Heaven Painted as a Poker Chip Read online

  Tommy stopped, went back over beside the sheriff who was still watching the two tied-up criminals whimper and squirm against their ropes.

  Jewel watched as Tommy gently touched the sheriff’s shoulder and said, “You are welcome, sheriff. It was an honor to work with you. I’ve got to go now.”

  The sheriff nodded, then said softly. “I’ll miss you. Good luck wherever you are going.”

  Tommy took his hand away and went back to Jewel.

  “Who were you talking to?” Carol asked the sheriff, puzzled.

  The sheriff looked at her, then back around before saying, “Deputy Ralston. He’s been helping me out one last day.”

  Carol touched the sheriff’s arm sadly and nodded, saying nothing.

  Jewel took Tommy’s free hand and with their cinnamon rolls in their other hands, they went out into the chill of the day.

  “That was nice,” she said.

  Tommy nodded. “It was. I kind of like this new job.” Then he took a large bite out of the cinnamon roll.

  “Yeah, me too,” Jewel said. “But can’t help but wonder what the sheriff would have thought if he knew we were headed to Las Vegas instead of the next world.”

  She had to pat Tommy’s back because his laughter made him choke on the roll.

  NINETEEN

  TOMMY FELT WONDERFUL walking along the edge of the highway toward Jewel’s cabin. The images from the brother’s mind back in the diner had almost faded, cleaned out very quickly.

  He really liked that it worked that way. Last thing he wanted to do was walk around with other people’s horrors in his mind.

  He was already enjoying this Ghost Agent job, and he hadn’t even been dead for a full day yet.

  He couldn’t believe he was enjoying being dead. That was just flat weird, but true.

  And he was really growing closer and more attracted to Jewel. She was smart, stunningly attractive, and fun to be with. He was very glad she was with him on this adventure.

  So he was enjoying being dead and falling for a dead woman. Yeah, this is what he expected to have happen exactly after he died.

  Maybe in a wet dream.

  They talked most of the walk, trying to decide the best way out of these mountains and to Las Vegas. They both had decided that just catching a plane in Missoula would be the best, but neither of them had many ideas on how to get out to Missoula.

  Hitchhiking was sure out of the question, since no one could see them.

  Finally, they decided that in the morning they would walk back to the mini-mart and gas station and just wait until someone on the way toward Missoula stopped for gas. Then play it by ear from there.

  When Jewel pointed down a small gravel side road off the highway, Tommy nodded.

  “You been down here before?” Jewel asked.

  “Dropped Doc Craigston off here about a year ago,” Tommy said. “He was far too drunk to drive and the bartender at the Oasis called me.”

  “Ben Horseman owns both the little office and this place,” Jewel said. “He’s got quite a rental gig going with the county.”

  “As long as the doctors stop dying on him,” Tommy said.

  “Did Doc Craigston die as well?”

  Tommy nodded. “Heart attack coming out of the Oasis one night.”

  “Didn’t know that,” Jewel said, shaking her head. “I thought he just retired.”

  “In a way he did,” Tommy said.

  Ahead of them the small log cabin with cedar shakes sort of set alone in a clearing in the tall pine trees. It had no view, and sometime in the past someone had tried to plant a garden and fence it off from the deer. That area was all weeds now. Jewel had seen that and just shook her head. Not in a million years would she have planted a garden. Not her thing in the slightest.

  Otherwise, the cabin looked kept up and lived in. The blinds on the windows were drawn and since Jewel wasn’t home, there wasn’t any smoke coming out of the top of the stone fireplace.

  “Was it comfortable to live in?” Tommy asked as they stepped up on the porch.

  “Actually,” Jewel said, “it was. Great bathtub with shower, great reading lights, great fireplace. I liked it.”

  Jewel went through the closed front door first and Tommy followed, closing his eyes.

  Inside the house did feel comfortable. The large brown logs of the walls and the beams overhead gave it a soft feel. And it was warm.

  Also, luckily, one lamp was still on.

  “Nice,” Tommy said, dropping his pack of clothes beside the door.

  “Living room up front here,” Jewel said. Kitchen and dining is the back half of this big room. Bathroom off the kitchen, bedroom through there. Simple and small, but nice.”

  “First at the bathroom,” Tommy said. “Hope you left the lid up.”

  “If I didn’t, try lifting it and see what happens,” Jewel said.

  “Good idea.”

  He didn’t need to lift the lid, and by the time he was finished, Jewel was in the bedroom and pulling down some ghost clothes and packing them in a small satchel similar to the one Tommy had left in the front room.

  “Figured I might as well get this done in case someone shows up.”

  Tommy nodded. “Good thinking.”

  Then, as if he wasn’t standing there watching, she started to unbutton her shirt. When she had it off and was nude from the belt up, she tossed him the shirt. “Might want to pack that.”

  “Can I do that in a minute,” he said. “I’m enjoying the show.”

  “Not much to look at,” she said, spreading her arms and giving him a full view of her breasts. Both were wonderful. Pert, and firm, with hard brown nipples.

  “Fantastic to look at,” he said.

  She then worked at getting out of the pants she had had on all day and yesterday. “I’m going to take these,” she said, wadding them into a ball and putting them into her bag. “I figure at some point we’ll either figure out a way to wash clothes, or just get new ones all the time.”

  Tommy only nodded because now she was standing there only in her white underwear. She worked for a few more minutes like that, stuffing ghost clothes into her bag, then finally slipped off her underwear, tossed them into the back of the open closet with other dirty clothes, and picked up the bag.

  She went to hand it to him.

  “You want to put this in the living room with yours?”

  “I’d much rather watch you do it,” he said, moving to one side so she could go past him and out in to the living room.

  She smiled, clearly knowing damn well what kind of impact she was having on him, as she went past him out into the living room and dropped her bag, then headed for the bathroom.

  “What are the odds we can get some ghost hot water running?” she asked.

  “I honestly have no idea,” he said.

  He followed her into the bathroom and she went to the tub with a shower over it and turned the handle.

  He wanted more than anything to just reach forward and touch her, and he was pretty sure she wanted him to do that as well, since how she was acting. But he honestly felt almost paralyzed like a young high school boy.

  So he just watched the fantastic show of the most beautiful woman he had ever known get ready to take a shower.

  The handle actually didn’t turn in Jewel’s hand, but water started flowing, so she must have turned a ghost handle.

  She waited a moment and then made the motion to turn the other handle and smiled. “We have perfect shower water. “Get out of those clothes and come and scrub my back.”

  He didn’t remember shedding his clothes. But somehow he did, never taking his gaze off of the vision of nakedness under the water.

  And in record time he was stepping under the warm shower and washing the back of a dream come true.

  “I’m starting to think old K.J. was wrong,” Tommy said as Jewel sighed and leaned forward, clearly enjoying his touch.

  “Why is that?” Jewel asked.

  “Beca
use I know I’m dead and I’m pretty sure this is heaven.”

  She laughed. “Keep that gentle touch up much longer and I’ll show you the pearly gates.”

  “Promises, promises,” he said.

  She pushed back against his hard penis with her butt. “That’s a promise,” she said.

  There was not a thing he could say to that, so he just kept washing.

  TWENTY

  SHE AWOKE THE next morning to the wonderful smell of eggs and pancakes. Tommy was gone from the big bed and the morning light filtered around the edges of her bedroom curtains.

  She stretched, pushing away the blankets, feeling more relaxed and at ease with the world than she had felt in a very long time. Having a real man make love to her was so much better than Mr. Buzzy. She had almost forgotten.

  After the shower, they had managed to get dried off and to her bed. He had been gentle and passionate both, just as she always hoped a man would be.

  And the sex had been even more intense than anything she had ever remembered. K.J. had made a comment that the sex was good, and wow had he been right.

  Tommy appeared in the bedroom door. He was dressed in jeans and a blue t-shirt that had a Berkeley logo on it. He smiled when he saw her awake and naked, stretched out on top of the bed.

  “Breakfast in five minutes, Doc, so hurry up and get dressed.”

  She laughed and sat up. “I’d suggest another round in the sack, but I just realized I’m famished. How did you manage to cook something.”

  “Seems everything has a ghost element to it,” he said, smiling. “Pans, gas burners, eggs, milk, you name it. Now hurry up. I have a hunch ghost eggs can burn just as easily as anything else.”

  He vanished and she rolled out of bed and slipped on the clean clothes she had left out of her bag for this morning. Then she slipped on her running shoes and headed for the bathroom.

  Five minutes later exactly she had her hair combed and pulled back and her face washed and was being served a plate of eggs and pancakes at her little dining room table.

  “This really is a nice place you had here,” Tommy said as he took another plate, dished up his breakfast, turned off the gas burner, and came over to sit across from her.

  “Thanks,” she said. “I liked it the best of anything here. Every day I looked forward to coming here and just reading and being alone.”

  “You going to miss it?”

  “Honestly, no,” she said, digging into the fantastic-tasting eggs, salted just perfectly. “I’m ready to do some real work and I think this new job is just what I needed.”

  “Too bad we had to die to get it,” Tommy said.

  “Regretting that part of it?” she asked, digging into the pancakes after smothering them in butter and maple syrup.

  “I keep thinking I should, but I sure don’t,” he said, shaking his head and continuing to eat. “I think that’s because for us this feels just like real life, only we have super powers.”

  “Super powers?” she asked. She couldn’t completely grasp what he was saying.

  “Never read comic books?” he asked.

  “Never did,” she said. “I was one of the serious types and just never got started on them.”

  “Well,” he said, “we are invisible, that’s a super power. And we can walk through walls, which is a super power.”

  “We can read minds and control people,” she said.

  “Another super power,” he said, nodding. “And from what K.J. said and did, we might have more if we can figure them out.”

  “So I died and become a comic book heroine,” she said. “Not the afterlife I had expected, I can say for certain.”

  “That happens in comics,” Tommy said, laughing. “I could name some characters if you want.”

  “Thanks,” she said, finishing up her pancakes. “Maybe later.”

  “As foreplay?” he asked, grinning.

  “Agent,” she said, standing and moving over to kiss him. “You make me hot all by yourself.”

  She kissed him long and hard, then moved over and put her plate in the sink and ran some ghost water over it.

  He put his plate on top of hers.

  “I wonder if these ghost plates will be here forever now?” she asked, staring at them in the sink. “Or do they merge back with their real plates at some point or just vanish?”

  “We’ve got a lot to learn about this new state we are in,” Tommy said.

  “We do,” Jewel said.

  She started to turn away, then turned back and keeping the water running, she spent the next minute washing the plates and frying pan while Tommy used the restroom.

  She put them away where they all belonged as Tommy came out and headed for the front door.

  “Ready to go on an adventure?” he asked as he slipped on his heavy coat, picked up his bag, and slung it over his shoulder.

  She looked around the cabin she had enjoyed for a time, then nodded.

  “I am if it’s with you,” she said, pulling on her ski parka and then pulling on her gloves.

  She then picked up her bag.

  Tommy stepped through the big wooden door and outside.

  With one last look at the cabin where she had actually lived, she stepped through the door and out into the cold, fresh, morning air to really start the journey into a new world.

  Section Two

  WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS

  TWENTY-ONE

  AFTER THEY GOT back to Jay’s Minimart, a middle-aged couple driving a big brown motor home pulled in for gas and some snacks. They were pulling a big new Jeep. Both vehicles had Texas plates on them.

  Tommy was surprised. You didn’t see many big motor homes way up here in winding, mountain roads, let alone ones from Texas. They were a very, very long ways from home, that was for sure.

  Tommy, with Jewel at his side, was just inside the minimart, trying to stay out of Jay’s way, yet stay warm. The day would maybe get up to near fifty and sunny by four in the afternoon, but at nine in the morning it was still just above freezing. After their experience yesterday at the wreck scene, neither of them had much interest in getting that cold again.

  Jay was a skinny little guy, about the size of a small high school kid who hadn’t gotten his growth yet. But he was at least forty, with a face covered in wrinkles and only a wisp of gray hair. The sheriff had told Tommy one day that Jay had been born here and inherited the old Chevron station from his father and turned it into the minimart because he hated working on cars.

  “Let me see where they are heading when the husband comes in,” Tommy said as the woman from the motor home came inside and went into the restroom.

  “That does look comfortable,” Jewel said, nodding, staring out the window of the minimart at the big motor home. “We could spend the trip on the bed.”

  “Now wouldn’t that be fun,” Tommy said.

  “Play your cards right,” she said, giving him that smile that he was coming to love, “you might get lucky.”

  Tommy pointed to some playing cards for sale. “Want me to get a pack?”

  “Not the kind of cards I’m talking about,” she said, laughing.

  It took almost fifteen minutes for the big motor home to fill with gas. Then the guy came in, all talking and happy, one of those kind that loved to talk with anyone along the way. He was about three times Jay’s size and clearly had money and didn’t care if anyone knew. And his accent clearly put him from Texas.

  The woman had come out of the restroom a few minutes before and now stood at her husband’s side, but said nothing. She was dressed like a tourist in very expensive clothes that included more pink than Tommy thought should be allowed inside the borders of Montana.

  “How far do we have to Missoula from here?” the guy asked Jay as he dug into his wallet. Tommy just smiled at Jewel.

  “Two hundred miles,” the clerk said. “In that rig of yours about four hours.”

  “Is it a pretty drive?” the guy asked.

  “Just about as sce
nic as it gets,” Jay said.

  “Perfect,” the guy said.

  “Perfect for us as well,” Tommy said.

  He grabbed his pack and led the way outside to the motor home. Jewel followed closely and he quickly shut his eyes and went up the step and through the door into the motor home.

  He took two steps and stopped.

  The smoke smell was about as bad as he had ever smelled.

  Jewel came in behind him and then coughed.

  Tommy pointed to the full ashtrays besides both seats. “I don’t think I want to spend four hours in this, do you?”

  “Not a chance,” she said.

  She turned around and went back out and he followed her into the crisp, but fresh mountain air.

  “Wow,” she said, coughing to clear her lungs. “That was something.”

  “Never know on what level a couple will bond,” Tommy said, between taking a few deep breaths of fresh air.

  “Let’s just keep bonding on sex, all right?”

  Tommy laughed. “No argument from me.”

  They were just about to go back inside when a big black Cadillac pulled up to the pump on the other side of the motor home. Tommy watched as Moore Williams climbed out and worked at the pump to fill his car.

  Moore was an accountant from Missoula. He had a big second home on the lake not far from where Tommy had lived in his father’s home. Tommy liked and respected Moore and his wife and kids. His wife was a lawyer in Missoula and the kids went to school there and the entire family spent most of the summer on the lake.

  Moore also played at painting landscapes, and he liked to be up here when he had time to paint and be alone.

  Luckily for them, today was one of the days he had to head back to the big city.

  “That’s our ride,” Tommy said, pointing at the Cadillac.

  “You know him?” Jewel asked, following Tommy.

  “Moore Williams, a friend of the family,” Tommy said. “Moore is headed for Missoula. This is part of his normal routine.”

  Jewel laughed. “Amazing what you learn about the locals when you’re a deputy sheriff.”