by Jay Smith
Shapes passed in front of my eyes out in the main room. As my eyes adjusted, I couldn’t take a moment to appreciate the size and splendor of the room in daylight. I was distracted by the four bored-looking uniformed officers and a guy who looked like a swollen version of The Professor from Gilligan’s Island in a serious looking black suit.
"You’re Winston Casey," he asked as the officers left formation to check the bathroom and under the bed.
I nodded. "Can I help you…?" Officer? Sergeant? Detective? I wasn’t used to dealing with police looking for me unless it was to deliver bad news.
"Detective Paul Hinkle. Metro Police. Are you alone, sir?"
"Yes."
The detective checked behind the curtains, pulling them apart to allow the cruel sun inside. As my eyes tried again to adjust, the detective verified the window was sealed and there was no one hiding in the folds of the curtains. The other officers, satisfied that I was alone, nodded to the detective. One of them left for the main room and the other stayed inside the bedroom door. He picked up my blue dress shirt from the night before and looked at it carefully like it might be a weapon before tossing it back over the dresser.
These officers didn't project the same Officer Friendly vibe I felt off Officer Brask the day before. These silent, lumbering law dogs were looking to break something. It was one thing to walk a beat full of drunken tourists but quite another to bust into a casino hotel room in the wee hours of the weekend. Where there's money there's vice and where there's vice there's a need for the kind of police officer with the ability to identify and neutralize threats.
Still, there was something about the men that bothered me. Rather than examining the things they saw in any meaningful way, they picked items up off tables and dressers, looked them over and put them back down hard and never where or how they laid before. It was a show of force rather than an investigation. Detective Hinkle was the only one who spoke.
I imagined them coming into a big casino suite to confront drug dealers or gun runners – men with money to hire violent meat to protect them or an army of drunken assholes just rum-brave and dick hard enough to push back hard against the five-oh. They certainly over-planned to come see me.
At some point, Parker had decided to slip back into his other realm. I thought I saw him head out the front door of the suite, but it turned out to be part of hotel security.
Satisfied I was no threat, the detective shoved his hands into his pockets causing the grip of his side arm to bulge slightly from his suit coat. "Big room to have all to yourself, Mr. Casey. No company? You must be a pretty high roller to get one of these. Christ, it's bigger than my ranch out in Sunrise."
The detective was in his late forties, probably very handsome at some point, but now he resembled the picture about a third of the way through a slow death from stress and cirrhosis of the liver. He didn’t look dangerous or evil, just really fucking tired of your shit. I'm sure someone of his grizzled countenance had seen more than his share of casino hotel suites.
"What can I help you with?"
"Carla Baron. We had a report she might be staying with you."
"Carla? No. Is she okay?"
"She's not staying with you?"
"No. I saw her yesterday. One of your officers saw us in a pub on Serenity Street."
The lip twitched, but that’s all I got from him about Carla. "This won’t take long, I promise. I’m sure you’ve got a lot to do today, being such a high roller and all. How’s your, uh, luck holding out so far?"
Whatever he was implying I didn't catch.
"I'm doing pretty well considering I'm in a suite bigger than your house. What can I help you with?"
"We're looking for Carla. Know where she is?"
"No. Why? What's wrong?"
"Depends on what she tells us when we find her. We understand you were with her twice yesterday, once in the morning and again later in the afternoon when she met you near the casino grounds. Can I ask the nature of your meetings?"
"The first was an early lunch. I was surprised to see her and I thought we were going to catch up on old times – in a brightly lit public place – but it got weird. She seemed anxious about something and then a friend of hers showed up. Police arrested him."
"Why were the police involved at all," he asked knowing the answer already.
"The owner of the pub called the cops on Carla for smoking. The officer asked her to put out the cigarette. She did. His partner recognized the other man, called in back up or whatever, and made an arrest. I have no idea what Carla was edgy about."
Hinkle nodded, took notes in his spiral notebook and then quietly passed a belch before continuing. "You didn't ask her about it on your next meeting?"
I thought about how to phrase that encounter. "She surprised me. Again. Outside that super hero restaurant."
"Excelsior!?"
"Yes. She wore a black jumpsuit and a motorcycle helmet with cat ears."
"Celty Sturluson." He brightened just slightly.
"Sorry?"
"It's a character in an anime thing my kid watches. The Headless Rider. You don't watch anime, read manga?"
I shrugged. "We drove around town a while and talked. I dropped her off outside of town, suburbs where all the ranch houses look the same…and I came back."
"Drove around and talked." The detective scribbled into his steno pad like he was transcribing my words longhand. "How do you know Ms. Baron?"
"We went to school together back east. Many years ago."
"Why did you decide to come visit her?"
"I didn't. I didn't even know she lived here. Haven't thought about her in years."
"But you just happened to run into her the first day you were here and went to lunch."
"That's how it worked out. I went to the bank, came outside and there she was."
"What was your business in the bank?"
I didn't want to be a dick, but it was my own business. "Personal."
"Did it have to do with Ms. Baron?"
"No."
"You didn't plan on meeting her again?"
"No."
"We talked to the staff at Excelsior! and they remember you. Table for 2, waited a while, ate alone and left. The hostess saw you leave with The Headless Rider. Who were you waiting for?"
"I got a text from a local number I didn't recognize. I thought it was someone I met at the resort wanting to meet."
"Who?"
"I don't know."
"Call it back?"
"It was the Restaurant's take-out line."
The middle-aged detective looked like his hemorrhoids were objecting to this long, sit-down conversation, but glared at me like I had something to do with that.
"I'm on vacation," I said. "Maybe I did think it was Carla wanting to meet me to explain what the hell happened that morning. It might have been Ni Huan from the casino."
"Who is she?"
"She's the woman who put me in this suite and showed me around the Realm Aeternus resort downstairs."
Hinkle scratched his head. I watched the officers mill around the sitting room, getting bored with trying to look busy, staring out the window into the resort below, looking through the cabinets and fridge in the kitchenette.
"But you haven't seen Ms. Baron in years. You're on vacation and go to a bank nowhere near your hotel, meet her after and go to lunch, head to the Peppermint, meet her again, drive her somewhere you can't remember..."
"I provided my information to the officer as requested. I’m not hiding from anyone. I assumed she wasn’t either."
"But you made a quick exit after the officer’s back-up arrived. You didn’t have any outstanding warrants. Were you worried about something?"
"I figured Carla and her friend – the big man – were in some kind of trouble."
"Well, yes. Smoking in a restaurant isn’t exactly a felony offense, but Ms. Baron has a record and her oversized companion was wanted for failure to appear and one of the city’s least desirabl
e people to be found consorting with."
"I wasn’t consorting. He just showed up."
"Yes, he said Ms. Baron texted him to come help her get some information out of you. She didn’t specify. What did she want?"
"I can’t imagine she wanted to know anything about my life that she’d need help prying it from me."
"Did it have to do with the bank?"
"I have no idea. You think she was going to try and rob me there in the pub?"
"Mr. Casey, this is Vegas. We get the kind of weird and warped that even New York comes and asks us about when they get out of their depth. You seem like a nice, unassuming tourist from the east. If you got into something a little deeper than you thought, there's no crime in that." He held up a finger. "Well, let me rephrase that. Carla Baron and Jorge Rastillo might have tried to shake you down? Used that 'old friend' connection to hit you up for money? Did she sleep with you and threaten to send pics to your wife? Pass you some weed and then threaten to turn you in, maybe?"
Once I understood that Hinkle wasn't just going to go away and look for Carla in a long list of strip clubs, I decided to do the novel thing and tell the whole weird truth and maybe get to take a piss before Ezrin showed up to teach me more about dork-fighting.
"No. I came to Vegas because a friend of mine set up a vacation. He died, but I still had my ticket. I came out here and he left instructions at my hotel to go to the bank and go into his vault box. I did and when I came out – there she was."
"Okay, so truth is starting to emerge here. Good. Go on."
"Carla claimed she owned what was in the box."
"What was in the box?"
"A casino chip."
"Was it hers?"
"She knew it was a chip, but nothing else about it."
"But your friend – who?"
"Grant Parker."
"Gave it to you."
I went into my wallet and pulled out the note I received from the Barracuda front desk. Hinkle read it.
"'Cash in, not out.' What does that mean?"
"It means I get a suite here and membership in the resort's exclusive club."
"Sounds like something Carla might like to claim. And your friend Grant just gave this to you?"
"I had no idea what it was until I brought it here. This was part of his vacation plan."
"Where is he?"
"Died in Iraq."
"Shit. I'm sorry. Were you two…close?"
The suggestion in his tone was clear. "Good friends."
"Because I can see how Carla might use that against a married man."
"Nope."
Hinkle put his pad down. Through it all, he focused on me and my answers, trying to figure me out. Not that I'm such a mystery, but if I was up to no good or stuck in something bad. The silence extended over a minute, broken only by some muttering from the sitting room. I couldn't make out what they were saying, but there was something odd about it. My attention stayed with Hinkle as much as my swollen bladder would allow, so their conversations faded into the back of my mind.
I thought of something to add. "If it helps find her, I'm sure the secret GPS in my rental car kept tabs on where I was. I don’t know where I dropped her off, but it will tell you to the street number."
"How’s that?" He looked surprised.
"The rental company I used is owned by the same company that sells fleet vehicles to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and they all come standard with anti-theft tracking devices. Location, speed, maintenance reports...all that stuff is tracked and logged in real-time."
"Helps to know that."
"Helps that I'm not here to commit crimes. You seem to know more about my yesterday than I remember."
He chuckled, which dislodged a cough from deep down. "Vegas does that to people. So, you dropped her off where she told you, but you didn't get a house number?"
"I didn't look. When I stopped, she walked up the street about a hundred yards and ducked between houses."
"Now why would she do that?"
"Maybe she didn't want me to know where she really lives?"
"But you're such good friends."
"No, I said we knew each other a long time ago."
"Why did she hold a gun on you the second time you met?"
I admit I hesitated a second before answering. I had to process the question and hoped my delay was taken as a sign I had no idea what the detective was talking about, but I doubt it worked. "She was in costume. I thought it was a prop."
"It was real?"
"I don't know."
"Yes, you do."
I shrugged.
Under his gaze, I felt like I was back in middle school sitting in the Assistant Principal's office for drawing a penis on the music teacher's whiteboard.
With the need to pee becoming urgent, I tried to speed things along, deciding too late that it might just prolong the discussion. "What did Carla do? Should I be worried she might come back?"
"Mr. Casey. You either left with her at gunpoint or you agreed to continue your conversation from earlier in the day. Here's what I think. You agreed to meet her at the restaurant, she waited to make sure you weren't followed by police. When you left, she jumped into your car and forced you to drive off. She wanted the chip, right? But you already 'cashed in' as you say. But she didn't kill you. She just got out and ran. Is that how it went down? Because that's the scenario where you're the victim. Anything else means your sleeping arrangements are about to become much smaller and smell a whole lot different."
"I have nothing to hide."
He made a final push. "Mr. Casey, Ms. Baron is on the blacklist at the Peppermint Casino and a few other casino hotels in the city. She couldn't use that chip here anyway. Security here reported her nearby shortly before she pulled a gun on you outside the restaurant and got in your car. Carla Baron has record of drug offenses and solicitation. She associates with a lot of bad people. We are here because, to me, you’re either an accomplice to something she’s up to or a potential victim of something she is doing. Your lack of a record and our brief acquaintance inspires me to think you’re not working with her, but it wouldn’t take much to convince me otherwise."
Hinkle made more scribbles onto a second page. The room fell silent except for the sound of graphite on paper.
Breakfast arrived on a trolley. The police pushed it into the center of the room and shooed the runner out the door.
It did not surprise me that the Peppermint had surveillance all over or that it recognized Carla around the property. What surprised me is that they chose to use the footage and call in police. Someone was watching Carla and me but didn't lean on internal security to work this out. Again, though: I was not experienced in the mysterious ways of Las Vegas or police matters.
"This is very helpful, Mr. Casey. Thank you."
"Do you think I’m in danger?"
The detective pocketed his notebook and pretended he thought I had already left the room. "Hm? Oh. Well, if you were just two old friends catching up I don’t see any harm in that. Good day, sir and enjoy your pee."
Was I that obvious?
I felt a little better once the room emptied out, then rush into the bathroom.
~
Upon my return, I smelled the eggs and coffee and decided that cold breakfast was better than buying a second one.
Instead, I discovered Ni Huan sitting beside a rolling cart of empty trays at the table by the balcony. She had her feet up on an empty chair while scrolling through her Magic Book. It took a moment to recognize her because she wore a more subdued ensemble of black leggings and an oversized purple sweater. Of course, being Huan, she had to have gold accessories and her diamonds and hid her face behind a mask of make-up. Her thick, shiny raven hair looked like it was being punished by being tied up in a tight pony tail.
She put down her Book and continued to ignore me in favor of the gorgeous village spread out below.
It was a pretty view and the first time I could take a look. The c
apitol felt completely out of time with elements of Egyptian sandstone and tall, phallic obelisks scattered across the many blocks, Florentine influences from the time of the Medici, and even gothic elements all blended in a way that somehow worked. Simplicity of design with artistic flourishes to make each building distinct from the ones around it: That was the style of Aeternus within the mix of styles.
I caught Huan's eyes staring at me in the window's reflection. "Good morning, Winston,"
"Thanks for stopping in. Did we have an appointment?"
"How is Detective Hinkle this morning?"
I looked over the room service tray and took the last piece of toast. Pouring myself coffee from the urn I replied, "I’m sure he’ll be better once the laxatives kick in. I want to thank you for sending them the video of me from yesterday. It was a great wake-up call."
"Video? I just heard you were visited by police and thought it might be a good idea to find out why."
She turned and looked at me with something like a sociopath's early attempt to feign innocence. I found it hard to believe she didn’t know anything, but easy to believe she’d lie about it. "I wasn’t arrested. They just wanted to ask me some questions."
"I didn’t say you were arrested, Mr. Casey. Did I say that?"
"My mistake. I mistook the condescending tone of your voice as an accusation."
A polite titter back told me I wasn't amusing her. She sat back at the desk and took up her book. "What did Metro Police want to discuss with you?" She began typing on the touch screen as if replying to something she just finished reading. She had to put the tablet down flat so she could tap the screen under her long, painted nails. The sound reminded me of sleet falling on a windshield.
"Can I expect you to just show up in my room whenever you feel like it?"
She kept typing. "Correction. Until you sign a full contract, this is a complimentary suite. It is our room and we’re paying for it, so I come and go as necessary. Where I discover a new guest and potential courtier has become involved with police you can be sure I will pay them a visit. Now tell me about this morning, please."