Prince Charming Undercover Page 5

  His childhood had been shaped by one small lapse in judgment. Guilt—not cancer—was now eating his guts from the inside out. He’d paid dearly for his mistake, first, at the hands of the Nazis, then through his own weakness and stupidity. Now, the finishing touch would come courtesy of an insidious disease that his body had chosen to host.

  “This looks encouraging, George. These polyps aren’t pretty and we’re taking tissue samples, but it’s not as bad as we feared.”

  Liar. Doctors were good at telling you what you wanted to hear. His doctor, a specialist, was stalling. When the lab reports came back, he would sing a different song. He would say, “I was wrong, George. I’m sorry. You were right. The Nazi doctors did plant a tiny cancerous seed deep in your bowels when they worked on you. Like one of those time-release pills you see in commercials, it was just waiting to erupt. And, now, it’s too late to do anything about it. You’re dying, my friend.”

  Jurek closed his eyes and blocked out the sounds of the machines, the ventilation system, and the nurses moving about. He stopped feeling the external stimuli and went to the one place that provided sanctuary—home. The camp where he’d once lived with his mother, father, sister and brother, cousins, aunts and uncles and other Romani relatives. Twenty-five people, perhaps, in their close-knit group. He knew them all and they knew him. They spoke a language that set them apart.

  Life wasn’t easy for the Romani. They weren’t liked and they knew it, but in the circle of their campfires, a child felt relatively safe. Which was an illusion.

  In the worst moments of his life—when he was being violated by the soldiers who made him march till he dropped, or surrounded by death and despair too harsh to fully comprehend, or, even weeping at his beloved wife’s graveside—Jurek would reflect on how his life might have turned out if he’d listened to his conscience that morning, instead of his cousin.

  The early summer day had begun like any other. The men gathered together talking seriously about grownup matters that didn’t concern a boy his age. The women were still discussing the birth of newborn Yetta. “Child of the north wind,” they called her because of the storm that blew up the night she was born. But when she cried out the next morning, the sun was bright, the day still. Jurek had loved her from the first moment he held her.

  He told himself a boy should have no feelings for a tiny infant, but he did. He liked her far better than the other pesky girls in camp. Perhaps to reward his attentiveness, Yetta’s mother had asked Jurek to watch over things while she went to an adjacent wagon for some dried herbs. Baby Yetta was asleep in the back of the wagon in a small box that had once held apples. Alba and Beatrix, her older sisters, were playing a game in the dirt not far from the open cooking fire. They ignored Jurek, which was just as well because three of his cousins, all older than Jurek, invited him to sneak off to see the new puppy they’d found.

  The dog was a secret because they knew their parents wouldn’t welcome another mouth to feed. The boys were keeping it squirreled away in a small pen by the horses. Jurek knew he should stay where he was. He told them no, but they pressured him. He was a fast runner. He could see the dog and return before the little girls even knew he was gone. Yetta was asleep. She would be fine.

  He was only gone a few minutes, but as Jurek learned, tragedy can strike in seconds. Alba’s skirt caught alight. Beatrix tried to douse it with water from a nearby pot, but the pot contained oil. Both girls became coated in flames. They ran to the wagon for help. The wagon caught fire.

  Jurek heard the screams and ran as fast as he could. Alba was facedown in the green grass, her back ablaze. He rolled her over and over and left her lying in shock, face up. Her lovely skin blackened. Beatrix had made it into the wagon, but had ignited the blankets and fabric that made up their bedding. He pulled her out and used the water that she should have used.

  The wagon, now totally engulfed, was like a neatly constructed inferno. Adults appeared; several of Jurek’s uncles took hold of the tongue of the wagon to pull it away from the camp circle. His aunt tried to keep Jurek back, but he broke loose and scaled the rear steps to reach inside for the new baby. The north wind had somehow kept the flames at bay. She wasn’t burned. He pulled her free and they tumbled to the ground. She didn’t cry. She didn’t make any sound.

  A gadjo doctor who came to help said Yetta had inhaled the smoke. He couldn’t guarantee that she would live. Alba died a few hours later. Beatrix survived, but all feared she would be too deformed to ever have a real life.

  Jurek’s punishment? He was banished to Poland to live with his grandmother, whom he’d never met. Before he left for Poland, Jurek had cradled the sleeping baby one last time, and he’d whispered a promise to make this up to her any way he could. Someday.

  He didn’t see his family again for many years. A few months after he arrived at his grandmother’s, Hitler invaded Poland. The borders were closed. Jurek’s nightmare began.

  His grandmother did her best to keep them safe in the countryside, but eventually they were caught in a sweep and forced into a labor camp where his grandmother perished. Jurek was sent to Sobibor. Each day was a challenge to stay alive. Many days he thought he’d prefer to die, but his promise to Yetta kept him going.

  After Sobibor was liberated, Jurek set out to find his family. Surviving war-ravaged Europe took another set of skills. He learned how to lie, cheat, steal and kill. Eventually, he heard that his Romani family had immigrated to America just before the start of the war. Without funds, he had few options, so he signed up to work on a tramp steamer. His voyage took nearly two years of circumnavigating the southern hemisphere before he made it to New York.

  He was a man--a stranger--by the time he next saw Yetta and her family. And, although they’d welcomed him with tears of joy, Jurek found he’d changed too much to fit into their world. He’d moved to Atlantic City. He kept tabs on the family over the years, touching base with Yetta on occasion, but the only time he’d even come close to rejoining the group had been when he’d married Lucy--his late-in-life salvation. After her death, he’d drifted up and down the West Coast doing odd jobs until he’d finally landed in Laughlin eight years earlier.

  Now, at the close of his life, he had a chance to make good on his promise to Yetta. When she’d visited him last, Yetta had been upset about a dream. He saw this as an opportunity to reach out, not only to help her, but to connect with the child he’d given up. His son. A boy with Lucy’s fair hair and blue eyes who had deserved better than to be cursed with an old man--a jailbird with barely two nickels to rub together--for a father.

  When a social worker came to the jail and told him his wife was dead, Jurek had understood that he wasn’t done paying for his mistakes. Lucille Helson, the farm girl who dreamed of being a dancer, had been the best thing that had ever happened to him. And, for their son’s sake, he’d made the most difficult decision of his life.

  Now, he was dying—despite what his doctor said. A body could only take so much torture for so long, but he couldn’t let go until he made sure that Yetta and her family were safe from this serpent that Yetta had seen in her dream.

  And, selfishly, he hoped to see his son one last time.

  “Damn. I thought Detroit had a lot of cars and motor homes, but this place is a freakin’ zoo,” her passenger observed. “Why would anyone live here?”

  Grace put on her blinker to turn onto Las Vegas Boulevard. The Strip, as it was known throughout the world. She’d circled around the back of McCarran Airport’s industrial and business park to give Nikolai a bit of a tour, but so far, he didn’t seem too impressed.

  “Good question. Maybe you should ask one of the seven thousand new arrivals to Clark County—every month.”

  Grace didn’t know why she took his rhetorical question so personally. Usually—at least whenever she got stuck in traffic—she agreed with his assessment. But something about this man got to her.

  Good thing he isn’t my type. She’d already done tall, blond and gorg
eous—and had paid dearly in the tender of a broken heart. Shawn Bascomb taught her that shoulders made for portaging canoes over rocky shoals were not necessarily broad enough to carry a relationship of any substance.

  Grace had been so sure that Shawn, a self-professed ski bum with a penchant for white-water rafting in summer, had been the one from the moment they met. Although he’d proven as reliable as the seasonal snow he lived for, Grace had been determined not to give up on her errant prince.

  After graduating from Mesa State College in Grand Junction, she found a job in Ouray, Colorado, to be near Shawn, who gave ski lessons at Telluride. Grace took her responsibilities seriously; she had a need to excel at her job. Shawn partied. Kate, who was working as assistant chef at one of the resorts, heard all the rumors Grace had turned a deaf ear to. She finally told Grace, “Face it, little sister. Shawn’s a frog, and no amount of kissing is ever going to change him into a prince.”

  “So, is it safe to say that you like living here?” Nikolai asked, leaning forward slightly as they passed the Welcome To Las Vegas sign, which she’d just read was one of the most recognizable icons in the world.

  Startled out of her time warp, Grace stepped on the brake for no reason, soliciting a nasty honk from the car behind her. Flustered but determined not to show it, she said, “Yes, I do. Most of the time. Vegas is several cities in one. You have this,” she said, indicating the canyon of hotels they were approaching. “Touristy glam and lots of jobs, but if you cross over the freeway and head west, you hit Red Rocks and Mount Charleston. See that snowcapped peak?”

  He looked around her to where she was pointing. This brought him close enough for her to breathe in his scent. A wholly masculine smell of leather and aftershave that made her mouth water.

  Swallowing, she hastily inclined her head in the other direction. “Go that way and you run into Lake Mead and Boulder City. Hoover Dam. Well worth the trip. And sprinkled in between are neighborhoods, like the one my family lives in, which have a kind of small-town feel.”

  She checked to see if he was listening. His presence filled the car. Not just his body, but his energy. Something about him was edgy and exciting. He seemed attuned to what was going on around him. I bet he never zones out. “Most locals don’t come down here unless they have out-of-town guests or want to see a show.”

  “All these people are tourists?” He looked left and right as she slowed to avoid a crowd of pedestrians starting to cross the street in front of the glittering gold towers of Mandalay Bay.

  “Oh, yeah. And snowbirds.”

  At the stoplight on Trop—short for Tropicana, she had a chance to study his profile. Long, slender nose. Thick but finely shaped brows a few shades darker than his hair. Lower lip was fuller than the top and sexy as hell, she realized.

  Sitting up a bit straighter, she asked, “So, if you find the right job, do you plan to stay here permanently?”

  The shoulder closest to her lifted and fell. “I guess.”

  She frowned. He didn’t appear to have much ambition. But the cost of living here was reasonable, if one didn’t have a gambling problem. “Do you gamble?”

  His chin turned slowly, and the look he gave her made a shiver pass down her spine. “Do you?”

  His response told her to back off, but as her sisters could attest, Grace never let a little thing like privacy keep her from poking her nose into other people’s lives. “Now and then. When I have out-of-state visitors to entertain.”

  She made an effort to return her attention to the road. “Fortunately, my father taught me how to play. Most people don’t do it right. Which, of course, is what casinos count on.”

  When he didn’t respond, Grace kept up the chatter. Silence shared with Nikolai Sarna was not comfortable. “I’ll warn you ahead of time, though, if you ask people that question, you probably won’t get an honest answer. Gamblers have a tendency to fudge. My father used to say that gambling is like drinking. If you can’t stop, then you shouldn’t start.”

  As she slowed to turn at the next intersection, she caught the look of bemusement on his face as he tilted his head to gaze up at the replica of the Eiffel Tower. Maybe I could take him up to the observation level sometime. It’s got a great view. And it’s romantic.

  The thought made her cut the corner a bit too sharply, drawing glares from several sightseers poised to cross the street. No romance. Nix. Nada. None. Especially with a perfect stranger.

  “What do you do if someone in your family is spending too much time at the tables?” he asked, leaning forward to peer at the vast white complex that made up Caesars Palace.

  Something about his question struck her as odd. Maybe it was his use of the phrase “at the tables,” which Grace recognized as gaming lingo. He is a player. “We try to be aware if someone in the family is losing too much. Then we talk to him or her.”

  “Most families go their own ways and don’t mess with each other’s lives,” he said.

  Did that observation apply to his own experience? Her mother said he’d been adopted by a gadjo family when he was a little boy. Grace didn’t understand how that could have happened, but the thought made her sad. “Right. Well, that’s the difference between Western thinking and Rom thinking. You may not be your brother’s keeper, but you should be his support system, his conscience when he needs it, and his collective memory.”

  He made a sound that seemed to embody all the skepticism Grace had heard from her sisters for years. They accused her of placing altruistic values on a way of life she only knew from fables and lore.

  She turned the steering wheel harder than necessary and punched the gas to zip across traffic into the back entrance of the casino parking lot.

  “Family means everything to the Romani,” she said, tired of constantly defending herself and her heritage. “And because of what my ancestors suffered and what my parents and grandparents went through, I have an advantage. I don’t expect the government to do anything to improve my life. If I want to make things better for my family, I have to do it myself.”

  She pulled into the parking space Charles had provided her in his underground lot. In the desert, shade was a privilege that usually came at a price. She turned off the engine. “This won’t take long. Do you want to wait here?”

  “Hell, no. This is my first time…in a real Las Vegas casino,” he said.

  Was that a tiny bit of humor beneath his deadpan demeanor? Grace hoped not. He would be easier to take if she could fit him into a neat little box labeled: rude, self-absorbed, jerk—who was occasionally nice to old women.

  She glanced at her watch. “Xanadu isn’t much of a casino by Strip standards, but there’s a bar, if you’re still on Detroit time,” she added with a smile to show that she was over her snit. “But don’t get too comfy. We only have about half an hour. Mother is expecting us at Romantique for your welcome party.”

  “I’ll just follow you around. Don’t want to get lost.”

  She laughed. “You won’t. Not here. If this were Bellagio or Caesars or the Wynn, there might be a problem. Even I get turned around when I’m in the big casinos.”

  They got out of the car. Without any prodding on her part, Nikolai took off his leather coat and chucked it into the back seat. Darned if he didn’t look just as sexy without it. Black jeans that looked well broken in, a pale blue, long-sleeved cotton shirt that had probably started the morning well-pressed, and ordinary hiking-type boots with thick soles and red laces. Nothing special about his clothes, but on him, everything looked fine.

  “Damn fine,” she muttered under her breath.

  “Huh?” he asked as they walked to a door marked Employee Entrance.

  “Nothing. I just realized how old and run-down the place looks from this angle. Of course, the place is old by Vegas standards. It used to be called The Shady Tree Resort, but my dad told me locals referred to it as the Shady Lady because it was popular with hookers.”

  He opened the door for her, and she recalled her granny o
nce telling her that good manners could compensate for a multitude of faults.

  She walked quickly to get through the hubbub in the kitchen. “The second owner built this addition,” she said, using her hand to encompass the building at large. “According to Charles, he was a moneyed gay man from back East, who had visions of Kublai Khan’s pleasure dome arising from the desert. He went bankrupt.”

  She exchanged greetings with a few members of Charles’s staff, but in all honesty, she didn’t know any of them well. She rarely had time to visit the casino. She’d argued that putting her name on a parking space was a waste, but Charles had refused to budge.

  “My partners have two stalls apiece. I’m entitled. If you don’t use it, I’ll park my boat there next winter instead of leaving it at the marina,” he’d replied.

  Once they stepped into the casino, the atmosphere changed. No drab white walls. No hushed frenzy or smells of cooking food. Instead, there was noise, red brocade wallpaper, sparkling chandeliers suspended from a much-too-low ceiling and a faint blue haze of cigarette smoke.

  To complete the tour she’d started, Grace took Nikolai to the main entrance, which led into a two-story dome decorated in tiny blue-and-gold mosaic tile above a fountain that consisted of four naked cherubs supporting a basin upon which rested two nymphs with long hair strategically placed so there was no need for parents to shield their children’s eyes as they registered for their rooms. Lush ferns and corpulent goldfish completed the water element.

  “Charles’s partners, two brothers who came from New Jersey right before the boom in the late eighties, bought the adjoining property and built the hotel,” Grace said. “It links to the main facility via a walkway on the second floor, which is where the business office is located.”

  At the base of the escalator, she stopped and looked at him. “That’s the end of the docent-guided portion of your tour,” she said breezily. “My meeting shouldn’t take long. Shall we meet by the fountain in, say, twenty minutes?”