The Bone Triangle Page 5

  “Sorry,” I said. “Did you call fighting three on one a fair fight?”

  “Crazy pendejo,” he mumbled, massaging his skull.

  I walked away, snatching up a few stray hundreds as I went.

  “Hey,” he called after me.

  I glanced back, but kept walking.

  “Watch out for the light. A circle of orangey light. The Beast will come when you are all alone somewhere in the Triangle.”

  “The Triangle?”

  “Yeah, that’s what I said.”

  “What’s the Triangle?”

  Cartoon climbed to his feet and chuckled. “It’s a place, pendejo. You’re standing in the middle of it.”

  I left then, hurrying up the street before his friends could come back for what remained of my cash.

  I’d learned over time that in modern Las Vegas certain areas were ruled by members of the self-styled Community. These people considered themselves lords, and in a way they were correct to do so. Normal people could not hope to face them. Each of these lords held one or more artifacts of power, including one that was exceptionally potent. The truly powerful artifacts operated only in small regions rather than working everywhere. As a rogue, I was someone in possession of a collection of minor objects that were mobile. I could take them with me and use them wherever I wanted.

  Looking at this arrangement of power carefully, I preferred my lot in it. Sure, there were others who could do things far beyond my meager means. But I was glad to trade power for mobility. If nothing else, I was sure I would become immensely bored stuck in one place. Some of the Community members seemed half-mad to me. I suspected it was due to a sort of cabin fever. If they dared step out of the narrow zone where they held sway, they would be helpless in the face of the others. Their artifact could be taken from them, because it wouldn’t work. On the other hand, if they left it at home, who would guard it? Who could they trust? Any henchman would be sorely tempted to take the power for himself, instantly setting himself up as the new local lord.

  No, that lifestyle wasn’t for me. I was a wandering rogue, and, although life was hard, I preferred it this way. I considered myself fortunate to have gotten away from the gang, losing only dollars. They might have taken my sunglasses if they’d realized what the artifact could do. They might have taken everything and found several other objects they could use.

  Walking with a slight limp, I was only two blocks from the Strip now. I could see the bright lights up ahead. Unlike the airport district, the city cared about the Strip, as that was where the tourists came to spend their dollars. Areas like the Triangle could rot, but order was maintained out on the Strip. Understanding that with clarity I’d not possessed previously, I was anxious to return to the bright lights and clean streets.

  I have to admit, after losing most of my five thousand my head was full of dark thoughts. I considered using my sunglasses for theft. The power to open locks at will made stealing laughably easy. I’d thought of doing so before but had always refused. Somehow losing the cash seemed so unfair that I found myself wanting to fix it. To gain instant justice. To take back some of what I’d lost. The idea was seductive.

  Schemes percolated in my head. I wouldn’t rob the casinos, of course. That seemed like the obvious move, but the trouble was every casino in town had about a million cameras watching everyone. They all knew who I was and what I looked like. I could probably take the cash, but I’d be arrested soon after.

  As fast as my head generated objections, darker parts of my mind answered them. I didn’t have to go for the gold. I could enter a closed bank or a vacant hotel room. In my mind’s eye, I saw myself rifling through people’s belongings in the dark.

  I shook my head. I had to resist these ideas. That wasn’t who I was—a thief in the night.

  I was only a block from the Strip now. I already felt better. The lights were glaring, colorful, and bright. I saw people walking up and down the street, cheerful and noisy. It was like coming upon a festival in the middle of the wilderness.

  Something caught my attention: a sound. It was a stealthy sound, a whispering sound. I stopped and looked around. My first thought was that the gang kids had followed me, seeking to finish what they’d started. Maybe I had more hundreds in my pockets. Maybe, if they beat me long enough, more money would come out of me, like a broken ATM.

  I looked around, peering into the dark streets, but no one was nearby. The sounds, I thought, had come from the storm drains. I squatted and listened at the closest of them. It seemed like an odd thing to do, even to me. But if you’d seen all the things I’d seen in this town, you might not think so.

  “You should keep moving,” said a voice over my shoulder. The words were a harsh whisper.

  I whirled around so fast I almost pitched forward on my face. A man stood over me. He wore coveralls and a bandana around his neck. He was unshaven rather than bearded. His dirty cap shaded dark blue eyes.

  “Who are you?” I asked.

  “I’m Jim,” he said, “and you shouldn’t be here, rogue.”

  I stood up and glanced down at the storm drain at our feet. “Gutter Jim?” I asked.

  “I prefer just Jim.”

  “And why do you care about what happens to me?”

  Jim shook his head slowly. “You are a strange one. You shouldn’t be in the Triangle.”

  “I’m looking for someone,” I said, holding out the picture.

  He barely glanced at it. “She’s not here, not anymore.”

  “Do you know where she is, then?”

  Jim took a step down into the storm drain. To me, the drain appeared to be covered by a solid grate over a dark hole, but his right foot vanished into it, as if it were a stairway.

  “It’s tried to eat you several times now, you know,” he said. “For some reason it’s failed. But I wouldn’t count on that forever. It’s nothing if not persistent.”

  I opened my mouth to ask more, but Jim walked down into the drain. It was impossible, but the drain swallowed him up. When there was only his head left, looking away from me, I glanced toward the Strip.

  “Wait,” I said. “Talk to me.”

  Jim didn’t answer. His cap vanished, but I noticed the storm drain didn’t look like itself anymore. Instead of a grate and slit-like opening in the concrete, it resembled a manhole. I could see a ladder with metal rungs going down. Each rung was painted with chipped yellow paint, the kind every city uses on municipal equipment.

  I quickly looked both ways. Ahead was the Strip, brightly lit and normal. A towering fake pyramid stood nearby, lit up by thousands of Christmas-tree lights. The other direction, leading back into the Triangle, was dark and foreboding. Passersby and cars were rare.

  Gritting my teeth and cursing, I stepped down into nothingness. I wasn’t happy about it, but I put my right foot on the chipped yellow-painted rung of the ladder and then put another foot on the next rung down. By the time I had my hands on the ladder, I couldn’t see the lights from the Strip anymore. When my head was all that poked out above the street level, I thought I saw something…odd.

  It was like a soap bubble in space. It made me think of a ripple in the air, or a heat shimmer over a desert highway. The shimmer had a source of light inside it. The light reminded me of an eye.

  Then the eye blinked, and it was gone, as were the streets. I found myself at the base of the paint-chipped ladder. Water flowed over my shoes. I expected an unpleasant odor, but it wasn’t all that bad down here. Perhaps I hadn’t reached the true sewers yet.

  I didn’t see Gutter Jim, but I started walking anyway. There was only one way to go. As I followed the echoing, dripping tunnels, I called out for my host. He didn’t answer.

  I began to doubt my good sense in coming down here. I’d been only a few steps from escaping onto the Strip, and instead I’d decided to come down into the sewers. Worse, I was following a man who clearly didn’t want me here—a man who held some kind of unknown power in this region.

  “You are
in my domain now,” said a voice behind me. “You know that don’t you, rogue?”

  “Of course,” I said, turning around slowly. “I only wanted to ask you some questions.”

  Gutter Jim stood there, his black waders dripping. He had a light on his cap, which he’d snapped on. It made his face harder to see, but I could tell his eyes were less friendly than when we’d met on the streets.

  He snorted at me. “No one comes here. No one comes down into my domain to question me.”

  I put up a hand, palm outward. “I meant no disrespect. I’m a rogue and a visitor, nothing more. I thank you for your warning and ask that you forgive me for trespassing.”

  “Who are you working for?”

  “Karen Swanson,” I said.

  He shook his head. “I don’t know that name.”

  I held out the picture of the girl. It was ripped now, and one corner was soggy. I wondered how long it would last under these conditions. I should probably make a few copies when I got the chance.

  Gutter Jim laughed at me. “You came down here for a girl? What, did you find her on the Internet?”

  I sighed. “Yeah, an online dating site. You know her?”

  He shook his head. He eyed me carefully. “You’ve got guts coming into a domain like this. And you’re lucky, too. Or is it just luck? What kind of powers do you have?” I pulled out my .32 and spun it around on my finger once. I smiled. “This is the best one in my collection.”

  Gutter Jim smirked. I noted that he didn’t seem scared of my pistol. I put it away, not wanting it to look like an overt threat.

  “I heard you popped Meng with that some months ago,” he said. “True guts. I never liked Meng, so I won’t hold it against you. I’m sure she gave you good cause. But don’t think you can put a bullet in me, rogue. Not down here. My mind is still quicker than a bullet.”

  I had my doubts about that, but I smiled and nodded politely. Internally, I was cataloging his powers. He clearly could move around in these watery tunnels at will. He could also open a route down into them from the surface, which others could use if they were quick enough. Was that the extent of his power? I really couldn’t be sure. I intended to be quite polite until I knew more. When facing a lord of the Community in his domain, politeness was always a good policy.

  As it was rude to ask outright, I attempted to broach the subject obliquely. “So far, I’m very impressed with your domain and your powers of movement within it,” I said. This comment seemed to surprise him. He perked up noticeably and the left corner of his mouth twitched into a half smile. I guess he received very few compliments. Who, after all, would praise the man who ruled the sewers?

  “Well,” he said, “I do get around.”

  “Yes!” I said. “That’s what’s different about you than any of the others I’ve met. You aren’t trapped like they are in a single small building. Imagine the hell of being stuck in one small space for so very long. No wonder they are all half-mad. I don’t mean this as an insult, but you combine the power of the rogue with the power of the lord.”

  As we walked and talked, the passages became more dank and the air less sweet. My nose twitched, but I kept following him.

  Gutter Jim looked bemused and curious. His brow furrowed, but he kept smiling. “What do you mean I combine powers of the rogue and the lord, Draith?”

  “I mean you can go where you please and your power still works. What a gift! You possess a truly powerful artifact, one of the greats, and mobility. You have the best of both worlds.”

  He shrugged and a smile tugged at his face. “I’ve often had similar thoughts.”

  “Of course you have!” I said. “Tell me what else you can do. A man who can pop from one spot to another is impressive, but there must be more to it than that.”

  He chuckled. “I’ll tell you one thing: I can spot a con when I see one. You’ll get nothing more from me, Draith. But I will help you find your way out of my domain.”

  As he spoke, something bumped me in the back, I stumbled and turned around. It was a metal ladder coated with chipped yellow paint. The ladder led up to a dark circle. I thought I saw wavering stars in the circle.

  “Well, thanks for your hospitality, Jim,” I said. “I’m sure we’ll talk again.”

  “Don’t be too certain about that.”

  I climbed the ladder and a moment later stood on the Strip. At my feet, a manhole closed itself with a resounding clang. Passing tourists skirted me with gasps. They wrinkled their noses and pointed.

  Grumbling and stamping my wet shoes to dry them, I looked upward. I was at the foot of the Lucky Seven. The red velvet carpet ran up the steps to the glass entrance. I could feel the stares of a dozen security people. Were the cameras already putting my face through recognition systems? I would have been surprised if they weren’t.

  As I reached for the bright gold door handles of the Lucky Seven, a white-gloved hand snatched the door open. A doorman’s face topped by a furrowing brow was thrust outside to regard me with an unfriendly stare.

  “You can’t come inside, sir,” the doorman said.

  “Why not?”

  He pointed to my dripping, slightly muddy shoes with a white-gloved finger. “That’s not appropriate dress.”

  “Yeah, sorry about that. Maybe I could just go around to the side door? I need to talk to Mr. Rostok.”

  At the mention of that name, the man’s face twitched. He stepped outside to speak with me in a loud whisper as other patrons passed by us, going in and out of the casino.

  “Look, Draith,” he said. “You can’t just barge in here whenever you please. You weren’t invited. I checked already.”

  I shrugged, conceding the point. I checked his nametag, which read simply “Jeff.” Rostok had hundreds of employees and I didn’t know them all. Clearly, this man had recognized me.

  “Look, Jeff,” I said as if I’d known him all my life. “This isn’t about an invitation. Tell the big man I have information he may be interested in.”

  “What kind of information?” he sneered.

  “That’s above the pay grade of a man who wears white gloves and a monkey hat,” I said. It was a rude thing to say, but I was having a tough day. I’d been nearly eaten by some kind of interdimensional monster, beaten up by a street gang, robbed, and dunked in a sewer. I wasn’t at my best.

  “I’m security, moron,” the doorman hissed back. “See this?” He reached out with his white glove and ran one finger over the door handle. I saw a shiver in the metal as it reacted to his touch. He smiled at my puzzled expression.

  “That’s sealed now. Welded shut. No one gets through a door once I lock it.”

  I realized he was a rogue and his white gloves had a minor power. Not able to help myself, I slipped on my sunglasses and reached out a hand, trying the door. It made a grinding sound and popped open. I smiled at his dismayed expression and made my sunglasses vanish again.

  “Just tell whoever wants to listen that I know where Ezzie went,” I said.

  Jeff’s eyes widened, then narrowed again. I smiled at his look of defeat. I reached for the shiny brass door handles again.

  “Not that way. You’ll wreck the carpet. Take it around to the side. Someone will meet you there.”

  I did as he asked and waited at a much less ostentatious entrance. This one was a simple steel door with a lonely light overhead. Moths tapped at the caged bulb, keeping me company until the door creaked open.

  “Draith?”

  It was a woman’s voice. I didn’t know her, but she seemed to know who I was. She held the heavy door open for me, and I slipped inside.

  We looked one another over. The woman was wearing sequins, feathers, heels—and little else. She was a showgirl of the old school. A thick layer of makeup made it hard to tell just what her face looked like, but I could tell she was pretty and had a dancer’s body.

  She wrinkled her nose at my shoes. “Did your bathroom flood or something?”

  “Yeah,” I said, decidin
g it was an easy way out.

  “You should have changed. Come on, I’ll take you to the restroom in back.”

  I followed her through the labyrinth of concrete passages. Unlike the gaudy casino, there were few decorations back here. The only sight worth looking at was her long legs wrapped in tight nylons.

  We paused at an employee restroom while I cleaned my shoes as best I could. After going through a lot of hand soap and paper towels, I managed at last to remove the worst souvenirs of my visit to Gutter Jim’s domain.

  “Much better,” the showgirl said when I came out at last.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Esmeralda.”

  I did a double-take, but she didn’t seem to notice. She led me to the private elevator in the back of the Lucky Seven that led up to Rostok’s penthouse offices and apartment. She pressed the call button and we waited.

  The similarity in names between this woman’s and Ezzie’s had my mind spinning as we rode up the elevator together. Rostok had a showgirl working for him who seemed to be very familiar with the back rooms, and a pet lava-creature with the same name…What were the odds?

  Finally, I just had to ask her. “Esmeralda, did Rostok name his pet after you?”

  She smiled. “Maybe. I’ve heard he had a big animal up there. Something exotic.”

  “Named Ezzie?”

  She looked embarrassed. “Yeah.”

  I decided not to tell her he’d named a deadly lava-slug after her. I had the feeling it wouldn’t make any points.

  “So,” I said conversationally, “I’ve heard you and Rostok have a thing going.”

  She flashed her eyes at me, then shrugged. She looked shy for a moment. This was difficult to pull off in a nearly topless bodice with tail feathers, but she managed it.

  “That was a long time ago,” she said. “But it’s over now—it didn’t work out.”

  “Let me guess: he gave you nice things but never took you anywhere except for unusually dark rooms.”

  She shrugged. “He was different back then, when we were together. He stayed in this building, sure, but he took me downstairs. We went to the shows in the ballroom and visited the restaurant and the casino floor. He’s become much more reclusive since then.”