My superpowers don"t work a great distance from a casino. They are powered by the energy of a casino, as a flashlight is powered by a battery. My black leather coat and hat seemed to focus the energy from the casino and make me into Poker Boy.
"Wait," I said, "I have another idea. Let me buy you dinner and a drink at the casino." I pointed to my partially eaten t.v. dinner. "That just isn"t doing it for me."
"That sounds great," she said.
No doubt she was relieved to get out of the old mobile home.
Fifteen minutes of very, very small talk later, we were seated in the fine dining restaurant at the casino. I had my leather coat and hat on and was in full Poker Boy power mode.
I knew with a quick scan with my Ultra-Intuition Power that she needed help. Poker Boy"s help, actually, which was interesting that she had found me.
My Ultra-Intuition Power is my most used power. With a focused glance, I can tell what a person needs, what they might say next, or even their next action. The information comes to me by "little voice messenger," and I have learned to listen.
I could list all my superpowers right now, but that would be a dull monolog, not worth the time, since there are so many. Some of the powers I haven"t even named.
"Thank you," she said to me after we were settled at a table and the waiter was off getting our drink orders.
"For what?" I asked.
"For being so welcoming, especially on Christmas Eve."
"Poker players are never much for Christmas," I said, shrugging. "The ones with the families miss days and sometimes weeks of play. The rest of us just continue on and mostly don"t notice."
"You have no family?" she asked. "And you play poker for a living?" She sounded actually impressed about the second part.
"Right on both counts," I said. "How about you?"
She sighed, and then for the next twenty minutes, through drinks, appetizers, and into the main course, she told me about her family, her parents being sick, her brother being stupid, her last two husbands being abusive.
I wanted to ask her when the growth spurt on her chest had happened, but refrained. Some things you just don"t ask a woman, I have learned, and that"s one of them.
Suddenly, she stopped talking, afraid to tell me about something. She had been fairly graphic about her past husbands, what they had done to her. Some of it I couldn"t believe she would just tell a stranger like me. Granted, we had a past, but after not seeing this woman for over twenty-five years, I was still a stranger.
She studied her salmon, forked it a few times, studied it some more, forked it again, all the time trying to say something. Whatever was now stopping her must be really something. It was, more than likely, the reason she had looked me up.
I used my Ultra-Intuition Power on her again, but I could see only blackness.
Deep, deep blackness.
Not good, not good at all.
I needed another superpower to help her out, get her to tell me her problem. I focused across the table at her, leaning forward, clicking my mind into a friendly, giving mode. A moment later I felt the superpower click on.
Empathy Super Power to the rescue.
I could make her feel better, I could make her trust me. My Empathy Superpower sort of radiated good feelings to another person, so it really wasn"t empathy, by the standard dictionary definition, but Empathy Superpower was the only thing I could think to call it. I had tried Feel Better Superpower, but that had seemed silly. And so did Trust Me Superpower. So until I could come up with a better name, it was called my Empathy Superpower.
She looked up at me, her gaze holding mine. "I just feel like I can talk to you, and that you"ll understand."
Empathy Superpower working just fine.
"I will," I said, easing my hand across the table between the water gla.s.ses and salt shaker to touch her hand.
Touch always made my Empathy Superpower even stronger.
"What"s bothering you?" I asked.
She looked embarra.s.sed for a moment, then took a deep breath and blurted out her problem.
"Aliens are trying to steal my b.r.e.a.s.t.s."
I knew there were no such things as aliens, at least at the moment on the planet. There had been in the past, and I am sure there would be again. They visited all the time. But right now they weren"t around and hadn"t been for at least five years.
But there were many, many other things that normal people confused with aliens. And there was an entire dark world that existed along with the light world we all lived in. It was against creatures from that dark world that I, and other superheroes, fought so often.
"Aliens?" I asked, keeping my touch on her arm and my super Empathy power turned on. "What do these aliens look like? Have you seen them?"
She nodded. "Gray, short, with long fingers and little round mouths."
"Big heads?" I asked.
"Yeah," she said, staring into my eyes. "Big for their bodies."
I could feel my stomach twist. She was even more trouble than I had thought.
"And they want your b.r.e.a.s.t.s?"
She nodded.
I sat back, pulling my hand away and shutting off the superpower. "You"re not dealing with aliens. Those are Silicon Suckers, a very dark creature of the underworld."
"Silicon Suckers?" she asked. "How do you know that?"
"I"ve had to deal with them a couple of times over the years," I said. "They"re not a nice bunch, and you clearly have something they want, or they wouldn"t be showing themselves to you."
I knew exactly what they wanted, but I was going to have to work into telling her what it was.
Silicon Suckers are a race of intelligent creatures that have existed on Earth far, far longer than human beings. They live in the deserts, burrow in the sand, and have the ability to change their appearance and blend with about anything. In this country, the Phoenix, New Mexico, and Las Vegas areas have the most trouble with them.
"Silicon Suckers?" she said. "My b.r.e.a.s.t.s are silicon implants." She was clearly starting to understand what the little guys were after.
I almost said, "Really, I hadn"t noticed." But I stopped myself before that gaffe and instead just nodded. Then I moved to the next question.
"Where have you been living?"
"Vegas," she said. "I"ve been working as a blackjack dealer at Circus Circus for the last six years, since I left b.a.s.t.a.r.d Husband Number Two."
"Good for you," I said, actually impressed. I knew how hard and how special it was to become a dealer on the strip. "When did you have the implants put in?"
"Twenty years ago," she said. "I did it between b.a.s.t.a.r.d Husband Number One and b.a.s.t.a.r.d Husband Number Two. But I upgraded them six months ago, and that"s when the gray aliens started showing up."
"Oh, oh," I said.
"Oh, oh?" she asked, looking very worried.
And she should be worried. I didn"t know how to tell her what had happened. The fight between good and evil, between the superheroes and the dark forces is always tough to explain to a mere mortal, especially when it concerns a body part.
Finally, looking into her worried eyes, I decided to approach the problem by showing her I knew what had happed.
"Dr. Doubleday did the upgrade. Right?"
She looked at me as if I had lost my mind, then nodded. "How did you know that?"
Actually, I wasn"t reading her mind or using any other superpower. I had dealt with Silicon Suckers for a friend of a friend in Vegas five months before, on an adventure that also rescued three dogs. On that trip, I had discovered that Dr. Doubleday had been using a very special silicon mix taken from pure natural sand and then refined down into a very special silicon gel.
The problem was the sand he had been using was from a sacred Silicon Suckers burial site. Julie, my old girlfriend sitting across the table from me, had a real problem. She had dead Silicon Suckers for b.r.e.a.s.t.s.
"I know because one of the things I do is help people as I travel around the country playing poker," I said.
"I know," she said. "I"ve heard about you. Some people call you Poker Boy."
Since she clearly looked as if she didn"t believe what she had just said, I let it pa.s.s and went on. "I helped a previous client of Dr. Doubleday. I a.s.sume you tried to go back to him after the Silicon Suckers started showing up and playing with your b.r.e.a.s.t.s. And I bet you found him missing."
Now Julie was looking at me as if I were the alien.
I knew for a fact that Dr. Doubleday had given his life for trying to improve his craft and find the most perfect silicon implants. After what he had done to the Silicon Suckers" sacred resting place, many of us in the superhero world thought he got off light by only being killed. His body will never be found. More than likely parts of Dr. Doubleday are tinting car windows everywhere.
"How did you know he wasn"t there?" she asked.
"Doubleday is dead," I said. "Killed by the Silicon Suckers."
She sat there in silence, first staring at me, then down at her salmon. Finally she said, "Let"s a.s.sume that I believe what you"re saying."
"No weirder than thinking aliens are trying to steal your b.r.e.a.s.t.s."
She shrugged. "True. So what do I do?"
I put another bite of steak in my mouth, savored the flavor for a moment. There was only one answer to her question.
"If you"re going to want to live, you have to give them your implants back."
"I"m not going to do that!" she said, her hands going to the monsters on her chest as if to protect the big girls.
I kept eating, staying calm. "You have no choice. If you don"t have the money, I can pay for an exchange operation for the silicon implants you have now. All they want is those implants. They don"t want you to be flat chested."
There was no chance at that point that the rest of her salmon was going to be eaten. She scooted the plate away and stared at me.
"I wasn"t flat chested before I had the implants," she said. "You know, you"re totally nuts."
I wanted to remind her that she had come to me for help, that she thought aliens were trying to take her b.o.o.bs, but I didn"t. Instead I just gave her the rest of the information, calmly and slowly, keeping my voice level.
"The creatures you are having trouble with are not aliens, but they are after the special silicon Dr. Doubleday used in those implants. If you have the implants removed, I"ll be glad to help you give them to the Silicon Suckers in a special exchange ceremony. You give them back what they want, and you"ll always be an honored guest in their sand castles."
She stared at me as if she were seeing me for the first time.
"Sand castles?"
"That"s what they call their homes. I"ve been in a few of them outside of Tucson. Big, but kind of dusty and dry."
She stared at me again, then shook her head slowly from side to side.
"I knew better than to come to you," she said. "Even with Suzy"s recommendation, I knew better."
She stood and thrust her chest out so far I was afraid she was going to go head first into my steak. Somehow, she managed to remain standing, although she cast a very dark shadow over the table as her b.r.e.a.s.t.s pulled an eclipse on the overhead light.
"These are mine, and I paid good money for them," she said, loudly, indicating what did not need to be indicated. "And I"m not letting any little gray alien suckers take them."
The guy at a table against the wall choked, then coughed, clearly trying not to laugh.
"Your choice," I said. "But I"m doing all right with money, and I would be glad to pay for replacements. Remember that. No strings attached. You can even make them bigger if you want."
"I"ll give it some thought," she said.
"Don"t take too long to decide," I said, staring up at her over the monster mountain range between us. "Silicon Suckers are not creatures to be played with. The only way they know how to get into a human body is through the a.n.u.s, and trust me, taking those silicon implants out that way will not be fun. And more than likely fatal."
She sputtered, started to say something more, sputtered again.
I didn"t blame her.
Finally she managed to get those sacred and very dead Silicon Suckers on her chest turned toward the door. Then, with one last withering glance at me, she stormed out.
The guy against the wall was laughing so hard I thought he would go face down in his soup.
For me, it really wasn"t a laughing matter. She was in mortal danger.
I wanted to run after her and stop her, but I knew, for a fact, there was nothing I could do at this point. I certainly wasn"t going to force her to have an operation. A woman"s choice of what to do, or not do, with her body was not something a man, or a superhero, should get involved with. She was going to have to make that choice for herself.
For some reason that I didn"t completely understand, Julie"s entire self image must have been tied up in what the Silicon Suckers wanted back. And replacements might not be enough to matter to her.
I wished I understood Julie"s side. I did understand the Suckers" side.
The guy against the wall finally coughed a few times, shook his head, and went back to eating. I stared at my steak for a moment, thinking over anything I might still do to help her. Without b.u.t.ting in on her rights to do with her own body as she saw fit, there wasn"t much.
She had come to me for help, then refused it. As those of us in the superhero business know, there are times you just can"t help.
I finished my steak and just barely made it into the poker room in time for the seven o"clock tournament.
I won the thing and put the money in a jar on my kitchen counter, saved for Julie"s operation. But I had a hunch she would never call me, because after the tournament, on the way home from the casino, I found a German Shepherd laying in the ditch beside the road. It had been hit by a car, but it was still alive.