by Teagan Kade
It’s going to get it, I think. They don’t call it Sin City for nothing.
But I’m thinking of Dawn, of sin of a different kind. A ripple of awareness runs down to my cock.
The plane starts to lift, the fuselage shaking like it’s made out papier-mâché.
I call for another double.
It’s hot in Vegas, the kind of heat that turns gum into impressionist art on the sidewalk. I like it.
Dawn looks out the window of our hire car as we make our way down the strip and all its kitschy glory.
She looks around starry eyed. “Wow.”
“First time in Vegas?”
She nods. “This place is in-sane.”
“Wait until you see it at night,” I suggest.
“Do you know where we’re going?”
I nod. “Nowhere good.”
The Wild Horse casino is a real retro throwback, the kind of early gambling haunt favored by the desperate and destitute. It’s also home to Vegas’s biggest crime lord, Bobby Cervantes.
I pull up out front and park the hired car, a valet who could double as a heavyweight fisting the keys. “We’re here to see Bobby,” I tell him.
Caucasian Evander Holyfield shrugs. “Who the fuck’s Bobby?”
I stand a little straighter, make sure Dawn’s behind me. “Tell him one of Saul’s boys is here for his blessing.”
Holyfield pushes out his cheek with his tongue, thinking it over, before stepping away and speaking into his lapel.
He comes back smiling. “Take a seat in the Tangerine Lounge. Someone will be out for you shortly.”
“Stay close,” I tell Dawn as we step inside. “You don’t want to get lost in a shithole like this.”
“Who’s Bobby?” she asks.
I draw her to the side, looking around. “It’s best not to say that name too loud around here if you want to keep all your fingers.”
“But you—”
“Do as I say, not as I do.”
I find us a quiet corner in the Tangerine Lounge, no prizes for guessing where the name came from.
I lean forward, continuing to watch out the corner of my eye. “How to explain this.” I breathe out. “We’ve entered Vegas, someone else’s domain.”
“Bobby’s?” she says, voice low.
I nod. “That’s right, which means we need his blessing to conduct our,” I can’t believe I’m about to use air quotes, “‘business’ here.”
“He’s a crime lord?” she whispers.
“Biggest in Vegas. Head of the Cervantes mafia. He runs all the underground operations, and we may need a favor, which is why we’re here. We need to operate freely, and we sure as hell can’t do it without going through this little custom.”
Dawn looks around, her hands twisting together nervously in her lap. “But why here, in this dump? Wouldn’t he be better off operating from one of the fancier casinos?”
I shake my head. “He’s old school. He’s not into showy things like Saul. No, all Bobby cares about is making money.”
“Welcome to Vegas…”
A goon comes over to the table. “You Saul’s boy?”
“Yeah.”
The goon looks to Dawn. “Who’s this?”
“A guest.”
The goon’s snake eyes wander over Dawn. I sincerely hope he gives me a reason to break his arm.
Yeah, that would be real smart.
The goon places a finger to his ear and nods. “Bobby will see you.”
Chapter 8
Dawn
The elevator we’re in drops for what feels like forever, so much so I’m sure we’re about to pop out in Shanghai. But when the doors do open, it’s to a drab, utilitarian hallway, concrete on every side.
We follow the suited man to the end and a single metal door. He pushes it open. “Right through here.”
I have to brush past him on the way through. He shifts his crotch forward as I do, sniggering. A flicker of revulsion runs through me. I’m glad Max is here.
The door closes behind us. We appear to be in a counting room. Piles and piles of hundred dollar bills are laid out on trestle tables around us. There must be millions down here.
A man is smoking, back against the far wall. His hair is neatly combed. He wears a simple collared shirt and trousers. He could be anyone, an everyman.
He rocks forward and approaches us, his loafers clacking on the concrete.
He drops his cigarette, screwing it out with the heel of his shoe. He addresses Max. “How’s Saul doing these days? Still running the Apple?”
Max nods. “He is.”
“Still wearing that shitty suit of his?”
Max nods again.
The man I assume is Bobby sits on the edge of a table, taking a bundle of bills in his hand and testing its weight. He sniffs at it. “Fucking beautiful. So, tell me, man of Saul, what can I do for you?”
I don’t like this. I don’t like this at all, but I’ve got to wait it out. I have to trust Max.
“We’re here on business,” Max continues.
“Saul’s business?”
“Indirectly.” Max glances at me. “We’re looking for a Rick Collins.”
“Rick Collins, you say? And why would that be?”
“I think you know. Rick did wrong by Dawn here. He needs to be held accountable, and I have it under good authority he’s under your employ.”
Bobby moistens his lips. “Lots of people are ‘under my employ,’ as you suggest, but okay. Say I do know this Rick character, what then? I just let you beat the shit out of him, or were you looking for something a bit more… permanent?”
The way he says it causes my entire body to clench. You shouldn’t be here, my head warns. You should run.
But we’re close. Somehow I don’t think it’s a fluke that Rick works for this creep. I think Max knew full well he did.
“We just want to talk to him,” says Max.
“Talk?” Bobby laughs. “I know your kind of talk. It’s not a language I like spoken around these parts. But…” He pauses. “Saul and I go back. He’s always done right by me, so sure, let me help you and your lady friend here. Rick? Yes, he’s in my employ, but I can’t just hand him over. He’s become—how shall I put it?—valuable.”
No one talks. I think Max is waiting for Bobby to continue speaking, but he simply sits there smiling.
“That’s it?” says Max. “I thought you said you were going to help?”
“Did I?”
Bobby clicks his fingers and the far door whines open again, the bottom of it grating on the floor, the same goon coming forward. “See our guests out here, will you, Barry? We’re done.”
No. This can’t be the end of the line. I need my life back.
Against better judgement, I jump in front of Max and speak. “Wait.”
Bobby seems surprised. “Wait? What have we here?”
Shivers. Now you’ve done it.
I swallow down a large lump that’s suddenly formed in my throat and speak. “Mr…?”
Bobby looks to Max before returning his eyes to me. “Cervantes.”
“Mr. Cervantes, my life is at stake here.”
He puts his hands out in supplication. “I’m sure it is, but I’m a busy man. My next appointment is waiting.”
If you had told me a week ago I’d be meeting the biggest crime lords in the country, I would have laughed you out of the room. But nothing’s funny about Bobby Cervantes. I realize it’s his normality that makes him so terrifying. He looks like any other regular joe you’d pass on the street—a father, a son.
I clear my throat again. I can’t let this go. “Please, Mr. Cervantes. I’m begging you.”
He smiles, teeth jaundice. “Max here should have informed you begging doesn’t go down well with my kind.”
I’m hesitant to ask what his ‘kind’ are. “I’ll do anything.”
And it’s out there in the universe, my last gamble.
I sense Max tighten beside me. “Dawn
,” he whispers, a warning.
I place my hand on my chest. “Anything,” I repeat, stepping closer and hoping he’s not going to take this the wrong way.
Bobby considers it, taking out a box of Camels from his pocket. He taps one out and lights it, taking a long, deep drag. The smoke exits through his nostrils, dragon-like.
Dawn, what have you done?
He flicks at the tip of the cigarette with his thumbnail. “Anything, you say?”
I’m in too far to back out now. I nod, once.
He takes a step forward until we’re eye to eye, still smiling that lewd, crocodile smile. “First and foremost, I’m a businessman. I can seize an opportunity when I see one, and Max here isn’t without certain skills, so let’s work this out.”
This seems more and more like a bad idea with every second gone by. If Max wasn’t here I’d have already passed out in a giant puddle of pee.
Bobby holds three fingers up. “Three—that’s how many things I’ve got on my to-do list today. You get them done and I’ll give you your boy. Call it a mutually beneficial arrangement.”
“You will?” I query.
“I’m a man of my word.”
I highly doubt that.
“Dawn,” whispers Max again, more urgently now. I ignore him. “What do you need us to do?” I’m thinking he needs some dry-cleaning picked up, maybe a lift downtown, but the reality is far from trivial.
His smile widens. He counts his fingers off. “One, I need a certain individual who has disrespected me shaken up a bit.”
Yep, the lump in my throat is back.
“Two, I need a little evidence returned to me.”
I gulp. Why couldn’t it be dry cleaning?
“Three.”
Here we go.
“There’s a fighting tournament in town, but my usual fighter is—how shall I say it?—indisposed, so Max will enter on his behalf.”
Max advances to protest, but he sees me and closes his mouth, nodding in agreement. It occurs to me I’m not just screwing myself. I’m screwing over Max, too.
But we need Rick. He’s the only way out of this.
Bobby checks his watch, a simple black Casio. “The tournament starts at eight, so I suggest you two get moving, because come midnight the deal’s off the table, whether you’re finished these errands or not, whether you’re dead or alive. You don’t come back until they’re done. Are we clear?”
Max and I nod in unison.
Bobby gestures to the back of the room. “Now get the fuck out of my face.”
I’m not arguing with that.
The goon opens the door nodding and smiling knowingly. “See you later,” he whispers as we pass.
Good one, Dawn. You just made a deal for your life with one of the country’s biggest crime lords. Way to go.
But what choice did I have? Go back to another crime lord with nothing? Either way I look at it, the odds are against us here.
Yes, ‘us,’ remember? Your life’s not the only one at stake, you know.
I do, and it chills me to the bone.
As soon as we’re back in the car, I swivel to face Max.
“No,” he says, cutting me off before I start to speak. “What’s done is done. There’s no use dwelling on it now. We do these things, we get Rick, and we get the fuck out of here. Yes?”
“Yes,” I repeat.
Max’s cell chimes. He checks the screen.
“What is it?”
“Our first task. Fasten your seatbelt. Something tells me we’re in for a bumpy ride.”
Chapter 9
Max
I drive us back through the strip, so much less appealing by day, and into the dust, the very outskirts of Sin City. I’ve been out here before. It ain’t exactly a postcard picture.
I pull up in the dirt parking lot and cut the ignition, the engine of the hired car ticks and pings from the heat.
Dawn looks through the windshield squinting. I catch the way her breasts fall forward against the front or her dress, the barest hint of a nipple pressed against the silky fabric there. I should have kissed her back at the apartment.
I try to snap myself out of it. Get with the fucking program, big boy.
Dawn squints to read the sign. “The Furry Cup?”
I stare at one of Nevada’s most infamous biker bars, a landmark haunt for undesirables and truly shady shit. Dawn’s going to stand out like a fruit bowl at a funeral. I’d prefer to have her wait in the car, but already there’s a group of bikers watching us from the corner of the lot.
My cell chimes again. It’s a name.
“Come on,” I tell Dawn. “Let’s get this over with.”
“We’re going in there?”
I point to the bikers. “Well, I’m sure as hell not leaving you out here.”
We exit the car and make our way inside.
The music’s loud, Judas Priest, the bar surprisingly full given the time of the day. The smell of booze and sweat hangs like a wet blanket in the air.
Dawn crosses her arms tightly over her chest, staying close by my side. Conversation continues, shouting, but every eye is on us as we approach the bar. Behind it the bartender stands with his hands spread out on the bar, a white terry cloth over one shoulder, ink up to his ears. He smiles at Dawn, half his teeth missing. “You sure you fell down the right hole, Alice?”
I gently push Dawn behind me and step up to the bar.
“You, on the other hand,” says the bartender. “Are not welcome.”
This was a bad fucking idea, but I’ve been in worse situations. You’ve got to keep calm, feel it out.
I turn and pass Dawn the keys, whispering by the side of her neck. Her jugular pulses against my lips. I smell the natural vanilla essence of her skin, the floral perfume she was wearing having faded. “If this goes bad, I want you to run to the car and get the hell out of here, understood?”
She nods. Good.
I bring myself back to the bartender and exhale. Here goes nothing. “I’m looking for Dale.”
The bartender cups his ear to hear over the music. “Who?”
“Dale,” I shout.
And that’s it. All conversation stops. Judas Priest continues to play, but everything else is silent, fixated solely on us. The song, You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’, is wonderfully fitting.
The bartender leans forward, the bar creaking. “What the fuck did you say?”
I can’t show any weakness. “I don’t want trouble. I just want Dale. We have business.”
Out the corner of my eye I see some of the bikers start to stand and close in around us.
Two approach from the side. One of them, face like a leather strap, puckers his lips at Dawn. “You wanna play a little, baby, show me those sugar tits of yours?”
Dawn grips my hand tightly, squeezing.
“Dale,” I repeat, focusing on the bartender. “Where is he?”
A shadow falls over the bar. The bartender’s eyes lift upwards.
Fuck.
I turn slowly, breathing out, to find the biggest goddamn man I’ve ever seen. The guy’s got to be seven foot at least, and built—an easy three-hundred pounds or more.
I hear Dad’s voice in my head. The bigger they are, son, the harder they fall, but I doubt even a wrecking ball is going to make this guy drop.
Reluctantly, I let go of Dawn’s hand and address Goliath. “You Dale?”
He smashes his fist into his hand. It’s the size of a melon. “Who’s fucking asking?”
“Bobby Cervantes. You owe him money. I’m here to make sure you pay up.”
Someone cuts the music off. It’s deathly silent again… until the entire place erupts with laughter.
Goliath’s laughing the loudest. “That’s fucking funny, my friend. Real fucking funny. What? You think I’m scared of you and your bitch here?”
I see red at that, but I press it down. Wait. I step up to him until we’re chest to chest, or at least chest to crotch. “If you’re such a bi
g man then, why don’t we take this outside? I knock you out, you pay up.”
Dale grins. “And if I knock you out?”
“I will pay.”
Dale whistles between his teeth. He stands back, letting another biker take his place. This guy is lean, his face hard, probably an MMA fighter. He strips off his shirt to reveal a tattoo of a python coiling across his chest. “You want to fight Dale, you go through me first.”
I turn around.
“Max?” questions Dawn, the fear thick in her voice.
My back’s turned, but I know the guy’s charging. “Suit yourself.”
I snap around fast, stepping aside and delivering a hard right into the back of his head. He drives straight into the side of the bar and falls flat, out cold. He almost looks peaceful lying there.
Expressions change around the room. Now they’re taking me seriously.
Dale looks down at his friend and squeezes his fists together. “Oh, you’re going to fucking pay for that. Let’s go.”
I follow him outside, directing Dawn to stand near the car. If something does happen, at least she’ll be close enough to it to make a getaway.
The sun’s directly overhead, beating down on the lot and the entire bar follows us outside, tightening around us like a human noose. They won’t intervene. They’re scumbags, but there’s a code to these things.
I pull off my shirt and toss it to the side, closing my fists and taking up a fighting stance. I feel the pull of new skin across my shoulder from my run-in with the butchers.
Dale raises his fists. He’s heavy, but there’s not a lot of muscle there. Still, I’m going to need nothing short of a fucking miracle to get this done.
I wave him forward with one hand. “Come on then, Stay Puft, or do you need a fucking invitation?”
Dale roars and runs forward swinging.
I duck and drill a series of jabs into his side, but it’s like plugging away at a bag of flour. It does shit-all.
I manage to weave around an ugly left and deliver an uppercut to his gut, but he doesn’t even swagger.
