Free Death On the Flop by Jackie Chance

again, I hustled to the elevator and pressed the down button. Thirty seconds later, the arrow dinged. I jumped in with a nod to the solitary woman inside, who pulled a wad of cash out of her bra and began counting. She ignored me as I surveyed her from out of the corner of my eye. She had on some calf-high knock-off boots and an outfit that was a kaleidoscope of colors and textures. We’d almost reached the casino when I looked up and saw the two of us reflected in the mirrored doors. We looked like we’d been dressed by the same clothier.
    Swell. A couple hours in Vegas and not only was I acting like a working girl but I looked like one too.

Six

    After an hour of scouring the hotel casino with no luck and not a little anxiety that I would bump into Electric Blue Rambo at every turn, I still hadn’t found Ben. I had found people who remembered seeing him, not coincidentally, in the vicinity of the famed Steely Stan. I had a couple of players ask me if I was one of Steely’s Squeezes (as I found out they were called). Woo-hoo. Great compliment. So now, not only was I looking like a whore, but I was looking like one of a jerk’s whores.
    Nice.
    I decided not to ask around about Stan Trident anymore, although I had made some progress getting a location on my brother. While women see a resemblance to Colin Farrell, men for the most part either a) don’t know who he is (as opposed to women of all ages who know every sexy bad boy star) or b) think Ben reminds them of their best friend or their favorite cousin. Must be a pheromone thing.
    The last Ben sighting had been at a poker table that he’d gotten up from abruptly—never returning to finish his play. I thought maybe he’d been losing, but the woman he’d been playing next to assured me he’d had plenty of chips in front of him. He’d never returned to claim them or her (she’d made an interesting offer of entertainment after the game was over).
    That concerned me. The money more than the woman. Ben found women without any trouble. In fact, that might be it after all—he might have gone for a pit stop and run into the coeds from earlier and gone up to our room for a quickie. Sex with a pair might be worth a couple hundred lost dollars. He was stupid that way. I went to the house phone and dialed our room. It rang three times without being answered before going to voice mail. I left a message that I would be up to the room in ten minutes and everybody better be dressed when I got there.
    It took me nearly that long to hula my way through the roulette tables and surf my way past the slots. I didn’t think that my amazement in the amount of money spent to make these casinos seem like the real paradise would ever wear off—in fact it grew each time I walked through a new room in a casino. I would notice something new, like the giant-sized blown glass surfer riding a blue glass wave decorated with lifelike bubbles and foam. Upon closer inspection, I decided it might not be glass at all but crystal. Sheesh.
    I shook my head. It seemed horribly wasteful and irresistibly fascinating at the same time.
    I was solo in my trip up in the elevator, proof, I suppose, that activity does slow down in Vegas somewhat in the wee hours before dawn. Considering the night I’d already had, I wasn’t in the mood for a kama sutra experience, I paused with my room key poised above the slot and decided to knock. No squeals, calls or other noise. Goody, maybe Ben was tucked away safely in bed alone.
    I slid the key in and pushed the door open to disaster.
    “Benjamin Cooley,” I shouted, letting the door ease closed behind me. “I cannot believe that you trashed our room for a couple minutes of wild sex. Do you know what this is going to cost ?”
    It’s incredible what expectation does to a mind. I just knew that the lamp knocked to the floor and the coffee table swept clear of its water glass, magazine and remote had the look of a pair looking for a place to couple.
    Then I saw