Fallen 2. Torment(80)

tried to mimic his smooth technique, but her arms were wobbly as she lowered herself

through the skylight. She couldn't see much below her, but felt Miles's strong grip around

her waist sooner than she'd expected.

"You can let go," he said, and when she did, he lowered her gracefully to the

floor. His fingers spread out around her rib cage, just a thin black T-shirt away from her

skin. His arms were still around her when her feet touched the tile. She was about to

thank him, but when she looked up into his eyes, she got tongue-tied.

She backed out of his grasp too quickly, mumbling apologetically for tripping

over his feet. Both of them leaned up against the vanity, nervously avoiding eye contact

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by staring at the wall.

That should not have happened. Miles was just her friend.

" Hello! Anyone going to help me?" Shelby's ribbed-stockinged feet were

dangling from the skylight, kicking impatiently. Miles moved under the window and

roughly grabbed her belt, easing her down by the waist. He released Shelby a lot more

quickly, Luce noticed, than he had released her.

Shelby bounded across the gold-tiled floor and unlocked the door. "Come on, you

two, what are you waiting for?"

On the other side of the door, glamorously made-up black-clad waitresses bustled

by in sequined high heels, trays of cocktail shakers balanced in the crooks of their arms.

Men in expensive dark suits crowded around blackjack tables, where they whooped like

teenage boys each time a hand was dealt. There were no slot machines clanking and

banging on an endless loop here. It was hushed, and exclusive, and endlessly exciting-but it wasn't anything like the scene they had watched in the Announcer.

A cocktail waitress approached them. "May I help you?" She lowered her

stainless steel tray to scrutinize them.

"Ooh, caviar," Shelby said, scooping up three blini and handing one to the others.

"You guys thinking what I'm thinking?"

Luce nodded. "We were just going downstairs."

When the elevator doors opened onto the bright and glaring lobby of the casino,

Luce had to be pushed out by Miles. She could tell they'd finally come to the right place.

The cocktail waitresses were older, tired, showing a lot less flesh. They didn't glide

across the stained orange carpet; they thumped. And the patrons looked much more like

the ones they had seen crowding the table in the glimpsing: overweight, middle-class,

middle-aged, sad, wallet-emptying automatons. All they had to do now was find Vera.

Shelby maneuvered them through a cramped maze of slot machines, past clots of

people at roulette tables shouting at the tiny ball as it spun in the wheel, past big, boxy

games at which people blew on dice and threw them and then cheered at the outcome,

down a row of tables offering poker and strange games with names like Pai Gow, until

they came to a cluster of blackjack tables.

Most of the dealers were men. Tall, hunched-over, oily-haired men, bespectacled

gray-mustached men, one man wearing a surgical mask over his face. Shelby didn't slow

to gape at any of them, and she was right not to: There, at the far back corner of the

casino, was Vera.

Her black hair was swept up in a lopsided bun. Her pale face looked thin and

saggy. Luce didn't feel the same emotional outpouring she'd felt when she looked at her

previous life's parents in Shasta. But then again, she still didn't know who Vera was to

her besides a tired, middle-aged woman holding a deck of cards out for a half-asleep

redheaded woman to cut. Sloppily, the redhead picked up the deck in the middle; then

Vera's hands started flying.

Other tables in the casino were overcrowded, but the redhead and her diminutive

husband were the only two people at Vera's. Still, she put on a good show for them,

snapping the cards out with an easy dexterity that made the work look effortless. Luce

could see an elegant side of Vera that she hadn't noticed before. A flair for the dramatic.

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"So," Miles said, shifting his weight next to Luce. "Are we gonna ... or ..."

Shelby's hands were suddenly on Luce's shoulders, practically wedging her into

one of the empty leather seats at the table.

Though she was dying to stare, Luce avoided eye contact at first. She was nervous

that Vera might recognize her before she even had a chance. But Vera's eyes passed over

each of them with only the mildest of interest, and Luce remembered how different she

looked now that she'd bleached her hair. She tugged at it nervously, not sure what to do

next.

Then Miles plunked down a twenty-dollar bill in front of Luce, and she

remembered the game she was supposed to be playing. She slid the money across the

table.

Vera raised a penciled-in eyebrow. "Got ID?"