by Greg Barth
The driver dropped me off at the check-in entrance of the hotel. He popped the trunk and a bellhop got my bag for me. I signed the credit card slip for the driver. I took the bag and carried it over my shoulder. I removed my sunglasses when I stepped into the dark lobby.
The interior of the hotel was cavernous. The lobby was just off the casino floor, a massive area with an upper, wraparound balcony with shops. It felt like a bar on steroids.
I checked in. The clerk handed me a key card and told me my room was on the twenty-fourth floor. Before going up, I walked around the lobby. I found a bar and ordered a drink. There were others at the bar, so I assumed it wasn’t too early for a drink. I strolled through the casino and looked over the assorted games—everything from slot machines to sports betting to blackjack tables. I found a standalone kiosk that sold sundries. I bought some cigarettes, a bottle of Jack Daniels, and a cold Coke.
I took a few hundred dollars out of the ATM with my credit card.
I walked back to the elevator area and spied a woman with light blonde hair sitting nearby. She was dressed in an evening gown. Even though she sat in a chair, she leaned against a support column smoking a cigarette. I walked up to her. “You get much action this time of the morning?”
She gave me a quick head to toe glance and blew out her smoke. “You’d be surprised,” she said. “People in here don’t care what time it is. Hell, look around, you can’t even tell if it’s day or night. You working?”
“Me? No. Just in town for a week or so. Meetings.”
She looked me over again and tilted her head to gesture toward the elevators. She raised an eyebrow. “You want to go?”
I smiled at her. I shook my head. “No. Not now anyway.”
“Rain check?”
“Yeah.”
She nodded. “Just remember. When you go home? It all stays here.”
“That’s what I hear.”
“I couldn’t tell you if it’s true,” she said. “I never left.”
I carried my overnight bag and my grocery bag to the elevator lobby and headed up to my room.
The room was nice. The view was dizzying. The flat desert below me was covered with hotels nearby and houses further out. Tall, treeless, black mountains loomed at the edge of everything. I appreciated the tinted glass on the window. Looked like the sun was blazing, raining down hell on this impossible place.
I heard screams and looked down below the edge of my window. Halfway between my room and the swimming pool at ground level below was a rollercoaster. It looked like it wound around this part of the hotel. I hoped they closed the thing so I wouldn’t be hearing screams all night.
It would be a while before I could meet up with Lenny’s brother. I had no interest in gambling, and I didn’t want to go outside in the heat. I turned the AC up, stripped off everything except a t-shirt and my underwear, cracked the seal on the bottle of Jack Daniels and took a few drinks. I lay down on the bed and caught a nap.
When I woke that afternoon, I realized I still had a lot of time to kill before I met with Lenny’s brother.
I thought about a light lunch and grabbed the phone book from the drawer of the bedside table. Phone books are almost outdated, but somebody still printed them in Vegas. I flipped the thick book open to the yellow pages. The spine was creased already from being opened previously to one part. It naturally fell open to the Escort section. I glanced through the ads. This had been my trade, so I critiqued the ads as I read through them.
There were some that catered to women.
Interesting.
I found one that looked okay. I checked the time again. It’s not as if I was hungry anyway.
I picked up the phone and dialed the number on the ad.
The lady that answered gave the name of the service and asked if she could help me.
“I guess I’d like an escort at my room.”
“What time?”
“As soon as he can get here.”
“Anything in particular?” she asked.
“Um. Clean. Handsome. Quiet. Not old.” I gave her my room number.
“I’ll have somebody up to you in an hour.”
I got up and took a shower. Afterward I sat on my bed in my bathrobe and drank more Jack Daniels.
When the knock on the door came, I was ready. I opened the door.
The man from the escort service had dark curly hair. The shadow of a beard covered his cheeks and chin. He was tall and fit, maybe mid-thirties. He smelled great. His white shirt was unbuttoned halfway. He wore dark denim jeans.
“Did you call for a date?” he said.
“I did. Come in.” I padded back to the bed in my bare feet.
“Mike,” he said.
“Amanda.”
“You’re very pretty, Amanda.”
“Thank you. You want a drink?”
“Please,” he said.
I handed him the bottle.
He chuckled.
“Glasses are by the sink, if you want one.”
“This is good,” he said, and sipped from the bottle. He passed it back to me.
I took a drink too. I played with the belt of my robe and crossed my legs; the bare length of one thigh came out from under the robe.
“What brings you to sin city, sweetie?” he said.
I didn’t answer. I sat on the edge of the bed looking at him.
“So what are we doing tonight, Amanda?”
I parted my legs. My thighs slide further from under the edges of the open robe.
“It’s two hundred for the hour,” he said.
I nodded toward the dresser. Three one hundred dollar bills lay side by side in front of the TV.
“You want to start with a massage?” he said.
I shook my head and smiled at him.
“You like to kiss?”
Again, I shook my head. I untied the robe.
“You want me to take anything off?” he said.
“No.” I pulled the robe apart, exposing myself. I slipped it off from my shoulders. I fell back on the bed and spread my legs.
“I think I know what you want,” he said. He came forward, got down on his knees, and pressed his mouth to me.
I took him by the back of the head with both hands and pulled him against me harder. I rolled my hips, grinding my pelvis against his face while he probed me with his tongue.
THIRTEEN
Selena
LENNY’S DIRECTIONS LED me to an upper floor meeting room in a hotel on the sketchy side of Vegas. The Chesapeake Room, according to the sign outside the door. I arrived late, knowing the card game could go long into the night.
I wasn’t allowed to enter the room where he was playing. I asked the man at the door to tell Lyman I’d wait for him at the bar.
“His cousin Amanda is waiting downstairs,” he repeated. “I’ll let him know.”
The bar was almost empty. This hotel wasn’t near the airport, it wasn’t on Fremont Street, and it wasn’t on the strip. By Vegas standards, it just wasn’t Vegas.
I paced myself with the drinks. I wanted to keep a clear head for my first meeting with Lyman. I sat there chatting with the bartender, mostly about Kentucky bourbon, for what must have been an hour.
Lyman’s shadow crossed my shoulder before I was aware of his presence. I turned to him. I could immediately make out the family resemblance. Not as tall as Lenny, Lyman had the thick, broad chest and shoulders, but not as much muscle. Clearly the older brother, Lyman wore a black silk shirt and black jeans. He had short, dark hair, brown eyes and glasses.
“Lyman?” I said.
“You must be Cousin Amanda,” he said.
“Yeah. The other Cousin Amanda.”
“The other cousin it is. I hear you came a long way to see me. I’m intrigued to hear what you have to say.”
“I’m hoping to make a business connection. You have some products I’d like to purchase.”
He smiled. “We should go someplace private.”
“All I have to offer is a cab and a hotel room.”
“Let’s go for a ride in my car,” he said.
I paid my tab and got up. He led me out to a covered garage, clicked his key fob, and the lights flashed on a dark car up ahead. It was risky just getting in a car with him, but I was prepared to make myself vulnerable to establish trust.
“So, how is my little brother these days?”
“He looks good. He has a long stretch of time ahead of him.”
“Fucking shame,” Lyman said.
“We had such good times.”
Lyman looked at me from head to toe. “I bet you did.”
He opened the passenger door for me. I slid in, and he shut the door behind me. He got in, started the car, backed out of the parking space.
We were on the road, and it was clear he was taking me away from the city.
“Where are we going?”
“Just someplace we can talk,” he said. “So why me and why now?”
“A competitor is nosing in on my territory. Some of my suppliers are intimidated and won’t do business with me. I knew about you through Lenny so you were the first one I thought of. We can get some product locally, but the quality is shit. I used to deal for Lenny, and his product was always spot on. He and I were…close.”
“So how are you taking care of these competitors?”
“Not as aggressively as I’d like. It’s complicated. I want to deal with them head on, but I’m part of a syndicate, and we lost our leader.”
He nodded. “That I can understand.”
We got farther away from the city. The desert night was pitch black. All I could make out through the windshield was flat, barren terrain on either side of the car as we sped down the road.
“I need a supply of good stuff to keep my crew earning and the customers satisfied until I can deal with the other issue.”
“So you aren’t looking for a long-term arrangement?”
“I’m open minded about it. If we can get something going, we’ll see where it goes. There’s some logistics I can’t get my mind around.”
“Like what?”
“Well, there’s shipping for one.”
“No issue on my end. I have a plane. It’s cheap to fly.”
“Alright. Payment terms.”
“Cash up front.”
I bit my lip. “How does cash on delivery sound to you?”
He sighed. “Cash on delivery works too.”
“You think we can work something out?”
“Not much different from what I used to do with my brother. Just larger scale—at least it sounds that way. How do I know I can trust you?”
“You want me to do a line of something? Prove I’m not a cop?”
He laughed. “Nah. That’s just bullshit. Let me show you something.” He turned off the highway and pulled up to a long, gray building that sat about a hundred yards from the road. No lights on in the building’s parking lot. He pulled up close to a garage door, clicked something under the dash, and the garage door powered up. The headlights illuminated the interior as we pulled inside. The inside was one large, open space. A few pallets stacked here and there with various pieces of machine equipment stacked on them. The machine parts were old, rusted, and covered with dust and cobwebs. He parked the car, got out and opened my door. The car engine was still running. The headlights were the only source of illumination.
He led me over to a dusty, deep freezer in one corner. “My brother told me what he could about you. Of course, I did some research on my own. He didn’t take me very far, so I had a whole lot of dots to connect.”
“What conclusion did you reach?” I said.
“I think maybe I know who you are.”
“And?”
“And I like who you are.”
“You mean you like who you think I might be.”
He opened the freezer door. Cold moisture filled the air around the opening.
“I bet you have a hell of a light bill trying to keep something frozen in this heat.”
“You’ve no idea, honey.”
I looked down inside the freezer. The lighting was horrible, but I could make out the white frosted face of a frozen corpse. It looked like a man. He had a gaping wound in the front of his throat.
“Amanda, I present you Ronnie Allen. Don’t get up, Ronnie.”
“Ronnie looks a bit stiff,” I said.
“Yeah. Ronnie here was an asshole. His father is a much bigger asshole.”
“What happened?”
“Ronnie and I played cards together. Ronnie had some money, and I liked winning it. Thing is, Ronnie liked my daughter. You understand?”
“I take it you didn’t like Ronnie liking your daughter?”
“You’re getting warm.”
“I get it,” I said. “She didn’t like Ronnie back.”
“Exactly. But he liked her enough to not care about what she liked.”
I looked up at Lyman. “So why did your daughter kill Ronnie?”
“You catch on quick, Cousin Amanda. Thing is, I only have her side of the story.”
“But you believe her side.”
“I do.”
“He tried to hurt her?”
“So she says. But she hurt him. And I can’t let the little girl go to prison.”
“And now he’s here in your freezer.”
“Just for a little while. We’ll get this moved out of here in a few days. But this thing with Ronnie’s father? Well, Miles Allen is a connected motherfucker.”
“He’s asking questions and you can’t touch him.”
“Bingo.”
“So why are you showing me this?”
“Because if you are who I think you are; you can touch him.”
The car’s engine was still running. I’d inhaled enough carbon monoxide for one night. “Let’s get out of here,” I said.
He closed the freezer door.
We got back in the car, and he pointed us back toward town.
“So where are you staying?” he said.
“New York, New York.”
“Nice. Catch any shows?”
I thought of the escort I’d spent the afternoon with. I grinned. “Haven’t had time to take in much entertainment yet.”
“You should if you have the time.”
“If we do business together, I’m sure I’ll be back.”
“I can show you the fun stuff.”
“So what makes you think I can help you with Miles Allen?”
“You can get close to him.”
“Me? Why me?”
“He likes women. He likes them young and petite. Like you.”
“I’m not that young.”
“You’ll pass. That fake red hair? The dark eye makeup? That whole devil Goth thing? He likes that shit.”
“Still. I don’t know how to get to him.”
“Thing is, I’ve got an angle on his supplier. The guy that sends him girls, he owes me in a big way. I’ve just never had a woman I thought could take him. Now I’ve got you. I can get you there.”
“And you want me to do what exactly?”
“I gotta say it?”
“Yes.”
“Make him dead. You make him dead, then I know I can trust you. I might even be able to help you with this other thing you’ve got going on. The whole competition thing.”
“You’re asking me to murder a mobster.”
“That bother you?”
“Nah. It’s kind of what I do these days.”
“So we have a deal then?”
“We do, Lyman. We do. Get your plane loaded.”
“There’s some things we gotta do first. This thing with Miles? It’s not so easy. He’s a real knuckle dragger if you know what I mean. You can do it, but there’s some shit you gotta know about him.”
“I’m good with a shotgun,” I said.
“It’s more complicated than that. They’ll search you on the way in. Besides, a firearm makes too much noise. I need y
ou in and out before anyone knows he’s dead.”
“So what are the odds of me pulling this off?”
“Right now? Not much. In a few days? We’ll see.”
The skyline from the Vegas strip came into view as we topped a hill and descended back into the city.
FOURTEEN
Selena
LYMAN PICKED ME up the next day at the New York, New York entrance and took me out to the middle of nowhere.
We drove for miles across the barren landscape. When we passed the Hoover Dam he asked if he should stop so I could look around.
“No,” I said. “The TVA put up dams everywhere back where I’m from. I can see them any time and be thirty degrees cooler.”
“Sure it’s a hundred twelve degrees, but it’s a dry heat.”
“Keep telling yourself that. A hundred twelve is a hundred twelve. I certainly can’t imagine anything being moist at that temperature.”
I watched the view of Arizona pass by as he drove along. The landscape was so strange to me. I couldn’t imagine living there for any length of time. Wide open flat tracks of land spread out forever with nothing on them. Just dirt. And on the edge of the flat spaces were mountains that looked like jagged teeth that would cut you if you got near them. Sheer rock jutted out of the ground here and there, looming a hundred feet or more with no rhyme or reason for doing so—just for the blazing hell of it.
It’s not that I didn’t appreciate the harsh beauty—a part of me felt a desire to understand—it’s just that I had no point of reference. The landscape seemed ancient and unevolved, more for reptiles and waxy vegetation from a time long past. And yet, some strange part of me yearned for this experience.
Lyman turned off the highway and took a bumpy, dirt track. Scrub brush and other desert plants lined both sides of the road—cacti, yucca, and saltbush mostly.
“So you’re really going to take me out here with...what’s this guy’s name again?”
“Choke,” Lyman said.
“You’re going to leave me with Choke for a whole week?”
“It’s the only way. He’s the best at what he does. You want to come out of this thing alive, don’t you?”