Chapter 36

It was after one in the morning as we walked down the street, but it could just as easily be early evening in Las Vegas. The casinos were packed and the streets were full of people, and not just because it was New Year’s Eve; the town is that way all the time. The casinos never close and some of the places downtown don’t even have doors; they use air-curtains to keep the brutal desert heat and what passes for the winter cold out. The night was made as bright as day by the millions of lights, as each casino tried to outdo the others with giant displays and lighted billboards hundreds of feet in the air.

We quietly walked along, holding hands. Each of us was lost in thought about what had happened tonight. It seemed to me like a dream. Mom, Amy, and I had actually danced on stage in Las Vegas to a full orchestra, and Kristen sang with a voice like an angel. I thought about Amy, and how gorgeous she looked in the outfit the magician had loaned her, and finally there was Mom. Beautiful, poised Mom, and how Tomaso looked when we left them. I almost burst out laughing. The singer was world famous, and I’m sure that he had women falling at his feet wherever he went, but I knew the look on his face when he was talking to Mom. He was enchanted. The handsome, debonair world traveler reminded me of a puppy. I could almost see his tongue hanging out.

A cold chill then took me. Would she spend the night with him? Would he be one of the men that she would be with under the terms of hers and Dad’s ‘arrangement’? I know that I should be more adult about it, but I suddenly wasn’t in such a good mood anymore. I guess that Kristen noticed, because she asked, “Is everything okay?” I pretended there was nothing wrong by answering, “Yeah, I’m fine. I was just thinking how great you and Tomaso sounded. It was truly sensational, Kristen.” She hugged me again, but more gently this time, and said, “My mom insisted that I start taking singing lessons when I turned seven. I actually sang with the LA symphony a few times when I was fourteen.”

“Do you still sing with them?”

She grinned and said, “No, I gave it up when I discovered boys.” She looked so cute when she said it that I suddenly got an urge. I said, “Why don’t we go back to the room and you can discover some more about this boy?”

She said, “That’s funny; I was just thinking the same thing.” We turned and made a beeline for our hotel. It was after two o’clock when we got back to the hotel, but the casino was still crowded. We were making our way to the elevators, when Kristen suddenly stopped. She had a strange look on her face, so I asked what was the matter. She said, “Hold on a minute;” then she went to a house phone and dialed a number. She stood there for a while. She got a serious look on her face when no one answered, and said, “C’mon.” We went back to Mason’s suite. The door was locked and no one answered when she knocked. I said, “He’s probably asleep.”

“No way! This time, you knock, and knock hard.” I started pounding on the door and kept pounding until I heard someone trying to unlock it. The door opened a few inches and, Kristen bulled her way through it the minute it did, almost knocking down the person who had opened it. I followed her in, and a couple on one of the couches quickly sat up. The girl was one of Mason’s assistants. The guy had his hand under her skirt, and she had one leg wrapped around him. On a coffee table in front of them was a glass platter full of white powder, and several people were gathered around it. Two guys were standing by the bar, talking to two girls. One girl was the other assistant. She was nude from the waist up and was acting as bartender. Kristen disappeared into the bedroom, and she screamed “Pete!” a split second later.

The tone of her voice sent shivers through me, and I lunged toward the room. The door had been swinging closed behind Kristen. It had etched glass panels in it, and it slammed against the wall and the panel shattered when I charged through. The sight in front of me made my blood run cold.

Amy was lying on the bed. Her blouse was open and her bra was unbuttoned. Her skirt was up around her waist, but her panties were still on. It looked like we got there just as things got started. Kristen was on the bed next to Amy, holding her head. There were two guys in the room. I must have scared them when I burst in, because one was cowering in a corner, and the other was standing next to the bed. It was Mason. He had his shirt and shoes off, and his eyes were shiny, like he was loaded when he looked at me.

I looked at Amy, then back at Mason. The gravity of the situation hit me and I completely lost it! I rushed at him and hit him so hard it felt like his face crumpled. He crashed against a wall and sank to the floor, so I went to the other guy. I picked him up by the shirt collar and belt, and threw him through the doorway onto the coffee table. It shattered into dozens of pieces, then I went to the bed. Kristen had covered Amy up, and was holding her and trying to talk to her, but my new sister wasn’t moving. I was horrified now, and I screamed, “WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH HER?”

Kristen was all business. She said, “I think I know. Get me a wet cloth, then come here and keep talking to her. I’m going to make a phone call.” I ran to the other room to get a cloth, and the place was empty. Everybody had left in such a hurry that they’d left the door standing open. I kicked it closed; then I wet a cloth at the bar and ran back into the bedroom. I took Amy from Kristen and began talking to her and wiping her brow. I was so terrified that I was shaking! This couldn’t be happening, not to my Amy.

Kristen got on the phone and was using the tone she had used when she was talking to the thugs that night. She was barking orders, and she slammed the phone down when she finished. She said, “A doctor will be here in a minute. There’s one on staff right here in the hotel. It’s probably Roofies If this is what I think it is. Mace must have slipped it in her drink.”

I saw red again, and I looked over at Mason. He was still lying on the floor next to the bed and he hadn’t moved since I hit him. Blood was running from his mouth, and he was making gurgling noises. I started thinking about trying to rip his lungs out.

I heard the outer door fly open just then. Two guys in suits and one in a smock carrying a black bag, came running into the room. One of the suits went to grab me, and Kristen shouted, “Stop it!” The other suit put his hand on the first one, and said, “It’s okay; he’s with Miss Mariani.”

The guy in the smock was looking at Amy, then he saw Mason on the floor and said, “Oh, shit.” He went to him and checked him out. Then he sat him up and told the second suit to hold him that way. He turned to the first suit and said, “Go through his pockets and bring what you find to me.” Then he went to his bag, pulled a syringe out, and set it on a nightstand. Amy seemed to be mumbling when he got back to her. He asked Kristen, “What’s her name?” Kristen told him and he started talking loudly to her, saying, “Wake up, Amy, wake up.” Her head was rolling around and she continued to mumble.

The suit who had been looking through Mason’s pockets handed the doctor a small bottle. The doctor took a look at it and said, “That’s what I suspected. It’s Rohypnol. He probably put some in her drink, but I doubt she drank all of it.” He pointed to the syringe and said, “I have some Romazicon here, but I don’t think that we’ll need it; she’s already coming out of it.” He checked her over once again before he stood up and said, “She shouldn’t have any after-effects from the Rohypnol, but she seems to have consumed a lot of alcohol, so she’ll probably have a hangover. Try to get her up and walking, and keep her near a bathroom. She’s likely to vomit.” I said, “Shall I get her some coffee?”

“No, she won’t be able to keep it down. Just make sure if she gets sick, that she drinks a lot of water,” then he looked at Mason, shook his head, and said, “This one is in bad shape. You must have hit him pretty hard. Are you okay?” I noticed my hand for the first time. There was a twinge that flared into an ache, and I saw that the skin was broken in several places. He looked at it and said, “You’ll be fine; go wash it with soap and water, then come back and I’ll put something on it.” I went to the bathroom and washed it off. Kristen was standing at the door holding Amy up when I came out. They went in and closed the door.

Mason seemed to be awake back in the bedroom. He was still on the floor, but he was holding his jaw, and the doctor was on the phone. Suit #1 came to me and asked, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. What’s going to happen now?”

“The doctor is calling for an ambulance. You broke his jaw pretty good. Doc say’s that he’ll have it wired shut, and he’ll probably lose a few teeth, but he’ll be okay.”

“Uhh, am I in trouble?” He laughed and said, “No you’re not in trouble. He’s been asking for this for a long time. Ask Miss Mariani.” Kristen came in just as the doctor hung up. He looked at her and said, “Well, it looks like you did it again, young lady. I may have to ask the hotel to hire you full time as an angel of mercy. How’s your friend?”

Kristen said, “She’s in there throwing up, but I think she’ll be okay. How long are they going to let him get away with this kind of thing, Doctor?” He looked at me, then at her, and said, “You know the answer to that.” She looked at the floor, shook her head, and sighed. “Yes, unfortunately, I do.” We collected a very green-looking Amy, and the three of us went upstairs.

It was after three in the morning, and Mom wasn’t there when Amy opened the door to her room, so Kristen insisted that Amy come to our room. The girls went into the bathroom when we got there, and I sat thinking. It had been an interesting day, to say the least, but somehow, the thing that bothered me most was the fact that Mom wasn’t in her room. I couldn’t get the picture of what she and Tomaso were probably doing out of my mind. I knew that I should be grownup enough to accept it, but I just wasn’t.

The girls had taken their outer clothes off, but both were wearing panties when they came out of the bathroom. Kristen had a t-shirt on and Amy was wearing one of mine. Kristen had a twinkle in her eye when she said, “This may not be the kind of threesome you like, but it’s as good as you’re gonna get tonight.” We helped Amy into bed, then I stripped to my shorts and Kristen and I got in beside her. Amy was on the side nearest the bathroom. I went to hold Kristen and she was shaking a little. I said, “I think Amy will be okay now; try to relax.”

“It’s not that; it’s Mason. I hope you broke his jaw so badly that he won’t be able to talk for a year,” then she looked at me and said, “Jesus, you hit him hard. I think that I actually heard his jaw break. You were like the Incredible Hulk in there. Would you have gone after him like that if it had been me in there?” “Of course I would. I feel strongly about the people I love.”

“You love Amy a lot, don’t you?” I smelled a problem here, so I was careful when I answered her question. “Yes, I do. I wasn’t kidding when I said that she was like a part of me. I feel the same way about Erin. My family is very important to me, and like it or not, you’re part of that family now.” She snuggled against me and made a little purring noise at the same time that I could feel the tension slowly leave her body. I started to relax too, and was almost asleep when the phone rang. I went to answer it, but Kristen beat me to it. She told him or her that we would call them tomorrow, and not to disturb us anymore, in a gruff voice. I said, “Who was that?”

“It was the hotel. I was expecting the call. Don’t worry about it. We’ll take care of it tomorrow.” I was too tired to argue, so I dropped off to sleep. The damned phone rang again at five-thirty. I answered it this time, and Mom’s voice asked, “Have you seen Amy?”

“Yeah, Mom. She didn’t feel good last night, and she fell asleep in here.”

“Is she all right?”

“Yeah, she’s fine. Uhh, Mom, are you okay?”

“Yes, Dear, I’m fine. We’ll talk in the morning.” I was way too tired to worry about anything more and I went right back to sleep.

Wednesday

I was the first one awake the next morning. It was ten thirty, and I was still sleepy, but the first thing I noticed was the two girls lying beside me. Both of them had rumpled hair, and one of them had pulled the covers off their side some time during the night. Amy was facing away from me and Kristen was lying on her back with one arm across me, and one leg lying on Amy. They looked so damn cute that I wanted to get a picture, so I slid out of bed and grabbed my digital camera. I took several pictures, then I yelled, “WAKE UP!” and shot them as they jumped up and sleepily looked at me.

Kristen threw a pillow at me, then looked at Amy in alarm when she groaned and fell back down. Kristen called room service, ordered coffee and breakfast rolls, then spent the time until it got here helping Amy to the bathroom and telling me what a jerk I was for waking them up that way. I thought that it was funny when I did it, but the look on their faces told me that I made a mistake, so I apologized to both of them and offered to throw myself out of the window. They were both considering it when the coffee showed up.

Amy seemed to have regained her will to live after some aspirin and several cups of coffee, so we started to talk about what happened last night Amy couldn’t recall a thing. The last thing she said that she remembered was sitting at the bar drinking with Mason. She didn’t even remember coming to our room. We told her what we knew of what had happened. She was frightened at first, then grew intensely angry. Mason was lucky that he wasn’t nearby right then. I would likely have pitied him after she was done with him. Amy looked at Kristen and said, “How could he do something like that?”

Kristen replied, “Because he’s scum. I should never have left you alone with him, but I was assured that he had reformed. He can be very charming as you saw, and you were having such a good time, I just didn’t think he would do it again.” I said, “What do you mean ‘again’?”

“He tried to put some moves on me right in front of Barry two years ago. That didn’t work, so he picked on another girl. I overheard one of his buddies a little later saying that they were going to pass her around as soon as he got her drunk enough. So Barry and I got Chip to help us and we went back to his suite. The girl was passed out on the bed, and Mason was on top of her. Chip dragged him off, and she wouldn’t wake up when I tried to talk to her, so I called the doctor. It turned out to be some kind of downer that time, but she was only fifteen, and her father found out about it.”

I said, “So what happened? Did Mason go to jail?”

“No, this is Las Vegas. Apologies and promises were made, the girl’s college education was guaranteed, and it all went away. The police never even knew that it happened.”

“But why does the hotel let him work here if they know that he acts this way?”

“Because he’s one of the biggest draws in town. Do you have any idea how much money his name brings to this hotel? It’s in the millions. What you did to him last night will put him out for at least a month, and it’ll cost them a lot of money.” I suddenly was a little worried. I asked, “Uhh, are they going to come after me?” She grinned and said, “No, they won’t dare touch you for a couple of reasons. One, if you’ll excuse me for saying it, you have friends in high places, and two, they are going to want your co-operation with Amy.”

Amy said, “Me? What do you mean?” Kristen said, “Do you have a college picked out?” “Gee, no. We have a nice settlement from Dad’s accident, but not enough to consider a first rate college.” “Well, let my dad’s people talk to them, and you’ll be able to go anyplace you want. And knowing your grades, that’ll be almost anywhere.”

I said, “I can understand that they would be concerned that Amy might sue them or something, but why would they pay for college?” “It’s their favorite way of covering things up. They do it for a couple of reasons. There is no actual payoff, so there is, legally speaking, no admission of guilt on their part, and the positive publicity they get from sponsoring a student is good for their image.” Amy and I sat there shaking our heads.

The phone rang just then. I let Kristen get it, and she said ‘uh-huh’ and ‘Okay’ a lot. She told us, “It’s Dad. The hotel told him what happened, and he wants to meet us and go over what went on. I told him that we were hungry and he’s going to have food sent to his suite. Let’s get showered.” Amy went next door to get ready, and Kristen and I hit the shower together. We were both still a little tired, and the water felt good cascading off us.

Kristen suddenly wrapped her arms around me. She looked up and said, “I seem to remember that we started out to do something last night and we somehow got sidetracked.” I kissed her and said, “Yes, I vaguely remember something about it, but I was in bed with two women the next thing I knew. Was, uhh, one of them you?” She grinned and said, “Yes, I was the sober one, but you probably don’t remember because you were snoring too loud!” We were laughing and drying off when there was a tap on the door. I answered it with a towel around me. It was Amy; she immediately came in. I continued drying myself, then started putting my clothes on. Kristen was staring at us as she asked; “You guys don’t mind being naked in front of each other?”

We looked at each other, then back at her. Both of us shrugged and shook our heads. Amy said, “It surprised me when I first moved in, but the whole family is totally casual about it. I was comfortable too before long.” Kristen got a naughty look on her face and said, “You’ve seen that gorgeous dad of his naked, too?” Amy said, “You bet, and if you think this one has a package, you ought to see...”

I yelled, “THAT’S ENOUGH!” to roars of laughter from both the girls., I asked Amy, “How’s Mom doing?” after I glared at them until they quieted down. “She was sleeping, so I didn’t wake her. She must have been out late.” I just nodded. Amy then said, “Kate came by. She and Ben are going shopping. They’ll leave a message for us when they get back.”

The three of us went up one more floor, into what must have been one of the penthouse suites. I thought ours was big, but this one was at least twice as large. It had a small but elegant dining room; it even had a patio that looked over downtown Las Vegas. Mr. Mariani was dressed, as usual, in a crisp suit. He looks like one of those guys who could dig a ditch in a suit and never get dirty. He called room service, then he had us sit down at the dining table. The girls pulled their chairs up next to me while he sat across from us and put a small microphone on the table. He said, “I’m going to record what we say here. Please be thorough and honest. I need to know the complete story.”

He talked to Amy first. He asked her to describe what went on from the moment she came into the showroom until this morning. She told him everything that happened, including the secrets about how she disappeared from the box, all the conversations she and Mason had, and everything else, all the way to when she woke up in our room. Room service arrived just as she finished. It wasn’t like any room service food I’d ever seen before; it was more like a banquet. It took two guys to serve everything.

He asked Kristen to tell her story after we stuffed ourselves. She said that it was just a hunch that made her call Amy’s room. She smelled a rat when there was no answer, and we went to his suite. She told what was going on in the front room and what I did when I found Mason.

That part of the description of events went on longer than I thought necessary. She described exactly what I did when I hit Mason, even to the look in my eyes and the sound that my fist made, then how I seemed to lift the other guy off the ground and throw him, as though he was a sack of trash, into the living room. The telling of it lasted longer than the action itself, and she moved a little closer to me and put her hand on my arm when she finished.

I couldn’t really add very much to what Kristen said when it was my turn. Mr. Mariani asked a few questions, then he asked the girls to take their coffee out on the patio and close the door. He sat thoughtfully looking at me for a minute or so, then he asked me, “Have you ever wondered why I let my only daughter date you, then go away and be alone with you?”

“Well, I never really thought about it, Sir. I guess that it’s because she’s almost nineteen, and pretty much has a mind of her own.” He laughed and said, “Well, there’s that, of course, but more than that, you and your family are exceptional people. I know what you did with Ms. Coombs, and then with Amy, and I watched my daughter change since she met you. You’re a good man, Pete, and I hope that you stay that way, because I’ve never seen my daughter so happy. I never really approved of her former friend and the crowd he hung around with. Not that they were bad, but they were a little more mature than she was, and it worried me. She has probably told you that her brother and I aren’t around a lot, especially me, and I’ll be gone even more if future plans hold true.