Read Online Find This Woman by Richard S. Prather - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Richard S. Prather
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out to head for other spots on the Strip. There were half a dozen Western costumes in sight, and one couple in evening clothes.
Colleen said softly, "Like to ride out a little way, Shell?"
"O.K."
She drove downtown and turned left off Fifth Street into East Fremont Street. Up ahead was what most people think of when Las Vegas is mentioned. It was a blaze of lights and color and neon: gambling halls jammed up against each other on both sides of Fremont from Second on up to Main, for two solid blocks. Overshadowing all the rest was the big sign above the Golden Nugget on the left, and beyond that the huge mechanical cowboy pointed the way to the Pioneer Club with his animated hand and thumb. And the Las Vegas Club, the Monte Carlo, the Frontier Club, and all the rest. Colleen drove through slowly because the place was full of men and women and cowboys. A guy blew a bugle at us as we crossed First Street, and we had to wait a few seconds for a man on a horse to get out of our way at Main, where Colleen turned right and then swung back to head out of town. Then she drove like the wind all the way to Hoover Dam.
We got out and looked at the dam, and looked down at the water and the reflection of the moonlight. Colleen didn't bother me with questions or idle chatter; she slipped her hand in mine and we spent fifteen or twenty minutes out there before we started back. It was a bright moonlight night and the stars were clear; it was peaceful and beautiful. Neither of us mentioned Freddy again.
On the way back in I made up my mind about what I was going to do, and when we were back on the Strip I asked Colleen to let me off at the Inferno. She cut into the curving drive that all the Strip clubs have and stopped in front of the entrance.
She asked me, "Do I come in, too?"
"Not this trip. Maybe another night."
"I didn't think so. Shell, see me tomorrow?"
I got out of the car. "I'll do my best. I'm not sure just where I'll be. Maybe lunch or dinnerâif I'm not chasing around somewhere."
"Swell. 'By, then."
She drove on out and down the Strip. I watched her go. I'd met her only a few hours before, and I'd never kissed her, hardly touched her except to hold her hand, but I could tell: This Colleen was getting under my skin, getting to me. Even after all that had happened this afternoon and tonight, sitting beside her in the car driving back from Lake Mead I couldn't keep her purely physical attraction, and her beauty, from crowding up in my mind.
I watched her go, then I turned around and took my first really good look at Dante's Inferno.
The Inferno was the newest and most fabulous of all the fabulous luxury hotels and casinos in what the home folks themselves refer to as Fabulous Las Vegas. The word when applied to the Inferno was no Hollywood superlative; it was an apt description. It was between the Desert Inn and the Flamingo on the desert end of the Strip, and the building was huge, surrounded by twenty acres of landscaped grounds and parking space, and fronted with ten thousand square feet of velvety green lawn.
Equally distant from the two sides of the lawn and out close to the street, a statue of Satan stood, forty feet high and bathed in a wash of crimson from spotlights at its base. The arms were bent at the elbows and raised out toward the street, the right arm higher than the head, the left at waist level, all ten fingers rigidly extended. The figure itself was slightly crouched, the evil head bent forward as if peering into the cars that passed all day and all night in front of it.
The front of the club was an intricate network of neon tubing, most of it glowing redly, and so fashioned that as the current was directed from one set of tubing to another, the entire face of the building seemed to be covered with leaping flames that occasionally shot higher than the roof.
The entrance was rectangular, but above and around it was painted, on the face of the building and under the neon flames, the same face as
Colleen said softly, "Like to ride out a little way, Shell?"
"O.K."
She drove downtown and turned left off Fifth Street into East Fremont Street. Up ahead was what most people think of when Las Vegas is mentioned. It was a blaze of lights and color and neon: gambling halls jammed up against each other on both sides of Fremont from Second on up to Main, for two solid blocks. Overshadowing all the rest was the big sign above the Golden Nugget on the left, and beyond that the huge mechanical cowboy pointed the way to the Pioneer Club with his animated hand and thumb. And the Las Vegas Club, the Monte Carlo, the Frontier Club, and all the rest. Colleen drove through slowly because the place was full of men and women and cowboys. A guy blew a bugle at us as we crossed First Street, and we had to wait a few seconds for a man on a horse to get out of our way at Main, where Colleen turned right and then swung back to head out of town. Then she drove like the wind all the way to Hoover Dam.
We got out and looked at the dam, and looked down at the water and the reflection of the moonlight. Colleen didn't bother me with questions or idle chatter; she slipped her hand in mine and we spent fifteen or twenty minutes out there before we started back. It was a bright moonlight night and the stars were clear; it was peaceful and beautiful. Neither of us mentioned Freddy again.
On the way back in I made up my mind about what I was going to do, and when we were back on the Strip I asked Colleen to let me off at the Inferno. She cut into the curving drive that all the Strip clubs have and stopped in front of the entrance.
She asked me, "Do I come in, too?"
"Not this trip. Maybe another night."
"I didn't think so. Shell, see me tomorrow?"
I got out of the car. "I'll do my best. I'm not sure just where I'll be. Maybe lunch or dinnerâif I'm not chasing around somewhere."
"Swell. 'By, then."
She drove on out and down the Strip. I watched her go. I'd met her only a few hours before, and I'd never kissed her, hardly touched her except to hold her hand, but I could tell: This Colleen was getting under my skin, getting to me. Even after all that had happened this afternoon and tonight, sitting beside her in the car driving back from Lake Mead I couldn't keep her purely physical attraction, and her beauty, from crowding up in my mind.
I watched her go, then I turned around and took my first really good look at Dante's Inferno.
The Inferno was the newest and most fabulous of all the fabulous luxury hotels and casinos in what the home folks themselves refer to as Fabulous Las Vegas. The word when applied to the Inferno was no Hollywood superlative; it was an apt description. It was between the Desert Inn and the Flamingo on the desert end of the Strip, and the building was huge, surrounded by twenty acres of landscaped grounds and parking space, and fronted with ten thousand square feet of velvety green lawn.
Equally distant from the two sides of the lawn and out close to the street, a statue of Satan stood, forty feet high and bathed in a wash of crimson from spotlights at its base. The arms were bent at the elbows and raised out toward the street, the right arm higher than the head, the left at waist level, all ten fingers rigidly extended. The figure itself was slightly crouched, the evil head bent forward as if peering into the cars that passed all day and all night in front of it.
The front of the club was an intricate network of neon tubing, most of it glowing redly, and so fashioned that as the current was directed from one set of tubing to another, the entire face of the building seemed to be covered with leaping flames that occasionally shot higher than the roof.
The entrance was rectangular, but above and around it was painted, on the face of the building and under the neon flames, the same face as
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