Free Find This Woman by Richard S. Prather Page B

with the muscles corded in my forearm, and my shoulder behind it and my body pivoting and slamming ahead behind my whole arm. I landed right in the middle of his mouth and gave my fist a little twist as it landed, and it made a hell of a loud noise. Then it was quiet for the length of time it took him to hit the carpet. He'd be out for quite a while, and he was never going to be very happy with his mouth again.
    There was no way out of here except the way I'd come in, so I stepped over Victor Dante, went to the door, and opened it. There was nobody in the hallway yet, so I put the short-barreled .38 in my coat pocket and kept my right hand on it and walked back into the Devil's Room.
    One thing about it, there must have been close to a thousand people here in the casino. This was the first night of Helldorado, and the citizens were getting off to a roaring start. There'd been a big parade during the day, bands playing, a rodeo, the feeling of a party when you're dressed up in costume. There'd been drinking, too, of course, because the bars in Las Vegas stay open twenty-four hours a day, and there was a sort of drunken excitement in the air.
    I was glad of the crowd, because I didn't think even Dante would turn anybody loose with a gun to pop away at me in his own club—or in any other crowd, for that matter. I didn't think he would, but it was small comfort because I couldn't be sure. And, anyway, even if I were relatively safe in here, I couldn't stay here forever, and outside I was gone. I had to stay with this crowd. I looked at my watch. After midnight. It wouldn't be dawn for five or six hours, and even though daylight might help me once I was outside, I knew for sure that I couldn't last in here that many hours. But walking out now would be suicide. The room of a horned devil was an appropriate place for me to be now, because I was sure between the horns of a dilemma.
    I walked ahead through the crowd, wondering how a man might be killed in a bunch of people like this. There was always a chance for a knife in the ribs; or maybe some boy would know enough to twist my hand behind my back, yank and press on my thumb and little finger, and simply lead me helpless out of the place and into that long blackness. I didn't know what faces to watch for, but I had to keep moving. I was well into the crowd now and I'd been glancing at the door behind me, so I saw old Bushy Hair, the boy with the frightened eye, come through with two friends. Friends of his. At least I got a look at them as they split up, one going left, one right, one into the crowd after me. I wasn't hard to spot because my six foot two stuck the white hair on my stupid head up over most of the crowd. It had taken these boys a little while to get this close, but I figured it was undoubtedly because they'd taken time to set up men outside—and probably send more through the front.
    I kept moving, and I could hear the buzz of conversation, and the dealers at the crap tables intoning, "Here goes; comin' out, we're comin' out. Ten. Ten's a winner." And at another table a dealer with a more poetic streak: "I have a new roller, a new bowler, are you set with a bet?" All very happy and carefree.
    I moved through the crowd and looked at every face I could, and that's how I happened to see her. Just inside the entrance leading from here into the main lobby was one of the big posters that are displayed in all the hotels listing the acts in the current floor show. She was standing with her profile toward me, looking at the big poster about fifteen feet from her. But I knew what she was looking at, because she probably wasn't used to it yet, and right at the top it said, "LORRAINE," in big black screaming letters. Not "Sweet Lorraine," but it was the same terrific profile all the way down.
    The long black hair wasn't loose as it had been when she'd done her fire dance, but was coiled in a bun at the back of her head à la Faye Emerson, and I was close enough to see