Up a row, however, another Pontiac caught my attention-a familiar cherry-red vehicle that was still in its place: Chrissy's Firebird convertible, with the top down.

I was maybe twenty feet from the building now, so I lowered my head as I made my way to the Firebird, then knelt beside it, and got the lay of the land. A single bouncer, situated near the casino, was walking the line, keeping an eye on the lot. He didn't seem to have spotted me, and his only brothers were walking the perimeters where the hooker trailers perched.

Three bodyguards, then...with the ones babysitting the hookers way too busy to be overly bothered with the parking lot.

I hadn't expected to see any increased security-after all, had everything gone peachy for the boys dumping me downriver, they would just be getting back. They might not even be expected to check in with the boss, who soon would be playing his precious poker game, and disliked being interrupted.

Speaking of which, after I'd kept watch for possibly fifteen minutes, the door to the private poker room abruptly opened, and a familiar yellow-permed figure exited, with Jerry G following her a step or two. They exchanged a few words, he patted the behind of her tight jeans, then slipped back inside as she started toward the lot.

I hopped in the back of the convertible, and positioned myself on the floor behind the front seats. The Firebird was parked about mid-lot, which was its most under-lit section, and I figured I could get away with it. Anyway, I didn't suppose Chrissy felt she needed any weapon that G.o.d hadn't already granted her, but if she'd upgraded to a revolver or something, and had it handy in her pink purse, I had a shotgun sh.e.l.l available to rearrange her perm.

She got in the car and behind the wheel, started it up, and pulled out, wheels crunching gravel and then I felt the shift onto the smooth blacktop of Main Street. That was when I slipped the double-nose of the shotgun between the seats and into her bare side-I was still tucked below sight of anybody but birds and truckers.

"Jesus!" she said, and hit the brakes.

"Keep driving," I said.

She tried to see me in her rearview mirror, but the angle was wrong. "What?"

"It's your c.o.ke buddy. I'm not dead. But you will be, if you f.u.c.k around."

"I'm not afraid afraid of you!" she said, terrified. "What if I go one hundred miles an hour and crash us?" of you!" she said, terrified. "What if I go one hundred miles an hour and crash us?"

"Then we'd both be dead, only I won't let you take this baby past forty-five, without reducing your waistline first."

I poked her flesh with the shotgun's cold snout.

"You...you wouldn't shoot me..."

"I think I would. Drive us to the Wheelhouse Motel. Pull in the s.p.a.ce at room twenty-eight."

A maybe three-minute drive followed, proving as uneventful as it was silent. I felt the car slide into the stall, and she shut the car off.

"Now what?" Her voice sounded entirely different, sort of medium-range, that middle ground between alto and soprano, and grown-up. Before, all she'd emitted was a sullen, childish mumble. I realized these last few minutes were the first time I'd heard her speak when she wasn't bored, or pretending to be, anyway.

I hopped out of the back, facing the room, the shotgun in front me, out of sight from any motel guests who might have been loitering, although there really weren't any-they were all around the bend down at the Paddlewheel.

"Get out," I told her.

She gazed up at me in fear and loathing-she looked a little like Tuesday Weld, Dobie Gillis Dobie Gillis-era, though her cheeks were more sunken; still, it was Tuesday's smirky kiss of a mouth. Her eyes, dark blue and large, showed no sign she'd been tooting recently, neither dilated nor red. She'd apparently spent her time with Jerry G in the private poker room either filling him in or getting filled by him. Or both.

I unlocked the room and she went in first, and sat on the edge of the bed, still in the pink shirt tied under her nice little t.i.tties, her jeans so tight they would have given Brooke Shields pause. The pink purse was beside her, and I reached over and flipped it out of her reach.

She was studying me. Looking to see how much trouble she was in. Looking to see how she could get out of it.

I went to my suitcase on its stand and got out my spare nine millimeter, and left the sawed-off on top of some clothes.

"Let me tell you all about you," I said, pulling up a chair opposite where she sat, but angling it so my back wouldn't be entirely to the door.

"You don't know me," she said.

"You were a cheerleader in high school, but you had a bad reputation, well-deserved. Your grades and activities were just good enough to get you into college, but you either flunked out or got in trouble over drugs, and so you started dancing. Maybe in Chicago. You caught somebody's eye in family circles, maybe Jerry G himself, on a visit...but anyway, when Jerry G did did see you, he knew you were something special, way too cute to waste on dancing or whoring, and anyway you didn't like to think of yourself as a wh.o.r.e, so you became Jerry G's favorite little squeeze. He lavished you with credit cards and cocaine, with never a notion of wasting you in any capacity at the Lucky, and then he got an idea. He knew all about d.i.c.kie Cornell's weaknesses, and he needed somebody to keep an eye on the Brit p.r.i.c.k's activities and ambitions. So you enrolled in community college in River Bluff...probably just a cla.s.s or two...and you applied as a waitress at the Paddle-wheel. I've seen the female help there, it's like walking around inside a men's magazine. But you are exceptionally cute, Chrissy, even by Paddlewheel standards, and when d.i.c.kie interviewed you, you two hit it off. Were you ever a waitress there, I wonder, or maybe a bartender? Or was it straight up to the see you, he knew you were something special, way too cute to waste on dancing or whoring, and anyway you didn't like to think of yourself as a wh.o.r.e, so you became Jerry G's favorite little squeeze. He lavished you with credit cards and cocaine, with never a notion of wasting you in any capacity at the Lucky, and then he got an idea. He knew all about d.i.c.kie Cornell's weaknesses, and he needed somebody to keep an eye on the Brit p.r.i.c.k's activities and ambitions. So you enrolled in community college in River Bluff...probably just a cla.s.s or two...and you applied as a waitress at the Paddle-wheel. I've seen the female help there, it's like walking around inside a men's magazine. But you are exceptionally cute, Chrissy, even by Paddlewheel standards, and when d.i.c.kie interviewed you, you two hit it off. Were you ever a waitress there, I wonder, or maybe a bartender? Or was it straight up to the Playboy Playboy penthouse on the third floor, with hot-and-cold running tootski and all the decadence a nice Midwestern girl could ever dream of?" penthouse on the third floor, with hot-and-cold running tootski and all the decadence a nice Midwestern girl could ever dream of?"

She had started frowning about halfway through that. The frown indicated that in about ten years she'd look like h.e.l.l, even if at the moment she did look heavenly.

She said, "You didn't get everything right."

"What did I miss?"

She didn't say anything.

"Come on," I prompted her. "What did I get wrong?"

"I wasn't a cheerleader. I was a pom-pom girl."

"Even better."

"And I never never danced. I was never a f.u.c.king... danced. I was never a f.u.c.king...stripper."

I could see that. Her b.o.o.bs were even smaller than Candace's.

"What were were you, then?" you, then?"

"I was a hostess at a restaurant."

"An Italian restaurant?"

"Yes, an Italian restaurant! What of it?...Listen, I haven't broken any laws or anything."

"You haven't? When did cocaine get legalized? While I was away on a boat trip?"

"I mean, it's not illegal to fool somebody. Or to tell somebody else about somebody else."

"You mean, not illegal to work for Jerry G and spy on d.i.c.kie Cornell? You could be right, but when you're dealing with men whose business is illegal gambling, or in Jerry G's case, gambling and prost.i.tution and drug-running, legal doesn't come into it. Somebody feels f.u.c.ked over, so somebody else...somebody likeyou, for example...gets killed."

Her chin came up. Her defiance was almost equal to her fear. "Are you going to kill me?"

"I don't think so. You almost got me me killed, though, tonight, so it's a possibility." killed, though, tonight, so it's a possibility."

Her eyes and nostrils flared. "How did I get you...almost get you...killed?"

"You told Jerry G about the conversation you over-heard today-about me 'taking care of' Jerry G for d.i.c.kie bird. And then Jerry G handed me over to a couple of pals of his, who took me for what was supposed to be a one-way boat ride."

The big blue eyes went to half-mast. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"I don't know if you do. I don't know if I care. Tell me, what's on Jerry G's mind tonight?"

She blinked; nice long lashes, under the mascara. "On his mind?"

"Yeah. You just came out of that private poker den of his. What's his mood?"

"Well...good, I guess. Just getting ready for his regular Friday night poker game."

"Didn't seem anxious? Waiting for word on some pressing matter?"

"No. He was in a good mood."

This was encouraging. He clearly felt I was out of the picture. No extra security measures were being put into motion at the Lucky, meaning no reason to think I'd be up against anything out of the ordinary. The only possible hitch was if he expected to hear from the boys in the boat.

But why should should they report back? As far as Jerry G was concerned, I was a dead man. They were just out dumping the garbage. They'd probably either go home or resume their duties at the club, and with as many bouncers as Jerry G employed, on a busy Friday night, the pair might not be missed. they report back? As far as Jerry G was concerned, I was a dead man. They were just out dumping the garbage. They'd probably either go home or resume their duties at the club, and with as many bouncers as Jerry G employed, on a busy Friday night, the pair might not be missed.

I hoped I wasn't kidding myself.

"That Firebird," I said. "Is it yours?"

"Yes."

"You make payments on it?"

"No. It was a gift."

"From Jerry G?"

"Actually, from a nice man in Chicago who's a friend of Jerry G's."

I frowned at her. "A man named Giardelli? Vince Vince Giardelli?" Giardelli?"

"...Yes."

Vince was Jerry G's G.o.dfather, just as Tony was Cornell's, courtesy of wife Angela. That meant the insertion of Chrissy as an under-the-covers agent at the Paddlewheel was a scheme conceived at the highest lowlife level.

I said, "The Firebird-where do you keep the t.i.tle?"

"Well, in my glove compartment. Where else?"

Oh, a safe deposit box maybe, or a fireproof safe. But somehow I knew Chrissy would come through for me, with just the right idiocy.

"I need wheels," I said. "Jerry G stole my car and dumped it somewhere. I'll buy it from you. I'll give you cash, and you'll sign the t.i.tle over."

"I don't want to sell it."

"I wasn't asking. I'll give you four grand."

"It's worth a lot more!"

"I know it is, but because of you, the other day I got beaten to that b.l.o.o.d.y pulp you hear so much about, and then, this evening, almost got killed and dumped in the Mississippi. So I figure you owe me. Anyway, you know what they say-you lose half the value the minute you drive it off the lot."

She thought she understood me now. She unknotted the pink shirt and let the twins out for some air. They were small but perfectly shaped and tilted up, and the nipples were large and puffy and very appealing.

"I told you before," I said, "that I'd rather kill you than f.u.c.k you."

The little Tuesday Weld mouth was twisting into a knowing one-sided smile. "I don't think so."

She stood. Kicked off the sandals. Unzipped the jeans, tugged them off, and as tight as they were, that was fascinating to watch. The jeans left some marks, but nothing that detracted. She had no underpants on, and her pubic triangle was just as yellow as her hair-I was pretty sure she dyed it, and the bush had been cut into a heart shape and thinned a little. Very stylish, and thoughtful, coming from such a self-centered brat.

You must have a very low opinion of me to think I'd fall for this game. That this detestable little c.u.n.t could seduce me so easily. For one thing, I didn't have a rubber handy, and I wasn't sticking an arrow into that that heart unprotected-that reckless I'm not. And for another, she was a detestable little c.u.n.t...or did I say that? heart unprotected-that reckless I'm not. And for another, she was a detestable little c.u.n.t...or did I say that?

I did let her blow me, though, and she was good, very thorough and skilled and while I wouldn't say she enjoyed herself, she seemed to take a certain pride in her work. When she was done, cheeks less sunken, containing a mouthful of me now, she held up a "wait" finger, and padded naked into the bathroom, where she spit it out in the john, flushed it, then went to the sink and partook of my mouthwash.

"You can use my toothbrush if you want," I called. Gracious host that I am.

"Thanks!"

"It's still only four grand for the car."

The water was running. Wasn't sure she heard me.

I got on the phone. The desk at the Wheelhouse was open all night.

"You folks have any clothesline or rope up there?" I asked.

"No, Mr. Gibson. Sorry."

"d.a.m.n. Well...how about duct tape?"

By dawn, the parking lot at the Lucky Devil was almost empty. I supposed Chrissy's red Firebird was a little conspicuous among all those absences, but on the other hand, it was a familiar set of wheels here. I parked back almost to the trees and sat and watched.

The hookers began exiting their trailers with little suitcases, heading for home. After spending fifteen minutes checking his watch every three, the parking lot bouncer went in the casino exit, off-duty apparently. Some dancers and waitresses came for their cars, which were also parked toward the back, leaving me more bare than a Lucky Devil stripper at the end of her third song.

I had the dark-blue windbreaker on over a light-blue polo shirt; also black jeans and running shoes. Also the nine millimeter, in my right hand, in my lap.

At a little after six, Jerry G-still in the gray silk suit and black t-shirt and gold chains-escorted some guests out the exit of the private poker room, n.o.body I recognized from the mid-week game. They had the well-dressed look and confident bearing of the high-stakes player, though they were dragging some, having played all night. And some, presumably, had lost some dough.

Then Jerry G stepped back in and closed the door.

I stuffed the nine millimeter in my waistband, got out of the Firebird and headed quickly toward the building. I had my right hand on the b.u.t.t of the nine mil when I knocked with my left on the poker-room door, not a minute after the last guest had gone.

Jerry G opened the door, initially with a pleasant, curious expression that shifted to shock, then rage, then fear, as I pushed through and shut the door behind me.

I'd been hopeful the room would be empty but for Jerry G, knowing I might face the problem of a lingering guest and/or a barmaid tidying up. And I caught a break-it was just Jerry G and me.

I pushed him toward the table, not rough, not gentle.

"Sit," I said.

He took his usual dealer's seat, shaking his head. "Where are Bubba and Bruno? What the h.e.l.l did you do to them?"

"That redneck went by Bubba? Really?"