Steady Madness

by Mike McCrary

  I turn to Skinny Drake. He has no idea where I’m going with this.

  “Who pays for that place you’re in? That beach orgy house of yours? Your living expenses, where is that all coming from? You must have a really tight job, Rondo.”

  Rondo laughs and leans in close to us. “Yeah, my job is banging Gordo’s mom the way she likes it.”

  I smirk. Skinny Drake does do. He gets now where I was going.

  “Well, Rondo, I hate to tell you this.” Actually, I love telling him this. “Don’t know if you’ve pulled it all together yet, but I’m going to help you with the heavy thinking here.” I lean close too, a few inches from his face. “Rondo, bubby, she’s dead. I bashed her head in with a baseball bat. The same one I got sitting out in the car.” I snap my fingers as I remember. “It’s the same damn one I knocked you out with on the beach, as a matter of fact. Sorry. Back to the point. Your money, your orgies, your beach life have left this earth right along with Mama McCluskey’s dirty, filthy, yoga-MILF, bitch ass.”

  Rondo starts to choke.

  I watch.

  Skinny Drake giggles. Love him.

  Chapter 14

  “Where should we be heading to, Rondo?” I say toward the back of the Yukon.

  Rondo hasn’t said a word in about a half hour.

  I can tell Skinny Drake is getting annoyed.

  The fun of driving around LA has quickly disappeared and shifted toward the edges of hostility. I need him to keep driving, however. I need Rondo to have time to think. Need to give Rondo plenty of time to process what his new life will look like.

  No money.

  No beach house.

  No drugs.

  No pussy.

  Surprised he hasn’t jumped out of the car and dived face-first into traffic. I don’t know Rondo that well, but it seems the list I just gave was pretty damn important to him. Can’t blame him either. Looked pretty okay to me. I need him to think real hard about all that before I lay down my offer to him.

  It’s a simple one.

  I hope like hell he takes it. Because what he doesn’t know, what he isn’t thinking about right now, is that he’s the only link we have to Gordo.

  Me and Skinny Drake? We need him.

  We need Rondo bad.

  If he doesn’t help us find Gordo we are screwed. Big time.

  I’ll give it another minute or two before I lay it on Rondo. My eyes turn toward the outside world as we drive down Santa Monica Blvd toward Hollywood. We’ve hit the gayest area I’ve ever seen. I’ve known quite a few gay men in my life. Worked with many. Hung out with more. Used to have a few on my list of night workers I’d call on at the bar when the time was right and I thought we could all earn a few dollars.

  But these gay folks I’m looking at right now? They redefine everything I thought I knew about the gay male. Nothing wrong with it, but damn, boys, tighten it up. You know what? Scratch that, come to think of it. Let it fly, I guess. The hell with it. If you know who you are, then put the damn pedal down with both middle fingers in the air.

  I might not remember everything, but I do know who I am.

  I decide to the put the pedal down myself.

  “Rondo,” I say, “there’s a chance we can help you.”

  Nothing from the back seat.

  “You hear me, man?”

  Only sound comes from rolling tires and horns blaring outside from the streets of LA. I decide to put my metaphoric middle finger in the air.

  “You want all your shit back?” I say, putting some bite into my tone. “Do you? Want that beach life back? The women? The wine and whatever-the-hell else you’re into?”

  Rondo looks to me. A sign of interest. A spark of something. A crack, just a crack, in the wall, but that’s all I need.

  “You listen to me good. Okay?” I rest my chin on the seat, giving him some cute eyes with a touch of angry. “You need to think hard about how to find Gordo. He has our money.” His eyes drift back to looking out the window. I snap my fingers in his face. His full attention is required here. “He has your money too. You want your life back? Finding Gordo is the way. The only way. We’re in this together now.”

  His eyes lock with mine. I cock my head and give him some eyes back. I think of Sandy back home. Sandy, the greatest pro I never knew. The greatest at drawing in male eyes for a price. Now, I know I’m no Sandy, but I can be cute as hell when I’m on.

  I can see it all over his face.

  I’ve got him.

  “Just think now,” I say. “Don’t have to cough up all the answers right this second, but I want you to churn that brain of yours and come up with some ideas. Some good ones. My brother here wants to see the Hollywood sign for some damn reason, so you have until then to give us something to work with.”

  I raise my eyebrows, looking for recognition from Rondo.

  He looks at me for what seems like an hour, then nods. Goes back to looking out the window. I turn around and turn up the radio, letting the bass-drenched beats fill the air. Off in the distance I see the Hollywood sign.

  More like a corner of it.

  That damn thing has been a symbol of hopes and dreams for a lot of hopeless dreamers who have come here over the years. Many a boy and girl have rolled into LA with a childhood passion to work in the biz, and that damn sign is a logo for all of that. I get it. I’ve never had such a dream.

  That’s not true.

  Mine is more simple, I suppose.

  I want to remember. I want to sleep. I want to be a normal human being, whatever that means, and that’s all I want. Period. I don’t need limos, fancy shit, coke, creepy sex or people fawning all over me. I simply want to be a functioning human who remembers her parents and doesn’t pass out all the time. That piece of shit Jonathan holds some things that could make a lot of that a reality. It at least gives me some hopes and dreams that it might be possible, even for a broken girl like me.

  That too much to ask?

  I don’t think so.

  “There’s a woman in Vegas,” Rondo says. “She used to set us up with a good time. Gordo called her a couple of times. That’s our best bet.”

  I look to Skinny Drake. He shrugs.

  I nod to Rondo. “Thank you.”

  The Hollywood sign comes into view, and it is glorious.

  Chapter 15

  Vegas.

  Never been here before.

  I’ve heard all the stories and seen the movies, of course. This place, in theory, sounds a lot like what I used to do in Austin, only on a city-sized level. I was used to booze and good times from a hotel bar, and did it with as much style and heart as I could muster.

  This place?

  Can’t speak to the heart and style of it, but it seems like a pulsing, sweating, twenty-four hour version of my old business model, with a lot more moving parts and, oh yeah, money. Lots and lots of money. A part of me is jealous. Another part thanks God that I never found this place before now. Easy to see how a person can get lost in all this, can get dead in all this.

  It’s dark by the time we hit the city. Wasn’t a great drive over, but not too bad in the grand scheme of things. Some long stretches of uncomfortable silence, to be sure. Skinny Drake and I didn’t talk near as much as we did on the way over from Texas.

  The Rondo factor obviously slowed us down. Kept us from speaking too freely. Understandable, but I missed cutting up with my brother. I’m talking about Skinny Drake, not the weird-ass brother connection I have with Rondo. Oh wait, he’s not that anymore. We’ve established that I didn’t kill his mother. He was just giving it to who I thought was his mother, but he’s not Gordo’s brother at all.

  Jesus.

  This family dynamic makes my head hurt.

  Makes my skin crawl a bit too.

  Need to compartmentalize the shit out of this stuff if I’m going to survive mentally. It’s wearing me out. Rondo did give us a little color about Gordo and this woman we’ve come to Vegas to see. Rondo says she’s a madam of sorts. She ru
ns girls and sets up bigger parties for big cash—drugs, girls, hotel suites or whatever.

  Sounds familiar.

  Wish I’d thought of the term madam. I could have been a madam.

  Sounds kinda cool.

  Again, I ran something kinda like that in Austin. Smaller scale, but I did set up the good times for folks who came into town looking for such things. Wonder if this madam is hiring. I might need a gig if this finding Gordo and getting my damn money and house back thing doesn’t work out.

  Rather not go back to that life.

  Nope, I’m good with the plan I had a couple of days ago. The one about having some cash, my house and my memory back. That’s the big picture plan. The plan to just be, man. To hang out in the country and live.

  Period.

  The idea of going back to setting up folks to get their rocks off doesn’t have the same shine to it as it once did. No, I’ve been ruined with a view to a better life. I’ve seen a better way to be. All that said, I should keep an open mind and be nice to this madam.

  Might need a backup plan.

  Never know.

  Shit can go south in a hurry in this life.

  Rondo says she lives in a suite on the upper floors at a casino. She has a deal with the place—I like her already—that keeps her living there as long as she keeps things moving. Meaning she keeps money moving into the right pockets. I used to call my bar “the eye of the storm.” It sounds like this casino’s hotel is hers. I get her, without even meeting her.

  I start to mentally break her down. To read her without an introduction. To come up with a mental composite of sorts. She’s going to be tough. Friendly, but guarded. Sexy and charming, but with a mean-trigger that won’t take much to pull. This is a woman not to be messed with. Any fuss and she will go ballistic with a snap of her manicured fingers. At least that’s my assessment at the moment, from afar.

  She could be four hundred pounds with a peg leg and dumber than shit.

  Could be bone-skinny with an opiate addiction the size of Dallas.

  People are strange.

  What the hell do I know?

  The lights of this place are jaw-dropping. The city is so much different in real life. The scope, the size of it all. It’s massive. Looks like it could swallow you whole. Movies and stuff do not do it justice. Unlike the other towns I’ve been to recently, this one isn’t somewhere I’d like to live.

  There’s glitz and lights, but there’s a layer underneath that’s dark and dirty. I haven’t even gotten out of the car and I can feel it. Like it’s seeping through the air vents and covering my skin. Looking out the window it’s like watching cattle wandering from one predator to another. They might dodge one or two and think they’re winning, only to turn a corner and get ripped all to hell by a friendly monster with a toothy grin.

  Rondo said Gordo brought him here for a hotel party about six months ago. Said it was wild. Crazy. The best of times. Gordo was friendly, smooth and toothy I bet.

  Oh, I know that Gordo.

  Boy do I.

  Rondo said Gordo asked a lot of questions about his life and about Mama McCluskey. At first Rondo didn’t talk about it much. Kept it tight, he said, giving Gordo one or two-word answers and changing the subject constantly. But once the booze and girls started flowing he sang like a canary. He gave it all up like water pouring from a pitcher.

  That’s all Gordo needed.

  The right lubrication for the right information.

  Gordo used that information to turn on Mama McCluskey and get her to sign the trust docs. Hey, I know you’re banging a surfer dude and picking up the tab on a beach house, so you might want to do what I ask. Just a thought. That’s how it all happens. Information used to twist someone into a pretzel, and then someone else gets screwed in the process.

  Weaponized info.

  One of the deadliest in the jungle.

  Gordo began this plan with a party in Vegas. Set the trap. Knew Rondo’s obvious weakness—not hard to calculate—and Gordo dumped a shit-ton of weakness all over the poor boy. Rondo was the first domino to fall, and that one fell hard, like a bowling ball from a hundred-story building.

  “You’re such an asshole,” I tell Rondo.

  “What? What did I do?”

  I punch him in the face again. Twice. Fast double-jabs. Feels nice. He falls back in the seat holding his nose. More silence fills the Yukon. Rondo gives a slight whimper, but holds back the real yelps. He doesn’t want to give me the satisfaction. Skinny Drake can only shake his head.

  I don’t care if my brother is mad at me.

  I need some things to get me through the day, just like everybody else.

  Not to mention, I just figured out that Rondo is responsible for this whole damn thing, even if he didn’t know it at the time. Therefore a double-tap to the nose with my fist is far less intrusive than a double-tap with my bat, or my gun, to his skull.

  I consider my actions to have shown great maturity and restraint on my part.

  “Take a right,” Rondo says through his fingers. “It’s that one. Just valet up front. I know the word.”

  “The word?” I say.

  “Several words, actually.”

  “What?”

  “Just do it,” Rondo says, pinching his nose. “Let’s get this shit fucking over with.”

  “This madam of yours. She going to fight?” Skinny Drake asks Rondo.

  “She might.”

  “We need guns?” I ask.

  “You might.”

  Skinny Drake and I turn to Rondo. He shrugs. We pull up to the valet under the blinding, blinking lights. There are waves of people buzzing, stumbling and moving in and out of the casino with no particular order or sign of reason. A chaotic whirlwind of stupidity, drunkenness and lust of all varieties.

  Rondo rolls down his window. “Hey, man,” he calls out to a chubby valet. “Madam Rosie keeps a chicken in the pot.”

  The valet nods stone-faced. Listens to Rondo.

  “She likes hard men with soft hearts.”

  Another nod.

  “She makes poo-poo in the penthouse.”

  The valet smiles and opens the door.

  What. The. Hell.

  Chapter 16

  The door to the penthouse opens wide and holy shit this joint is nice.

  The thick-fisted gentleman at the door shows us to a couch the size of a swimming pool. Plush as a lamb’s ass. This reminds me a little bit of when I saw Jonathan’s place in New York. Big. Filled with expensive things. Clean. The type of somewhere you wished you lived in.

  There’s a massive, wrapping window with curtains that are opening by themselves, it seems. It’s revealing a jaw-dropper of a view. I can see the Eifel Tower, or at least the Vegas version. Lights cut up the night with all the colors of some madman’s rainbow. I think of all the people I saw on the way over. The ones who were drunk, wide-eyed and completely unaware of what was out there waiting in the dark.

  Yeah, this is the eye of the storm all right.

  Her’s. Not mine.

  Mine back in Austin was dog shit. I’m a little embarrassed by comparison.

  The thick-fisted gentleman takes a stance behind us. The three of us are seated on the couch facing the window. Staring at it as if we’re waiting for a movie to start.

  There’s some ambient-style music playing just above a whisper. Rondo sits to the right of me, Skinny Drake to the left. I wish I had my bat. Keep twisting my hands with nervous energy vibrating through me. I hate that I don’t have it, but I know it was the right call. It was decided that walking through the casino and hotel lobby with a baseball bat might draw some attention we didn’t want. I really only want it for comfort more than anything.

  That’s not completely true.

  I want it so I can crack some skulls.

  Want it so I can control my environment, rather than it controlling me. I guess when you think about it, the comfort comes from the idea that I can use it to bash in someone’s head if need
be. The comfort that comes from the illusion of control.

  So, yeah, it’s a comfort issue.

  I’m getting too into my own head.

  Stop, Steady Teddy, stop the thinking. Not helping. Breathe.

  I know Skinny Drake has a gun on him. I’m more than a little surprised we weren’t patted down on the way into the penthouse. Madam Rosie either has the worst security ever, or she’s so cool and badass she doesn’t consider us a threat.

  She walks in.

  Yeah, it’s pretty obvious—she’s cool and badass.

  She’s very pretty. She’s tall, willowy even, with dark hair and a gentle elegance to the way she moves. An effortless grace mixed with an understated power. Her sculpted arms are devoured by bright, tattooed sleeves of various flowers inked into her skin from wrist to shoulder. Wraps of green with bursts of reds, yellows and pops of blue. Roses, I assume. No idea what she’s wearing, but it’s classy as shit. Black, sleeveless. A don’t fuck with me business suit of sorts, accented with a silver necklace of a large shark tooth.

  I’m in awe.

  Mind bursts. Blown all to hell.

  My spirit animal just glided into the room and I am utterly speechless.

  Chapter 17

  “Hello,” she says.

  Her elegance is casual.

  Her stare is piercing, and it’s cutting into Rondo at the moment.

  “Rosie, look, I was brought here by these clowns. Didn’t want to come. I mean I love it here, you know that.” Rondo’s edgy, like he’s made a mistake. “I’d never come here like this. Unannounced with strangers.”

  Rosie slinks closer to him, her eyes never leaving his.

  “I know the rules,” he continues, getting more and more nervous with each step she takes. “I know how shit works.”

  She slap-grabs his cheek. The smack of skin was loud. Felt it from here. She tugs and twists a fistful of Rondo’s face, pulling him up from the couch. Never saying a word. Never a grunt or a hint of struggle or strain. Her face never altering its expression.