Lucky (3 page)

‘Can we spend the day together?’ Susan asked, dipping a sliver of toast into the egg and feeding it to him.

He was just about to say yes, when he remembered. Lucky was coming back today. His daughter. Beautiful wild Lucky – with
his
eyes and
his
deep olive skin and
his
jet hair and
his
zest for living. How could he have forgotten? She had been away for three weeks on a business trip to the East. He would be missing her badly if it weren’t for Susan.

‘Why don’t we make it tomorrow. I got things to do today,’ he said, pushing the spoon away.

‘Oh.’ She looked disappointed.

He wondered how Lucky would feel about Susan joining them for dinner, and knew instinctively that she would hate it. He could understand. After all, it was her first night back, and they would have a lot to talk about.

There was time enough to introduce Susan into their lives, and he fully intended to. Susan Martino was too much a lady to be just a one week stand.

*   *   *

During the drive from the airport Lucky continued to fill Boogie in on her trip. He was more than her driver and sometime bodyguard when the climate indicated she was in need of protection. He was her friend, and she trusted him implicitly. In times of trouble Boogie came through. As he had proved in the past he was loyal, smart and usually silent, unless he had something worth saying – which suited Lucky just fine.

He drove her to the front of the Magiriano Hotel on the Strip. She got out of the car and stood for a minute feeling the usual thrill of coming home to
her
hotel.

The Magiriano – a combination of her parents’ names – Maria and Gino. Gino’s dream, put into being by her while Gino sweated out a seven-year tax exile in Israel. She would always be proud of her achievement. The Magiriano was very special.

In the lobby there was the usual mêlée of tourists and noise. The casino was crowded with morning gamblers. No windows. No clocks. Twenty-four hours non-stop fun.

Lucky did not gamble. Who needed to play the tables when it all belonged to her and Gino anyway? She strode across the lobby to her private elevator concealed behind an arrangement of potted palms, and inserted a code card to gain entry.

It was good to be back.

She couldn’t wait to see Gino. She had so much to tell him.

*   *   *

Jess did not live in luxury, but the small tract house she stopped the car in front of at least had its own tiny swimming pool. ‘This place is okay, but we’re movin’ on soon,’ she explained airily, opening up the front door. ‘We’ve seen a development in Lake Tahoe we’re lookin’ to buy into.’

‘Yeah?’ said Lennie, and wondered who was looking to buy into it. From the small amount of information Jess had divulged about her husband, it seemed he didn’t do much at all except look after their ten-month-old baby while she brought in the money.

‘Anyone around?’ she called out, as a scruffy mongrel dog appeared and wagged its sorry-looking tail. She bent to pet the animal. ‘This is Grass,’ she explained. ‘Found him dumped in the garbage when he was a pup. Cute, huh?’

Wayland appeared, or at least Lennie presumed it was he. From the look of him Jess had found herself another stray. He was dressed in grubby white chinos, a loose embroidered shirt, and his dirty feet were bare. He had shoulder-length yellow hair with a centre part, and a long pallid face. Jess – who wrote wonderful letters – had mentioned that he painted. Exactly what he painted she hadn’t gone into.

‘Greetings, man,’ said Wayland, stoned to the eyeballs. ‘Welcome to our home.’ And he extended a thin shaking hand.

‘Where’s the baby?’ Jess demanded.

‘Asleep.’

‘You sure?’

‘Go see.’

For a moment her pretty features clouded over and Lennie sensed all was not well in this year-old marriage. That’s just what he needed, to be stuck right in the middle of some miserable scene. He had enough problems of his own.

Lunch turned out to be a large bowl of brown rice and some wilted lettuce coated with stale yoghurt. Jess tried to conceal her aggravation – she had been at work all night and had left instructions for Wayland to fix something special – but she did it with difficulty. Lennie knew her well enough to realize she was pissed off.

The baby – a boy named Simon – woke briefly, and accepted a bottle.

‘I wanna take Lennie over to the hotel,’ Jess said restlessly, when the baby was asleep again.

Wayland nodded. He didn’t have much to say about anything.

Out in the car she lit up a joint, blew smoke in Lennie’s face, and said aggressively, ‘I don’t want to talk about it, okay?’

‘Who’s asking?’ he replied calmly.

She gunned the car into action and sped all the way to the Magiriano, where she drew up to the entrance without cutting the engine. ‘I’ll meet you here in a couple of hours,’ she said. ‘Ask for Matt Traynor. He’s the guy who booked you. He’ll get someone to show you around.’

‘Where are
you
going?’

‘I got an . . . er . . . appointment.’

‘Screwin’ around already?’

‘Give me a reason not to.’

Having met Wayland he couldn’t think of one.

Matt Traynor was a fifty-five-year-old silver-haired fox in a three-piece beige suit. Apart from being the best entertainment director in Vegas, he had points in the hotel. Lucky Santangelo had personally pursued him to take the job, and only the lure of a piece of the action had persuaded him.

He told Lennie he loved the video tape Jess had shown him of his work, and then proceeded to fire off questions about her as if hoping to find out every detail of her life.

Lennie made a stab at a few answers, but when Matt started asking about her marriage, Lennie felt the time had come to move on. Quickly he said he wanted to check out the lounge he would be appearing in, and generally get the feel of the place. Matt Traynor agreed, gave a few vague directions, and waved him on his way.

Las Vegas. The heat. The special smell. The hustle.

Las Vegas. Home. From birth to seventeen.

Las Vegas. Youthful memories crowding his head. The first time he got laid, drunk, stoned, busted. The first time he fell in love, ran away from home, stole his parents’ car.

Mom and Pop. The odd couple.

Pop, an old-fashioned stand-up comic. Jack Golden. Dependable, a real hack. But a name everyone in show business knew – everyone except the general public. Dead thirteen years now. Cancer of the gall bladder.

And mom, Alice Golden – formerly known as The Swizzle – one of the hottest strippers in town. Good old mom, fifty nine years old and living in a condo in California. From Las Vegas to Marina del Rey in one fell swoop with a used car salesman from Sausolito. Alice was not your average Jewish mother. She wore short shorts, strapless tops, dyed her hair, shaved her legs, and got laid a lot after the Sausolito salesman skipped town with ten thousand dollars worth of her jewellery.

Alice . . . she was something else. He had never felt close to her. When he was a kid she bossed him around, sent him on endless errands, and used him as a lackey. She never cooked a meal in her life. While other kids took neat brown bags to school with home-made meatloaf sandwiches, cookies and cheese, he was lucky to scrounge an apple from a tree in the garden.

‘You gotta learn to be independent,’ Alice told him when he was about seven.

He had learned the lesson well.

Living with Alice and Jack
was
exciting. Their untidy apartment was always filled with dancers and singers, casino people, and general show-biz. Life was fun if you forgot about childhood.

Alice. A real character. He had learned to accept the way she was.

Las Vegas. Why had he come back?

Because a job was a job was a job. And as he’d told Jess, he had to get out of New York. The police were on his case after he’d punched out a fat drunk who was heckling him during his act at a Soho club. The fat drunk turned out to be a shyster lawyer, who, when he woke up the next morning with a black eye and split lip, decided Lennie Golden needed to be put away, and set about doing so. The aggravation of a law suit was not something Lennie needed in his life. Leaving town seemed the best way to deal with it. Besides, Eden was on the West Coast, and for months he had been thinking about following her. Not that they had parted friends.

After Vegas he planned to move on to Los Angeles.

Not just to see Eden.

Yeah. To see Eden.

Admit it, schmuck, you’re still hooked
.

*   *   *

Lucky entered the pool area, and paused for a moment until she caught the eye of Bertil, the Swedish head honcho of all pool activity. He spotted her immediately. She was impossible to miss in a one-piece black swimsuit covering a supple tanned body with the longest legs in town. He jumped to attention, remembering she was the boss, and hurried toward her, greeting her with just the right amount of deference and enthusiasm. ‘Welcome back, Miz Santangelo.’

She nodded briefly, scanning the mass of bronzed bodies. ‘Thank you, Bertil. Any problems while I was away?’

‘Nothing to bother
you
with.’

‘Bother me,’ she said softly. ‘I like to know everything.’

He hesitated, then launched into a short story about two lifeguards who had been hitting on female guests.

‘Did you fire them?’ she asked.

‘Yes, but they’re planning to sue.’

‘Have you talked to our lawyers?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then it’s all taken care of,’ she said, satisfied.

He escorted her to a poolside lounger, and she settled back to observe the action.

‘Bring me a phone,’ she requested.

He did as she asked, then left her alone.

She tried Gino for the third time. He was still out. Where the hell was he? Why wasn’t he awaiting her arrival?

‘Olympia. You are a Princess. A Goddess. A Queen.’

Olympia Stanislopoulos’ golden rounded body quivered with delight. ‘More Jeremy, tell me more.’

The English Lord shifted position on top of the Greek shipping heiress’s nubile naked body and continued his litany of praise. ‘Your eyes are the Mediterranean. Your lips ruby jewels. Your skin the smoothest velvet. Your . . .’

‘Ahhhhhhh . . .’ Her loud cry of ecstasy silenced him. She spread her legs wide, then brought them tightly together, scissoring him in a painful embrace. While doing this her long talon-like nails scratched a lethal trail across his back, drawing blood.

His yell of pain joined her shout of ecstasy. ‘For God’s sake, Olympia!’

She was uninterested in his complaints. Casually she pushed him from her.

‘I haven’t come,’ he complained.

‘Too bad,’ she retorted sharply, and rolled off the bed.

Olympia Stanislopoulos had never been known for her warm and compassionate nature. She bounced quickly into the bathroom, slammed the door and confronted her reflection in a full-length mirror.

Fat! Rolls of unwanted cellulite-dimpled fat! Angrily she grabbed a fold of flesh around her waist and squealed with fury. God
damn
that phoney French doctor who had given her three months of treatment, a few lousy fucks, and charged her thirty thousand dollars. He’d certainly seen
her
coming – in more ways than one. She stuck her tongue out at her reflection, hating what she saw.

What she saw was a twenty-eight-year-old, five-foot-three, very curvacious woman, with great bouncy breasts, an abundance of thick blonde curls, and a pretty face. Her eyes were small and blue. Her nose nondescript. Her lips pouting rosebuds. Men loved her. She looked very sexy. A regular sex bomb. Only a sex bomb with a difference.

On her twenty-first birthday Olympia Stanislopoulos had inherited seventy million dollars. Wisely invested the millions had made her now worth more than twice that.

She had been married three times. First, at seventeen, to a fledgling Greek playboy of twenty whose family had lineage but little money. They were married aboard her father, Dimitri’s, yacht, conveniently moored beside his private island. The occasion had been more than festive; two princes, a scattering of princesses, a deposed king, and most of Europe’s idle jet set. The happy couple honeymooned in India, lived for three months in Athens, and divorced in Paris when Olympia discovered her new husband on all fours being roughly serviced by the butler. She was no prude, but there
was
such a thing as decorum. Dimitri consoled his petulant daughter with a magnificent apartment on the Avenue Foch – two blocks away from the family mansion.

Soon she met an Italian business tycoon. Or at least that’s what he
said
he was. A man of forty-five with charm, smooth lines, a reputation as a womanizer, and a great wardrobe. He courted her through the discotheques of Europe and married her on her nineteenth birthday. They stayed together a year. She bore him a baby daughter, Brigette, while he spent as much of her money as he could. His indiscretions hit the newspapers and magazines once too often. Olympia was furious to discover he had been dancing the night away while she was screaming the night away delivering their child.