“No,” said Marcus. “Nobody tells Marcus what—”
“Cops!” a guy yelled. Every head in line turned, and we stared as a cruiser nosed up the drive from the street. Then another. There were more cars streaming into the back of the lot, and I knew without looking that they were cop cars, too.
The line broke up so fast it was like there was already Mace in the air. Guys darted away, girls clattered off on their heels, and normal cars drained out of the lot as fast as the cop cars pulled in. My heart was hammering like it wanted out of my chest, and there was an acid taste in my mouth. All I could think of was how many laws I was breaking.
The cops were smooth as sharks, and they knew exactly what they were doing. They poured out of the cars with dogs on leashes and surrounded the club in less than five minutes.
An officer said to me, “Step over there, please.” I walked numbly to where he pointed—to the smoking area, where April was already hugging herself against the cold. She was wearing a white dress, the famous one in the picture where Marilyn is standing over a subway grate. Her arms were covered in goose bumps.
“You okay?” she asked, looking at me curiously. “You don’t look too hot.”
I nodded, clamping my hands under my armpits.
“Relax. This happens a couple times a year. If they find anything, they’ll shut the club down for the night and we’ll get to go home early.” April fished a cigarette and lighter out of her purse and flicked a few times, her hands trembling in the cold. Finally she got it lit and inhaled, her cigarette glowing cherry red in the dark.
I breathed out and watched the cops surrounding the club, wound up tight and ready to nab people. They couldn’t get me, I told myself; my TAM card was real, and my license had been made by a friend at the DMV. But I was shaking.
The main doors opened and light poured out of the club. No more beats; they’d shut down the music. In little knots, clubbers walked out the doors and passed through the ring of cops. The shepherds strained at their leashes, ears pricked up, sniffing crotches. It was spooky quiet except for the crunch of footsteps. Twenty, maybe thirty clubbers made it through the ring, when suddenly one of the shepherds gave two sharp barks, nosing a girl’s leg. She shrieked and took a step back, but a cop appeared next to her and said, “Over here, please.”
More quiet. More people passing through. Two more barks, and they took away a guy in a suit.
The next batch of partiers came out. A girl with pink hair wearing some crazy latex club gear screamed when she saw the dogs and tried to run back into the club. It took the officers about two seconds to bring her back out. Four or five dogs started barking as the cops hustled her past.
“That one’s going to need a cavity search,” remarked April. “She’s not wearing enough to hide anything.”
“That’s twisted,” I said, but I couldn’t help smiling.
“So, is that meathead still bugging your girlfriend?” she asked.
I glanced at her. She sounded like she actually cared. So I gave her a real answer. “Yeah. But she doesn’t think he’s bugging her. She likes hanging out with him.”
“Hmmm,” said April. “Just as friends?”
“That’s what she says.”
April blew a thin stream of smoke into the air. “That’s what my ex-husband said about the woman he cheated on me with,” she remarked.
The comment fell like a stone, sending out ripples. It seemed like a terrible prediction of the future. Then I thought, Wait, April was married? She looked too young to have been married. And too hot. Who would be dumb enough to cheat on her? But immediately I remembered how many nice, pretty girls I’d cheated on—Irina was actually the first I’d been loyal to. Cheating says more about the person doing it than the person getting cheated on.
“What an idiot,” I said.
“Yeah, he was, but I got rid of him.” April made a little kicking motion with her foot. She was acting cocky, but her eyes were sad, so I decided to change the subject.
“How long do we have to wait here?” I asked.
“It took almost an hour last time. Then they’ll bring us inside and lecture us for a while. Nick and Lars will have to pay huge fines.” April lowered her voice, glancing at the closest cop. “LVPD is cracking down. My friend’s boyfriend is with Homeland Security, and he says too many drugs and minors are getting into Vegas clubs.”
I was getting tenser with every word she said. I pulled my phone out of my pocket. It was funny; I was checking texts more and more lately, especially if I was nervous about something. It was like my version of a cigarette. Kyle had sent me a picture from a party at our friend Forrest’s house. It was him, Forrest, and three girls who I didn’t recognize. They had taken a selfie, a blurry crowd in the background. Wish u were here.
“Who’s that?” April asked curiously, peering over my shoulder.
“My old friends,” I said. I looked at the wet cement, at the uniforms everywhere, and thought, I wish I was there, too. Lately, texts from my Washington friends were making me feel depressed. We’d been on a road together, and then I’d taken a major fork. I could still see them in the distance, but my road was going somewhere totally different. I had a feeling that soon, I wouldn’t be able to see them at all.
The cop held out an eight ball of coke on the flat of his hand. He had a Santa sack open on the ground in front of him, except it was made out of gray plastic and wasn’t exactly filled with presents. “Your bottle runner tried to sell this to my agent earlier tonight,” he said. He bent and tugged open the bag: there was a crazy amount of baggies and vials in there, like somebody had robbed a pharmacy. “Quite a haul this time.”
Nick and Lars were standing close to the cops. Lars looked like a kid in a principal’s office, his head hanging, his hands behind his back. Nick was staring straight ahead, his face set in ugly lines. The rest of us—cocktail waitresses, security, bartenders, and bottle runners—were lined up against the bar.
The cop, a big smirking dude with grandpa glasses that clashed oddly with his uniform, seemed to be enjoying himself. He looked up and down the line of staff. “We arrested your VIP host, one of your waitresses, and one of your bottle runners. Anybody else care to solicit drugs or sex?”
Nick’s shoulders slumped just a little.
“You’re going to be making a nice donation to LVPD, so thank you in advance. Maybe you should talk to Hard Rock about the strategies they used for cleaning up Club English. Oh wait, I forgot, they had to close it down.” The cop raised his eyebrows. “This is your last strike. Next time, the Gaming Control Board will send somebody by to collect your liquor and gaming licenses.” He hoisted the bag over his shoulder, nodded at his guys, and headed out.
Once the last cop had disappeared through the door, Nick let out his breath and turned to us, lined up at the bar. His face was barely even moving, but somehow channeling enough rage to vaporize us. “Any of you gets caught soliciting anything, even if it’s a fucking piece of gum, you’re going to have to deal with more than the cops. The VIP bathrooms are shut permanently, so don’t send anybody back there, no matter how much they tip you. Understand?”
We nodded. I was thinking, What VIP bathrooms?
Nick stopped in front of Liz, the head cocktail waitress. “You can’t even control your staff? You got your girls soliciting cops?”
“But you said—” squeaked Liz.
“I don’t care what I said! They should know what a cop looks like!” Nick wheeled on me suddenly. “And you! What the fuck is the matter with you? You look guilty as hell! My ex-wife used to look like that when she’d been on a shopping spree! You been soliciting, too?”
I couldn’t even open my mouth. My legs felt like they were going to give out.
“Easy, Nick,” said Lars.
“No, look at him.”
My face was burning, my tongue a log in my mouth.
“You been trying to make cash on the side?” Nick demanded.
I managed to shake my head.
“Nick, let him alone. He wouldn’t do that,” April piped up. I couldn’t believe she was defending me.
Nick ignored her. He took a step closer, squinting at me. His eyes were hard and focused. “I don’t like the look on your face right now. I’ll be watching you.” He swung around. “Get out. All of you.” Nick turned to Lars. “We need to talk.”
Lars looked like a clown who had gotten lost from the circus. His party gear seemed weird in the bright lights, and his face was drooping and confused. He sighed and followed Nick into the office.
“What are you wearing right now?”
“Really tight lederhosen. Hang on, I just texted you a picture of this German guy wearing a pair . . .” Irina had obviously stopped pretending not to use the Internet for ideas.
I checked the text and burst out laughing. The dude looked like an elf in little brown shorts and suspenders. “People really wear that?”
“Totally. Except they’re usually made out of leather, and they have this awesome flap in front. What are you wearing?”
“Um . . .” I was trying to Google something while I talked to her, but I wasn’t coming up with anything good.
“You lose. You took too long. How was work?”
Even though I knew I shouldn’t, I said, “There was a bust. With dogs.” And I told her everything. Sometimes you tell your best friend stuff that you wouldn’t tell your girlfriend. Too bad in my case they were the same person. When I was done, there was a long silence. “Irina?”
“If you go to jail, I’m breaking up with you.”
“What?”
“I’m just warning you, I’m not one of those women who would stay with her boyfriend if he went to jail.”
“I’m not going to jail! And that’s messed up. You’d seriously leave me if I got put away?”
“Absolutely.”
I glared at the wall. “Well, thank you very much. It’s nice to know you’d be there for me through anything.”
“Who ever said I’d be there for you through anything? There are a lot of things I wouldn’t stick around for.” Irina paused, and when I didn’t answer, she said in a softer voice, “Baby, I’m not trying to give you a hard time. But if you get a record, it follows you for the rest of your life. You have your GED now; you could work somewhere legal.”
GED. That damn thing. Just thinking about it got me depressed. Why was I always the one apologizing for my sorry life?
“You know what?” I said, pulling a sharp turn in the conversation—and thinking about what April told me earlier about her cheating husband. “I’ve been thinking about Micah. And I don’t want you hanging out with him anymore.”
“What? Where did that come from? Are you trying to change the subject?”
I was trying to change the subject. And I knew I should fold. But I doubled down instead. “I’m just saying, I don’t want you hanging out with him. Since we’re talking about reasons we’d leave each other.” There was a silence so long that my neck prickled.
Finally Irina said, “Are you trying to tell me who I’m allowed to be friends with?” She sounded dangerously amused.
“I’m trying to tell you this guy is obviously hitting on you, and I’m tired of it.”
“Hmmm.”
“What’s hmmm?”
“Hmmm is me trying to figure out what to do when my boyfriend starts acting controlling. And by the way, that was a cheap way to change the subject. We were talking about your job.”
“Controlling?” I said coldly. In a sick way, I wanted this fight. “Fine, call me names, but I still don’t want you seeing him.”
“The day you start telling me who I can be friends with is the day this relationship ends,” Irina said.
“Well, thanks for laying it out.”
“I have to go,” she said.
“Fine.”
“Fine.”
She hung up and I pitched my phone onto the mattress. I stalked around my two-hundred-square-foot, stinky-ass apartment, fists balled up. I wanted to hit the wall, but I’ve never been the kind of guy who breaks his own fingers because he’s mad. I put my hands in my pockets instead and cussed a few times.
I called her back five minutes later. “I’m sorry,” I said through slightly gritted teeth.
“I’m sorry, too. I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
“Okay.”
“Okay. Are you still going to hang out with him?”
“Gabe, I love you, but you really, really can’t tell me who I can be friends with.”
I groaned.
“I’m sorry. I understand why you don’t like it. But don’t you trust me?”
“Yes. But I don’t trust him.”
“Well, if you trust me, you have to trust that I can take care of myself.”
Perfect. Now if I came back at her, I’d be saying she didn’t know how to take care of herself. Finally I said, “I can’t promise what I’ll do if I meet this guy.”
“Hmmm,” said Irina. I could hear her tapping something on the other end. “I guess I’ll have to make sure that never happens.”
CHAPTER NINE
On Christmas morning, or more like afternoon, I got out of bed and stuck a water bottle of vodka in one pocket and eight hundred bucks in the other. I wasn’t going to sit around and be depressed; no one-man party in my nasty digs. I’d find some fun.
Before I left, I texted my mom Merry Christmas and turned off my ringer. Half of me wanted her to have a nice Christmas and the other half hoped she’d drink guilt champagne, eat guilt ham, and open guilt presents while she looked into the smug red face of her useless man-tool. Irina would be having a proper family Christmas with tree, presents, and the whole thing.
Micah better not try to “stop by.” That would put me over the edge.
Driving was not an option considering what was in my water bottle. I was planning to hitch or walk to the casinos—the Strip was only a half mile away—but when I headed out my door, Berto was sitting on the steps of his quad, wrapped in a blanket, smoking.
“S’up,” he said.
“Feliz Navidad,” I said.
He smiled. “Feliz Navidad. You going to your family’s house? Open some presents?”
I thought about lying for half a second. It was embarrassing that I had no place to go. “No. My family’s in Washington. I’m flying solo today.”
“Me, too. My family’s in Mexico.” Berto picked up a coffee mug sitting next to him and took a sip. He held out a pack of cigarettes. “Want one?”
“No thanks,” I said, but I crossed the pavement to his steps and sat down next to him anyway.
“Man, look at us, no place to go on Christmas.” Berto shook his head. “That’s messed up.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I can’t sit around staring at my walls, man. I’m going to go find something to do. You want to come?” I felt stupid asking; it’s always awkward the first time you ask somebody to hang out. Especially if it’s on Christmas.
Berto looked at me. “Serio?”
“Well, yeah. I mean, we could see what they got going on up at the Strip. Maybe play some poker or something.”
He shrugged. “Okay. Only I got no money.”
“I’ll spot you a hundred.”
“Damn, that’s generous.” He cocked an eyebrow at me. “You know I won’t pay it back?”
“I don’t care.”
Berto chuckled softly to himself. “Cool. Let me get dressed. Then we’ll roll.”
“Can you drive?” I asked.
“Yeah, okay.” Berto stuck one arm out of his blanket to grind out the cigarette. He was tatted from wrist to shoulder, with all kinds of skulls and clowns and banners w
ith Spanish words. He’d be fun to have along on an adventure, no question.
Last time I was in a lowrider, I was in fourth grade and my friend Angel’s dad was giving four of us neighborhood kids a ride around White Center on his hood. Angel fell off and got a little banged up, and his dad made us all stop riding. I guess there had been some upgrades in lowrider style over the years, because Berto’s ride had subwoofers the size of rave speakers and a mural of a waterfall on the side. He turned down Trop, blasting hip-hop, windows down and cold air pouring in.
“Hey, you’re going the wrong way,” I told him. “The Strip’s back there.”
He shook his head. “The Strip is where tourists go to lose, bro. Let’s hit Boulder Station.”
“Where’s that?”
“The other Strip.” Berto grinned. He was a mad driver, and the belly of his car scraped the road on every bump. He weaved through back streets in hoods even sketchier than ours, and finally turned onto a big wide boulevard. I could see what he meant when he’d called it “the other Strip.” It was like a funhouse mirror of Las Vegas Boulevard: Motel Sixes instead of fancy hotels, run-down casinos I’d never heard of, and RV parks crammed with trailers instead of limos.
Berto pulled into the sprawled-out lot of Boulder Station. It didn’t look too bad, kind of a Mickey D’s of casinos. You could play your game, but there was no red carpet.
“You like Texas Hold’em?” I asked as we walked through the sliding glass doors to the casino. Berto shrugged and looked off at the slot machines, which I took for a no. In the middle of the lobby was a giant fake tree covered in glitter, with wrapped presents under it. “Santa Baby,” the most obnoxious Christmas song ever, was booming from the speakers.
As we followed the signs to the Poker Room, I got this good feeling that I was going to win. I had to—it was Christmas. I guess a couple other degenerate gamblers had the same idea, because the tables were busier than I’d expected, mostly with seedy-looking dudes who clearly had nowhere better to be. I signed up, got some chips, and the hostess walked me over to a table with two cowboys, one young and one old. Berto stuck with me, but when we got to the table, he shoved his hands in his pockets and shook his head.
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