by Grant Mccrea
Damn it, I thought to myself, why can’t I keep my fucking mouth shut? It’s one thing if it costs you your job. But this guy. He looks quite capable of perpetrating an act of decapitation. Or worse.
But he laughed.
Not many white guys have the nerve to talk to me like that, he said.
This new opening was almost irresistible. The guy was whiter than a baby beluga. A hell of a lot whiter than me, anyway. Black albino, it seemed. That’s major fucking weird, I thought. But I wasn’t about to say so. I’d already taken enough chances.
I just smiled.
Okay, he said. You are?
Name’s Redman, I said.
Actually, he said with a chuckle, I knew that, Rick.
So much for my cover. I mean, it could have been a bluff. But it didn’t read like one. I figured I had to play it straight.
I’m just here to, ah, get something. For Evgeny. I don’t normally dress this way. I needed to get through the door.
He didn’t laugh out loud.
I respected that.
I might be able to help you, he said.
I was hoping you would.
Come, he said. Follow Diamond.
Diamond turned out to be the one in the gangster suit. Thin, lithe and goddamn irresistible. If I was being set up, it was going to work. There was nothing I could do about it. The off chance that this was legit, that, better yet, there was the slightest possibility I could have a few minutes of guilt-free passion with this utterly tricked-out object, was more than enough to counterbalance the risk. Whatever risk there was. Which was major, big-time, sick, stupid risk.
My consolation, my rationalization, was, what the hell would they want to do anything to me for, anyway? I was just the water boy.
52.
I WOKE UP SLOWLY. Very slowly. I needed water. For what seemed like hours I subsisted in a half-dream place. There were people feeding me dry things. Things that made the thirst worse. I was grasping for a hose, just out of reach. I desperately needed it. My mouth felt like sand. A whole beachful of sand. Sand and autumn leaves. The sand poured out of my mouth, onto my bare chest. It congealed there, turned color. Orange and red and fuchsia. It crawled along my flesh. Entwined around my wrists, my ankles. Tightened. Inserted small shards of glass. Made me bleed. I wanted to scream. But my mouth was full of sand and dead leaves.
My eyes cleared a bit. There was a gray and green light coming from somewhere, murky and intermittent. There was a locker room smell. Only worse. It had a funky edge. I could taste it, or something else, in the back of my throat.
That wasn’t really the problem, though.
The real problem was the iron shackles binding my wrists and ankles. I was attached, it seemed, to some kind of metal contraption that held me in a rather unnatural position, head below my feet. Not only that, but, to all appearances, I was completely naked. In fact, if the numerous aches and throbs that shot through me at random intervals were anything to go by, I was not only shackled, not only naked, but shackled, naked, bruised and battered. I felt a dull ache in the general area of my prostate. A sharp throb when I tried to flex my right wrist. My lips felt swollen. My tongue was drier than a gecko’s tail.
All of which was not good.
The situation reeked of not-goodness.
For some reason the phrase
Time crawls on winged feet,
here without you,
kept running through my head. I pondered what it meant.
I had no idea.
I heard a shuffling sound. Or maybe it was a rustling sound. Either way, it scared the hell out of me. It was bad enough that I was shackled, naked, bruised and battered. I didn’t particularly want the perpetrator of all this to appear, ready to resume whatever it was that got me in this state. Or maybe it wasn’t the perpetrator. But I was not at all sure the alternative would be better. If not the perpetrator, an audience? I wasn’t sure I wanted that either. At all.
Foolish, I thought, my brain slowly coming around to the notion that I was awake, or something like it. That this … situation … as awful as it was, was not a dream. That I was not only shackled, naked, bruised and battered, but utterly confused. Drugged. Or something. Had been drugged. Or maybe just hung over. Whatever it was, it was making me worry about some pretty tangential issues. Given the circumstances.
Call out, I thought. Call for help.
I restrained myself. God knows what monstrous feet might be doing the shuffling. What nasty wings the rustling.
But then, I pondered, could my situation get worse? Well, yes. But if it was going to get worse, it was going to get worse anyway. So, I thought, in a certain sense, it could only get better.
I always knew that freshman logic course would come in handy some day.
I called out.
It came out more like a gargle.
A very, very dry gargle.
The shuffling and rustling stopped.
It didn’t respond.
This was not good.
The shuffling started again. Just the shuffling. Not the rustling. The shuffling went on for a while. Too long, for my taste. It was coming from the left. I turned my head. I turned it an inch. Something was preventing me from turning it any more.
The shuffler appeared. It was carrying a broom. Hence the rustling, I deduced. It hadn’t been rustling. More like swishing. Broom swishing. I thought myself very clever.
It was wearing overalls. And a vacant expression. A very, very vacant expression.
I was hoping the expression was a symptom of intellectual deficit, and not depraved indifference.
I cleared my throat.
He didn’t move.
I wonder if you wouldn’t mind, I said as politely as I could, helping me out of this, uh, contraption.
He didn’t move.
Please? I said.
He looked at the ground. He whisked the broom back and forth.
Apparently he had found some dirt.
I cleared my throat again.
Sir? I asked.
My voice was recovering a semblance of its former resonance.
He looked up.
Do you speak English? I asked.
His expression didn’t change.
Man, this was one tough interview.
Maybe he was deaf.
I screwed up my face. I rattled the shackles. Despite my desperation, I felt more than faintly ridiculous. I mean terrified. Terrified and ridiculous. What I mean to say is, I’m sympathetic to the intellectually challenged and all, but what kind of moron needs a pantomime show to tell him a naked guy shackled to a metal contraption might want to get the hell out of it?
You want to get off of that thing? he asked.
He asked it in a calm, strangely stilted, high-pitched voice.
I took a moment to recover from the shock. Figured the best immediate strategy was to be polite.
Later, I could beat the crap out of him.
I certainly would, I said, but I can’t seem to manage the task alone. Might you give me a hand?
Sure, he said in the same flat tone.
As though it was the most ordinary thing in the world.
He came on over. I flinched. Still half expecting the worst.
But it was fine. He undid the restraints. He did it slowly, deliberately. Then he shuffled back to his broom. Back into the other room. The swishing started again.
I slowly crawled off the contraption. It took some time. I was half upside down. Every joint was stiff. Tiny twisted daggers were being tapped artfully into locations carefully selected for maximum pain.
Once I’d finally stumbled to the ground, I looked at my former captor. It was artfully designed. Bolted to the floor. Painted red. Held together with thick black leather bands. The leather old and cracked. The red paint chipped and weathered. Clearly, it had seen a lot of use.
The aches and pains kept insisting on my attention. I tried to stretch. My lower back seized up. I bent over. I looked at my ankles. Red and
raw. Matched the wrists. Jesus. I’d have to avoid rolling up my sleeves for a few days.
Speaking of which, I suddenly recalled, I had no sleeves. Nor a shirt to hang them off. Nor any other stitch of clothing.
This was going to be a problem.
I tried to look around. It was hard to move my neck. I turned my whole body to survey the joint.
The place was cracked and crazed with age and neglect. The metal devices, of which my former captor was but one, were sad and lonely in the gray light of morning. I vaguely recalled an air of danger and foreboding from the night before. That was all gone. Now it just looked kind of pathetic.
The gray light of morning.
I was thirsty as a salt lick.
I went next door to visit my new best friend.
He was sweeping the floor.
Uh, listen, I said, you wouldn’t happen to know where my clothes are, would you?
He stared at me blankly.
This no longer surprised me. I was getting to know the guy.
No, he said in his flat soprano.
It hit me. Autism. He was autistic. Asperger’s, wasn’t it? The one where you can hold a job? You might even be good at something? He seemed to be pretty good at sweeping.
Okay, then. Autistic. Time to get literal.
Uh, excuse me? I said.
He looked up.
What’s your name?
Bob, he said.
Bob. Perfect. I should have known.
Okay, Bob, I said. Listen, I need some clothes.
Yes.
And I’d like you to help me, Bob. Can you help me find some clothes? Are there any clothes around there? That I could borrow?
He seemed to think for a while.
No, he said.
Damn.
I wandered from room to room. I seemed to know the place. Of course I knew the place, I’d been there all night. But my knowledge had the dreamy, fitful aspect of déjà vu.
I opened some cabinets. I looked under fixtures. I didn’t find anything resembling clothing that wasn’t made of vinyl or latticed black leather and studs. Nothing that wouldn’t frighten any normal cab driver away.
There was only one thing to do.
I promised myself I wouldn’t enjoy it.
I found an iron bar on the floor next to what looked like a small trapeze. Something with a handcuff on each end. I picked it up. I hefted it. It weighed enough to do the job. I padded softly back to the big room. Bob had his back to me. The sweeping seemed to take all his concentration. This was good.
I stepped up silently behind him. I raised the bar over my head. I hesitated. Bob, clearly, was an innocent. He’d been good to me, even. He’d undone the shackles.
But damn, I needed to get the hell out of there.
I apologized to Bob. I’m deeply sorry, I said.
I said it to myself.
I brought down the bar.
I pulled back at the last second. I didn’t want to hurt the poor guy. Just knock him out a bit.
It worked.
He fell face-first. I checked his pulse. Strong and steady. No problem. I stripped off the overalls. Hauled them on. They seemed to weigh ten pounds. As I figured out how the snaps worked, I looked for a mirror. To see just how stupid I looked. There was no mirror. But there was a mammoth arched wooden door, painted red and covered in what looked to be Inca-style—or Aztec, how would I know the difference?—etchings, burnt in or carved so skillfully they seemed an organic part of the wood. Two mammoth vintage fifties surgical lamps stood on either side of it.
I didn’t want to speculate.
I tried the door. It was locked. I wandered about. The place was a warren of narrow hallways and small rooms. In one of the rooms the walls and ceiling were all mirror. I saw myself.
I looked like a reject from a Hee Haw casting call. Maybe a junkie. A junkie reject from a Hee Haw casting call.
I found the exit door. It led to a door that led to a hallway that led to a door that led to a spiral staircase—yes, I was beginning to remember—at the top of which was a door that opened onto the bracing hundred-ten-degree Las Vegas air. The overalls hung ludicrously heavy on my afflicted bones. I wanted to crumple down onto the sidewalk. Sleep. Rest. Have nothing more to do with it.
I had no clue where I was. But wherever it was, it was civilized enough that a taxi rolled by. I overcame the lethargy, tried to hail a cab. It passed me by. I sat down. I saw another. I didn’t have time to stand up. I waved at it. I could feel my desperation. The cab driver could see it, too. He sped away. I staggered to my feet.
About two years later, another one came by. I conjured a confident taxi wave. He stopped. A guy not offended by overalls. Must have been from Oklahoma.
I managed to communicate my destination.
At which point I asked myself how I was going to pay the fare. I thought of asking if he would take a credit card, or a check, but it didn’t take me more than five minutes to remember that I didn’t have those on me any more than cash.
I shivered. It wasn’t the air-conditioning, which didn’t seem to be functioning. It came from inside of me. Frostbite of the liver, or something. I put my hands in the pockets of the overalls.
And discovered that they were stuffed with change. Silver. Coins.
The poor fucker’s life savings.
No wonder the damn overalls felt so heavy.
Ah, shit, I said to myself.
But at least I could pay for the cab.
The cab smelled of old metal and dust.
Or I thought it did, until I got out at the Dusty Rathole. Where I realized that it was me.
I stopped in the lobby. The floor was moving. Earthquake? I thought. They don’t have earthquakes in Las Vegas, do they?
Ah, but it was only me again.
I stumbled to one of the two beige chairs that graced the lobby. The one next to the potted palm. The real one that looked like a fake one.
That one.
53.
I MUST HAVE FALLEN ASLEEP. Hell, I admit it. I did fall asleep.
I shuddered awake.
There wasn’t anyone in sight. I had no idea what time it was. I had a vague recollection that someone had shaken me awake earlier. Brendan? Yes. He’d been there. But that was all I had. A thought that he’d been there. A conviction. That I’d talked to him. I had no idea what was said. Except. He was in trouble.
Maybe he was in the suite.
I stumbled out of the chair. Called the room on the house phone. No answer. I negotiated a room key from the disbelieving desk clerk. Headed for what looked like the right hallway. There was an elevator there. I pressed some buttons. My subconscious didn’t let me down. Or muscle memory. Maybe it was muscle memory. Was there a difference? One the subset of the other? I got out on a floor. I headed down another hall. I found a room. I opened the door. It took three tries.
Everything was black.
There was nobody there.
I looked at my watch. Six, it said. Morning or evening, I didn’t know. Shit.
I staggered to the bathroom. I scrubbed my face with cold water. It didn’t do a thing for me.
I went to the bedroom. I fell into bed. I slept. I slept a dark sleep troubled only by dreams of a menacing, predatory sort. In short, nothing unusual.
54.
I WOKE UP SLOWLY. Very slowly. I looked around. The ancient flip-number bedside clock said 6:23. Morning or evening, I had no idea. Had I slept for twenty-three minutes? Twelve hours and twenty-three minutes? I listened. Nothing. I was still the only one home, it seemed.
And as hard as I tried, I couldn’t remember a damn thing about the previous night. At least, nothing after … what was her name, Ruby? Diamond. That was it. I remembered Diamond leaning over me. I was lying down. I could see down her gangster suit jacket. She was wearing nothing underneath. She was tiny. Delicious tiny breasts. I had turned my head. Saw another pair of legs. Nice, muscular, naked legs. And something about a door. The red door. Bodies going in a
nd out of it.
And that was all I remembered. Other than some vague thing about a conversation in the lobby. I’d been sitting in the beige chair, next to the fake real palm tree. But I couldn’t remember who it was, or what was said, or how I felt about it. Could have been a dream. I didn’t know.
I might have been a sick boozehound, but I never had blackouts. I might misremember a name or two; call somebody named Diamond, Ruby; wonder where the ticket stub for the Cardinals game in my jacket pocket came from—having never been to St. Louis in my life—or the rubber bunny with a faint but discernible scent of hashish. But a whole night gone? Never.
This called for commiseration.
I had to call Sheila.
While Sheila’s phone rang, while I listened to her interminable voice mail message—if this is urgent, call X, if this is an emergency, call Y; what the fuck was the difference between urgent and emergent?—I felt somewhere in between. I thought about the etymology of the expression ‘placing a call.’ Calls used to be placed, I surmised, because you had to call the operator to place it for you. Put the plug in its proper receptacle. Place the plug. Place the call. Hah. I might even be right. But who would care, four hundred years from now? Somebody might care about the phrase, I suppose. Some ridiculously cloistered graduate student studying Twentieth-Century English Anachronisms. But they’d neither know, nor care, that I’d figured it out, here in the Ashcroft, I meant the Stardust, the Dust-Filled Monk, Motel, in Las Vegas, Nevada, at some god-awful time of the day—was there any other kind?—in some god-awful state of drugged inebriation, unsure of anything anymore. Unsure whether I would even live to see the next day.
I called the emergency number. Could she speak to me by phone? It was urgent.
She called back within ten minutes. She had an opening. Not a surprise, but pleasant anyway. More than pleasant. Damn, I began to realize, I was fairly close to what some people might call desperate.
I told Sheila the story. The whole damn thing. Or as much of it as I could remember. Which wasn’t all that much.
Oh dear, she said.
She was always sympathetic. No matter how debauched, demented and deluded I got, she never went judgmental on me.