Just Deserts in Las Vegas

by A. R. Winters

  With Bridget on my left and Ian on my right, I walked us over to Horrible Nanna’s taped-off cabin.

  “Must have been smoky in there, huh?” Brad said from behind me.

  “I didn’t invite you to come with me.”

  “Hey, it’s a free country. I’m just walking where I want to, as is my right.”

  I turned back to face the cabin again, and this time I handed Bridget’s leash over to Ian and ducked under the police tape, walking up the steps to the little veranda.

  “Hey, you’re not allowed up there!” Brad shouted. “That’s why there’s tape.”

  I ignored him. I didn’t need to go inside; I just wanted to look at the outside again. See if I could figure something out.

  Sitting on the veranda, was old Mrs. Watson’s rocking chair, along with two more high-backed wooden chairs that Abner had made. I crouched down and examined them.

  “Are you doing an appraisal? What are they worth?” Brad called. “A hundred bucks? A thousand? Are they antiques?”

  I didn’t even turn around. I stared at the chairs some more, and then took the three short steps to the front door of the cabin and stared at the door. It had a push handle to open and close it, and it opened outward onto the porch. That was unusual, since front doors opened inward.

  I looked back at the chairs, and then at the door again. When I stood up again, I had a smile on my face as I trotted down the steps and scuttled back underneath the police tape.

  “What’d you find?” Ian asked.

  “Yeah. Find something valuable?”

  I shook my head. “Tell you later, Ian. Come on. The others are arriving.” I pointed and the other two followed my gaze to where we could see clouds of dust in the distance, which marked the arrival of the rest of the guests.

  A few minutes later, three more vehicles arrived. In the old white pickup truck was Carl Watson with Pepper and Dylan, while Rachel and Hunter had arrived in their own car. Simone and Antonio were dropped off in a big chauffeur-driven black SUV, which promptly turned around and left as soon as they had exited the vehicle.

  “Did you have a nice trip to Macau?” I asked Simone with a smile.

  She wrinkled her nose at me. “Nope. Boring, boring, boring. If it weren’t for Antonio I literally would have died of boredom.”

  “Sorry to hear that,” I said without too much sympathy. I thought I might enjoy a boring trip to Macau. I certainly wouldn’t be complaining about it, especially if someone else was paying.

  “Did you find it boring?” I asked Antonio.

  He shook his head. “No!” he said loudly, with a short Spanish o sound. “I was with my love, and when I am with my love I am never bored, not even for a moment. Isn’t that right, mi amor?”

  Simone giggled and rubbed her hand over his arm. Then she stopped smiling and tried to look a little more somber. “We shouldn’t mess around. This is a serious occasion.”

  “Of course, my love,” Antonio said in a throaty voice that he managed to make sound like it was filled with emotion. I assumed he was acting.

  Pepper had hopped out of her father’s truck, and after a brief walk around she was back with a smile on her face, holding her phone ominously in front of her.

  “It’s a beautiful day guys. You know what we need to do?”

  “I dread to think,” Nanna whispered in my ear. She’d returned from our cabin when she heard the vehicles approaching.

  “Photosynthesize!”

  I tilted my head at her. “What?”

  “Photosynthesize! Most people suffer from a vitamin D deficiency, and the best cure for that is none other than pure sunlight. I want us all to go out into Main Street, and hold up our arms to the sun, and photosynthesize together.”

  “Not all of us are plants, Pepper,” Nanna said, straight-faced.

  “Doesn’t matter! Go, go, go, everyone. Dad, you too! We’ll just take a few pictures.”

  I guessed everyone thought Pepper had suffered enough recently, so we all played along, even her father, who wasn’t someone who had much time for nonsense. I noticed Rachel and Hunter keeping some distance from Pepper, and as far as I could tell they didn’t speak to each other at all beyond a cursory greeting.

  “And look up at the sun! Right at it!”

  I closed my eyes. I may be neither a scientist nor a doctor, but I knew staring at the sun wasn’t recommended.

  “And put your hands up! Reach up like you’re going to grab it. Dylan, take the picture. Get me in it. Is everyone ready? This is going to be s’cool. Three, two, one…”

  After the countdown was over I lowered my arms and my eyes. I could play along with Pepper for a little while, but even someone as nice as me had my limits. I noticed everyone else doing the same.

  “Thanks, guys. It’s going to look great on my feed when I get back to a cell signal.”

  “Can I have everyone’s attention, please?” Carl spoke with a gruff, gravelly voice.

  “Yes, sir!” Brad yelled.

  The rest of us gathered around him.

  “Y’all were here when my mother passed away, and y’all were the first, and only, real guests she had here. I’m grateful you could make it. Thank you for making the effort.”

  We all muttered that it was nothing, no problem, a pleasure, in fact.

  “I suggest you all freshen up, it’s mighty dusty out here, and then we’ll do the ash scattering at sunset. We’ll light the bonfire, and we’ll eat hot dogs. They were Ma’s favorite. Any questions?”

  There were none. Everyone began to wander off back to the cabins they were familiar with from the week before.

  “Tiffany, if you’ve got a minute?” Carl said before I could leave with everyone else.

  I handed Bridget’s leash over to Nanna and sent her on ahead.

  Carl slowly began to walk down Main Street in the direction of the saloon, gesturing for me to fall in beside him.

  “Any news?” he asked me after warily checking that no one else was within earshot.

  “I’m getting there, Carl. I don’t want to say anything until I’ve gathered all the evidence, but I think I’ve nearly cracked it. This little gathering will help. I hope to honor your mother’s memory by solving what happened to her, here, in Silver Bend.”

  He clapped me on the shoulder. “Good, glad to hear it. Let me know if I can do anything to help you.”

  “Will do.”

  I left Carl standing in the street while I began to walk back to my cabin. There was a rustling from the side of the street, where an old oil can stood in front of a stack of ancient lumber and the rusted remains of some kind of farming equipment. I stared at it, hoping a rat wouldn’t emerge.

  It didn’t.

  As I strolled off down the road, I thought about the sound a little more. It had sounded too big to be a rat. It was the kind of rustling that would have been made by a person rather than a small mammal.

  I glanced back over my shoulder. There was nothing, except Carl standing in the middle of the empty street, staring off into the distance in contemplation.

  When I got back to my cabin, I walked inside to see Nanna and Bridget both sitting on the end of one of the beds. It looked like they’d been deep in conversation.

  “Everything okay in here?”

  “Absolutely,” Nanna said. “I was just reminding Bridget to look out for coyotes. She promised she would, didn’t you, girl?”

  Bridget yapped a response that really sounded like she was confirming what Nanna said.

  With a smile for the pair of them, I sat down on the edge of the other bed. I stretched out a leg and found I could kick the door without even stretching.

  “Tiffany, don’t do that.”

  “I was just checking something, Nanna.” I stretched out my leg again. Yep, I could definitely reach the door from there. “All ready for the memorial?”

  “Nope,” Nanna said. “But I’m ready for those hot dogs.”

  I grinned and fell back onto the bed. It looked li
ke I’d have time for a bit of rest before we were required again.

  Chapter Twenty

  My quiet afternoon of contemplation in the cabin with Nanna and Bridget was ruined by a knock at the door about half an hour after we arrived. Bridget began to yap excitedly at the visitor. I sat up with less enthusiasm.

  Nanna was up and opening the door in no time. “Brad!” she said with an alarming amount of pleasure. “What are you up to young man?”

  “Nothing. I was just bored. I’m the only one without a roommate, and there’s no internet out here or anything.”

  “You should have brought a book,” I said to him.

  “A book?” He shook his head as if the concept was alien to him. “I was going to go for a walk. Anyone want to come?”

  Woof! Woof! Walk was a word that Bridget always understood.

  “What a good idea. You and Tiffany should take Bridget for a walk.”

  Bridget looked up at me expectantly, tail wagging because she already knew the outcome. It didn’t matter how many walks she had in a day; she was all ready for another. I couldn’t disappoint her.

  “Okay, okay,” I said, not happy with the development. “Come on then.”

  I attached Bridget’s leash to her collar and went to join Brad by the door.

  “Have a nice time, you two!” Nanna called after me before I closed the door behind us.

  “You’re really bored, huh?”

  “Yep. You know, when we first came here I thought it was kind of cool. Now I’m thinking I’m more of a city person, like you.”

  “Like me?”

  “Yeah, sure. You love Vegas, right?”

  It took me a moment to respond. I lived in Vegas; it was home. I hadn’t thought about whether or not I truly loved it though, but when Brad spoke I realized he was right. I did love it. “Maybe you’re right.”

  “Of course I’m right. I’m Rad Brad. I’m always right.”

  “Rad Brad?”

  “Yep. Pepper was telling me I should be an influencer like her. She suggested the name. Rad Brad. Pretty cool, huh? Or should I say… Rad.”

  “Do you think Pepper’s the best person to take life advice from?”

  Not so long ago, Jack wanted to catch up with Brad and give him a second chance at the Tremonte. Now Jack was someone to take life advice from—as a self-made multi-millionaire, he was in striking contrast to Pepper Loveslife.

  “Sure. She’s a cool chick. Get this. She thinks if I work hard enough, I’ll be able to get people to start saying brad instead of rad. As my catchphrase. So if someone sees something cool, they’ll be like, ‘Whoa! That’s so brad!’ That’d be pretty great, huh?”

  “Oh yeah. S’cool.”

  He beamed back at me, then grabbed me by the arm. “Listen!”

  Bridget and I both cocked our heads, and once again I found myself listening to an argument. It was all people seemed to do when they thought they were alone these days.

  “Come on.” Brad pulled me toward the back of a cabin. I realized it was the one Pepper and Dylan were sharing.

  It was hard to make out what they were saying through the walls of the cabin. The only words I could catch were “credit card” and “money,” and I figured they were re-hashing the same argument I’d heard the day before. When we realized we couldn’t really hear anything, we slowly began to walk forward again.

  “What do you think of Dylan?”

  “I used to think he was a cool cat. Pretty brad, in fact. But I’ve changed my mind.”

  “Yeah? How come?”

  ”Sally told me he stole one of Pepper’s credit cards or something, ran up the balance. That’s probably what they’re fighting about. That’s not cool—I mean, not brad, man.”

  “Stealing isn’t cool?” It was funny that Brad had an issue with it, considering the only reason I met him was that I caught him stealing red-handed at a party.

  “Not from your own girlfriend! Strangers, sure, whatever, but your own people? Nuh-uh, that’s not good. She should dump him. That’s what I say.”

  So Brad did have some kind of moral compass, though it was clearly a faulty one. Stealing was only terrible if it was from someone you knew, but from strangers, he had no problem.

  “Come on. Let’s keep going.”

  We didn’t get that much farther before we stopped again. This time, we were at the back of Rachel and Hunter’s cabin, and they must have had a window open because their voices were much easier to make out than Dylan and Pepper’s had been.

  Brad and I both stopped at the same time. Bridget gave me a little whine of complaint but didn’t push it.

  “They’re fighting too? Seems like everyone’s at each other’s throats.”

  “Shh!”

  “Except us. We’re pretty brad together, aren’t we?”

  I smacked him on the arm and put my finger back to my lips. I wanted to hear if they were talking about the inheritance.

  “I’m sorry, okay, babe? I got a tip, and I acted on it. That’s all, babe. You know how these things are. You have to move fast.”

  “Yeah, well, I wish you would have told me. I about had a heart attack when I checked that account and saw two hundred grand had disappeared.”

  “It hasn’t disappeared. It’s just been temporarily relocated. Don’t worry about it, babe. It’s fine.”

  “Two hundred grand?” Brad said, wide-eyed. Then he lifted the corners of his mouth. “That’s a lot, isn’t it, babe?”

  I smacked him on the arm again. “Don’t call me babe.”

  “I was just kidding.” He jerked his thumb at the cabin. “Because of those two.”

  “Yeah, I know. Just… don’t.”

  Brad held up his palms in surrender and we turned our attention back to the cabin.

  “I’m sorry again, babe. Do you forgive me?”

  “Of course I do, babe. Just keep me in the loop next time, okay? Come here, babe.”

  And that was the end of that argument. Rachel and Hunter seemed to be just as efficient in their disagreements as they were at planning their future together.

  “Come on,” I said, nudging Brad. “If we’re going to walk, let’s walk.”

  With Bridget happily trotting along by my side, Brad and I walked down Main Street and back up it again. When we got back near the parking area, we saw that a large unlit bonfire, made up mainly of old wooden pallets, had been built. Standing by it, putting on the finishing touches, was Abner.

  “Nice fire, man! Looks pretty brad.”

  Abner looked Brad over like he was a lame horse he was considering shooting. “It’s for tonight. Mr. Watson ordered it. He wanted it in Main Street, but I told him there ain’t no way we were doing that. Had to be out here, where it’s safe. Can’t risk it otherwise.”

  “Sounds sensible,” I said. “Did you hear about the new owners?”

  “Yep.”

  I waited for him to continue. He didn’t.

  “Are you excited?” Brad asked.

  Abner stared at him again, a good, long, thinking pause. After careful deliberation, he gave his answer. “Nope.”

  Brad stared at Abner to see if he would continue, but he didn’t, instead returning his attention to the fire to adjust some of the pieces of wood.

  “Come on,” I said to Brad. “Don’t you want to get changed before the memorial?”

  “Changed?”

  “Yeah. You’re wearing a Hawaiian shirt and cutoff jeans. That’s not exactly memorial clothing.”

  “Man. I didn’t think of that. I guess I’ve got some full-length jeans for the evening.”

  “And no other shirts?”

  “Just my party shirt. This one’s more suitable for a memorial.”

  That made me raise my eyebrows. A party shirt? And he’d brought it out here? He really was on another planet.

  Just as the sun was about to set, we all gathered down the far end of Main Street, Carl Watson the center of attention for our little group. Everyone was there, even Abner.


  “I want to thank you all for coming,” Carl began. “I know that some of you—Simone—had to make an effort to get here, and I appreciate it.”

  “Oh, it was nothing,” Simone said. “Macau’s boring, anyway.”

  Carl and the rest of us laughed. When it had subsided, Carl carried on. “Ma, with the help of Abner, made this place what it is today. She turned a run-down, abandoned old town into a, well, not quite so run-down, semi-abandoned old town.”

  That earned a chuckle from us as well. I glanced at Abner and saw he had a soft smile of quiet pride on his lips.

  “And you, all of you here, you were the only ones who ever saw her vision completed, or as close to it as she got. This was the last place she loved, and it’s here that I want to lay her to rest.”

  I had visions of us being handed shovels to dig a hole for her ashes. Luckily, that wasn’t what he had in mind.

  “Now, everyone, I want to walk down this road, and I’ll scatter the ashes behind me as we go. This place meant a lot to Ma, and now it’ll always have a part of her in it. They call this town a ghost town. Well, let’s give ‘em a real ghost.” Carl lifted the urn he was holding up high. “Give ‘em hell, Ma.”

  Carl began to slowly walk down the road, the rest of us walking along in two wings either side of him.

  “There you go, Ma. You’re home now,” Carl said as he began to scatter the ashes behind him as he walked. “This is your town.”

  In companionable silence, broken only by further utterances from Carl, we slowly walked the entire length of Main Street while he spread his mother’s ashes behind us. When we reached the end, he upended the urn to empty out the last of it. I watched as the gray dust slowly sank to the ground, mixing with the yellowish sand and dust that covered every surface out here.

  Mrs. Watson, Sturdy Nanna, Horrible Nanna, was gone. All of her.

  Carl turned back around and we grouped closer together again as we walked over to the bonfire.

  “Abner? Light it up.”

  The old cowboy tipped his hat at us and walked over to the fire. He crouched down and picked up a stick that had cloth wrapped around one end. Next, he pulled a book of matches from a pocket, lit one, and then held it to the end of the brand. With a whoosh, the cloth caught fire, lighting the end of the torch in flames.