Mario crushed his cigarette out on the sole of his flip-flop and dropped the butt in an inch of revolting liquid in a plastic cup. On the CD player, not a radio, Dexter Gordon played “Ghost of a Chance.” Mario said, “I found out Daria and the kids moved back to Texas when they got tired of waiting for me to come home. Home was the Gospel Rescue Mission shelter.”
I said, “Have you gotten used to life down here, then?”
He said, “You don’t get used to wretchedness.” He looked over his shoulder at the snoozing Carolyn and told us he and Carolyn managed to stay afloat, as it were, with temp work for Labor Ready. He did janitorial jobs, mostly, some waste removal, and landscaping. When I asked him why not cooking, he said how could he get a legitimate job with no address? Can’t rely on a cell phone, either—no service in the caves. Carolyn, he figured, turned some tricks, but they didn’t talk about that.
He said, “I don’t want to die down here.” He turned up the flame under the pot of water. “It just kills me, tears me up inside. But there’s nothing I can do about it.”
“Sure there is,” I said.
“I mean, it’s okay sometimes. It’s cool here in the summer, warm in winter. It’s quiet, private. Used to be more private. Now we get guys like you nosing around. And filmmakers. Social workers. Mormon missionaries. No one stays long. Mostly, it’s peaceful. It’s like having the superpower of invisibility.”
About once a month, Mario said, he and Carolyn and the cat checked into a modest motel and got cleaned up—scrub-a-dub-dub—washed their clothes, watched TV, ate a hearty breakfast. “It’s all good,” he said.
I said, “What about the floods when it rains?”
Elwood said, “The water rushes through here at thirty miles an hour.”
Mario said, “I’m of two minds about the floods. I’ve gone through a few. Sure, you lose all your possessions, but a big flood is like flushing the toilet—all the crap gets washed away, too.” He reached for a cardboard box beside the bed. He said, “I was pulling your chain before. What’s your name again?”
“Wylie.”
“Wylie, I wasn’t making lunch when you two arrived. I was about to cook up some meth.” He took out a glass coffeepot and set it beside the heating water. “Got everything I need right here,” he said, and named the ingredients as he pulled them from the box: “Ephedrine, codeine crystals, red phosphorus, filter, lye.”
I said, “How do you take it?”
He pulled a hypodermic needle from the box. “Cook it and slam it!”
I noticed a distinctive wallet in the box where the coffeepot had been—light brown leather with a red baseball stitch design. I said, “Where did you get the wallet?”
He’d found it right where Bay had tossed it, in the tunnel about a half mile east. Just out for a walk and there it was. “There’s never any money in them, but the credit cards come in handy if you can use them quickly. This guy had his PIN number written on his ATM card. Pretty foolish for him, lucky for us.”
Elwood said, “Before we go, could you take a look at a couple of photos for us?”
I held up photos of Blythe and Ruby. Mario didn’t recognize either. He said that not many young folks lived down here. Mostly it was single guys and the occasional couple.
Elwood said, “What was that?”
Mario turned the radio down. Zoë sat up and hissed. Carolyn stirred.
“Dogs,” Elwood said. “Howling dogs.”
“Or coyotes,” Mario said.
“Howling like hammers,” I said.
“We’ve been hearing a lot more of that lately.”
• • •
I TOOK A VERY LONG, very steamy, very soapy, and very thorough shower while Django curled himself into the bathroom sink with his little cloth soccer ball. I scrubbed myself with a bar of lemon-scented goat’s milk soap and washed my hair with violet and jasmine shampoo. Bay stuck his head in the door to tell me he was leaving, his backup cell phone was on the kitchen table for my use, and the photos had been downloaded to it. He was dropping Mercedes off at school, and then he and Mike would meet me at Main Street Station, a locals’ casino downtown. We hoped we might meet someone who recognized Blythe or Ruby. And Bay was also hoping that the poker tables attracted more fish than sharks.
I was famished but couldn’t eat. Everything in the fridge smelled stenchy. I mixed a vodka martini in a go-cup and called a cab. I closed all the doors in the house and settled Django on the couch. I asked my cabby, Umar, to look at the photos of Blythe and Ruby on the phone. He shook his head and handed me back the cell. “All these bone-white hookers,“ he said, “they all look alike.”
I showed the photos to a security guard at the casino door. He refused to look at them. I said, “Please.”
He said, “Sir.”
I said, “A young woman has died, and I’m trying to find out why.”
He said, “People die left and right. Life goes on.”
“Not for everyone,” I said. “Why won’t you just look?”
“You want to know why? I’ll tell you why. Because.” And then he warned me about harassing the patrons inside. “We’ll be watching you.”
I found Bay entertaining a baby in a stroller while the baby’s mother played blackjack nearby. Bay showed the baby how he could pull his index finger apart. Magic 101. The little guy seemed disinterested.
Bay said, “That usually kills.” So then he levitated the baby’s pacifier, dangled it right in front of the baby’s chubby little face, but the baby was remarkably unimpressed.
I said, “Maybe you should have explained Newton’s law of universal gravitation to him first.”
The baby’s mom went bust and joined us. She thanked Bay, looked at her little one, and said, “No new shoes for Pookie today. Let’s go find your daddy.”
Pookie said, “Ah bah,” and they strolled away.
I said, “Isn’t that illegal? A baby in a casino.”
Bay said, “The essence of law is enforcement.” And then he slipped on a pair of surgical gloves that he pulled out of the air and told me to wish him luck. Poker chips are a significant source of the bacterium Staphylococcus aureus, and Bay wasn’t taking any chances.
I said, “Where’s Mike?”
“The sports book. We may have seen the last of him tonight.”
I took a seat at the end of the Boar’s Head Bar. I thought about the subjacent Drain dwellers hunkered down beneath my feet right then. The thought was a picture of a man smoking a cigarette while his wife stirs some soup in an aluminum saucepan. Beyond her I could see a child’s tricycle. Jesus, don’t tell me there are kids down there. I put the phone on the marble bar. I ordered a Ketel One martini from Chad, my metrosexual bartender. He sniffed the air and said, “Lush, right?”
I said, “I drink a bit, but—”
“No, I mean Lush, the store—you used Lush bar soap today.”
“I did.”
When Chad brought my drink, I showed him the photos of Blythe and Ruby. He didn’t know them, but he leaned forward and told me quietly that he could hook me up with much sweeter twat than that. I explained the grim situation.
He apologized. “My bad, dude.”
“It’s okay, Chad.”
“You’re a dick?”
“Pardon me?”
“You’re a PI?”
“I’m not.”
“Cop?”
“Interested party.”
“Are they with the Asians?”
“What do you mean?”
“They work for someone. There’s no freelancing in Vegas. It’s not a right-to-work town, if you know what I mean. Someone owns them.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Sometimes they’re branded with a tattoo. Did you see one? On the arm, the wrist, the eyelid.”
PG, I remembered. Pretty Girl.
“Like if it said SWAG then Swag owns her. Whoever Swag is. Or are.”
“Are?”
You know like Southwest Asian Gang.
SWAG. Like that.”
“Is there such a gang?”
“No.” Chad slapped the bar, said, “Let me know if there’s anything you need, my friend,” and left to wait on a couple wearing matching lilac polo shirts and leather fanny packs. PG, I thought. Posse Galore? I turned my seat around to face the casino, rested my elbow on the brass rail, and sipped my drink. I thought I saw my Crisis Center colleague Gene Woodling’s oval head bob up behind an aisle of slot machines. I heard a familiar voice. A man two seats down ordered a Wum Wunner. I looked past the empty seat between us and saw a squat fellow wearing a blue and silver I’M A BELIEBER ball cap and texting someone on his phone. He caught me looking. I smiled. He nodded and smiled back. Chad brought him his drink.
“Nice T-shirt,” I said.
He turned and pulled at the hem of the shirt so I could get a better look. The profile of a police dog and I MY GERMAN SHEPHERD.
I held out my hand. “Wylie,” I said. “And you look like a Tom.”
He looked perplexed. “How’d you know?”
“Dog lover?” I said.
“Yes, I am.”
“Man’s best friend,” I said.
“Unconditional wove.”
I showed him the photos.
“Fwiends of yours?” he said.
“No.”
He nodded and smiled. “I seen you on TV. You waped that whore, the one on your phone.”
“I did not.”
“That’s what they’re wooking for, bwoads like that.” He finished his drink, stood, and winked. He gave me a thumbs-up and left.
So it was Gene Woodling I’d seen earlier, and here he came bounding toward me and holding hands with a girl who looked far too young to be out so late on a school night. I waved to Gene. He squinted in my direction but kept walking. I called his name. He couldn’t ignore that, and he and the girl came over. I shook his hand. He said he’d heard my legal troubles were over. I thanked him for the call to the cops on my behalf. No biggie, he said. The girl excused herself, said she needed to visit the ladies’ but would be right back.
“Kind of young?” I said, and I didn’t know why. Was Gene’s private life any of my business?
“She’s twenty-two, Coyote.”
I tried to make up for my rudeness. “What are you guys drinking?”
“We can’t stay.” Gene adjusted his crooked glasses to no avail. Was one ear lower than the other?
“Have you seen Ruby around?”
“Who?”
“Misty Roses. My accuser.”
“Audrey Blick. I have not.”
“She laughed at me when I asked why she left Refuge House. Said I was clueless. Do you know why she would?”
“No idea.”
“How are things at the Crisis Center?”
“Busy busy.”
“I’ll stop by.”
“You should call Helen first.”
The cell phone chimed. A text from Bay. Bad news. Blythe dead. Details at the top of the hour. Shit.
Gene said, “You okay?”
“What’s your game, Gene?”
“I’m not playing games.”
“I mean in the casino. Keno? Slots?”
“Video poker, mostly.” Gene jiggled the keys in his pocket and shifted his weight from one leg to the other.
The girl returned from her visit and held on to Gene’s arm with her two hands. I held out my hand. “I’m Wylie. Pleased to meet you . . .”
“Chyna with a y. Likewise.”
I showed Chyna the photos of Blythe Davis and Audrey Blick.
She said, “I know Fawn. She is totally messed up, that girl.”
“Not anymore.”
“Well, good for her.”
“She’s dead.”
Gene said, “We should get going.”
“Were you friends?”
“Acquaintances.”
Gene made a show of checking his watch—black face, white arms, green canvas strap. “Chyna, we got to get a move on.”
Chyna told me they were going to see Criss Angel at the Lux.
I said, “You like magic?”
“Love it!”
“And not just stage magic, I bet.”
“Real magic, you mean?”
Real magic isn’t real and stage magic is, but I nodded. “The supernatural.”
“When I was twelve I was in a horrific traffic accident. My aunt Jodi and me were hit head-on by a semi. They used the Jaws of Life to get me out of the mangled car. They found no pulse. I was dead.”
Gene said, “Chyna!”
She said, “I left my body and looked down at the paramedics trying to save me. I saw a light so bright it should have blinded me. I heard choirs of angels singing. I smelled the odor of sanctity. I saw a faceless man in a white robe who told me I had a choice. I could stay in heaven or I could return to my body.”
I said, “But don’t we define death as permanent?”
Chyna shook her head. Gene rolled his eyes and bit his upper lip. She said, “Death is not a moment, Wylie. It’s a process, and like anything worth doing, you can’t rush it. Death takes time.”
“I’m glad you came back to us.”
“He has plans for me.”
“Gene?”
She pointed to the ceiling. “The Lord.”
Gene said, “We’ve got to go,” and then he took Chyna’s elbow.
She said, “Now that I know what death is, I’m not afraid of it. Are you?”
“Pretty much,” I said.
Gene nodded goodbye. “We’re out of here.”
I asked him to let me know if he heard anything of or from Audrey Blick. I held my fist out for an affable bump. He left it hanging. I watched this inconsolable man and the seasoned but unjaded Chyna leave the casino and wondered if Gene realized how eloquently his kinetic asymmetry, his tricky eyes, and his clumsy gait expressed a pain he was unwilling or unable to confront. In this way, Gene was not unlike the folks who pay good money for therapy, sit down in my office, and do all they can to avoid talking about their wounds and heartache. They talk, instead, about obstacles, misunderstandings, and disrespect. To succeed, I tell them, to grow, to heal, you must first admit you have a problem, admit you want change, which I know, I tell them, is scary. And they stare at their hands or the floor or the ceiling without blinking, and I wait, and they re-gather their resolve and poise and resume their evasion. Gene held the door for Chyna and looked around to see if anyone was following them.
I turned back to the bar and signaled Chad for another. Then I Googled Audrey Blick on the cell and found an Ancestry.com entry from the 1940 U.S. census. An Audrey Blick, then twenty-five, lived on Williams Avenue in Houma, Louisiana. Her husband, Norman, also twenty-five, would likely have been drafted into the military in the next few years, leaving Audrey to raise their baby, Norman Junior, by herself. Was our Audrey Blick the grandchild of baby Norman? Chad set the martini in front of me. Not for the first time in my life, I thought maybe I shouldn’t drink so much.
The gentleman standing at the end of the bar facing me looked familiar, but was for the moment unplaceable. My recollection may have been muddied but my visceral response was unnervingly clear. I didn’t like this man I didn’t know. I didn’t trust him. I turned my head to cough and snuck another glance. He was either scrutinizing an e-mail or taking a photo of his Rob Roy or of me. His nose was blunt, his mouth wide and thin, and his cheekbones prominent. He wore his thinning gray hair in a scruffy crew cut. His tiny dark eyes looked like watermelon seeds pressed into bread dough. When he bit the cherry off his toothpick, I thought I had it and closed my eyes. Almost, but not quite.
I opened my eyes and he was gone, and Bay was sitting beside me with a martini in one hand and his cell phone in the other. He read me the text from Julie Wade. Blythe Davis left the La Paloma Treatment Center two days ago, but not before posting an e-mail to Julie explaining some of what had happened to her big sister. According to Blythe, Layla had tried to kidnap her
, against her will, but she, Blythe, caused such a commotion at the airport that she was not allowed to board the plane. When the two of them checked back into the Luxor and Layla would not stop with the reprimands and the harassment, when she would not let Blythe leave the room unescorted, then Blythe called her handlers, K-Dirt and Bleak. She just wanted them to put the fear of god into Layla. They beat her, drugged her, and made Blythe watch as they threw Layla over the thirtieth floor railing.
The Memphis police found Blythe’s body in Hickory Hill, in a Dumpster behind the mall, dead of a heroin overdose, a needle jabbed between her toes. The Shelby County medical examiner ruled the death accidental.
“Murder, she wrote.”
Bay said, “If she wrote it.”
“Do you trust this Julie Wade? I’m starting to doubt everything.”
“I do. But she can’t know for certain that Blythe wrote the e-mail. And if she did, how do we know she was telling the truth?”
“Still, it’s worth investigating.”
“The coroner ruled Layla’s death an accidental suicide.”
“Pretty fast work, don’t you think? What about the drugs in her system?”
“Recreational, according to the coroner’s report.”
“You don’t believe that.”
“What I believe doesn’t matter,” Bay said. “The cops had their evidence; they came to their conclusion. Why bother to look if everything you need to prove your convenient hypothesis is right there in one place?”
“But now we have new evidence.”
“Like you say: maybe we do.”
Chad leaned over the bar and said, “Get a load of those powder monkeys.”
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