Slots of Saturn: A Poker Boy Novel Read online

  “Nothing,” she said, shaking her wonderful, soft-looking hair as the screen came up blank. “I was afraid of that. These computer records only go back ten years on slots.”

  “And no Saturn Slots during that time?” I asked. “Or anything with the name Saturn?”

  “Nothing,” Patty said.

  “So we have to go back farther by hand,” I said, “if there are records for that.”

  “There are,” Patty said.

  I was amazed. Hundreds of thousands of slot machines must have come through this casino over the years. Clearly the state gambling board, or the IRS, made them keep track of all of them. Sometimes all the stupid regulations of “Big Brother” came in handy.

  Behind us Samantha said, “But I don’t understand why we’re looking for slot machines that are that old. Ben just disappeared today.”

  “I know,” I said, “but you did say you overheard someone saying they thought they saw him playing the Saturn Slots. Right?”

  She nodded. “But if slots like that haven’t been in this casino for ten years, how could he have been playing them. I guess I just don’t—”

  Patty interrupted. “We’re just trying to eliminate some things. It won’t take too long, I promise.”

  Samantha said nothing more, but I could tell she was very confused.

  I certainly didn’t add in anything. The idea of there being such a thing as ghost slots was crazy, yet Patty and I, without actually saying anything to each other, were both worried that ghost slots had gotten Samantha’s husband. We just didn’t want to tell Samantha that theory without some proof.

  Hell, I didn’t even want to talk with Patty about it.

  Patty stood and moved across the room to a file cabinet. I followed like a puppy on a leash, enjoying my time close to her. I had picked up a couple of details about Patty since our hike into the back room depths of the Horseshoe Casino. First off, she smelled wonderful, like a raspberry bush in full bloom. Across the front desk I hadn’t had a chance to notice that.

  Second, she had a mole on her neck that flashed in and out of sight under her hair, sort of teasing me to come closer. I’m not saying I have a thing about moles. There was nothing sexual or kinky about a parasite growing on a human, but that said, I sure hoped me and that mole would get a lot closer over time.

  I made myself stop staring at her mole as she pulled open the second drawer of the old metal cabinet and thumbed quickly through some files.

  The moment I stopped staring at the mole, the room started to close in again, so I gladly went back to my focus on her neck while she worked.

  “Here it is,” she said as she pulled out a thin file. “Saturn Slots. There were four of them in one bank.” She turned and put the file on the top of the cabinet before opening it for both of us to see.

  A colorful ball in the image of Saturn, tipped slightly to one side, dominated the area above the slots. The planet’s rings extended even higher into the air and also down, seemingly through a couple of the slot machines. It was a fine piece of old slot craftsmanship.

  Most people don’t know that the graphics and design that goes into slot machines has become almost an art form over the years. Casinos and slot machine companies have spent millions trying to figure out what attracts a player to a certain slot machine. The design, the playability, the graphics, the colors, the shapes of the box, the payouts, all have to combine to form something that is not only fun, but is easy to play, yet challenging enough to hold interest.

  I know I considered slot design an art form, but I doubted we would be seeing slot machines in any art galleries anytime soon, which was a crime. Think about it. A gallery patron could enjoy the art show, and all that caché that went along with being an art snob, while at the same time playing a slot machine, with the art gallery taking a cut of the profits, of course.

  I stared at the picture. All four Saturn Slots were the old-fashioned pull handle type, and all four looked old, like they had had some use by the time they reached the Horseshoe. On top of that, they were nickel machines. You didn’t see many of those any more that weren’t electronic and allowed a person to play twenty nickels at a time.

  “Sixteen years,” Patty said. One of her beautiful fingers pointed at a date. “We took them out sixteen years ago, after five years of play.”

  “Who leased them?” I asked, “Or who were they sold to when you got rid of them?”

  In Vegas, and in many other places, some slot machines are owned and serviced by companies that are not affiliated with any one casino. Often, the machines are just leased to the casino. This is happening a lot with the new licensing of such media products as Monopoly Games, The Adams Family, and so on. I didn’t know if the Horseshoe leased or bought their own machines. My hunch was they did both.

  “Valley Slots,” Patty said, studying the paper in front of her. “We leased them.”

  “Damn,” I said. “Valley Slots has been out of business for a good ten years. I think Standard bought part of their assets.”

  Patty nodded. “I seem to remember something about that.”

  “Does it say where these slots were on the floor sixteen years ago?”

  “Not from the records,” Patty said. She pointed to the picture. “But from the looks of that, they were set up just outside the restaurant.”

  I looked closer. She was right. The distinctive wooden railing that led down into the basement restaurant was clearly visible to one side of the slots. Luckily, when they had done the remodeling of the casino and restaurants, they had decided to go back to how it had looked. Sometimes retrograde designs saved time and money, and in this case it helped us.

  “Well,” I said, turning to Samantha, “we found where the slots were.”

  “Sixteen years ago,” Samantha said, her disgust not well hidden in the tone of her voice.

  “Would you know exactly what time Ben left the restaurant?” Patty asked.

  “Just after one,” Samantha said. “We went down for lunch at noon, and they were a little slow. I remember checking my watch and it was one just a few minutes before he left.”

  Patty moved over to a phone sitting beside the door and dialed a five-digit number.

  I sat down beside Samantha at the table and patted her arm. Sue moved around under the edge of the table a little to nudge against my leg, clearly thanking me in dog language. Either that or she wanted to be petted. I knew better than to pet a dog trained for seeing-eye work, so I refrained.

  Around me, the room closed in even more. I was sweating and I wanted to take off my Poker Boy leather coat and special hat, but I knew better. We needed to do this research and get out of here before Poker Boy, superhero, lost it and went screaming down the hall.

  “Steward, this is Patty in the file room. I need you to pull up the security tape for the area outside the restaurant stairs. From one this afternoon to one-ten. Can you feed it to me in here?”

  She listened for a moment, then said, “Yeah, include the stairs. And set it to replay a few times would you? Thanks.” Then she hung up.

  “We’re going to know more in a minute,” she said.

  “Thank you both for all your help,” Samantha said.

  “Thank us after we find out what happened to Ben,” Patty said. She moved over to a security monitor sitting on the top of a file cabinet against one wall. She clicked it on to show a blank screen.

  I patted Samantha’s arm and stood to join Patty and her wonderful raspberry smell and attractive mole. The mole wasn’t visible at the moment, but the smell lured me closer like a flower’s nectar to a bee who couldn’t report back to the hive without filling a quota.

  “It’s going to take Steward a few seconds to get the tape up,” Patty said. “Luckily, we upgraded our entire security system this last winter. It’s now state of the art.”

  I could feel my stomach twisting. I had no idea if we were actually going to see, on tape, evidence of ghost slots taking a man. If so, we were going to be the only people
to ever see this tape, of that much I was certain. It would be destroyed at once.

  There was no casino on the planet that wanted the press release about slot machines kidnapping customers. And besides, even with a tape, who would believe it. If what we thought had happened showed up on this tape, another tape, of say a quiet time ten minutes before, would replace it, all time-coded to look perfect, of course.

  And no one would dare say anything different.

  That was why the general public didn’t know about ghost slot machines, or a dozen other strange things that went on in Las Vegas. It just wasn’t good for business. But anyone who was in Vegas for any amount of time, working or playing like I did, heard about these things.

  Suddenly the screen flicked to life. It was the image of the stairs down into the restaurant, and the slots around the top of the stairs, all shown from a camera in the ceiling. A time code was running on the bottom.

  There was no sign of any Saturn Slots in their old location. The slots that occupied that spot now were newer Monopoly machines.

  An older couple came up the stairs, turning and heading for the door out into the heat. A moment later a man started up the stairs.

  “That’s him,” I said.

  “You see Ben?” Samantha asked.

  “He’s on the security tape,” I said. “Coming out of the restaurant.”

  Patty pointed to the area where the Monopoly slots had been a moment before. Now the Saturn Slots sat there, the image of the ringed planet in full neon, the lights blinking.

  “Oh, shit,” I said softly.

  Ben reached the top of the stairs, turned and moved over in front of the bank of Saturn Slots, fishing in his pocket for change as he went. The old machines didn’t take bills, but he dug a role of nickels out of his pocket.

  Then he sat down into one of the chairs attached to the front of the Saturn Slots, dropped a coin into the slot, and reached for the handle.

  As he pulled it he seemed to freeze.

  The old wheels on the slots spun, but from the angle of the camera, I couldn’t see what they showed.

  Ben seemed to shake for a moment, his hand still holding the arm of the machine.

  A moment later the Saturn Slots faded away, taking Ben with them.

  I somehow managed to take a deep breath, staring at what were normal, modern slots where the Saturn Slots had been a moment before.

  “I never thought I’d ever see it happen,” Patty said, her voice hushed.

  “What?” Samantha demanded from where she sat at the table.

  A moment later the phone rang as the tape cut off, not repeating as Patty had asked.

  Patty picked up the phone and listened. Then she said, “I understand.”

  She hung the phone up slowly before turning off the monitor.

  “We never saw that?” I asked.

  “We never saw that,” she said.

  “Would one of you please tell me what just happened?” Samantha demanded. “Do you know where Ben is?”

  The silence in the room got so loud I thought the door might burst outward from the pressure.

  Patty and I just stood there, staring at the blind woman and her dog, Sue. How do you tell someone her husband was kidnapped by a gang of old nickel slot machines?

  How do you tell someone that one of the urban myths of Vegas was true, and had just been caught on film, which was being destroyed as we stood there letting the silence get louder and louder.

  How does anyone tell a wife that her husband had been taken by ghost machines, and we had no idea to where, or to when, for that matter?

  I knew for a fact there just wasn’t an easy way.

  So instead, I changed the subject. I have learned over the years that changing the subject with a woman in the middle of a serious discussion often only makes matters worse, but at the moment it was the only thing I could think to do.

  I turned to Patty. “Have you had dinner?” I knew this was a strange way to get a first date, but at this point, any date was better than none.

  Besides thinking of the date and getting closer to that mole, I had to get us all out of the room, which was more than likely heavily monitored, before we could have any discussion about what we had seen.

  And I had to get myself out before I melted into a puddle of Poker Boy fluids that would surely stain the floor. The walls were getting really tight.

  Patty glanced at me, puzzled. Then she realized what I was doing. Or at least part of what I was doing. I hope she didn’t know about my desire to get closer to the mole on her neck.

  “No, I haven’t. And I’m hungry.”

  “How about you, Samantha?” I asked.

  “I don’t think I could eat,” she said. “I just want to know what happened to Ben.”

  “Well, you’re going to need to eat,” I said, making my voice sound as upbeat as I could without making it sound like a game show host. “To keep your strength up to help us find Ben. We’ll talk about all this over food, I promise.”

  Again the silence filled the room, making the walls close in even faster. This room was bad enough all by itself for me, but silence was making it torture. We needed to get out of here.

  Seconds ticked past.

  I started sweating. Or more likely I noticed I again that I was sweating.

  Patty and I just stood there, Sidekick and Superhero, staring at the woman we were supposed to be trying to help. But we needed to get out of this room, and maybe out of the casino for the coming discussion.

  More seconds ticked past as a blind woman faced us with sunglassed-covered eyes.

  I thought about putting out my arms and trying to hold the walls back, but I knew that wouldn’t work any more than it worked in the first Star Wars movie. I was in the trash-compactor of offices and there was no robot to throw a switch to save me.

  More seconds.

  Not even the wonderful raspberry smell of Patty kept me from sweating even more. I doubted even a close-up visit to the mole would save me at this point.

  The walls really were closing in.

  Honest.

  Finally, Samantha pushed herself to her feet, moving to get Sue into position. “I suppose I’m not going to find out what you saw while we’re in here. So lead me to food.”

  I barely made it through the door seconds before those walls smashed me into brainless pulp and trapped me in a windowless office, working a filing and data-entry job the rest of my life.

  It had been close.

  I had almost ended up living my worst nightmare. I was shaking as I went down the hall, forcing myself to not run.

  I’m a superhero who helps people, rescues dogs, and plays poker for a living. I never said things didn’t scare me.

  But it had been worth the risk. We knew what had happened to Ben, and I had a dinner date with Patty.

  Chapter Five

  ADDICTION

  PATTY SEEMED TO KNOW where she wanted to go, so I followed along as she took Samantha’s arm and expertly got her and her dog Sue from the back rooms, through the slots, and out one of the many doors of the Horseshoe Casino and Hotel.

  We emerged onto what used to be called “Glitter Gulch” back in the days when train passengers got off the train a few blocks away and faced a street lined with blazing lights and signs.

  Vegas Vic, a two-story tall, rail-thin, neon cowboy still looked over Frontier Street, just as he did back in the forties. He had a cigarette hanging from his mouth like a bad movie cliche, and a thumb that pointed toward who knew where.

  In the old days, his thumb was meant to direct customers to the Pioneer Club. I suppose a two-story tall cowboy with a butt hanging out of his mouth was an attraction. I never saw him as that. I thought of him more as a landmark of downtown Vegas, a symbol, if you will, of the merging of the cowboy west with the neon lights of gambling, punctuated by the threat of dying from cancer.

  A perfect Las Vegas icon.

  During the sixties, Glitter Gulch had become more like a classic skid
row as the strip casinos miles away became more popular. Back then the bums hung out on the street corners, the casinos didn’t have the money to fix much of anything, and only the gamblers who were into grinding out each buck went downtown. Even with the Horseshoe starting the World Series of Poker back in the early seventies, I didn’t want to go down there. There was just too much fun to be had out on the strip.

  Things for downtown Las Vegas started to change in the early 1980’s as the city did everything it could to revive the downtown area. They even went so far as to turn a few blocks of Frontier Street into a pedestrian mall and cover it with a light show that was hard to match. I think I remember hearing there were about two and a half million bulbs in that canopy over those four city blocks, but I could be off by a few hundred thousand either way.

  Now, with the casinos around the big downtown mall remodeled as much as the space would allow, the area had at least held steady for a few years. I sort of liked it more now than the strip, actually. It had a more personal feel about it than the big super casinos.

  And it was only a few feet between casinos instead of dozens of football fields. And when you’re walking on a hot evening, that’s an important consideration.

  The heat slapped at me as we stepped outside. Even though the sun was setting on the town that never slept, it was still damn hot. In the middle of the night in the summer it was known to stay above a hundred degrees here. It was too early in the year for that kind of really intense heat, but it was still hot outside.

  Too hot for my tastes, but after my close call with office death, it felt good to be out under the darkening blue sky and millions of light bulbs.

  Patty quickly got us across the mall area, around a corner, and into the wonderful coolness of a cafe tucked between a casino and the side of an office building. The place had the feel of a fake diner, with bright replicas of things from the fifties plastered all over the walls.

  I doubted any place actually looked like this back in the fifties. This was just a twenty-first century version of what people thought diners looked like in 1955. I hope the history books recorded the decade more accurately than diners, or the country’s kids were going to be really messed up.