Which was wrapped around a pistol.

"s.h.i.t!" c.o.ker spit the word fast and fired another shot. The bullet caught the cowboy in the chest, but the big man didn't even stumble. He didn't return fire, either .. . and c.o.ker wasn't going to give him the chance.

c.o.ker fired again, dead center, and this time the bullet made a sound like a marble rattling around in a tin can.

The cowboy's chest lit up. Neon rattlesnakes slithered across it.

Golden broncos bucked over his bulging pecs. Glowing Gila monsters hissed and spread their jaws.

Three broncos galloped into place.

The cowboy's chest sprung open like the batwings on an old-fashioned saloon.

Silver dollars rained down on the highway.

And the cowboy kept on coming. c.o.ker couldn't even move now. Couldn't breathe. Oh man, this wasn't a jinx after all. This was the moment he'd been waiting for. This was the omen to end all omens. All of it happening in the blink of an eye.

One more blink, and he'd see things clearly. One more blink and the future would turn up like a Blackjack dealt for high stakes-But c.o.ker couldn't blink. He couldn't even move-Anshutes could. He stepped past his partner, scooped up a silver dollar as it rolled along the highway's center line. The cowboy kept on coming, heading for Anshutes now, but Anshutes didn't twitch. He waited until the big man was within spitting distance, and then he slipped the coin between the determined line of the advancing cowboy's lips.

Immediately, the cowboy's gun hand swept in an upward arc.

Then he stopped cold.

Anshutes scooped a handful of silver dollars off the road and tossed them at c.o.ker.

"Guess you've never heard of a one-armed bandit," he said.

c.o.ker's jaw dropped quicker than a bar of soap in a queer bathhouse.

Anshutes sighed. Christ, being partnered up with this starry-eyed fool was something else.

"The cowboy here's a robot," Anshutes explained.

"Comes from a casino called Johnny Ringo's, named after the gangster who owns the place. Ringo himself came up with the concept for an ambulating slot machine, hired some ex-Disney imagineers to design the things. They walk around his joint twenty-four hours a day. You'd be surprised how many idiots feed dollars into them. I guess they all think they're lucky .. .

just like you."

"This thing's a robot!" c.o.ker asked.

"That's what I said."

"Why'd it stop moving?"

"Cause I fed it a dollar, genius." Anshutes pointed at the machine's lone arm, which was raised in the air.

"The Cogwheel Kid here can't do anything until I make my play. I have to pull his arm to set him in motion again. Then those neon wheels will spin, and either he'll cough up some dough or start walking, looking for another mark. Unless, of course, your bullets dug a hole in his motherboard, in which case who knows what the h.e.l.l he'll do."

c.o.ker blinked several times but said nothing. To Anshutes, he looked like some stupid fish that had just figured out it lived in a tank.

Blink-blink-blinking, checking out the big bad pet shop world that lurked beyond the gla.s.s.

"It's an omen," c.o.ker said finally.

"A sign--" "Uh-uh, buddy. It's called the Mojave Two-Step."

"The Mojave what?"

"The Mojave Two-Step." Anshutes sighed.

"Here's what happened. This little lady crossed Johnny Ringo.

Who knows what the h.e.l.l she did, but it was bad enough that he wanted to kill her good and slow. So he tied her to one of his walking slots, and he pointed the d.a.m.n thing west and turned it loose. It's happened before. Just a couple months ago, one of these things trudged into Barstow with a dead midget tied to its back. Leastways, folks thought it was a midget. A couple weeks under the Mojave sun is liable to shrink anyone down to size."

"Jesus!" c.o.ker said.

"How does Ringo get away with it?"

"He's rich, idiot. And that means you don't mess with him, or anything to do with him, or he'll kill you the same way he killed this girl--"

Right on cue, the girl groaned. Annoyed, Anshutes grabbed her chin and got a look at her. Blue eyes, cold as glaciers. Surprisingly, she wasn't even sunburned.

Anshutes huffed another sigh. There wasn't any mystery to it, really.

They weren't that far from Vegas.

Twenty, maybe thirty miles. Could be that Ringo had turned the robot loose after dark, that the girl hadn't even been in the sun yet. Of course, if that was the case it would make sense to a.s.sume that the robot had followed the highway, taking the most direct route.

Anshutes didn't know what kind of directional devices Ringo had built into his walking slots, but he supposed it was possible. There wasn't anything between Vegas and Barstow. n.o.body traveled the desert highway unless they absolutely had to. Even if the robot stuck to the road, it was an odds on cinch that the girl would wind up dead before she encountered another human being.

The girl glanced at Anshutes, and it was like that one glance told her exactly what kind of guy he was.

So she turned her gaze on c.o.ker.

"Help me," she whispered.

"This is too weird," c.o.ker said.

"A woman riding a slot machine ... a slot machine that paid off on the road to Vegas. It is an omen. Or a miracle! Like Lady Luck come to life .. . like Lady Luck in the flesh--" "Like Lady Luck personified."

Anshutes dropped a hand on his partner's shoulder.

"Now you listen to me, boy--what we've got here is a little Vegas wh.o.r.e riding a walking sc.r.a.p heap. She doesn't have anything to do with luck, and she isn't our business. Our business is over there in that truck. Our business is a load of ice cream. Our business is getting that ice cream to Vegas before it melts."

c.o.ker's eyes flashed angrily, and Anshutes nearly laughed. Seeing his partner go bada.s.s was like watching a goldfish imitate a shark.

"You'd better back down, boy," Anshutes warned.

c.o.ker ignored him. He untied the young woman's wrists and feet. He pulled her off of the Cogwheel Kid's back and cradled her in his arms, and then he started toward the ice cream truck.

Anshutes cleared his throat.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"Even if she's not Lady Luck, this lady's hurting," c.o.ker said.

"I think she deserves an ice cream. h.e.l.l, maybe she deserves two.

Maybe I'll let her eat her fill."

Anshutes didn't answer.

Not with words, anyway.

He raised the sawed-off shotgun he'd stolen from the ice cream man, and he c.o.c.ked both barrels.

c.o.ker said, "You think you're pretty cool, don't you?"

"Cooler than Santa's a.s.s," Anshutes said.

"And you'll shoot me if I give the lady an ice cream?"