Greg Cox - Loose ends

"Er, can you let me in?" she asked, flashing an ingenuous smile. "I'm supposed to meet someone inside."Is that so?" Skeptical eyes looked her over, lingering longer than she liked on her chest and legs. His frayed, dilapidated white suit was nearly worn through at the knees and elbows. "How old are you? You got ID?"Terrific, she thought acidly. I'm getting carded in a dream. In real life, of course, her actual driver's license was sitting in her purse back at the motel, but it took only a moment's concentration to produce a reasonable facsimile in this dreamworld. She already knew what date to cite as her birth year; if truth be told, she had sometimes been known to "adjust" the date on her real driver's license using her powers. This was just a variation on the same trick.

She handed the freshly-generated ID to the man behind the door, who inspected it dubiously before returning the card to her. "That'll do, I suppose," he declared, then scrutinized her again. A nasty grin revealed chipped, yellow teeth. "Now then, what's the password?"Password? Isabel was stumped momentarily, then realized that the correct answer had to be lurking somewhere in the psychic framework of this dream. Maybe if she just left herself open to the vibrations, the password would seep from Morton's mind into her own? She glanced up at the flickering red glow of the hangar 18 sign.

"1947," she guessed, free-associating.

"Try again," the yellow grin taunted her.

"Roswell?"You're getting closer," he teased, his smirking tone making her innocent guesses sound dirty.

"Area 51?"Closer…"Isabel racked her brain for more UFO lore. The correct password was on the tip of her tongue, she knew it. What was that other code name for the government's top secret UFO research program, the one mentioned in all those crazy pamphlets and TV specials? Max would know this, she thought, frustrated and wishing that she'd spent more time prowling that goofy UFO museum back home. It was something extremely appropriate, something like "Dreamland?"Bingo," the greasy scarecrow cackled, undoing the chain. "And the little lady wins admission to our humble establishment." The door swung outward and its revolting guardian stepped to one side. "Come on in."Isabel gulped and inched over the threshold, part of her devoudy wishing that she had never hit on the right password. The dingy vestibule just past the door was dark and musty and smelled of cigarette smoke. She eased past the scuzzy doorman, contorting her body so as to avoid brushing against him. Was everything in Morton's dream smelly and disgusting? Isabel had to wonder how he managed to sleep nights. Unless this is just how he likes things, she thought, sickened and repulsed by the notion that anyone, even a cold-blooded killer like Joe Morton, could feel at home in a seedy environment like this.

"Step right up, miss," die doorman directed her, snickering at her obvious discomfort. "Just through the curtain there." Isabel flinched, and her skin crawled, as an overly friendly hand patted her from behind. "Hope you find what you're looking for."Anxious to get away from the doorman's foul breath and dirty chuckles, Isabel ploughed blindly through a thick velvet curtain into… the bright, garishly- lighted interior of an enormous casino. Isabel blinked in bewilderment, taken back by the shocking, surreal disparity between the dank, musty vestibule and the sprawling, jam-packed, pleasure palace she had just rushed into. Flashing lights and candy-colored strips of neon outlined every angle and surface, while country-western music boomed from above, almost but not quite drowning out the clatter of rolling dice, the whir of spinning roulette wheels, and the constant ka-ching of innumerable slot machines. Showgirls wearing nothing but string bikinis, high heels, and tall, feathered headdresses promenaded through the crowd of jubilant high rollers, handing out free cigars and cocktails.

Giant, fifty-foot television screens, mounted high above the gaming area treated the paying customers to titan-size coverage of heavyweight boxing matches and high-stakes horse races. Drunken gamblers whooped it up, cheering every roll of the dice and spin of the roulette wheel. The overheated air smelled of cheap perfume, cigarettes, and spilled champagne.

So this is Morton's idea oj heaven? Isabel thought, aghast, her eyes and ears adjusting to the sheer sensory overload of the imaginary casino, which seemed three times larger on the inside than it did from outdoors. She couldn't believe that he was willing to blackmail and kill to attain such a tawdry vision of the good life. I'm not even from this planet, she thought, and I have better taste.

Given the colossal scale of the casino, she briefly despaired of ever finding Morton again. Looking down the long red carpet in front of her, however, she realized that she needn't have worried; Morton was, naturally enough, the undisputed center of attention, the strutting star of his own vulgar Vegas spectacle, presiding over a mob of breathless admirers and hangers-on at the biggest and snazziest of the roulette tables. He was even dressed for the part, having traded in the workaday clothes he'd worn on the day of the shooting for glitzier, more ostentatious attire. An ivory-colored, ten-gallon hat perched on his head, above a fringed buckskin jacket that hung open to accommodate Morton's protruding gut. An enormous silver belt buckle, the size of a showy brass door knocker, was studded with polished turquoise, as was the clasp of his bolo tie. A showy gold-plated watch glittered on one wrist, and he lit a grotesquely large cigar by setting a hundred-dollar bill on fire with a monogrammed silver lighter. Clinging to his arms on both sides, giggly bleached-blond bimbos, wearing rhinestone-studded dresses two sizes too small, oohed and aahed appreciatively at his extravagance. Isabel looked up to see that Morton's jowly face, smirking in smug self-satisfaction, now occupied every one of the fifty-foot television screens towering above her.

She couldn't believe her eyes. For this Liz Parker was almost killed? Some of Isabel's apprehension faded as she found herself looking forward to the prospect of bringing joe Morton down. Well see what a big man you are once you're safely behind bars, she thought venomously. Or maybe six feet under, Before heading in for a closer look, she took a second to consider her own costuming. While perfectly adequate for hiking through caves, the simple sweater and jeans combination she now wore seemed out-of-place amid the tacky glitz of the casino. Better switch to something less conspicuous, she decided, looking over the milling patrons of Morton's idealized gambling mecca. A scantily-clad showgirl, wearing only strategically-placed sequins and feathers, walked by at that moment and Isabel snorted huffily. Uh-huh, right, she thought, arching an elegant eyebrow. Like that's going to happen…

Unwilling to go quite that far to blend in, she contented herself to transforming her comfortable hiking garb to a stylish black sequined dress and high heels. Rearranging molecules in a dream was even easier than in real life, so it took next to no effort at all to spruce up her hair and makeup as well. Isabel checked her reflection in the polished silver casing of a nearby slot machine, nodded in approval, and marched confidently down the red carpet, casually joining the carefree crowd watching Morton try his hand at the roulette wheel. "Excuse me," she murmured, elbowing her way to the very edge of the gaming table, across from Morton.

On closer inspection, she was surprised to see that the spinning wheel had been done up to resemble a flying saucer. Silver glitter sparkled like Stardust on the rotating disk while a green papier-mache alien sat atop the hub of the wheel like the pilot of a cartoon spaceship. That looks nothing like Nasedo, she thought with a frown, disturbed to find alien imagery creeping into Morton's fantasies once again. Looking around, she now observed that the entire casino had an extraterrestrial motif, not unlike the campy, kooky decor of the Crashdown Cafe. Model rocketships and flying saucers hung from the ceiling. Painted ray-guns and bug-eyed monsters decorated the sides of the slot machines, while many of the strolling showgirls now looked like extras from Bar-barelh., complete with ftshbowl helmets, pointed ears, or silver antennae, just like the waitresses at the Crashdown wore.