Tough Guy: A Hero Club Novel by Jamie Schmidt (the reading list .TXT) 📗

“What’s in it for me?” she teased.

“What do you want?” I said with a smile.

“I want you to put ten dollars on black twenty-two on the roulette table. If you win, we split it fifty-fifty.”

“You’re on.”

“Give me fifteen minutes.”

“Take all the time that you need.” It was a silly idea anyway. Even if Mags found someone, I didn’t have a client here. It was a long shot that Lisa would have tried to hook up with the same company. Of course, I wasn’t asking on behalf of Lisa or my clients. I was thinking about what Miles had said and the remnants of my fantasy last night. Did I have what it took to ace an audition in a town where no one knew who I was?

Mags had hung up, but I still had the phone in my ear and was still looking out onto the busy street below. I could live here. It was warm and the city was exciting. I liked who I was in this place. And it was conveniently far away from my parents.

Feeling a little guilty about not calling him before now, I dialed my dad’s number.

“Did you go broke?” was the first thing he said when he picked up.

“I haven’t even stepped foot in a casino.”

He made a disgusted sound. “You’re wasting your life.”

Unlike my mother, he was actually teasing me, and it made me smile. “Are you doing okay?”

“Your mother narced on me, didn’t she? It was one beer.”

“Just one?” I asked quietly.

“Cross my heart and hope to die.”

I could picture him making the gesture.

“Why did you do it?” There wasn’t any accusation in my voice. Just curiosity. He had hit rock bottom when I was in high school and spent the better part of a year in rehab. It had nearly torn our family apart. Lisa had taken Mom’s side, while I was firmly convinced she had driven him to drink. I didn’t want to think about that now. We had moved beyond it. Or at least I hoped we had.

He sighed. “I wanted to feel normal. I was playing cards with the guys and they were all drinking the first batch of winter ale. I just wanted a taste. I stopped at one bottle.”

I was angrier with his friends than I was with him. They’d been playing cards every Friday all my life. They knew the history.

“I’m proud of you. It must not have been easy to stop at one.”

“Well, that was all they had,” he admitted. “Your mother caught me because I bought a six-pack coming home and tried to sneak it in.”

I winced. “Well, I hope you learned your lesson.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Leave it in the car until she falls asleep.”

“Da-ad,” I groaned, but I knew he was just joking. I heard my mother in the background.

“Is that Lisa?”

“Tell her yes and that she’s doing fine.”

“Is that the truth?”

I hesitated too long in my answer and my mother came on the line. “Lisa, honey. I’ve been worried sick.”

“It’s me,” I said, resting my forehead against the window. I should be given brownie points for not banging my head against it.

“Well, where is she?”

“She’s left Las Vegas.”

“Good. There’s too much temptation in that town.”

She wasn’t wrong. My mind wandered over to Miles. I wanted to spend a lot more time with him, but I was on vacation this week and he wasn’t. I needed to understand that. It’s just that he made me feel like I was important to him, a priority in his life. That was more seductive to me than his talented tongue. Well, maybe not. I had to have a little more of that to make sure.

“Where is she?” my mother repeated.

Good question. “I’ve tracked her down to a . . . um . . . bar in Pahrump, Nevada.” Here’s hoping she didn’t Google it. “I’m going out there today.”

“Pahrump? I’ve never heard of it. I wonder if it’s the new indie dance scene.”

“Maybe,” I drawled out.

“So you’re going to see her today.”

I doubted it. “Hopefully, but she’s not making this easy. She knows I’m here. She could pick up the phone and have a five-minute phone conversation with me.”

“If she’s getting your messages,” my mother said ominously. “Maybe she lost her phone.” That seemed to brighten her day. And since it was better than telling her that Lisa had gone from a bartender to an exotic dancer, and that my current theory was she was now a legal prostitute, I let her believe that.

“I’ll call you when I find her,” I said.

I took a quick shower and got dressed. Mags called back while I was eating breakfast in the buffet in the casino after losing ten bucks on black twenty-two. It had come up red twelve. So close and yet so far.

“Sorry it took so long,” Mags said.

“Bad news. We lost.”

“Easy come, easy go.” I could picture her shrugging. “Anyway, I’ve got good news and bad news.”

“Hit me.”

“See, you’re getting into the casino frame of mind. The bad news is I couldn’t find the company you were thinking of.”

“Yeah, me neither.”

“But there is a company that works with the Zimmerman office in LA. They’re looking for showgirls for a new show based on Travesty.”

“Travesty?”

“It’s the new video game that all the kids are playing. It’s a cross between Clue, Fortnite, and Dance Revolution.”

“Okay,” I said, trying to picture that in my head and failing.

“They’re auditioning all week at the new hotel casino on the Strip, the Odyssey. It’s a video game-themed casino.”

“Really?” I chewed on my bacon. “Can you get me in?”

“For who? Lisa?”

I froze. I couldn’t very well say that it was for me. “Yeah, Lisa.”

“You found her? How is she? How’s her knee?”

I didn’t like to lie, but I was having a hard time digging myself out of this one. “Yup, she’s been bartending and trying to find herself out here. She was stripping at one of the local clubs.”

“Get the fuck out!” Mags screamed.

That was going to get all over the office.