Page 46 of Joker's Ghost
I palm her ass, and she squeals, then I kiss her one more time and beat it for the door before she has time to ask any questions I don’t wanna answer.
I park my bike in the lot, enter The Gold Mine, go down the back hall, knock on Cobra’s office door, then shoulder through.
Cobra stares at me for a minute before pushing away from the desk. “I wanna show you something Boa found last night.”
I follow Cobra out of his office, and he heads for the staircase leading to the basement. I stop cold because I have no intentions of revisiting anything down there. As far as I’m concerned, if I never go down there again, it’s fine with me.
My logical brain tells me I’m acting crazy, but . . .
Cobra’s blue eyes pierce through me. “You got a problem with going down to the basement?”
I look over my shoulder, then come clean. “I sure the fuckdo. The last time I was down there, I took a fall that could’ve killed me.”
“You’ll wanna see what Boa found.”
“Or you could just tell me about it up here.” Yeah, I know I sound like a pussy, but, shit, can you blame me? Two nights ago, I was thrown into some alternate universe where the love of my life and mother of my children got fatally stabbed.
Cobra throws me a look, and I reluctantly follow him down the hard, concrete steps. Seeing how far I fell sends a chill right up my spine, and I grip the banister harder. I’m super sensitive and on the lookout for any weird sounds or movements, but I reach the bottom of the stairs, and all is well.
I look around the dank, depressing cellar, and all I can think of is running up those stairs and slamming the door behind me. I’m embarrassed as shit to think it, but this place freaks me the fuck out. Which is saying a lot since I’ve done time, lived in places you wouldn’t put your dog, and survived a childhood in a beat-to-shit trailer with an addict for a father and hot and cold running roaches—yet I’ve never been so scared in my life.
“Boa was down here doing some investigating, trying to make sense outta what happened to you on Halloween.” Cobra nods to the far wall. “You know how he gets. Everything has to have a logical explanation and conclusion with him. Must be his accounting degree or some shit, but he was like a dog with a bone after you left last night.”
Cobra stops at the opposite end of the basement, an area we don’t even use, and points to a pile of bricks then a hole about four feet wide and four feet high.
“He found a few of these bricks on the floor and then loosened the rest of them himself.” He nods toward the hole. “You won’t fuckin’ believe what he found.”
And right now, I don’t really give a shit if it means crawling through a hole in the wall.
Sure enough, Cobra bends down and steps through the opening, then motions for me to do the same.
Bad enough I’m in this fuckin’ basement again, but now my prez wants me to climb through a small opening to the other side of who the fuck knows what?
I suck it up, then dip my head and follow him. On the other side, is a room with a low ceiling, wooden floor and a heavy oak bar along one wall, complete with barstools and a brass railing. Glasses and shakers line the top of the bar. The only indication to time passed is the layers of dust and cobwebs covering and decorating every inch of space. Like the place is frozen in time.
Fuck, I’m staring at the exact replica of the bar from my vision the other night, and I can’t help thinking this is the wormhole Boa mentioned.
Yeah, if that’s the case, I’m fucked.
Cobra motions to the dust-laden bar top. “Crazy, right?”
“Fuckin’ crazy.”
“When Boa showed me last night, I couldn’t believe it, but it proves the legend of this place dating back to the bootleg days.”
It also proves whatever kind of dream or vision I had on Halloween really exists, or existed at some point.
I move closer and step behind the bar. Vintage bottles of booze, also crusted in dust and grime, line the shelves. I pick up a bottle of gin, blow off the dust and my heart jacks up. The exact same brand Rattler used to make my gin fizz in 1939.
“Of course, after Boa found this, he did his usual in-depth research, and sure as shit, this was used as an underground speakeasy back in the day. Apparently, upstairs was for dining, and if you knew the right people, you got access to the basement and the booze. After Prohibition, Bugsy used it as a private club where he could entertain his buddies.According to Boa, his Hollywood friends got off on thinking they were in some exclusive hideaway.”
“Amazing.” And fuckin’ creepy.
“When did they brick up the wall?”
“After Bugsy’s murder, the place fell on hard times, and they closed this room up. Seems he brought in most of the customers, and Nevada was starting to crack down on crime. Boa’s research said the place was sold plenty of times over the years. When me and Python came around, we snatched the place up for practically nothing.”
“I’ve heard places like this existed around Vegas that were either used as speakeasies or storage for the illegal booze.”
