1

Friday, April 1, 2005, 3:58 P.M.

HERE IT WAS APRIL FOOL'S DAY, and Vanessa Delware was still in Boot Hill—some joke.

The petite, pretty brunette barely seemed old enough to enter the Four Kings Hotel & Casino, let alone be a seasoned dealer. Even with her shoulder-length hair tucked up in a businesslike bun, and black plastic-rimmed glasses that made her large blue eyes look even bigger, she might have been a high school kid, though she was in fact twenty-one, her tightly packed little body swimming in the white frilly shirt with red bow tie, and black tuxedo slacks.

At least dealers didn't have to wear the skimpy outfits the barmaids did, not that that stopped drunks from grabbing at her and making salacious remarks. If this were Vegas, that sort of thing wouldn't have been tolerated. And anyway, Vegas promised a better class of groper.

Yet, here she still was in Boot Hill, working second shift, just as she had been for most of the last year. But Vanessa had vowed long ago that she would get out of Boot Hill—growing up in a little bump in the road had been bad enough and contributed to the poor decision she'd made, putting out for a cute boy whose body piercings were many but whose prospects had been zero.

Pregnant at twenty, local girl Vanessa had found herself abandoned by her boyfriend—ex-boyfriend, the loser—and barely tolerated by her mother, who'd had enough trouble making her own ends meet since divorcing her loser husband when Vanessa was fifteen. Cody Jacks, a family friend who worked part-time at the Four Kings, had pulled some strings and helped Vanessa get the job. The casino was glad to train her—a pretty young dealer was a nice draw (nicer draw than most card players otherwise got).

She'd taken this small opportunity to heart and vowed to make her life as a single mother succeed.

The plan had been formulated in the hospital. She and Cyndi, her infant daughter, would be in Vegas by next Thanksgiving… which became next Christmas, then Valentine's Day, and now here it was April Fool's Day and she was still tossing cards in Boot Hill, not in a glitzy casino along the Strip.

Of course, working here, sort of apprenticing here, had been part of the plan (even a cute girl couldn't walk in off the street and get hired in a top casino without credentials, without skills). But staying this long hadn't been.

Oh, she made decent money, really good tips some nights, but always there were bills and more bills (babies were expensive), and she just could not seem to get enough saved for her and Cyndi to make that mere fifty-mile move up the highway.

She hated her situation; she felt stranded in the midst of her own life. Vegas was the promised land, so very close and yet always just out of reach….

Usually around this time of day, the casino was empty, most tourists either having an early dinner or in their rooms resting before the night's attack on the gaming tables. Around her blackjack station, bells tinkled, whistles blew, and the slots made their various obnoxious noises over the piped-in country-western music, the whoosh of the air-conditioning, and the chatter of the gamblers who were scattered around the casino's convention center–size floor. The cacophony barely registered with Vanessa, who had long ago learned to tune it out. She concentrated on the cards… and the people.

Unlike on most days at a slow time like this, Vanessa found herself with three gamblers seated at every other chair of the seven places at her table. To her left, a fortyish fat man in denim shorts and a souvenir T-shirt ("Go to Boot Hill and Live!") constantly had to be reminded about the hand signals used in the game to aid security cameras in following the action. At center sat a younger guy, mid-thirties with a nice build and an okay face; beyond him, a busty middle-aged woman with weary features and dyed blond hair was clad in a beige sweater and tan skirt.

All three were losing—only the guy in the center seemed to have any idea how to play—and they were all chain-smoking. Vanessa knew she shouldn't be annoyed by that—heavy smokers were an occupational hazard—but why couldn't they have plopped down across the aisle at Laura's table? Laura smoked even more than they did!

No, they had to gather around Vanessa's table, constantly belching fumes in her direction; and what with the way they were losing, she had absolutely no tip to look forward to.

Even if she was the dealer, Vanessa felt like the real loser, on a day like this….

"Hit me," the guy on the left said, hands on the table's edge.

"Sir… your hand signal?" she reminded him for what felt like the hundredth time (though the guy had been playing barely ten minutes).

The guy gave her a "sorry" shrug, made the proper gesture, and she hit his fifteen with a queen and busted him out of another five dollars, which she swept away as if it had never existed.

The younger center-seated guy offered up a sympathetic smile and tapped the table for a hit on his thirteen. She fed him a three, his smile got broader, then he tapped the table again and she busted his sixteen with a seven. His smile quickly disappeared, his body not far behind as he spun off the stool and stalked off.

The weary woman down at the end took a drag on her cigarette and decided to stand on her fifteen after watching what had happened to her compatriots. Flipping her hand, Vanessa showed a seventeen and sucked up the chips from the woman, just as she had with the other two.

Scanning the room slowly, she mindlessly dealt another round to the two losers. Even though she gave them an empty smile with each card, she was paying them only the barest attention now as her eyes caught a group across the casino, a regiment of leather-clad bikers emptying from the three elevators—the Predators.

Copyright © 2006 by CBS Broadcasting Inc.