James Swain - Gift sense

His employees' faces turned to stone. Standing behind the desk, Sammy cleared his throat. "It's what you say when you get excited, Nick. 'Yeah, yeah, yeah.'"

Nick looked flummoxed. Valentine could tell that he had absolutely no idea what his head of surveillance was talking about. Never tell the emperor that he has no clothes.

Nick looked to Wily for help.

"'Yeah, yeah, yeah,'" Wily chorused like a parrot.

"Why are you saying that?" Nick said, getting furious.

Wily grinned oafishly. "'Yeah, yeah, yeah'. It's what you say when you get riled up."

"I don't say 'yeah, yeah, yeah,'" Nick said heatedly. "I never say 'yeah, yeah, yeah.' That's horseshit. I say 'yeah,' like everyone else. So don't go around saying that anymore, okay?"

"Sure, Nick," they all said.

"Now where were we? Oh yeah, the tape. I think you're going to have to do better, honey."

Wily nudged Sherry Solomon with his elbow. "Sherry, tell Nick what you told me this morning about Nola."

Sherry folded her hands in her lap and looked straight ahead, her pose reminiscent of that of a naive schoolgirl.

"Well," she began, "Nola and I roomed together for a while. This was right after you and she split up. I heard her say things that were scary. Nola has it in for you."

Nick's face turned serious. "She does?"

"She wants to ruin you."

Nick gave her a stony look. "Just what did I do to Nola Briggs besides give her a job and try to take care of her that made her want to hurt me?"

"You pierced her soul."

"I did?"

Sherry nodded solemnly. "She wanted to go to a shrink and get it off her chest, but she didn't have any dough, so she spilled her guts to me. Anyway, she talked a lot about paying you back one day. In spades."

"She's got revenge on her mind?"

"Yes. She said there was a flaw in the casino's security system, and if she could figure out a way to exploit it, she was going to take you for a bundle."

"Nola actually said that?"

Sherry Solomon nodded her bleached blond head.

Nick turned and looked at Sammy. "What flaw?"

"I don't know what she's talking about," Sammy replied.

Nick looked back at Sherry. "What flaw?"

"She never told me," Sherry explained. "But I do know this: She said you took her up on the catwalk one night, and while you were screwing her, she looked down and saw it. She was going to tell you, but the next day you dumped her."

"You don't think she was just talking tough?" Sammy said, clearly disturbed by this piece of news.

"That's not like Nola," Sherry said.

"But this happened ten years ago," Nick said. "I mean, time heals all wounds, doesn't it? Why now?"

"Something happened to Nola six months ago that triggered it," she explained. "She broke up with a guy and got real depressed. Started missing work, sleeping in all day. I stopped by one afternoon and found a pamphlet from the Hemlock Society in her house. She was thinking of killing herself."

"This is some messed-up chickie," Nick said, his gaze now fixed squarely on Wily. "How come you didn't pick up on any of this?"

"She seemed okay to me," the pit boss said sheepishly.

Nick fixed his gaze on Sherry. "So what happened?"

"She took a Mexican vacation," Sherry replied, "and came back a new person. I asked her what happened, and she told me she'd finally found a way to pay you back."

"Did she say how?" he asked.

"No, sir, she didn't. But then this Fontaine character showed up, and I started to wonder. I mean, he's her type, and it's her table he keeps going to."

"And what type is that?"

"Dark, ethnic, lots of fun."

"That's Nola's type?"

"Yeah. Gets her juices flowing."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Nick said, swiveling his chair around so he was facing the window, his brown and deteriorating empire laid out before him like a faded Hollywood movie set. "So what you're telling me is, she's a threat to me and everyone who works for me."

Sherry began to answer, then halted, her lips trembling. Opening the purse in her lap, she removed a cigarette. By the time it had reached her lips, Wily had a flame waiting for her. She took a deep drag and the tension melted from her face.

"What I'm telling you," she said evenly, "is simply this. Nola hates you. It's the kind of hatred men don't understand. You pierced her soul. She told me she could never look in the mirror after what you said and see herself the same way. So now she's paying you back."

Nick spun around, not appreciating his employee's lecturing tone. The dice hit the wall and came to rest on the carpeted floor at Valentine's feet. Snake eyes.

"For what?" he said angrily. "What did I do? Tell her she had bad breath? Call my bookie after I had my orgasm? You're killing me, honey. What did I do to deserve some chickie holding a grudge against me for ten whole years?"

"You told Nola her tits were too small," Sherry said. "When she wouldn't get implants, you dumped her."

Nick scowled, his darkly tanned face shriveling like a prune. He looked at Wily for help; when none was forthcoming, he stared at Sammy, then at Valentine, who'd been busy scribbling notes on a pad. Finally, in desperation, he looked to Sherry Solomon.

"So?" he said.

"I heard you were the best lawyer in Las Vegas." Nola's knees banged Felix Underman's polished mahogany desk as she pulled up a chair. "That's what everyone says-'Mr. Underman is the best.' Not that I ever needed an attorney before. But now that I have been arrested, well, you were the first person I thought of."

The legendary defense attorney said nothing, his eyes fixed on the attractive woman who'd buffaloed her way past the lobby guard and barged into his office unannounced. Normally, Underman avoided working on Saturdays in observance of the Sabbath, but he'd been in court all week and needed to catch up. He had a mind to show her the door, but her appearance intrigued him. This young lady looked innocent, and that was something he rarely encountered. He nodded for her to continue.

"Anyway, Mr. Underman-"

"Please, call me Felix," he said.

"Sure, Mr. Underman."

Underman frowned. There it was again. For thirty years, he'd practiced criminal law in Las Vegas and everyone in town had called him Felix. Then during a tricky triple-murder trial, he'd grown a goatee and the local newspaper started calling him Mister. The fact that Underman hated it didn't matter. It was who he had become, and he could do nothing to change it.

He watched Nola Briggs take a brown paper bag off the floor and drop it on his desk. She slid the bag toward him, and Underman obliged by opening it and peeking inside.

His breath grew short. Underman was a rich man, with a garage filled with fancy sports cars and a yacht in San Diego and a beach house in Acapulco, yet money still intrigued him. His father had toiled at two jobs all his life, running a synagogue and teaching elementary school, and had died with less money than was in Nola Briggs's paper bag.

"I'll give you ten grand if you'll just consider my case," Nola said. "I need help, Mr. Underman."

Underman closed the paper bag and slid it to a neutral corner of his desk. Over the years, he'd gotten good at visually counting bills, as most of his clients paid him in cash. Nola's bag contained close to fifty thousand dollars.

"I would be happy to discuss your situation," he replied. "If I think I can help, we can then discuss my fee."

"Oh, thank you, Mr. Underman, thank you," she gushed. "I've always heard you were a gentleman."

"My upbringing," he confessed. "My father beat it into us with a stick. Now, why don't you start at the beginning."

For the next twenty minutes, Underman let Nola talk. He had heard of her arrest through one of the snitches he employed on the Strip, as he made it his business to know who in Las Vegas was getting arrested, a tactic that allowed him to decide if he wanted a case well before it ever walked through his door. And Underman certainly wanted Nola's case. The crime she was being prosecuted for, called flashing or signaling, was difficult to prove, and the fact that the Acropolis had allowed her alleged accomplice to walk was the kind of hole he could drive a Mack truck through. Underman liked beating the casinos in court, as it was the only place he had an advantage over them.