Chapter 19

Bobby

February 17^th^, 1947

Bobby smiled at Bugsy and remembered he was a woman and beautiful. He didn't know how old this body was, but he'd spent some time admiring it in the mirror when he got dressed. Unlike Ming, he wasn't concerned with modesty. Besides, this wasn't the first time he'd been stuck as a woman. This one was too skinny for his taste but attractive with a well-toned body. He preferred women with more meat, though. Whenever he read books about men switching bodies with women, he always scoffed at the awkwardness of a man looking at the female body and dealing with toilet issues. After spending two days as a burnt corpse, anything was better.

According to the history books, Bugsy Siegel was a playboy and loved to chat up any beautiful thing. Bobby smiled at the gangster and placed his hand on Bugsy. "So how do you know this Slazney?"

"I met him a few years ago. We got off to a rocky start, but he gave some great advice. Told me to invest in the Flamingo," Bugsy said, wrinkling his nose. "Wish I'd listened to him when he said I should go slower, but live and learn, I always say."

"Did he say anything about me?" Bobby asked the gangster and glanced at the Reporter. She was fingering her pen and looking at Bugsy as if he were a piece of cheesecake.

"Only some strange people who didn't fit the atmosphere might be coming around one day. When that happened, I should drop his name and see their reaction."

Shit!

Bobby continued to smile and looked around at Bugsy. Several other men had already surrounded them, preventing them from running away. The other patrons had moved away from the fight, leaving a void. He needed to get out of here. He glanced at the stage. Kansas Joe was tuning his guitar, ignoring them.

"Well, now, Mr. Siegel. I don't know this Slazney. I'm sure he was a good person, but I'm just a housewife with a deep interest in the Blues," Bobby said, "I came here because I heard Kansas Joe was playing, and it would have been a shame to miss him. I have nothing to hide." He needed to tell Ming this was a trap if she didn't already know.

"And I'm a priest," he scoffed at his joke and put his hand on the small of Bobby's back. He led him to his table. Bobby and Ming sat across from Bugsy, and he had his men set some drinks on the table. "Now, please tell me the truth?"

The music started, and McCoy started to croon. "You Know You Done Me Wrong." Like before, the music infused the room with its sound. Bugsy's men turned to the singer and swayed along with the music, ignoring the women.

The beat washed over him with its message. He'd heard recordings, but hearing it live was like listening to Crue for the first time; exquisite. Bugsy must have thought the same thing since the man stared at McCoy. His mouth had gone slack, and he was no longer watching the two of them. This song was different. Magic was in the air.

"Great. Jessica, it's time to go," Bobby said, turning to the reporter and frowning. "What are you doing?"

Ming was swaying to the music like Bugsy's men, oblivious to the world.

"Fuck!"

Bobby ran his fingers through his hair and stared at the stage. McCoy continued to ply, gesturing to a few people in the audience. They came over and picked Ming up under her armpits, walking her over to a private door. Bobby followed them, tracking Kansas. He heard him repeating the refrain in a soulful voice, infusing Bobby with joy and sorrow at the pain of loss. "Baby, you know you've done me wrong."

"Sasha," he mumbled, following Ming through the door.

In the back room, the music was muffled. Ming shook her head, blinking her eyes and came out of the trance. "What happened? I remember meeting Bugsy Siegel, then nothing," she said. "It's as if I were transported to another world."

"You were," Bobby replied, sitting down and closing his eyes. "Kansas Joe McCoy's music has that kind of power. Get some rest. We may be here for a while."

Ming Na Liu

Ming paced the small room, her fingers twitching. Bobby was sprawled out and snoring in the chair, but she couldn't sit. Bugsy Siegel was out there, and he had them surrounded by his goons. Ming wanted to ask him some questions about his involvement in the Vegas mob scene, how he knew Slazney and what he was planning to do. Bugsy was going to die in less than a month, and this was perfect.

Ming stopped moving and put her hand on the wall of the small dressing room. She was hyperventilating again. This wasn't a dream. She had travelled through time to 1947 and met Bugsy Siegel. "How the hell was this possible?"

Bobby said this was magic. Ming looked at the sleeping woman and shook her head. Magic wasn't real. Everything had an explanation and a cause. She was one of the best reporters in the city and on her way to winning the Pulitzer.

Yet she was in 1947, in a sixteen-year-old white girl's body, and she'd been talking to Bugsy Siegel. Ming grabbed her head and sank to the floor. "This is a dream, isn't it?"

The door to the dressing room banged open, and the singer from the stage walked in. Ming looked up at the black man and scuffled closer to Bobby.

"What are you doing?" Ming asked the singer and stood in front of Bobby. She was the only one Ming could trust at this time. Her insides clenched up. She hated feeling helpless. It was the same after her father's accident. Those hours were the worst.

The black man shrugged and sat down in the chair opposite Bobby, putting his guitar down. A muffled beat came through the doors.

"Who's playing the music?" she asked.

The black man was silent.

Bobby snorted, blinked his eyes and sat up. "Mr. McCoy, thank you for taking the time to meet with us," she said. Bobby was polite and respectful to the man, completely unlike the bouncers.

"So, care to tell me how you got those bodies?" Kansas Joe said.

Ming's eyes widened, and she pushed herself deeper into the corner. This wasn't happening. She could ignore everything, file it away as a story, as a dream. But it was real. She stared at the black man, but he was serious. Ming turned to Bobby, hoping for something, anything that would explain this.

"You could tell?" Bobby said.

"You aren't the first travellers I've met," Joe replied, "The last ones cost me five years."

Ming stopped moving and took a deep breath. Part of her wanted to yell and scream; this wasn't real, but it was time to let go. Running away wouldn't solve anything. She was here and had to deal with it. Dean would call it listening to his gut. She'd always dismissed his feelings and relied on the facts, but she couldn't let her doubt drive her to make more stupid decisions. If this were magic, she needed to deal with it the best way she could. Taking a deep breath, she pulled out some paper and a pencil.

"Then you know we need to get home. This was an unintended trip to the past," Bobby said.

Kansas Joe took a towel and wiped his head. He wasn't happy with the situation. He was tapping his finger on the edge of the chair, a nervous twitch if Ming was any judge of body language. "You're lucky I don't like Siegel and his men. They are a necessary part of the Vegas scene, but I wish they'd never come here."

Bobby smiled. On her real face, it wasn't so friendly. This one showed genuine warmth. "If it makes you feel better, he's going to check out soon."

"It doesn't." Joe scowled. "There are too many like him." He narrowed his eyes. "Where you from? Can't quite place the accent?"

"Russia. The USSR fell in 89. I'm from later than that."

Joe's scowl grew deeper. "I don't want to know anymore. The less, the better."

Ming's pencil flew across the page. She'd never heard of Kansas Joe McCoy before, but she couldn't deny the power of his words on Bobby. As she wrote, Ming could push out the strangeness of the world. It was still there, but the darkness no longer threatened to overwhelm her. The pencil was her shield.

"What about her?" Joe pointed to Ming. "She's a strange one. I can't get a read on her."

Bobby frowned. "She's a pleb and got caught up in this mess. From what I can tell, she's never had anything conscious to do with magic before. I'm afraid she's in over her head."

The pencil broke, and a snap filled the room.

Ming stood up and leaned over Bobby. "Mr. Miladev." Her voice went ice-cold. "I appreciate everything you've done for me since we arrived in this era, but don't presume to judge me. I may have been overwhelmed, but that doesn't give you the right to relegate me to second class." Ming shoved her face closer to Bobby's, forcing her to draw back and hit her head against the wall. "If you still had your balls on you, I'd make sure to show you how useless they were." The one thing she liked about being in Jessica's body was the size. As herself, she needed to convey the image of being bigger than she was. Now she stood taller than Bobby and Joe.

Kansas Joe chuckled, pounding his knee while holding his chest. "Please, don't surprise me like that, Miss. I have a bad heart," he said, wiping the side of his eyes. He took a deep breath and pulled out the paper Bobby gave him. "It looks like you have the math right, but I can get Millie to check tomorrow. What about the power?"

"Power?" Ming asked.

"All magic is powered by something. The code is just there to direct it, sort of like the programming that runs your smartphone." Bobby said, rubbing her arms. "I can get some records that will give me the beat, but my base is heavy metal, which hasn't been invented yet. There's no guitar I can play properly."

"Siegel will be after you the moment you leave this room," Joe said. "I could only keep him contained for a short time." He looked at his watch. "We got just a few minutes left. My current student is keeping the music going, but he's not as skilled, and I won't let him pay the cost for some fools who took a wrong turn." He grabbed a piece of paper and wrote something on it. "Come to this address tomorrow. I'll let Jim know to expect you. He's my best apprentice." He handed the paper to Bobby.

"Thank you, Mr. McCoy. I will never forget this," Bobby said, standing up. She put the paper in her purse and shook his hand.

"Don't. I can't get you out of here. That's up to you," he said and opened the door. "Get back to your seats and good luck."

"Is it okay if we break some of the bar?" Bobby asked Kansas Joe as he was leaving the room.

Joe smiled. "As I said, I don't want to know, but if you can, do it outside. They still have a business to run." He paused. "But, if you break Siegel as well, I'm good with it."

Ming put her broken pencil away and poked her head around the corner. Bugsy and his men were still swaying to the music. "What are we going to do?"

Bobby asked, "Can you fight?"

"Yes. I have a black belt in karate, and I was on the high school wrestling team," Ming said, cracking her knuckles. "How about you? From what I saw when you fought Ivan, you were good at running away." She smiled.

Bobby sneered. "Come on," she said, leading her back to the seat. "The music's going to stop. When it does, stand up and follow my lead."

"Why don't we just leave?" Ming pointed to the door.

"That'll leave too many questions, and Kansas wouldn't like that," Bobby said. "He's helping us here, Reporter. Let's not betray that."

Bobby sat down in the same position as before, and Ming sat across from him. She was directly behind one of Bugsy's men.

The music continued playing, there were a few more chords, and the song wound down. Bugsy and his men shook their heads and smiled.

"That was a good song," Bugsy said, blinking. He turned to Bobby. "Last chance, doll. Why are you here?"

"Let's go outside, and I'll tell you. I'm feeling a bit stuffy in here," Bobby said, standing up. She grabbed her purse and pushed past the men surrounding them.

Ming stood up and followed her. She counted seven guys, including Siegel, probably with guns. Bobby went straight for the door and brushed past the bouncer. Two of Siegel's men were on her heels. Coming out of the underground club, Ming shivered in the nighttime air. Because Vegas wasn't the premier tourist destination yet, it always dropped close to freezing after the sun went down. In this time without the pressure of people and buildings, the heat just vanished.

Bugsy emerged from the hole and strolled right in front of Bobby. "So, what did you want to tell us, doll? Or do we have to take a ride? I hear the desert is beautiful at this time of night."

Bobby smiled, put her purse down on the ground, stood up and shoved her palm directly into Bugsy's nose. He jerked back, and Bobby just missed driving his nose into his brain. Bobby followed his palm strike with a roundhouse kick to the temple, driving Bugsy Siegel to his knees.

"Get her!" one of Siegel's men shouted.

Two men rushed Bobby. She punched one in the face, but the other grabbed her from behind.

Ming yanked the jacket of the man standing next to her and pulled it over his head, blinding him. She followed it up with a punch to the kidneys and then kneed him between the legs. The man standing next to him fumbled for his gun and tripped over the first man. Ming jumped, brought her foot back and kicked him in the head. His eyes went dark, and he joined the man writhing on the ground, clutching his groin. It was hard to judge her strength in this strange body.

She turned back to Bobby. One man was on the ground, but two men were circling her. Bobby had taken a belt from one of the men and was holding it out like a whip. Ming counted six men. "Where was the seventh?"

A pair of arms grabbed her from behind and hoisted her up in the air. "Gottcha bitch. Yous gonna pay for what you did to Sammy."

Ming squirmed in his arms, but they held her tight. Forcing her legs back, she wrapped them around the bigger man and twisted. He grunted but didn't let go. She reached back, took hold of his ears, yanked them and was rewarded with a scream. He threw her to the ground, driving the breath from her body.

She was gasping when he jumped on top of her. "I'm gonna have me some fun before I kills, ya," he said, ripping her blouse. Ming reached down, shoved her hands into his pants and squeezed his balls. He let out a high-pitched scream, fainting on top of her. She pushed him off of her and knelt in the dirt, panting. Raising her head, she looked at Bobby.

The other two men were on the ground. Bobby's face sported a black eye and several cuts, her dress was torn in three places, and her bra strap was hanging out, but she was still standing. She had the belt around Siegel's neck, her foot on his back, and she was pulling it tight.

"If you think about coming after my daughter or me again, Mr. Fuckface, I won't stop at a slight choke." She leaned in and placed her mouth directly next to Bugsy's ear. "The pigs love to feed off fat-asses, and once they've tasted flesh, well, they get hungry for more." She grabbed her purse and smacked him in the side of the head. Bugsy went down and didn't move.

"Come on, let's get out of here before they come to," Bobby said, grabbing Ming's hand and pulling her away from the carnage. Several of the men were moaning, but two were getting up and reaching for their guns. Ming and Bobby turned the corner when they heard a gunshot ring out, chips of plaster scattering over them.

"They won't chase us through here," Bobby said, as they wove through the streets, back onto the main one. "Even so, we have to get home. I'm not going to meet Kansas Joe's man tomorrow looking like this."

Ming held her blouse together and followed Bobby through the streets. She was shivering, but not from the cold. This was the second time she had been almost violated since she'd been here. The present wasn't perfect, but at least it was safer. A few of the people they passed turned to stare at them, but nobody stopped to help. Two women getting attacked wasn't an important event in Vegas. That wasn't right.