Lucky (Lucky Santangelo Series)

Read an Excerpt

Chapter One:

Lennie Golden had not set foot in Vegas for thirteen years, even though it was the city of his conception, birth and first seventeen years of life.

He looked around as he stepped off the plane, sniffed the air and took a deep breath. The place still smelled the same.

The airport was doing a roaring trade in visiting gamblers, tourists and middle America out to have fun. Fat male butts waddled alongside plump, peroxide ladies in polyester pant suits and fake jewelry. Small children whined and complained. Traveling hookers in halter tops, hot pants tightly outlining their crotches, arrived to do business. Swarthy foreigners clutched black leather attaché cases and breathed garlic over their accompanying yellow-haired mistresses.

Jess was there to meet him. Five feet tall, startlingly pretty, she still had the air of a tomboy about her — which is what she had been at school. She had always preferred to hang out with the boys. Especially Lennie. They had been best friends since first grade, their somewhat unexpected and platonic relationship surviving and getting stronger each year — even though they didn't see much of each other since he had moved from Vegas to New York.

They made an ill-assorted couple. Lennie, so tall and lanky, with dirty-blond hair and ocean-green eyes. An overgrown Robert Redford with more than a touch of Chevy Chase. And Jess, petite and wide-eyed, with a mop of orange hair, freckles and a Playboy centerfold body in miniature.

She hurled herself into his arms. "It's so good to see you! You look fantastic. For a guy who spends his life screwin' around I don't know how you do it."

"Hey —" He swung her in the air like a rag doll. "Look who's taking."

She giggled and hugged him tightly. "I love you madly, Lennie Golden. Welcome back."

"I love you too, monkey face."

"Don't call me that!" she screeched. "I'm married now. I'm respectable. I got a kid, the whole bit. So c'mon, Lennie — treat me like a lady."

He burst out laughing. "If you're a lady, I'm Raquel Welch."

She grabbed his arm. "You got great tits!"

Laughingly they strolled toward the exit.

"So how was the flight?" she asked, trying to grab his battered suitcase.

He wrestled it away from her. "Long and boring. If God had meant us to fly he'd have given us more stewardesses.

"Didja score?" She winked knowingly.

"Affirmative."

"Really?"

"Would I lie to you?" he deadpanned.

She laughed She had a maniacal guffaw that caused people to turn and stare. "You'd lie to the Pope if you thought it would get you through the day."

"And there she goes..." he singsonged.

"Who? Where?" Automatically she turned to check out his conquest. A nun walked serenely by.

"I told you my tastes are changing," he said gravely.

"Very funny!" She aimed a punch at his stomach. He held up a protesting hand. "Lay off. I just had surgery of the tongue."

"Huh?"

"Remember the taping of the 'Lee Bryant Show'? The one I told you I was doing?"

"Yeah."

"They cut my four-minute spot to thirty seconds. If you fart you miss me."

She frowned. "Schmucks. They know from nothin'. Anyway, you're back in Vegas now. Your kind of comedy schtick's gonna kill 'em here."

"Oh sure, in the lounge of the Magiriano Hotel I'm really going to cause a riot."

"It's a change of scene. Could be just what you need. Who knows what it'll lead to?"

"C'mon, less. You sound like my agent. Do this shit, that piece of crap, and before you know it you'll have a regular spot on Carson."

"Your so-called agent is a New York jerk-off artist." She wrinkled her nose. "You're a great comedian. I should be handling you. I mean, I got you this gig, didn't I?"

"What do you want — ten percent?"

She laughed wildly. "You think I wanna give up the title of best blackjack dealer in Vegas? You think I'm crazy or somein'? Stick your commission where the sun don't give you a tan!"

They were passing a ladies room. "Wait a sec," she said. "I'm so excited to see you I gotta take a pee."

He laughed and leaned against the wall while she dashed inside. Jess was a friend indeed. He had called her two weeks ago and said he had to get out of New York.

"No problem," she replied without hesitation. "Matt Traynor, the entertainment director of the hotel I work at, has the hots for me. Send me a tape and I'll get him to hire you."

He had sent the tape. She had come through with the gig. Some good friend.

Idly he watched a dark-haired girl in black leather pants and a red shirt stride by. She cut through the crowd as if she owned the place. He liked her style, not to mention her body.

Jesus! Was he free yet? He and Eden had split six months ago, yet every time he saw an attractive woman he couldn't help comparing the two. He was still doing it. Eden Antonio and he were unfinished business — why didn't he just face it?

Jess emerged from the ladies room and squeezed his hand. "It is sooo great to have you here," she said. "I want to hear all about everything."

"Hey — everything is a career going nowhere and a fucked up sex life."

"Sounds exciting. So what else is new?"

They were outside now and the desert heat enveloped them.

"Jeez!" he exclaimed. "I forgot how hot it is here."

"Aw, stop bitching. You could do with a tan. You look like Nightclub Charlie."

They approached a dented red Camaro waiting in the parking lot.

"I see you're still an ace driver," he remarked dryly, throwing his suitcase in the trunk.

"I didn't do that," she replied indignantly. "My old man can't drive around the block without gettin' into trouble."

He wondered what kind of man took on crazy Jess for a wife. Someone special, he hoped.

"C'mon," she said, sliding behind the steering wheel "Wayland is makin' lunch. The baby's makin' noise, and Lennie, you are gonna love it here. It always was your kinda town."

He nodded grimly. "Yeah. That's what I'm afraid of."

Lucky Santangelo stood out as she strode briskly through the crowd at the airport. She was a strikingly beautiful woman of twenty-eight with an unruly mass of jet curls, black gypsy eyes, a wide sensual month, a deep suntan and a lean, looselimbed body. She wore soft, black, leather pants, a red, silk shirt casually unbuttoned to the limit, and a wide belt studded with silver. From her ears hung plain, silver hoops and on her right hand was a square-cut diamond of such size and brilliance that one would be forgiven for thinking it was not real. It was.

No conventional beauty, she had a style and bearing all her own. Confidence wafted from her like the exotic scent she drenched herself with.

"Hey, Boogie." With affection she greeted the skinny, long-haired man in army fatigues who stepped forward to greet her. "How's everything?"

"The same," he said, low-voiced, his slit eyes darting this way and that, observing everyone and everything as he took her black leather tote bag and the check claim for the rest of her luggage

"No exciting news? No gossip?" she questioned, grinning, delighted to be back.

He had gossip, but he didn't want to be the one to give it to her.

She talked excitedly as they walked toward the stretch, Mercedes limousine parked on a red line.

"I think I put it all together, Boog. The Atlantic City deal is ready to fly. And I did it. Me! All I need is an okay from Gino and the record'll spin. I feel great!"

He was pleased to see her in such a good mood. He nodded and said, "If you want it you'll get it. I never doubted you."

Her eyes gleamed with excitement. "Atlantic City," she said. "We'll build a hotel to beat everything!"

"You'll do it," he agreed, opening up the rear door.

"Hey," she complained, "you know I always sit up front with you."

He switched doors, settled her in the passenger seat and loped off to get the rest of the baggage.

Gino Santangelo awoke with a start. For a moment he was disoriented, but only for a moment. He might be old, but he certainly wasn't senile, thank God. Besides, seventy-two nowadays was not exactly fertilizing-oranges time. In fact, last night in bed, he had felt like a kid again. And why not, with Susan Martino for company?

Susan Martino. Widow of the late, great Tiny Martino, a multitalented veteran of television and the movies. A comedian whose name ranked alongside Keaton, Chaplin and Benny. Tiny had died of a stroke two years previously. Gino had attended the funeral in Los Angeles, conveyed his respects to the widow-and had not seen her again until she turned up in Vegas three weeks ago at a charity benefit. Now he was waking up in her bed for the fifth morning in a row, and feeling no pain.

As if she knew he was thinking sweet thoughts about her, Susan entered the room. She was an attractive, well-groomed woman of forty-nine, who looked at least ten years younger. Her eyes were pale china blue, cheekbones high, skin white and smooth. Her silver-blond hair was neatly drawn back in a chignon, even though it was only nine in the morning. She wore a white silk peignoir over her understated but perfect body, and she carried a tray with a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice, a soft-boiled egg, and two pieces of lightly buttered toast cut into thin slices.

"Good morning, Gino," she said.

He struggled to sit up, pushing his hands through his unruly black hair, which, although graying at the temples, was just as thick and curly as it had been in his youth. He was still a man to be reckoned with. Age had by no means dulled his vitality and ceaseless energy, although a nearly fatal heart attack a year ago had slowed him down a mite. Like Susan, he did not look his age.

"What's all this?" He indicated the laden tray.

"Breakfast in bed."

"And what did I do to deserve it?"

She smiled. "What didn't you do."

He grinned, remembering. "Yeah. Not bad for an old man, huh?"

She placed the tray in front of him and sat on the edge of the bed. "You're the best lover I ever had," she said gravely.

He liked that. He liked it a lot. Susan Martino was no tramp, but she'd had a reputation of sorts before marrying Tiny Martino twenty-five years earlier. Aly Khan, Rubirosa, even Sinatra were rumored to be in her past. Enough for Gino to feel more than flattered by her compliment.

Not, of course, that he had ever questioned her about her past, just as she had never asked him about his.

"I wanna know somethin'," he said, interested enough now to start finding out.

"What?" she replied, carefully peeling the shell from his egg.

"When you were married to Tiny — you ever cheat around?" She did not hesitate. "Never," she replied firmly. "Although why I should tell you . . .

He suddenly felt possessive of this woman. This classy blond lady. And how many of them were there around today?

Women. Love 'em and leave 'em had been his life's motto. With very few exceptions. In the last year, taking them to bed had become boring. Another body. Another pretty face. Another thousand-dollar bill for a trinket because he didn't like to dismiss them empty-handed. When they left Gino Santangelo's bed he wanted them to know they had been somewhere. Not that he had to pay. Ever. The very thought was crazy.

"Can we spend the day together?" Susan asked, dipping a sliver of toast into the egg and feeding it to him.

He was just about to say yes when he remembered. Lucky was coming back today. His daughter. Beautiful, wild Lucky — with his eyes and his deep olive skin and his jet hair and his zest for living. How could he have forgotten? She had been away for three weeks on a business trip to the East. He would be missing her badly if it weren't for Susan.

"Why don't we make it tomorrow? I got things to do today," he said, pushing the fork away.

"Oh." She looked disappointed.

He wondered how Lucky would feel about Susan's joining them for dinner and knew instinctively that she would hate it. He could understand. After all, it was her first night back, and they would have a lot to talk about.

There was time enough to introduce Susan into their lives, and he fully intended to. Susan Martino was too much a lady to be just a one-week stand.

During the drive from the airport Lucky continued to fill Boogie in on her trip. He was more than her driver and sometime bodyguard when the climate indicated she was in need of protection. He was her friend, and she trusted him implicitly. In times of trouble Boogie came through. As he had proved in the past, he was loyal, smart and usually silent, unless he had something worth saying-which suited Lucky just fine.

He drove her to the front of the Magiriano Hotel on the Strip. She got out of the car and stood for a minute feeling the usual thrill of coming home to her hotel.

The Magiriano — a combination of her parents' names — Maria and Gino. Gino's dream, put into being by her while Gino sweated out a seven-year tax exile in Israel. She would always be proud of her achievement. The Magiriano was very special.

In the lobby there was the usual melee of tourists and noise. The casino was crowded with morning gamblers. No windows. No clocks. Twenty-four hours nonstop fun.

Lucky did not gamble. Who needed to play the tables when it all belonged to her and Gino anyway? She strode across the lobby to her private elevator concealed behind an arrangement of potted palms and inserted a code card to gain entry.

It was good to be back.

She couldn't wait to see Gino. She had so much to tell him.

Jess did not live in luxury, but the small tract house in front of which she stopped the car at least had its own tiny swimming pool. "This place is okay, but we're movin' on soon," she explained airily, opening up the front door. "We've seen a development in Lake Tahoe we're lookin' to buy into."

"Yeah?" said Lennie, and wondered who was looking to buy into it. From the small amount of information Jess had divulged about her husband, it seemed he didn't do much at all except look after their ten-month-old baby while she brought in the money.

"Anyone around?" she called out, as a scruffy mongrel dog appeared and wagged its sorry-looking tail. She bent to pet the animal. "This is Gaass," she explained. "Found him dumped in the garbage when he was a pup. Cute, huh?"

Wayland appeared, or at least Lennie presumed it was he. From the look of him, Jess had found herself another stray. He was dressed in grubby white chinos and a loose, embroidered shirt, and his dirty feet were bare. He had shoulder-length yellow hair with a center part, and a long, pallid face. Jess — who wrote wonderful letters — had mentioned that he painted. Exactly what he painted she hadn't gone into.

"Greetings, man"' said Wayland, stoned to the eyeballs. "Welcome to our home." And he extended a thin, shaking hand.

"Where's the baby?" Jess demanded. "Asleep."

"You sure?"

"Go see.', For a moment her pretty face clouded over, and Lennie sensed all was not well in this year-old marriage. That's just what he needed, to be stuck right in the middle of some miserable scene. He had enough problems of his own.

Lunch turned out to be a large bowl of brown rice and some wilted lettuce coated with stale yogurt. Jess tried to conceal her aggravation — she had been at work all night and had left instructions for Wayland to fix something special — but she did it with difficulty. Lennie knew her well enough to realize she was pissed off.

The baby — a boy named Simon — woke briefly and accepted a bottle.

"I wanna take Lennie over to the hotel," Jess said restlessly, when the baby was asleep again.

Wayland nodded. He didn't have much to say about anything.

Out in the car she lit up a joint, blew smoke in Lennie's face and said aggressively, "I don't want to talk about it, okay?"

"Who's asking?" he replied calmly.

She gunned the car into action and sped all the way to the Magiriano, where she drew up to the entrance without cutting the engine. "I'll meet you here in a couple of hours," she said. "Ask for Matt Traynor. He's the guy who booked you. He'll get someone to show you around."

"Where are you going?"

"I got an . . . er . . . appointment."

"Screwin' around already?"

"Give me a reason not to."

Having met Wayland, he couldn't think of one.

Matt Traynor was a fifty-five-year-old silver-haired fox in a three-piece beige suit. Apart from being the best entertainment director in Vegas, he had points in the hotel. Lucky Santangelo had personally pursued him to take the job, and only the lure of a piece of the action had persuaded him.

He told Lennie he loved the videotape Jess had shown him of his work and then proceeded to fire off questions about her as if hoping to find out every detail of her life.

Lennie made a stab at a few answers, but when Matt started asking about her marriage, Lennie felt the time had come to move on. Quickly he said he wanted to check out the lounge he would be appearing in and generally get the feel of the place. Matt Traynor agreed, gave a few vague directions and waved him on his way.

Las Vegas. The heat. The special smell. The hustle.

Las Vegas. Home. From birth to seventeen.

Las Vegas. Youthful memories crowding his head. The first time he got laid, drunk, stoned, busted. The first time he fell in love, ran away from home, stole his parents' car.

Mom and Pop. The odd couple.

Pop, an old-fashioned stand-up comic. Jack Golden. Dependable, a real hack. But a name everyone in show business knew — everyone except the general public. Dead thirteen years now. Cancer of the gallbladder.

And Mom, Alice Golden, formerly known as "the Swizzle" — one of the hottest strippers in town. Good old Mom, fifty-nine years old and living in a condo in California. From Las Vegas to Marina del Rey in one fell swoop with a used-car salesman from Sausalito. Alice was not your average Jewish mother. She wore short shorts, strapless tops, dyed her hair, shaved her legs and got laid a lot after the Sausalito salesman skipped town with ten thousand dollars' worth of her jewelry.

Alice . . . she was something else. He had never felt close to her. When he was a kid she bossed him around, sent him on endless errands and used him as a lackey. She never cooked a meal in her life. While other kids took neat brown bags to school with homemade meatloaf sandwiches, cookies and cheese, he was lucky to scrounge an apple from a tree in the garden.

"You gotta learn to be independent," Alice told him when he was about seven.

He had learned the lesson well.

Living with Alice and Jack was exciting. Their untidy apartment was always filled with dancers and singers, casino people and general show biz. Life was fun, if you forgot about childhood.

Alice. A real character. He had learned to accept the way she was.

Las Vegas. Why had he come back?

Because a job was a job was a job. And as he'd told Jess, he had to get out of New York. The police were on his case after he'd punched out a fat drunk who was heckling him during his act at a Soho club. The fat drunk turned out to be a shyster lawyer, who, when be woke up the next morning with a black eye and a split lip, decided Lennie Golden needed to be put away and set about doing so. The aggravation of a lawsuit was not something Lennie needed in his life. Leaving town seemed the best way to deal with it. Beside, Eden was on the West Coast, and for months he had been thinking about following her. Not that they had parted friends.

After Vegas he planned to move on to Los Angeles.

Not just to see Eden.

Yeah. To see Eden.

Admit it, schmuck, you're still hooked.

Lucky entered the pool area and paused for a moment until she caught the eye of Bertil, the Swedish heed honcho of all pool activity.

He spotted her immediately. She was impossible to miss in a one-piece black swimsuit covering a supple tanned body with the longest legs in town. He jumped to attention, remembering she was the boss, and hurried toward her, greeting her with just the right amount of deference and enthusiasm. "Welcome back, Miss Santangelo."

She nodded briefly, scanning the mass of bronzed bodies. "Thank you, Bertil. Any problems while I was away?"

"Nothing to bother you with."

"Bother me," she said softly. "I like to know everything."

He hesitated, then launched into a short story about two lifeguards who had been hitting on female guests.

"Did you fire them?" she asked.

"Yes, but they're planning to sue."

"Have you talked to our lawyers?"

"Yes."

"When it's all taken care of," she said, satisfied. He escorted her to a poolside lounger, and she settled back to observe the action.

"Bring me a phone," she requested.

He did as she asked, then left her alone.

She tried Gino for the third time. He was still out. Where the hell was he? Why wasn't he awaiting her arrival?

Copyright © 1990 by Jackie Collins