My best friend, Flash, attracts trouble like an air-conditioned titty bar lures the hot-and-bothered. It's not entirely her fault really; it just comes with the job. Flash is a well-paid snoop for the local rag, the Las Vegas Review-Journal. When you add a pair of double-Denver headlights and red hair with a personality to match, to her National Enquirer proclivities you got one major trouble tractor beam.
Trust me, I should know. My name is Lucky and I am still a casino executive—despite Flash's friendship.
We met years ago during a typical weekend fracas at The Sultan, one of my boss's lesser properties. Actually, the fracas wasn't all that bad—as I recall, only two drunk-and-disorderlies ended up in jail, I filed charges against a particularly loathsome housewife from Simi Valley for soliciting, the NBA players left with their reputations intact, Flash (who was known as Frederika, at the time) earned a nickname that stuck, and I found a friend who could not only drink me under the table and introduce me to interesting men, but who also promised to keep me out of the paper if I kept her out of jail.
What can I say? It sounded like a good deal at the time.
As I mentioned, that weekend the NBA had landed in Vegas.
While Vegas is a great sports betting town, it's not much of an actual sports town. Oh, we had a brief flurry of national attention when Tark the Shark coached the UNLV Runnin' Rebels to the national basketball title back in the seventies. But, since then, the Rebels have retreated back into obscurity, and the Vegas sports scene remains strictly AAA. A fact that doesn't sit well with the power brokers who want Sin City to be perceived as more than a Disneyland for adults.
So, every year we get an exhibition game of some form or another. That year it was basketball—the Lakers and the Celtics. And, in keeping with some inscrutable logic, many of the players had been stashed out of the way at my hotel. I guess we had less sin than some of the other Sin City properties although, as the front desk manager, I could've steered them straight on that line of thinking. But, nobody asked me. No, they just left me to clean up the mess. Lucky me.
The night started out innocently enough. Although you might not know it, it's a well-known local fact that cowboys and truck drivers can drink faster than I can process. By ten-o-clock, several were already sleeping off a day's binge in the tank and I was en route to corral another who was standing on the john in the third stall of the ladies' restroom, leering at the women on either side.
As I ran across the casino, my pager shrilled at my hip. With a practiced motion, I grabbed it without missing a stride. Holding it in front of my face, I squinted to read the message, which was as dangerous as driving down the highway looking in the rearview.
NBA EMERGENCY IN THE LOBBY.
Luck was on my side—I didn't run into anything solid as I did a one-eighty and bolted for the front entrance. Security would have to handle the peeping Tom—my ass would be a grape if the NBA got a black eye.
Skidding to a stop where the carpet of the casino gave way to the marble of the lobby, I quickly took in the crowd milling about. It looked like a hooker's convention as a bunch of under-dressed, over-silicone-and-peroxided females all eyed each other with undisguised loathing. Like an unsuspecting mammal wandering into the Amazon, one basketball player sighting and the whole school of piranha would erupt into a feeding frenzy.
I grabbed the nearest security guy and hissed, "Our ball players are where?"
He looked at me, his eyes as big as saucers. "In their room. The boss man has that angle covered." The boss man was Jerry, our head of security.
"We need to shut this down," I said, trotting out my flair for the obvious. Why women thought stalking was a way to become a member of the Player's Wives Club, I couldn't fathom, but they made me embarrassed to be one of the female tribe.
"Be careful. They're hunting in packs tonight." Tenderly the guard rubbed his face with one hand, the other one he kept on his gun. I could just make out a hand-shaped red welt across his cheek. "Two of 'em got Sergio behind the desk. They disappeared through those doors over there." He pointed across the lobby. "God help him."
"Has security been called?" I asked as I watched one comely young thing trying to work her magic on a young clerk who refused to give ground despite the abject terror written across his features. My young knight was in for a raise—or at least hazardous duty pay.
"They're sending everybody." The guard confirmed.
I didn't have time to respond. When the young woman grabbed my clerk by the throat, I launched myself toward them.
"I want to know," she shouted, "where the players are staying. A room number." With each word she shook the poor guy.
His face was a bright cherry color and his eyes were beginning to bulge as I tried to pry the woman's fingers loose. At six feet barefooted, I'm taller and stronger than most, but I couldn't break her hold. Desperate measures were needed. Without a thought I reared back then cold-cocked her with my elbow. She dropped like a convicted outlaw after the hanging.
"Get those handcuffs on her before she comes to," I barked at the security guard who thankfully had followed me into the fray. I didn't have to ask twice—he dropped to his knees and fell to work.
Reinforcements from security were flooding the lobby as the lid finally blew off the gaggle of females and the claws came out. Shrieking, they attacked each other, the guards, and me, in a wild free-for-all. Two of them met with the same fate as the first as I made my way through the melee toward the front doors. The last thing I needed was for some unsuspecting guest to wander into this bitch-fest. It was past time to bar the gates.
It took two hours, fifty security guards and all of my patience to rid the hotel of the NBA groupies. And here I'd thought the players would be a problem. They'd spent the whole time in their suites with enough pizza to feed the Italian Army, gallons of soda to wash it down, and twenty hours of first run movies on videotape, none the wiser. To their credit, they knew how to keep their zippers zipped, unlike some of the modern-day variety, but don't get me started.
My shift long over, I was tired and royally peeved, when I finally retired to my room just before three a.m. I lived in the hotel at the time. It's a long story and not worth repeating, but I'll give you the short version—I grew up in a whorehouse, got the hell out when I was fifteen and never looked back. My job description included lodging. Fool that I was, I wasn't more specific when I negotiated my contract. So, home for me was a broom closet on the third floor at the back of the property. But, it did have a view of the pool…if you stepped out on the balcony overlooking the dumpsters, leaned out as far as you dared, and craned your neck around to the right.
Anyway, I had just pulled the sheers across the sliding glass door (the drapes were hanging by a thread, so I didn't dare touch them) when I caught movement out of the corner of my eye.
Someone, a tiny figure, balanced for a moment on the railing to the left, then leapt.
The long day and the free-for-all had fried my synapses. All I could do was stare at the empty space.
When realization finally dawned, I eased the door open and slipped onto the balcony. I wasn't going to hurry—if they'd hit the ground from this far up, hurry wouldn't matter. And, if they had managed to snag the railing of the balcony to the room next door, then I wanted to keep my presence unknown.
As I stepped into the darkness, I could see the figure two balconies away, moving quickly. Itching for a fight, I set off in hot pursuit. Fear didn't rear its ugly head as I worked my way over one railing across the balcony, over another railing, a dark chasm below. Normally this sort of daring-do wasn't part of my skill set—heights weren't exactly my thing. But frankly, I was too mad to be scared—a character flaw that haunts me even still.
With height on my side, I closed the gap without alerting my prey—a small female. The diffused light from the pool below was enough that I could make out a few particulars: she wore panties and a bra, nothing else other than impressive nerve. I thought her long hair was red. And her chest…well, let's just say her real job probably involved a pole and earned her major dough.
And she was headed toward an open door. Through the opening I could see long legs—male legs in blue and gold sweats. I could hear laughter, again, all male, a movie played in the background. Great! Only two more balconies to go and our bikini-briefed, well-endowed interloper would hit the Lakers with a splash.
One balcony between us, I covered the space in one stride and a leapt into the void.
My feet hit the deck with a thud as I grabbed for the woman poised on the last railing, ready to leap.
With a startled yelp, she turned, lost her balance, and disappeared into the darkness.
The splash and the delayed wolf-whistles from the guys hanging at the pool bar brought the players out on the balcony.
As I peered over the railing I realized two things: in my hand I held a pair of torn silk panties, and the balcony-hopper was alive and well, and treading water in the swimming pool. We all watched with varying levels of merriment as security fished the woman out of the pool.
As her parting shot, she mooned the players on the balcony and gave them a wave as she strode off, head held high.
And the continuing legend of Flash Gordon was born.
The woman will do anything to get a story.
