have the guts to ask anything. Even Patty was looking relieved that she wasn’t the one to ask some of the more obvious questions.

  Laverne and Judy both laughed at even that much from Stan. For some reason all this was just too much fun for the two of them, while it was driving the rest of us crazy.

  “Shall we tell them?” Laverne asked, clearly enjoying the frowns on our faces.

  Judy nodded. “I sure don’t see why not. Might help them sleep tonight.”

  Laverne laughed and then said, “When a Searchlight becomes pregnant, she basically turns into a human. Emmanuel will lose her co
lor and grow hair on her head in the next few weeks.”

  Well, that was going to help with the poker dealing.

  The God of Hospitality smiled and said, “Emmanuel will give birth to a normal-looking human child and will need to raise her child with humans until the child’s twenty-first birthday. Then they will both regain their color and head patterns and join their own kind.”

  “Why?” Patty asked a half second before Stan and I could.

  “This has always been their way,” Laverne said, “from the beginning of humanity. It allows them to understand those they are protecting.”

  “When was the last Searchlight born?” Patty asked.

  “There hasn’t been a new Searchlight baby since the days of Atlantis,” Judy said. “But I expect more in the next few centuries; maybe one even sooner, since this child will need a mate.”

  “And Poker Boy,” Laverne said, smiling at me, “you might consider including Emmanuel on your team in the future for some missions. She will have some special powers, although it might take a little time to figure out exactly what they are.”

  “Be glad to,” I said, trying to imagine Emmanuel Sucker joining the rest of us at The Diner for milkshakes while we tried to solve dangerous problems.

  “Keep us informed as to your progress,” Laverne said.

  Patty and I and Stan all nodded and an instant later the two major gods were gone.

  “Too weird, just too weird,” Stan said, shaking his head and then he also vanished, leaving me with my wonderful girlfriend.

  I dropped into the chair beside Patty. “You all right?”

  She nodded. “Just stunned is all. Not sure why Emmanuel picked me.”

  “I think her husband liked you,” I said, smiling.

  “Looks like we will have a new charge very shortly,” Patty said. “And maybe a new member of the team.”

  “Could be interesting,” I said, still not sure how she might help us. But she was a Searchlight. Even a human Searchlight might be of help.