The Heart of the Jungle, стр. 37

Jason's humor evaporated as well. "Try not to worry. I've done this kind of thing before."

"I know, but---"

"I can handle Hopkins."

"Are you sure about that?"

"You worry too much."

Jason walked over to him and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. "I'll be fine. I promise." He squeezed lightly. Quickly, before Chris could resist, Jason pulled him close and stole a tender, innocent kiss. Chris tried to speak, but Jason placed his finger to his lips to silence him. He smiled and winked. "Back in an hour."

Grinning at the effect he had on Chris and obviously liking it very much, he turned on his heel and left the hotel room without a backward look.

THE busy Las Vegas strip was a sea of people. Jason threaded his way through the crowd, amused at the appraising stares he kept getting as he walked along in his expensive suit and sunglasses. He looked like "somebody," and he knew it. He strutted confidently, getting more into the part as he went.

Soon after starting out, he turned the corner onto a side street and approached Sylvia's on Paradise. He could hear the thrumming of dance music and was assaulted rudely by it when he threw open the door and strode inside.

The club was packed to overflowing. Through the dense fog that lingered in the darkened interior, he could just make out a mass of writhing bodies on the dance floor, their movements shuttered by staccato pulses of strobe light.

He snaked his way through the crowd, scanning for the scarred bookie known as Gunther, and finally spotted him standing statue-like at the far end of the room. The brick wall of a man was poured into a pinstriped suit that seemed barely able to contain his impressive bulk. An earpiece was clipped to his ear, and a cigar dangled from his lips. His skin was pocked with craters left behind by a chronic case of acne, and on the left side of his face, a wicked scar traced a tortured river from the corner of his mouth straight up to his bald pate. Just as Cross had described him.

He was a solid mass of muscle. This was someone you wouldn't want to tangle with. In fact, the crowd kept well away, his mere presence erecting an invisible five-foot barrier around him. As Jason studied him, a drunken man, jostled by the crowd, stumbled into the brute. The expression on Gunther's face did not change as he gripped the scrawny interloper by the arm and shoved him roughly back into the fray.

Cuddly. He composed himself and headed directly for Gunther, strutting with all of the vanity of someone with money enough to fear nothing.

The bookie's eyes flicked over him as he approached, but he did not speak. Jason stopped and appraised him with a disdainfully raised eyebrow. "You Gunther?" he asked.

Gunther blinked, took a drag on the cigar, and blew the smoke in Jason's face. Jason sneered but made no move to wave the acrid fumes away. He reached into his back pocket, withdrew several crisp hundred-dollar bills, and dangled them enticingly in front of Gunther. "I'm here to see Hopkins."

Gunther took the proffered bills and tucked them into his jacket, then resumed his statue impression. After a few moments, it became clear that he had no intention of summoning his employer. Jason's ire rose. He only had one shot at this, and he wasn't sure how he was going to get to the elusive woman if not through this man.

"Look, are you going to call her, or do I need to take my business somewhere else?" he asked.

Gunther blinked but did not speak.

Damn it. This was not working. He tried very hard to appear disinterested, even though his plan was falling apart. Realizing he'd been defeated, Jason shrugged and turned on his heel. He was going to have to think of another way.

As he headed back toward the door, he noticed that his escape route was now flanked by two thugs clad in the same kind of suit as Gunther.

They watched his approach with interest.

He squared his chin and continued toward the exit.

Just as he arrived at the door, the two men stepped forward to meet him. They said not a word but barred his way. With his chin, left thug pointed back the way he had come, indicating that Jason should turn around. Right thug worked a jaw muscle.

Jason glanced over his shoulder. Next to Gunther, a petite woman now stood. She was clad in a black silk dress. Her coiffed blonde mane shimmered over her shoulders, and she held a long black cigarette holder to her lips. She had the ageless, plastic look of a woman well past her prime but rich enough for a damn good cosmetic surgeon. Standing there with her flawless ivory skin, dripping with jewels and seductively posed, she looked like a 1930s-era gangster movie dame. She was the picture of absurdity, but so absolutely right for Las Vegas. Everything here was artificial, garish, a parody of something real or imagined. In a world made of smoke and mirrors, she fit right in.

Jason approached, and she extended a gloved hand in his direction.

He took it and brushed his lips against the satin-cloaked fingers.

"This way, Mister...?" She raised an inquisitive eyebrow and tilted her head to the side.

"Franklin," he offered. "Charles Franklin the Third."

Her small smile was predatory as she looked him over, no doubt imagining any number of things she herself could do with him.

He followed her through a set of double doors and into an elevator.

The walls of the car were smoked glass with mahogany paneling. The carpeting was a deep amber pile. They rode to the penthouse in silence.

Sylvia Hopkins made no effort to mask her lascivious scrutiny as they stood next to each other in the elevator, and Jason wondered if he measured up.

The doors parted, and Hopkins led him into a luxuriously appointed suite of rooms. Italian marble floors