The Assassin (Badge of Honor 5)

There are some people in here now who look like gamblers, as opposed to the Bible Study Group who was in here earlier. But where is it written that a gambler has to wear a two-tone coat and a pastel shirt open to his navel, like that clown at the end of the table? Or, for that matter, where is it written that a Mafioso cannot buy his clothes at Brooks Brothers and look like he went to Princeton?

He watched Penny gamble. She grew intense, to the point of pursing her lips. He had watched her apply lipstick in the room, after she had put on her underwear, before she had put her dress back on. It had been a curious mixture of innocence and eroticism. She had seen him watching her in the mirror and pursed her lips in a kiss.

She quickly lost most of her chips, and then as quickly began to increase the size of the two stacks before her, subconsciously making the stacks even as the game progressed.

She's good at this. Better than I am. I always lose my shirt playing blackjack.

She bumped her rear end against him, and when he looked down, she nodded her head toward her chips.

"Not only economical," she said. "But maybe even profitable."

"The evening is young," he said.

He saw that the clown in the pastel shirt at the end of the table was looking at him curiously.

You could be a mobster, my friend. The question is, have you made me as a cop?

"Nature calls, Penny," he said. "I'll be right back."

She nodded absently.

He glanced around the room, found the rest rooms sign, and walked to it. The men's room was empty. He relieved himself, and then looked at himself in the mirror.

You don't look like a cop. Hay-zus was right about that. On the other hand, you have achieved a certain fame, or infamy, for taking down Mr. Warren K. Fletcher, aka the Northwest serial rapist, and also by getting yourself shot, getting your picture in the newspapers and everything. Is that why El Mafioso has made you?

You don't know he's made you. He may just be wondering where a nice, clean-cut young man like you gets the money to play games in here. Or he may be wondering how he can get a good-looking blonde like the one you're playing with.

And why are you so sure that guy is wrong? He probably has a used car lot in Wilkes-Barre or someplace.

Matt turned from the men's room mirror and went back into the casino. He looked around the room again, but didn't see anyone who attracted his interest. The only guy who was at all interesting was the Mafioso Used Car Salesman at Penny's table.

Penny turned and smiled when she sensed he was again standing behind her.

"Whatever you were doing, do it again," she said. "Look!"

She now had four stacks of chips in front of her, each ten, eleven, maybe twelve chips high.

"You want to quit when you're ahead?"

"Can I have fifteen more minutes?"

"Sure."

A waitress appeared, in a regular uniform, not the short skirt and mesh stockings of Las Vegas, and asked if she could get them something to drink.

"Not for me, thank you," Penny said.

"Could I get some black coffee?" Matt asked.

When the waitress delivered the coffee, Matt felt the eyes of the Used Car Salesman Mafioso on him again, and this time met his glance. The man smiled at him.

Now what the hell does that mean? That he's made me? And is laughing at me? Or that he thinks maybe we went to elementary school together, but isn't sure?

Matt, just perceptibly, nodded his head.

His eyes dropped to the chips in front of his new friend. He was playing quarters too, but he wasn't having the luck Penny was. He was down to six chips, and he lost those in the next two hands.

He turned from the table and walked toward the cashier's window. A woman, a peroxide blonde with spectacular breastworks, trailed after him.