Heaven Painted as a Poker Chip Read online

  “Sometimes too much,” Tommy said as he moved around to the passenger side and climbed into the back seat. The car smelled fresh and was fairly warm. The seats were dark leather and Moore had his suit jacket draped over the passenger seat.

  Tommy indicated that Jewel should take off her coat before getting in and he worked at doing the same. He could have just stepped back out to do it and should have. The back seat in the Cadillac sedan was big, but not that big.

  Ten minutes later, they were both very comfortable in the back seat of a smooth-running Cadillac, headed out of Buffalo Jump for the last time.

  She was holding his hand and Tommy liked that a lot.

  Even going off into an unknown world on an unknown adventure, he felt right being with her.

  Moore Williams expertly took the smooth-riding car down the highway, staying just over the speed limit, taking the curves with ease. He had soft jazz on the fantastic sound system and the temperature control set perfectly.

  For Tommy, it didn’t get much better than this.

  TWENTY-TWO

  THEY MANAGED TO get out of Moore’s car at a stoplight not more than a mile from the airport. The weather in Missoula was warmer and neither of them needed their coats.

  Jewel had really enjoyed her ride with Tommy from Buffalo Jump. A lot of the time they had just sat silently holding hands, the rest they had talked about their history, mostly about old boyfriends for her and old girlfriends for him.

  It had felt right to tell him some of those things. It felt like he was more than a lover. It felt like he was her friend as well and that felt right.

  After the walk to the airport, they both used the restrooms, then stood off to one side out of the flow of people and studied the flights.

  There was one headed to Las Vegas in thirty minutes, so they decided they’d try to catch that one.

  The airport was fairly modern and had wide, carpeted aisles, so they spent a lot of time walking along the edges where there were pictures of Missoula and different national parks close by on the walls, trying to not walk through anyone.

  But at one spot she failed that, having a guy turn suddenly and walk right into her and through her.

  She caught a glimpse of his life as he went through. Deep in debt, deep in the closet, afraid his wife would find out about both the debt and his male lover.

  “You all right?” Tommy asked after it had happened.

  “I’m fine,” she said, shaking her head. “Just stuff about some stranger I didn’t want to know.”

  “Clearing?” Tommy asked.

  She nodded. The memories and thoughts she had glimpsed from the guy were clearing, quickly as they had before.

  When they finally reached the gate, it looked like the plane was almost finished boarding.

  “What happens if this is a full flight?” she asked, staring at the open door.

  “We stand,” Tommy said. “Or we find a couple sitting together and join them, give them a little nap while we use their bodies.”

  He smiled at her and made her laugh, the worry vanishing. She loved how he could do that for her.

  “Always wanted to see Vegas,” she said, heading for the door.

  “I want to see it and remember it,” Tommy said.

  It felt weird to Jewel to just walk past the attendant at the gate. It felt like they needed to pay or something. She had felt the same way when Tommy had gotten them both a couple bottles of water and some candy bars from a newsstand on the way to the gate. Even though the candy bars and water were ghost echoes of their real sides, and he hadn’t stolen anything, it still felt weird to her.

  They headed down the breezeway and into the airplane just as the flight attendant was about to close the door. She had dark brown hair and looked to be around thirty. Both Jewel and Tommy had to brush through the flight attendant to get in.

  Jewel saw instantly that she wanted to have sex with the captain of this flight, had a bad marriage, and wanted to lose ten pounds.

  “After the last two heads I’ve been in,” Tommy said, “that was refreshing.”

  “What? Jewel asked as she turned toward the cabin. “Shallow?”

  “No, not evil.”

  “Yeah, that was nice,” Jewel said, nodding and looking for any empty seats. “I have a hunch there will be far more of that than the evil we encountered before.”

  “I sure hope you are right,” he said.

  As she feared, there were no empty seats. Not one.

  She headed down the aisle, looking for a young and handsome couple sitting together. After a moment she saw some candidates. They both looked to be in college. He had long dark hair and a baby face that was handsome. He had on a button down shirt and jeans. She also had long dark hair and a trim body and wore a thin white blouse, a lace bra under it, and jeans.

  They both looked very nervous, as if this was their first flight.

  They were sitting beside a middle-aged woman in a business suit who had a laptop out and was already working. The woman was in the window seat.

  Tommy looked at them when Jewel pointed the couple out.

  “Eloping,” Tommy said, smiling. “Any bets?”

  She looked back at the young couple and knew he was right. “Shall we see if they are a match for each other?”

  “I sure don’t see any open seats at all,” he said. “So might as well.”

  She brushed through the guy and sat down on the girl’s lap, sinking right into her completely as if the poor young girl wasn’t there at all.

  “That sure looked creepy from out here,” Tommy said and Jewel realized he had never watched that before. She had watched him do that but he had never seen her do it.

  He settled into the guy’s body and both of them stuffed their packs under the seat in front of them.

  The moment she had brushed through the guy, she knew Tommy had been right. They were eloping.

  But it was when she sat down with the girl that she got the big surprise. Her name was Spring Stevens and she was still a virgin with boys. She and Bryan, the kid beside her, had never had sex, even though they had been dating for two years and she loved him. They had done a lot of heavy petting, but no sex.

  And both of them were freshmen in college, both over eighteen.

  But Spring had had lots of sex with other women, mostly her two best friends. And she wasn’t sure she was making the right decision at all marrying Bryan, even though she loved him.

  Through them holding hands, Jewel could feel Bryan’s thoughts as well.

  Bryan wasn’t sure either and was scared to death. She got lots of images of Bryan masturbating to pictures of Spring in a bathing suit. But actually seeing her nude had him scared to death.

  Then she felt Tommy put Bryan to sleep and she did the same thing with Spring.

  Both Spring and Bryan closed their eyes and put their heads back, acting like seasoned travelers. The woman pounding her laptop in the window seat beside them didn’t even notice and Jewel doubted the woman would even care.

  Jewel could now only sense Spring and Bryan’s deep thoughts, nothing else, like a light background noise.

  “Well, that worked,” Tommy said.

  “Don’t you think this is sad?” Jewel asked, squeezing Tommy’s hand.

  “Real sad,” he said. “The poor kid is going to be a mess the moment he sees her without clothes and compared to her girlfriends, he’s going to be a bumbling fool.”

  “But they seem to be in love,” Jewel said. “And they seem to be good kids from good families.”

  “Yeah, they are in love, that much is clear. Maybe for the use of their bodies for the flight, we can implant some pointers to help them along.”

  Jewel laughed. “We could let them wake up with his hand in her crotch and her hand in his crotch.”

  “If I do that now,” Tommy said, “whose crotch would I really be touching? Yours or hers?”

  Jewel laughed. “Your hand would go right through her crotch. Mine, on the other hand,
your hand did some nice things to last night.”

  “Oh, yeah, good point,” Tommy said. “His hand would feel her crotch, my hand would feel yours. We might want to wake them up some and test that.”

  “Later,” she said, laughing. “Watch the safety lecture. We might need to know what to do in case of a water landing.”

  “Between Missoula and Las Vegas?” Tommy asked, laughing.

  Jewel leaned her head out of the sleeping Spring and faced the side of Bryan’s head. “You just never know. Now come on out of there and kiss me.”

  He did.

  And the kiss lasted until they were in the air. And she didn’t want it to end even then.

  TWENTY-THREE

  JUST AS THEY had done on the drive from Buffalo Jump into Missoula, Tommy and Jewel talked most of the way to Las Vegas. They kept both kids asleep and when the woman next to Jewel started to say she wanted to go to the restroom and had actually touched Spring’s shoulder to wake her, Jewel just put the woman to sleep as well.

  Tommy could tell, because he was touching Jewel, that the woman really hadn’t needed to go to the restroom, but only wanted to try to make a cell phone call from the bathroom.

  “Wow, she’s a piece of work,” Tommy said. The real sense he had gotten from the woman was cold. Ice cold. She was in a sex-less marriage for looks only and cared only about her job and the status of what people thought of her.

  “There is no world but her world,” Jewel said, shaking her head. “At least these two kids eloping are worried about what their parents might think and their friends. That woman cares for no one but herself and her job and the things her money will buy her.”

  “So we live trying to help people,” Tommy said. “And then there are people like her.”

  “I can see why K.J. laughed when we asked if everyone ended up Ghost Agents like us.”

  “Yeah, now that I think about it,” Tommy said, “that would be pretty silly. And make a real mess in the world in very short order.”

  At that moment the flight attendant indicated they should start getting ready for landing.

  “What should we do about these kids?” Jewel asked.

  Tommy had been wondering the same thing at times during the flight. “How about we implant some sexual pointers for them to try in their hotel tonight. Give them a running shot at enjoying that.”

  “I like that idea,” Jewel said. “But how about we also plant a few suggestions that they don’t need to get married here, that if they love each other, they can go home and get married with their families and friends. They can use this trip as an engagement trip.”

  Tommy smiled at her. “You’re a real romantic, you know that?”

  “I am,” Jewel said, smiling back at him. “And I love reading romance novels. So now the truth is out.”

  He laughed. He really liked how amazing Jewel was and the more he found out about her, the more he liked.

  “So we give these kids a running chance at a decent life,” he said.

  “I think we should,” she said. “Seems like the least we can do for them after these last four hours.”

  “Let’s start to wake them up and plant the ideas and sexual hints as we taxi toward the terminal,” he said. “Then before anyone gets up, let’s move up front and try to be the first out.”

  “Yeah, getting tapped in this crush could be more than I want to know about far too many people.”

  “My fear exactly,” he said.

  Ten minutes later, they were on the ground safely in Las Vegas. The sun was low over the mountains from what Tommy could tell out the windows. And it looked like a clear day.

  Tommy slowly worked to bring Bryan up from his deep sleep. And as he did, he planted some deep suggestions about how to please Spring. And how to help himself last longer to please her as well.

  And then as Bryan woke up completely, he gave him the strong idea that they should call this trip their engagement trip and go home and get married if they still loved each other after having a few days alone together.

  Tommy was pretty sure that they would.

  “Ready,” Jewel said.

  They both grabbed their packs of clothes and as Jewel stood, she brushed the woman asleep near the window one more time.

  “What did you do?” Tommy asked.

  “Made sure she would sleep through everyone getting off the plane,” Jewel said as they headed up the aisle, doing their best to not touch anyone as they went past. “This flight goes on to Los Angeles. She might wake up there.”

  “Perfect,” Tommy said, laughing. “I’m starting to really love being a Ghost Agent.”

  “I thought you said this morning that we were superheroes,” Jewel said, laughing.

  Tommy glanced back at the two kids who were waking up, surprised they were already in Las Vegas. Two kids who might now have a much better start into their future.

  “You know,” he said. “I think we just might be.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  GETTING OUT OF the Las Vegas airport was a lot harder than getting through the Missoula airport. Jewel couldn’t believe how busy the place was, and how narrow some of the hallways were, often cluttered with slot machines.

  She ended up walking through or brushing a good ten people before they got to the taxi stand. Most of them were just regular people, but one guy was working some sort of scam she didn’t want to think about at all.

  Tommy had the same problem.

  “There has to be a better way to get around,” Jewel said. “Or a way to block people’s thoughts when we want to.”

  “We need to ask K.J. when we see him,” Tommy said.

  “How will he know we are here?” Jewel asked as they stood off to one side of all the massive rope and chains that directed people in a steady stream toward taxies.

  “I have a hunch he’ll know,” Tommy said. “But let’s find a room and get settled and then shout out for him.”

  “And you have some ideas on how to find a room?” she asked. She sure didn’t, but clearly Tommy had been here before and had been thinking about this.

  “I do,” he said.

  Then he pointed to a taxi that was actually a van pulling up at the taxi post labeled 61. “Our ride somewhere. We’ll see how many people are riding in the van and where they are going before jumping in.”

  She nodded and they walked through the ropes to a place out of the way, but close to the taxi van.

  Around them, the warm air felt good to Jewel. It wasn’t a hot day, but after being so cold at the wreck, this felt wonderful.

  Way down the line an airport worker was directing people to taxi stands. As it turned out, only one guy was going to end up riding in the van, and he was headed for the MGM Grand on the strip.

  “Perfect,” Tommy said.

  The guy climbed in the front seat beside the driver and Tommy and Jewel climbed into the second seat.

  As the taxi left the airport, Jewel was stunned at the huge buildings of the strip she could see and how close it was. The postcards and photos of Vegas didn’t do the place justice.

  And the late-evening sun was lighting up some of the tall buildings, making the scene even stranger.

  Even though the buildings looked close, it still took almost fifteen minutes to get to the big unloading area in front of the MGM Grand. Jewel was overwhelmed and just gawking at everything, from the tall, ornate building shooting into the air from the desert to the sparkling lights and the size of everything.

  They climbed out of the van and stood against a decorative pillar to one side under the massive parking area that looked like it was six or seven cars wide. Jewel just kept looking at the incredible bustle and numbers of people moving here and there. About half of the people wore blaring loud shorts and loud-colored shirts and many had drinks in their hands.

  Some men wore expensive suits and the women with them wore slinky, expensive-looking dresses. They were overdressed, clearly trying to impress someone, or headed to some formal event. Jewe
l just felt out of place completely in her Montana comfort white blouse and jeans, even though no one could see her.

  “Looks like we got here at a peak time,” Tommy said.

  “Top check-in time,” Jewel said.

  “Afraid so. This is going to be hard to get from here to the front desk without walking through some people,” Tommy said.

  “Just get us a good room and that will make up for it,” Jewel said, smiling.

  “Stay close to me,” he said.

  “I like doing that,” she said.

  He laughed and headed across the unloading area toward the huge entrance glass doors.

  They made it to the doors without touching anyone thanks to Tommy being able to almost outthink where a person was headed.

  On the other side of the doors, it was the sounds that hit her first. Fantastically loud noises of slot machines and hundreds and hundreds of people talking and laughing and having a great time.

  The lobby area of the MGM Grand was exactly that: Grand. Huge marble columns seemed to hold the ceiling up and bright chandelier lighting filled the entire space with bright, warm light. Most of the flooring was a brown and gold and tan marble and all the colors were gold or muted browns.

  A massive curved wooden and gold and marble front desk with a good fifty people behind it stretched along one wall with lines of tourists waiting in places to check in or get other services such as show tickets and such.

  Tommy led her over quickly to the wall area on the right of the big room from the front door and toward the front desk. He found an alcove that was out of any traffic pattern and stopped.

  “Wait here,” he said, handing her his pack. “Got to secure a room for us. Then we can get out of these crowds until we learn to handle it a little better.”

  She nodded and watched as he went around to the end of the big counter and stood there a moment, seeming to study the people behind the counter. Then he went through the counter and toward one woman standing near a back countertop, watching. Jewel had a hunch she was the front desk manager.