Free Find This Woman by Richard S. Prather

that of the Satan peering down at the highway: a monstrous face with the gaping door for its mouth. And through the mouth a steady stream of chattering and laughing people walked, some coming out but more going in. The Inferno was getting a big play.
    The facade was impressive, but it was like the frosting on a cake: there was more, and better, inside. I went in. This was another multimillion-dollar hotel, little different from the others except for the trimmings. And except for the casino: the gambling room called the Devil's Room. The main lobby was jammed with people milling around, and I headed through the crowd for the entrance, just off the main lobby, into the casino. The Devil's Room was larger by far than the lobby, and it contained, in addition to what looked like close to a thousand people, a hundred or so slot machines, roulette and crap tables, and a long bar parallel to the left wall. I made my way to the bar and ordered a bourbon and water, not only because I needed it, but because I wanted to look the place over and get the lay of the land before I tackled Dante in his den.
    The really impressive thing about the casino was the walls themselves. The ceiling was black, and all four walls from ceiling to floor were covered with scenes that looked, quite literally, like hell. Or at least what one would imagine hell to be like. There were hundreds of naked figures: in chains, being consumed by fire, being whipped or beaten or stretched on racks. It seemed that all the tortures of all time were being employed on the straining figures, but on no face was there any expression of pain, or any expression at all. These were blank, set faces with dull, staring eyes, and all the faces were exactly the same. These were the eternally damned and the eternally dying who could never die, existing forever till all senses were dead and living itself was death. It made me wonder, idly, what heaven would be like.
    I drained my glass, managed to get the bartender, and asked him where Victor Dante's office was. He pointed toward the back of the casino and said there was a door in the corner, a hallway beyond the door, and Dante's office was across the hall, on the right.
    I walked through the crowd, went across the hall, and knocked on the door. A voice inside said, "Come in."
    I stepped inside the door and stopped. Victor Dante sat behind a large black desk and he looked up at me and his face dropped fifty degrees, and finally he said, "You son of a bitch."
    It was the same guy, all right.

Chapter Eight

    I STOOD completely still for a second after I stepped inside the door, and the incongruous thought struck me that for a relative stranger in Las Vegas I was sure running into a lot of people I knew. First Lorraine, and now the frozen-faced, foul-mouthed character who'd been in her dressing room last night. I knew that when I had time to figure out what this meant it should help clear a few things up for me, but right now I just didn't have the time.
    We both recovered about the same moment and we both came up with the same first idea, but I was faster than he was in the first place, and his gun was in the drawer of his desk. I snapped my right hand up and flipped out my .38 and he stopped moving with the drawer halfway open. This was Sure Thing Dante, and the only sure thing if he jerked out a gun was that he'd be dead, and he knew it. But he looked right back at the revolver pointing at him and his little, far-apart eyes were just as cold and dark and empty as the open muzzle of my gun.
    I kicked the door shut behind me and glanced around the room to make sure we were alone. I said, "Just for calling me a son of a bitch, you son of a bitch, I'm going to bust your damned head. Imagine what I'm going to do to you for the rest of it."
    This was the first time I'd heard him use ordinary words, and he said, quietly now, "You're a stupid man, Mr. Scott."
    I was tired of this guy. He piled insult on insult. But I wanted to ask him so