“Maybe our boy’s finally growing up, settling down,” he said.
“Growing up? He’s five hundred years old.”
“He tell you that?”
“Yeah. Sort of.”
“Well. Being old and growing up are two different things.”
“Where’d you meet him?” I asked. “How long have you known him?” I’d had a hard time getting stories about Rick’s past from Rick himself. Dom made it sound like they’d known each other for a long time. Since Rick claimed to have known Coronado, that might have been a really long time.
“That’s always a tricky question with people like us.”
“I know. But one of these days I’m going to get a straight answer out of one of you guys.”
“San Francisco, 1850,” he said. Well then. Straight answer. Unfortunately, that opened a whole new set of questions, and I doubted he was going to give me anything else.
But I had to try. “There for the gold rush? You want to tell me about that?”
“Maybe some other time.”
I had a feeling it wasn’t that he didn’t want to answer. He just liked messing with me. Not that I ever let that stop me with anyone else. “You feel like coming on my show for an interview?”
“As a vampire? As Master of Vegas?” He chuckled. “This may be the one place in the world I can never go out in daylight and no one notices. I’m not ready to tell the world what I am, and I think you’ve got serious balls for doing it yourself.”
That was sort of a compliment. At least, I was going to take it as one. “It never hurts to ask. You’ll let me know if you change your mind?” I said hopefully.
Dom shifted his attention to Ben, who had been sitting quietly, watching us like we were on TV. “So, Ben. You always let her do all the talking?”
He gave a wolfish smile. “Always. She’s a professional.”
Dom laughed, and I was less nervous. Still wasn’t sure I trusted him, but I did believe that he and Rick were friends, and that was something.
“Dom, Rick says you’ve been here since the start, back when all the Mob money started pouring in.”
“You got one straight answer, you expect me to give you more now?”
I scooted forward, to the edge of my seat. “What’s the dirt on Frank Sinatra? What about Elvis? Did you ever meet JFK?”
“What makes you think I have any more dirt on those guys than has come out in the dozens of books and all that have been written on them?”
“Because all those books were written before anybody was willing to publicly acknowledge the existence of vampires.”
He chuckled. “What? You think any of those people were associated with our world? You want me to maybe tell you that Lee Harvey Oswald’s bullets were silver?”
I almost chuckled along with him, then I stopped. My jaw dropped. “What? Holy shit—”
“Just kidding,” he said, making a calming gesture. Then he winked. “Maybe.”
He could deny it all he wanted, it still took a while for my heart to stop racing. The implications were mind-blowing. I’d mused about what would happen if a lycanthrope ever managed to get elected president. But it begged the question, didn’t it: had one already? Oh, God, the research involved: cross-referencing public appearances with phases of the moon, whether or not the White House silver was ever used for state dinners, who had survived assassination attempts. . . And it would still be all circumstantial.
It would be so much easier if he would just tell me.
“See, that’s the kind of dirt I’m looking for,” I said. “And if you would just maybe come on the show for a little chat—”
His smile was thin. “No. Sorry.”
Darn. I pouted.