A twisted, fast-paced thriller about a wisecracking con man and his sideshow troupe of small time criminals who accidentally become the most popular performers on the Las Vegas Strip. A sex-crazed midget Elvis and safecracking swami highlight this cast of social delinquents who suddenly find themselves at the center of a deadly corporate cover up. Armed with little more than street smarts, this band of misfits fight an uphill battle against a vicious billionaire, a perverted cop and betrayal from within as they race the clock not only to save themselves, but prevent the biggest catastrophe in American history.
A twisted, fast-paced thriller about a wisecracking con man and his sideshow troupe of small time criminals who accidentally become the most popular performers on the Las Vegas Strip. A sex-crazed midget Elvis and safecracking swami highlight this cast of social delinquents who suddenly find themselves at the center of a deadly corporate cover up. Armed with little more than street smarts, this band of misfits fight an uphill battle against a vicious billionaire, a perverted cop and betrayal from within as they race the clock not only to save themselves, but prevent the biggest catastrophe in American history.
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Overview
A twisted, fast-paced thriller about a wisecracking con man and his sideshow troupe of small time criminals who accidentally become the most popular performers on the Las Vegas Strip. A sex-crazed midget Elvis and safecracking swami highlight this cast of social delinquents who suddenly find themselves at the center of a deadly corporate cover up. Armed with little more than street smarts, this band of misfits fight an uphill battle against a vicious billionaire, a perverted cop and betrayal from within as they race the clock not only to save themselves, but prevent the biggest catastrophe in American history.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780998987217 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | SquidHat Records |
| Publication date: | 10/01/2017 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 328 |
| File size: | 1 MB |
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
THE FABULOUS. SPORTS BOOK.
WEDNESDAY 3:07 PM
Bill Revson had crossed the country to stop the most dangerous mass murderer in American history, yet all the chain-smoking scientist cared about at the moment was the outrageous bet proposed by the man in the orange Hawaiian shirt seated beside him.
"If I win you'll pay me $10,000, and if I lose I buy you a hot dog?"
"That's the bet," agreed gravel-voiced Jimmy Dot, fireplug stocky with a fuzzy-bald head and dark whiskers that kept the barber shop on its toes twice a day.
"It's a bet you can't possibly win."
"Just keep thinking that," smirked Dot as he took a hit of his dark Robusto cigar, the aroma of rich tobacco pleasing him.
As the men shook hands to confirm the bet, the slender middle-aged lab geek was unaware that this was just the first in a long string of absurdities in which he would play a starring role during his brief stay at The Fabulous, a gleaming shard of ice soaring seventy-seven stories into the desert sky above the Las Vegas Strip. A hotel/casino renown for stimulating every one of the senses. A futuristic orgy of recreational debauchery where the most unbelievable fantasies could come true, and often did.
Jimmy Dot looked a decade older than his thirty-eight years and had a different orange floral-print shirt for every day of the week, which he wore over black slacks and army boots. Hung out at the sports book most afternoons doing both the Los Angeles Times and New York Times crosswords, enjoying the pride of accomplishment on days he was able to complete the latter. Garnering inspiration from being around suckers who bet the rent on other peoples' ability to accomplish something. Life and death with every bounce of a ball. Yelling at the gigantic ultra HD televisions as if the players could hear them.
Bill Revson comprehended the greed that drove the crazed gamblers in the sports book to vigorously cheer on their teams, just as he comprehended the greed that motivated the killer he had followed across the country. But he did not for one second understand Jimmy Dot.
"Why a hot dog?" Revson hated how cigar smokers fouled the air of those around them, coughing loudly to make his displeasure clear. "Why not a steak? Or cash? Why would you risk so much money on a bet you can't possibly win? It doesn't make any sense."
"Not to a Poindexter like you," Dot told the bookish sucker who refused to allow greed to blur his curiosity. "You could never understand because it's not the kind of thing they teach in school."
"Then why don't you explain it to me," demanded Revson, as he pushed back wirerimmed glasses and lit another cigarette. His analytical mind trying to scratch an itch it couldn't quite reach.
Jimmy Dot eyed the juicy foot long dogs percolating in the pushcart near the entrance of the sports book. "All you need to concern yourself with is making sure your ass is here Saturday night to settle up."
"You're worried that I'm going to stiff you for a one dollar a hot dog?"
"I wouldn't advise it."
"What if I win?"
"You got a better chance of growing tits and winning Miss America," cracked Dot as he got up and walked out of the sports book. Tossed his completed crosswords into the trash, and disappeared into the dazzling multi-tiered casino that revolved above a white sand pool where guests could swim with mermaids 24/7.
The man wearing Wednesday orange had not gotten more than a few steps into his getaway when a rube with an insurance convention laminate hanging from his neck excitedly dashed up to him. Face to face quick as a hiccup.
"Jimmy Dot! Can I get a picture?"
Dot flung his arm around the delighted tourist. Smiled as the picture was taken, then extended a hearty two-handed handshake and sent the man on his way to text the photo to everybody in the office back at Indiana Corn & Casualty. Then Dot relaxed the fingers of his clenched fist and checked out the watch he had deftly liberated from the tourist's wrist. Rolex. Not gold, but not bad. Then he stopped a passing scuffler who looked like he had just gambled away his last dollar.
"Excuse me, pal." Dot showed him the Rolex. "You lose this?"
Before you could say Merry Christmas, the scuffler was out the door in the direction of the nearest pawnshop.
CHAPTER 2
THE FABULOUS. WHITE BAR.
WEDNESDAY 3:54 PM
Like everything else in the futuristic hotel, this uber-hip lounge was sleek in design and texture. Everything white, from furniture and carpet to the ashtrays and swizzle sticks. Technetronic ear candy complementing disconnected blips of spirituous color exposed through cocktail glasses made the lounge an ever-changing work of art. And despite the seven-foot Albino at the threshold enforcing the policy of all-white attire required for admittance, afternoon business was brisk.
A midget in a white Elvis jumpsuit sketched on a bar napkin as he goggled two girls drinking exotic cocktails on a white sofa. Pretty girls in short white dresses, one he recognized from a TV show he used to watch. He elbowed the man on the barstool next to him. "The one on the left. Wanna know what her pussy looks like?"
"How could you possibly know that?" laughed the thirtyish man with close-cropped blond hair whose name was Howard.
"Eyebrows, texture of the hair, skin tone, contour of her thighs." Sparkle showed him the napkin on which he had sketched a detailed rendering of what he calculated to be the landscape between the girl's legs, while at the same time lifting a twenty from his new pal's change on the bar. "I got a gift for it, and I'm never wrong."
Howard turned to get a better angle on the girl. He looked at the sketch, then back at the girl.
"How do you know you're never wrong?" He nudged his stool backward to keep from gagging on the cheap cologne and B.O. that made the midget with the oily black pompadour smell like a flocked Christmas tree. "Do you ever have sex with any of these girls?"
"Sometimes. When you're three feet tall, charm only gets you so far. I need a gimmick and this is it."
Sparkle's gift of insight into the feminine arts began when he was eleven years old. His devoutly religious parents viewed their midget progeny as punishment from above for sins that could not be clean-slated in the collection plate on Sunday mornings. But eleven years was a long time and they finally decided that they had been punished enough, so they aimed their pickup toward the Devil's backyard, where they discarded their pint-sized burden in a casino parking lot, then headed back home to claim that clean slate. Confident that in Las Vegas their mutant spawn could secure asylum in a freak show or at the zoo.
Instead, Sparkle found shelter by crawling through the doggy door of a house whose occupants were away, and for the next decade used that method of entrance to make himself comfortable in the upscale homes of vacationing families. He ate their food, drank their booze and watched their porn. Lots of porn. Eventually he graduated to ordering hookers. Lots of hookers when he was lucky enough to find the homeowners' credit card information. His first pro was an Elvis Presley fanatic who called her pussy Sparkle, and from that moment on his life had direction.
He was living the dream, until one day when he discovered the joy of a well-stocked medicine cabinet and woke up facing a laundry list of criminal charges including credit card fraud. The top count of the indictment earning him three years in a place where there was no booze, no porn and no hookers. The goal of the prison system being rehabilitation instead of punishment, Sparkle learned a trade. Upon graduation he was a skilled thief.
"You two peeping Toms want a better look?" snapped the girl from the white sofa who now stood before them, then focused her anger at Sparkle. "And you, of all people, should know how uncomfortable it is to be stared at."
Howard was mortified and began to assemble an apology, but instead found himself taking that better look. Fair complexion. Light brown hair and eyebrows that were naturally fine. He could not help but wonder.
But the midget didn't wonder. He knew. Showed her the drawing. "This look familiar?"
The girl tried her best to appear offended, but was unconvincing. Maybe that's why she was no longer on TV. But after awarding style points for creativity and sheer audacity, she couldn't keep herself from laughing.
Ice broken. Smiles all around.
"I'm Sparkle," said the midget, bursting with lecherous confidence.
"You're cute. I'm Madison." Then she turned to Howard who could not believe Sparkle's crude gimmick was actually working. "What's your story?"
"Owen Howard." He set down his beer and shook her hand. "I'm an investigative journalist."
"Working or on holiday?
"I'm here to interview Preston Bond."
"I saw him a little while ago. He was having lunch at Bacon&Beer with Jimmy Hoffa," Madison told him, then burst out laughing.
Such derision was to be expected, as Preston Bond was the world's biggest movie star when, two years before, on the way home from a fishing trip, he died in a plane crash in the Grand Teton mountains of Wyoming. Young. Handsome. Rich. Life in the fast lane with an adoring public at his feet. Then all of a sudden he was gone.
Media coverage dwarfed wars and elections and still hadn't eased up much. And because Bond's body was never found, it wasn't long before he was spotted behind the counter of a 7-Eleven in Tennessee, pumping gas in Florida and on a bus in downtown Sacramento. Such rumors were routinely presented and debunked. But the one rumor that had legs was that Bond lived reclusively in a secret penthouse atop The Fabulous, and that he often wandered the casino in disguise late at night. A rumor the hotel did nothing to discourage as it had tripled graveyard business.
Preston Bond was an even more dominant presence dead than he was alive, but Sparkle was not about to be cock blocked by a ghost. He leered at Madison. No xray vision required to describe tits that pushed invitingly against the delicate fabric of her dress.
"How about we have our next drink upstairs?"
"Slow down, Cutie. A girl likes a little sweet talk first."
"Tell her she has nice eyes," whispered Howard, noticing that she did.
"What kind of fag bullshit is that?" sneered the midget, giving Owen Howard a reassessing look.
"He's right, Cutie. Eyes are the gateway to the heart."
"So you're sayin' I got a better chance of getting laid if a draw a picture of your eyes?" He turned the napkin sideways and thought about a Chinese hooker he knew.
"A girl never forgets the eyes," said Madison, looking at the bartender whose white shirt and white tie set off radiant baby blues. Familiar blue eyes, but she couldn't place them. Then she turned her back to Sparkle and asked, "What color are my eyes?"
The midget consulted the drawing. "According to this it doesn't much matter."
It didn't much matter.
Howard had seen stranger things, but not many, as he looked across the lounge as the malodorous midget Elvis now snuggled between two pretty girls on the white sofa.
"Forget about trying to find Preston Bond," said Bill Revson as he walked toward Howard, limping from the pain of an injured right knee. "I can give you a much bigger story."
"Assuming there is a bigger story anywhere in the world than finding Preston Bond, which I guarantee you there is not, why tell me?"
"I overheard you tell the girl you were an investigative journalist, so I Googled you. The exposé you wrote about elder abuse in Harper's last year got you nominated for a Pulitzer Prize."
"I don't have to be much of an investigator to see that you've gone to a bit of expense to get past the abominable snowman at the door," said Howard as he looked at Revson's wrinkled white short-sleeve dress shirt topping neatly pressed white slacks still sporting the price tag from one of the casino shops.
"Please, Mr. Howard. I'm only asking for a few minutes of your time."
The journalist finished his beer and licked foam from his upper lip. Signaled the bartender for another. Took a closer look at the man with hair that used to be on his head now growing out of his ears and deep gashes on his arm that had just begun to scab. A washed out geezer pushing retirement age who still wore his Dartmouth class ring.
"Whatever your problem is, pal ..."
"Bill Revson." He set his gin and tonic on the bar, taking weight off his injured knee by propping himself on a stool that retained an olfactory suggestion of Christmas on Skid Row. Fired up a cigarette as his analytical mind demanded to know if after work the bartender watched his white television on his white couch in his white boxers. Then he checked out Owen Howard's white jeans and tight white T-shirt that accentuated a fit upper body. "You don't look much like your picture online. Been working out?"
The bartender poured a Budweiser into a frosted pilsner glass and served it to Howard. The first icy sip refreshing him as it went down. Enough cat and mouse.
"I don't believe you just happened to run into me, Revson. How did you know I was here?" Howard fanned away cigarette smoke then slid his phone from the front pocket of his jeans. "And what would I find if I Googled you?"
"That I was a research chemist at EcoGreen Pharmaceuticals who helped develop a drug called ZeeFil that cures the common cold. It doesn't just mask the symptoms, you take one pill and in thirty minutes the virus is completely gone from your system. It's an actual cure and it goes on sale to the public Monday."
"It's a miracle drug and everybody in America will buy it." Howard pushed away Revson's ashtray. "Old news."
"What if I told you that a side effect of this miracle drug is that it causes pancreatic cancer?"
"Keep talking."
"I was the chemist who perfected the key component of the formula. When I later discovered the potentially lethal side effect and alerted my supervisors, I was called on the carpet by the company's top lawyer and reminded of the nondisclosure clause in my employment contract. And that if I knew what was good for me and my family, I would keep my mouth shut about anything having to do with ZeeFil. When I refused, I was fired and blackballed in the scientific community."
"Why would the Food and Drug Administration approve a drug that kills people?"
"Because the drug is such a medical breakthrough the FDA fast-tracked the process. Their official findings from clinical trials concluded that 2.4 percent of the people who take it will experience dry mouth, 3.7 percent will suffer itchy eyes and 8.6 percent will develop a mild rash. But not one word in the final report about the side effect that causes pancreatic cancer. I went to them and explained that the drug needed to be retested and told them what to look for. But because EcoGreen had poisoned my reputation, they refused, dismissing me as a disgruntled former employee. So I went to the media, but EcoGreen used their power to destroy my credibility there as well."
"Quite a conspiracy," smirked Howard.
"This drug is going to kill people!" Color flushed the scientist's face.
"Lower your voice." Howard paused a moment until white on white eavesdroppers returned to their own white on white prattle. "Look, Revson. If I find Preston Bond, no reputable news outlet will run the story without verifiable evidence and video of me having a beer with the guy. So they sure as hell aren't going to run with an unsubstantiated crackpot fairy tale as ridiculous as yours."
"EcoGreen CEO Randy Leeds will do anything, and I mean anything, to make sure his tainted drug goes on the market as scheduled. I've tried everything I possibly can to call the public's attention to this so the FDA will be forced to pull the drug for retesting, but absolutely no one will listen to me. My last chance is to try to crash the annual EcoGreen shareholders meeting on Saturday."
"You're saying that Randy Leeds, CEO of the world's largest pharmaceutical company, knows the drug will kill people and still plans to sell it to the public? That's not possible."
The beleaguered scientist pressed the palm of his hand against his knee, trying without success to subdue a stabbing pain courtesy of a beating twenty hours and two thousand miles ago.
"If ZeeFil is allowed to go on the market, every man, woman and child in America will be exposed to pancreatic cancer. Thousands, maybe millions of people will suffer and die in the name of greed." Revson, weary from stress and lack of sleep, was braced by the truth. "Please, Mr. Howard. You're a respected journalist with a reputation of digging for the truth wherever you believe there is truth to be found. Help me expose this horror before it's too late."
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Vegas Tabloid"
by .
Copyright © 2017 P Moss and Squidhat Press.
Excerpted by permission of Squidhat Press.
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