The Devil's Graveyard by Anonymous

anything. Well, she’d been wrong.
    Being a tolerably honest sort – by his estimation, at least – Sanchez was fully intending to hand the envelope in to the reception desk. After all, it didn’t belong to him. And when he handed it in, it would still have the money in it: right amount, right number of bills in the right denomination. But before he did that, he was just going to use twenty thousand as stake money in the casino. As soon as he’d made a decent profit, he would slip twenty thousand in hundred-dollar bills into the envelope, seal it and drop it off at reception. No one would be any the wiser.
    When he had first decided on this plan, his intention had been to play it safe and make only a small profit. But by the time he actually made it down to the casino on the lower ground floor, he had decided that he would only quit once he’d doubled the stake money. Twenty thousand for Sanchez and twenty thousand for the hitman, whoever he was. It seemed only fair. His palms were sweating as he stepped out of the elevator and into the casino area. One good bet, and his vacation would be off to the best possible start.
    The casino was straight out of one of Sanchez’s dreams (well, leaving aside that the croupiers weren’t monkeys in red suits and hats; Sanchez’s dreams had their odder moments). It was vast and opulent and the lighting made the whole area glow a bright golden colour. The carpet was deep crimson in colour, not dissimilar to the red of the waistcoats worn by croupiers and waitresses. And there were customers everywhere. The sound of rolling dice, cards being slapped down on baize-topped tables, roulette wheels spinning, cheers from winning gamblers, sighs from losers, coins rattling into trays, it was all there.
    Sanchez was in heaven.
    To his left were rows of slot machines, mostly being used by elderly people. Directly ahead was a bar fronted by rows of stools on which a few losers sat drowning their sorrows. Over to his right were the roulette and blackjack tables, about twenty of them in all. Each table had a croupier and two or three gamblers seated at it, so there was plenty of room for Sanchez. He could pick any table he wanted, but what game did he fancy? Blackjack, poker, craps, roulette?
    What he needed was a sign. He was not overly superstitious, but he did believe in good luck. Some kind of omen would set him on the right path, he felt. And he spotted one almost at once. There was a roulette table near the centre of the room at which three players sat taking their chances. One of them was the self-styled Mystic Lady, Annabel de Frugyn.
    Jackpot! Despite his personal distaste, right now she was just the person he had hoped to see. If the rumours were true, then this crazy old crone could see into the future. So who better to stand next to?
    Sanchez made his way over to the table, heading for Annabel. She was seated on a stool between two tiny middle-aged Chinese women. Each of them had huge stacks of chips in front of her suggesting that they were all winning. Or that they had only just started playing. Sanchez grabbed a free stool from another table and manoeuvred it in between the Mystic Lady and the smaller of the two Chinese women, nudging her to one side so he could squeeze in to the left of Annabel. The sight of him sidling up next to her had the desired effect. She was pleased to see him.
    ‘I knew you couldn’t stay away, Sanchez,’ she said, winking at him with quite horrible coyness.
    ‘Ha ha! Yeah, that’s right,’ he replied with a shameful level of forced enthusiasm. ‘So, you havin’ any luck?’
    ‘Oh my, yes. I’m on a real winning streak, Sanchez. The hotel manager gave me five hundred dollars and I’ve tripled it already.’ Well, she had received five hundred bucks from Powell. Sanchez didn’t need to know how she’d earned it.
    Sanchez reached down to the envelope tucked into the front of his shorts. He’d wedged it in good and proper, and he provoked a