Kitty and the Dead Man's Hand Read Online Free PDF Page B

squeezed my shoulders and kissed my hair. “Come on, rock star. Let’s get checked in.”
    The ancient Greek theme continued inside. Placards on the wall advertised amenities like the Dionysus Bar and the Elysium Fields Spa. It was almost intellectual—if not for the wide marble steps leading to a football-field-sized room filled with clanging noises, garish lights, and swarms of people. Hordes of them, all shapes, sizes, ages, and states of dress, from sloppy shorts and tank tops to stylish dresses and slacks. And the smells—concrete, carpet, alcohol, money, sweat, and too many people. Once you went down those steps and into that chaos, there was no easy way out. The casino area was mazelike, the way the tables and machines were arranged and the way that people clustered around them. Apart from the main entrance, I couldn’t see an escape. The place didn’t want you to know where the doors were.
    We had to wait in line to check in, increasing my feeling that I was surrounded and had no way out. I tapped my feet, looked around nervously, and brushed Ben’s hand, hoping the touch would comfort me. But he was also glancing around, his lips pressed in a line.
    “You okay?” I said.
    “Yeah,” he answered, not sounding convinced. “I never liked crowds at the best of times, but now I want to crawl out of my skin.”
    We finally made it to the front desk. I asked the clerk, “Are you usually this full, or is something going on this weekend?”
    “This is unusual,” the woman said. “We’re hosting a big convention. Here, I think I have a flyer.” Reaching under her desk, she produced a one-page flyer. In big, bold letters it announced: WESTERN REGIONAL FIREARM ENTHUSIAST EXHIBITION.
    A gun show. The producer had booked me into the same hotel as a gun show. From a certain perspective, this was hilarious.
    “You’ve
got
to be kidding me,” I said. The clerk maintained her smiling customer-service expression and handed us the packet with our key cards. We moved off to find the elevators.
    Ben took the flyer from me and actually chuckled. “Wow. What are the odds?”
    “Is it too late to change hotels?” I said. “I don’t want to sleep in the same building as a gun show. I can’t believe they booked me at the same hotel as a gun show!”
    Ben shrugged. “It’s probably in a totally different part of the building. We won’t even know it’s there.”
    We found the bank of elevators, which as it turned out was next to the ballroom, where a large sign on an easel announced the presence of the Western Regional Firearm Enthusiast Exhibition. I wouldn’t be able to go to my room without walking past it.
    I didn’t like guns. I had recently learned more about them than I ever wanted to know, including learning how to shoot as a matter of survival. But I didn’t carry one with me. I didn’t
want
to. In my experience, nothing good happened when guns were involved.
    Ben was edging toward the ballroom, craning his neck like he was trying to look in.
    “I probably know some people here,” he said. “I may have to hang out and see if I spot anyone.”
    “And how many of those people are walking around with silver bullets?” I couldn’t tell by looking. Most of the people walking past looked entirely normal. Without the gun-show sign I’d never have suspected any of them of being gun-toting maniacs. Dangerous people ought to have signs on them, facial tattoos and studded collars, that sort of thing. Named something like Brutus.
    Ben tilted his head thoughtfully. “At least a few, I’m sure.”
    Oh, this weekend was not starting out well. “I really doubt you know anyone here. Let’s just concentrate on the tasks at hand.”
    Then a voice called across the hallway. “O’Farrell? Ben O’Farrell?”
    Approaching us from the ballroom was the kind of figure I expected to see at a gun show: linebacker big, bald, wearing worn jeans and a ton of leather. A tattoo of barbed wire in black ink crawled around