Carole Douglas - Cat in a Zebra Zoot Suit

In all of this, I have grown philosophical. I have also learned a bunch.

So I hunker down, as dudes of my breed, size and color can and have done for many decades and centuries, and wait to see what will transpire. Luckily, I can wait with my eyes closed. I shift into daydreaming mode. And then it is night.

Am I knocked back!

Louise curls sharp shivs into my shoulder. (I prefer tears, no matter how poignant. In that Minnesota Strip instance, I managed to find a nearby undercover policewoman and intrigued her to follow me back to the young girl and get my tearful hookup off the streets, at least for a while.)

Anyway, I needed a wake-up pinprick. This deserted lot is suddenly Ringling Brothers Central.

An hour after the sun goes down, an old Volkswagen van covered in wild psychedelic artwork from the sixties lurches into the parking lot and backs up to the rear door. Power to the People is written on its side. The passenger opens the back doors to reveal one big mama of a generator. The driver comes around to Dumpster dive in the metal container next to the door and pulls out a mess of heavy cables he starts laying out in the parking lot.

Then a plain white van pulls up with a flashing neon sign on its side:

POP-UP CASINO

$$ VIDEO POKER $$

DUSK TO DAWN

LAY YOUR BETS AND WALK AWAY

WITH LUCKY LOOT

From our lowly observation positions, Miss Midnight Louise and I keep our peepers set on wide VistaVision focus.

Speechless (our normal condition, actually), we watch men pour out of the van and wheel dollies into the depths of the abandoned building. In minutes, the basement door disgorges crews of the same men wheeling huge video poker machines onto the dirt, crushing the few straggly weeds.

Usually seen in long rows in huge hotel casinos, gaming machines look like the innocuous wall of video games they are. One by one, at night, wheeled out of an abandoned hulk, they resemble invading cyber-aliens.

Soon, a couple dozen slot machines have rolled out from the central building into ragged rows on the sandy lot.

“Some of those machines are antique one-armed bandits,” Louise points out.

Yeah, they are. Folks used to have to pull a lever to make the cherries wheel around or the poker hands show up card by card on an animated, colorful screen. Now, instead of feeding quarters or even nickels into slots, player use five, ten and twenty-dollar bills and push one big square button.

At least a while back you could lose a few calories as well as your paycheck at a casino slot machine. Now you lose “long green” in the time it takes a bill, courtesy of Uncle Sam, to be automatically sucked through a slot. And your forefinger can wrack up losses faster than a thoroughbred springs out of a Kentucky Derby gate.

Before our eyes, more cars are wheeling onto the lot in front of the trailer. People from nowhere are screeching in on new and old wheels, setting up shop as an outdoor gaming parlor.

“This,” I declare, “is weird, even for Vegas. ‘Dusk to Dawn.’ That is like eight p.m. to five thirty a.m. I never knew this secret gambling stuff was going on.”

“This is more than weird,” Louise whispers back. “Those are vampire hours. Could something supernatural be occurring?”

Before I can answer, I hear the screech of speeding automobiles hitting the brakes. This unlit side street is suddenly illuminated by headlights that quickly go dark and is lined by parked vehicles, from which clots of four to seven people pour out. Wait. Not just people. Guy people. Of course the male of the species is the most hardened gambler. The female favors better odds than mere chance.

“Oh, my mama’s lumbago,” Louise hisses under her breath. “This has turned into a secret betting parlor under the stars. Even though gaming is legal in Las Vegas, licenses are still required. What the Havana Brown is happening here?”

Normally I know everything, but must confess to ignorance in the current instance. This nighttime carnival must have a rhyme or reason, but I am without a clue in this case.

Although the sun has slinked out of sight for the day, I am not surprised to see some usual suspects strolling onto the frantic scene.

Punch Adcock and Katt Zydeco, who would be dressed to the nine lives were they feline, play hosts, and escort the imported gamblers to various slot machines. Leon Nemo cruises the chaos, his eye on his Rolex wristwatch.

Louise and I watch a few dozen gamers argue about the house rules (only cash and gone by 5:00 a.m.), but the house, well…rules. Even more suspicious, Adcock, Zydeco and Nemo’s cell phone cameras record all the frenetic doings of this elite few on the night crew.

After weary hours of crouching on my fore and aft limbs alongside my far more limber associate, I see the bettors shuffle toward the curbs to depart. Nemo counts out a paltry few bucks, which are pushed into gamblers’ pants pockets as they leave.

Vehicle engines rev at the curbs. The pack of gamblers vanish in a herd of red taillights. Leon Nemo adds to the fan of bills representing the night’s slim “take”, and distributes them among the musclemen scooping up the slot machines on dollies and returning them to the unplumbed depths beneath the ex-antique mall.

He is left with empty hands and a grin we can see even from under the RV.

“This is the most bizarre event I have ever witnessed in Las Vegas,” I impart to Louise’s petite ear, which twitches. “And that is saying something given the over-the-top entertainment on the Strip.”

“That is indeed a first,” she admits. “Oh, I am tired of serving as a stock-still vermin attraction. Tell me we can fold our tents for the night.”

“Agreed. I need time to think on this startling event, which,” I proclaim, “is even odder than when UFOs were reported buzzing the Las Vegas Strip. What is most wrong here, is that I do not see anyone profiting in any way from this night’s events. That is just plain unnatural in Las Vegas.”

“Agreed. An absence of greed is hard to stomach. Oh, my aching pads!”

On Louise’s last comment, we scratch our heads literally and simultaneously, and depart for our separate home, sweet homes.

12

Guardian Angle

Matt was jostled awake by a vehicle speeding over pockmarked roads.

His head ached, his side stitches from the bullet-wound burned, and his jaw felt dislocated. He kept his eyes closed to take inventory. All right. Semi-upright in a car seat, but not buckled in.

Yeah, mobsters dumping a body-to-be would worry about traffic rules.

The rough ride felt like an SUV, not Woodrow Wetherly’s old sedan. Matt guessed he could have been out cold for three minutes, or a quarter of an hour. Would he make his showtime like Woody had promised? Not his worst problem. His closed eyelids sensed the regular rhythm of passing streetlights, intermixed with some vagrant neon, he’d bet.

The driver was exceeding the speed limit for this old, bumpy part of town. In Chicago, winter snow and distributed salt made for spring potholes. In the desert southwest, the summer sun did the same job on the asphalt in its own searing way.