Las Vegas Noir

Atomic City by Nora Pierce

Test Site

The bus is plugging across the sterile moonscape, rattling on the pockmarked desert road. From the last row of bench seats, Marcus reads aloud from his lesson plans: “Operation Doorstep evaluated the effects of a nuclear explosion on a typical American family. An entire town was constructed for the test, complete with myriad domestic structures, stocked refrigerators, bridges, and automobiles.” He looks toward the front of the bus, past the bobbleheads of tourists from somewhere in the Northeast, past five girls with razored pink hair, past an extremely old couple in matching track suits, and finally catches the response from his own students: iPod cords worm down their necks, heads roll in sleep: a silent consensus of aggressive boredom. The only lively one is Marcus’s class clown, Stanley, who is trying to flirt with the girls from Coalition Pink, activists on the tour to witness for the peace movement. They’re ignoring him, all but one who lectures him in a Socialist jargon. Do you know how many civilian casualties were estimated in Hiroshima? Do you know how many cancer cases were settled in relation to this site? We demand justice and compassion. Do you want to take some literature back to your school? Stanley finally turns around in his seat and huffs, “Damn Pinkertons.” A little snort of surprise escapes Marcus. Stanley knows about Pinkertons?

Seven hours into the eight-hour tour, sixty miles from the next drab stop. The last stop was so boring that a few of Marcus’s students didn’t even bother to get off the bus. They are indifferent to the sight of the gutted desert, permanently gouged and bloated, though they’ve spent their whole lives downwind of the place. Every one of them has some cousin, some old aunt somewhere on a nuked dead-end street.

To tune out, Marcus takes off his glasses. He’s severely near-sighted, so the life around him blurs and his world shrinks to the small space of the pages on his lap. The photograph on his Henderson Junior High School Learning Outcomes Objectives for Knowledge (LOOK) Field Trip Planner shows impeccably groomed mannequins tossed about in make-believe agony. In a test house set up farther from the explosion, the family is still intact. All but the dad, whose nose is blown off. Marcus flips through the official Nevada Test Site handbook he downloaded from the Internet. In the interest of Cultural Preservation, it reads, if any worker should come across what he believes to be human remains, he should stop working and immediately contact his supervisor. Marcus puts his glasses back on and looks up at the two lone Shoshones across the aisle from him. The Indians have a deadpan, skeptical look about them. They introduced themselves back at the security briefing in Vegas as Jimbo and Robert Bitterroot, taking the tour to get a look at old Shoshone land. Marcus can’t remember which one is which. He suspects they’re really along to verify the remains of some legendary ancestor, to examine some pottery shards or conduct some ancient ceremony. One raises an eyebrow when he catches Marcus staring at him. The other looks out the window and snorts. What the Shoshone sees in the ash and sand-colored landscape is so startling that the pork rinds he’s been snacking on come out of his mouth in little crystalline flecks. “Hey,” he calls to the driver, handing his brother the snack bag and standing up in the shaky bus. He wipes the pork rind dust from his chin. “You just passed a body, man.”

Marcus’s students perk up. They lean across the aisles and crane their necks toward the rear of the bus, where feather boas are dangling around the seats of the Pinkertons. There is nothing to be seen in the back of the bus but a restroom, so the students get up — one, then two at a time — and lean over the unoccupied seats to try to get a glimpse.

“They’re from JCPenney,” Marcus says. “They’re just mannequins.”

“Please stay in your seats,” the driver says. He sounds bored too.

The Shoshone says, “That ain’t no doll, man.”

Marcus watches the driver adjust his mirrors and look a little closer. He downshifts, leaves the bus idling, and steps out. The Shoshone follows him and tries to push the bus’s front door open, but it buckles back. The kids crowd around one of the rear windows, affording Marcus a tiny, triangle-shaped view of the driver outside. He stands a few yards away, talking on a cell phone, shielding his eyes from the afternoon sun.

“He locked us in?” asks one of Marcus’s students — not one of the brightest kids.

The elderly couple rearranges the packs and lunch sacks at their feet, readying themselves to get off the bus.

“Shit,” Marcus says.

A female student looks at him horrified. “Mr. Marcus!”

The girl sitting next to her — Sandra — pops her Bubblelicious with a bandaged finger. “He totally just said that.” She does an imitation of his nasally voice, “He said, Shit!”

The driver gets back on the bus and the Shoshone, who remained by the door, slips past him. His brother follows. “Hey,” the driver calls, “you two stay on the bus.” But the two men wander over to the figure in the brush. The driver grabs the escort badge hanging on a ribbon around his neck and points it at the rest of them. “We’re going to wait here for the military police unit.” His eyes shimmy. “Everyone must stay on the bus!”

“Turn up the air conditioner,” one of Marcus’s students says.

Marcus puts on his menacing face. “Pipe down, Jonathan.”

“He said, Pipe down, Jonathan,” Sandra makes Mr. Marcus eyes: low-lashed, squinty ones, with hairy inverted-comma eyebrows that she mimes by pulling up the skin between her brows and fluttering her fingers. “He was all, Pipe down.”

The driver locks them back in and goes after the two Shoshones. Marcus watches them through the little triangle. “Get back in your seats,” he tells the kids. The driver remains a few feet away from the body, but waves his arms instructively, while the taller of the two brothers leans over the body and turns his ear toward the man’s mouth, as if listening to some last confession.

“I think he’s still alive!” Sandra says.

Then the tall Shoshone tilts the chin up to open the airway and the afternoon glare catches a bright red blot on the old man’s nose, a wet smudge of blood. The driver backs away a little more, while the other brother makes a bellows of the man’s chest. They do this for a while and get nowhere. Then they huddle. After a bit, they all look back at the bus at once, and Marcus feels as if he is sitting with his students and the other tourists outside the principal’s office, waiting for the parents to be called.

The driver walks back to the bus with an exaggerated casual gait, followed by the brothers.

On the bus, the elderly woman puts a hand out to stop the two Indians. “Was it really a dead body?’

Marcus watches the driver eye the Indians sternly in the rearview mirror. The one who talks, shrugs.

“I bet he ain’t just walked all the way out here and died,” says Stanley.

“Calm down,” Marcus says. He wipes his glasses on his shirt so hard that the frame buckles and he has to force it back into shape.

“But serious-up, Mr. G. Ain’t nobody coulda just walked all the way out here. It hadda been someone on the bus. ”

“Ooh,” Sandra says, “He was all, It had a been someone in here.”

“That’s ridiculous.” One of the Pinkertons waves him down.

“Naw, really. Let’s take a count, in case someone’s missing, like in that Agatha Crispy movie.”

“Christie movie,” Marcus says. “Agatha Christie.”

“He was all, Agatha—”

“Shut up, Sandra.”

The kids rally around Marcus. What’s wrong with Mr. Marcus? Look, he took off his glasses. Leave him alone, he’s upset.

Marcus looks out the window, dusted with desert debris, at a small cabin on the road ahead. A tall, broad-shouldered guard points a machine gun toward him. But when he looks closer, Marcus realizes the figure is two-dimensional, just a cardboard cut-out meant to scare off wandering activists and moon-landing denialists who might manage to make it past the cages and the warning signs and the punishing landscape.

“There is only twenty-six!” Stanley pumps an arm in victory. “Somebody’s missing like in the movie!”

“Awesome,” someone says.

The students take off their ear buds and look around. Marcus watches as some of them wrap the ear bud cords around their iPods and stroke the sterile white rectangles affectionately, like babies with their blankies. In the rearview mirror, he sees that the driver’s eyebrows have lifted. Marcus can tell he is counting. He flips through the clipboard on his lap, does a second count. Then he turns off the ignition and the bus hushes slowly to rest. He walks to the back of the vehicle. All eyes follow him down the aisle, where he stops and knocks on the bathroom door. When there is no answer, he jiggles the handle and finds it locked. “Hey!” He pounds. “Come on out of there, please.” There is no answer. He works the handle again and then grips it like a nine iron and jerks it. “All right,” he says. “If this is a joke, it won’t be tolerated.” He looks sternly at Marcus’s students, who shift in their seats. He sits down with the Pinkertons and flips through his clipboard again. “When I call your name, I want you to say...” He pauses.

“Say present,” Marcus suggests.

“Okay,” the driver begins. “Barry Marcus?”

Marcus raises his hand. “Present.”

The driver goes down the list of Marcus’s students.

Present, here, over here, they drawl, just as they do in the classroom.

“James and Robert Bitterroot?”

The two Indians don’t say present — it’s obvious. The driver marks them on his list.

“Mr. and Mrs. Stevenson?”

“We’re here.”

The driver calls off a group of women’s names and all the Pinkertons answer present.

“Mr. Lancet.”

The bus is quiet.

“Mr. Lancet?”

The driver flips through his clipboard again. He covers the page with his hands, reading something carefully. His face blanches a little and he looks up at the two Shoshones.

The bus’s radio crackles. “Bird-Dog Operations calling. Your escort’s got your twenty. He’s coming up on you now.”

A Black Hawk helicopter flies into view, and for a moment Marcus thinks it’s coming for them, but it heads toward Bald Mountain. Stanley gives a play-by-play as a jeep rolls across the lakebed and pulls alongside the bus. A soldier hops out and heads toward the figure on the road. Then the doors swing open and another boards the bus. “You are supposed to do a count at every stop,” he says on the way up the three little stairs. He walks past the driver, tosses a few pink boas into the laps of the Pinkertons in the rear seats, and yanks hard on the bathroom door. Then he pulls out a complicated-looking tool from one of several pockets on his fatigues, clamps it between the door knob and the frame, and yanks hard, releasing the door. It flaps against one of the young Pinkertons, who was leaning in to see. She rubs her head. A stench fills the bus, chemically treated urine and feces soaking in the heat. Watery bits trail down the ridges of the bus. No one inside.

The soldier makes a whirling motion with one hand. “Turn it around, back to Mercury.” He scans the rows as he walks back to the front of the bus. “Everyone remain calm.” Then he steps outside for a moment and talks on a primitive-looking CB that hangs from a box. When he gets back on the bus, he says to Bird-Dog, “Cleared and on our way.” The driver puts the bus into gear so quickly that the standing students bob around the interior like wobbly bowling pins.

As the bus turns around and drives slowly past, an MP draws yellow tape around the figure and a few gasps bounce around the vehicle. Another MP holds the man’s wrist, as if checking for a pulse.

“Maybe he passed out from the heat,” one of the Pinker-tons says. “He looks old.”

“Maybe you Coalition Pinkertons did it!” Stanley stands up and does an elaborate Boo-ya! victory dance that ends with Spock fingers and a bird call. The students press their faces against the bus window. I don’t remember him. Wait, was he that guy who brought the water in from the cafeteria? No, stupid, that guy had red hair.

“Who was he?” Sandra asks Marcus.

“I don’t know, Sandy.”

A Nalgene water bottle hangs around the body’s neck, evidence against heatstroke. The corpse wears comfortable-looking Tevas, but one of the legs is bent inward at an unnatural angle. The soldier collects things from the man’s pockets and lays them out on some hospital-blue tissue paper on the ground. There is a roll of Mentos, a bookmarked paperback, and what Marcus recognizes as a desert first-aid kit.

Back at Mercury, the military escort hustles them all off the bus and into the canteen. A group of scientists in a line shovel macaroni-beef and Salisbury steak out of steam trays and onto paper plates. They notice, but don’t seem surprised by the tour group.

Two men in weird outfits — not military fatigues, but not quite suits — ask if anyone saw the man acting strange. Did he seem dehydrated; was he talking funny, slurred? Nobody remembers him. So they corral the tourists around two sets of cafeteria tables, and begin to take each of them, individually, into the kitchen. They start with Mr. Stevenson, whose wife has to remind him to adjust his hearing aid.

While he waits, Marcus watches Stanley create a paper football out of a napkin and shoot it through a goal post Sandra makes with her thumbs and pointer fingers.

“Know what?” Stanley says to her, “We in that murder movie, baby.”

“Stop saying that,” she tells him. But he keeps at it. He stands up and points at various people sitting at the tables. “Check it out, everybody’s got a motive for killing somebody around here.” He points to the girls. “Them Pinkertons are trying to get them to stop testing.” He points to the two Indians. “And they was here first, right? They just want their crib back.”

“Stop it,” Sandra says.

“Naw, serious-up, we from Henderson, right?” He swoops his hand along the tables, referring to Marcus and his students. “We all downwinders.”

“I see you’ve been paying attention to this unit, Mr. Mathews,” Marcus says. “Well done. Now, please. Sit down and be quiet.”

Stanley whispers to Sandra: “Why’s your finger bandaged?”

Sandra looks incredulous. “My tips got infected! See,” she shows him her nails, “the rest are acrylic. Anyways, it was like that when I got on the bus.”

“In the movie, everybody stabs the guy one time.”

“But he wasn’t even stabbed.”

“I’m just saying, is all.” Stanley leans across the table and mimes the Psycho shower scene.

“What about those two?” one of the Bitterroots asks Stanley. “They in on it too?” He points to the elderly woman, and his brother laughs.

When the men in the weird outfits take Marcus into the kitchen, they ask him what he saw.

A body.

Why was he on the tour?

Nevada State Lesson Plans.

Did he see the man out on the flats? Was he acting strange?

He can’t recall.

Marcus and his students spend another hour sitting around the table before the military escort returns to drive them back to the entrance, where a bus will return them to Vegas. The escort’s radio crackles on during the bus ride and he covers it with his hand. This does little to muffle the sound and the word suicide shoots like a pinball through the bus.

As soon as the kids file off the bus at the DOE and retrieve their cell phones, prohibited on the trip, they’re texting their friends and shouting over each other. The dead guy was a famous scientist! He worked on all kinds of, like, big nuclear bomb shit! Check it out. Here’s his Wiki. Here he is in a picture with Albert Einstein. The Pinkertons call the media, who arrive before Marcus’s scheduled yellow school bus, and they snap their boas in the air. They shout at the cameras that the scientist couldn’t wash the blood off his hands. They take off their pink T-shirts and turn them inside out, revealing a single letter printed on each one, so that standing together they spell out P-E-A-C-E. But the cameras linger on Stanley. They even get a quick interview in front of the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino before Marcus is able to hustle him onto the school bus. The article that runs later in the Henderson Times shows the highlighted passage from the dead man’s paperback. It’s a simple quote often attributed to Einstein. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker.

The kids are mostly asleep and the bus is quiet when they finally pull into Henderson. The parents are assembled in the school parking lot, hugging each other, sharing something out of a steaming thermos. They’re watching a portable television inside someone’s minivan, and Marcus can see the images clearly. Footage of the blasted-out house from Operation Doorstep runs in a loop with images of the Coalition Pink women and a black-and-white picture of the old man leaning over some papers with Albert Einstein. Marcus can even make out Stanley’s yearbook photo crossing the screen.

As the students file off the bus and into their parents’ arms, Marcus soothes them. He reassures. He jokes good-naturedly with the parents to break the tension. And finally, when the last of them — Sandra and her four little sisters — pile into their father’s Hummer and drive out of the parking lot, Marcus makes his way across the lot to his old Ford Escort.

On the drive home, he cranks up the air conditioner to a frigid blast. He often feels transported out of Nevada when he sits in his air-conditioned car. The ice-cold buffer is a time machine that separates him from any of this place’s hot frontier past, from the slaughtered Indian land, from the fact that it’s a fucking desert, that his time machine’s coolant system sucks water out of the air, water in the desert. But today it takes him to his childhood: traveling on a hot bus with his mother, the unfamiliar old man meeting them at the Desert Hotel’s pool. He hands Marcus a Roy Rogers — though Marcus prefers Shirley Temples — and kisses his mother. Marcus has never seen anyone kiss her. His mother says to call him Uncle Barry. The old man takes them up to the hotel’s panoramic viewing patio on the top floor, and Marcus stands in the hot night holding his mother’s hand. He puts his finger through the gentle smoke rings that she blows, and it’s a kind of hypnosis: the smell of his mother’s hairspray, the laughter and singing, the waiters with trays of Atomic Cocktails. He falls asleep in her arms and wakes up at dawn to a bright flash of light and the sound of kazoos and whistles and clinking highballs. He watches the puff of smoke in the distance. A soft poof, like a tiny sneeze, and then a cloud in the shape of a hot-air balloon. The men shake hands, pound Uncle Barry on the back. The women squeal or put their hands to their mouths and suck in their breath.

He wonders if it happened then. He imagines the invisible particles floating gently downwind, like steam released from a shower, waiting above his house for his mother to return, where it will drizzle onto her like desert rain.

In the rearview, the Vegas lights hover on the flat horizon. Marcus could stop right here on the highway. It’s late at night and dead. But he pulls onto the shoulder. He leaves his headlights on, goes around to the front of the car, and leans on its hood, the engine hot under him. He’s never been one to pop open a can of beer or light a cigarette, so he does the next best thing — he pours inky coffee from his thermos and drinks it down like whiskey. He feels clean when it scalds his throat. Then he takes out his wallet and turns through the credit cards, the plastic flip-book of pictures: his sister’s kids, his ’57 Willie Mays baseball card, his mother — dead now for fifteen months — until he comes to what he’s after, slipped inside the billfold with his third-grade booklet from Townsite Elementary School. Marking the chapter titled “Fallout Can Be Inconvenient” is an old ID badge. It amazes Marcus that a facility with a bunch of people working on something as complex as a nuclear bomb hadn’t yet discovered modern lamination. The thick plastic photograph is black-and-white and the shadow across the face of his father is so dark, Marcus can barely make him out. The Barry Lancet label was created on a machine so old it has the uneven ink markings, the blotted e and leaking r’s of the typewriter era. The scanner at the twenty-four-hour gym where he sometimes forces himself to work out has more sophisticated identification security. He should feel more about it, probably, this picture he’s been hating since he found it among his mother’s things, wrapped inside his own birth certificate, where the space for Father was marked unknown. But the hatred is gone. He doesn’t throw the badge at the distant Strip lights or burn it in the desert. He just drops it. But he does slip his hand inside his parka and finger the mottled, viscous bit of flesh for a moment before tossing it into the sagebrush. Lots of blood for a little nick with nail clippers. Back in the car, he makes sure to reach into the glove box for a scented wipe, and he slips it across each finger before resting his hand on the clutch.

Dirty blood by Celeste Starr

Pahrump

The back room of the Leghorn Bar was stuffed with leather-and-denim boys. I hadn’t been out in weeks. Hairy trolls in leather chaps were just too much and I wanted someone else’s hand on my dick for a change, wanted to see what was up, who was who. Been keeping a low profile recently. I thought most of the guys here looked a little on edge — especially after another body was found in the toilet of some bus depot last month. Just dumped there, it seemed. Papers said the guy was gay. Papers also gave his photo. I’d never seen him, but in Vegas you never really know who you’ve seen. You can’t even remember all the things you’ve done.

The bar reeked of piss and poppers. Has gone to shit much like the rest of the joints around Pahrump. I try to get downtown when I can, where a hotter stable of young studs passes through the bars and back rooms of Vegas’ gaudy universe, but that just didn’t seem wise at the time. There was no one in back that I wanted to fuck, no one worthy enough to hum on my stuff, ugly fucks who pranced around with earrings in their eyebrows and tats on their biceps thinking they’re God’s gift to gay boys, when frankly, I wouldn’t piss on them if they were on fire.

Leghorn wasn’t like it used to be when the college eye candy from UNLV used to come through. Now it’s an eyesore with its busted doors and booths out of order. No one gave a shit enough to fix the place up, make it look like something. It’s a hot bed for boulevard boys and drunkards who mistake the floor for a urinal.

I hadn’t planned on staying long, but I needed to get out, be myself for a while. The best thing about the Leghorn was its anonymity. This was the place dudes came to hide. And I think we were all hiding a little. It felt safe here, safe because we were locals and because we’d all seen each other before.

I was about to head home when he walked in. Name was anonymous to me like most of the back room amigos, though I knew him in a way. I’d done him once, years ago. Could still smell his cheap bargain-bin cologne on my clothes. He wore those same snakeskin boots he had made me kiss. That night we took the only booth that was vacant for our back room fornications. Sex seeped like sarsaparilla from every respected stall. Because our booth was busted, cruisers kept trying to get in on our action. Obnoxious fucks. He blew me while I held the door shut from prying eyes.

He stood in the stark dark of the back, nose in the air like he was too good for the rest of us who were scavenging for a good time. I lingered in a corner, holding my composure. He walked my way. I played my game pretending he hadn’t been seen, but for the most part, that summer, we were all beyond tricks. All of us here were looking for something foreign yet familiar, which is something you never really find.

“You want to go in a booth?” I leaned in toward him. His cheap dime-store cologne filled my lungs. “A booth,” he repeated. “You want to go in?”

I said nothing but gave my answer by leading the way. The booth wasn’t busted and able to lock. Slipped my last five bucks into the mouth of the money slot and channeled the TV to a scene of two blond Marines. We reached under shirts and fingered nipples. I didn’t bother to remind him who I was. Didn’t feel it was important at that point. Gay porn gleamed against our skin. He tried to kiss me.

“Ain’t into that,” I said. Who knows where those lips have been? I tugged at his jeans, undid the clasps, and unzipped the copper teeth, exposing hot-white underwear. Even though our booth was locked, it didn’t stop cruisers from clawing underneath at our feet.

“You wanna go back to my place?” he asked in a way that seemed almost innocent.

In general, I wasn’t the type to spend the night, but I didn’t like the idea of someone else having his ass other than me.

“Okay,” I finally said, reminding myself that I’d been with him before — simple mouth work and clean up, all very standard shit.

The Nevada night was sultry as we walked out of the bar. Judging from the naked streets, it was much later than I thought — that, or Pahrump was more empty than usual.

“You still drive that Volvo?” he asked.

He had me confused with someone else, but I didn’t care.

“I drive an Explorer.” I pointed to my car parked between a minivan and some piece-of-shit Datsun.

“We can take my car or you can just follow me,” he said.

“I’ll follow you,” I replied, as that was one of my rules.

He drove one of those new Monte Carlos, silver with a $700-a-month car note, which was the same vehicle I remembered him driving. I could barely keep up with him as he bar-reled down Rosie Avenue.

We came to some house on Burston Ranch that was gated off to keep out motherfuckers like me. My heart started to do cartwheels because this was what my life used to be like — meeting guys, going places. It felt good. His place smelled of Taiwanese takeout. It was quaint, unlike the roach motel I called home.

“Nice,” I said.

I followed him into his bedroom where there were no quarter machines, no dated, mustard-yellow drapes. Carpet felt like a cloud beneath my feet. Bed was king-size, larger than it needed to be. Still, that said something about him. There was an entertainment center with a TV and a dresser strewn with assorted brands of colognes and other miscellaneous confections.

“We’re way out here and I don’t even know your name.”

“Cray,” he said. “And yours?” He sat at the end of the bed to take off his boots.

“Henry.” I never give out my real name.

“You don’t look like a Henry.”

“It was my granddaddy’s name,” I lied.

“You look more like a Marcus or a Michael to me,” Cray said. “Where are you from?”

“Georgia,” I answered, which was the truth but also so vague it didn’t matter.

“I thought I sensed a bit of the South in your voice,” he said as he struggled with those rattlesnake shit-kickers. “Here, help me with this one.” Cray pressed the second boot into my crotch.

“So you from Vegas?” I asked.

“Thereabouts. I come from a long line of casino floor managers.”

Cray talked like he was educated, which also made me feel better about him and about being there. The boot finally gave, causing me to lose my footing. I stumbled into the dresser behind me.

“You okay?” he asked.

“It’ll take more than that to do me in,” I said.

“You want a drink?”

“Maybe,” I said. “What do you got?”

“Just some rum.” It sounded girly, but so what? Booze is booze.

“Make yourself comfortable,” Cray said.

It always starts that way. Make yourself comfortable. Make your self at home. Or at least that’s the way it used to start.

I pulled off my shirt and pushed off my sneaks, which brought on something I hadn’t felt in months: the insecurity of being naked in some dude’s place. I don’t have the most cut body due to the Southern delicacies of fried chicken and macaroni and cheese. In a strange way, it was nice feeling like this again. I looked in Cray’s mirror at my love handles and stretch marks that ran across man tits. I sat on the edge of his bed and took a whiff of the crisp air-conditioned room. Pleasant, I thought. Then I walked around studying his possessions.

We talked as he made the girly drinks in the kitchen.

“So how did you end up in Vegas?” he asked.

I almost gave him one of my stories, then stopped myself and told him the truth. Or at least as much of the truth as I told anyone. “I was offered a job up here working at a magazine. Packed my shit and came up with only two hundred bucks in my pocket,” I explained, studying dated issues of Men’s Fitness on his desk. “I hoped that it would turn into an editor’s position, but as it turns out, I’m still stringing. I took a job writing press releases for the city to make ends meet.”

“Is that where you’re working now?” Cray asked, handing me a glass of rum. “Sorry, don’t mean to be nosey.”

“No, it’s cool. I’ve been there for about six months now.”

Cray leaned on the dresser as we got acquainted. “So, what? You want to be a novelist or something?”

“Something like that,” I said in such a way that he decided not to pursue the topic.

“I’m about to take a shower. You can pull back those covers and get into bed if you want. The rum’s on the kitchen counter.”

I heard the pelting of shower water. With the booze I devoured back at the Leghorn, and the rum, I was starting to catch a buzz. I liked this feeling — getting a little sloppy and looking forward to the sex. Sometimes I liked the anticipation more than the sex. The sad part, you never felt any anticipation in a place like the Leghorn. But I felt it here, in this room.

I opened one of Cray’s dresser drawers to find underwear and socks of the argyle type folded and placed neatly in retentive rows. I perused another drawer that was filled with boxers, all white, neatly folded and squared. But beside them was a shiny dildo. I picked it up and it was heavier than I had expected. I held it briefly before I saw what else lay in the drawer: a pair of cuffs and a leather belt.

Strange, really, as I didn’t take him for a dude with toys. I looked at them, those metal cuffs, and they didn’t strike me as the type you could buy in a sex shop. They were more substantial, thicker and heavier. I felt their weight in my right hand, before I noticed something on the chain — something rusty and scablike. Like dirty blood. Or what I thought was dirty blood. I picked at it and it flaked off, revealing a patch of metal shinier than the surrounding area.

I put them back in the drawer, those cuffs. The calm horniness was disappearing now. I set my rum on the dresser, careful even then to place the glass on top of a magazine. I knew that this was probably nothing — just another guy who dug some kinky shit in private — but I always told myself I’d leave a place if things ever got a little strange.

Clay was still in the shower, the bathroom door open a crack, steam ribboning out into the hallway. I walked past slowly, feeling a little less drunk now, but also feeling odd, not myself really. I figure, what the fuck, I wouldn’t be the first guy to bail on a one-night thing before any action took place.

I was in his kitchen, noticing the rum bottle on the counter, when I heard him twist the water off. “Henry,” he called, “why don’t you fix us a couple more drinks? I’m just starting to get in the mood.” But his voice was different, a shade deeper, more direct, though even then I felt I was reading something into it, that I was letting an unreasonable suspicion get the best of me.

Clay was as queer as me. Of that much I was sure.

“Really,” he called, “pour us a couple more drinks. The bottle is on the counter. I could use one now.”

“Sure thing,” I said, moving quietly through the kitchen. His knife rack, I saw now, was missing all of its blades.

“Make mine extra strong.”

As I passed his front window, I could see my car three stories below, a maroon Explorer with the sunroof open just a crack. I fingered the keys in my pocket, making sure they were there. I was anxious now, anxious yet sleepy, worn out. In the dim light I focused on the front door, its locks and handle, though I felt I was looking at it through a thick piece of glass.

By then I couldn’t see so well, all objects having a softness to them. At first I thought I was seeing his door wrong, but then when I was closer I understood: The deadbolt was a keyed entry, both in and out. No knob. Only a thin groove to accept a key.

I touched the lock briefly, still not believing in full, but then it came to me. I looked around: two windows, the kitchen, the hallway leading back to Clay. It was a cage. I searched for something — a lamp, a hard metal sculpture, a piece of wood set aside for the fireplace — but the room was only sofas and pillows, nothing that could be a weapon.

“Henry,” he called, “you pouring those drinks?”

“I’m making them now,” I said.

“Good,” he said. “Make mine extra strong.”

“I will.”

I heard what sounded like a cord snapping tight, pieces of leather quickly lashed together.

“Now don’t go anywhere,” he said, “cause I’m going to be ready in just a minute. Then we can have a little fun.”

Guns don’t kill people by Bliss Esposito

Centennial Hills

My dad taught me all the parts of a gun before I turned five. He showed me with oil-smudged fingertips and a joint hanging out of his lips. “Teresa,” he said, “always hold it down, even if it’s not loaded. Never point at someone unless you intend to kill.”

I smiled and nodded, kicking my bare feet under the table.

He clicked the clip into place. “You can always trust me,” he said. “I’ll always protect you.”

I believed him and, before even learning the alphabet, I knew he made me invincible.

Two days ago, I repeated those words to my son. He laughed through the blood dripping over his teeth.

I stirred a teaspoon of parsley into the pot of sauce while I watched the small flat-screen TV embedded in the door of our refrigerator. The news anchor stood in front of Gilcrease Orchard announcing the continued growth of Centennial Hills.

“Did you hear that, Casey?” I called. “They’re finally breaking ground on that new shopping center on the other side of Gilcrease.” I dropped a few extra cloves of garlic into the boiling sauce. “That’s good for us, right?”

Casey called out something from his office, but it was stifled by the sound of the front door opening and slamming. I heard James’s strangled cry. “Mom!” he yelped.

“Honey? What’s wrong?” I said. I dropped the wooden spoon on the counter, splattering drops of tomato sauce like blood across the cream-colored tile. Thoughts of the burgeoning housing market were gone, and I was running to him in an instant.

James stood at the front door, his hands to his mouth. Blood came through his fingers in sheets. It streamed down his shirt, onto the carpet. There was so much. A jackpot. He tried to catch the drops, smearing clotted hands across his shirt to displace all the fluid. The metallic smells of blood and perspiration curdled the air. They overpowered even the pungency of the sauce on the stove.

“Jesus Christ,” I said. I grabbed the throw off the couch and put it to his mouth. “Tilt your head back. Was it Kevin?”

He reached up to pull some hair from his eyes. “Uh-huh,” he mumbled. Warm wet soaked through the blanket. My fingers turned red and sticky.

“Hold this to your mouth,” I said. “Lay down on the couch.”

“I’m fine here.” He pressed the blanket to his face.

I ran to the kitchen and grabbed an ice pack out of the freezer. Casey came in from his office. “What happened?”

“Kevin,” I said. I ran the ice pack under the faucet.

“Not again.” He sighed and pulled a dish towel from the drawer.

James was in the chair with his head back. Blood dripped down the sides of his face into his ears. It was starting to dry to his skin.

“Here, baby,” I said. “Hold this on it.” I kneeled in front of him.

He laid the pack over his face. He groaned.

“I told you to stay away from that kid,” Casey said. He handed me the dish towel.

“He’s outside all the time!” James yelled. His eyes were enraged, the purple mushrooming around them.

“Then you need to stay inside more often,” Casey said.

“Casey.” I shook my head: Not now.

“I can’t stay inside forever,” James muttered. He slumped into the chair.

“Let me see.” I pulled back the ice pack. His skin was raw. His eyes were swelling and turning purple. His nose leaked a trickle of blood. I ran the washcloth over his face. His cheeks were mottled: red, pink, and white with streaks of blood smeared across them. Casey stood behind me. He put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed.

I wanted to protect James, like my dad protected me, but I didn’t know what to do to stop the boy who’d been picking on him. I wanted to beat the kid bloody into the dirt. I wanted to press my thumbs into his throat until bright red bruises splashed across his skin. I wanted to kill him, if I had my way.

I learned early on it was the men who fought. What power did I have? A rub on the arm, a doe-eyed blink? I couldn’t flirt the kid into submission. It infuriated me that I couldn’t just reach out and take control, that I had to coerce and manipulate. When I was younger and used to take my little sister out in her stroller, I’d stuff my pockets with pepper spray, a safety whistle, Dad’s buck knife, and a billy club. I would have gladly traded my breasts for muscles so I could be sure to protect her then. I’d do the same now so I could intimidate this Kevin like he was intimidating my son. I watched James spit a mouthful of blood into the towel. I swallowed the impotence burning in my throat.

That night I changed into my pajamas while Casey lay reading Forbes. I could hear James getting ready to go to bed in the bathroom at the end of the hall. I sat down facing Casey. He peaked over the edge of the magazine.

“We’ve gotta do something,” I said.

“He needs to stay away from the kid.” He turned the page.

“He shouldn’t have to be scared to leave the house.”

“We can arrange to speak with his parents again. If you think it will help.”

“His parents are schmucks. He runs the joint over there.”

Casey set the magazine down. “This is what boys do. This is an important lesson for James. He needs to learn not to tangle with the wrong guy. Better now than later.”

I stared at the back of the paper, stumped. I couldn’t believe he was being so dismissive. But what could he do, really? I’d already talked to Kevin’s mom and dad, the teachers, and the principal. They assured me everything would be okay, that Kevin would stop. Even though I’d glared at Kevin from across the street, I was still a parent, an adult. I didn’t even make the little jerk’s radar. The truth was, you can’t stop a mustached teenager who moves onto your street, who has a moped and a vengeance against your son. Not without fear. That was one tool I didn’t have.

I stuck my tongue out at Casey from behind the magazine. He didn’t look up again as I left the room, closing the door behind me. I walked down the hall to the closet. If my dad was in Casey’s place, he would have fixed it. Somehow. Without words. A wop displaced to the desert; just a look and he was intimidating. Casey would probably try to reason with the kid if we ever got ahold of him. When we were younger, I was completely taken with Casey’s approach to conflict. He talked steady and calm. Looked directly into the eyes of those who challenged him. Legitimized arguments. Shook hands afterwards. I thought he was the smartest man I’d ever met, and I was in love with him immediately. Before Casey, everything in my life had been bristled with a slight sense of danger: where we lived, who we knew, even my dad himself. Casey’s composure was a hell of an aphrodisiac.

As we got older, though, his resolutions began to drive me nuts. Casey’s civility dragged problems out forever, fraying them one strand at a time, while I wanted to scream, to yell, to tear and bite. I didn’t want to “come to an understanding” with the pizza delivery boy. I wanted him to go back and give me my fucking pizza the way I ordered it. I wanted action and response. Especially now.

I pulled the heavy metal lock box from the top shelf of closet. Dust shivered and clung to it. James was still in the bathroom brushing his teeth. I stepped over a wet towel, which lay in a heap, to get through the doorway. He glanced at me and spit in the sink. Pink. Black crescents with purple edges ringed his eyes at the bridge of his swollen nose. I pointed to the edge of the tub. “Sit,” I said.

“What?” He ruffled his hair, misting the mirror as he sat, then touched a finger to his split lip. He winced.

I sat next to him, the box on my lap. “I want to show you something.” I leaned across the sink to tighten the faucet.

“Is that Grandpa’s—?”

“Yup.”

“I thought Dad made you—”

“Nope.”

I clicked the code in the box. It opened with a snap. James leaned forward. I edged the top up. I could smell the oil. It made me remember sitting with my dad, at the kitchen table, oiling and cleaning his guns. “It was Grandpa’s favorite.” I said. “He wanted you to have it.”

I picked up the .44. It was heavier than I remembered. The white butt was worn and yellowing. The metal was flawless, though, shining like a new car. “I wasn’t strong enough to shoot it by myself. Still not,” I said. “I had to lean against Grandpa. You’ll be able to handle it on your own one day.”

“You want me to shoot Kevin?” He sounded irritated.

“No,” I said solemnly. “This isn’t about Kevin.” I shrugged. “Not exactly.” I shifted. I wanted James to experience a spark of power, to hold the gun, understand its potential. Even if he never shot it in his life, I wanted to embed the symbol in his mind, the knowledge, the concept, so he would never feel helpless. “I’m only going to teach you because I trust you. You’re too smart to ever do anything stupid.” I paused. “But men need to know how to use one.” I narrowed my eyes at him. “Just in case.”

He nodded grimly and leaned against me. I felt his skinny frame against my arm.

“This is your first lesson,” I said. “Take it by the butt. Don’t put you’re finger on the trigger. Press this release to check for bullets.” I modeled for him and swung the wheel open. I let the bullets fall into my hand. “Always make sure it isn’t loaded before you aim.” I held it out for him. “Here, take it.”

He traced a finger across the mirrored metal. “I’m tired, Mom.”

I shrank back down, the gun going limp in my hands. I sighed. “If that little prick touches you, ball up your fist and hit him as hard as you can. Then run.”

“Mom. He’s an eighth grader.” He said it like eighth graders swung batons and guarded mini-marts after hours. He raised his eyebrows, then his battered face crumpled. He sucked in two shallow breaths.

I rested the gun on the sink. I wrapped my arms around him. He felt heavier, a lump of flesh. “We’ll fix this, honey. Your dad and I will fix it. I promise.”

After a moment he pulled away and stood up with a small stumble. “Don’t worry about it,” he said with a sniff. “I’m getting a lot of exercise running.” He smacked his belly. “Finally getting rid of some of that holiday weight.” He grinned.

I rolled my eyes. “Don’t tell your dad about the gun.”

He made a knowing face and held up his hands. “I don’t want to hear about it either.”

I grabbed him for a quick hug, then listened to him go into his room. The bathroom was a mess. His bloody clothes in a heap in the corner. Dirty handprints on the tile. I wiped up some toothpaste and looked in the mirror. I pulled the skin under my eyes. When I was a kid, I would have taken any opportunity to examine a gun, practice my aim. Still, I couldn’t help but feel a little impressed. I chuckled. Making jokes, damn kid. I put the gun back in the box and went to James’s room to tuck him in.

I was born in ’68, six years after the Test Site’s last nuclear detonation but still a few decades before the mega-resorts would come to really alter the look of southern Nevada. Back then, Vegas really was the Wild West, with tumbleweeds blowing down the teenaged Strip. My parents both worked in the casinos. Dad bounced around a lot. Usually because he couldn’t stay at any one job too long without punching someone out.

Vegas was more visceral in those days. Now all the sharp edges have been worn down, sanded to a dull impression to make the town’s tables more accessible. Then there was no glossy exterior, nothing to hide us from the fact that we lived in the middle of a desert, miles away from judgment. Guys got murdered for counting cards. Locals could get a comp to the buffet anytime, day or night. There was no charade like there is now. No casino nannies or carnival games, no street attractions. No, in those days, Vegas was here for one thing: sin.

We lived five minutes from the Strip in a trailer park, before we finally got a house, before my little sister was born. The trailer park was the last thing between the town and open desert. Dad loved it because we just had to walk to the end of the property to shoot our guns. “I couldn’t do this back in Brooklyn,” he’d always say, his accent flaring for a moment in the dry wind. In the summertime, I’d trail behind him, my bare feet crunching the parched dirt, the rocks biting them like piranhas, the stickers hooking themselves between my toes. By fall, my feet would get so tough that I could walk across glass. The sun would scorch my neck well into October. At night, my mom would lay cold towels across it so I could sleep.

My parents traded shifts so someone could always be with me when I was young. Mom doing cocktails days and Dad dealing nights. We were lucky. Dad and I spent a lot of time watching reruns and cleaning his guns, talking and making snacks. Once, when the July heat kept us from venturing too far, Dad had given up for the couch. I stuck outside to play with some neighborhood kids. I was ten or eleven. A teenaged boy I vaguely knew coaxed me behind the dumpsters.

“Show me your panties,” he said. He was wearing blue jeans and no shirt.

“No,” I said. I dug my bare toes into the powdery dirt.

“C’mon, just show me.” He pinched me hard on the arm.

“No. Leave me alone.” I turned to go.

“If you leave, I’ll chase after you and hit you in the face.”

“You’d have to catch me,” I sneered.

“I’d catch you easy. I’m bigger. Show me your panties and I’ll let you leave.”

I turned around and took off running as fast as I could. I heard my heart beating loud in my ears, but it didn’t cover up the stomping of his sneakers inches behind me. Get to the steps, I thought. I ran as fast as I could through the parking lot and the patch of desert between the dumpsters and our trailer. Inside, my stomach flipped with the idea that I had provoked this. I’d given the boy reason to think he could look at my panties. I wanted to stop and stand up for myself, but I was too scared. He was bigger than me. Then my stomach flipped again, thinking about Dad. I wouldn’t tell him if I could just make it home. I would be in trouble for going behind the dumpster with this boy who Dad had never liked and had specifically told me to stay away from. As soon as I hit the grass at the base of our slot, the boy’s slapping footsteps died away. I kept running, hopping over the tomato plants and hitting the aluminum door with all my weight. I’m sure I shook the entire trailer.

“What happened?” Dad asked. He was still lying on the couch, smoking a cigarette. His pink bowl was on the floor filled with potato chips and pretzels. M*A*S*H played on TV. I panted against the door. It didn’t matter what I said, I realized. There was no use lying. Dad could always read my mind.

“What happened?” he repeated. He sat up, already angry. I caught a sob in my throat thinking I was in trouble.

“You were playing with that boy, weren’t you?”

My face got hot. I gulped a nod.

“What did he do?”

“He, he...” I stammered and coughed. “He told me to show him my panties!”

Dad’s eyes clouded red. His fists clenched. He grew as big as the room. The walls rippled. I closed my eyes anticipating his roar. Even the TV laughter shrank away.

“But Daddy, I didn’t show him. I told him no, and he said he’d punch me!”

“Motherfucker!” he growled. He was outside before I could control my sobs. I followed, squatting to watch from behind the slats of our picket fence.

Kids dotted the street. Dad moved so determinedly that summer seemed to freeze. He walked like a soldier into combat across the pavement, barefoot in his dusty jeans. The boy was sitting on the steps of his trailer. He turned to go inside when he saw Dad coming for him.

“You stay right there, you little cocksucker,” Dad said.

The boy froze. Dad stomped up to him and wrapped an enormous hand around his skinny shoulder. He dragged him off the steps. The boy moaned like a dying cat.

“You listen to me,” Dad snarled, inches from the boy’s pained face. I could barely hear him, but I knew what he said. “If you ever come near my daughter again, I will rip your fucking balls off and shove them down your throat.”

The boy’s mother ran down the steps, screaming, “Let him go! He didn’t do anything! Let him go!” She cried into her hands, unable to release her son from Dad’s grip. “Let him go!” she wailed.

“You understand me, you little prick?” Dad said, shaking the boy back and forth.

The boy groaned, but managed to nod his head. His face burned bright pink.

Dad let go. The boy stumbled back. His mother engulfed him. She cried into his shoulder. Dad walked back toward our trailer as quickly as he had left. I felt a mingled sensation of pity for the boy and personal triumph. Dad picked me up when he returned. He asked me if I was okay.

“Yes,” I mumbled, still in shock.

“You know, boys do stupid things,” he said carrying me into the living room. “You’re getting older now and you’ll have to watch out for them.” As quickly as he had gone into the rage, he was back, Dad again. Even his thick mane had settled down to his normal messy hair. He set me on the couch. “But the lucky thing is, you are too smart for them and you’ll never let someone tell you what to do. You’re tough.” He brushed some sticky hair away from my face. “I’m proud of you for sticking up for yourself.”

I felt like crying all over again, but I wasn’t sure why. I often felt like that when Dad told me something important. I wanted his trust and his approval more than anything. I’d seen him angry, and I’d seen him rip guys apart. I loved that he was on my side, always.

I never respected a man so much until Casey came along, completely the opposite, but still a man in his own way. Casey was kind of a big deal in town, doing energy consultations with the casinos, helping the buildings to follow FCC guidelines and save money on energy at the same time. It was the kind of job that wasn’t around ten years earlier. The days of covering its troubles with lightbulbs and neon were over. Vegas had to grow up, and the town struggled just like I did to fit into mainstream society. Casey was helping us both.

The next morning, Casey pulled back into the driveway after dropping James off at school. He didn’t have any appointments until later that afternoon. I’d been pacing the kitchen, wanting to talk to him before I left for work. I was standing at the door when he opened it.

“Jesus!” he said, startled.

“We haven’t prepared James for the real world,” I said. “We’ve made everything too safe.”

“Honey. This is what boys do.” He set down his keys. He grabbed an apple from the fridge. He kissed me on the cheek, then stuck the fruit in his mouth.

I followed him. “Think about it. We live in this house with an alarm system. We have air bags in the car.” I folded my arms tight in front of me.

“You didn’t want the Lexus because of the airbags.” He smiled and winked at me. He walked toward his office.

I rolled my eyes. “We’re not prepared for anything,” I said. I was at his heels.

“We have every kind of insurance you can imagine.” He pulled up the blinds.

“But look at James. The shit has hit and he has no idea how to handle himself. He’s too insecure to stick up for himself. He’s terrified.” I sat on the edge of the couch.

“He should be terrified,” Casey replied, sitting behind his desk. “Have you seen that boy yet? He’s a moose.”

“James should feel invincible.” I paused. “He should be feeling out his...” I grappled with my hands, trying to pull the words out of the air. “... his machismo. I don’t know.” I threw my hands up.

“We didn’t raise him like that.”

“That’s the problem.”

“What do you want to do, Teresa?” He dropped his hands on the desk. “You can’t follow him to school. You can’t spank the other kid.” He picked up a stack of papers and straightened them. “The boy doesn’t like James for whatever reason. James can’t help that. He needs to stay out of the kid’s way.”

I crossed my legs and stared at Casey. “I want to take James shooting.”

“What? No way.”

“It will give him self-confidence. So he isn’t so scared.”

“You’re being incredibly impractical.” He turned toward the computer and punched in some data. “I think it’s a terrible idea. It won’t solve anything. There’s nothing good that can come from it.” He was done talking. It infuriated me.

“You know, Casey, sometimes it’s nice to be the toughest guy in the room.”

“Yeah, honey,” he said derisively, “but it’s better to be the smartest.”

I slammed the door as I walked out. Then I slammed the garage door and the door to my car. There was a part of me that knew Casey was right. A little nagging, weak part that I wanted to hit with a brick. I took a deep breath, a trick he’d taught me. I stretched against the leather of the car seat. I put my keys in the ignition and started the engine. I did love the Lexus, but I still questioned my decisions when Casey let someone cut in line at the grocery store or talk too loudly during a movie. He may have the power of debate and banter, but his presence never kept anyone from getting in our way.

En route to work, I stopped my car in front of Kevin’s house, the engine running. It was nice house, like ours. Little assholes like him didn’t belong in these neighborhoods. Centennial Hills was designed to give a sense of community. Parks in the center of the developments with benches and swings, where boys should be able to run around safely. Homeowner associations to prod us about maintaining our yards and replacing the bulbs in our porch lights, to keep everything uniform and clean. But it was bullshit. There couldn’t be community without someone to protect the streets, to weed out the jerk-offs like we did the dandelions. I wanted to walk into Kevin’s house and strangle him, maybe his mom and dad too. I knew my small frame wouldn’t make the impact. No, I would have to do more; I would have to make a much larger statement to get the kid to back off. I revved my engine. I pulled off our street.

I was a complete waste at work that day. I kept checking my watch, wondering if James was in class or at his locker. If maybe we got lucky and Kevin stayed home. I owed Janet, my boss, a short script for a commercial that would be shot soon, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I sat in front of my computer, slumped over. I drew a sketch of the .44. Casey would never let me take James shooting. He’d make me listen to statistics about gun violence. He’d quote studies on children raised with guns in the home. I’d hear about it for days. By the end of it, he’d have me thinking it was time to buy James a tutu. Guns never did me any harm. I etched in the front sights on my picture and wrote BANG! down the side of the paper.

I remembered when Dad gave the .44 to Casey at dinner a few months after we were married. Dad was streamlining his collection and couldn’t imagine another man wouldn’t want a shiny .44 like Dirty Harry owned. I’d shot the gun a few times growing up, always with my back to Dad’s brick-wall chest to absorb the shock. I knew the gesture was something special — his way of welcoming Casey into the family, man to man. I could tell Casey had no clue what the act meant. He told me later he thought it was some kind of omertà, as though my dad had handed him a dead fish wrapped in a newspaper. You take-a my daughter, I take-a you life.

“Wow,” Casey said. A plate of spaghetti sat on the table in front of him. “Thanks.”

“I like knowing you can protect my daughter. And that gun can kill a wild boar.”

“Boar attacks are up this year,” Casey said, turning the guns in his hands. “Thanks, Tom. I’ll keep it in a safe place.”

Dad grinned and grabbed Casey’s free hand. Then he became serious, staring into my husband’s eyes and gripping his shoulder. “If it ever comes down to you and someone else,” he said, “it has to be you who stays standing. You’re in charge of her now.” After a long moment, in which Casey and I both shifted with unease, Dad smiled again. He smacked Casey on the back of the neck. “You may not be an Italian, but you’re a good kid anyway.”

Later that night, Casey laughed about the absurdity of needing a gun. He put it in the closet. Then he tried to pull off my panties.

“Why don’t you want it in the nightstand?” I gripped my underwear.

“It’s too big.” He worked on my bra.

“It makes me feel safe,” I said. “My dad told you to protect me.”

“Stop worrying.” He kissed my neck and worked his fingers up my leg. “You’re safe. You’re safe with me,” he whispered. “You’re safe.”

In the end, I trusted him and let him lock the gun away. Casey did what he said. He provided, protected. He worked long hours and gave us a stable home. I was safe by his side; I was safe in his arms. There was comfort in lying next to him at night, while the wind tossed the curtains around, knowing that I was important enough for him to love. I’d feel the muscles in his chest flex against my back as he moved into sleep. I’d smile. He gave me more security than I ever expected.

Casey was just so damn smart. Everything he did was gilded with wisdom and success. Even our neighborhood; he moved us out here right before the boom. There was nothing for miles then, but we paid so little for our home. If we tried to buy it now, we couldn’t afford it. I’d be an idiot not to do what he said.

But new Vegas suited Casey. He had almost no connection to what it used to be, where I had come from. There was no grit to him and no way to adapt. Instead, he was making the town adapt to him, taking apart one casino at a time. Stripping their primitive wires and bringing them up to speed. There was something nice about the old ways, the plumes of smoke that hung over the slots, the burnt-out haze of electric lights on Las Vegas Boulevard. The fact that I could walk barefoot down the Strip. The fact that my dad could bust a guy in the head and still find another job. I always wished a little that some old-time aggression would find Casey. That he’d go blind with emotion, let something muss his hair, even if it meant we’d have some hard times. With Kevin harassing James, I wanted something to snap in Casey worse than ever. But when that bug of insanity hit, it wasn’t Casey it got, like I’d vaguely hoped. It was James.

I’d been taking a stab at the copy in front of me when my line rang. It was the clerk at James’s school. He’d done something, gotten in trouble. I needed to pick him up.

“Janet,” I said, grabbing my coat, “I gotta pick James up from school. I gotta go.”

“Is he sick?”

“No, he’s in trouble.”

“James?”

“I know!”

“You’re worthless today anyway.”

James had never been in trouble at school before. He charmed his teachers and got A’s on all his tests. His homework was always neat. He enjoyed presenting projects to the class. I wondered if there had been a mistake.

At the school, the secretary ushered me into the dean’s office. The dean was a tall man, balding. “Your son has something to tell you,” he said, leaning back in his chair. I felt almost as scared as James sitting in the light-blue office in front of the big oak desk.

James’s head drooped. “I peed on Kevin’s ball.”

“On the playground,” the dean said.

“You peed on his ball?” I asked, confused.

“It was a soccer ball,” James replied.

I leaned back in the chair. Stumped. Then I imagined my son, fed up with the pushing around, whipping out his little pecker in a show of machismo, screaming at the bigger kid, Iain’t scared of you, asshole!

“We’re going to suspend James for three days,” the dean said. “We have a no-tolerance policy for things as inappropriate as what your son did.” He stared at me as though I’d been there to unzip James’s pants. “I trust it won’t happen again.”

“He hit me at recess,” James said. He looked at me. “In the stomach.”

“Now, son, you need to take responsibility,” the dean said. “Regardless of what Kevin did, it’s you who violated his property. If you’re going to become a good young man, you need to not make excuses for your actions.”

“Bullshit,” I said. They both stared at me. I grabbed my purse. “Do you see my son’s face? That’s from Kevin. And he’s sitting in math class right now with no repercussions.” I looked at James, threateningly, then back at the dean. “It won’t happen again. But do me a favor and make sure that other kid keeps his hands off my son at recess or we are going to have a problem.”

I had to sign something. James needed his backpack. Soon we were outside again, James at my heels, making our way to the car.

“That guy’s a schmuck,” I said as I started the engine.

James didn’t say anything.

“I’m not mad at you,” I said.

“You’re not?”

“Nope. Actually, I’m a little proud of you,” I smiled. We pulled onto the street.

“Why?” he asked. He pushed hair out of his face.

“Because you stood up for yourself.”

“But all I did was pee on his ball.”

I shrugged. “You didn’t let him push you around.”

“So I’m not in trouble?”

“When I was little, my dad always told me that no matter what I did, he would stick up for me, even if I was wrong. He’d always be on my side. And he always was.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, even when I didn’t always do the best stuff.”

“Like what?”

“Like when I threw a container of coleslaw at a boy because he was picking on me. Or when I punched a guy in the stomach because he called my friend Pimple Puss.”

“You did that?”

“Yeah. Don’t think I want you to go around picking fights, but I want you to feel like you can stick up for yourself if you have to. Whatever happens, good or bad, I’ll be on your side.”

He smiled down at his knees. I finally felt like I had gotten through to my son. “You up for ice cream?” I asked.

At home, James was quiet. Lights were off, books were closed. Drapes were drawn. We kept looking at each other and shrugging. Neither one of us knew what to do in the wake of his offense. James had never been in trouble before; I’d never been more proud. Casey would be pissed, though. He was going to blame me for this and probably want to ground James for a month. I just couldn’t let him.

When Casey finally got home, the sky already turning purple like the fading marks around James’s eyes, he stared at us suspiciously. “What’s wrong?” he asked. He sat on the couch.

“Everything’s okay,” I said. “But James has to tell you something.”

James looked at me. I nodded. “It was P.E. and we were playing soccer,” he said. He sat up straighter. “I ended up on Kevin’s team, but he kept pushing me away from the ball. Then he said that it was his ball so I couldn’t play.”

“That little asshole,” I said. I couldn’t help feel triumphant. I bounced in my seat.

“Keep going,” Casey said to James. He looked confused.

“So I started to walk away. He took the ball and threw it right at me, and it hit me on my ear. Then he came to get the ball and punched me in the stomach too.”

“What a fuck this kid is.”

“Teresa! Let him finish!”

“I went up to the nurse’s office,” James continued. “And I must’ve not heard the bell, cause I went back outside after they gave me the ice pack and everyone was gone.”

“Wait,” I said. “So when did you pee on the ball?”

“He did what?” Casey asked, then shook his head. “You peed on Kevin’s ball?”

James shifted nervously. “I thought about what Mom said. About me sticking up for myself, so I peed on it. The P.E. teacher saw me.”

“But Kevin didn’t see?” I asked.

“No, he was in class.”

“So he doesn’t even know you did it?” I asked.

“No,” he repeated, “he was in class.”

I fell back into my chair, deflated.

“Well, that’s not so bad,” Casey said. “I can understand wanting a little revenge.”

“Are you crazy?” I hollered at Casey. “That’s okay to you?”

“You seemed thrilled a minute ago,” he said, shocked.

“That’s when I thought he did it in front of everyone.” I looked at James. He seemed terrified. “That’s just sneaky,” I said, and I walked upstairs.

When I was a kid, I’d stay barefoot until November, about the time my mom started wrapping me in jackets. The walks my dad and I took across the desert would continue all year. Dad always with the .44 on his hip, me carrying my BB gun, then a .22 as I got older. Once, we were about a mile from home checking out a nearly dried-up spring. I was young, carrying a salami sandwich in one hand and choosing rocks to put on my windowsill with the other.

“Look, Teresa,” Dad said. “A dust devil.”

In the distance, a funnel cloud twirled and spun dust into the air. We watched it hop and bend, twisting itself like an exotic dancer. The wind around us picked up. Wrappers from our sandwiches lifted into the air. Dad kneeled next to me. Bullet casings rattled on the ground. The dirt devil continued twisting toward us. My jacket and my hair pulled away with the wind. I dropped my sandwich in the dirt.

“Daddy?” I said. I wanted to ask what would happen if it came straight at us. We were too far to run back to the trailer. There wasn’t anything to hide under. The dirt devil moved closer, like it was coming to shake our hands. Everything around us jumped and clattered. Our clothes flapped against us like loose tarps. My hair covered my face. My heart pounded. I wanted to run.

“Just stay next to me,” Dad said calmly. The devil tore toward us, whistling and leaving rivets in the dirt. It was bigger now, as tall as a house. I looked up just as it was about to engulf us. Then it was gone. I was wrapped tightly in my dad’s jacket, crushed to him in a comfy nest of chest hair and warm skin. I’d been plucked from the world and sheltered. Even though the earth rattled around us, I was safe and still.

I lay in bed thinking about the dirt devil the night James peed on Kevin’s ball. I stared up at the high ceiling, the fan turning slowly. If it had been me and James in that wind, I wouldn’t have been able to protect him. The thing was, though, I hadn’t seen a dust devil in years. Maybe the town was too built up now. There was no room. Maybe Las Vegas had grown out of its tantrums of youth. And maybe I was trying to fit James into a mold that was no longer necessary.

Casey cracked the door, slipped into the room, and shut it silently. I watched the strip of light from the hall widen and disappear. I didn’t move. I listened as he put his watch on the table, put his shoes in the closet, and emptied his change onto the dresser. Then he went into the bathroom and turned the water on in the bathtub. The bath was for me; he knew I’d still be awake. I peeked over the covers and watched him shuffling though my bottles of scented bubble baths, choosing something special for me. He put one down and picked another. He poured some into the water. He dimmed the lights, lit candles. Then he came into bed and lay down next to me.

I rolled over and rested against him. “I’m sorry,” I said.

“Me too,” he whispered.

I moved my leg over his and rubbed his chest. “You didn’t do anything wrong.” I put my lips against his ear. “You’re right,” I said softly. “James needs to learn the right way to handle these situations.” I kissed the line of his jaw. I wanted to feel him submit. I needed him to forgive me.

He leaned closer. “I just don’t want him to get into more trouble than he has to.”

“I know.” I ran my finger under his boxers. I smelled lavender from the bath.

“He’s a smart kid,” Casey said.

“I know.” I lifted myself on top of him and bit the corner of his lip. I felt his arms move around me. “I want to take him shooting, though.”

“Teresa,” he said. He unhooked his arms.

“So he knows what to do if he finds a gun or if someone breaks in.” I kissed his chin.

“It’ll never happen.”

“Just once. Then I’ll lay off.” I sat up straight and pulled my T-shirt off. “I promise.”

I leaned forward. Casey gave in. I didn’t like doing it this way, but it was all I had.

The next morning James was sitting at the table reading a book. I could hear kids out on the street shouting and playing. “Put it away,” I said.

He snapped to attention and threw the book aside, like it was porn.

I dropped the box on the table. I clicked the code into place. The .44 shone before us.

“Pick it up,” I said.

James reached for the gun. He took it by the butt, careful not to touch the trigger.

“Do you remember how to check if it’s loaded?”

He pressed the release. The wheel snapped open. Five bullets. The first chamber always empty, like I was taught.

“Pull them out. Careful.”

He slowly plucked each bullet out and laid them in my hand. I dropped them into my pocket. “Safe?”

He nodded.

“Put the wheel back. James, I want you to know that I love you very much. I would do anything for you.”

His wrist bent awkwardly as he tried to support the weight of the gun.

“I’m sorry I haven’t been able to stop Kevin from picking on you.” I touched his shoulder. “And I’m sorry I was mean to you last night.”

“That’s okay, Mom.”

“It’s not. But I realized something. Your dad was right. You shouldn’t have to fight if you’re smart enough. There’s always going to be a bully around, so you have to figure out how to deal with guys like Kevin. You need to be smart. You need to be confident in yourself.” I gave him a small smile. I felt awful for how I had acted. All this time, I had wanted James to trust and respect me. I screwed up. “Pick up the gun,” I said. “This is how you aim.”

I showed him the front and rear sights and how to center them. I told him to aim at the TV, the plant by the window, the fireplace.

“A gun is a very powerful weapon,” I said. “Whenever you feel scared or vulnerable, I want you to remember that you know how to use a gun. That makes you a little more powerful. If you feel powerful, it’s gonna come out your pores and everyone else will feel it too. I guarantee you that guys like Kevin will take a powder. And if it ever got more serious — probably never will — but if it did, you’ll be the one left standing. I promise.”

“Okay,” he said in a small voice.

“In the meantime, stay out of Kevin’s way.”

He nodded and smiled.

“Now go get some sneakers on and go find your dad. We’re going shooting.”

He jumped up and ran toward the garage.

I picked up the shiny gun lying on the table. It was heavy like a brick. I loaded the bullets into the chamber with soft clinks. Today we would kick up rocks and look for snake holes. We’d eat salami sandwiches while sitting on boulders. Then I’d lean against the car and fire the gun, even though it might blow my arm out of joint. Casey would be able to shoot it on his own. James would have to wait. I couldn’t support him the way my dad supported me. He’d be able to do it himself one day.

I walked out to the porch to check the sky. Blue. No clouds. Birds flapped between the trees. Just like in the commercials advertising the new housing developments. I held the gun behind me. Kids shouted up and down the street so I was careful not to let the shiny metal catch their attention. I leaned against the wall, the gun still at my back, my finger dusting the trigger. A boy playing in the street scooted in front of our house. He was throwing a football to some friends I couldn’t see, but I could hear their shouts. He was a big kid with a hell of an arm.

“Motherfucker,” I mumbled. It was Kevin.

I watched him move, swagger. Not a care. I pulled the gun in front of me. I held it in my palms, adjusting it to catch the light of the sun. I bounced a few rays into Kevin’s eyes. He glanced over, involuntarily. But the glance became a stare. I watched the recognition change his face, ebb his pride. He turned away and threw the football again. I shot another beam of light into his eyes. He struggled to catch the football. He looked nervously toward me. I held the gun up, so my message was clear. I nodded my head. I pointed my finger at the gun, then back to him. He swallowed. His friends shouted for him to throw the ball. He looked away and tossed it. If he looked back again, I was already gone.

Murder is academic by Felicia Campbell

Mount Charleston

Millicent Margrave, known affectionately to her students as M, an Associate Professor of Political Science, is sitting in Bagel Nosh on Maryland Parkway, a half-block from the university, reading the paper and licking the cream cheese off her pumpernickel bagel. It’s 1984 and a serial killer stalks Las Vegas. So far, six women, ranging from their mid-thirties to late their late-forties, all writers and teachers, have been targeted. All have been smothered in black plastic bags. Each has had the thumb and first two fingers of her writing hand severed. The middle finger is placed in the victim’s mouth, which is sewn shut around it, while the thumb and index finger are thrust up the vagina. They are otherwise not sexually molested. The last detail has not been made public. The little city of some 600,000 persons is in an uproar.

She is chilled by the account of the most recent murder, fully aware that she fits the profile of the victims, as she is well known for her high-profile, ultra-liberal writing. While her colleagues who want to pretend they are in the Ivy rather than the Cactus League look askance at her work as not traditional enough, her student following is as varied as the city’s population, including, among others, mobster’s kids, a couple of very savvy hookers looking more like Midwestern college girls than the campus’s traditional coeds who delight in looking like hookers, and an assortment of ex-cons, with a sprinkling of current con men.

She acquired the ex-cons when the university in its infinite wisdom briefly decided that all ex-cons should report to a specific advisor who would keep tabs on them, and she had volunteered, angry that they should be singled out after they had paid their debt to society and fearful that some asshole who would make their lives miserable would be appointed. She is particularly fond of a couple of them who know her troubles with her dean, and pleaded to be allowed to teach him a lesson in the parking lot. “We won’t hurt him. We’ll just teach him to respect you.” She refused, of course, but finds it neat that someone wants to look out for her. She’s pleased when she looks up to see them approaching her table. Somehow they always seem to know where she is. The two Es, Ed and Earl, sit down in the empty chairs across from her and proceed to lecture her on her personal safety, particularly insistent that Moose, her giant mastiff, is not enough protection, and that she needs to buy a gun, a street sweeper preferably, which has so much fire power she can’t miss and will turn whatever marauder is foolish enough to invade her space into hamburger. As ex-felons, they can’t buy it for her, but they can help her pick it out. She promises to think about it.

The veteran of three marriages, one to a fellow political scientist, one to a casino pit boss, and one to a black activist, she is the mother of three grown children, one by each husband. Although her body has begun to thicken and she is no longer beautiful in the traditional sense, she is still striking and has lost none of her charisma.

“We’re serious, Dr. M. We worry about you. You trust too many people,” says Ed as he leaves. “We’ll do our best to keep checking on you.” She assures them that she will be careful and smiles as she waves for the waitress, thinking how sweet they are and how much more she likes them than her administrators.

Millicent Margrave thinks of herself as M and prefers to be called such. “Just call me M,” she will say with a toss of her head. “That’s the letter M, not Em as in Emily.” She takes a certain delicious pleasure in identifying herself with James Bond’s runner M. She loves the Bond novels, but thinks him something of a fuck-up.

She is an avid reader, too intelligent to ever subscribe to dialectic of any sort. She is in fact far too intellectually curious to do well in an insecure provincial university. That she is there at all is the result of circumstance. Chet, her first husband, finished his degree while she was pregnant and hadn’t yet finished hers, and he managed to get hired at what was then semi-affectionately called Tumbleweed Tech.

The young campus was legendary for its faculty suicides. The acting dean who hired her ex in the ’60s after a telephone interview had driven around and around the campus, then five buildings in the middle of the desert, for weeks, psychologically unable to get out of the car, eventually shooting himself in it in front of Grant Hall the week before their arrival. Chet’s contract rather bizarrely noted that he was a replacement for Mary Ledger. Mary had finished herself off with sleeping pills and booze the previous semester. A new hire, a Shakespeare scholar, killed himself before arriving on campus, which she and Chet giggled was very efficient of him.

Before the first year was out, Chet had fled academe for the neon lights and run off with a change girl from the Silver Slipper, leaving M behind to cope. Desperate, the Political Science department offered to let her fill out his contract. Equally desperate, she agreed. Marco, named after Marco Polo, was born and she settled into a routine of classes, diapers, and finishing her dissertation. As soon as she finished her doctorate, the department offered her a contract at eighty percent of what Chet had been making. She took it, and she’s been there ever since.

Marco was two when M met Les Margrave, the pit boss. He seemed rather Humphrey Bogarty — she’d always liked Bogart, who always seemed to know what he was doing, Casablanca and all that — and two months later married him. Much to the surprise of what she called the M watchers, the marriage, both years of it, was a success. That she retained his name is a mark of that. Little Humphrey was born two months prematurely out of shock when Les was the innocent victim of a shooting in a convenience store robbery.

Grover, the black activist, was her next husband. Their marriage might have worked, she often thought, if he hadn’t attempted to step into Les’s shoes. They tried to make a go of it for three years. Lena was born, a beauty from her first breath, and M and Grover decided to call it quits before their fights ruined the children.

This succession of marriages served to alienate the self-righteous among her colleagues, who certainly outnumbered her friends. “They’re afraid you are having a good time,” Galen used to tell her.

An angular Canadian with a sharp wit and a vast store of knowledge, Galen had been her mainstay after she and Grover split. Her colleagues had been horrified when she married someone from the gaming profession. “She might as well have married a black,” they whispered, the ’50s not far behind them. But she was socially finished when she married Grover, their professed liberalism not extending to their peers. She’d have been finished at the university, too, if she hadn’t pushed for tenure when Les was killed. Galen had shamed them into it. It cost him the chair when the vultures gathered after she married Grover, but he had never reproached her.

Galen was gay and, of necessity, in the closet, so the two of them entered happily into a conspiracy in which they pretended to be lovers, a conspiracy which protected both. Her kids liked him and the affair gave the vultures something to be liberal about. Truth be told, it would have been difficult for anyone observing their intimate laughter to tell that they were friends not lovers.

Leaving Bagel Nosh, M heads for her detested office. On the ground floor facing the quad, its huge windows make her feel vulnerable. Outside her door lurks Danny, the new kid in the department. She doesn’t much like him. He moves oddly, halfway between a slither and a skulk, head tilted to one side. He seems to exist in black-and-white rather than in color. His students bitch about his classes and she thinks he probably isn’t very bright.

“I hope you’re being careful, you know, because of the murders,” he half whispers confidentially.

“Don’t tell me you think I’m in danger.”

“Well, you do fit the pattern. I mean, you are a middle-aged woman and you are pretty well-known for your writing,” he throws out, sidling to the door. She wonders if he’s trying to freak her out or if maybe he’s the murderer. After he leaves, she heads toward the mailroom.

“M, my dear.” It’s Raph, the drunken poet and one of her favorite cohorts on campus, calling from the depths of his cluttered office. He looks like the corrupt cherub that he is, dark curls falling around a baby face just beginning to blur from his excesses.

“What brings you this bright morning to this pustule on the ass of academe? This carbuncle on the posterior of education?” In rare form this morning, his voice rises, “This horripulation on the butt of phrontistery. This ingrown hair in the fanny of the athenaeum. This excoriation in the seat of learning,” he ends with a flourish.

She drops a kiss on his curls. “You’re cute. What’s phrontistry?”

“A disparaging synonym for the educational establishment,” he responds, the laughter leaving his face.

“What’s wrong, Raph?”

“The Little Colonel has stabbed me with his julep stick, hoisted me with his own petard, a chicken bone I believe. In other words, my darling M, he has put me on notice that my performance is unsatisfactory, that I should have published at least another chapbook by now, and I am on my way out.” Raph, née Raphael Waters, looks ready to cry.

“Why that miserable little fucker!”

The Little Colonel is their nickname for their mutual dean, Ned Chauven. Ferret-faced, stubby, arrogant, ignorant, and bigoted, he got his job through Vegas juice, the liquid that greases this city and elevates those who have it to positions for which they are unfit. He married the sister of a regent, and, to no one’s surprise, was lifted from relative obscurity to the deanship after the death of good old Dean Longacre. He has been a worse tyrant than anyone could have imagined, applying a brutal form of publish-or-perish to those he dislikes. Truth be told, while Raph is a popular teacher, he has written very little in the past few years, maintaining that grading freshmen essays depleted his creativity and he shouldn’t be required to publish.

“It’s okay, Raph, We’ll fight. He can’t get away with it.” For a moment, her fighting spirit emerges. “Why did he do it?”

“Do you want the real reason or the good one?”

“Both.”

“Darla Port.”

“Darla Port! The blond twit who used to be the Colonel’s bimbo? No!” she gasped.

“Believe it, my dear M. She’s finished an MFA in creative writing somewhere and had a book of poems published in some obscure place. It’s called ImPort, would you believe, with all the revolting connotations that conjures up; ergo, he’s letting me go for affirmative-action reasons. I’m being replaced by an ugly blonde! She’s the only ugly bimbo I ever knew.”

M grits her teeth over his sexism, but simply says, “Ah, good old affirmative action, the process by which the administration insures that there will be no equity for anyone. Remember how we fought to get an Affirmative Action Officer, then they hired that poor semi-literate ex — football player who sat around and looked terrified while they told him what to do?”

Realizing that she’s late, she bids Raph goodbye and rushes to class.

Later that evening, she is sleeping fitfully, dreaming that she is negotiating her way down a narrow several-hundred-foot-high stairway with no handrails, leading to what looks like a food court on a beach, when she’s blasted into heart-pounding wakefulness by the telephone. She’d fed Raph dinner earlier and they’d both drunk too much wine. Raph was reeling when he left, but she was too far gone to take his keys, so she let him go. She is losing her capacity to handle alcohol and she feels rotten.

“It’s me,” Raph is saying. “I’m in jail. You have to get me out right now!”

She fumbles for the light. “What’s up — drunk driving?” A cascade of books from the nightstand hits the floor and her toe while she scrabbles for a pen.

“No, old traffic warrants, but there might be more,” he wails. “Get me out of here!”

“Are you in City or County?” Awake now, her faculties working, she tells him to hang loose while she arranges bail.

“M,” he whines, “they were really nasty, making noises like now that they had me, they might even look at me for the murders. I think they hate poets. Get me out of here!”

“Listen, Raph. They always hassle people. They’re just messing with you. Don’t answer any questions. This is crazy! I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“M, I have to hang up. A bunch of guys are pushing me. They want the phone. You’ve got to help me!”

For a moment, she looks stupidly at the phone, now buzzing a dial tone, then drops it into its cradle. Cursing under her breath, not bothering to comb her hair, she drags on a pair of soiled khakis from the laundry basket, adds a Greenpeace T-shirt and sandals, checks in her purse for credit cards, and heads out the door for Main Street and Fast Freddie’s Bail Bonds. She is really sick of taking care of people who can’t seem to take care of themselves.

Fast Freddie, who she met in the days of her activism, is in the nature of an old friend and likes to deal with the pahfessor, as he calls her. He’ll be able to find out what’s going on and recommend a good lawyer. He’s a Vegas character of the type mentioned before who always seems to be there when she needs one. From convicts to con men, they all love M and love to take care of her, all the while lecturing that she should never trust anyone like them, especially them, and should get rid of the losers who seem to surround her and want her to take care of them.

Like a Hopper painting, Main Street is deserted, a few neon signs illuminating the dark street. At first she thinks that she’s missed Fast Freddie’s, then realizes that an alien name is on the doorway. Jennie Ledbetter, Bail Bonds. Jennie is every inch a bondswoman.

About forty-five and heavily made up, clouds of metallic frosted big hair surround her suspicious face. She sports a pair of handcuffs painted on one fake thumbnail and a key on the other. She peers at M over her bejeweled half-glasses. “What can I do for you?” she sneers.

“I’m looking for Fast Freddie,” M answers, and realizes that she must look like a bag lady in her unkempt clothes.

“Fast Freddie ain’t here anymore. Maybe I can help.”

“I used to know him. I liked him. I have a friend in trouble. I need his help.”

Deciding M isn’t worth her time, Jennie tells her that Freddie got in some trouble and sold her this place, but that he has a new one, Jack Be Nimble, further down on Main.

“There’s a neon sign with a guy jumping over a candlestick out front. I don’t get it, but you can’t miss it. Tell the guy at the desk you’re looking for Freddie. He’ll know where he is.”

Moments later, M drives past the Jack Be Nimble sign and has to make a U-turn to get back. Entering, she sees a heavy, bald black man sitting at the desk. He looks up. “Hey, it’s Professor M,” he says, smiling and rising.

It takes her a moment to rake Tommy’s name from the bottom of her memory and adjust it from the elegant young man who used to escort her to get her spouse out of jail where he’d landed for civil rights protesting to this middle-aged stranger. Suddenly, the world comes into focus and she’s grinning.

“It’s great to see you, Tommy. A friend of mine is in trouble and I came to find Freddie.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“He was picked up for traffic warrants tonight and told me they said something about hassling him for the murders. He’s wimpy, and they were probably just rattling his cage. He’s flipping out.”

“Whoa, that’s heavy. Any chance he’s the killer?”

“Come on, Tommy, you know me better than that. What’s up with Freddie?”

“He started drinking again and screwed up the accounts, so they stood on his hands for a while. He’s okay now, but doesn’t usually come in until about 9.”

“I can’t wait. This poor guy doesn’t have a macho bone in his body. He’s terrified”

“Is he a fag?”

“Not unless it’s happened in the last two hours.”

Tommy tells her to grab a cup of coffee from the pot in the corner while he checks on things. Staring out the window at the flickering shadows of Jack Be Nimble jumping on the pavement, she can’t hear what he is saying, but his expression seems grim. She contemplates taking up smoking again, the seedy atmosphere seeming to require it, but changes her mind as Tommy says, “You’re in luck, lady.” She turns to hear, “The computer’s down again, which means we may be able to spring him before they know what’s happening, then you can get a lawyer to buy him some time. I don’t know what they’ve got on him, but for some reason they screwed up and took him to City instead of County.”

“Who shall I get?”

“Does he have any money?”

“You’ve got to be kidding. He’s another professor. Just got fired by the Little Colonel. Oscar Goodman is not in his league.”

“So that Colonel shit is still around?”

“Some things never change, Tommy.”

“I’ll close up and we’ll see what I can do with the boys in the lockup.” He puts a Back in twenty minutes sign on the door and slides into the passenger seat of M’s ancient Toyota.

“It seems like old times. What do you hear from Grover?”

“Not much. He writes at Christmas and sends a really weird present, like six months of the Fruit of the Month Club. He’s crazy about Lena, who is absolutely gorgeous and in grad school in Tulsa, so he goes to see her a few times a year and helps with her expenses.”

Tommy reaches over and pats her hand, white-knuckled on the steering wheel. “We’re getting old, kid.”

“Not only that, but we are here,” she says, gunning the car up the parking ramp. They walk through the tunnel-like area from the parking garage, across the atrium with the dirty fountains that seem to spit old candy wrappers rather than water, through the doors on the other side, to the desk where the officer in charge looks at her like she is shit. She is momentarily startled until she remembers how she is dressed. A few words from Tommy and the cop quickly changes his expression to one of helpful concern.

For a moment, her old self surfaces and she wants to scream — but first spit in the bastard’s face. Tommy’s foot grinding into her instep reminds her to smile back.

“If you will just have a seat over there,” the cop says, pointing her to the orange plastic chairs, “I’ll have him for you as soon as I can.”

Escorting her to the chairs, Tommy says, “I got to get back to the office. Bring him right to me. I’ll try to have Freddie there when you arrive.” He makes a fist and punches her gently on the arm, “Hang in, kid.”

An endless hour later, Raph emerges looking like a wet chicken. She wants to kick him for being such a wimp. They must just have been harassing him with the serial killer bit. She forces a smile. “Hey, Raph, you can write an epic poem about this.”

“Take me home, M.”

“Not until we go to Jack Be Nimble’s and straighten out your bail bond.”

“Not now,” he whines.

“Yes, now.” Her voice drops and she speaks evenly, trying to hold back her annoyance. “You, sir, are in a shitload of trouble and you’d better pull up your socks and get ready to defend yourself. If you act like a victim, I guarantee you will become one. I will do what I can, but you have to care enough to help yourself. Now shape up!”

“But you don’t know what it was like.”

She can’t believe that he is whining for sympathy. She is tired and sorry that she’s come. His puffy face now reminds her of the young Peter Lorre in the old movie M.

“Bullshit!” she snarls. “Either grow up or I am going to send you back to deal with this yourself.”

He puts on a hurt look, then opts for seriousness.

Seeing the expressions moving over his face, she has a moment of cold uncertainty. “Raph, did you do it?”

“Jesus, M, don’t joke.”

“I wasn’t being funny. Why were they trying to finger you?” She pulls into a parking space in front of Jack Be Nimble’s.

It is light now, and already hot. Incredibly tired, she wants only for this to be over. Raph and his problems are too much. She’s too old to be involved with the system like this. She doesn’t want to play anymore.

Tommy is sitting at the desk. Freddie hasn’t shown up yet and isn’t answering his phone. Raph signs the appropriate papers. Naturally, he has no money, forcing M to drag her Visa out of her purse and sign for the thousand dollars bail, the ten percent that the bondsman gets up front. Ten thousand seems like a hell of a lot for traffic warrants. Her lips tighten as she thinks of the vacation she won’t have. Her salary is a lousy $23,000 a year and she knows Raph will never pay her back. She tells herself that he’s an innocent friend, that he’s just inept and she shouldn’t be so impatient.

Telling Raph to get in the car, she turns to Tommy. Catching him off guard, she is touched by the look of concern on his face.

“Let it go, lady,” he says, “You don’t need this.”

“I know, Tommy, I know. And thanks.”

Resisting Raph’s pleadings that he is unnerved and wants to stay at her house, she dumps him at his dingy apartment. She hates his apartment. It’s long and narrow, the only window a sliding glass door to the balcony at the far end that seems to let in no light. The Navajo white walls feel dirty even though they probably aren’t.

She’s dimly aware of the method to his madness. The apartment is an appropriate backdrop for the suffering romantic image that he wants to convey. His few friends hate the place, so he gets to go out a lot without reciprocating. Of course, the thin-thighed young women in his classes find him irresistible and the dinginess becomes a turn-on, which they describe endlessly to their more sophisticated friends, who don’t envy their sitting on his floor listening to his poetry and drinking bad red wine.

She drives home unaware that he’s beginning to see her as a defector. She’s been smarter than to sleep with him, keeping their relationship on a strictly friendship basis, not trusting him the way she does her ex-cons and con men with whom she doesn’t sleep either. She’s never had any illusions about him, but has always liked him anyway. He makes her laugh and there aren’t too many people around who can do that. She doesn’t really see him as one of her stray pups, although outsiders might.

She tries to wrap her mind around the possibility that he might have committed the murders, but can’t do so. The cops must have been just harassing him.

She doesn’t know that as soon as she is gone, he leaves the apartment without showering, shaving, or changing clothes.

Neither does she know that, a couple of hours later, Martha Jones will open the door to her Paradise Valley condo and half skip to her Honda, grateful once more for her covered parking space. She’s just signed a contract for her second novel and Continuing Ed has asked her to teach a creative writing course in the fall. The Review-Journal is going to do a story on her and all’s right with the world. She’s on her way to pick M’s brains for an exotic locale for her next book and has no way of knowing that M is sleeping, having completely forgotten their appointment.

M’s never paid any attention to Martha’s looks. She is a hell of a neat person, smart, funny, and loyal, and great to be with, and M has always wondered why some man isn’t smart enough to see what a great companion Martha would be. While she yearns for romance, she is truly an innocent, never having had a serious affair. It’s not surprising then that her face lights up when she spots the man leaning on the pole next to her parking space, holding a picnic cooler. Everything else is going well. Maybe her luck in love will change too.

“Want to play hooky?” he grins.

For once Martha decides to follow a whim. This is a good day. M will just have to understand.

“What’s in the cooler?” she asks.

“Goodies for you. You’ll never in this world guess, so just wait until we get to Mount Charleston,” he answers, getting into the passenger side of her car. “My wheels are in the shop. I had Findlay drop me here.” He reaches over and turns on the radio, dropping his hand to stroke her knee. She gulps, but doesn’t protest.

Once on the mountain, they have hiked almost to Cathedral Rock when he suggests a detour. There, in a secluded spot, he tenderly asks her to close her eyes for the surprise.

She leans against a tree and squints them shut, listening to him fumble with the cooler. Then she asks, “Can I open them yet?”

“Not quite.”

The last thing she sees is his face distorted by passion as he forces her back, pulling the black plastic bag over her head. “Die, ugly bitch, die,” he intones. Quickly performing the mutilations, he returns the bag and knives to the cooler, placing them under the sandwiches and plates, and takes the main trail down to the lodge where he has left his car earlier.

He enters the lodge, drinks a beer, eats some nachos, and then dumps the murder paraphernalia from the cooler into the trash.

Smiling, he makes the uneventful drive home to sleep.

It’s 3:30.

At the same time back in Las Vegas, M wakes up from her nap realizing that Martha hasn’t appeared. They were to meet here before deciding where to go for lunch.

Thinking she might not have heard the doorbell, M checks outside for a note or some sign that Martha might have been there.

A shudder runs through her. Something must have come up. Even Martha can have something come up, she tells herself, pressing her face against the cool glass of the sliding door that separates her from the inferno outside.

By 4, after telephoning all over town, she is frantic about Martha but keeps telling herself to chill, that Martha is an adult after all. Finally, to take her mind off Martha, she reluctantly dials Raph’s number to see how he is faring. There is no answer.

At 6, the doorbell rings. She opens it to Raph leaning jauntily against the porch pillar, holding a bunch of supermarket flowers and a bottle of cheap red wine. “Friends,” he says, holding both out to her.

She stands aside for him to enter, more than a little annoyed at his boyish assumption that eight dollars worth of flowers and wine are recompense for what he has put her through in the last twenty-four hours.

As she makes no move to accept his offerings, he goes past her to the kitchen where he scrounges up a vase for the flowers, then reappears asking if she wants him to open the wine or if she wants something else.

“You’re an ass, Raph,” she says, unsmiling.

“Don’t do this, M,” he says, suddenly panic-stricken. “You are my best friend, my only real friend. I can’t face this without you. I need your help.”

“Where were you this afternoon, Raph?”

“I couldn’t stand the apartment, so I drove to the lake, then I came back to see you.”

“Why didn’t you sleep? We were up all night.” She can’t understand how he looks so invigorated with no sleep at all.

“Come on, comb your hair and I’ll take you to Chapala’s for dinner.”

Realizing that she is hungry, and feeling rather ashamed for treating a good friend this way, she shakes her head and smiles an acceptance. “I guess I’m too old for this sort of thing. In the old days, it would have made me wired like you. Hang on while I get ready.”

From the bedroom, she calls, “It’s been a weird day. Martha stood me up and I can’t get her on the phone and no one’s seen her. I’m worried about her.” She emerges, purse in hand. “Did you hear what I said?”

“Oh, what could happen to old mud-fence Martha, the ugliest woman I’ve ever met?”

“You know, sometimes I really hate you,” she says, locking the door after her.

He doesn’t answer, but opens the passenger door of his Bronco, heaving the cooler into the backseat before she can get in. They drive the two miles in silence.

Seeing them arrive, Rosie, their favorite waitress, ushers them to their usual booth. They order margaritas before they realize how empty the usually buzzing restaurant is.

“Where is everybody?” asks M.

“It’s the murders,” answers Rosie. “Everybody is scared. I was afraid to stay at home so I came to work.”

“Oh, come on,” Raph says. “Who’d want to hurt a pretty lady like you? Nobody is hurting pretty ladies.”

Rosie sashays off, unimpressed.

They drink one margarita each, then order another round, plus nachos. M goes to wash her hands, giving Raph a chance to slip some white powder into her fresh glass.

“Are you going to break down and get me a lawyer, pretty lady?” asks Raph when she returns, turning on all of his charm. His hand hovers near her glass where he can accidentally spill it if she answers correctly.

“Raph, I can’t. They don’t really think you did it or I wouldn’t have been able to get you out. I think you can do with a public defender. Some of them are quite good. We used to work with them a lot in the old days. Besides, I don’t have the money. You’re already into me for the thousand dollars bail, which I doubt I will ever see. Besides, it’s time for you to grow up and take some responsibility.”

“So that’s all our friendship means to you, is it?”

“This is friendship. I’m neither your mother, nor your girlfriend. I have to take care of myself. You need to stand on your own feet, not mine.”

“Then we will drink to friendship,” he says, raising his glass in a toast.

She raises hers, takes a big sip, makes a face, and puts the glass down. “This doesn’t taste right. Maybe I’ll order a beer.” She turns, looking for Rosie, and he quickly switches glasses.

“Mine’s fine. Take another taste.”

She does and it tastes fine. Thirsty, she drinks it too fast. She doesn’t seem to notice that he isn’t drinking. He signals for another round; making the switch back will be easy.

Rosie brings the drinks, but looks worried. She’s never seen M overindulge and asks if she’d like some coffee. M blinks and nods. The drinks seem to have hit her and she feels very odd. She takes another sip of the original drink, which is now in front of her, and tells Raph that she thinks she should leave. She’s had too little sleep and too much alcohol.

He partially supports her as they leave the chilled restaurant for the inferno outside. With some difficulty she manages to get into the Bronco.

“I think you need a little walk,” he says, heading across Eastern Avenue into Sunset Park, ill lit and deserted at this time of night.

“I just want to go home,” she moans, barely holding onto consciousness, but growing dimly aware that her survival depends on it.

“You told me to think for myself and I am. You know, you really aren’t very pretty anymore. In fact, you’re almost as ugly as old mud-fence Martha was.” He drives to the center of the park. “Now, get out.” He opens her door and she spills onto the ground, dead weight, feigning unconsciousness. He swears and drags her into the hidden area in the mesquite trees where some kids have built a fort. “I liked you once, but you leave me no choice,” he mutters before going after the murder kit.

Placing the kit down next to him, he kneels over her inert form, unaware that they have been followed and that two figures are making their stealthy way toward him. He wonders if he should try to bring her back to consciousness, because it would be so much more fun if she were awake. He wants her to know just who she’s been messing with.

“Ding, dong, the bitch is dead,” he sings under his breath and reaches for the plastic bag, when he feels the gun barrel on the back of his neck. Tommy clicks the safety off.

“You filthy, ungrateful little fucker. I ought to kill you right now, but you aren’t worth going to jail for, so I’ll just keep you here for the cops, who’ll be here any second. On your face, hands behind your head! If you’ve hurt her, your time in jail will be very unpleasant.”

The cops come and Tommy and Fast Freddie, two unlikely guardian angels, hand over their prisoner and take M home. When they arrive, Ed and Earl, are waiting outside the house and all troop inside.

“It’s a good thing you’ve got this fan club,” Tommy tells her. “Ed and Earl have been tailing you since yesterday morning at Bagel Nosh. They followed you to Fast Freddie’s and called after you left. They can’t pack heat, so we agreed to come in if things got sticky, so here we are.”

“God, I love you guys,” she says tearfully, giving each a hug and peck on the cheek as they leave.

Later in bed, feeling like Dorothy in Oz, she whispers to Moose, “There’s no place like home.”

The road to Rachel by Janet Berliner

Area 51

In Las Vegas, greed is king, the culture of anonymity is God, and ritual rules them both — except in the case of my friend Alex “Legs” Cleveland. Though a full-blooded Piute, he had refused to seek his spirit guide, declaring it to be nonsense. He carried no totems to the gambling tables, liked black cats, and walked defiantly under ladders. Upon the few occasions a minor doubt crept in, he pushed it aside as if it had a bodily presence and reminded himself that luck was what you made it.

Like today, he thought, leaning against the mirrored pillar that separated the elevator from the picture windows on the twelfth — thirteenth, really — floor of his high-rise apartment building. Today, luck would be making a few bucks on the ponies, enough to delight his latest chorine.

It was not for nothing that they called him Legs.

He watched the shuttle to Area 51’s Groom Lake circle and head toward the Janet Airlines terminal. The morning sun caught its wings and highlighted the snow at the top of Mount Charleston and the elevator dinged behind him. The doors opened and he saw a shadow reflected briefly in the mirrored column at his side.

Stepping toward the elevator, he turned to let the other passenger in, but there was no one there. Strange, he thought, lifting his leg to step inside. He stopped in midair like a dog at a fire hydrant and stared at the large, unconscious, bleeding man who lay awkwardly against the opposite wall.

Gagging, Legs pressed the emergency button. He called down to security and went back to his apartment. The man lived in the apartment above his, so it stood to reason that the cops questioned him closely. They said the man, who had bled out, was a research nut who kept a telescope trained in the direction of Groom Lake. Legs said, “Too bad,” but said nothing about the shadow that had passed behind him in the foyer. He felt no need to get involved.

No longer in the mood to go downtown, he lay on the sofa he’d placed over the stain left by the suicide of the last tenant. The suicide itself didn’t bother him, nor the fact that Vegas was the suicide capital of the world. But the dead man in the elevator was something else. He thought seriously about moving out of the Towers, but decided against it for the moment, at least until after Martin Scorsese came to town to make Casino. The director intended to use the entrance to the building in a key scene. As a self-styled talent scout and a resident of the building, Legs would have access. The opportunity to meet De Niro and Woods and stand near Sharon Stone’s long limbs was irresistible.

Meanwhile, his last client had been a major flop. He owed money to his shyster attorney in Los Angeles, among others, and right now his only income was derived from making collections for his great-uncle Willie, the loan shark.

He looked at his watch. It was 4 o’clock.

Willie would be waiting.

“Way-Out” Willie Cleveland, whose given Piute name was Nattee-Tohaquetta, had hit town in the early ’30s to play him some poker with the big boys. He played in small cardrooms until Wilbur Clark’s Desert Inn went up, thanks to the Cleveland mob led by Moe Dalitz. On and off, he worked for Moe, and took to playing poker at the Desert Inn. On the day the poker room closed, as a private joke between them, he took on the name Will Cleveland and returned to playing downtown, where his poker career had begun.

On this day, November 16, 1999, Willie spread a winning hand and reached for the biggest pot of the day.

The players were not happy. “Not you again, Willie.” “Gonna take it with you when you go, Willie?” “Gonna give it back to the Indians?”

The dealer tapped the top of his hand. “Uh-uh. I’ll push ’em,” he said, as if Willie didn’t know the rules.

Willie grinned and started to stack his chips. He threw a handful at the dealer, who looked stunned. One chip, maybe two at the end of the day, but a handful?

“That’s it for me,” Willie said. “Deal me out.”

The dealer called for empty racks. “See you tomorrow then.”

“Nope. I’m done.” Willie looked over at the chip runner, who took the three filled racks off the table, flashed on the first time he’d called her Monica, and did it again for old times’ sake. “What’s your moniker, girl?” he said.

“Moniker?”

“Hokay, Monica. One rack’s for you. Cash me out and get Legs.”

Legs, who’d brought his great-uncle downtown in good time to cash in his dinner comp from the day before, was in his “office” at the back of the sports book. He had collected the day’s money and noted it in Willie’s black book — loan sharking being his uncle’s avocation. He was no ordinary shark. Sometimes he gave loans and washed them away; other times he had bones broken. It was all, he said, good clean fun.

Legs ambled into the cardroom, maneuvered his great-uncle and his wheelchair out onto Fremont Street, and looked down with some affection at old Way-Out Willie, who was possibly the shrewdest, most outrageously inventive player in town. He claimed to be 150 years old and his greatest pride was that he still had a good number of his own teeth.

Wondering if any of that was close to the truth, Legs took a cab to Willie’s place later that day. It was a budget motel catty corner from the Las Vegas Convention Center and across the street from Country Club Towers. They ate what was left of Willie’s deli sandwich in silence. When they were done, Willie belched and cleaned his teeth with his fingers.

“They’ll be here for me at midnight,” he said. “You won’t be seeing me again.”

“What the hell...?”

“Quiet down and listen.”

Legs made as if to zipper his lips as, for what indeed turned out to be the last time, Willie told him the story of his life.

Right before his thirteenth birthday, Willie was commanded by his father to leave home and search for his spirit guide. Handing him a carved pipe and a bag containing dried fruit of the peyote cactus, his father said, “Follow the dreams this brings you. They will lead you to your spirit guide. Do not return until you have found each other.”

Willie looked closely at the pipe, ran his fingers over the carvings, put the mouthpiece in his lips, and sucked. He heard a tiny whistle of air, a melody almost. Alone in the darkness, he filled the pipe, lit it, and took one short toke. He inhaled and waited for something to happen. It did nothing at all for him, so the following morning he packed a small bag with a few eggs and other provisions and bade his mother, his father, his sisters, and his uncle farewell. Happy to be getting away from his father’s control, he headed through Paradise Valley in the direction of Walker Lake.

That night, the pipe warmed him and caused him to dream of walking with the Piute Nation from the Humboldt to the Carson. When he awoke, his feet took him first to Cottonwood Station and then to Carson Lake. Finally, when he reached Walker Lake, he made camp in a sheltered place where he could find easy fodder in the small weirs and damns, which diverted the fish from the main lake. Nearby, he found an edible grass containing a seed that was pleasant to chew and, when dried and smoked, induced new and different dreams.

Soon, he ran low on peyote and provisions and high on confusion. He felt lost and lonely and thought longingly of his family. The peyote had also increased his hunger. Thinking to allay his hunger with fish, he made camp behind one of the large scrub bushes that dotted the shores of the lake. He chose to sleep first and fish later. Perhaps, he thought, his spirit guide would come to him and he could head for home with the dawn.

His wish was granted, if only in part, when his dreams were interrupted by the poking head of so strange and hideous an animal that he was sure he had gone mad. What he saw looked like a giant sage hen, with its legs and neck devoid of plumage and incredibly distended so that it stood well over six feet. The feathers that covered its enormous body were an odd grayish-brown color. The good part was the gigantic egg, which he could see within his peripheral vision; the bad was that he could never go home again. He didn’t dare lie to his father, nor could he tell him that this bizarre-looking creature was his spirit guide.

He pushed at the bird, such being what he presumed it to be. It skittered to one side, but made no attempt to fly. He would have understood if he’d known anything about ostriches. However, he did not, yet.

Thus began a lifetime of adventure for Nattee-Tohaquetta, who walked to Austin with his ostrich — the infinitely stupid beast having decided that he was her master.

Then came a stroke of good fortune. The boy met a lovely young woman by the name of Dora who took him into her heart and unto her bosom, settling him at her place of employment — the larger of Austin’s two whorehouses.

The years passed quite happily for Willie, or Natty, as the girls called him in those days. He became for them a mascot of sorts, mostly because of his diminutive size. He did not threaten them, nor they him, and on his sixteenth birthday they took it upon themselves to initiate him into manhood in the pleasantest of fashions.

Dora, in particular, pleased him. To his delight she felt the same way and they became a couple. She, of course, continued plying her trade, but she pleasured him on the side and, in what free time she had, taught him the skill of reading. One of the first books he chose to read was on the subject of ostriches.

His newly gained knowledge led him to his first and possibly most unique money-making idea. He would buy more ostriches and breed them for their skins, their feathers, and their meat. Thus, Willie’s Ostrich Farm and Whorehouse was born.

Legs motioned to show that he had a question.

“Go ahead,” Willie said. “Make it fast.”

“Were those ostriches mean, Uncle Willie?”

Willie laughed. “Mean and stupid. Kick a man to death right easy for no given reason.”

Legs zippered his mouth and Willie continued. He was happy, he said, until one gloomy day his ostrich conspired to lead her fellows away from Willie’s Farm and Whorehouse and onto the road that led from Austin to Belmont. Like some kind of revolutionary army, sixty-three strong, the ostriches crouched down upon the road and took occupation, leaving Willie no longer the owner of an Ostrich farm.

“It made no never mind to me,” Willie said. “I was tired of them stupid critters and wasn’t worried none about them being turned into steaks. Them buggers sure could run. Forty miles an hour sometimes. I knew they’d be okay. Knew my guide would keep an eye on me, anyhow.”

Willie proposed to Dora that she go with him to Las Vegas. When she showed no interest, he split the money from the sale and suggested she buy a house where she could ply her trade or not, as she pleased. They said a tearful farewell. When he reached Las Vegas, he settled into the life of a gambler as if he had been born to it.

He stopped to catch his breath and asked Legs for something to drink. Legs poured one for each of them. He was awed by Willie’s stamina. Though physically frail and confined to a wheelchair, the old man remained a guy to be reckoned with. He had become someone to whom knowing was everything, yet he felt no need to share his knowledge.

He played poker every day, in ostrich-leather boots, a cowboy hat with an ostrich feather in the band, and a huge turquoise bolo around his neck. Mostly, he enjoyed the camaraderie and the inherent respect he was given as the oldest local at any table.

He enjoyed winning, but those other things, like the knowing, were even more pleasing to him. Having driven for the mob, he knew where the bodies were buried. Hell, he’d even helped bury some of them. He knew the answer to the mystery of Union General John C. Fremont’s lost cannon, left behind somewhere around Walker River, and knew the secret of Tahoe Tessie, the monster in the waters of Lake Tahoe.

Best of all, he boasted to Legs, he knew for a fact about some of the mysteries of Area 51. He told no details, named no names, except to warn Legs cryptically to stay off the road to Rachel.

“Time to close the circle,” Willie said to Legs that night. “Time to push the money to the pigeon at the table so they’ll have sommit to push to me.” He tapped his bulging wallet. “This here plus what’s in your mattress is half yours. Fifty big ones for you, fifty for our people.”

He reached for the hat he had placed on the floor next to his chair, rubbed the hatband as if for luck, and handed it to Legs.

“Put on the hat,” he commanded, “and give me my black book.”

Legs did as he was told. Willie ripped the notebook into small pieces. Legs felt like crying; Willie held outstanding markers from God, Satan, and half of the population of Las Vegas.

“Any questions before I go?” Willie asked.

“Go where?” Legs asked.

“They’re coming to get me.”

“They who?”

“You don’t need to know. Take me outside. Wheel me to the 7-Eleven and leave me there.”

There were times Legs wasn’t any too fond of the old man, but this was inhuman. “All you need is a nap,” he said.

“The man upstairs and I had a chat, and it’s time for the big dirt nap.”

“What about your spirit guide? You gonna take him with you?”

“Don’t mock him,” Willie said. “He’ll do what he does. Probably stick with you, I imagine.”

Legs laughed.

“You don’t disrespect him, now.” Willie sounded dead serious. “You make him mad, he’ll do you.” He leaned back and closed his eyes. “You give our people their money, you hear?”

“What if I keep the cash?” Legs asked, parking Willie’s chair outside the 7-Eleven.

“You’ll be knee deep in shit,” Willie said. “Ostrich shit.”

Sure, Legs thought. He would run right over to the reservation and hand over fifty K. Not. Sitting at the slot machine closest to the door of the convenience store, he watched a white Jeep Cherokee pull up to Willie. A tall, slender woman in camouflage coveralls got out and wheeled the old man up to the back of the truck. Someone inside must have opened it up and let down a ramp. Willie was wheeled onto it and lifted into the vehicle. The door shut behind him. As the Cherokee pulled away, Legs caught a glimpse of a small decal of an ostrich on the corner of the rear window.

And Willie was gone.

Legs missed the old man, but his sense of loss was easily salved by having money to burn. He paid off some of his debts, bought a car and a new wardrobe, dated high-maintenance women, and ate only in the best of restaurants.

He also gambled. Badly.

A week before the movie company was due to film at the Towers, he was down to the second fifty thousand and rethinking his position on luck. Driven to do something, he visited a guy best known as the Chinaman to ask his advice about how to change his luck. He had to pay up front.

After much careful thought, the Chinaman told him he had to rid himself of the evil spirit of a big ugly animal, which was in close pursuit. “You see him, you smash his soul,” the Chinaman said.

“I do that how?” Legs asked.

The Chinaman’s advice was simple. Legs had to cover every surface of his home with mirrors. In that way, he could smash the image of the hovering spirit in the mirror and thus destroy its soul. “One, two, you crack mirror and creature turn into nothingness.”

Legs lost a thousand dollars that night. Deciding that he could do worse than take the Chinaman’s advice, he hired a workman to do the job.

“Done.” The workman laid down his tools and took out a pack of cigarettes. He held them up, as if asking permission to light one.

Legs nodded and poured a drink with a none-too-steady hand. “Inspection time,” he said.

They walked around his Country Club Towers apartment, with Legs intent on examining every surface. Mirrors now covered each one, including the refrigerator handle, the faucets, the toilets in both bathrooms. Satisfied, he opened a fireproof box full of cash and paid the rest of his tab.

When the workman left, he stood for a moment and surveyed his territory. He’d long since cleaned what he could of the old blood hidden under the sofa where the poor prior tenant had offed himself; what remained of the last fifty grand from Willie was in the fireproof box.

Everything was copasetic.

“There’s no way that vindictive son-of-a-bitching ostrich guide is going to get me now,” Legs said out loud.

By now, the filming of Casino was drawing to a close. Legs had managed to finagle an invitation to the wrap party and was admiring himself in the new living room mirror when he saw a large shadow behind him. Without missing a beat, he picked up one of the bricks he’d lined up in readiness and threw it at the image.

The mirror fractured into a thousand pieces.

“Got you,” he said, figuring he now owed the Chinaman another stack.

He called the man who had installed the mirrors and offered to pay him double if he fixed the damage right away. After he had let the guy in, he put on his late Uncle Willie’s cowboy hat and went downstairs to join the crew and whoever else showed up. One of the cameramen recognized him and offered him a drink. As he reached out for it, fire alarms ripped through the early evening and the party was over. It was a small fire, on his floor.

A cop tapped him on the shoulder. He turned around and saw that it was the same one who had interviewed him about the body in the elevator.

“I remember you. It’s Cleveland, right?”

Legs nodded. “Where’s the fire?”

“Fire’s out.” He pointed upward. “That your apartment? Number 1201?”

Legs nodded again. “Can I go up there?”

“I’ll take you. Gotta question you anyhow.”

The apartment was gutted, but the fireproof box filled with cash was intact. The mirror man lay on the floor facedown.

“Smoke inhalation,” the cop said. “We’re waiting for the coroner. Know anything about him?”

“He installed my mirrors.”

“Was he a smoker?”

“Yeah,” Legs said.

The cop turned to greet the coroner, who examined the body, then turned it over. There was blood underneath and two odd-shaped holes in the man’s stomach.

“Looks like he was kicked by some big-ass mule,” the cop said.

“Can I go now?” Legs asked. “I don’t have a mule.”

“For now.” The cop looked at him as if he were examining a roach. “But don’t leave town. Where can I find you?”

“Horseshoe,” Legs said. “I’ll get a room.”

He’d been playing on the Strip since Willie had left. This time, he picked up his box of money and rode a bus downtown. His plan was to put his money in the cashier’s cage at the Horseshoe, play a little hold ’em, eat a late-night steak at the coffee shop, and get a player’s rate for a room. His warm welcome in the poker room was followed by repeated questions about his Uncle Willie.

“How’s old Willie?” “Where’s old Willie?” Even the waitress at the coffee shop asked, “Where’s the old boy?”

Tired of the questions, Legs said brusquely, “How should I know? He’s dead.”

Lying on his bed in the small hotel room, Legs tried to figure out why his life was overflowing with dead bodies. He stared at his uncle’s hat perched on top of the television set. “It’s your fault, you old bastard,” he said.

Too tired to get himself a woman and disinterested in watching TV, he thought back to Nattee-Tohaquetta — alias Willie Cleveland — and his last night in Las Vegas. He didn’t sleep any too well but he did wake up with a plan, something to clear his head. He would rent a convertible and drive out into the desert where the last of Independence Day was being filmed. The location was in Rachel, a small town in the middle of nowhere, five or ten miles from Area 51. Willie had warned him to stay away from there, but what the hell. Maybe he’d meet someone interesting, maybe not, but at least there wouldn’t be any bodies with strange holes in them or cops who thought he was a killer. Tomorrow he’d get back to business, start looking for new clients, maybe even make a plan to take what was left of Willie’s fifty K to the reservation.

One thing he knew for sure: He’d had enough of Country Club Towers. He should have known it would be a place of bizarre happenings, with its strange architecture — off-kilter walls, a swimming pool that got no sun, and a tennis court that got no shade. The owner was old and very rich. His trophy wife was a tough broad from south Texas who ruled the place like an army sergeant. Despite being one of only four high-rises in Vegas, there were always empty apartments. The trophy wife moved tenants around until she had emptied the whole penthouse floor, which had its own elevator and locked entry. The entire floor was given over to pimps and prostitutes.

Not that Legs had anything against them. It was the dead bodies he could do without.

Top down, radio on full blast, he dug out the rest of a joint he’d hidden at the bottom of his wallet. He followed it with a candy bar he’d picked up on his way out of the Horseshoe. The sun was shining, the top was down, and he felt good until he glanced in the rearview mirror and saw what looked like an unmarked cop car. He pulled over to let it pass, but it pulled over with him.

Careful to maintain the speed limit, he veered onto Highway 375, which would take him to Groom Lake Road. The street was gravel but not unpleasant to drive on. After about twelve miles, with the cop still behind him, he swerved to the right down a narrow unmarked road. The car behind him made a U-turn, but Legs kept driving. A mile or so down, he saw what looked like a very large animal lying across the road. He started to circle around it, then planted his foot on the brake as a white Jeep Cherokee like the one that had taken Willie came hurtling toward him.

There was nothing he could do but watch.

The Jeep screeched to a halt. The same tall woman stepped from the passenger side, holding a gun in her hand. A man, also dressed in camouflage, stepped out of the driver’s side, walked over to the animal, and kicked it. Legs didn’t know much about weapons, but the pistol in the woman’s hand looked real enough. Too late, Legs realized that these people were Camo Dudes who patrolled Area 51. He didn’t have a camera, so most likely they would simply ream him out and hand him over to the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Department.

“Ostrich is dead,” the man said. “Told you he wouldn’t make it to the road, not after what I shot into him.” He looked at Legs. “Dead as you’ll be if you don’t do what you’re told.”

“Move over,” the woman said, getting behind the wheel of Legs’s car.

“I... uh... uh...”

“We know who you are, Mr. Cleveland.”

“How...?”

“We figured your uncle might have told you a little too much about our business. Know what I mean?” Her laugh was harsh.

The man roped together the legs of the dead ostrich and looped it around the bumper of the van.

“Hope you’re into ostriches, Mr. Cleveland,” the woman said. “Dumb creatures. With Willie gone, someone’s got to take care of them.”

Twenty minutes down the road, the van pulled up in front of a huge barn, barricaded by a wide iron bar. The man removed the bar and Legs was shepherded inside. Corralled in the middle was a large flock of ostriches.

Legs closed his eyes, prayed for the cop who had been following him, and promised God that if he got out of this, he’d give Willie’s money to the Piutes right away. He’d never gamble again, never drink, never—

“Okay, Mr. Cleveland,” the woman said. “In you go. Our soldiers have been restless. Your job is to calm them down so that they do what we need them to do. Maybe later, if they don’t kill you, we’ll show you some of our other brigades. Noah knew what he was doing when he saved the animals.”

She handed him a key to the paddock.

“See you later, if there’s anything left of you to see,” the man said, and he and the woman walked out of the barn.

Legs heard the bar falling into place and felt the warm trickle of urine down his legs.

Moving to the far corner, he hunkered down and tried to control his fear. The ostriches looked calm enough to him. Most of them had their heads buried in the sand. The rest milled around in an almost listless manner, nudging each other occasionally. They were huge creatures, with small heads, long thin legs, and bodies that must have weighed three hundred pounds. Telling his story, Willie had said that his ostriches had marched away like a revolutionary army but never attacked unless provoked and that their brains were smaller than their eyes, which were none too large.

Maybe, Legs thought, he could find a way to free them, but what was the point if they killed whoever they’d been trained to kill? Or if they killed him.

Either way, it seemed to him, he was a dead man.

He was still staring at the birds when the barn door reopened. The man stood back while the woman, who had changed into a pair of short-shorts, came toward him. She held a large syringe in her right hand. Praying it wasn’t meant for him, he said, “You got some pair of legs. Get me out of here and I’ll make you a star.” He squinted at the name tag attached to the collar of her shirt. “Ava. Perfect. Why would you want to be here when you could be a headliner?”

“You’re a funny man, Mr. Cleveland.” She came closer.

“Legs,” he said. “Call me Legs.”

“All right, Legs. Let’s talk. What did Willie tell you about his work here?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing? That’s hard to believe.”

“Believe it.”

For a moment the woman was silent. Legs figured he had nothing to lose by asking what was it they were doing to the ostriches to turn them into killing machines and why they were doing it. He was as good as dead anyway. Might as well know what he was dying for.

“Willie told you nothing?”

“Nothing.”

“Tell me something, Mr. Cleveland. Legs. Do you also have an ostrich spirit guide?”

Legs shook his head. “I don’t believe in that stuff.”

She looked at the syringe in her hand. “He did. It kept him safe in there.”

Legs could feel the sweat running down his neck. “What did he do here?” he asked again.

“He worked with the ostriches. Taught us about them.”

“Why?”

She held up the syringe. “He wanted to live to be old and keep his own teeth. There was a price to pay and he paid it.”

It was all Legs could do not to reach out and knock the syringe out of her hand. “I don’t mind false teeth,” he said.

She laughed.

“Those dead men at the apartment...” Legs began.

The woman waved at the ostriches. “Our first real experiment.”

“But why frame me, and how did you get the beasts out of there?”

“No harm in telling you, I suppose. They disintegrate when the job is done. As for why you, why not you? There’s always got to be a mark. If we let you go back, you’ll be up for murder.”

“I’ll tell them—”

“What? That we’re training an army of killer ostriches? You’ve got to be kidding. It’s called a rock and a hard place, Mr. Cleveland. Work for us the way Willie did and we’ll cover for you. Don’t, and we’ll let you pick between those animals in there and the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police.”

“How much time would I have to spend here?”

“As much as we say.”

In his mind, Legs heard old Willie telling him to stay off the road to Rachel.

Now that he had disobeyed, he saw only one realistic possibility open to him: He would work on Ava, which wouldn’t be the worst punishment in the world. She did have great legs, and who knew, maybe she could sing.