Deadman's Bluff Read Online Free Page A

sweet home,” Rufus said, sailing his Stetson into the room as he went in. “I’ll tell you a little secret about Ti. He always practiced his golf shots in the shade. That way, when suckers played him, they assumed he didn’t get out much.”
    As Valentine turned to shut the door, it slammed open in his face. Pools of black appeared before his eyes and he staggered backward into a wall.
    The men from the elevator rushed into the suite. The white guy was holding a nylon rope stretched between his hands, the black guy a pipe. The black guy ran across the suite and tried to smack Rufus over the head. Rufus fell on the couch.
    “Don’t hurt me,” the old cowboy said. “Please don’t hurt me.”
    The white guy wrapped his rope around Valentine’s neck, then spun him around and put his knee into Valentine’s back. Valentine tried to wiggle his fingers between the rope and his windpipe. It was no good.
    “I’ll pay you twenty grand, cash,” Rufus said to his attacker.
    “You got that much?” his attacker asked.
    “Yeah, in the wall safe.”
    The black guy looked at his partner, then back at Rufus. “Double it, and I won’t kill you.”
    “Deal,” Rufus said.
    “What about your friend?”
    “What about him?” Rufus asked.
    The black guy laughed harshly.
    Valentine felt the fight leave his body and his legs begin to buckle. From across the room, Celebrity’s garish neon flashed through the partially open blinds. Las Vegas was built on losers, and he realized he was about to become one of them.

4
    V alentine was sinking in a bottomless lake. He felt weightless and surprisingly calm.
Dying isn’t so bad,
he thought.
    He heard a sharp
crack!
that sounded like thunder. The rope strangling him went slack, and fell to the floor. He took a deep breath, then spun around. His attacker was holding his arm, cursing in pain. Valentine kicked the man’s legs out from under him. Called the sweep, it was the best way to take someone down. As the man fell forward, Valentine kneed him in the face for good measure.
    He heard another
crack!
from across the suite. Rufus stood in the middle of the living room, brandishing a bullwhip. He cracked the whip like a pro, repeatedly hitting the black guy in places that were hard to defend: his ankle, face, and crotch. Valentine had seen Rufus slip something beneath the couch a few nights before, and had assumed it was a pair of shoes.
    “Look out behind you,” Rufus said.
    Valentine spun around. The effort made his head throb and the room spin. The white guy had gotten up and was staggering out the door, his face a bloody mess.
    “Tony, behind you again,” Rufus called out.
    Valentine turned again, this time a little more slowly. Rufus’s attacker ran past him. He joined up with his partner, and their pounding footsteps reverberated down the hallway. Cracking his whip, Rufus followed the two men into the hall. His Stetson was back on his head, and he looked as regal as any cowboy had the right to look.
    “Anytime, girls,” Rufus yelled, standing in the hallway. “Come back anytime.”
     
    Valentine got his wits back, then searched the suite for a weapon. He settled on a brass flower vase sitting on the TV. It was shaped like a woman in a floor-length dress. He went into the hall with the vase clutched in his hand.
    “Call hotel security,” he told Rufus.
    “Sure. You okay?”
    “Never better,” Valentine said.
    Like Hansel and Gretel in the forest, their attackers had left a trail. Instead of bread crumbs, they’d left drops of blood. He followed them to the hallway’s end, stopping at the doorway to the emergency exit stairwell. Opening the door cautiously, he stuck his head in, staring into semidarkness.
    From down below came voices. His adrenaline had burned off, and the bridge of his nose felt as wide as his head. The smart move was to retreat. He’d escaped, and that was the important thing. Only Valentine wanted to pay these jokers back. When it came to killers,