Stateline

by Dave Stanton

  Fingsten swung his arms desperately, his clipboard in one hand and his pen in the other. But his weight was already committed, and he fell over the man into the steaming puddle of vomit. He dropped his clipboard and broke his fall with his hands, but the puke splashed into his face, and then his sunglasses and cap fell into the puddle.

  The crowd was stunned for a second, until a voice said, “Yo, nice moon glasses!” A couple of guys began laughing, then more joined in. The other two deputies started rousting folks, telling them to either go inside or split. A minute later the parking lot was empty, except for the cops, me, the two ladies, and the dude with the busted head and nuts. I sat on the sheriff’s bumper, taking in the spectacle.

  “Mr. Reno,” said the sheriff, looking like he was repressing a smile. “I understand you have a license to carry a concealed weapon. I assume you’re not tonight.”

  “It’s Reno,” I said, correcting his pronunciation. “As in ‘no problemo’. My piece is locked in my trunk.”

  “Are you here on business or pleasure, Mr. Reno?”

  “Pleasure, although what happened tonight wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.”

  “I hope not. I’m Marcus Grier, sheriff,” he said, smiling briefly and showing a big gap between his front teeth. He handed back my license. “I’d like you to stop by my office tomorrow and register. It’s required of anyone with a license to carry a firearm.”

  “No problem. Am I free to go?”

  “For the time being you are. I don’t believe Jake there will be pressing charges. But he is the son of one of the big shots who runs Pistol Pete’s, and we don’t condone fighting in this town.”

  I looked at him, trying to figure his meaning, but he wouldn’t meet my eye. He took the clipboard from his hood and began writing.

  “Sheriff, I believe he’s under the influence of coke or probably crank. You may want to search him.”

  Marcus Grier looked up and sighed. “I’m familiar with the habits of Jake Tuma, I assure you.” An ambulance pulled into the parking lot, and two paramedics stepped out and pulled a wheeled gurney out the back doors. The man named Jake Tuma was still on the ground but was sitting upright. They began to help him onto the gurney, but he pushed them away and tried to climb on himself, lost his balance, fell down, and tipped the gurney on its side. Two deputies came over to help, and they finally loaded him into the ambulance. It drove away slowly, its tires spinning on the ice. I looked around for Fingsten, but he was nowhere in sight.

  CHAPTER 4

  On the way back to the Lakeside, I hit the red light at the intersection across from Caesar’s. Near the entrance to the casino I saw the white Chevy four-by-four truck. I pulled in, and, sure enough, it was parked in a handicapped spot. I dialed the number on Marcus Grier’s card, and a female officer answered. I reported that a vehicle I believed had a phony permit was parked illegally. The woman said they’d send a car to check it out.

  When I walked back into the Lakeside, it was eleven P.M. The casino was packed, and the noise level sounded like a television turned up too loud. I went straight to my room, drank a tall glass of water, and lay on the bed.

  The fight at the bar had evolved so quickly that there was no way to defuse the situation before it turned violent. Not that it bothered me—there wasn’t much doubt Jake Tuma deserved whatever unhappy fate he brought upon himself. He was sadly typical of most of the criminals I dealt with in my career. I rubbed the bruised knuckle on my right hand and thought briefly about icing it. “Typical,” I muttered out loud. Then I reminded myself to let it go and not let others randomly impose their problems on my life.

  But the conversation with Sheriff Marcus Grier kept nagging at me. It had been too quick, too easy. I expected to be in that parking lot for a lot longer, possibly even end up down at the station. But when Grier and his deputies saw Jake Tuma, they seemed to draw conclusions on their own. The remark Grier made about Jake being the son of a Pistol Pete’s casino executive left me with the distinct impression he was afforded special privileges. Grier also said he was “familiar with the habits” of Jake Tuma, which I assume meant drug abuse and other related troubles, but I didn’t get the idea the Silverado County Sheriff’s Department intended to charge him with any offense.

  I figured there was more to it, but it was none of my business, I told myself.

  ******

  I’d been asleep for only five or ten minutes when someone knocked on my door. I sat up for a second and made sure I wasn’t dreaming, then threw back the blankets and walked through the darkness. The chain latch wasn’t attached, so I hooked it and opened the door a couple inches.

  Mandy McGee’s gold-flecked eyes stared in at me. “Hi,” she said. “Can I come in?”

  My mouth wouldn’t say no, and I opened the door. She was still wearing her evening gown, and she stepped in, closed the door behind her, then pressed her body against mine in the pitch-blackness. I felt her hands on my bare chest as she kissed me lightly, holding me against the hallway wall. My heart thudded in my throat at her touch.

  “You thought you could resist me,” she whispered.

  I could feel her soft contours and smell her perfume. She reached out and flipped on the light switch, a sly smile on her face. Standing in her heels, she turned so I could unzip her dress. I moved the length of her silky blond hair over her shoulder and kissed her neck, and then, my hands almost trembling, I unzipped her down to the where her back curved and the swell of her ass began. Then I moved my hands to her breasts, but she stopped me, took my hand, and led me to the bed. “Sit here,” she said. I did, and she slowly undressed for me. It wasn’t until she was naked that she let me touch her.

  I closed my eyes and became immersed in the shape and scent of Mandy’s body. We started slowly, almost timidly, and it was surprisingly romantic. But before long I caught a mischievous glint in her eyes, and we quickly became entangled in positions I’d only imagined. Then she took control, climbing on top of me, her eyes half shut, her hips gyrating and her breasts bouncing in rhythm, until I exploded into her sweet softness. As I lay panting beneath her, the conflicts, challenges, and uncertainties of my life all seemed a million miles away.

  ******

  The light of dawn filtered through the curtains, and we finally fell back exhausted and slept. We’d been up all night, and our couplings had grown progressively more athletic, to the point I felt strangely outside myself, like I was watching us in a pornographic movie. Mandy certainly would have no problem getting a part. She made love like a woman with an abundance of sexual instinct and a lifetime of promiscuity to back it up.

  It was going on noon when I woke, bleary-eyed and feeling like a king. Mandy was still there, curled in the sheets, sleeping soundly. I called room service and ordered the works, pancakes, scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, hash browns, orange juice, and a pot of coffee. I shaved, and was in the shower when Mandy peeked her head around the shower curtain.

  “Hi.” She smiled and stepped in.

  “Oh,” I said, fearing the worst. My genitals were sore after last night’s workout, and I doubted I was up to any more activity. Mandy put her arms around me from behind and soaped up my chest, slowly working lower and lower.

  “Be careful,” I whispered, cringing. She was, and I surprised myself. After a few minutes, we heard a banging on the door. “It’s room service,” I said.

  “Mmmm.” She jumped out of the shower, naked and wet. I heard her tell the waiter to leave it in the hall, then she was back next to me. We completed our lovemaking, leaving me thoroughly spent. I felt like I’d be limping for the rest of the day.

  We sat at the table near the window, and I opened the curtains to let the sun in. It was a bright day, and I hoped no one could see in our window because Mandy hadn’t bothered putting anything on except for a white towel neatly wrapped around her head. I watched her breasts jiggle while she ate breakfast.

  “I’m starving,” she murmured. Her nipples were dark and her tan line pl
unged low, highlighting the shape of her breasts with sharp contrast where her skin turned from white to copper. I forked a couple of pancakes and a sausage link onto my plate.

  “My god, what time is it?” she asked between bites.

  “Quarter after twelve,” I said, sipping coffee. “The wedding’s at three, right?”

  “Mm-hmm. It will be a full Catholic ceremony, about an hour and a half.” She sat with her legs crossed and leaned back.

  “What do you think of Sylvester?” I asked.

  “I think Desiree’s gonna live the lifestyle of the rich and famous. Lucky her. They’ve already picked out a mansion in Monte Soreno, and Sly’s been shopping for a Ferrari.”

  “How does Desiree feel about marrying into all that money? Do you think that’s part of the reason they’re together?”

  “I think that any time somebody is that rich it has a lot to do with everything,” she said, dabbing her mouth with a napkin.

  “How do your folks feel about it?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “My dad’s too freaking stupid to run a business, and my mom’s just hoping maybe some extra money will float her way.”

  I sat there silently. As usual, I had no idea what to say to an angry woman. I tried anyway.

  “Money’s not everything,” I offered. She reached over and patted my hand, like she was reassuring a child who was trying very hard to understand an adult conversation. Then she stood and said, “I better go.”

  She walked to the bathroom, and I stared after her nude body. I couldn’t guess what kind of head trips Mandy was into, and I didn’t really want to find out. She had the type of outrageous physical presence that could make rational men do things that were stupid or insane, or both. So when she emerged from the bathroom in jeans and a sweater and coolly asked me to call her a cab, part of me was disappointed, but I was mostly relieved at the distant tone in her voice.

  CHAPTER 5

  The Nissan’s front-wheel drive bit into the ice as I left my hotel to head to Caesar’s for the wedding. I swung onto Highway 50, driving slowly past the t-shirt shops, restaurants, liquor stores, small hotels, and the big casinos: Harvey’s, Harrah’s, Buffalo Bill’s, and Pistol Pete’s. The entrance to Caesar’s was the next turn-off, when I remembered the sheriff. For a minute I considered his request that I stop by his office, but the prospect of a beer and a few hands of video poker before the wedding was too tempting; the visit to Marcus Grier could wait.

  ******

  I hit a lucky streak, and after drawing a full house I was up a hundred bucks. But I had lost track of time, and by the time I found the grand ballroom it was ten past three. I was ready to quietly slip in the back, but when I peeked in, the wedding hadn’t started. The room was loud with the conversations of the huge audience; the makeshift chapel was packed. I looked around for a minute before I spotted an empty seat in the middle of the back row. I sat there waiting for the ceremony to begin, squished between a large woman and a couple of little boys playing with Legos.

  “I like Star Wars. Do you?” one of the youngsters asked me. He was a chunky kid with a buzz cut and a jack o’ lantern smile.

  “Sure I do,” I said, though I’d never seen any of the movies. I felt an odd pang of sadness when I looked at the kid. Julia had talked about having a family and we considered it many times, but by the time I decided I liked the idea, our marriage was going bad.

  The minutes ticked away, and by a quarter to four the crowd was restless and impatient. Folks were standing, talking in the aisles, shrugging their shoulders. I spotted a clergyman striding from a side door. He disappeared behind a thick curtain, then I saw the groomsmen, in black and lime-green tuxedos, come from behind the curtain and look around briefly.

  I went out to the hallway, where John Bascom stood in his tuxedo, talking on a cell phone. Then I saw Marcus Grier and two deputies come around the corner. I looked at Grier in surprise, wondering if he was looking for me. But they blew past me as if I weren’t there.

  The wedding still hadn’t started when I looked back in. At least half the people were now standing in the ballroom, and thirty or forty people were in the hallway, smoking cigarettes and wandering in and out of the restrooms. Everyone was talking about the delay and the cops who had just shown up. I spied Brad and Whitey off to the side and went over to them.

  “Hey, dude, where you been hiding?” Whitey said. He was wearing a pair of dark blue Levi’s and a pressed, long-sleeve button-down shirt with a purple, red, and yellow pattern. His lank blond hair hung almost to his shoulders. He looked like a combination hippie, hillbilly, and beatnik.

  “What’s goin’ on, Whitey?” I said. “Hey, Brad.”

  “Fuck, man, we’ve been getting blasted,” Whitey said. His eyes were red and glazed, and he sucked deeply on his cigarette. Brad nodded, looking shaky and disheveled, like maybe he had just survived a horrible car wreck.

  “What’d you boys do last night?”

  “Shit,” Brad said, shaking his head, walking around in little circles.

  “The core, dude, to the core,” Whitey said. “We went to the bachelor party in the penthouse suite,” he went on, pointing upward. “You should have seen these three strippers, they were incredible.” He lowered his voice. “Osterlund kept trying to offer them money for a blow job, but none of them would go for it. Finally this hot blonde says to him, ‘Why don’t you go outside and play hide and go fuck yourself?’ He freaked out, I’m surprised he didn’t punch her in the head.”

  “I think he took off with Bascom to try to get laid after that,” Brad said.

  “You guys look like you could use some sleep,” I said, remembering the cocaine blues—the sunrise shows, chain smoking, trying to drink enough to come down, and not being able to sleep until hours after the blow ran out.

  “Exactly,” Brad said. “I’m toast.”

  “You just need another rip, dude,” Whitey said.

  Marcus Grier’s voice boomed into the hallway. “May I have your attention, please?” The PA system was turned way up, and everybody crowded back into the ballroom. Grier stood to the side of the priest’s podium, holding a microphone. His two deputies, plus two Douglas County officers from Nevada, were with him.

  “I’m Deputy Sheriff Marcus Grier of the Silverado Sheriff’s Department, City of South Lake Tahoe.” The ballroom was deathly still.

  “I have some terrible news to report. There’s been a tragic accident, and the wedding is canceled. I’m afraid that’s all I can say now. Please exit the ballroom in an orderly fashion, for your own safety.”

  Grier stepped down from the stage. A stunned silence engulfed the room; the moment was so abrupt and so utterly inconceivable that I thought it might be some kind of morbid practical joke. A hushed murmur rose from the crowd and built into a crescendo as people near the front surrounded the cops and besieged them with questions. More people surged forward, a man fell and cried out in pain, and one officer pulled his billy club as he was pushed back against the pulpit. Another cop grabbed a bullhorn and told the crowd to stand back.

  Then a tormented female voice from the front cried out, “Sylvester is dead!” The crowd froze for a moment. And then chaos ensued.

  All around people were round-eyed, muttering “my god” and “it can’t be.” A middle-aged woman wandered by, saying, “What? What?” as if in a trance. Moans and cries of grief from the front of the ballroom rose distinctively above the noise level.

  “Whoa, dude, what a rat fuck,” Whitey said behind me, adding his own emotional perspective.

  Some ladies nearby were crying, two men in their fifties started arguing loudly, and the kids who were sitting next to me began flying their Lego planes in a dog fight. The ballroom dissolved into a scene of confused bedlam, with hundreds of people milling around with their heads cocked and their eyes glazed in bewilderment. I scanned the crowd for Julia and Parkash, then I saw Brad stumble toward me, his legs crumbling, his mug pasty white. He let out a distressed groan and collapsed
at my feet.

  “Brado!” I bent and saw his eyes rolling back in their sockets. He was pouring sweat.

  “Water,” he mumbled with a thick tongue.

  “Whitey, stay with him,” I said, and ran out to the hallway to where a portable bar had been set up. I grabbed a plastic water bottle and a glass of ice and came back to Brad, who was barely conscious. I held his head and poured a little water into his mouth. He tilted the bottle and drank it down and fumbled a few ice cubes out of the cup. He ran the ice over his forehead, and his color gradually started to return. A group of people had formed a circle around us, and then Parkash was there, taking Brad’s pulse, shining a penlight in his eyes.

  “I’ll be all right, I’m feeling a little better,” Brad said.

  “Lie and rest there for a minute,” Parkash said. Brad lay on his back with his knees raised. His thick black hair was plastered against his forehead. Parkash and I stood and he pulled me aside.

  “Do you know him?”

  “We grew up in the same neighborhood.”

  “His pulse is racing. I think he’s on drugs, probably of the methamphetamine variety. He’s young and strong, but those drugs will make you old before your time.”

  “I believe you,” I said.

  “He needs fluids and rest.”

  “I’ll see if I can get him a wheelchair and get him to his hotel.”

  He patted me on the back. “Yes, good idea, Daniel.”

  Julia appeared at my shoulder. “Nice friends,” she said.

  I turned to her. “Sylvester? What the hell? How could he die?”

  “My god, I’m sure Desiree is freaking out. I think the McGees are with the sheriff.” Julia walked away abruptly, and Parkash dutifully followed.

  Brad was sitting up. I found a white courtesy phone, and a few minutes later a security guard arrived with a wheelchair. We loaded Brad in and took him to a side exit. I left him with Whitey and the guard, walked out to my car and drove around to the door. Brad was able to get up on his own and climbed into the backseat. Whitey sat in front.