Rarities Unlimited 02 - Running Scared

answer Tim had expected. He waved and headed for the front door of the shabby bungalow.
    Socks watched for a moment. He might not have been university smart, but he was gutter clever. Tim had been easygoing and eager to please before Cherelle. There hadn’t been any change at first. But now . . . now Socks was getting the short end of the triangle. Tim was taking the bitch’s orders and ignoring the buddy he used to listen to. Half the time he and Tim were arguing like old marrieds.
    What really bothered Socks was that he couldn’t shake the feeling he was losing.

Chapter 15
    Las Vegas
    November 2
    Half past noon
    F or long minutes Cherelle stared at the Golden Fleece’s namesake suspended in a tank full of water. While crowds of people eddied around her and oooohed and murmured over the golden sheepskin, all she could think about was how much she’d like to break that tank and roll in the gold dust until she was a solid gold woman. Even her eyes. It would be really cool to have them gold instead of the boring pale blue she’d been born with.
    “Hey, Max, look at this! They’re having a big gold show New Year’s Eve. We’ll have to come back.”
    Cherelle gave the middle-aged couple a cold look for interrupting her fantasy. Then she saw the pamphlet the woman was waving at her husband. Gold flashed hypnotically from color photos.
    “Where’d you get that?” Cherelle asked.
    The woman pointed toward the holders placed around the big square pedestal that supported the tank and the fleece.
    Cherelle elbowed forward, grabbed a pamphlet, and began reading eagerly. Then she looked at the photos again. They weren’t exactly like the gold she had, but they weren’t not like it either.
    A note at the bottom next to a classy photo said risa sheridan, ph.d., curator.
    Cherelle shoved the pamphlet into her purse and chewed on the inside corner of her mouth. She should have changed clothes, something fancier. But she didn’t have anything clean and didn’t want to go hang out with all the busted-up street people at the Laundromat near the motel while she watched her clothes do somersaults in the dryer. She was classier than that.
    Well, screw it. She wasn’t the only woman in the Golden Fleece wearing jeans and high-heeled sandals.
    After a last longing look at the fleece, Cherelle sauntered off toward the bar called Gabriel’s Horn for the golden trumpet that hung over the back mirror. The bar itself stuck like a glittering toe into the casino that wrapped around the lobby. She knew that Risa hadn’t wanted to meet her old friend inside the Golden Fleece, but she’d given in when Cherelle had done what she used to do while they were kids—roll right over Risa’s halfway objections like they didn’t exist.
    Cherelle had pushed the matter because she didn’t want Risa to see her in a roach palace like the motel she’d left her clothes in. She had always let on that she was doing real well, better than Risa in fact. Up until a few years ago, that had been close enough to the truth.
    Soon it would be the truth. Hell, she would be doing better than Risa. She would get classy clothes like her old friend, and some sexy underwear, and some shoes that didn’t kill her feet. Then she and Tim could fire up the crack pipe and screw each other blind.
    As soon as Cherelle sat at the bar, the bartender came over. She waved him off. She didn’t have five bucks for a glass of soda water. A well-dressed working girl farther down the bar sent her a hard look. Cherelle just shook her head slightly, silently telling the other woman that she didn’t need to worry about any poaching. Cherelle wasn’t in competition for a horny john.
    “Sure I can’t get you something?” the bartender asked, giving Cherelle a knowing once-over.
    “Sugah, I wish you could.” She leaned forward and gave him a good view of what he wasn’t going to get any of. “But I’m not working. I’m waiting for a friend.”
    “You change your mind, ask for Slim John.”
    She looked at the bartender. Tall, thin, in his forties, he seemed more like a schoolteacher than a bartender. “Well, you sure are one long drink of water, and that’s a fact.”
    He winked at her and went down the bar toward a man who’d just sat down.
    Cherelle wondered what time it was. Her watch didn’t work, and there wasn’t a clock anywhere in sight. Then she saw Risa crossing the lobby, headed toward Gabriel’s Horn. She was wearing the kind of soft gray