Las Vegas Noir

by Jarret Keene

  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.