Shelly's Second Chance (The Wish Granters, Book One) (18 page)

“A few is all it takes,” Joe
said. “Look at the color.”

“Silver?”

“Platinum. Those chips are ten
thousand bucks each.”

Chapter Thirty-Three

So much for control over his
own destiny. The minute Shelly took the stack of platinum chips, Joe manifested
into a wide hallway of The Bellagio basement where he found himself standing
among six gigantic covered tubs on wheels. Although there were large exhaust
fans in the ceiling, there was no air conditioning and these tubs were used for
disposal of all the hotel restaurant’s uneaten food. It happened too fast for
Joe to get his mind in gear to resist, which wouldn’t have done him any good
anyway.

So he stood there for a few
seconds wondering why he’d been pulled away from Shelly and Alanna when a man
pushing a garbage cart emerged through a set of double doors at the end of the
hall. He wheeled the cart directly toward Joe until he came right up to the
nearest tub and lifted the lid. The scent of rotting food filled the air and Joe
shrank back, muttering “Jesus.” Then he realized the kitchen worker was Morgan,
dressed in jeans and a shirt with a stained apron tied around his waist.

And Morgan did not look happy
to see Joe.

“Why did you bring me down
here?”

“You were about to screw up.”
Morgan sounded like a traffic cop giving out a warning ticket.

“You’ve got it wrong,” Joe
said. “Shelly was the one screwing up and I was just about to stop her.” Morgan
was infuriatingly calm. “Your assignment is to grant a wish. You’ve done that.”
He tossed a huge bucket of food slop into the tub. Some of it splashed and Joe
jumped back.

“Then why am I still here? We
granted her wish and yet we’re still with her. What else is there to do?”

Joe thought of the Greek gods
he’d studied in school so long ago, the same ones that stood around the casino,
stonily watching people ruin their lives. The gods were always capricious with
earthlings. No matter how flawed their own behavior was up on Mount Olympus, it didn’t stop them from interfering in human lives far below. Nothing was too
outrageous for the gods, nothing too perverse, scandalous, destructive,
vindictive, or vengeful. Thinking about that, and the consequences they wreaked
on mortals, Joe considered his own situation, and couldn’t decide whether to
placate this mini god who just happened to look like Morgan Freeman, or try to
best him with argument.

“What do you think you still
must do?” Morgan asked.

The lawyer in Joe was
struggling to come up with a strategy. His goal was clear. To be released form
this realm, whatever and wherever it was, and get back to his life—his real
life. But then there was Alanna.

“By the way, where’s Alanna? Why
didn’t she manifest with me?” It was as good a stall as any.

Morgan replaced the lid on
the tub and wiped his hands on the front of his apron. “Why do you care, Joe?”

Joe didn’t have to think
about this one. “Because she’s my partner. Partners watch out for each other.
We’re a team. I’m a good team player.”

“Are you?”

“What the hell does that
mean?”

“What did you see down
there—outside the hospital, when we were taking Mrs. Mandelbaum out for her
walk?”

“Wait a second, there. Just
hold on a minute. I didn’t see anything. I hallucinated is what I saw. A ghost
is what I saw. A vapor, a mirage. Just like I’m seeing right here and now. What
proof do you have that any of what happens up here is real? Huh? Tell me that.”

“Joe, that’s hardly worthy of
a man of your abilities. I expected better. Much better. Use your head. It’s
not that hard to figure out.”

Joe sighed, letting out his
breath slowly. There was no real way to fight Morgan so he may as well play
along.

“I saw my law partner. But he
wasn’t really there. So that’s what I saw. Nothing. Nobody. Nada.”

“He must be somewhere,” said
Morgan. “Everybody is somewhere.”

“Oh yeah? You mean there
really is a heaven and a hell and we go either one way or the other? That what
the nuns taught us is right? That I should still be going to confession and
genuflecting every time I pass a church? You’ve got to be kidding me. I haven’t
thought about that stuff since I was eleven years old. I have my own philosophy
now and it doesn’t require anybody else to tell me where I’ll end up if I don’t
follow the rules.”

“Is that what you think it’s
about, Joe? Rules?”

“I’ve followed rules my whole
life. Rules of evidence, rules of procedure, rules of the court. Hell the whole
legal system is based on centuries upon centuries of rules set down one on top
of the other, dictating everything we do.”

“You say that with such
certainty, Joe,” Morgan looked doubtful now, “and yet you still haven’t faced .
. . ”

“Faced what?” Joe’s eyes
narrowed. He sensed an opening, smelled it the way he used to smell a witness
about to crack open like a walnut up there on the stand. “Faced what, you
imposter?”

“Ah, Joe, you seem to like
this cross examining. Seems as if you’ve gotten back into your groove.”

This had turned into the most
maddening conversation Joe had ever had with anyone. He stepped back further so
that Morgan was not so close, not so definite, and so that the smell of the
rotting garbage was not so overpowering. Almost immediately another image
appeared, walking slowly, a man with his head down, scuffling his feet, one arm
straight at his side. He was holding something. Something small and dark. Small
and dark and when the light caught it for a second, shiny. The man raised his
arm slowly, the thing he was holding pointing away from his body. And Joe
realized in that instant the thing was a gun.

The blast shook Joe off his
feet and he was falling through space with the echoes of the gunshot
reverberating all around him. It was a bad dream, Joe thought. Just a bad dream
and he would awaken and everything would be back to normal and he would be at
his office, sitting in his chair at his desk with his law books behind him and
his world fixed, complete, balanced. But he was not at his desk and the falling
continued until he landed, on his feet, back at the basement with those ugly
tubs and the smell of rotting food.

“I remember,” he said it
softly. “There was a man, wearing a green golf shirt. He was running away. He
shot my partner. My law partner. Shot him in the head. I saw it happen. There
was so much blood. It was everywhere. I found him. Oh, God. I found him right
outside our office. On the sidewalk. Almost at the door. Like he was trying to
get inside when he caught it. And he was warning me to stay away.”

Images flooded him as if he
had suddenly sprung a leak. There was Russell—Russ, his partner, a funny little
bald guy in a loud checked jacket always trying to get lucky at the
neighborhood bar. Joe sitting next to him, nursing a scotch and arguing with
Russ about the case they were defending, angry about something. What? Who had
they been defending? It wasn’t clear. But Russ —he was clear as a champagne
glass. Belligerent, cocky, Russ, trying to flirt with some woman at the end of
the bar. She was ignoring him. Russ never had much luck with the ladies. Not
like Joe.

Chapter Thirty-Four

Great. Just
great. Joe certainly had a knack for disappearing right when she needed him
most. Alanna could only assume he’d been taken out of the casino against his
will. She was beginning to recognize a pattern. It seemed they were most likely
to be transported when they were either upset, on the verge of remembering
something, or both. The sight of Shelly turning away from the counter with the
platinum chips in her hand was undoubtedly what triggered Joe’s latest
departure. But he’d left her with a bit of a problem. A problem in the form of
Shelly who was now gazing down at the chips with the rapturous sort of
expression most women reserve for a newborn child.

Yikes. An odd
comparison. Where had it come from? Alanna waved her hand for a few seconds
until she caught Shelly’s eye.

Shelly was
pushing the chips into a little blue silk drawstring bag and when she looked up
and saw Alanna, her face split into a wide smile, as if she’d forgotten their
last conversation at the hospital or indeed the hospital at all.

“Look,” she said.
“When you get the $10,000 chips they give you this cool little bag.”

She really is
like a child in many ways, Alanna thought. Easily distracted and totally
absorbed in her own problems and pleasures. But Alanna had to admit that the
bag was rather interesting, something like she imagined a medieval princess
might use to hide her gold coins.

“And if you’re
carrying this bag,” Shelly went on, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial
whisper, “they let you into the roped-off area where the high rollers are. They
bring you champagne in there. Lobsters. Caviar. Anything you want. That’s what
it means to have money.”

“Is that what you
want, Shelly? You want lobsters and champagne and caviar?”

Shelly’s
shoulders slumped. “Well, not that exactly. I don’t even like that stuff. It’s
just—knowing that you can have it, right? Knowing that if I decided to try the
no-limit tables, those big bouncer guys couldn’t keep me out. I mean, half the
time we don’t really want something, we just want to know we could have it if
we ever started wanting it, you know?”

Actually Alanna
did know. She looked at Shelly with a little more sympathy. “We get the two
things mixed up sometimes, you’re right,” Alanna said. “We’re so busy wondering
what we can or can’t have that we forget to ask ourselves what it is we really
want.”

Shelly didn’t
answer. She was already heading for the velvet rope that cordoned off the high
roller room, as if determined to join their ranks.

When she reached
the rope, she held up her velvet bag triumphantly and the guard let her pass.
Alanna cast a last frantic glance around for Joe, who would certainly know
better than her how to handle the situation. But Joe was nowhere in sight. She
strode quickly toward Shelly and told the guard, “I’m with her.”

He looked her up
and down, taking in the long slim legs, the bright smile, the tousled curls.
And he let her pass.

*****

Shelly stood at
the wall as far away from the table as she could get and still see the action.
It was the middle of a big hand. A quick count of chips at the table told her
there must be close to three hundred thousand dollars in the pot. It was like
the last time. All the players were men. They looked like they’d been playing
for hours. None of them spoke. The dealer was a stocky guy with fat fingers and
a deadpan expression. This was no friendly game. These guys were out for blood.

No one had folded
yet and the bet was twenty thousand on a ten of hearts. Three players folded
one after the other leaving two in. A raise and a call and then Alanna was at Shelly’s
side whispering to her.

“Why are you
doing this?”

“Maybe I liked
the feeling of winning,” Shelly whispered back.

“But that was
because of us. You don’t stand a chance in here. These guys are pros. You’ve
only played once. You’d be crazy to try again.”

Thoughts rushed
through Shelly’s mind. Maybe she just wanted to see what it felt like to risk
so much. Why else would these high rollers do this? Maybe she just wanted in on
the big game, or she needed a distraction from too much reality. Maybe she could
double down or even triple her winnings just to see what a million bucks in her
hands would feel like.

“They’re risking
it all,” she whispered in Alanna’s ear. “Why not me? I’d like to win a million
bucks. Who wouldn’t?”

“Why stop at a
million? How about five, ten or even fifty million? How much is enough? What
would you do different in your life if you had all the money in the world?
Because life is not about having a good time but living a good life. You have
to define what good is for yourself before you go risking what you do have.
You’re not just risking money here, not just risking your winnings; you’re
risking your relationship with Ben, risking your future. What is your future
worth? Do you want to be one of those blowsy middle aged women sitting at a slot
machine for companionship? Think about what matters. Think about Ben.”

Shelly did think about
Ben for a few seconds but the thing that came back to her was the mother
praying in Spanish in the hospital chapel. That woman’s face and the touch of her
hand on Shelly’s cheek. She slipped her arm through Alanna’s and moved them
toward the velvet rope where they had entered. The guard opened it for them and
they were free.

“What I want,”
Shelly said, “is for Ben to be okay. They’re going to be bringing him out of
the coma in about an hour, so I need to head back to the hospital now.”

It was as if she
had never made a detour into the high roller room, never even considered
risking her chips on the game. It was, in fact, a bit like Shelly was the one
waking up from a coma, the one coming out of a long bad dream.