Skin Trade(77)

“Maybe you can all just wait outside and I’ll talk to the tigers alone.” I got out of the car, into the dimness of the parking garage.

Sonny and Spider got out of their SUV, but I didn’t want to talk to any more men. I slammed the door and started for the spot marked Elevator. I heard the doors opening and shutting. If I got to the elevator first, I was going up to the casino without them. Maybe it wasn’t the smart thing to do, but the thought of Edward watching the doors close without him gave me a certain shallow satisfaction. Maybe he understood that I’d had enough teasing, because he hurried to catch up with me in front of the elevator.

“Going up by yourself would be stupid, and that is something you aren’t,” he said, and sounded angry.

“I’m tired of explaining myself to you or anyone else.”

“I’ve sent Bernardo and Olaf to talk to SWAT, so you can talk to me. Is there something else I should know?”

“No,” I said.

“Liar,” he said.

I glared at him. “I thought it was just Ted who fantasized about lesbians.”

“You’re Jean-Claude’s human servant; how closely tied are you metaphysically, Anita?”

And just like that, he’d guessed what I didn’t want to tell them.

“I’ve never been to St. Louis,” Bernardo said, from just behind us. “What female vamps does Jean-Claude have?”

“They didn’t seem to like Anita enough to sleep with her,” Olaf said.

The doors opened, and I said, “One more word about this topic and I’m getting in this elevator by myself.”

“Touchy,” Bernardo said.

“Drop it,” Edward said, “both of you.”

They dropped it, and we all got in the elevator. Bernardo was smiling all over himself. Olaf was scowling. Edward’s face had gone to unreadable. I leaned against the back wall and fought to find an expression that wouldn’t make it worse. Was it better that two of them thought I’d been with another woman than that I shared detailed memories with vampires? Yeah, it was. It would have been even better if Edward had believed it.





27




OLAF WAS WILLING to throw his leather over everything, but Edward passed out the dark windbreakers with U.S. Marshal on them to all of us. “If this is a social visit, won’t this be the wrong message?” Bernardo asked.

“The new law makes it almost impossible for any of us to pass for civilians,” Edward said. “We can’t enter a casino packing this much firepower without badges showing. The first time they see us on the security cameras, they’ll think something bad is happening.”

We couldn’t argue with that, actually. It took us a few minutes to get jackets over our clothes so that most of the weapons were hidden. I was really going to have to remember to pack my own nifty dark blue windbreaker next time. I always remembered the weapons and the badges, but I did keep forgetting some of the other stuff. Olaf slid everything out of sight in his leather jacket. “It is invisible under this jacket.”

“You don’t like having a badge, do you, big guy?” Bernardo asked, as he fluffed the jacket over all of his own weapons.

“I like some of it, but I don’t like the jacket.”

I had to take the backpack off, and just slid the MP5 on its sling so it was under the jacket, and put the backpack on over the jacket. The MP5 was the thing most likely to freak the mundanes and the casino security.

Edward had replaced his own Heckler amp; Koch MP5 with the new FN P90. It was very science fiction looking, but he swore once I fired it, I’d trade in my MP5. He’d said the same thing about the mini-Uzi that had been the gun that the MP5 had replaced for me, so I didn’t argue. Edward knew more about guns than I ever would.

We stepped out of the elevator and into the casino. It was bright, but oddly elegant in its gaudiness. The Indian theme continued, with more animal statues and painted plants on the walls, with real plants huddled under full-spectrum lights, so it gave the illusion of sunlight coming through a jungle canopy. Then there were the slot machines. Rows and rows of them. There were blackjack tables, and craps being rolled farther in; people were everywhere. The noise was not as much as you’d think, but it was still a room full of movement and that energy people get when they’re on vacation and trying to enjoy every minute of it, as if trying to make up for all that work.

Edward shook his head, bending over me, so he could be heard over the noise. “It’s too open, and too many places to hide, all at the same time. Casinos suck for bodyguard work.”

I looked around the crowd of people, the slot machines, the noise, the color. There was so much to look at that it was hard to actually “see” anything.