The Investment Club

by Cooper, Doug

  The female officer said, “Max Doler?”

  Max just turned and waved for them to follow. His head didn’t throb as much if he kept moving. Both officers hesitated, looking at each other, surprised by his indifference.

  Max walked to the kitchen and retrieved a bottle of water from the fridge. He waved his hand at the stools tucked under the breakfast counter. “Please have a seat.” The officers walked to the counter but didn’t sit down. He opened the water and gulped.

  The male officer said, “Mr. Doler, do you own a Maserati Quattroporte S Q4?”

  Max lowered the bottle from his lips. “Ahh, I’m sorry. A bit parched. Would either of you like something to drink, water, coffee, anything?”

  The two officers again looked at each other, growing impatient. The female officer said, “Mr. Doler, about the car.”

  “So nothing to drink? Suit yourself.” He sipped from the bottle. “Yeah, I have that car.”

  “Do you know where it is?” the male officer asked.

  “Should be in the garage. Why?”

  The female officer removed her phone and pulled up a photo. “Your car was found crashed into the old Western Hotel on East Fremont early this morning.” She showed a photo on her phone to Max.

  Max studied the image, draining the rest of the water. He walked to the fridge for another bottle. “Sure I can’t get you two something? So thirsty. It’s like we live in a desert or something.”

  “So the last time you saw your car was in the garage?” Impatience tightened the male officer’s words. “You think it was stolen?”

  “No, the last time I remember seeing the car was at the El Cortez valet last night around ten o’clock. I probably walked home.”

  The female officer said, “You don’t remember?”

  Max took his phone out of his pocket. Both officers looked at the smeared puke on the front and back. Max walked back into the kitchen. “I think I’ve said enough and should probably call my lawyer to help straighten this out.” He fetched a paper towel, doused it with some of the water from the bottle, and wiped off the front and back of the phone. “Should I have her come here or meet us at the site?”

  The male officer said, “Have her come here. We’ll go down and review the security tapes here and at the El Cortez to see what happened.”

  Max pulled up his lawyer Amanda in his contacts and held the phone to his ear. “Hey, Amanda. Have a bit of a situation here. Somebody crashed my car into the Western last night…No, I didn’t do it…Yeah, the cops are here now. Can you come over?...OK. See you then.” Max lowered the phone. “She’ll be here in thirty minutes.”

  The officers left to view the footage. Max used the time to shower and piece together the evening, but it was all a blank once he started playing blackjack. He didn’t believe that, even as drunk as he had been, it could’ve been him who wrecked his car though. The El Cortez was right across the street from the Ogden. He usually walked home and got his car the next day when he was that drunk. The Western was four blocks away in the opposite direction.

  Max was on his third bottle of water when the door guy called to announce Amanda’s arrival. The water wasn’t working. He was going to need something stronger. While the espresso maker was warming up, he filled a coffee mug one-third of the way with Jameson. Once the green light came on, he brewed two shots and added them to the Jameson.

  Amanda knocked but didn’t wait for a response before she entered. “So I called a contact at the El Cortez. They said according to the security tape, you left the casino at 1:30, got your car from valet, and went left on Sixth Street to the light, then took another left onto Fremont. Where the hell were you going?”

  Max sipped from the coffee mug. “Good morning to you too. Coffee?”

  She walked over and smelled the contents. “Jameson? Really? Isn’t it a bit early for brown liquor?” She swirled the mixture in the mug and slugged the rest. “Come on, we don’t have much time. The cops have probably seen the video by now and will be back.”

  Max looked into the empty mug and went back to the Jameson and the espresso machine to make another. “So how do we play this?”

  “Well it occurred on private property, so unless the owner presses charges, that should keep the cops out of it.” She took another empty mug from the rack and set it next to his on the counter. “But it might get expensive.”

  “Whatever it takes.” Max added Jameson to her mug. “I can’t afford any bad press right now with this McDonald’s deal happening.”

  “You said you needed additional space downtown, right? How would you like to be the proud owner of prime, ready-to-be developed commercial space? Been empty for several years.”

  “That place is huge. Probably way more than I need.” Max dumped the two shots of espresso into Amanda’s mug and handed it to her.

  “I’m sure you’ll come up with something. ”

  He sipped from his mug, and the wheels started to spin. “I guess we could set up the production lines on the old gaming floor.”

  Amanda clinked her mug with his. “There you go. Now you’ve got your thinking cap on.”

  “Powered by Jameson.” Max took another drink. “We’ll just have to figure out what to do with all those rooms.”

  Dow Jones Close: 15,372.80

  Chapter Seventeen

  Date: Thursday, February 13, 2014

  Dow Jones Open: 15,946.99

  Not long after Max relayed his version of meeting Crystal at Olympic Gardens, she came into the El Cortez and shared her side of the story as well. Of course she had no clue, or at least no conscious one, that Max had told me, and I never gave her reason to think otherwise. Dealer-player confidentiality, of course. Most likely the same mysterious force that caused him to reveal what happened that night, also pushed her to my table to tell me what “really happened.” Long ago I stopped trying to figure out this never-ending cycle of cause and effect, what triggers people to say the things they say, what directs them in and out of our lives in a seemingly random yet far too coincidental pattern. Anymore I just watch the dominos fall and see where they land.

  It was a Tuesday night—pretty much the refresh and reload night in Vegas. The long weekenders had cleared out, and the Wednesday-to-Saturday and Thursday-to-Sunday warriors hadn’t arrived yet. Crystal was alone at my table. Only three shoes in, and she was already up $275. Definitely on her way to a good night. She rarely said much, and that night was no different. The cards, not the conversation, were usually her focus. But as she accumulated chips, she relaxed, and the number of words she offered also increased. Another example of how winning has a friendly effect on people.

  Not too long into Crystal’s run, Penny sauntered in and sat down to play. The two immediately struck up a conversation, or rather Penny talked and Crystal responded, mostly about the last time they saw each other at the juice place up the street and went to the Container Park together. Based on the awkward and one-sided flow of the conversation, I wouldn’t say they were friends but they seemed to be heading in that direction.

  After a successful double-down on an eleven with a fifty-dollar bet, Crystal raked in the hundred-dollar profit, saying, “You know, I knew him from way before that one night.”

  “Who’s that?” Penny said. Now, I think she knew exactly whom Crystal was referring to, but she saw an opportunity to get Crystal talking so she played dumb.

  “That asshole Max,” Crystal said. “I know the casino here probably loves him because he spends a lot of money and is a big tipper, but I can’t stand guys like that. Thinks that just because he’s handicapped with his height and has a lot of cash, he can say and do whatever he wants.”

  Penny encouraged her. “There’s never a good reason to be a jerk.”

  “He used to come in all the time,” Crystal said, collecting the winnings from another fifty-dollar hand. “I usually just avoided
him because he’s so fucking handsy. And not just a rub here and there. He grabs and squeezes. The night he was talking about, it was right before Thanksgiving, the start of the slow time of the year, and I was broke. My girlfriend owed me for pulling her in with another guy earlier in the week, so I went along with it.”

  “A girl’s got to do what she’s got to do,” Penny said, and that was all Crystal needed to hear. She immediately went into a blow-by-blow account of what transpired. Where she lacked detail, Penny interjected and asked for clarification, which Crystal, with her consistent winning, aided by the flow of alcohol, was more than happy to provide.

  That night organ music was playing over the strip-club speakers. With one hand on the pole and her body angled out, Crystal rotated in a circle like a schoolgirl around a street sign waiting for the bus. When the soothing intro music shifted to the distinctive guitar strums, finger clicks, handclaps, tambourine, and hi-hat lead-in, Crystal bounced into her signature routine for “Faith” by George Michael. The song might have been over twenty years old, but everyone still knew that riff and remembered the video, with George Michael in a leather jacket, ripped jeans, and sunglasses, playing an acoustic guitar and jumping around that old Wurlitzer jukebox.

  One of the reasons Crystal liked the song was that it had been released the year she was born. The other was it had been one of her mom’s favorites. She remembered listening to the album with her, both of them singing and dancing, imitating George Michael in their small apartment. Her mom had told her that she liked the album so much, she almost named her Faith instead of Crystal. The only reason her mom changed her mind was because she thought Faith would be too common due to the popularity of the album. When it came time for Crystal to pick a stripper name, Faith seemed like a good choice. Although she knew her mom would not have approved of her occupational choice, the name was a reminder to Crystal of when life was simpler and happier.

  At least Faith was a better name than the standard formula others suggested: taking the name of her first pet and the street she grew up on. While Valeria and Crystal hadn’t had enough space or money in that studio on Lucile Avenue to have a real pet, like a dog or a cat, Crystal was able to convince her mom to allow her to have a hamster, which she named Meatball. Although Meatball Lucile might be an accurate description for many of the girls working at the club, it was hardly a good one for attracting customers.

  The night Max came in, it was dead. A single patron sat at the stage while Crystal wrapped up her set with “Faith.” She usually used slow nights to work on her routine and experiment with new moves. That night she was just going through the motions, preoccupied with generating a new excuse for why her rent was going to be late again that week. She saw the host, Darius, leading Max to the stage. She recognized him from other visits. He always tipped well, usually giving fives rather than ones. She knew she could squeeze money from him in the time she had left, and probably several lap dances after, but she enjoyed ignoring him more than pandering to him. Something about him just made her uneasy. It wasn’t like he was the most disgusting guy that walked through the doors. He was clean and decent looking, and his size didn’t bother her. She actually thought that was the most attractive thing about him. It was just his attitude. His sense of entitlement, like it was OK for him to be a dick.

  Crystal collected the few dollars scattered around the stage, avoiding eye contact with Max. Her girlfriend Jade wiped down the pole in preparation for her set. The one other guy who had been at the stage was waiting by the steps for Crystal to finish. She smiled at him, thinking to herself, Sixty bucks.

  Descending from the stage, Crystal extended her hand toward her chubby suitor. She actually preferred dancing for the fat guys mainly because they were soft and comfortable to move around on. So much better than the skinny guys, who would dry-hump and grind with their narrow, bony crotches, rubbing her thighs raw, or the muscular guys, who, regardless of where she would touch them, felt the need to flex.

  This particular guy waiting for her at the steps, she learned, worked for a large dairy farm in Wisconsin, and was in town for a conference. She tried selling him right away on a trip to the VIP room, but he only wanted a few lap dances. She led him to a dark corner. Seated in the chair, waiting for the first song to begin, he said, “Want to see how we say hello in Wisconsin?” He held up his hands with his fingers interlocked and thumbs pointing down, instructing her to do the same. When Crystal complied, he took hold of her thumbs in a milking motion. “Nice to meet you.”

  Crystal laughed like she did at all the stupid jokes she heard. Straddling him, she removed her top and pulled his head between her breasts. She said, “This is how we say hello in Vegas.” One song became two, and halfway through the third song, beneath the extra cushioning, she felt his body shuddering, then go slack. Apologizing profusely for stopping prematurely, he tipped her an extra twenty. Prematurely wasn’t his word, but as Crystal watched him pad straight to the restroom afterward, she knew he was another satisfied customer and would be leaving soon after cleaning up. The men’s room attendant had told her that he would always find pairs of underwear in the stalls or in the trash because men didn’t want to go the rest of the night with creamed drawers or explain the crusty stains to a significant other.

  After her brief session with the milkman, Crystal roamed the floor, contemplating just taking the rest of the night off. She was still short on her rent and needed to stay, but looking around at the dismal prospects on the floor, it didn’t look like she would make enough anyway. She might as well just get a bag of coke. Her girlfriend Jade, who had taken the stage after her, rationalized buying coke as a business investment, that the bag would provide a return ten times over if sharing a few bumps of it got a guy into the VIP room. But for Crystal, as of late, it had become a straight cost and merely decreased her profits because she did more than she ever shared. She decided instead to go play video poker at the bar and try to turn the hundred she had into four hundred.

  Jade stopped her on the way to her favorite machine. “Hey, I think I got a live one over there.” She motioned to a booth where Max was talking to a cocktail waitress. “We can definitely get him back to VIP.”

  “Take him by yourself,” Crystal said. “I can’t stand that guy.”

  Jade stroked the back of Crystal’s arm. “Don’t be like that. Come play with me. I owe you from the last time. You said you needed rent money anyway. It’ll be fun. I promise.”

  Max was wasted already when Jade introduced him to Crystal. So much that he didn’t even remember the other times they had met, or maybe he just didn’t care. She pegged him as the kind of guy who remembered you only if you could help him. In the booth, Crystal and Jade took turns dancing for Max. Five songs and three shots later, Jade pulled out her bag and served Max several bumps while Crystal straddled his lap, providing cover. Knowing it was the perfect time with the alcohol, cocaine, and testosterone mixing together, Jade suggested all three go back to the VIP room. Crystal was still undecided if she was going to go, but when Max sunk both his hands into her ass cheeks and implored her to join, she suddenly looked forward to it. She knew she would enjoy fleecing the obnoxious asshole for all she could. The look in his eye communicated that he felt special, that their time together would mean something. All it meant to Crystal was that she would make her rent payment on time for several weeks.

  Sometimes Crystal felt bad for guys in the VIP room. It was true that a lot of strippers waited for them to have impaired judgment, or even orchestrated it. They would whisk them back to a quiet, comfortable environment, have attractive women bringing them more drinks with one or more topless girls seated next to them to keep their guards lowered as the host shoved paper after paper to sign, including a thumbprint. Any of these things independently should be enough to communicate the hustle was on, but most guys were already blacked out or too far gone to pull back. If their credit cards weren’t declined, the charges would kee
p mounting until the guys were spent physically. But this time, with Max, she didn’t feel bad at all, not one single bit.

  Letting Jade take the lead, Crystal just sat next to Max and drank champagne. She occasionally served him some when his glass got low and rubbed on him if his eyes ever wandered from Jade, which they rarely did. Jade continued to bump him up, and since they were the only ones in the VIP room, Jade even let him snort the coke off her chest. All guys fell for the same tricks, thinking they were so unique and special but hooked by the same clichéd stuff.

  Sitting next to him, Crystal unbuttoned his pants and lowered his fly. Jade stood over him on the seat and teased him with her crotch, lowering it to his face, then rising up as he stretched his lips and tongue toward her, clamping his head between her thighs if he got too close. Crystal put her hands around his waist and pulled his pants down. Sliding down between his legs, Jade took a condom out of her purse and put it on him. Max leaned his head back. As Jade worked harder below, Max became more aggressive above, and Crystal pushed him away with more force, which seemed only to add to his pleasure. As his body gyrated and tightened from Jade’s determination below, Crystal poured champagne between her breasts. It ran down her stomach, into her crotch, soaking through her thong, only making Max want to lean over and lick it off her that much more. Crystal put her palm in the middle of his forehead to keep him at bay.