Pink Shoes and Hot Chocolate: A Poker Boy story Read online

  By the time I had parked and gotten into the emergency room, she was out of sight. Patty, Stan, and Bernice were all in the waiting room looking worried.

  “Good job getting her out of there,” Stan said. “Did she get the deal done?”

  “She did,” I said, staring at Stan, surprised. “You knew what she was doing in there?”

  “Not until Bernice told me,” Stan said, clearly disgusted, “after you had left.”

  I stared at Bernice, a short stubby little God that I didn’t much like and had even less respect for. “You want to tell me why you risked Carol’s life on a property deal with the Silicon Suckers?”

  “Huge new Bingo and Keno parlor is planned for that ground along with a large retirement home. The county wouldn’t agree, of course, since the Gods blocked building on any of the Silicon Suckers’ ground. It was the only way to get the approval.”

  “And that was worth Carol’s life?”

  “Of course not,” Bernice snapped. “That’s why we sent you in to rescue her. The negotiations were only supposed to take a day and we didn’t expect her to succeed. We knew things had gone wrong when she hadn’t come out in two days.”

  I gave the short little Keno God my most intense poker stare until she turned away and started pacing.

  Stan patted me on the shoulder. “Laverne’s in there with her. Carol will make it.”

  Patty slipped her hand into mine and I could feel the calming influence she had over me. Her super powers concerned making people happy, among other things, and she could calm me down with a touch.

  She pulled me over to a row of black, plastic chairs along one wall and we sat down. She handed me a bottle of water and I downed it quickly. Never had water tasted so good.

  She handed me another after I finished the first bottle, then said, “So, you want to tell me what happened to your shoes?”

  I glanced down at my feet and the very dirty white socks I still wore. “They are beside Carols’ pink dress shoes, at the entrance to the Silicon Suckers city. Can’t wear shoes down there.”

  Over the next half hour I told her and Stan and Bernice exactly what had happened and what Carol had managed to do, including the long walk back to the surface on her own.

  Just as I finished, Laverne, Lady Luck herself, walked out of the back of the emergency room area and nodded. “She’s going to make it. She’s asleep and can have visitors tomorrow.”

  “Oh, thank you,” Bernice said, slumping in her chair.

  “Nice job once again, Poker Boy,” Laverne said. I could only smile. When Lady Luck herself thanked you, there just wasn’t much to say.

  Patty squeezed my hand.

  “We have to talk,” Laverne said, staring at Bernice.

  They both vanished.

  “Good job, kid,” Stan said and vanished as well.

  Patty helped me to my feet and we headed toward the door. Outside, in the heat, I really noticed that I didn’t have shoes as I moved from one shaded area to the next across the hot pavement.

  As we got settled in my car, Patty turned to me. “I still don’t get the hot chocolate part of all this.”

  “Think drugs,” I said. “Hot chocolate is their most valuable drug.”

  “So how did you know to take extra hot chocolate, and how did Carol know you were bringing it?”

  “You want my guess?” I asked and Front Desk Girl nodded.

  “Carol knew that I would be the one the Gods picked to try to find her, since I knew her and had dealings in the past with the Silicon Suckers.”

  “Got that,” Patty said.

  “And after being down there for three days, Carol knew I would bring the only real thing of value to a Silicon Sucker to buy her freedom, so she used it as a lure in the purchase instead of a bribe for her release.”

  “That could have gone so very wrong,” Front Desk Girl said.

  “Carol knows me, and clearly knew who she was negotiating with. Something must have happened to force her to stay that long and take such a huge risk. We won’t know exactly what went wrong until tomorrow.”

  Front Desk Girl shook her head. “Hot chocolate as a drug. Who would have thought?”

  “I can understand that on a cold winter night in front of a crackling fire.”

  “I thought I was your drug of choice,” she said, laughing and rubbing her hand along my leg, sending happy feelings throughout my tired body.

  “Oh, you are, you are.”

  She looked at me with a smile that could melt any angry customer standing at a front desk, let alone a tired poker player. “How about we go back to my place and I’ll get you a couple more bottles of water and help you scrub off some of that sand and dirt in a nice cool shower?”

  “Perfect,” I said. “But first, can we go get my shoes and Carol’s shoes from the desert?”

  “Sure, but why? I’ve seen your shoes and they aren’t worth the gas out there.”

  “Not for mine, for Carol’s shoes,” I said. “In all my years of being a superhero, I’ve never rescued pink shoes before.”

  Patty laughed. “I guess there’s a first time for everything.”

  About the Author

  Bestselling author Dean Wesley Smith has written more than one hundred popular novels and well over two hundred published short stories. His novels include the science fiction novel Laying the Music to Rest and the thriller The Hunted as D.W. Smith. With Kristine Kathryn Rusch, he is the coauthor of The Tenth Planet trilogy and The 10th Kingdom. He writes under many pen names and has also ghosted for a number of top bestselling writers.

  Dean has also written books and comics for all three major comic book companies, Marvel, DC, and Dark Horse, and has done scripts for Hollywood. One movie was actually made.

  Over his career he has also been an editor and publisher, first at Pulphouse Publishing, then for VB Tech Journal, then for Pocket Books. Soon he will be again editing for Fiction River.

  Currently, he is writing thrillers and mystery novels under another name and having great fun as an indie writer as well.