Joan Hess - Misery Loves Maggody

"He's got a hot tub on his patio. Most of the time he sits out there and lets his wife bring him beers while he listens to classical music. God only knows what he'll do when he actually retires." She began to zip up her coat. "Stay away from plumbers, you hear?"

She left before I could offer further arguments. I stayed in bed for a few more minutes, racking my brain for inspiration, then got up and went into the adjoining room. As Japonica had said, a ring with keys and a short stack of black chips were on the dresser next to a bottle of bourbon that was half empty (or half full, depending on your perspective; in that Brother Verber had not poured the devil's poison down the drain, I had a pretty good idea of his). Jim Bob's wristwatch was on top of the television.

A suitcase was overturned on the bed, as was a second one that had been set in a corner. The jockey shorts and undershirts were of no more interest to me than they had been to my assailant. Nor, for that matter, had been the items of obvious value (the chips) or of dubious value (the watch).

My assailant was after something that had been in Stormy's bag. He might have found it in the closet, but then why had he come into Jim Bob's room to root through more bags while I shivered on the balcony? There'd been more bags on the C'Mon van, I realized. Todd and Taylor had brought theirs, as had Rex. Baggins might have been allowed to bring a steamer trunk, but I doubted it. Estelle and Ruby Bee were the only ones of the group I felt confident were not transporting contraband across state borders.

It seemed prudent to alert the others to the possibility of a rogue plumber showing up at the door. Taylor, in particular, was in the most danger-unless her fiance had returned with a damned good explanation. Having heard quite a few of them in my day, I would have been skeptical, but hormones can blind the best of us.

I'd picked up the receiver to call the hotel operator and ask for Taylor 's room when I realized I didn't know her last name. Odds were good that the operator didn't, either. Baggins, on the other hand, was a last name, if one that summoned vague, unfocused images of hairy-footed creatures battling trolls and gremlins.

The hotel operator dialed the room, then came back on after a dozen rings and gently suggested that he wasn't there. She had a point.

I decided to see if I could find him in the casino.

The casino was lively. I wiggled my way through the crowd, peering over heads in hopes I'd be able to spot Baggins-or Estelle. I believed her story of shuttling to another casino with the same degree of confidence that I believed the Energizer Bunny would lead us to our salvation as a species. The fuzz-head would just keep on thumping and thumping as we tumbled over the cliff and into the sea.

The crowd was predominantly white, which helped. After some prowling, I saw Baggins beside a roulette table. I worked my way across the room and edged next to him as the wheel spun. He watched it with the intensity of a very hungry hawk.

"I need to talk to you," I said into his ear.

"Red, come red?" he shouted. When the ball settled into a black slot, he glared at me. "Fat lot of luck you are. I already told you everything you need to hear. Your mother may or may not get herself a refund. It's out of my hands. I'm off duty and having myself some fun."

"Well, I'm not."

Baggins bent forward to place chips in what I supposed were strategic spots. "Get on out of here. I ain't got anything more to say."

"Where's Estelle?"

"How am I supposed to know that? The show starts at ten. Till then, they're finding their own amusement. Mine happens to be roulette." He sucked in a breath as the ball once again dropped into a black slot. "I was doin' real fine up until a minute ago. Go pester somebody else."

I gave him an irritated look, but he was already slamming down chips and muttering incantations meant to influence the ball. I moved back and looked around. An unholy clatter came from the banks of slot machines, accompanied by outbursts of glee. Glaringly bright wheels whirled on several sides of me, reflected by mirrors on the ceiling. More lights flowed across the walls, flashing numbers. On a platform behind the bar, three hairy gargoyles jerked about with guitars, lost in personal rapture, while a fourth pounded on drums and shrieked about whatever was (or wasn't) on his mind.

Most of the accents around me were thick enough to pour over waffles. A few had the nasal intonation of the territory above the Mason-Dixon Line. As I pushed my way through the surge of bodies, I felt increasingly anxious. I'd dealt with crowds in Manhattan, but they'd been decorously dressed and ever so polite as they'd elbowed me out of line to buy champagne during intermission. In Maggody, a crowd was defined by the number of people who showed up for happy hour at Ruby Bee's Bar & Grill on a Friday afternoon.

Which wasn't always happy and rarely lasted an hour. Even with free popcorn.

All of a sudden I wanted to fight my way to the door and drive to the hospital. So what if Ruby Bee was asleep? I could sit with her, stroke her hand, be there if she opened her eyes and wanted a sip of water. That was the reason I'd come; Jim Bob's problems were nothing more than a diversion. Japonica's version of the struggle on the balcony made perfectly good sense: Jim Bob had been drunk, upset by losses at the craps table, enraged by Stormy's rejection.

Except, I thought as I found a haven at the end of a blackjack table, Jim Bob hadn't lost money, if the chips in his room were indicative. He and Cherri Lucinda had made their way quite merrily to his room. No doubt he'd poured himself a drink before he settled down and allowed himself to fantasize about the woman taking a hot shower in his bathroom. They'd had sex twelve hours earlier, and he was expecting a repeat performance within a matter of minutes. He had no motive to attack Stormy.

"Miss Hanks," Mackenzie cooed in my ear. "Would you like a cocktail?"

I may have flinched just a tad. "No, thank you. I just came down to see the casino in all its glory on a Saturday night. I can almost hear the money being sucked in by the corporate vacuum cleaners. Nickels here, quarters there. It does add up at the end of the night, doesn't it?"

"Do you object to gaming as a form of entertainment?"

"Not when that's all it is," I said, watching for Estelle or her infamous bald man. "It can be an addiction, though."

"I told you this morning that we try to screen out compulsive gamblers. They do nothing more than cause us headaches. They demand credit when it's beyond their means, and become belligerent when we decline. We were once offered a three-year-old child as collateral. We don't do that."

I finally gave him my full attention. "Here in your make-believe world, it's an endless party. Free drinks for everyone willing to lose money. As you said, you never close. Aren't you preying on people's obscure hope that there really is a way to transform a five-dollar chip into a fortune?"

"That would be the essence of gaming," Mackenzie said dryly. "Something for nothing. We merely provide a reasonably level playing field. Some people do win a lot of money."

"Right."

"Let's take your friend Estelle, for instance. She won a thousand dollars with a single nickel. A remarkable return on her investment, wouldn't you say?"

"Estelle? She was here earlier?"

"Oh yes. I think she might have preferred to be elsewhere when the attention focused on her, but there was nothing she could do but accept congratulations with a gracious nod. We don't mind, since it encourages other players to persevere. Hope springs eternal, as someone said."

"Alexander Pope," I said, "and I doubt he was referring to slot machines. Is Estelle still here?"