by Anne Connor
“Miss,” he repeats. “Are you listening to me? You’re light on cash.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I offer my reply slowly and cautiously. It’s the truth.
My father keeps detailed records. I have the combination to his safe. He told me I’d need it in case anything happened to him.
Now, something’s happened, and I had to unlock the metal case holding his secrets.
This is his only debt. He has no debt to society, only to these men operating outside it.
Or maybe they comprise a society I never knew I was part of.
I glance around at the cops, all shifting their eyes to each other, alternatingly slow and fast.
Quick. Quick. Slow, quick...like the dance of two lovers performing a waltz. Some eye each other’s holsters. Some keep a finger locked in a trigger position, ready to pull and cock and discharge. Some keep attention on the ground, some in the sky, some looking straight fucking ahead, ready and waiting for something. But they don’t know what they’re waiting for.
“The interest, Cherry.” The man purses his lips and his tongue flicks out of one corner. “Your old man owes interest.”
I don’t know what will happen next. If I can’t pay off my father’s debt...I cashed in all the collateral I had. The diamond ring my father gave my mother thirty years ago for their engagement. My father told me it was for me. He said I could use it however I saw fit - however I needed. He told me to wear it out at bars and in my classes if I wanted to be left the hell alone by all the assholes and cheaters.
I close my eyes and tilt my head back. If heaven wants to take me now, so be it. Because I don’t have anything more to give. In the city of sin, I’ve given all I can.
The lights shine over me, through the deep purple and black splotches inside my eyelids, and I can see the flashing bulbs of the strip. I can see every last one. That’s another thing about time slowing down. You can see every single detail in the picture in front of you.
The man reaches out and grabs my arms, forcing my eyes to open.
“Are you listening to me?” His deep voice rumbles in my ears, but he’s whispering. “You still owe twenty percent on top of his debt. My boss isn’t going to allow this to debt to go unsettled. This is a lot of fucking money.”
“How much more time do I have?”
His eyes flash to mine intently, and then he checks over his shoulder.
“I’ll give you until morning to come up with the cash. I can stall the big boss. But I’m warning you. He doesn’t just let things go.”
I swallow hard, and the muscles in my throat contract, but nothing else happens. My throat is still dry, and there’s still a lump there, and my chest is still tight. I still can’t breathe.
He keeps the same steely expression. He’s good at maintaining his composure under pressure, or maybe he’s been at this for a long time. This is his job. Maybe he’s a lifetime thug. A born criminal.
His eyebrow arches slightly and his jaw softens.
“Meet me here tomorrow morning. You better have the money by then.”
Sean
She looks just like she did in the pictures. I can pick her out in the crowd like I know her. As though I’m not searching a sea of faces for someone I don’t know. I do know her.
Cherry. That’s what her dad called her. I close my eyes and can almost feel her skin. Ripe and pure. Almost translucent. I can see the blood pump through her veins just below the surface.
And her lips. Her cherry-red lips drawn up into a little heart, like they were just made to open up for my cock.
She walks toward me and she doesn’t look frightened. Her father told me she walks like that. He was obsessed with his little girl.
I feel my heart thrum inside my fucking chest, the ugly organ beating like a drum against my ribs. Slamming inside me.
Her wavy red hair is twisted up into a loose knot on top of her head and her dark eyebrows frame light blue eyes the color of the sky on a cold, cloudless winter day. The kind we don’t have here in the desert. This blue was plucked from a sky above the mountains, where there’s nothing blotting out the pristine view straight up to heaven.
There’s nothing like that here, though. There’s no heaven in this town.
She’s uncomfortable in her clothing. Fuck, for however uncomfortable she is in her clothes, I’m more uncomfortable with her having them on. Under other circumstances, maybe I could have had her sweet cherry red lips wrapped around my cock, her pussy holding me tight all fucking night long.
She weaves through a crowd of people. A drunk bachelorette party replete with sashes and crowns and boozy drinks in plastic cups. A few teenagers with blue and green hair here for the roller coasters.
Cherry comes up to me where I’m waiting under the marquis.
“That’s what my father owes you.” She shoves the bag into my chest. I won’t let her off easy. It’s the big boss’ policy to never accept the first offering. We make them come back with something better. These people who borrow are in too deep to agree to the terms of their agreement. They have no choice in the matter. It’s sink or swim for them, and a loan from us is sometimes the only thing that will keep them afloat.
It’s time to get out of this game, I keep telling him. The big boss should stick to dealing with scum like our own. Not innocent men who get in over their heads like Cherry’s old man.
I tell her the money isn’t all there. I don’t count it; I don’t have to. Whatever’s in the bag is short by a couple grand just by virtue of the fact that there aren’t a couple more grand in the bag.
I tell her she has until tomorrow morning to come up with the rest of the money. I have no fucking clue how she’ll be able to pull this shit off, but it doesn’t matter. The big boss will do whatever the fuck he wants, and no one wants to stop him. No one’s going to risk their neck for this girl. Or for any girl.
It just doesn’t happen that way. The debt needs to be paid, the books need to be balanced, and the boss needs another few grand. He’ll hide it under the floorboards at his house or under his back porch in a fireproof safe. He always needs more. He’s never satisfied. He’ll never be satisfied. That’s his flaw, and the flaw that he shares with people like himself.
Balance. I scoff at the word. It’s funny in a twisted way. The boss thinks taking this poor girl’s money will tip the scales and everything will be right. The debt needs to be paid one way or another. It’s the right thing. It’s what needs to happen.
But I can’t think of a more unfair thing in the world right now.
Her picture was given to me by the boss himself. He said this was one he wanted to make an example of. In his fucked up mind, maybe the people who populate this world know who she is and give two shits about what happens to her. I doubt that very much. No one knows who she is, because she isn’t involved. She’s an innocent.
Making an example of someone works better when the results can be seen. If he gets what he wants and everything goes off without a hitch, she’ll disappear, go back to wherever she came from, and if there’s any mercy in the world, I’ll never see her again.
The boss doesn’t know that I’ve already seen her picture, though. I’ve already seen her skin and her hair and her body, and I’ve dreamed about it, about her.
“You have until tomorrow morning to come up with the rest of the money. The interest is twenty percent on top of what your old man owes.” Her gaze shifts between from one of my eyes to the other.
The old man never even had a chance to repay. He’s hooked up to a bunch of machines in a hospital out in the suburbs somewhere.
But he lives on. I can see him in his daughter’s eyes. It’s the unmistakable blue in her eyes, the pure and clear color like a sheet of glass over the ocean.
“Listen. If you have something else of value you can use it in place of the interest.” I take her by the elbow and get close to her. I haven’t been this close to a woman like her in a long fucking time. Someone with a hea
lthy body and a mind that’s sharp, not corrupted by avarice. Someone with the scent of fresh air, untouched and unmarred.
She can use that body to her advantage.
Her teeth come down onto her bottom lip and for a moment she considers what I’m saying. It might not fully click into place, but she has an idea of what I’m suggesting. Before she can give her answer, I already feel sick for having said it. A wave of guilt rises inside my belly. I tear my eyes away from her. She can’t see that I’m ashamed, or maybe she’s better at reading people than I am.
“I’ll figure out a way,” she says coolly.
Her words are so calm, measured. I know she’ll figure this out. And if she were playing by a set of rules, she would be able to master the game and win. But my boss is unpredictable.
It’s a fucking shame she had to be brought into this against her will.
Without saying a word, my brain curses her old man for inviting chaos into his home.
There was a time before I knew he had a daughter. We never shared those intimate details. He knew nothing about me, except that I was a blackjack dealer on the floor of the casino. We also shared a boss in a way. My uncle runs the casino, and her old man was addicted to the rush. You could even say he was it’s slave. And since Uncle owns the casino, and the casino owns the old man, Uncle owns the old man, and now his daughter too.
It was better when we just shot the shit and left our personal lives out of it.
“You’re a smart girl. I know you’ll figure it out.”
Her eyes shift past me, at the throngs of people milling back and forth, in and out of the casino where I deal. All of the bouncers know me, and they aren’t saying shit.
They know not to.
“Give me the bag back.” She doesn’t reach out for the bag of money. Instead, she demands it.
“You have one day.”
Cherry
I nearly lose my balance when I take the money back from him.
Holding it tight to my chest, I start walking down the strip, my mind blotted out. I can’t even think. I’m not even worried. No, something visceral has overtaken my rational brain.
Worry? Worry would be the rational thing. I’ve always worried about everything - everything irrational made me sick with regret, that I’d made the wrong choice, taken the wrong path.
But I’m not worried now. Worry would be the rational thing.
Worry.
The word sounds crude now as I focus on the sound of my feet on the concrete and the pounding of my heart in my chest.
I have no option to worry right now. There’s only survival. Worry is passive. I don’t have time for that.
I can still feel the nameless man’s eyes burning two holes into the back of my head. I imagine his eyes sweeping across my face. I want to turn around and face the man who I’m prey for. But I just keep walking, because it’s all I can do.
I have to keep moving forward. Thinking about what got me here will do nothing to save me.
Closing my eyes, I move off to the side of the strip, shouldering past a middle-aged couple with Mickey and Minnie hats, and collapse onto the steaming hot marble ledge of a small fountain in the clearing outside one of the casinos. The woman glances down at me and I give her a small, forced smile to let her know I’m okay. I don’t need any well-intentioned people asking me what’s wrong.
I breathe deeply through my nose and hold the hot air inside my lungs. Maybe if I keep it there long enough, I’ll explode. My hand dips into the fountain and I let my fingertips trail the top of the water. But it doesn’t feel wet. The water is thick and warm like the air above it. And it feels metallic - I can sense it in my teeth. I open my eyes and the bottom of the fountain is filled with pennies. Even though the inside of the fountain walls are dotted with fresh blue glass tiles, I can see the water itself is brown. It only has the illusion of being clean and pure.
I don’t pull my hand away immediately. I let it languish there for a moment, and I finally exhale. Checking over my shoulder from where I came, I see that he’s still standing where we met. I haven’t gotten very far away from him. It must have only been a few meters. Maybe less. Ten feet, maybe.
He leans against the wall and takes out a pack of Marlboro Reds. My ex used to smoke those. His truck smelled like them. The nameless man nips one of the smokes between his teeth and pulls the pack away, bringing a chrome lighter to the end of the cigarette. He glances over at me as he takes his first pull, and hooks his thumb and forefinger on the white paper near his lips, pulling it away and exhaling up over the crowd of people walking by.
I see him watching me. Sickness churns inside my stomach as I shut my eyes and pull the bag closer. I consider dunking my head into the filthy water with a thin layer of green shit floating on top and screaming until my lungs explode. Until I explode. Shattered into a million pieces.
But I don’t scream. I keep my mouth shut and open my eyes and look back over my shoulder. He nods softly, gently, looking at me under dark eyebrows and a cocked-down chin and takes another drag of his cigarette
I realize my feet are curled up under me. The sun is starting to set, and I hear the high-pitched jangle of slot machines, cherries and bars chiming and signaling that people have won. Uncurling my legs, I put both of my feet on the ground and I stand up.
There’s something I can do. This is not a hopeless situation.
I march over to an escalator behind me, leading to the main floor of one of the casinos. I’ve been here before. It was for my twenty-first birthday. I didn’t know what I was doing, but my boyfriend made me come. He said it would be fun. He said it would be a rite of passage.
As I get off the escalator, I look behind me. I have a clear view of the people coming up after me, and the man isn’t there. I quickly go over to the edge the balcony where I’ve been let off, and check down below for him.
I’ve lost him. That’s a good thing.
Going through the doors to the casino, the cold, stale air is suffocating. It’s just as bad as the hot air outside. At least the air outside is dry and doesn’t smell like anything other than the desert sun. Inside, the air smells of a suffocating mix of cologne, beer, gin and lime.
A security guard flashes his glance over my face and then down to my body, smiling when his eyes come across my breasts. He doesn’t stop to ask me for any ID, even though I’m only twenty-two and probably look three or four years younger.
I keep walking past him and stop when I get to the main lobby area.
I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. All I have is a bag of cash representing everything I own and a few idea to come up with the extra twenty percent, but all of my ideas are desperate and I wouldn’t know how to pull them off anyway.
Screw it. That’s not true at all. I can pretend to be naive and lie to myself, but I know exactly how to pull off at least one of my ideas.
I scan the floor of the casino. Straight ahead is a large expanse of slot machine, dinging and flashing. Even though there are no actual coins anywhere, the jangling of change against metal is filling my ears.
On the outsides of the floor, along the walls, are restrooms, entrances to a variety of restaurants, and then inside the perimeter are the table games.
I start walking to the left of the casino floor, moving carefully. A cocktail waitress slips past me with a tray of drinks, and I follow her. I figure she knows what she’s doing. Maybe some of that will rub off on me.
Card games aren’t a science, but I’m not familiar enough with the rules to any of them. I can’t do anything that would involve skill. I need luck to be my guide.
The waitress stops at a table where only one man is sitting. I keep my distance and watch them from afar, ducking behind a slot machine and settling into its low swiveling chair. The man has a shaved head and is wearing a black suit. He’s big - I bite down on my bottom lip as he takes a bill out of his wallet and tries to slip it into the garter holding up one of the waitress’ thigh-high stockings. She grabs the bi
ll from his hand before he can touch her and plasters a pretty but fake smile on her face. He turns to watch her walk away as she slips past me again, scowling. I look at her tray and see the bill he thinks entitled him to grope her was a hundred dollar bill.
As he watches her walk away and she slips around a corner, past a row of slot machines, his gaze lands on me. I falter and fall back in my seat slightly, as though his look has touched me physically. He calls me over with the wave of one of his hands and pats the empty seat next to him.
My heart speeds up, and all I can feel is its beating inside my chest. My chest feels hollow - my whole body feels hollow - and I can’t even feel my feet on the ground as I walk over to him. My legs feel like jelly as I smile and sit down next to him in the high rotating chair.
He turns my chair to him and puts a foot on the bar at the bottom, holding me in place. I sit back in my seat to get as far away from him as possible, even though there’s nowhere I can go. His knee shifts between mine and parts my thighs.
“Do you play?”
His voice is sexier than I thought it would be. I expected him to have a foreign accent; I don’t know why. The dealer starts laying cards down in front of the man and in front of himself. I’m somewhat familiar with the game, though not enough to be able to win, but I pretend not to be familiar with it at all. Better to just let him be in control.
I shake my head and glance over at the dealer. The man takes his feet off my chair and lets it shift back into place, so I’m squarely facing the table.
“Just watch for now,” he says, glancing at his cards and back at me. “This is blackjack. It’s simple, but it’s not easy.”
“Looks interesting.”
I hope the music and the sounds are drowning out the sound of my heart. It’s all I can hear. I say a silent prayer that no one else can hear.
With his left hand, the man taps the green felt tabletop next to his stack of chips on the betting circle and his right hand comes down onto my thigh. It was better when his knee was between my legs. His hand looks clammy, but I can barely feel it against my leg. My body goes numb.