Steve Alten - The Mayan Resurrection

Welcome to the Mabus Plaza Hotel and Casino-a den of iniquity raking in an estimated million dollars every hour-the favorite jewel of Lucien Mabus’s thriving financial empire.

For newlyweds Danny Diaz and his bride, Sia, it has become their own private hell.

The young couple from Cocoa Beach had pushed the date of their wedding back eight months just so they could ‘Honeymoon at the Mabus.’ On their very first day, ‘Lady Luck’ had greeted them in the guise of an afternoon thundershower, forcing them to abandon ‘Emperor Nero’s Decadence at the Beach’ for a day at the casino. Changing into satin robes (provided free by the hotel) they had spent the next seven-plus hours on an amazing run at the roulette table. Sia had won over $30,000, Danny pocketing another $21,400. Delirious with joy, they returned to their room for a quick interlude of sandwiches and sex, hurrying back to the casino with visions of a down payment on a four-bedroom dream home on the coast dancing in their intoxicated heads.

But Lady Luck can be a nasty mistress, and by Saturday morning, the newlyweds had squandered all their winnings, plus another $7,200 in vacation money, a $12,000 advance on Danny’s credit card, and the $10,000 in credit Sia’s mother had given her daughter as a wedding gift. Worse, Danny had done the unthinkable, tapping into his department’s expense account to the tune of $7,300.

Their only consolation-they had received an engraved invitation from the hotel manager to visit Level Three on this, their final evening at the Mabus.

Danny clutches Sia’s sweaty palm, guiding her to an open spot at a roulette table, the fifty-six-hundred-dollar credit from her pawned engagement ring burning in his right pants pocket. Steam rises from a nearby hot tub, where an obese middle-aged man is playing poker, the fat on his back flushed pink beneath a mat of thick black hair. Danny pauses, watching enviously as the man bets a stack of ten-thousand-dollar chips.

‘Damn… uh, okay, honey, what do you think? Roulette or craps?’

Sia glances around the room, gazing at the half-naked celebrities and guests who are circling the tables like vultures. She is perspiring profusely, despite the heavy air-conditioning. ‘Look, isn’t that Tonja Davidson, the soap opera star? Look at those tits. God, she makes me sick.’

‘Honey, please, roulette or craps? I have to get those funds back into the department’s account before seven.’

‘Okay… okay… I say roulette.’ She leads him to the nearest table.

‘Chips, please.’ Danny tosses the attendant the credit, his gaze momentarily lost in her size 38-DD breasts. He squeezes Sia’s hand. ‘Red?’

She nods. ‘And lucky number 23. Let’s get it all back on the first roll.’

‘Right. Okay, quick, give me a kiss for luck.’

Their lips meet, their tongues spreading saliva and vodka as the wheel is spun.

Two floors up, Benjamin Merchant, personal assistant to the casino’s president and CEO, sucks deeply on a pacifier bong as he watches the scene play out on his wrist monitor. Merchant’s piggish eyes, squirrel gray, remain half-closed behind rose-colored designer spectacles. A thin line of spittle drools from the pacifier and down his lower lip onto the ruffles of his ivory white embroidered dress shirt.

Ben Merchant has never met Danny and Sylvia Diaz, but he knows the couple well. Over the last three days he has been both their good luck charm and dark cloud. Seducing them with each roll of the roulette wheel, he has baited them with lingering tastes of success while encouraging them to reach deeper into their depleted savings. He has played the banker, personally signing off on their arrangements at the hotel’s pawn shop. He has played the ‘chef,’ lacing their meals with a potent form of Ecstasy.

Now he plays his favorite role of all-the Devil’s advocate-as he guides them deeper into bankruptcy.

In Merchant’s manicured hand is a small remote device linked to the casino’s roulette wheels. He dials up the table number, presses a button, then sucks in another hit from his bong.

‘Six black.’

Sia’s forehead collides with her husband’s shoulder. ‘ Fubishit! Where’s my goddam drink? Can we get something to drink here?’

A nubile waitress with salmon skin approaches, her gold nipple rings glittering beneath an overhead light. In drug-induced English, dripping with a Jersey accent, she manages, ‘Caligula wit’ a twist, right honey?’

Sia downs the cream-colored liquid, barely registering the flame in the pit of her empty stomach. Sylvia Cabella-Diaz has not eaten or slept in thirty-one hours.

‘Sia?’

‘Red again, Danny. Everything we’ve got.’

‘You sure?’

‘Just do it.’

Danny pushes the pile of chips across the emerald green felt.

Two floors up, Ben Merchant fingers the BLACK key again on his palm-sized remote.

Sia’s heart pounds like a timpani drum. She watches the steel ball jump across the wheel’s plastic spokes, slowing on the red, stopping on ‘Nineteen, black.’

‘ Fubishole! ’ The twenty-six year-old’s forehead strikes the padded cushion in front of her.

Danny slides off the chair, the room spinning in his head as if he’s on a merry-go-round. ‘Oh, God, Sia, what are we gonna do? I’m dead. I’ll lose my job for sure. I could go into exile-’

Across the table, a pit boss listens intently as Ben Merchant’s commands are whispered through his ear piece.

‘I hate this place, Danny. I told you Friday we should have checked out.’

‘Excuse me? You’re the one who-’

‘Mr. and Mrs. Diaz?’

Sia looks up at the pit boss through bloodshot eyes. ‘What the hell do you want? Haven’t you vampires sucked enough of our blood for one night?’

‘My manager would like a word with the two of you. In private.’

‘What for?’

‘I believe it concerns your room charges. If you’ll follow me please.’

Danny shoots his wife a worried look. She shrugs, too weak to protest. ‘What can they do?’

They follow the pit boss across the casino floor to a private door hidden among the satin vermilion drapes.

The hydraulic door hisses open. ‘Up the stairs, please.’

‘What’s up the stairs?’

‘My manager. Now please, ma’am-’

A brass spiral staircase beckons. Sia goes first, her husband right behind her, the weight of the world on his shoulders.

Ben Merchant is waiting for them atop the landing, a Cheshire cat smile splitting his pasty complexion. ‘Well, good evening, Mr. and Mrs. Diaz.’ The heavy Louisiana drawl is as cheery as it is false.

‘About the room charges… can you just bill us? I promise we’ll-’

‘Tut-tut… all room charges have already been taken care of.’

Sia looks at Danny, then back at Merchant.

‘The two of you are lucky, very lucky indeed. It seems someone up there likes you.’ Merchant points a manicured finger toward the ceiling. ‘A guardian angel.’

‘I don’t understand,’ says Sia. ‘Who are you?’

‘The name’s Merchant, Benjamin Merchant, but you, dear Sylvia, may call me Ben. I have been and remain the private secretary and personal confidant of Mrs. Lucien Mabus, but for tonight, I’ll be your exclusive escort as you venture upward to Paradise Lost.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘Paradise Lost, darlin’. A wondrous place just north of heaven. Come, dear cherubs, your chariot awaits.’ Merchant leads them down a short hall to a private glass elevator. ‘This lift will take you straight to the penthouse. Mrs. Mabus’ll be waiting for you there.’

‘Mrs. Mabus wants to see us?’

‘Nothing to fear, Danny Boy. Like I said, this is your lucky day. All your financial woes are about to disappear.’