The Butcher's Boy

11

He finished his drink and left the hotel. There wasn’t any particular reason to leave. He wasn’t hiding from anyone and didn’t have anywhere else as a destination. It was just the normal thing to do, as automatic as the urge to blink his eyes, as automatic as going outside and then waiting beside the door to see if the next one out paused for a second to see which way he’d gone. He was on vacation for two more days. That was no time to let himself slide into a position where he’d feel uncomfortable.

He walked across the parking lot to the street, and joined the anonymous hundreds moving along the Strip from casino to casino. Just before they got to the MGM Grand Hotel he parted from his companions and took a shortcut through a closed gas station, then stopped in the shadows behind it. Nobody came after him, so he went on. If there was a watcher, he at least had sense enough to keep his distance and not be annoying.

He went in the front entrance of the Grand Hotel and moved quickly to the other end of the gigantic casino, where the blackjack games were proceeding in an atmosphere of spurious calm. At one table a man piled his remaining chips on the square in front of him and waited, one foot already on the floor to push his chair away from the table. The dealer’s deft fingers peeled cards out of the shoe and made them re-materialize in front of the players, and the man found himself sitting behind a ten and a four. He didn’t seem surprised or disappointed by it, just watched while the second ten appeared and the dealer’s hand snatched away the chips. Then his foot pushed off and he relinquished his chair.

The dealer’s face didn’t seem to notice that the man was gone, or that he’d ever been there. Only his marvelous hands took note of the fact that there were no chips on one of the betting spaces, and passed by without leaving any cards. The face didn’t acknowledge it when another man sat down in the seat to wait for the next deal. One of the hands snatched the five crisp twenties and tamped them into the cash slot, while the other left a stack of chips where the money had been. If the dealer’s eyes had passed across the new face with its terrible bruise and the cut just above the hairline, they didn’t linger there. The eyes were only there to direct the hands, and there was plenty for the hands to do.

When he sat down at the table he checked his watch. It was eleven thirty. It didn’t make much difference to him where he spent the next few hours, but it was important not to lose track of things. He set out a single five-dollar chip and watched the hands of the dealer deposit his cards on the table. They were a queen and a ten, so he stood pat and waited while the dealer’s king and five drew another king and busted. The hands fluttered over the green felt surface of the table, rearranging chips and cards, rewarding and punishing with the same even, imperturbable movements, but in any case obliterating the decisions that had just been made along with the combinations of numbers and symbols that had prompted them. Each time there was a new set of decisions, and then the hands performed their mechanical reckoning and dealt again. He kept a rough tally of how well he was doing, and it was no worse than he’d expected. The dealer had started on a losing streak, and busted about half of the first twenty hands. After that the normal order of probabilities had reasserted itself and the house’s regular five-percent advantage had resumed. When he glanced at his watch again it was one thirty. Two hours was enough. He gathered his red chips and headed for the cashier’s cage. When he went out the front door he had six twenties and a ten in his shirt pocket. It was mildly pleasing to him. He was no gambler and the minimum bets he had stuck to had just kept him there passing the time. But he figured it was better than losing.

Outside, the last big crowds of the evening were spilling out into the parking lots from the late shows. Caesar’s Palace was practically across the street, so he joined a group walking in that direction and began looking for the watcher, who would have been alerted when he left the blackjack table. Hadn’t he seen that older man in the gray suit who joined the crowd at the corner? Earlier, at the Sands. Only before there had been a woman in a white dress with him. People always went in pairs to the shows. He looked for her, but the man was alone, looking a lot like a middle-aged businessman from someplace else who’d left the tired little woman in the hotel room and gone out for some action on his own. If he wasn’t, she’d turn up again in time.

He kept the man’s location in mind without looking at him again. Then a portion of the crowd streamed into Caesar’s and another portion split off into the parking lot to search for their cars. Once inside the casino he moved off along the edge of the forest of slot machines. There she was, a nice silver-haired lady from Missouri with that hypnotized look they all got, intently pumping dimes from a paper cup into a slot machine as though the wheels and gears couldn’t spin fast enough to digest the coins. Only this time she was wearing a blue dress. The man in the gray suit walked past her and over to the elevators without either of them making a sign.

That was just fine. As watchers went they were tolerable. They didn’t hang around close enough to be annoying, and now that he’d spotted them he could relax. He went to the second row of elevators and pushed the button for his floor.

The hallway was empty, so he made his way to his room and checked the space between the door and the jamb. The little ball of blue fuzz was still stuck there, an inch or two above the bright red carpet. Good. No surprises. They must be satisfied for the moment.

He swung the door open and for an instant struggled to remember if he’d left the bathroom light on. As the door swung wider he caught a glimpse of the television screen, which was casting a bright variegated display of moving colors into the dimness. He stepped aside and waited. Then a woman’s voice said, “Come in, baby. You’ve got the right place.”

He stepped across the doorway and caught sight of the whole room at once. She was kneeling in the middle of the bed and she seemed to be wearing nothing. He poked the door all the way open and moved warily inside. There didn’t seem to be anyone else. He ignored her for the moment and searched the room for hiding places. There was nobody in the bathroom or under the bed. He checked behind the curtains, then out on the balcony, but there was nobody. He retreated to the doorway and looked at her. “What are you doing here?” he said.

“I’m a present, honey. Compliments of Little Norman.” She crawled toward him across the big bed and he took a closer look at her. She was small and dark, with long black hair and skin like cinnamon and big black eyes. Mexican or Puerto Rican, he thought. She couldn’t be much over twenty.

“How did he get you in here?” he asked.

“Little Norman knows somebody,” she smiled. Then she stopped, poised for a second in a parody of thought, kneeling with her knees apart and her body erect to let him get a chance to look at her. “No,” she said, “Little Norman knows everybody.”

He locked and bolted the door, then leaned back against the wall and looked for something to block the window latch. Now she was off the bed and standing in front of him. “Relax, honey,” she said. “I thought you were supposed to be here to enjoy yourself.” Her voice was cool and soothing. Her hands were fiddling with his belt. “So loosen up a little.” And then she was down on the floor, murmuring something in a soft, kittenish voice, but he couldn’t understand it because she was also taking his penis into her mouth.

He stood with his back poised against the wall, careful not to let his mind go completely out of his control, keeping back the tiny part he needed to look and listen, while she took possession of the rest of him. So now there were two of him—one that gave in to whatever she did and seemed all mindless yearning, a rush forward from some dim distant place, and the other part that looked over her shoulder for a flicker of shadow behind the curtain, and shut out the soft cooing sounds of her voice to hear a footfall in the hallway or a click of metal.

After a few minutes the one who kept watch was no longer tense and fearful. It didn’t go to sleep, but it let the other part relinquish the safe wall, shed its clothes, and take the girl to the broad, ornate bed. It didn’t stop listening and watching, partly because it couldn’t, and partly because there was still the marker left in the door that somebody besides the girl had seen and replaced.

HE LAY SPRAWLED on the bed pretending to be asleep. He had been pretending to be asleep for a long time now but she still hadn’t moved. Maybe she wasn’t the adventurous type. But how could she not be? Taking in every penis that pointed in her direction, just so long as it had an endowment of a hundred bucks or so to go with it—a few chips the dealers had missed. So now if she thought he was sleeping she’d leave, try to turn one or two more tricks before daylight.

Then he realized she had moved. One minute he had been touching her and the next he wasn’t. He tried to sense her movement; he couldn’t open his eyes, because he knew she’d be watching his face all the way out the door. She’d done this before, he thought. She knew enough not to crawl on the bed with her hands and knees; just seemed to slide across the sheets. It was probably a talent that was worth a lot to her: when she’d managed to temporarily exhaust a particularly difficult client, or at times like this when she’d been paid for the whole night in advance. He heard a very quiet swishing sound as she pulled on her underpants, but not even a snap of elastic. A few seconds later he heard the click of a clasp or a button, but that was all. Then he could sense her presence near the door, and more whispers of cloth. It seemed to take a long time. What the hell was she waiting for? Oh yes—the wallet in his pants. She was the adventurous type.

Then the door opened and closed so smoothly that he didn’t hear the click of the latch, just felt it. He opened his eyes and looked around the room. It was as though she’d never been there at all. Perfect. He went to the wall by the door and looked at the pile of clothes he’d left there, picked up his pants and felt for his wallet. Good. At least she hadn’t taken the whole thing. He looked inside and counted his money—still better. She had been smart. She’d only taken about four or five of the sheaf of twenties and left everything else intact. Most of the time when she met the trick at two A.M. and smelled liquor on his breath, she could assume he wouldn’t even know she’d taken anything. At least he wouldn’t be sure. He threw the wallet on the bed and smiled while he chose fresh clothes from the closet. He didn’t begrudge her the money. He’d have given her almost that much as a tip if she’d stayed all night anyway. Then his smile turned into a chuckle. If he’d been able to trust her, he’d have given her three times that much to leave now and not tell Little Norman. And as it was, he knew she’d never let Little Norman know she hadn’t stayed with him in the room. Not if Little Norman had paid her. Not ever. Not on her life.