by Tobias Hill
There are no windows in the gambling hall, no line of sight out to the sun. You can tell it’s daytime, though. There’s a different crowd, not so many couples. This time of day lots of the tourists are out in the Mojave, looking at orange poppies or Joshua Trees. What’s left are the addicts, the systems-people, the last-chance players.
There’s less laughter, more time. My table goes quiet around late afternoon and I look up. She’s been there the whole time. Third slot on the left. Not losing too much. Moving only a little as she plays. Saving herself.
One thing about millionaires and poor folks: they think about the same thing, money, all the time. One way or the other, money is what makes them what they are and they have a hunger for it. Once you got it, that hunger, you never get rid of it.
That’s what she’s like. It’s in the way she treats her silver dollars. Loading them slowly, not wanting to let them go, warming them with her hands, talking. She’ll never have enough of it. She loves it, like Sebastian. You like money, Calvin? Sure you do. It’s in the way her eyes sparkle when she’s watching the machine. Wet.
I put the cards down and look up. I know what I’m going to do. The cameras will see me, because they see everything. I could lose my job just for leaving the table.
It doesn’t matter now. I walk up to her. She has her back turned, so she doesn’t see me till I’m right there. I didn’t plan what to say and I don’t want to say the wrong thing, but there’s no time. She turns and I start to talk before she recognises me.
‘I know what you’re doing. With the slot and Sebastian.’
A cheer goes up from the crap-table crowd. I have to shout a little. ‘I don’t mind. All I want you to do is talk to me. And let me talk to you. And then I won’t tell no one.’
‘Just talk?’
She doesn’t even stop to think. Maybe she was expecting me after yesterday, I can’t tell. Her eyes are punched-out with exhaustion. ‘Where? Somewhere private?’
She’s laughing at me a little. I nod and she looks away.
‘I’ll have to ask Sebastian. No. You’ll have to ask Sebastian for me. Somewhere where the cameras won’t see you. Tell him we’ll be an hour. Go.’
I walk away between the knuckle-crack of roulette tables. I try not to think about what I’m doing. My chest hurts, it’s the excitement. Sebastian’s office is behind the security room, but I don’t need to go back there. There’s just him and Hutch on cameras for Plaza Five. They’ve been watching everything I done.
He looks up at me, Sebastian. Just looking without expression, then back at the screen. ‘You’re off your table. I should fire you.’
I go over. On the close-circuit is the woman. She’s waiting by the Desert Bandit. Not looking up. I guess she knows we’re watching anyway. She doesn’t look beautiful like this. It’s gone like figures in landscapes from a car: a woman sleeping, a face. The car moves on and the angle is gone, there’s just mesas and dunes. I can’t get it back.
It’s not important. What matters is I’m not here to watch people play. I’m part of this now. I don’t understand it all yet but I’m trying to learn. It feels good. Sebastian sighs and stands back. He looks at me like he’s expecting me to say something. So I do.
‘You’re keeping track, right?’
‘Right, Calvin.’
‘Right. I saw that. But there’s always money to be made. You said that too.’
‘Yeah.’ He sounds real tired.
‘Are you making money now?’
Hutch swears and looks away. ‘Calvin. Please,’ Sebastian says. His hands are fists, blood draining back from the joints and bones. ‘She could win any second. Any second now. Just say how much you want.’
I look back at the screen. ‘What’s her name?’
They wait. It’s quiet in here, soundproofed. I talk into the quiet. ‘I want to be with her. Just for an hour. Just talking. She says it’s OK and to tell you, she’ll be an hour. That’s all I want. You can have the money.’
Hutch starts laughing. He does it real quiet, but when I look at him later there’s tears running down his face and it’s hard to tell if he’s laughing or crying. Sebastian just goes on looking at me a long time. He lights a cigarette, even though smoking’s not allowed inside the security rooms. All the time he looks at me until he lets out the first mouthful of smoke.
‘So go.’ He shrugs. ‘What are you waiting for?’
‘What’s her name?’
He grins. His teeth are like hers. ‘Whatever you want, Calvin. Right now you call her what you like.’
‘Goodbye, Calvin.’ He says that as I’m going. A cheer goes up as I step outside. Someone winning big over on the crap tables. I walk between the watchers and players, the floormen and waitresses. I can feel the cameras following me. A pressure on the back of my neck. I don’t look up at them.
She sees me coming across the hall and leaves ahead of me. In the televator we don’t say nothing, it’s just the two of us. The TV screens playing Happy Days with the sound down. Muzak Sinatra. Not looking at each other at all.
We get out at the Atrium and walk outside and it’s already dark, the moon round like an oven-dial, hot against our faces as we walk. She’s fast, I have to run a little to keep up. She’s taller than me, I didn’t see that before. I guess I don’t see everything. I try and concentrate on her face.
She talks without slowing down. A little breathless. ‘Stop watching me. Stop it. What do you think I am, MTV?’
‘I’m sorry.’
She sits down on a concrete bench. I didn’t know she’d do that, I have to go back to her. She pulls out a packet of cigarettes and lights up. I sit down. There’s nothing else to do.
She’s blowing smoke, shaking her head. ‘I don’t believe it.’ Then she looks at me, not talking, just shaking her head like yesterday. I try and think of something to say.
‘Don’t believe what?’
Her eyes keep moving, like she’s trying to see inside my head. She’s frowning. Not angry now. She looks amazed. ‘You know they’ll kill you. They can’t just shut that slot down. Someone could be hitting that jackpot right now. If that happens, they’ll kill you. They’ll just walk you out into the desert and shoot you.’
‘I only want to talk.’
She leans forward with her elbows on her knees and puts her head down. ‘What do you want to talk about.’ Grinds the heel of a hand into her tired eyes.
It’s not going right. I stand up. This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen. ‘I want to go somewhere else. I mean us. I want us to go somewhere. If you want to. Are you hungry? We could have dinner together.’
She stands up and smiles. A kind of grin which don’t have much to do with feeling. It’s just the bone showing through. ‘It’s your time. What’s your name?’
‘Calvin. Halliday.’
She doesn’t give me her name. We shake hands. Cars go by on the Strip. Faces looking and looking away. ‘Actually I’m not hungry, Calvin. Can we just get a drink somewhere?’
‘Oh sure.’ I look around for somewhere. But you can drink anywhere in Vegas, anytime. ‘How about Union Plaza? Is that OK?’
She takes my arm. I feel it like static. ‘That’s fine, Calvin. We can walk.’
And we do. Down towards Fremont together, the sound of a siren somewhere behind us and the warmth of her, the warmth of her arm, closer than I ever imagined it could be. After a little while her breathing changes, slows. I feel her relax against me.
‘What are you doing here, Calvin?’
I shrug. ‘I just ended up here.’ We walk through automatic doors. The elevator closes around us. I want to tell her. To explain. ‘I’m just road trash. You know, Vegas has been a place for road trash and white trash ever since the Mormons bought it off the Paiute for eighteen bucks.’ We find a table. She orders drinks. Turns back to me and nods and smiles.
‘I like it here, is why. It always feels – If it ever got out of season, the Strip would be the biggest ghost town on earth. Bu
t it never is.’
‘Never is what?’
‘Out of season. I like it that way.’ There’s a tall glass of alcohol the colour of apricots. I pick it up and drink. It burns. ‘The neon meadows. Like coming on water in the desert. That’s why I’m here.’
She’s nodding, looking past me. I don’t turn round to see if there’s a clock there. I don’t want to see that. ‘How about you?’
Her eyes focus in. ‘You know what I’m doing here.’
‘I mean why?’
She doesn’t answer. Just frowns at me for a while, then looks down. ‘You’re a very strange person, Calvin.’ She sits forward. ‘I’m here for the money. That’s what I want. That’s all I want. I don’t care if I die with no friends, no fuck, no family. As long as I’m rich. Do you understand that?’
‘Sure.’
She smiles. A real smile, the first time. ‘No you don’t. What do you love, Calvin?’
I could say her. I don’t say that. ‘Poetry. Really. It’s what I try and do. It’s hard.’
‘Tell me some poetry.’
‘I can’t.’ It’s true. I can’t even look at her now. Her voice is different. Quiet. ‘I’m no good at it.’
‘So tell me what you want to write about.’ She sits back and drinks. Her glass is almost empty. I take a breath and talk without looking at her.
‘Well. The rain, maybe. Mostly it never rains but sometimes it does. Saved-up and coming down hard. Like an accumulator. Raining millions. Have you seen that?’
She nods, sure.
‘So when that happens I go walking by myself, the Strip and Downtown. The boulevards and backstreets are full of reflections. Neon and laser-spots and glitterballs and spangle-boards.
‘I walk nearly all night, some years. There’s the smell of food from air-vents and the light all around, it keeps me warm. Up to the Trop, down around Glitter Gulch. It’s like walking in the sky. Then next morning it’s gone. Dried away into the desert. So fast. It’s frightening. That thirst.’
I stop talking. She hasn’t looked back at the clock. Her eyes are trying to find a way round mine again. My hands are sweating. I wrap them round the cold of my glass.
‘I want another drink. You want another?’ I nod and she orders. I close my eyes while she’s looking away. In the dark I lose my balance. I haven’t slept for a while now. We wait for the drinks to come.
‘You know, when I said what are you doing here, I meant here. With me. I meant why did you do this.’
‘Would you have come with me if I hadn’t?’
‘No, but–’
‘I’ve never talked to someone like you. Nothing ever happens to me. I’m the dealer, it’s not supposed to. But I just wanted to talk to you. You’re so beautiful.’
‘Thank you.’
‘It’s my pleasure.’
She doesn’t touch me. She just smiles, her face softening into it. She looks beautiful again. Maybe it’s enough. Then Hutch is there, I see him coming across the room, multiplied in the smoked-glass mirrors.
‘Calvin.’ His dress-shirt has come out. He still looks like he’s been crying. He has one hand in his jacket pocket, the fingers curled tight. ‘I’ve been looking for you everywhere.’
She doesn’t look at me any more. She stands up, her eyes going wild. ‘It happened didn’t it? Hutch? It’s gone, isn’t it? Oh shit.’
‘Get up, Calvin.’
They look down at me. Together they’re similar people, I can see it. It’s a trait, like green eyes or a love of meat. ‘Calvin the poet. Calvin who thinks he’s God’s gift to fucking oxygen. Get up.’ Quiet voice. It could be her speaking. I can’t tell. I stand up and she looks away.
‘I feel like you’re polluting the air in here. I’m going to have to ask you to leave the building with me. You’re fired, by the way. Now let’s go.’
I want to tell him they could try again. Or that I’ll keep quiet, I can. I could do that.
Instead I think of her, her hair. I wish I could have touched it. At the street I look back for her, but she’s gone. I start to write it down, in my head.
The Strip is long and quiet, Hutch ten steps behind. I listen to his steps as we walk. We come to where the city stops and the desert begins and he tells me to keep going.
No trees, no one to hear them fall. Once I look round quickly and he’s standing under the last billboard, hands in his pockets. Shadows from the sodium lights fall down over his eyes. Then he starts up again and we go on. A long-haul truck passes on the empty road. Then the road is gone. I’m on the ridge. There’s nothing but the smell of dust and stone.
‘That’s it, Calvin. You can stop now. Turn around.’
I keep walking. I just want to hear it first. Before the pain. I want that fact. Behind me the man with the gun is shouting my name. In my pocket the Casio alarm goes off, and as I pull it out I hear the sound of the jackpot and I smell the colour of her hair.
Hammerhead
‘No!–’
He sits up in the narrow bed, hugging his chest. The knife is already warming to his body-heat. He can feel the point of it inside, obstructing his heartbeat. His hands slip, feeling for the wound. But it’s like picking meat out from teeth, he can’t find the intrusion. He uses both hands.
‘Oh no no –’
He starts to cry. ‘Not yet.’ The part of him which is still dreaming sees how he bleeds. The warmth is going out of him along the cheap black plastic of a knife handle. He tries to hold the blood in. In his panic he has smeared moisture across chest, ribs, abdomen. The place around him has gone small and dark and he recognises nothing.
He puts his hands against the senses of his face, hiding himself from himself. When he moves, the blood is cool on his skin. Like sweat.
Then he is awake, calming. His wrist-watch ticks in the small room. Perspiration has collected in his sparse white hair, his beard and the loose folds of his belly. Sweat stings his eyes. He looks for the sheet to wipe himself dry. It is tangled around his feet and he tugs it away. The motion of cleaning brings him back to himself.
There is pain in his chest where the nerves are still waiting to die. He throws the sheet onto the floor. Lies back.
It is an effort to think of other things. The dark in the room is blue against white concrete. He tries to remember which language it is in which ‘darkness’ and ‘blue’ are one word. The specific information is old and distant. He worries at it for the sake of worrying. After some time he lets it go.
The room comes back to him as a slow accumulation of data. One cicada chirrs in the mango trees outside. There is the fetid smell of mangoes, the hush of high tide. A fan rotates towards him, cools him and turns away. He gulps like a fish in the hot air. Pulls the sheet over his chest, holding it there. He lies back, eyes open.
After some time he makes a sound, Ah, smiling at himself. An airplane goes over, heading south across the Amazon to Brazil. He can hear it for a long time. Then there is only the sea, the fan, the watch-tick. He closes his eyes again and sleeps.
‘Felicia. Come here. Felicia.’
She wakes. The sun is up, she can smell the gutters outside, fallen fruit and skins rotting in the heat.
She has overslept and there is no money, nothing except her credit with the butchers and fishermen, her persuasion in the bank manager’s air-conditioned Puerto La Cruz office, and 2,000 bolívars in the hotel deposit-box, the notes folded and refolded by so many hands over so many years they have taken on the consistency of an old woman’s skin.
It comes back to her, the fear which has been waiting while she sleeps. There was money in her dreams; the Interior, tree-frogs with golden eyes. She killed them for the gold and their blood was white. She frowns, trying to remember.
There is a hand across her, rough against her breasts. Hector. No. Ricard. Hector was before. Almost a year ago. Last year was better.
She opens her eyes. There is light against the foot of the wall. Five-thirty, six o’clock. A half-empty bottle of sugar-cane a
lcohol on the bedside table. A used condom congealing against the foot of the bottle. Like scar-tissue, she thinks. Her throat is dry and she needs to urinate.
‘You like this?’
‘Get off me.’
‘You like this, eh?’ The hand moves down to her crotch, greedy and painful.
She sits up. ‘You make me sick.’ She pulls on a T-shirt and cut-off jeans, goes into the bathroom. There is a cockroach sitting on her toothbrush. She knocks it off, washes the bristles under the cold tap, does her teeth and hair. Next door she can hear Ricard finishing the bottle of spirit. Screwtop scraping on glass.
‘So. Are you going into town today?’ His voice is languid, angry but too lazy to do anything about it. ‘Felicia? Because you need some more stuff. Things. Unless you want babies. You want my babies, Felicia?’
She doesn’t answer him. She can hear the chug of fishing boats coming back in. A radio talk-show in one of the adjacent rooms. The chatter is distorted through the wall. It sounds like frogs at night. A rhythm of noise, without words. ‘You going to tell the old man today, Felicia?’
Noah. She had forgotten. A pang of guilt.
‘Eh? He has no money to pay, you kick him out. You want me to kick him out for you?’
‘It’s none of your business, Ricard.’ She looks at herself in the mirror; her mouth is downturned. It looks strong, but she has not been strong. She leans her forehead against the glass. When the man in the next room has fallen asleep again she walks back through, out into the yard, the sun hitting her square in the face.
‘Hola, Felicia.’
‘Felicia.’
‘Felicia, look at this, you want some?’
It is one of the older fishermen, from the edge of town. He holds up a tuna in one scrawny hand. A beautiful fish, the colour of steel-wool, gills still working. It is too heavy for him and his arm is shaking a little, his brown grin gritted. Felicia wants to tell him to put it down, but she can’t. ‘Good eating. You want it, Felicia? Five hundred a kilo. Good eating.’