Shooting On the Strip Read Online Free PDF

national restaurant chain before going on to the casino—The Lucky Stiff.
    The Lucky Stiff was everything you might imagine a lesser casino to be—way too colorful, way too noisy, and way too crowded with people who didn’t appear affluent enough to be gambling away their money.
    A young man with slicked back dark brown hair approached us. He was wearing jeans, a western shirt, a sport coat, and cowboy boots.
    “Howdy! Welcome to the Lucky Stiff! Where would you like to start?”
    I thought I’d like to start with washing and restyling his hair, but I didn’t say so. In fact, I didn’t say anything. I thought Luke should take the lead on this because I guessed he could do the award presentation thing better than I could. He’d certainly had more experience with it.
    “Are you Gus Mahaffey, by any chance?” Luke asked.
    “Uh, no…’fraid I ain’t,” he said. “Gus is one of our blackjack dealers. He in any trouble?”
    “No, just the opposite,” said Luke. “We’re here to present him with an award.”
    “Heck! I’ll get somebody to fill in for him, and then I’ll bring him over. Why don’t you wait at the bar?”
    “We’ll do that.” Luke put his hand at the small of my back and led me to the bar.
    The bartender was a woman with straight black hair that hung past her shoulders. She gave Luke an appraising look before asking, “What can I get you?”
    “I’d like a white wine,” I said.
    “Make that two please,” Luke said.
    She sat the wine glasses in front of us, poured the wine, and quoted us a price. Luke put the money plus a tip onto the bar.
    While we were waiting for Gus, we stared at each other. Luke had the dreamiest sapphire blue eyes I’d ever seen. My gaze wandered down to his full lips. My own lips parted. I wet them with the tip of my tongue.
    “Penny?” he asked with a devilish grin.
    He knew me far too well to need to offer a penny for my thoughts.
    “You’ll need to do better than a penny.” I smiled. “These thoughts…or maybe I should say plans …don’t come cheap.”
    Luke ran his hand slowly up my arm, over my shoulder, and then traced half the vee neck of my blouse. “I’m intrigued.”
    Before our flirtation could go any farther, Gus Mahaffey joined us. I was a little disappointed. But then, as soon as we got this matter dealt with, the sooner we could get back to our hotel.
    “Hello,” said the man in a voice as smooth and rich as caramel. His skin was a café au lait color, and he had light brown eyes. “I’m Gus Mahaffey. Bucky said you wanted to see me.”
    “That’s right,” said Luke, turning to Gus. “Is there somewhere we could talk privately?”
    “Sure. How about that corner table?” He nodded toward a table in a more vacant area of the room.
    “That’ll be fine.”
    Luke and I followed Gus over to the table, and we all sat down.
    “I hope he wasn’t pulling my leg, but Bucky said I’d won some sort of prize or something,” said Gus.
    “Well, he’s absolutely right,” said Luke. “You have. You were the one hundredth customer of the quarter for A and E Rentals, and we have a hundred-dollar gift card for you to Landonbury Steakhouse.”
    “Really?” Gus broke into a wide grin. “How about that?”
    “Congratulations,” I said.
    “Thank you!”
    Luke presented Gus with the gift card, and Gus thanked us again.
    “Do you mind if we ask you just a few questions about your experience with A and E Rentals?” Luke asked.
    “No. Fire away.”
    Luke asked Gus about what he was using the truck for on the night in question. Gus never hesitated as he told us he’d been putting some of his grandmother’s furniture in storage.
    His lips tightened. “She’d become too infirm to take care of herself, and we all work so there was no alternative but to move her into assisted living.”
    “Hey, some of those places are really ritzy!” I was doing my best to be positive. It was apparent it had been hard on Gus to move his grandmother