The Butcher's Boy

9

There was something clean about the sun in Las Vegas. Even in February there was a searing, blinding white light that made you feel as if you were being sterilized, even cauterized, so there wasn’t a germ that could stick to you. Everything extraneous would be burned off your skin, desiccated and sucked dry, its empty husk blown clattering away in the hot wind out of the desert. Even the air itself felt like that—a breeze that carried with it tiny abrasive particles of ground-up quartz and topaz too small to see. You could feel them buffing and polishing away at you.

He rolled over on his stomach. Better be careful the first time out. Getting a sunburn on top of all those scrapes and bruises would be about the limit of what he could endure. He could already feel the sun gradually heating up his back and shoulders, breathing its energy into them so that moment by moment the temperature of his skin rose in infinitesimal gradients. In a few more minutes, he decided, he’d go back to his room and get cleaned up, then take a nice long nap before dinner. Your body heals faster while you sleep, he thought. There was no reason to think about anything at all until Friday night. Friday was payday.

The soft electronic female voices were alternating on the public address system: “Telephone for Mr. Harrison Rand. Harrison Rand, telephone. Telephone for Princess Karina. Princess Karina, telephone,” a steady murmur going out across the swimming pool from nowhere in particular, the volume just high enough to flicker across the corner of your consciousness. There was no more urgency to it than the constant whir and click of the slot machines in the casino. This, he thought, was the only place he knew of where clock time didn’t matter. You measured time against the size of your bankroll—unless you were lying on a chaise longue next to the swimming pool, he remembered. Then the sun would damned well remind you what time it was if you weren’t careful. Enough for today.

He sat up and put on the dark brown terrycloth robe and zoris he’d picked up in one of the hotel stores this afternoon. Then he changed his mind again. The vast empty surface of the swimming pool sparkled at him. There was time enough for one more dip in the water, he thought. There was no reason not to do exactly as he pleased, and swimming was good for you—the best thing in the world for damaged muscles, and it would be time to stop when you didn’t feel like it anymore.

The water was warm, almost hot, like a gigantic Roman bath. He swam lazily from one end to the other, testing the flex and fluidity of his muscles against the solidity and support of the water. It had always struck him as funny that they should have a heated pool that was twice the size of the ones they used in the Olympics, and that he should be alone in it every time. People who were serious about swimming didn’t drive through the desert to do it. He stopped at the shallow end and let himself go limp in the warm water, feeling the deliciousness of it, held there as though by a broad, gentle hand. He floated on his back, surveying the people sprawled on lawn chairs, absorbing the sunlight. Most of them had probably been up all night, he thought. Gambling, drinking, fucking, and now they were recharging their batteries by the energy of the sun. No, they weren’t swimmers, but it seemed to comfort them to be near all that water. Something to look at through your polarized sunglasses while you waited for night.

He swam back to the deep end, acutely aware of the workings of his muscles as he stroked. He was going to be all right. Everything felt exactly as he wanted it to. At least his body did. His head was going to take longer. It felt big and soft and sensitive today, a peeled pumpkin held in anxious balance on a neck too thin for it. Just so there weren’t any scars on his face. The pain he could live with.

He pulled himself up out of the pool and flopped down on his chaise longue. In a few seconds he could feel the water on his body disappearing into the parched desert air, leaving his skin feeling tight. He let the sun settle its gentle pressure on his face for a few moments before he put on his sunglasses. Then he closed his eyes and let himself slip into a state that felt as good as sleep but wasn’t quite a relinquishment of consciousness. “Telephone for Mr. Arthur Walters. Arthur Walters, telephone. Telephone for Mrs. Natalie Beamish, Natalie Beamish, telephone,” crooned the soft unanxious voices in monotonous alternation.

“You do all that to yourself or did you have help?” said a voice above him. His eyes flicked open for an instant like camera shutters behind the sunglasses, and brought back with them into the darkness an imprint of the familiar, hulking shape. Little Norman.

“You know how it is, Little Norman,” he answered. “You want something done right, you have to do it yourself.” He heard the scrape as Little Norman dragged a lawn chair across the pavement to his side. Little Norman. The first thing anybody said when he heard the name was that he never wanted to see Big Norman. Little Norman was six foot four without his hand-tooled Mexican cowboy boots, and must have weighed in at two-fifty without the two rolls of quarters he always had in his pockets. As if those fists needed the extra weight. And Little Norman was no longer young. He had to be at least fifty-five and semiretired, so that wasn’t it either.

“What brings you to Caesar’s Palace, Little Norman?” he said. “I thought you hung around at the Sands.”

“Nice sunny day out,” said Little Norman. “Good day to get a tan.” Little Norman was wearing his usual tailor-made suit and stiff-collared white shirt with pearl studs. Little Norman was also blacker than the bottom of a coal mine.

“You’re right there. Been getting some myself, and doing a little swimming.”

“That’s good, kid. That’s what you need for those thumps you got on you. A little sunshine, a little exercise, a lot of rest.” He said it again, “A lot of rest.”

He just nodded and let Little Norman go on.

“For excitement there’s always the tables. You don’t have to do anything spectacular to keep your blood circulating, you know what I mean, kid?”

“Sure I do, Norman.” He smiled. Then he said, “I’m not working. Nobody works in Las Vegas, you know that.”

Little Norman’s long face broke into a broad grin. “That’s real sensible, kid. Coming in here with a face like that, people wonder. I’m not asking where you got it, you understand. But people do wonder where you got it and whether you’re maybe a little mad about it.”

“If you see anybody like that, will you do me a favor?”

“Sure, kid, if I see anybody like that.”

“Tell them I’m not working.”

“I’ll do that.”

“Thanks, Little Norman. I wouldn’t want anybody worrying about my health.”

Little Norman stood up, straightened his tie, and said, “If you’ve got some time on your hands you might stop by for a drink. You know where to find me, don’t you?”

“Sure,” he said.

“I’ll see you, then.”

He watched Little Norman’s huge back moving along the edge of the pool toward the entrance near the casino. It hadn’t taken long, he thought. He reached in the pocket of his robe and pulled out his watch. Four hours. He’d been in Las Vegas less than four hours before someone had noticed him and told Little Norman. But at least Little Norman seemed to be satisfied. For the next hour he’d be scurrying all over town telling rich, powerful old men that there was nothing to worry about this time. Their deaths hadn’t been purchased yet. It really was a vacation. And the uneasy truce would hold until the next thing came up. He should have looked up Little Norman right away, he thought, and made sure the word got out before any of them got nervous. It was the polite thing to do.