Free Duncan Delaney and the Cadillac of Doom by A. L. Haskett Page B

helped Sven to a chair and brought him a glass of water.
    “I’m so sorry, Mr. Delaney,” Sven said. “I could cry.”
    “Angela,” Sheila said, “you represent this, this … person?”
    “That’s right.”
    “Not anymore you don’t.”
    “Sorry?”
    “Either he goes or I do.”
    Angela smiled sadly. “I’ll be sorry to lose you.”
    “You’re keeping him over me?”
    “If you change your mind, I’d love to have you back.”
    Sheila stared at Angela for a long moment, her face red and her eyes sharp. She turned and stomped away. Angela dusted Duncan off.
    “You should care more about your appearance,” she said sternly.
    Inside she smiled. A crowd, attracted by the commotion, gathered by his paintings and eyed him thoughtfully. Duncan turned to see Pris reach the door.
    “I’ve got to go.”
    “Watch out for Sheila,” Angela said. “She’s not all there.”
    He burst onto Melrose in time to see the Cadillac’s taillights fly from him. He heard motorcycles. Thundering Harleys ringed him. Sheila Rascowitz stopped before him. Samantha MacDonald and two others circled like gluttonous wolves. If he was not so scared, four women on motorcycles dressed like fugitives from a Marlon Brando fan club would have been comical.
    But, he realized, these women are perfectly capable of beating the piss out of me .
    “I’ll tell you once,” Rascowitz yelled above the roar of the bikes, “stay away from her.”
    The sound of engines lingered long after the women vanished around a corner. Duncan returned to the fence where he had left his Schwinn. Only a cut chain remained.
    I’ve had problems with women before, he thought as he walked back to his studio, but never like this .

 
    Six
     
    Benjamin was sitting alone at a black jack table when he spied Howard Lomo and Leroy Kern. He had arrived at the casino two hours before, and the four red chips he began with had spawned a multitudinous pile in an assortment of colors. The dealer was a Hispanic looking man several years older than Benjamin, with a gut under his vest and piercing black eyes beneath wire rimmed glasses. Benjamin considered relinquishing his seat before they spotted him, but he would forfeit his fifty-dollar bet, and he was more curious about how Kern and Lomo had regained his trail than he was alarmed by the fact that they had.
    “In -surance,” said the dealer.
    The dealer showed an ace. Benjamin held two tens. He put a twenty-five dollar chip out. The dealer took it and flipped his hole card. A queen.
    “Blackjack,” said the dealer.
    Leroy Kern poked Howard Lomo and pointed to Benjamin. Lomo wore dark glasses which roughly concealed the shiner around his right eye. Leroy Kern wore a dirty bandage over his nose and a brace around his neck. They settled on stools to his left and to his right.
    “I feel a run of bad lack coming,” Benjamin said, but he left his bet on the table.
    “Good morning, gentlemen,” said the dealer, “will you be playing?”
    “We just want a word with our friend,” Lomo said. “Ain’t that right?”
    “That’s right,” said Leroy Kern.
    “I’m amazed you boys found me. Considering your general lack of competence and all.”
    “Shut up and play.”
    Lomo surveyed the casino. Benjamin was dealt a ten and a deuce. The dealer gave himself an ace up.
    “In -sur -ance.”
    Benjamin nodded no. The dealer looked at his hole card and put it back face down. Benjamin waved off another card.
    “He’s alone,” Lomo said.
    “Are you nuts?” Kern asked. “Standing on a twelve against an ace?”
    The dealer turned up his card. A six. He busted with a jack and a nine.
    “You play your way,” Benjamin said. “I’ll play mine.”
    “We’re not here to play, boy.”
    Something poked Benjamin. He looked down. Lomo held a blue steel thirty-eight special against Benjamin’s ribs. This was his old throw down gun, with a hair trigger and the serial number filed off. He had left his forty caliber duty weapon