Las Vegas Noir

by Jarret Keene

  One thing he knew for sure: He’d had enough of Country Club Towers. He should have known it would be a place of bizarre happenings, with its strange architecture—off-kilter walls, a swimming pool that got no sun, and a tennis court that got no shade. The owner was old and very rich. His trophy wife was a tough broad from south Texas who ruled the place like an army sergeant. Despite being one of only four high-rises in Vegas, there were always empty apartments. The trophy wife moved tenants around until she had emptied the whole penthouse floor, which had its own elevator and locked entry. The entire floor was given over to pimps and prostitutes.

  Not that Legs had anything against them. It was the dead bodies he could do without.

  Top down, radio on full blast, he dug out the rest of a joint he’d hidden at the bottom of his wallet. He followed it with a candy bar he’d picked up on his way out of the Horseshoe. The sun was shining, the top was down, and he felt good until he glanced in the rearview mirror and saw what looked like an unmarked cop car. He pulled over to let it pass, but it pulled over with him.

  Careful to maintain the speed limit, he veered onto Highway 375, which would take him to Groom Lake Road. The street was gravel but not unpleasant to drive on. After about twelve miles, with the cop still behind him, he swerved to the right down a narrow unmarked road. The car behind him made a U-turn, but Legs kept driving. A mile or so down, he saw what looked like a very large animal lying across the road. He started to circle around it, then planted his foot on the brake as a white Jeep Cherokee like the one that had taken Willie came hurtling toward him.

  There was nothing he could do but watch.

  The Jeep screeched to a halt. The same tall woman stepped from the passenger side, holding a gun in her hand. A man, also dressed in camouflage, stepped out of the driver’s side, walked over to the animal, and kicked it. Legs didn’t know much about weapons, but the pistol in the woman’s hand looked real enough. Too late, Legs realized that these people were Camo Dudes who patrolled Area 51. He didn’t have a camera, so most likely they would simply ream him out and hand him over to the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Department.

  “Ostrich is dead,” the man said. “Told you he wouldn’t make it to the road, not after what I shot into him.” He looked at Legs. “Dead as you’ll be if you don’t do what you’re told.”

  “Move over,” the woman said, getting behind the wheel of Legs’s car.

  “I … uh … uh …”

  “We know who you are, Mr. Cleveland.”

  “How …?”

  “We figured your uncle might have told you a little too much about our business. Know what I mean?” Her laugh was harsh.

  The man roped together the legs of the dead ostrich and looped it around the bumper of the van.

  “Hope you’re into ostriches, Mr. Cleveland,” the woman said. “Dumb creatures. With Willie gone, someone’s got to take care of them.”

  Twenty minutes down the road, the van pulled up in front of a huge barn, barricaded by a wide iron bar. The man removed the bar and Legs was shepherded inside. Corralled in the middle was a large flock of ostriches.

  Legs closed his eyes, prayed for the cop who had been following him, and promised God that if he got out of this, he’d give Willie’s money to the Piutes right away. He’d never gamble again, never drink, never—

  “Okay, Mr. Cleveland,” the woman said. “In you go. Our soldiers have been restless. Your job is to calm them down so that they do what we need them to do. Maybe later, if they don’t kill you, we’ll show you some of our other brigades. Noah knew what he was doing when he saved the animals.”

  She handed him a key to the paddock.

  “See you later, if there’s anything left of you to see,” the man said, and he and the woman walked out of the barn.

  Legs heard the bar falling into place and felt the warm trickle of urine down his legs.

  Moving to the far corner, he hunkered down and tried to control his fear. The ostriches looked calm enough to him. Most of them had their heads buried in the sand. The rest milled around in an almost listless manner, nudging each other occasionally. They were huge creatures, with small heads, long thin legs, and bodies that must have weighed three hundred pounds. Telling his story, Willie had said that his ostriches had marched away like a revolutionary army but never attacked unless provoked and that their brains were smaller than their eyes, which were none too large.

  Maybe, Legs thought, he could find a way to free them, but what was the point if they killed whoever they’d been trained to kill? Or if they killed him.

  Either way, it seemed to him, he was a dead man.

  He was still staring at the birds when the barn door reopened. The man stood back while the woman, who had changed into a pair of short-shorts, came toward him. She held a large syringe in her right hand. Praying it wasn’t meant for him, he said, “You got some pair of legs. Get me out of here and I’ll make you a star.” He squinted at the name tag attached to the collar of her shirt. “Ava. Perfect. Why would you want to be here when you could be a headliner?”

  “You’re a funny man, Mr. Cleveland.” She came closer.

  “Legs,” he said. “Call me Legs.”

  “All right, Legs. Let’s talk. What did Willie tell you about his work here?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing? That’s hard to believe.”

  “Believe it.”

  For a moment the woman was silent. Legs figured he had nothing to lose by asking what was it they were doing to the ostriches to turn them into killing machines and why they were doing it. He was as good as dead anyway. Might as well know what he was dying for.

  “Willie told you nothing?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Tell me something, Mr. Cleveland. Legs. Do you also have an ostrich spirit guide?”

  Legs shook his head. “I don’t believe in that stuff.”

  She looked at the syringe in her hand. “He did. It kept him safe in there.”

  Legs could feel the sweat running down his neck. “What did he do here?” he asked again.

  “He worked with the ostriches. Taught us about them.”

  “Why?”

  She held up the syringe. “He wanted to live to be old and keep his own teeth. There was a price to pay and he paid it.”

  It was all Legs could do not to reach out and knock the syringe out of her hand. “I don’t mind false teeth,” he said.

  She laughed.

  “Those dead men at the apartment …” Legs began.

  The woman waved at the ostriches. “Our first real experiment.”

  “But why frame me, and how did you get the beasts out of there?”

  “No harm in telling you, I suppose. They disintegrate when the job is done. As for why you, why not you? There’s always got to be a mark. If we let you go back, you’ll be up for murder.”

  “I’ll tell them—”

  “What? That we’re training an army of killer ostriches? You’ve got to be kidding. It’s called a rock and a hard place, Mr. Cleveland. Work for us the way Willie did and we’ll cover for you. Don’t, and we’ll let you pick between those animals in there and the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police.”

  “How much time would I have to spend here?”

  “As much as we say.”

  In his mind, Legs heard old Willie telling him to stay off the road to Rachel.

  Now that he had disobeyed, he saw only one realistic possibility open to him: He would work on Ava, which wouldn’t be the worst punishment in the world. She did have great legs, and who knew, maybe she could sing.

  ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS

  PRESTON L. ALLEN is a recipient of a State of Florida Individual Artist Fellowship in Literature and the Sonja H. Stone Prize in Fiction. He is the author of the Miami-based thriller Hoochie Mama and the award-winning short story collection Churchboys and Other Sinners. His latest novel is All or Nothing(Akashic Books, 2007). He lived in North Las Vegas, near Nellis Air Force Base for a brief period of
time in the ’90s.

  JANET BERLINER is the Bram Stoker Award–winning author of six novels, including The Madagascar Manifesto trilogy with George Guthridge. She is the editor of six anthologies, including two with illusionist David Copperfield, and one with Joyce Carol Oates. In more than thirty years in publishing, Berliner has also worked as an editor, agent, ghostwriter, teacher, and lecturer. Born in South Africa, she now lives in Las Vegas while she plans her escape to the Caribbean.

  FELICIA CAMPBELL has trodden the mean streets of both Las Vegas and UNLV for more years than she cares to admit. A professor at UNLV, she has gained international attention for her pioneering work on the positive aspects of gambling and risk taking. As a book critic, she gave weekly reviews on KNPR for over twelve years. Currently, she is executive director of the Far West Popular and American Culture Associations. She is also editor of the Popular Culture Review.

  DAVID CORBETT is a former private investigator with considerable case experience in Las Vegas. He is also the author of three critically acclaimed novels: The Devil’s Redhead, a finalist for Anthony and Barry awards; Done for a Dime, a New York Times Notable Book and a Macavity Award finalist; and Blood of Paradise, named one of the top ten mysteries and thrillers of 2007 by the Washington Post and a San Francisco Chronicle Notable Book. For more information, visit www.davidcorbett.com.

  BLISS ESPOSITO was born and raised in Las Vegas, where she learned the intricacies of the gaming world. She writes about the hidden side of the city, the details below the glitzy surface. She recently earned an MFA from UNLV in creative writing.

  TOD GOLDBERG is the author of two novels and the story collection Simplify, winner of the Other Voices Short Story Collection Prize. His long-running column in the Las Vegas Mercury,“Cheap Wisdom,” garnered three Nevada Press Association Awards and his writing appears regularly in Las Vegas City Life, the Los Angeles Times Book Review, Jewcy, and E! He teaches creative writing at the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program and in the MFA program at UC-Riverside.

  JAQ GREENSPON lives in Las Vegas and has been writing professionally for over twenty years. He has been read widely on several continents and has had the pleasure of seeing his words mangled by professional actors on a number of TV shows and film sets. In Lithuania he is like a god.

  JARRET KEENE is the author of two poetry collections, Monster Fashion and A Boy’s Guide to Arson, as well as the unauthorized rock-band bio The Killers: Destiny Is Calling Me. He has edited several books, including The Underground Guide to Las Vegas. His primitive post-apocalyptic black-metal band Dead Neon promises to crush your soul.

  LORI KOZLOWSKI was born and raised in Las Vegas. A journalist and a published poet, she is a graduate of the University of Southern California’s Master of Fine Arts Writing Program. Her first book is about the Mafia. For more information, visit www.lorikozlowski.com.

  CHRISTINE MCKELLAR is a resident of Las Vegas and a freelance writer. She is the author of three novels: A Port of No Return, The Shadows of the Sea, and The Devil’s Valet.

  PABLO MEDINA was born in Havana, Cuba. He is the award-winning author of ten books of poetry and prose, most recently The Cigar Roller: A Novel and Points of Balance/Puntos de Apoyo, a bilingual poetry collection. He is the recipient of fellowships and grants from numerous organizations, including the Rockefeller Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Lila Wallace–Reader’s Digest Fund, and the Cintas Foundation. He teaches at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

  JOHN O’BRIEN was born in Oxford, Ohio in 1960 and graduated from Lakewood High School in 1978. He had several jobs, including busboy, file clerk, and coffee roaster, but writing was his true career. He began in 1987 and wrote up until his death on April 10, 1994. O’Brien committed suicide by gunshot two weeks after learning that his novel, Leaving Las Vegas, was to be made into a movie. Two more of his novels were published posthumously: The Assault on Tony’s and Stripper Lessons.

  SCOTT PHILLIPS is the author of three of the most highly acclaimed crime novels of recent years. His debut novel, The Ice Harvest, was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and won a California Book Award. Its follow-up, The Walk-away, continued his success, with the New York Times calling it “wicked fun.” His third novel, Cottonwood, was published by Ballantine. Phillips has spent enough time at the poker tables in Las Vegas to know what works and what doesn’t.

  NORA PIERCE is the author of the critically-acclaimed novel The Insufficiency of Maps, a selection of the Barnes & Noble “Discover Great New Writers” program. She is currently in residence at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, and at work on a new novel. She teaches writing at Stanford University, where she was formerly a Wallace Stegner fellow. She has a love/hate relationship with the Nevada desert, and was once millimeters (millimeters!) away from a million-dollar jackpot.

  TODD JAMES PIERCE is the author of three books, including the novel A Woman of Stone and the short story collection Newsworld, which won the 2006 Drue Heinz Literature Prize. He is an assistant professor of English at Cal Poly State University in San Luis Obispo, California.

  JOSÉ SKINNER’SFlight and Other Stories was a finalist for the Western States Book Award for Fiction. He worked as an English/Spanish translator and interpreter in the criminal courts of New Mexico before earning his MFA at the Iowa Writers’Workshop. His fiction has appeared in Boulevard, Colorado Review, Witness, Bilingual Review, and the anthology Inthe Shadow of the Strip: Las Vegas Stories. He currently teaches creative writing at the University of Texas–Pan American.

  CELESTE STARR is a male-to-female transgendered escort based in Pahrump, Nevada. “Dirty Blood” is her first published story.

  VU TRAN was born in Saigon and grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and was a Glenn Schaeffer Fellow at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where he currently teaches creative writing and literature. His stories have appeared in The O. Henry Prize Stories, the Southern Review, Glimmer Train, Harvard Review, and many other publications.

  Also available from the Akashic Books Noir Series

  BROOKLYN NOIR

  edited by Tim McLoughlin

  350 pages, trade paperback original, $15.95

  *Winner of Shamus Award, Anthony Award, Robert L. Fish

  Memorial Award; finalist for Edgar Award, Pushcart Prize

  Brand new stories by: Pete Hamill, Arthur Nersesian, Maggie Estep,

  Nelson George, Neal Pollack, Sidney Offit, Ken Bruen, and others.

  “Brooklyn Noir is such a stunningly perfect combination that you can’t believe you haven’t read an anthology like this before. But trust me—you haven’t. Story after story is a revelation, filled with the requisite sense of place, but also the perfect twists that crime stories demand. The writing is flat-out superb, filled with lines that will sing in your head for a long time to come.”

  —Laura Lippman, winner of the Edgar, Agatha, and Shamus awards

  LOS ANGELES NOIR

  edited by Denise Hamilton

  360 pages, trade paperback original, $15.95

  *A Los Angeles Times Best-seller

  Brand new stories by: Michael Connelly, Janet Fitch, Susan Straight, Héctor Tobar, Patt Morrison, Robert Ferrigno, Neal Pollack, Gary Phillips, Christopher Rice, Naomi Hirahara, Jim Pascoe, and others.

  “Akashic is making an argument about the universality of noir; it’s sort of flattering, really, and Los Angeles Noir, arriving at last, is a kaleidoscopic collection filled with the ethos of noir pioneers Raymond Chandler and James M. Cain.”

  —Los Angeles Times Book Review

  NEW ORLEANS

  edited by Julie Smith 298 pages, trade paperback original,

  298 pages, trade paperback original, $14.95

  Brand new stories by: Ace Atkins, Laura Lippman, Patty Friedmann, Barbara Hambly, Tim McLoughlin, Olympia Vernon, Kalamu ya Salaam, Thomas Adcock, Christine Wiltz, Greg Herren, and others.

  “The excellent twelfth entry in Akashic’s noir se
ries illustrates the diversity of the chosen locale with eighteen previously unpublished short stories from authors both well known and emerging.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  D.C. NOIR

  edited by George Pelecanos

  384 pages, trade paperback original, $14.95

  Brand new stories by: George Pelecanos, Laura Lippman, James Grady, Kenji Jasper, Jim Beane, Ruben Castaneda, Robert Wisdom, James Patton, Norman Kelley, Jennifer Howard, Jim Fusilli, and others.

  “[T]he tome offers a startling glimpse into the cityscape’s darkest corners … fans of the genre will find solid writing, palpable tension, and surprise endings.”

  —Washington Post

  MANHATTAN NOIR

  edited by Lawrence Block

  257 pages, trade paperback original, $14.95

  *Two stories selected as finalists for EDGAR AWARDS

  Brand new stories by: S.J. Rozan, Jeffery Deaver, Lawrence Block, Charles Ardai, Carol Lea Benjamin, Thomas H. Cook, Jim Fusilli, John Lutz, Liz Martínez, Maan Meyers, Martin Meyers, and others.

  “A pleasing variety of Manhattan neighborhoods come to life in Block’s solid anthology … the writing is of a high order and a nice mix of styles.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  BALTIMORE NOIR

  edited by Laura Lippman

  294 pages, trade paperback original, $14.95

  Brand new stories by: David Simon, Laura Lippman, Tim Cockey, Rob Hiaasen, Robert Ward, Sujata Massey, Jack Bludis, Dan Fesperman, Marcia Talley, Ben Neihart, Jim Fusilli, Rafael Alvarez, and others.