Last Call (Last Call 1)

"It was a joke," he said, standing up and running his fingers through his hair. "Sorry. Listen, could you do my makeup? Getting the dress on I think I can do by myself now."

"Sure, come in the bathroom," said Nardie, leading the way; then she stopped and turned around, smiling. "Hey, Scott, congratulations on your upcoming wedding! Diana told me about it."

"Thanks." His good eye was burning with fatigue already. "I hope we all live to be there. But right now I've got to get ready for … my bachelor party." He waved her on ahead. "I suppose most guys don't have their fathers along at their bachelor parties."

"Well," said Dinh judiciously, "most guys don't go in drag."

CHAPTER 47: The Flying Nun

An hour later Crane stood in his high-heeled shoes in front of the million-dollar display in Binion's Horseshoe Casino. Behind bullet-proof glass, a hundred ten-thousand-dollar bills were ranked together in five columns of twenty, framed inside the doorway-size arch of an enormous brass horseshoe. A pair of stout security guards were staring at Crane in sour disapproval.

"Must be rough," said someone by Crane's elbow. He looked down and saw old Newt, looking withered and old and jug-eared in a wide-lapel plaid suit.

Here the two of us are again, Crane thought, twenty-one years older and both looking pretty bad.

"Hi," he said to Newt. "Can I get a ride out with you?"

"Looks like," said the old man. "My other three haven't shown—down with the nightmarey shakes, I bet. That happens. Let's give 'em a few minutes for courtesy." He looked at Crane's purse. "No gun today, I hope. Throw it in the lake this time, and maybe you, too."

"No, not today. It looks like a peaceful bunch of players anyway." He looked down from the height of his heels into Newt's empty, bird-bright eyes. "What was it that you said 'must be rough'?"

"Shaving, with all that fruitcake makeup—sorry, pancake makeup. Jams up a blade, I bet, or the holes in an electric shaver."

"Well, I suppose it would, but I shave before I put the stuff on." Crane was tired, and forlornly wished for a beer, the way beer used to be for him, and a cigarette, the way they used to taste. And he was thinking of the ghost of Ben Siegel, who had gone to some trouble to let him know that a fly might be tricked into eating a poisoned sugar cube if the poison face was concealed and the fly saw only the harmless face. "It's a hassle," he said absently, "but I do it for the Lord."

The little old man's bushy white eyebrows were halfway up to where his hairline must once have been. "For the Lord, hey?"

"Sure." Crane blinked and made himself remember what he had been saying. "You don't think I choose to dress this way, do you? I'm a member of a religious order, is what this actually is all about. Lots of religious orders have to dress weird."

"Huh. They ain't gonna show, I guess. My other players, not your religious orders. Let's blow." Instantly he held up one wrinkled hand. "By which I don't mean—"

"Jeez," said Crane, following the little man through the casino dimness toward the bright patch that was the open door onto Fremont Street, "you're safe from me, Newt, honest."

"And no funny business in the car."

Everybody's cautioning me against funny business, Crane thought. "You have my word of honor."

They were in the noise of the slot machines, and Newt mumbled something that sounded like Like applying none.

Crane frowned. Applying none of what? Honor? Could this strange little man possibly have some intuition about Crane's plan to dethrone his own father? And he leaned down as they zigzagged their way through the crowd. "What did you say?"

"I said, 'Like the Flying Nun.' Religious order where you gotta dress weird. She could fly, remember?"

Crane was oddly relieved; apparently they weren't talking about honor after all. They were outside now, on the baking, sunlit sidewalk, and he had to shout, "Yeah, I remember!" to be heard over the droning of the picketer with the megaphone.

"I guess that made up for it," yelled Newt, "for having to wear that stuff all the time. At least she could fly."

"I guess."

Crane followed the little man across Fremont and down First Street toward the pay parking lot at the end of the block. This was where he had been shot at eight days ago and saved by a couple of shots from the gun of the fat man—whom he himself had killed four days later. He scuffed the toe of his ridiculous left shoe across the chipped curb, and rasped the painted nails of his right hand over the pockmark in the brick wall.

Crane would have the deal next.

The sky was dark behind the open ports, and the still-warm wind, smelling of distant cooling stone and sage, had raised the lake surface into choppy waves; the levels of the drinks on the green felt table were all rolling and uneven. The cigarette smoke was a mushroom cloud over the pot's scattered bills.