Murder in Vegas

THE END OF THE WORLD (AS WE KNOW IT) by Lise McClendon

I knew he’d lost a couple though. He couldn’t stop whining about it. I didn’t know how my sister put up with his incessant carping: The pool was too cold, the room was too small, I left hair in the sink, the drinks were watered down and weren’t delivered fast enough. I knew he’d lose at the tables, and I knew he’d complain about it. But the telegram was the last straw.

Send Lawyers Guns Money Stop

Shit hitting fan Stop

Herb

Couldn’t somebody stop Herb? I handed him back his rough draft.

“Cynthia will know what to do,” he muttered, folding it into his pocket.

“She’ll know you’re on your Warren Zevon bender again. She’ll just call. She won’t send money.”

She better the hell not. That would mean I had to stay longer in Vegas. And I was fried. “Look, Herb. Just get on the plane tomorrow and go home. She loves you.” Why, I had no idea. She obviously didn’t love me, her only brother, because she sent me with her wacky husband for four whole days to Las Vegas. I took a breath. The heat was brutal. I was losing it. “Nobody sends telegrams anymore. If you want to talk to her, just call.”

Herb stalked through the big brassy doors of the casino, outinto the drive where taxis and limos waited for their sorry clients to quit losing money. Vegas was a beautiful dream when I first arrived, the gorgeous weather, the dry heat flattened out my hair, the blue pools to cool off in, great restaurants, a show or two, some with topless showgirls. Even the beeping and blinking of the casinos had been charged with excitement at first. The endless gambling tables, skimpily clad cocktail waitresses and bars around every corner ready to pour you whatever your heart’s desire, had seemed like a wet dream. Not exactly satisfying but good for a few rushes of adrenaline.

That high lasted three days and two-and-a-half nights. Now the cards that refused my mind-meld, the parched, smoky air, the incessant ringing electronic gadgetry, and Herb Monroe, accountant, duffer, and whining machine, had made me change my mind. Not to mention that I, too, had lost a thou.

Where the hell was he going? I followed him outside, worried that in demoralized angst he might walk in front of a car. “Hey, come back here!” He was halfway down the block, walking through those mist machines that cool passersby in cafes along the sidewalk. I caught up with him in front of New York New York.

“Western Union. That’s where I’m going,” he said firmly, taking long strides south. “She’ll help. She knows.”

“What does that mean? She knows what?” Cynthia was an accountant too, in the same firm. “She knows what a stubborn ass you can be, Herb.”

He kept walking, sweat beading on his forehead. His khakis were loose on his hips, but his new Vegas-bright shirt featuring hula dancers was stuck to his back. He squinted into the sun. “She’ll know what to do, Aaron. She knows the particulars.” He stopped suddenly. “There it is.” He stepped off the curb and barely missed being hit by an SUV the size of Indiana.

“Watch it!” I felt strangely reluctant to plunge across twelve lanes of traffic. He darted and jumped, avoiding carloads of children in minivans, Humvees ready for the next suburban war zone, and the elderly in slow-motion Cadillacs. I let out my breath as he reached the far side. “I’m going back,” I hollered.

He trooped across the strip mall parking lot toward the tiny U-Pack-M with the Western Union sign on the window, swinging through the door. If the Morse code floated his boat, that washis problem. Herb was an adult. My stint as babysitter was officially over. My sister had taken me aside at the airport and made me promise to keep an eye on her husband. Yes, she’d paid my ticket, but enough was enough. Besides, I was close to the Bellagio, and I hadn’t had the chance to see the famous Picassos.

The hike up to their door was long and hot but punctuated by fountains. Inside it was cool and not as loud as the other casinos, although I’m sure losing money was just as popular here. A quick tour around the lobby and the chi-chi restaurants, a gin and tonic at one of many bars, and a peek at Pablo’s cracked view of human beings, and I was ready for a nap. My flight didn’t leave until morning, I had already lost more money than I should have, and I had a headache even gin couldn’t touch.

Slapping on the sunglasses, I wandered back through the wall of heat to our hotel. Herb would probably try to recoup his losses. He’d been at that since the first night. The room would be quiet, I could pull the drapes and nap. In the elevator a heavily botoxed woman of indeterminate age gave me the eye. I must be getting old because all I wanted was that nap.

Two aspirin and an hour later I was called from a dream reminiscent of a Hunter Thompson orgy by the telephone. Before I woke up all the way I thought Herb had learned to do impressions. But it wasn’t Herb, it was a Vegas cop. He told me Herb was in the hospital with a skull fracture or something. They’d found my name on his courtesy charge card. Hit by a car crossing the Boulevard? No, more like a tire iron.

The cop met me in the emergency room in the hospital not far from the Strip. Herb had been bushwhacked coming out of the U-Pack-M by some guys who really did pack ’em. They pistol-whipped him in the parking lot and were run off by a mailing clerk. Herb was unconscious.

“Does he have enemies in Las Vegas?” the cop asked me.

“I don’t think so.” I tried to think. “Have you called his wife yet?”

They left it up to me. Thanks, guys. Cynthia was in the office in St. Cloud, working late. When I told her Herb had been beat up, she began to cry. That delayed the tongue-lashing she gave me for not protecting him by about five seconds.

“He’s a grown man, Cynthia. Why would he need protection?”

She sniffed. “What about the money?”

He hadn’t told her. “What money would that be?”

“The money he won. He told me yesterday he won six thousand dollars at blackjack.”

“You don’t win six though at blackjack, Cyn. At least I don’t, and Herb sure doesn’t.”

She gave a little moan. “He wouldn’t have it on him, Aaron. In your room. Isn’t it there?”

Just to get her off the phone I told her I’d look in the room when I got back. I waited a couple hours in the ER for him to wake up, but the nurses finally told me to bag it and come back around nine that evening. I drove the rental car, world’s sexiest white Dodge sedan, to the Hard Rock Café for a burger and a beer. It was only seven so I went back to the room for my third shower of the day.

The light on the phone was blinking when I got out of the bathroom. I listened to the message: “Aaron, it’s me again. You know the song, ‘The end of the world as we know it.’” Cynthia sang the old R.E.M. tune. She had a great voice, one I always associated with her being fourteen and singing for my high school band before Dad found out what she wore. “Well, it is and it isn’t-the end of the world. I got the telegram and the money. Thanks for taking care of everything. Can you get him home okay? It’s important. Okay, love ya, brother.”

Before I could figure that out, the front desk called and told us they were comping our room for the four days. “Because of the-why?”

“For our loyal customers. Just say thank you, Mr. Nelson,” the clerk said, laughing. So I did.

I set down the phone and tried to clear my head. Was I still asleep? Did I need another shower? I shivered in the air conditioning. What the hell were Cynthia and Herb up to? I pulled on my jeans and started to search the room. When I was an MP in the army I never had to do searches, but I knew how it went, cushions, drawer bottoms, mattresses. But the room was clean. No money, no telegrams, no answers. Herb’s suitcase was standard issue JC Penney with his dashing polyester wardrobe to match.

I tried to call my sister again but got her machine. I told it, “This’ll be the end of the world, all right, if you don’t tell me what the fuck is going on.”

Herb was groggy when I finally found his room in the hospital.The nurse left us alone, said I only had a few minutes. I got to the point.

“What’s this about money you wired home?”

He moaned and shut his eyes.

“Herb, who hit you?” He moaned again. “What the hell is this about? Are you in trouble?”

His eyes popped open and he murmured an affirmative. “Casino,” he whispered.

“Have you been counting cards or something?”

He gave one last dramatic groan and promptly fell asleep. Even as mad as I was I couldn’t shake him awake, not with his bandaged head and IVs going in and out. One side of his face was purple and swollen. I backed out, wondering if the man with the tire iron would give it another go. It seemed unlikely in a hospital. The nurse told me Herb was still in serious condition with a traumatic head injury and I wouldn’t be able to take him back to Minnesota for at least a week.

In the lobby of the hotel I plugged quarters into the pay phone instead of the slots. I needed to talk to Cynthia but she wasn’t home again. What the hell? It was past midnight there. I left another pissed-off message that wouldn’t make her call me but made me feel better.

The hotel’s gambling halls were thick with tourists, nicotine-stained fingers checking cards, rubbing felt, massaging temples. Plump ladies flushed with excitement; young kids kicking the slots. I ordered another gin and tonic and watched the mass of humanity go about what had to be one of our stupider pastimes. Had Herb been scamming the casino somehow? He was a terrible gambler, in my humble opinion, although I didn’t play with him all the time. I got bored with blackjack and would watch craps for awhile or spin the roulette wheel. When I got back to the table, Herb would have moved around, found a dealer he thought was luckier, and usually told me he was down a few hundred and trying to make it back. Hey, weren’t we all.

No, Herb hadn’t won a bunch of money gambling. He wasn’t a good enough actor to hide that from me. I’d known him since he and my sister started working at the same firm, a couple years after I got out of the service. In my real estate office I sent him clients now and then, and there hadn’t been any complaints. Before our divorce my wife and I socialized with Herband Cynthia a couple times a month, barbecues, movies, dinner. Herb treated my sister pretty well, considering she could be a raging banshee when she got wound up. She used to whale on me when she was a teenager, like when we had to can her from the band. If only she hadn’t worn those black leather hot pants.

That REM song she sang me ran over and over in my mind. What did she mean, the end of the world? Was she running away from Minnesota, from her home, with Herb or without Herb, with whatever money he had wired her? And where was that from anyhow? Would she be at Mom’s? Doubtful. At her friend Louise’s in St. Paul?

Something about her response to Herb’s getting thrashed bugged me. Was it the money she was worried about-or Herb? She hadn’t offered to come take care of him, even though he was in the hospital. Those of us who loved her realized practical jokes and gruesome Halloween costumes are more her style than maternal instincts. My little sister. She made you want to sigh sometimes.

Instead of sighing I opted for drinking. I couldn’t leave on my flight in the morning anyway. It was going to cost me something to get that changed. I hit the payphones again and called the airline, begging for understanding. I must have sounded pathetic because they left the tickets open, to use when Herb recovered.

I tried Cynthia again and this time she answered.

“Baby sister. If you don’t explain this to me I’m gonna have to strangle you.”

“Aaron.” She yawned. “I’m asleep.”

“Talk to me. Now. Herb said something about a casino. Is he in trouble? Who beat him up?”

“I don’t know.” She had a pouty way even in her voice. “He’s a grown man. He does what he pleases.”

“I don’t think it pleased him to get pistol-whipped.”

“Mmm. Maybe not. But he went to Vegas. He took the chances.”

“What chances?” The gin began to churn in my gut.

“With the casino. Oh, I can’t explain it, Aaron.”

“What casino? This one, where we’re staying?”

“Yes and no. I’m hanging up now.”

I looked at the receiver, cursed, and banged it down. Too cheesed off to sleep, I hiked up and down the Strip in the nightand the neon, pounding the pavement until the edge wore off and I could sleep.

Slipping the key card into the lock, pushing open the door, the first thing I saw were the polka dot boxers my ex-wife had bought me strewn across the purple carpet. My suitcase lay open, upside down. Herb’s suitcase, minus the things I’d taken to the hospital for him, had been jumped on by somebody large, its sides caved in. Drawers hung open, chairs were overturned, a good tossing had by all. And by somebody as pissed off as I’d just been, somebody who hadn’t found what they were looking for. Unless it was polka dot boxers.

I spent a few minutes straightening up and put on the deadbolt and chain. Apparently Herb had some money that was either somebody else’s or they thought they deserved it. That wouldn’t be gambling winnings. But a casino was involved. This casino didn’t seem upset with us. Why did they comp the room? What had we done to deserve a free room besides lose a few thou? That couldn’t be very unusual. Neither of us was a high roller. An idea bubbled up like tonic water. Was Herb a thief? My head hit the pillow with that unhappy thought.

In the late morning I killed my headache with a greasy three-egg breakfast and a swim in the pool. My pale Midwestern skin hadn’t seen this much sun since childhood summers at Rainy Lake with the leeches and mosquitoes. These days air conditioning was my summer weather of choice.

But all this avoidance, pretending to be simply on vacation, didn’t make me quit cogitating about Herb and Cynthia. Two American kids doing the best that they can, I hummed to myself as I dressed and drove to the hospital again. A little ditty by John Mellencamp that I used to love to play on the guitar. I wondered why I had stopped playing (I knew when-after I married Jeannie) and promised myself for only the five-millionth time that I would start again. It never happened, in the same way that Jeannie and I never worked on our marriage. Sooner or later you forget the fingering.

Herb seemed perky this morning, or at least more alert than yesterday. He said he felt a lot better.

“I think I can leave tomorrow, I’m working on my doctor.” He glanced furtively at the door and winced as the pain of the quick movement hit him.

“You don’t look so good, old buddy. You better stay flat for a few more days. The nurse said a week would do you good.”

“A week!” He wrinkled his nose and lay back on the pillows. “I gotta get out of here.”

“Don’t worry about it. I fixed the tickets. The hotel comped our room. Things will be okay.” Tell me this is the end of it, big fella. I squinted at him. He seemed nervous. Maybe it was time for his meds. “Did you talk to Cynthia?”

He nodded. “This morning.”

“You gonna tell me what this’s about or do I have to pistol-whip you?” I sat on the edge of the bed. He rolled away from me. “Come on, Herb. Somebody tossed our room last night. And beat you up. You have to know what’s happening here.”

“Did the cops say I knew who it was?”

“How could they? You were out cold. Look at me, bub.” He rolled back a little. “What’s the deal? You do something bad?”

Jesus, I sounded like I was his dad-and he was two years older than me. I would never take a free trip with a relative again. The strings attached to this one were strangling me. He was silent, twiddling with his hospital gown.

“Who was it, Herb? You said something about the casino yesterday.”

“I did? What did I say?”

“I asked if you were in trouble and you said, casino. That’s all.”

He seemed to relax. I knew how he felt. When I had drugs to get my nose straightened out I told the doctor several embarrassing tales, including how I lost my virginity with a girl who worked at the PX on the base. I even told him her name, something I couldn’t remember on a normal day. He regaled me with the stories and slapped my back on my next visit.

“I must have been thinking about all the money I lost. Cynthia was very understanding.” He worked up a sympathetic look.

“That’s not her story,” I said. His eyes cooled. “She says you wired six thousand dollars to her. Is that what you were doing in the U-Pack-M?”

“No. You saw me lose at blackjack. I’m a terrible card player.”

“You are. You stink at cards. Always have.”

He scowled briefly. “I just sent her the telegram to show her Irealized how seriously I’d messed up. And it worked. Thank heavens. I didn’t know if I could go home again.”

“So you’re saying my sister is lying.”

“Aaron, knock it off! You misunderstood her. She was just upset because of the, um, the attack.”

“Okay.” I was more than fed up now. And he’d talked to Cynthia so they could get their stories straight. “So what did these guys look like, the ones who beat you up?”

He closed his eyes. “I’m tired. I need to sleep.”

“You want me to send in the cops now? The ones out in the hall?”

His eyes flew open. “Are they waiting for me? To talk?”

“Unless you talk to me.” I had no idea where the cops were, but they should have been here torturing him. I stood up to leave.

“No, stay, Aaron. The cops are so-” He gulped.

“Serious? Yes, they don’t much like liars.”

Time to go home. I’d been out West too long, I was starting to sound like a John Wayne movie. I squinted at Herb’s quivering form under the sheets and squelched an urge to say, Pilgrim, I don’t cotton to no yellow bellies neither.

But he was my sister’s husband. So I sat down on the bed again and waited.

“There were two of them.” His eyes darted around the room in classic liar style. “Dark, Italian or Mexican or something. Very nice tans, I remember thinking. Then they brought out the guns and I-I think I fainted. It might have been the heat though. That parking lot was really hot.”

“Everything in Vegas is hot in August.”

“True. The asphalt was sticky. I remember thinking that as I went down.”

“So they didn’t talk to you? You just toppled over like a pussy?”

“No, no, they said something about giving them my money. I said I didn’t have any, I lost it all on cards. They didn’t believe me. Right there in the afternoon sun, a robbery. Can you believe it?”

Actually, no. “Then what happened?”

“They pushed me around a little. I had nothing to give them.But they seemed to think I did. I pulled my pockets out like this-” he mimicked the motion “-but they just got madder. Then the one with the mustache-”

“Mustache? What did the other one have, a beard?”

“Nothing, I think. I don’t remember him so much. The mustache one did the talking.” I motioned him to continue. “That guy gets out a gun, a big one. And the other guy gets out his. And I faint.”

“Just like that.”

“I might have said, please don’t kill me or something like that.”

“So you don’t remember them hitting you over the head.”

“Um, no. Not really.” He looked up at me. “Will you tell the cops for me? Please, Aaron. You know the police better than I do. I always feel so guilty around cops.”

That stopped me. Usually the innocent feel that way. But I supposed the guilty do too, and with more reason. I cruised the stifling streets where a bank thermometer said it was 116 degrees, and ran from car to casino, a.c. to a.c. Pausing for hydration in the bar (tonic water is very medicinal and gin, well, it had to be good for something besides pickling private detectives) I figured Herb’s story was half true, if that. The mail clerk had seen two men pistol-whipping him, so that part was probably true. And he possibly did faint at the sight of weapons. He was that sort of a boy scout.

I spied a casino office sign in a far corner of the gambling hall and made my way through the tables to it. As I knocked a young woman, a dealer, came by with her card tray and opened the door with a code on the numbered panel. She paused, looking back at me. I told her I was looking for whoever comps rooms so I could thank them. She pointed me to another office where a receptionist talked on an intercom to someone named Connie.

When she walked out my heart stopped for a second. She looked so much like Jeannie they could have been sisters. But Connie’s hair was bleach blonde, very Vegas, and she wore a tight-fitting red suit, something that Jeannie would have called professionally slutty. Which I, like most men, find attractive. She shook my hand and the words came out of my mouth: “Can I buy you a drink to thank you?”

Her laugh was genuine, not fake like her hair. “It’s a little early for me, Mr. Nelson.”

I looked at my watch. “Have you had lunch?”

Her name was Connie Rossi, her title was Guest Relations Manager, and she knew a good place for lunch where we could talk away from the sounds of gambling. In the elevator I had to keep telling myself to be cool, to slyly get information from her about the room, about Herb. I didn’t feel very cool-or sly. In fact, despite the arctic blast of air conditioning, I felt very un-cool. In a hot sort of way. It disturbed me and made me think of my mother, which is very disturbing at such a time. How she used to say, “Eh, so now you thinking with your you-know-what?”

The restaurant was on the top floor of the hotel, very quiet and classy. And expensive. Oh, well, I gulped as we ordered $30 lunches. I was too much of a Midwesterner to ever be a high roller. I felt my coolness return. I ordered us each a glass of Pinot Grigio which Jeannie had liked. When it came I thanked Connie again for the complimentary room.

“Just doing my job,” she said. She had pretty blue eyes, even though there were gobs of mascara on them. It felt better finding her faults.

“I don’t know if you heard about my brother-in-law’s, um, accident.” She looked concerned. “He was attacked a couple blocks from here. He’s in the hospital with a concussion.”

“Oh, dear. I’m so sorry.” She patted my hand, which under most circumstances I would have enjoyed. Even this one.

“Yes. It’s darn shocking.” The sly one works his magic.

“Do you-I’m sorry, Aaron, is it?” I nodded, my slyness evaporating. “Aaron, do you need a few more days? I’m sure we can do that.”

“You can? That would be great, thanks. But, well, why exactly are you comping our room? We aren’t big gamblers, although God knows we lost a few zillion pesos.”

She gave a delicate shrug, smiling mysteriously. “It’s best to just say thank you, Aaron.”

“I heard that. So-thank you. But with Herb’s attack and all I feel like I really should get more information. Did Herb do something for you, for the casino?”

She smiled again. “You should really talk to him about that.”

Our lunches came, medium-to-small by Minnesota standards but hearty enough. The wine helped wash down my steak. And give me time to think up a new tack.

“Here’s the thing, Connie-may I call you Connie?” I’ve been waiting all my life to say that to a woman, a sad confession. She gave permission. “I was going to write off this whole trip on my income taxes. But without a hotel bill, it makes it a bit sticky. Herb is an accountant, he’ll probably find a way, but I need documentation. Now, I’m not saying I want to pay the bill.” I laughed, har-har: silly sly fox that I am.

She looked perplexed. I elaborated, spinning. “Let me back up. Are you giving Herb some documentation for this trip? A receipt or something? Because he is in the hospital and I need to get things arranged for him.”

“It’s an odd request, Aaron. But taxes are of course a big deal. You can’t deduct your gambling losses unless you show you’ve actually been to Las Vegas?”

“Something like that.” I ordered her more wine. I had no idea what I was talking about.

After I paid the bill (praise the lord for Comping Connie, the total was $95 plus tip), I followed her back to her office, waiting by the receptionist for her to make a few calls. I’m sure she would have preferred I disappear, but I couldn’t take that chance. I called my room to see if I had any messages. There was one, from the hospital.

“This is Aggie Webb, I’m a nurse on Four Central. It’s about three-thirty. I thought you should know that Herbert Monroe has checked himself out of the hospital AMA. That is, ‘against medical advice.’ I hope he’s okay but please tell him to be checked by his personal physician as soon as he gets home.”

I dialed the hospital. The nurse said the doctor had seen Herb about two and told him he had to stay another two or three days. After the doctor left, Herb got into his clothes and checked himself out, bandaged head and all. She was ticked off about his bullheadedness. I sympathized with her, then promised to get the knucklehead to a doctor at home.

When Connie came back out, I was pacing the small reception area. I stopped and took a breath. She had no documents in her lovely slim hands.

“I’ve made a few calls.” She crossed her arms, showing mehow busy she was. “It took more than a few, really. It’s funny.” She frowned. “I can’t help you with your tax receipts. That would be illegal, you know. But I can tell you that your brother-in-law did some accounting for our CEO. This was his way of saying thank you.”

“For the CEO? What’s his name?”

“Matthew Birdsong.”

“I’ve heard of him. Wasn’t there a big article about him in some magazine?”

“Forbes. He’s a very bright man. We’re very lucky to have him.”

She apologized for not being able to tell me more, then shook my hand. Which was nice. As I left I realized that falling for somebody who looks like your ex-wife is as stupid as going on a trip with your brother-in-law. Even when the brother-in-law vanishes into thin air.

Herb never came back to the hotel. I waited for him in the room for four hours, watching golf tournaments and C-SPAN, got hungry, went to a restaurant with a view of the front doors. I ate, I drank, he never came in. I thought maybe I missed him on my trip to the men’s room, but he wasn’t upstairs. He wasn’t in any of the bars. He wasn’t playing blackjack. I drove back to the hospital, half-expecting to see him slumped on a curb somewhere. Had the pistol-whippers gotten their greasy hands on him again? Should I call the cops? I didn’t want to call my sister and tell her now I’d lost the sorry bastard.

The next morning was as hot and dry and Herb-less as the day before. I went out to the parking lot to report him missing to the cops. But the Dodge-or rather its occupants-had other ideas.

There were two of them, just like Herb’s story. One was going through the trunk, he had the spare tire and tool kit on the asphalt. The other one stood in an open passenger door.

“Hey!” I said slyly. “That’s my car.”

The one under the trunk lid moved quickly, securing my shirt at the collar before I noticed he was close. He had long black hair and a chiseled face. Was I back in a Western again? I managed to squeak out, “Who the hell are you?”

He threw me against the car. “Where’s the money?”

“What money?” Isn’t that the standard response? This was sosurreal I felt detached, except where my spine was rubbing the fender. “If Herb took some money from you, he didn’t tell me about it.”

“Where is he?”

“I was just going to report him missing. He’s AWOL.”

The second man came into my line of sight and spat on me. “White scum.” The saliva ran down my cheek. I had plenty of humiliation in the Army, but this was a first. The two men were both bigger than me, the spitter in a ragged flannel shirt with many broken snaps and the big one, the strangler, in a black Sturgis Rally T-shirt. Their types were not unknown to me; lots of Native Americans lived in North Central Minnesota.

I wriggled a bit, making the big one in the T-shirt tighten his grip of my throat “Hey,” I croaked. “I haven’t done anything to you, eh? I don’t know where he is. Or his money.”

The big one looked at the Flannel Shirt, who had braids and a thick neck. They both looked at me. This repeated, as if they were discussing me silently. Finally they let me up. I could hear my words, the way I’d reverted to the old phraseology of the countryside in my panic. I wiped the spit off with my sleeve.

“Wh-where’re you guys from?” I rubbed my neck. “Crow Wing?”

The big one went for me again and I dropped my arms. No use struggling. “Just a guess. I live near there.” My arms were pinned to Dodge’s hot metal. “I like to go up there. It’s pretty country. In the-the fall, you know, when the leaves turn.”

Rally Shirt squinted at me in close-up. I readied for another lougie. His breath smelled like coffee. I tried to imagine all of us having a cup back home, shooting the breeze at one of the old cafes in the small towns around St. Cloud. I was suddenly very homesick.

“Tell you the truth-if you find Herb, you can beat him to a pulp for me. Break his arms. Be my guest.”

The younger one, Flannel Shirt, started to laugh, a chuckle bubbling up from his well-toned chest. Rally Shirt loosened his grip as he caught the laughter, letting me go to wipe tears from his eyes. I stood where I was, smiling like a deer in headlights.

Finally the big one slowed down enough to say, “Get the fuck out of here.”

I sidled away, back toward the safety of the hotel. When I wastwo car lengths away, I turned back. They were still chuckling.

“Say, I was wondering. What did Herb do to you guys? Did he steal some money?”

Flannel Shirt turned. “What the fuck you think?”

“Right. But how?”

“His numbers,” the other said. “Juggling the books.”

“He’s your accountant?”

They looked at me like the stupid white scum I was that day. Stupid and white came easily, the scum was courtesy of them. As they walked away, the big one kicked the side of the Dodge with a very large motorcycle boot, leaving a dent that would cost me plenty.

Back in the room I took another shower and called the cops. I reported Herbert Monroe missing and my rental car burglarized and vandalized. The paperwork took the rest of the day, even though the cops came out to the hotel to see the damage. The car got a lot more attention than Herb. Apparently people disappeared from Las Vegas with a fair regularity.

Sometime in late afternoon I called Cynthia to break the news. No answer, just: “the number you have called has been disconnected or is no longer in service.” I stared at the receiver, sitting on the edge of my bed, and listened to the recording six times. Then I hung up and sang my sister’s favorite song. End of whose world, sis?

On the plane flying home I asked the stewardess if they had any old issues of Forbes Magazine up in first class. Somewhere over Colorado she brought me a stack of ten magazines including three Forbes. I’d seen the issue all over Minnesota because the cover featured a native (literally) son. There he was: a handsome Indian man, Matthew Birdsong, wunderkind business whiz who grew up on a reservation in Minnesota, went to college, and came home to help his tribe build one of the first, biggest, and most successful Indian casinos in the U.S.

I skimmed through the rags-to-riches story, or in this case, loincloth-to-loot. Finally, in a discussion of his business practices, I found the link.

“Rumors flew for weeks among employees at the Crow Wing Casino that layoffs were coming. Was business bad? Reports were that machines and tables were busy all day and most of the night. Busloads of gamblers arrived from Chicago and otherMidwestern cities. However, due to financial irregularities the management announced a quarter of employees would be let go and tribal distribution would be substantially reduced this year. Birdsong, now CEO of one of Las Vegas’s biggest casino hotels, said the auditors in St. Cloud had found profits to be exaggerated in the last quarter. Calls to Herbert Monroe, chief auditor at White Birch Accounting, were not returned.”

Were the Vegas Indians casino employees Herb had helped get fired? Or were they employees of Matthew Birdsong? Had Herb double-crossed the man he was cooking the books for? In the manner of life in general I was never to know exactly.

In November the Securities and Exchange Commission indicted Matthew Birdsong for fraudulent accounting practices, accusing him of skimming money from Crow Wing Casino to pad the accounts in Vegas to drive up the stock of the casino’s holding company. To celebrate I went up to Crow Wing one frigid night just after Thanksgiving to lose a few dollars in slot machines, to bet a few at the tables, to drink coffee all night with my kin. About three in the morning I spotted Louise, Cynthia’s old St. Paul pal, playing keno. We were both sober, an unfortunate byproduct of Indian gaming.

Louise looked tired, dark circles under her eyes. “What do you hear from Cyn?”

“You kidding? Vanished into thin air.”

She shook her head sadly and looked toward the gaming tables, as if there was something else.

“You heard from her, didn’t you?”

Louise frowned then smiled then burst out laughing. “You won’t believe it, Aaron. I can’t tell you where she is, she wouldn’t tell me. But guess what she’s doing?”

A vision of black leather hot pants popped into my head. She was my little sister. I just knew. “Singing in a band.”

The day before Christmas a letter arrived with Canadian stamps. No return address, a Winnipeg cancel mark. Inside were two 500-dollar bills, Canadian. A small note was fixed to the paper clip.

“Rock your world courtesy Matthew Birdsong. Go, bro. The music is calling.”