The Mirror Thief

by Martin Seay

  Parthenos and her ill-shaped sibling

  shield the lexicon of craft and trick:

  the redirecting flash, the circle-step

  made sideways on back-turned feet, as

  the logarithmic nautilus records.

  Crivano, too, moves along such spirals.

  Curtis is sure there are clues that he’s missing. At the beginning, for instance, a page has been razored out—the second printed page, the title page, with publication data on the back—cut evenly, close to the spine, so just a sliver of paper remains. Tomorrow, when the libraries are open, he’ll call around, see if he can’t scare up an intact copy.

  He throws off the covers, makes the rack. No faxes, no messages. He opens the curtains, drops to the deck, and does two minutes each of pushups and situps. Fast, not counting. Timing himself off the little clock on the CNN crawl. Onscreen, Chinese people in surgical masks. Girl run down by a bulldozer in Palestine. Still no war. Curtis sits up, cycles through channels: BET, USA, Disney, PAX, History, Travel, TV Land.

  He showers, shaves, gets dressed—gray slacks, brown crewneck pullover—and checks himself in the mirror in the sunken livingroom. He remembers the weird hallucination from last night, then thinks of the dead Stanley in his dream. Curtis steps closer, watches his own reflection for a long time. As if expecting it to offer him advice. The sky over the Strip is deep ultramarine with a dusting of high cirrus, and the shallow crescent scar to the left of his nose is prominent in the sidelong morning light. He slips on his glasses and it vanishes under their slender black rims.

  Curtis steps into the bedroom, strips down the rack, makes it again. Stretching the sheets tighter this time. Bouncing a Louisiana statehood quarter off it when he’s done. He sits in the chair by the window to think, spinning the coin on the wooden table. At first he’s doing this to keep his hands busy; then he’s just doing it. He flips the quarter off his thumbnail, tries to follow the arc, to catch it in the air. Listening to its fluttering chime: a perfect sound when he connects just right. It comes down with a slap in his cupped palm: heads or tails. It’d be nice if there was something he could decide this way. He comes up with these new systems that don’t make any sense at all, that have nothing whatsoever to do with probability. A coin toss is fifty-fifty; the odds of a natural twenty-one are—what? Five percent? Curtis can’t remember. In Stanley’s mind, about the least interesting thing you can do at a blackjack table is win money. Curtis’s attention wavers; the coin drops, he stoops to pick it up. Running the pad of his thumb over the outlines of its little pelican, its tiny trumpet. He thinks about phoning his dad, but then doesn’t.

  At ten o’clock the maid knocks on the door. Curtis puts his blazer on and lets her in, chatting a little in Spanish. She’s quiet, her gaze tightly policed. If she’s surprised at the tidy rack it doesn’t register. When she disappears into the head, Curtis clips his revolver onto his belt, closes the safe, and goes below to look for Stanley.

  He buys coins from a change dispenser in the slot area, not far from where he spotted the Whistler, then exits through the Doge’s Palace to catch the trolley south. He swaps his glasses for shades as he hits the sidewalk, surprised by the coolness of the outside air. The pedestrian overpass takes him across to the Treasure Island side, where he passes the two frigates becalmed in Buccaneer Bay, the dormant volcano fountain. The massive right-angled façade of the Mirage doubles itself in its mirrored windows, and Curtis stops under its covered entrance to wait. The sun is still climbing. The sky below is flat, muzzy, lemondrop-yellow, a screen behind the mountains. Duststorms somewhere to the east. Curtis thinks of the painting in his room: its muted colors and indistinct shapes. Across the Strip, through the palmtrees and the fountain-spray, his hotel’s grooved brick belltower is frontlit by the Mirage’s reflective glass; he watches the golden light play across it. The trolley pulls up to the curb, then pulls away, and Curtis is still standing there, jangling coins in his closed fist.

  He had the right idea in choosing his hotel. Everything he’s done since then has been wrong. There’s not an inch of sidewalk here Stanley hasn’t stepped on, not a single table he hasn’t taken money from. Every time Curtis wakes up in this town, he walks out into Stanley’s head. He’s got to start hearing the echoes, seeing the ghosts.

  But this isn’t Stanley’s Vegas anymore. The old city is masked, vanished into itself. Curtis remembers the old guys bitching about it: a smoky circle of them in his dad’s Irving Street walkup. Carlos Huerta, Jim Press, Cadillac LaSalle. Goddamn developers gonna kill that town, with their palm trees and their goddamn volcanoes. Henry Tsai, once dealt five consecutive aces out of a six-deck shoe at the Hacienda. Won six thousand dollars on the hand. Walked away, never cracked a smile. You can’t hardly find a decent table no more. Hell, most people ain’t even looking. Slow Tony Miczek, who gave up a thumb in ’66 rather than pay his stake back to a loanshark. Turned around and quadrupled it at the Sands in sixteen hours of continuous play, same day he left the hospital. Detouring to the washroom every couple of hours with fresh bandages and a bottle of Bactine. Settled his debt. No hard feelings. College students. People with kids. Squares and lightweights. Stanley staring out the grimy window at the university clocktower, the Capitol dome and the white obelisk beyond. Silent, then speaking. There’s no way to get in the game anymore, because it’s all a game. His dry clucking laugh. They do all the dreaming for us now. Nothing’s left to chance.

  Augustus Caesar is coming up on Curtis’s right, his plaster gaze fixed on the Flamingo across the street. The old hotel seems demure in the light of day. Some of those neon tubes have hung there for thirty years. The feathered pastel frontispiece is shaded, cool and blank as the face of a sarcophagus. Curtis keeps walking.

  He was sore yesterday after the long hump from Fremont, but today he feels good, glad to be on foot. The docs cleared him to drive over a year ago provided he’d install a collision alarm and some extra mirrors, but he hasn’t been behind the wheel since the crash. He’s not scared—a little nervous, maybe—and he could get comfortable again with some practice. He’s just not ready yet. What’s funny is that he hasn’t missed it. It’s been good, satisfying, to do without a car. His new slowness has shown him a hidden world he’d ignored, that he’s only now begun to discover. He’d never admit it, but he’s grateful for the enforced patience, the fresh awareness of distance and spaces between.

  The Eiffel Tower pokes up from the middle of the next block, beyond the telescoping entrance to Bally’s. The last time Curtis came to town it was still brand new, and he and Damon and a bunch of other guys took cabs from the North Strip to check it out. Very weird place. Lots of fake trees and blurry Monet carpet, and everything smelled like baguettes. Standard-issue fake casino sky everywhere, even over the gaming floor: it felt strange to be gambling out in the open, even though it wasn’t really the open. They hit the bars and rode the elevator to the top of the tower, swaying on drunken legs, watching the Valley fill up with lights. The younger jarheads were horsing around, doing imitations of Pepe Le Pew. Damon was staring at the runty Arc de Triomphe down below. Napoleon, man! he kept saying. Fucking Napoleon!

  Crossing Harmon now. New York ahead on the right. Stanley grew up in the shadow of those buildings: AT&T, Century, Chrysler, Seagram, Empire State. What does he think of when he sees them? What does he remember?

  Passing this way on Friday Curtis met a bartender—a dayshifter about to clock out—who knew Stanley’s name right away, who’d seen him in the last week or so. Dayshift doesn’t start for another hour, but Curtis figures he can wait.

  At the entrance, a close-up of a billowing flag is playing on the scaldingly bright LED readerboard, UNITED WE STAND overlaid in yellow, and Curtis wonders again what’s happening with the war. He makes his clockwise round of the gaming area—done up like Central Park, without the typical fake sky—and when he sees no familiar faces, he climbs the stairs to the mezzanine. He gets a couple of hotdogs from Nathan’s in the Coney Is
land Pavilion, eats one while listening to the shrieks and rattles of the rollercoaster overhead, and finishes the other afoot, strolling Bleecker and Hudson and Broadway, taking in the sight of fire escapes and steam-venting manholes and graffiti-tagged phonebooths and brownstones draped in ivy.

  When he stops at the piano bar in Times Square, she’s there behind the counter: redheaded, matronly, maybe five years older than Curtis. In good shape. Talking to a couple of conventioneers in a rich Staten Island accent that probably landed her this job. She doesn’t recognize him when he sits down. Then she does. He’s close enough to see the dark flash of her expanding pupils: he’s come to the right place.

  She’s smiling at him, putting down a napkin. Hey, pal, she says. How’s business?

  Tough to say. It’s been a weird couple of days.

  Tell me about it. What can I get you, hon?

  Just an orange juice, please. You seen Stanley?

  She stops, half-turned to the bar, looking away. No sign of him, she says. He’s been a popular boy this weekend.

  I’m not the only one looking?

  She laughs, shrugs. Like it’s a joke. Pours the juice.

  Has Veronica been here?

  She sets the plastic cup down, takes the ten from his fingers, moves toward the register. Doesn’t respond. She’s not smiling anymore.

  What about a little guy with a gap between his front teeth? You seen anybody like that?

  When she comes back she still has his ten, and she places it on the bar with a battered twenty on top of it. You loaned me a double the other day, she says. I’m paying you back. Thanks. Your drink’s on the house.

  That twenty was a toke, not a loan.

  I don’t mix ’em that good, bub.

  She leans in close, looks him in the eye. If this was a movie, she says, I would take money from the whole bunch of you. Play you off each other and get rich doing it. But this ain’t no movie. I’m gonna say something, and then somebody’s gonna get hurt, and I don’t want that on my conscience. You seem like a nice guy, and I wanna keep thinking you’re a nice guy. So I’m not gonna talk to you about this anymore. Capice?

  I’m not going to hurt anybody.

  It ain’t you that I’m worried about doing the hurting.

  She’s smiling again, somewhat sadly. No fear in her eyes, just concern. She’s been living out here a long time. Who’s been coming around? he asks.

  She takes a breath, lets it out. The little guy with the teeth, she says. Another one, too. Tall. From the South someplace. The little guy’s from out of town, but the big guy’s local. I seen him around. He’s bad news.

  And Veronica? She’s been here?

  She looks down, closes her eyes. Nods.

  Curtis takes a sip of his juice. Swills it in his cup. Were they looking for each other? he asks.

  What do you mean?

  Did all of them just ask you about Stanley? Or did they ask about each other, too?

  She thinks for a second. The big guy asked me about both of the others, she says. About Veronica, and about the little guy. The little guy asked me about Veronica. Veronica and the little guy both asked me about you.

  Curtis smiles. What’d you say about me?

  That I’d seen you in here Friday night, at the end of my shift. That’s all.

  Did you give anybody my number?

  No. I didn’t have it with me.

  But you’ve still got it someplace.

  Yeah. Yeah, I still got it.

  If Stanley shows up here, Curtis says, don’t call me. It’s not safe. Give him my number if he wants it. Tell him about everybody who’s looking for him. Tell him everything you told me.

  He’s in some trouble, huh?

  I think so, yeah.

  Curtis lifts the two bills off the bar, looks up at her, and folds them into his wallet. Absolving her. He is on his own.

  If anybody asks you about me, he says, just tell them the truth. I’m not going to bother you anymore.

  He stands, turns to go. Turns back. How did he look?

  Who? she asks.

  But she knows who. Not too good, she says after a while. Not good at all.

  34

  Walking out of the bar, Curtis comes across a little indoor brook that flows into the fake Greenwich Village from the fake Central Park, and he follows it upstream toward the gaming tables. He’s moving slowly, unsure of where he’s going, turning what the bartender said over in his mind, when he feels eyes on him. He stops, looks up. Turning automatically to his left.

  And there’s Albedo, grinning, watching him from a craps table a few yards away. Skywriting illegibly with the cigarette in his beckoning fingers.

  Curtis freezes for a moment. Albedo shifts in his seat, tokes his dealer, stands up. Draining his plastic cup, leaving it on the baize. Hey, man, he says, sauntering over, his big soft hand coming out. Curtis blinks, shakes himself, takes it. Thinking. Trying to make himself think.

  You have a good talk with ol’ Red in there? Albedo says.

  Curtis just looks at him.

  She’s a classy lady, that Red. I know her real well. Albedo returns his cigarette to his thin lips. Say, man, you’re not headed back to the North Strip, are you? I got a pickup at the Sahara in another hour, a two-girl deal. I can give you a lift.

  No thanks. I’ve got some errands to run down here.

  Albedo looks back toward the piano bar, steps in closer. Curtis smells patchouli and brine. Listen, Albedo says, I got a message for you. From Damon. I talked to him this morning. Things are getting all manner of fucked-up back in AC, man. We need to talk. C’mon, walk with me.

  You talked to Damon? On the phone?

  Albedo’s bloodshot eyes swing his way. No, Curtis, he says. With the telepathic powers of my mind. Yes, on the damn phone. What’re you talking about?

  What’s the message?

  Hey, can we walk? I gotta get rolling here.

  Curtis gives him a hard look. Albedo is sporting a sleeveless Metallica T-shirt today, sunglasses weighting down the droopy neck. No jacket. Jeans too tight to hide anything except maybe a knife. Okay, Curtis says. Let’s go.

  They cut through the slots on the way to the main entrance, Curtis doubletiming it to keep up with Albedo’s long stride. Damon just wanted me to tell you that he’s gonna be out of touch for a few days, Albedo’s saying. Hard to reach. That you just oughta hang tight in the meantime and be cool.

  A few days? How many days?

  I dunno, man. A few days. He’ll let you know.

  And he told you that this morning?

  Yeah. It was about ten a.m., I think. Woke my ass up.

  That doesn’t make any sense. This thing I’m doing out here, it’s time-sensitive.

  Yeah, Damon told me all about that, Albedo says, then checks his enormous wristwatch. Sixty hours, right? A little under that, now. Look, here’s what you do. You keep looking for Stanley, just like you been doing. When you get a line on him, you call me. I’ll put him in touch with Damon. No cause for concern.

  Curtis is shaking his head. This is no good, he says. Why doesn’t Damon call me himself? What’s going on in Atlantic City?

  Things are hairy out there, man. Ownership at the Point’s gone completely Joe McCarthy over this cardcounting shit. They’re looking to tar and feather. Damon’s got to watch his ass, be careful about who he talks to. That includes you.

  But not you?

  Albedo laughs. Aw, don’t be jealous, man, he says. It’s unbecoming.

  They’re walking under the porte-cochère, headed for the valet station. Albedo flicks away his cigarette, gives the Vietnamese boy standing there a folded bill and a quick and elaborate handshake. He jaws with the kid while the car comes around. Curtis fumes silently, staring at the battlements and parapets of the Excalibur across the street, until he hears the kid yell holy shit.

  The car coming up the drive is massive, gleaming, thunderously loud. Black and silver and chrome. Boxy, with a few grooved recesses near the tail,
like a block of balsa attacked halfheartedly with a router. Four headlights. A bumper that looks like it weighs more than Danielle’s Saturn. A steeply angled windshield that seems to jump forward ahead of the rest of the car. The silver hood-ornament a bold right-angled V inscribed in a circle. Ain’t she a beaut? Albedo’s saying.

  The valet looks on, popeyed. What the fuck is that, man?

  Mercury Montclair Phaeton sedan, my young friend. Manufactured in the year of our lord nineteen hundred and fifty-eight.

  Is it real rare?

  Naw, Albedo says. You see ’em around sometimes.

  He tips the kid who’s stepping out of the car, slides the seat all the way back, leans in and unlocks the door on Curtis’s side. You restore it yourself? the kid asks.

  Hell no, son, Albedo says, settling into his seat, flashing his yellow teeth. I don’t know shit about cars. I hit the progressive at Caesars last June, and I went a little crazy. Bought the whole thing as-is on eBay.

  Curtis pops the door, sits down, and Albedo puts the machine in gear, pulls into the stream of traffic. Curtis reaches to fasten his seatbelt and finds that there isn’t one. Yeah, sorry, man, Albedo says. I never bothered to put a harness on yours. The girls always ride in the back.

  Curtis cranes his neck to the left, and sure enough, Albedo is wearing both a standard lap belt and an aviator’s double-strap shoulder harness, bolted onto the back of his seat. No sweat, though, he’s saying, plucking the sunglasses from his T-shirt, sliding them onto his face. I promise I won’t wreck us. We going back to your hotel?

  Curtis has been trying to come up with a gambit—a wild-goose chase he can lead Albedo on to take control of the situation, to trick him into revealing what he knows—but he’s got nothing. Yeah, he says at last. I’m staying at the—

  I know where you’re staying, man. Damon told me.

  Most of the traffic coming off the freeway is turning onto the Strip, and their pace picks up after they get through the light. Curtis tries to settle in his seat, feeling naked without a belt. The Merc’s interior is cluttered and filthy, M&M wrappers and paper cups and empty In-N-Out bags on every flat surface. Curtis kicks aside a set of jumper cables, a slim attaché case, and a folded-over and underscored copy of Soldier of Fortune before his feet find solid purchase on the sticky floorboard.