MemoryMen

by Michael Binkley

  The stimuli of the Vegas gave him a third wind.

  The last time he had been in Las Vegas had been for a conference a few years back. Swiftly on his descent as a young Turk in the field of psychology, Carly had spent the five days reveling in what became an extended fortnight of debauchery and drunkenness. The highlight or rather lowlight as Joy had called it, were the numerous mini-posters Merriwhether had made up, depicting a sleeping Carlton Thompson surrounded by his own vomit under the dais of a seminar entitled ironically of all things: ‘Indulgent Behavior’. Shortly after the conference Carly had disappeared to do a lot of soul searching and even more importantly…drying out. He emerged from his hiatus from humanity resolved to live his life in moderation, and hopefully he thought, in relative obscurity. Up until the recent fiasco in Los Angeles, he had done exactly that the last few years.

  Dave Ramirez had texted Carly the address for Karla Domenici, Hasan’s wife. Thorough as always, Dave included a couple of her better known aliases she had worked under in the past, just in case. The last arrest report on her was over a year old, but Carly was hoping she hadn’t skipped town. The report had listed her as having been employed as a cocktail waitress at ‘Big T’s Lounge and Casino’, a low-end dive between the downtown and the strip. It seemed that in the process of peddling drinks, she had also offered to peddle herself to an undercover cop. It had been her second arrest since moving to Vegas. Since then, she had kept a low profile and stayed off the police blotter.

  Finding ‘Big T’s’ was not an easy task as addresses in Las Vegas tended to be well hidden, just as the clocks were. Locating the right block on the right street Carly, with the help of a couple of wayward Nebraskans but little help from his phone app, found ‘Big T’s’ tucked in the middle of several shopettes linked together, all catering to a myriad of tacky souvenir shops, topless bars and low end casinos. Carly well remembered closing a number of such havens when they contained VR parlors made illegal by the crusade he and Merriwhether had led in what seemed another lifetime. Carly embarrassingly remembered some of his own inebriated sojourns into similar places during his last Vegas trip as well.

  ‘Big T’s’ was typical for an operation of its kind…dirty, dark and smoke filled. The roar of perpetual rock and roll over the sound system was nearly submerged by the ringing of bells and video noise from slot machines and video poker games. Off in a side lounge, an array of tired blue neon enticed vacant eyed visitors into a world of free watered down drinks, half-naked strumpets and the ubiquitous gaming machines.

  Sliding up to the bar, Carly called for a beer and casually a twenty dollar bill into a game built into the bar top. He tried to ignore the frantic gyrations of the anorexic tattooed figure dancing in front of him. She hoped to draw his attention and hoped even more to draw some of his money, but her efforts were lackadaisical at best. By the time he had a second beer and another twenty, the dancer had moved on leaving him as an accepted regular at the bar in a world where nothing was regular. Comfortable as he settled in, he coolly asked the bartender, “Where’s Karla tonight?”

  The tired response was just loud enough to be heard, but cautious nonetheless, “Who wants to know?”

  “Just an old friend of a friend, who came into town an hour ago,” Carly said, trying to be relaxed amidst the din of the lounge and casino, as well as the pounding of his heart. He was feeling the thrill of the hunt again, and adrenaline was keeping him going despite the late hour and his unbelievable frantic day.

  Without surprise the next response was yet another question, “You a cop?”

  Carly slid a crisp twenty-dollar bill across the bar with his response, “Nope, just a friend of a friend who told me to look her up if I wanted someone to show me a good time while I was here.”

  Satisfied with the response, the bill disappeared into a dirty nylon shirt pocket. A dirty rag wiped a glass as the man stared in Carly’s direction. He jerked his head toward another room and responded in a dull voice, “She’s in the main room working drinks around the nickel videos. Tall blonde, nice looking, you can’t miss her. Tell her Billy sent ya’…I get a little commission for referrals when she makes a new friend, if you know what I mean. The toothless grin and leering wink concluded the conversation and told Carly that Billy had gotten quite a few commissions over time.

  Gathering up his beer and leaving a few dollars on the bar, the Professor mumbled insincere thanks and headed into the casino. Finding ‘the’ nickel videos wasn’t easy, as every machine was a video and the room only had nickel machines, Billy must be laughing to himself.

  Carly waded through a bevy of thin faced and fat bottomed matrons hypnotized by the spin of digitalized fruit, canned videos of celebrities egging the gamblers on under dirty smudged glass fronts. Finding Karla was much easier. Weaving through the crowd he spotted a tall thin blonde wearing a mock French maid’s uniform. The fishnet stockings gave her an almost gawky look, while the puffed skirt and low cut blouse emphasized the hardened thinness of her body. In another place and in most different attire, the woman could have passed as an aerobics instructor. Staring her in the face as she moved toward him, her tray of lipstick stained glasses bumped his arm, Carly had to admire at her actual beauty. High cheekbones, large dark eyes separated by an aquiline nose and smooth full lips belied the life she had led. She really was pretty.

  “Excuse me, honey,” she said in the almost syrupy smooth southern drawl that all cocktail and truck stop waitresses seemed to have.

  Trying to appear appropriately lecherous, in an over eager and desperate sort of way, Carly smiled and tipped his beer in salute. “Not a problem sweetheart, you wouldn’t be Karla, now would you?”

  With an appropriate level of suspicion borne by her last brush with the law if not by all her brushes with the law, she asked, “Who wants to know?”

  “A friend of mine named Dave back in Colorado said I might want to know. He said he knew you from your days in the Springs and said I should look you up when I got into town.”

  Eager to please by nature, she gave Carly a straight white smile and laughingly replied, “I don’t remember a Dave from Colorado Springs, but then again I sure knew a helluva lot of ‘Daves’ over the years.” She looked Carly over quickly. Satisfied by the rumpled look, typical of her usual patrons, she continued to relax. “When did you get in?”

  “An hour or two ago. Took the red-eye in from Albuquerqu. I slept on the plane a bit and I’m looking to do a little partying before I head back later today,” he lied trying to keep the ruse up until he had her alone.

  “Well honey, I’m off shift just about dawn. If you can stay awake ‘til then, I’d be more than happy to be your breakfast. Of course I’m not as cheap as those casino buffets, but I am definitely lower in cholesterol,” she laughed again. Then with a look of mock sternness, she added, “Unless you are a cop or something like that.”

  Carly laughed warmly, trying to disarm her suspicion. “Sweetheart, trust me. I am not a cop. Just a weary traveler.” He could be charming and he applied a healthy dose of it as he looked directly into her eyes and said in a low voice, “I’m just looking to keep a little company with the prettiest woman in this place.”

  She blushed, looking all the prettier, as flattery was not a stock in her trade. In a conspiratorial tone, with a sidelong glance, Carly cemented her faith in him as he added, “I’m not looking for trouble either. Believe me when I say my some of my more recent experience with the boys in blue wasn’t the most positive time in my life.”

  She almost giggled with excitement as she snapped her gum, “Tell me about it!”

  A call for a drink at the end of the line blue-haired mavens drew her attention. Hurriedly she asked,

  “What’s your name?”

  “Carly…short for Carlton.”

  “Cute name. Anyway why don’t you cool your jets until about five o’clock, then meet me out in front of ‘T’s’. Then we can take it from there.”

  He leered as best he could
and told the eager woman, “Sounds great Karla. I’ll make sure I’ve got breakfast money.”

  With a quick wave and a very nice wiggle so he thought, Karla headed off towards the direction of the machines, leaving Carly to ponder how such a timeless beauty could have ended up with someone like Khahil Hasan, even if it had been an immigration scam. She obviously made bad choices when it came to money and worse choices when it came to men.

  Carly wondered out onto the Las Vegas streets to pass the time until Karla got off. Even in this rather seedy no-man’s land between the two bigger gaming centers, the activity of people out and about so late in the night surprised him. Succumbing to boredom and near exhaustion without the benefit of any other activity, Carly found himself lured into another casino and slowly began to lose money at a blackjack table.

  By quarter to five, Carly cashed himself out, a couple of hundred dollars poorer and made his way back to ‘Big T’s’. As he approached the casino he saw the statuesque blond smoking a cigarette, tapping a stiletto heeled foot in idle anticipation. In the early morning light, Karla appeared younger than she had in the casino. Her face was clear and smooth, almost girlish, a far cry from the hardened hooker image one might have expected.

  “There you are!” she exclaimed nervously as he approached. “I was afraid you stood me up Carly. Shame on you for scaring me like that.” She was relaxed and easy in her manner, almost genuine in her happiness to see him.

  Feeling sheepish at her warm greeting and his ongoing deception, Carly managed to mumble, “Sorry, but a casino down the street needed my support.”

  “Tell me about it. I try to stay away. There’s just too many ways to lose money around here as it is. Being a working girl just doesn’t afford me the luxury of being a real player. Besides, I’ve got a kid to support.” With a laugh, she added, “when I get to the dice table and yell, ‘baby needs a new pair of shoes’, I am not kidding.”

  “You’ve got a child?” Carly sputtered, the incredulity tripping his tongue.

  “Sure do!” she said proudly. “A seven-year-old boy. My mom stays with him when I’m working. That’s why I work third shift. I can be there when he gets up, when he comes home from school and when he goes to bed. Jason, that’s his name, is sound asleep by the time I start shift, so it works out well. Other than the fact that I am usually shy some sleep most of the time it works out.”

  “Amazing,” Carly shook his head with sincere admiration. “I never figured out how a single parent did it. Hell, I can’t get myself ready for work let alone a child. I admire what you are doing.”

  Sliding her arm into his, Karla liked the tall stranger with the cute name. He seemed sincere, not just a ‘Good Time Charley’ like all the others. “So what’s on your mind Carly? Or should I be afraid to ask?” she said demurely in a low sexy voice.

  Feeling honorable, he offered up some middle ground. “How about some breakfast?” I haven’t eaten for what seems like days. The few bags of peanuts I had on the plane and a particularly bad burrito or two from a gas station vending machine just aren’t holding me over.

  Slowly the twosome wandered down the street, the very tall couple turned heads as they strolled arm in arm looking like honeymooners from a Las Vegas wedding chapel. A bright shiny diner off the main drag beckoned them in for a quick breakfast. Karla smiled as Carly wolfed his steak and eggs platter, as well as her toast and most of the pot of coffee.

  “So tell me Carly, what do you really want?” The giggly girl was gone and so was the sex kitten. This was a cautious, if not wary woman of the world talking to him now.

  Trying to be oblivious to her real meaning and wanting to keep the ruse going, Carly smiled as leeringly as possible and acknowledged her with a typical line, “A little partying…you know what I mean.” The crudeness of his reply and the awkward delivery caused him to glimmer with a slight blush.

  She looked at him, eye to eye, there was no nonsense in her voice as she addressed him, “Now Carly, don’t bullshit me. I may not be the teenage beauty queen I was twenty years ago, but I’ve taken care of myself, and believe me when I tell you that you are one of the few men I’ve met who didn’t think of breakfast as the afterglow rather than the foreplay. Besides, you are not the usual ‘Friend of Dave’ that I meet.”

  Waving her hand at him up and down, taking him in as a whole, “Look at you. You’re pretty clean cut, almost studious even if you are a bit sloppy about putting yourself together. Most of guys who come by the bar wanting to party are road warriors with greasy hair and dirty fingernails, or salesmen dripping gold chains, or married conventioneers with white marks where their recently removed wedding bands used to be. Not you though. Tweed coat, soft hands, nice vocabulary…. you called my son a child, not a ‘kid’ or 'rug rat'. It tells me you’re not a typical pick-up. So what gives?”

  Scratching the charade, Carly decided to be honest with her and see what happened.

  “It’s Khahil Hasan…,” he had said slowly, and before he could finish the sentence, she bolted from the table.

  “Wait!” he hissed trying not to draw the attention of the other patrons. He grabbed her arm with a firm grip that surprised them both with its urgency and forcefulness. He managed to lean her back into the booth with a plea, “It’s important. It may mean your safety.”

  She struggled to rise, but he froze her motion with his next words, “It may mean your son’s safety.” It was unfair to use her child against her, but Carly had no choice, he had to find out what Hasan had for insurance. The pangs of guilt succumbed to the necessity of the situation.

  Her eyes widen, her nostrils flared and her breathing came in short staccato breaths as she dropped her resistance to his hold. “Take your hands off me, damn it!”

  "Sorry. I couldn’t let you go. Not until you heard me out. It is important.”

  As the woman calmed herself, her eyes did a slow but careful scan of the dining room. Satisfied with what she saw or didn’t see, she turned towards Carly and spat her next words at him, “Talk fast. I’ve got something to do!”

  “Mail something to the Denver Post? Los Angeles Times? Some lawyer somewhere? A TV news show? Internet post?”

  The words struck home as she reacted with a surprise borne of recognition. “Khahil told you to get something out to the press, or to someone special, if anyone came around asking about him. Didn’t he?” The silent nod from Karla kept Carly talking, “Look, you might be in danger. If I can find you, others can. I need that package. My guess is, it is some kind of computer file or video.”

  Eyes burning intensely, angry at being deceived and discovered she snapped her answer back at him, “I don’t know. I never looked. Ever!”

  She took a deep breath and told Carly how Khahil gave her four packages to mail. She was supposed to send them to the Denver Post, the Washington Post and the New York Times. A fourth package had been labeled for the lawyer Langella, but since he had died, she did not know who should get the last package. Khahil had told her if someone came looking for them, it meant he was dead and the packages had to be mailed immediately. Khahil had set it all up for her.

  Suddenly her eyes sparked with alertness and she asked Carly, “Is he dead?”

  “Not yet, but nearly. He’s still in Colorado but he’s been shot and he’s in bad shape.” He told her how he had found the doctor and the talk they had, including information about her, the marriage and his citizenship arrangement.

  Before she could get squeamish, he reassured her, “Hey, it’s okay. I’m not concerned about immigration things. I’m after the people who tried to kill Khahil. That’s it, nothing more. No one will ever need to know you were involved if we work it right.”

  “Why should I trust you?”

  “If I had been the ones who tried to kill Hasan, I would not have had a nice quiet breakfast with you. I would have snatched your son, maybe your mother too, then waited until you came home and used them as leverage to get the packages from you. Then I wouldn’t have left an
y witnesses. Simple as that. I find you, I get the packages and you disappear.”

  Tears welled in her eyes as she recognized the truth and the danger Carly had presented her. “Why you? What’s your game? What the hell is going on?”

  Seeing her in near panic, he tried to calm her with the truth, or as much as he could tell her. He said Hasan had been involved in a prisoner swap and the Colorado authorities were starting to unravel the whole scheme. He avoided telling her the exact truth, knowing it would shatter his credibility. He told her Langella had put Hasan and the other people together and they may have led to the lawyer’s death. Carly told her about Langella’s partner and the two executioners omitting their real titles and referring to them as prison guards.

  To her credit, Karla had steeled herself to the realities of the situation, although the slight trembling of her coffee cup as she held it telegraphed her underlying nervousness. She was smart enough to be scared.

  “Langella was a shit!” she spat out. “He ran a whole ring of illegal brides as well as grooms. He used girls that worked the clubs around Colorado Springs and soldiers from Fort Carson. It was simple. The American would get about twenty-five thousand dollars to marry a foreigner, stay legally married for two years or until they got citizenship or solid immigration papers. Then they would divorce. Langella being a lawyer represented a whole lot of the dark side of Colorado. It doesn’t surprise me he’d be tied up in the prison stuff. A lot of guards who worked at the prisons in Canon City lived in the Springs. They ran drugs and other contraband for him to and from his clients in the pen. This prisoner swap thing I never knew about, but it doesn’t surprise me at all that Khahil was involved.”