Well, I hadn't. Three snakes inside my head had made me a sucker for the real one on my arm. Maragon had made his point. I might have reached the thirty-third degree, but I wasn't quite as big a shot as I thought I was. I could feel that rattler on my arm all the way to Lake Tahoe.
Like any gambling house, the Sky Hi Club was a trap. Peno had tried to kid the public with a classy decor. It was a darned good copy of a nineteenth century ranch house. At the gambling tables everything was free—the liquor, the hors d'oeuvres, the entertainment. Everything, that is, but the gambling and the women. The casino was taking its cut. And the women—or should I be so sure?
You paid for your drinks if you stood up to the long mahogany bar. I turned my back to the rattle of cocktail shakers and chink of glasses, one heel hooked over the replica brass rail, and took a long careful look at the crap tables. There was a job for me at one of them. I began to shut out the distractions of sight and sound. I wanted nothing to dull my PSI powers.
A blond bombshell slithered down the bar and ground herself against my leg. "Wanna buy me a drink, honey?" she gasped. I smuggled a lift and slipped all four of her garters off the tops of her hose. A funny, stricken look replaced the erotic face she had made at me. She headed for dry dock.
B-girls usually work in pairs, so I looked down toward the other end of the polished mahogany. Sure enough, there was the brunette, frowning as she tried to figure why the blond bomber had high-tailed it out of there. I shook my head at her and she let it lie.
That should have cut out the last distraction. But no, I could see one more bimbo working her way through the laughing, drink-flushed crowd toward me. She had hair-colored hair, which was sort of out of character for a barroom hustler. I put plenty of TK on the heel of her right slipper, and she stepped right out of it. It might as well have been nailed to the floor. Nothing was going to discourage this one, I saw. I let her pick it off the floor, squeeze it back on her skinny foot, and come toward me.
This new babe leaned over toward me and stuck her nose up against mine. It was long, thin, and not a little red.
"Billy Joe!" she said, and sniffled loudly. "My darlin' Billy!"
How near-sighted can you get? I don't think there's such a thing as a case of mistaken identity around a guy like me. I didn't know her darlin' Billy from Adam's ox. But I'd have bet a pretty we didn't look alike.