The Fever Dream

by Sam Jones

  “SIG SG 552. Little bit softer on the ears, in terms of noise. Doesn’t have as much kickback as the Nemesis, but it’s a bit clunkier when it comes to folding it up and disposing of it.”

  Z took a long drag of the joint and blew a cloud tinted with shades of green. He was lost in his wonderland haze for a moment when something popped up in his brain—

  “Shit,” he said. “I forgot to ask if you’ve fired either of these models before?”

  “I have,” said Black. “Fired the SIG twice more than I have the Nemesis.”

  “Then I don’t need to give you too much of a rundown on them!”

  “What about the scopes?”

  “I’ve left you with three. One of them is a thermal. You’ve got the pick of the litter.”

  “Ammo is my only concern.”

  “You want to tear your targets to pieces or just wound them?”

  “I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was looking to take one of them alive, Z...”

  Z grinned. Inhaled. Offered Black the joint. Black shook his head. Z exhaled his and then produced a clear-plastic tube. He put the joint inside, and shook out the kindling timbers.

  “The ammo I’ve got equipped for the SIG might be your better option then. You want me to give you a rundown of it?”

  “No,” said Black as he moved towards the second box. “I know how guns work,” he said with a slight hint of disappointment in himself.

  Z’s puppy dog eyes began to turn into loveable, stoner slits.

  “I like you,” he said to Black.

  Black grabbed the box containing the SIG and removed it from the flatbed.

  “What else do you need?” Z asked him.

  “Glass cutter,” said Black. “I don’t plan on shooting out the windows.”

  Z held up his index finger as a bright idea invaded his brain. “I’ve got just the thing!”

  He reached into the cab of the truck a produced a thick rectangle of canvas with a zipper tracing around all four sides.

  “Know how to use it?” he asked Black.

  “I do. Did you also—”

  Before Black finished his request, Z had presented him with a semi-thick cardboard box the size of toaster.

  “MP3 player, speakers, and The Spinners, per your request! Good choice in tunes by the way, brah!”

  Black couldn’t help but smile. The spirit of Ted Logan seemingly possessed Z as he spoke. Between meeting people like him, Hoot, and Cassie (despite her trying to kill him), he felt like he was collecting quite the ensemble of characters on this job.

  I won’t be short of stories, if I make it out of this alive.

  For a few seconds, he forgot about his addiction to cigarettes.

  Z then produced what looked like a case for a slightly oversized violin and handed it over to Black. A gun case. “On the house.”

  “You’re an all right guy, Z. Don’t ever let anyone tell you different.”

  Black went to shake his hand, but Z scooped it up, pulled Black in, and embraced him in an unexpected hug. Though he didn’t engage him back, Black liked the guy enough that he let it happen.

  “You too, brother!” Z said. “Stay strong! Keep your head up! Never give up!”

  Z gave him one more pat on the shoulder before piling into his truck, shifting it into gear, and jetting off towards the highway. A modern day Johnny Appleseed, who was off to the next town to spread around his THC-coated enthusiasm and free hugs.

  Just substitute guns for apples…

  …That’s actually kind of fucked up.

  Cassie and King walked into the lobby of the Bally’s. Clock had just hit 9:06 p.m. when they arrived. Darkness had fallen over the city and masked its squalid exterior with a curtain of black. The city was now a glittering oasis in the middle of the desert. Drunken dwellers were the red cells that pumped through its circulatory system.

  Bally’s was place number seven that Cassie and King were checking off on their list of stops. So far they had come up dry, no leads on the whereabouts of Martin Black.

  Prick.

  Cassie approached the check-in counter while King began fiddling with brochures and pamphlets for a wax museum and a balloon ride tour.

  It was Cassie took the lead during the inquires over the course of the last three hours, whereas King seemed to be sizzling on the backburner, waiting for the opportunity to make things physical with anyone who gave him an inch.

  A sandy-haired woman was behind the counter at Bally’s. She showcased the same, genuine smile she greeted all her customers with as she said to Cassie—

  “Welcome to Bally’s! How can I help you all today?”

  “Yes. A friend of mine might be staying here, but I’m not sure what room. I’d like to call him.”

  “Okay! I’ll see if I can help you!”

  Her doughy, little fingers rested near the big black phone to her right. “What was the guest’s name?”

  King cocked his head to the left; his eyes still on the balloon ride pamphlet as he replied to the clerk —

  “Black. Martin Black.”

  “Alrighty!” the clerk said as she began typing. “One moment, please!”

  Cassie took a cue she once picked up from a movie, carefully monitoring the sandy-haired woman’s fingers as she pounded a room number into the dial pad—

  2401.

  The phone rang… and rang… and rang.

  No answer.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am,” the clerk said. “They’re not answering. Would you like me to try again?”

  Cassie smiled. “No, thank you. We’ll come back later. Thank you very, very much,” she said.

  “No problem at all!” the clerk called out as Cassie and King headed for the elevators to their right, hidden skips in their steps.

  As they approached a golden bank of elevators, Cassie leaned into King’s ear and whispered—

  “2401.”

  “Splendid.”

  “Do you have a suppressor with you?”

  King nodded as he patted his jacket.

  “Just stay on my six,” said Cassie. “He’s mine.”

  King took the gold toothpick out of his mouth, placed it in his jacket with delicate care, and lightly patted the pocket it went to rest in. “Whatever you say, darlin’.”

  Cassie pressed the up button on the panel and watched the arrow light up. She could now feel the bulgy outline of the concealed handgun at her side brushing against her hip, eager to be unsheathed.

  She felt like a dog with cabin fever.

  Itching to be let out.

  I’m here, Black…

  …You prick.

  Cassie could hear The Spinners playing just as the elevator came to a rest on the twenty-fourth floor. The funky bass and Motown rhythm first crept in around the twenty-second floor. The second she heard the music, she knew it was validation of Black’s presence. It was as though he knew that she was on her way up and was egging her on with a callback to their prior conversation about favored musicians.

  A familiar ping rang out and the elevator doors opened. Cassie and King stepped out, heads first, like gophers poking out of holes in the ground. Cassie looked to her right and saw that the room numbers were in descending order. 2405 was directly in front of them.

  “To the right,” she said.

  They edged along as Philippé Wynne’s muffled voice sang about time and love and loss. The closer they inched, the louder the music became.

  “Think he’s havin’ a party, or somethin’?” King asked, hand on his stomach, near his pistol.

  Cassie shook her head. “I think he knows we’re coming…”

  Cassie looked over both shoulders. Not a soul was in sight. She moved her right hand towards the butt of her holstered gun, trigger finger against the trigger guard, as they passed room 2403 and finally onto 2401.

  The door was practically shaking from the bass of the music.

  King removed his 1911 gunmetal gray Colt from his waistband. He draped it surreptitiously
at his side as he screwed a black tube to the business end of his weapon.

  Cassie did the same with her SIG Sauer P226. Both of them made sure that their actions were covered from view of the black, orb-like security cameras posted up at either corner of the hallway.

  Cassie and King stood parallel to one another. King had his right leg back, ready to kick the ever-loving shit out of the door leading into 2401. Teeth showing. Jaw tight. Eyes lit up.

  “Wait…” Cassie said as she pointed to the door.

  Upon closer inspection, King found that the door had been left slightly ajar. “I’ll be damned,” he said.

  “Be careful. I’m serious.”

  King nodded as he used two fingers to push the door open. It swung slowly away from the door frame with a direful creak.

  The room was empty. The only thing occupying the space was a queen-sized bed with ruby and gold sheets and an MP3 player leashed to a pair of speakers, resting near a window with closed shades.

  “Sumvabitch,” King said, with an emphasis on his Southern twang.

  Cassie nodded towards the speakers. “Turn that crap off.”

  King walked over and kicked the speakers away from the window, the blunt force causing the whole thing to unplug before toppling over itself and onto the floor.

  “Well,” Cassie said, “that’s one way to do it.”

  The wireless telephone on the end table near the bed came to life with a throaty brrrrring-brrrrring. Both Cassie and King jerked their heads towards the receiver. They let it ring for several more rounds before Cassie walked over and scooped up the phone. She held it to her ear with no greeting and waited.

  “You changed your hair!” exclaimed Martin Black.

  Cassie was torn between feeling excited and pissed off. The sting on her broken nose seemed to make her lean towards the latter.

  “Well count my lucky stars. I see you survived our last date,” she said to Black.

  “Indeed I did,” Black said. “How are you? I like the new do. Who’s your friend there with you?”

  “His name is King.”

  King smiled.

  “I think I’ve seen his face on an Amber Alert before. How’s that pretty little nose of yours, by the way?”

  Cassie squeezed the handle of her pistol, the pattern on the grip now molding a tension print into her hand. “Little sore,” she said.

  “Yeah, well, consider it payback for that beer you gave me. Gave me a wicked spout of indigestion that I couldn’t shake for a few days,” he said.

  “I’m surprised you connected the dots and found out we were in Vegas.”

  “It wasn’t that far of a walk.”

  “Yeah... You seem to luck out. A lot.”

  “Born under a good sign, I guess.”

  Cassie shook her head.

  “You shouldn’t have come here, Marty,” she said.

  “You shouldn’t have, either,” he said.

  “Where are you, prick?”

  Cassie began to pace the room.

  “Seems like I got the drop on you this time, Cas,” he said.

  “How do you figure?” she asked.

  “Because you’re so goddamn eager to catch me that you didn’t think to check your surroundings.”

  Her eyes moved towards the window on her left and spotted the center of the closed drapes flapping and rising from the outside breeze.

  Hold on.

  That window shouldn’t open…

  She pulled back the drapes to discover a circle the size of a softball cut clean out of the center…

  Oh, shit…

  BANG!

  Cassie ducked down by the bed as the bullet passed through the hole in the window and buried itself into the lower part of King’s spine. His knees gave out and he fell onto his back. The shock that overcame him, along with the paralysis, prevented him from expending even the slightest whimper.

  “I’m not a half bad shot, huh?” Black said through the phone still held up to Cassie’s ear.

  She was listening in but more focused on her gun sights, trained in-between the door and the window. She then looked to King who began crawling towards her like an exhausted infant.

  “He done shot me… He done shot me in the back…” he said as he dug a clawed up hand into the carpet and pulled himself across it.

  “You’ve got two options here, Cassie,” Black said.

  “I’m not taking either one.”

  “Option A:” he continued on “you tell me where Amanda is. Option B: I make you tell me where Amanda is.”

  “Fuck yourself, Marty.”

  Cassie could hear Black sigh through the other end of the line. “That’s disappointing.”

  BAM!

  Another round flew in and whizzed over Cassie’s head before drilling itself into the wall, missing her by mere centimeters.

  “Hot damn!” screamed King as he covered his head with his hands.

  “I’d say the calls are starting to flood the front desk right now about the noise,” said Black. “I figure you got ten minutes before management shows up.”

  Cassie looked towards the door, to the hole in the window, and then back to the door.

  “Where’s Amanda?” Black asked her.

  Get out of here, Cas…

  “This isn’t over,” she said as she tossed down the phone and bolted for the exit, hopping over King who reached up to her like a peasant looking to be healed.

  “Wait!” he yelled out.

  BAM!

  Another bullet came flying in and nearly clipped the back of Cassie’s skull as she flung the door open and decked out of the room.

  Across the way, in his room at the Paris Las Vegas, Martin Black hopped off the bed he had been firing the sniper rifle from, and darted out of his room.

  Game on, Cas.

  Cassie made it to the lobby via the stairwell. She skipped every three steps on her way down and managed to make it to the ground floor of the hotel in less than a minute. She was on guard at every corner for fear of a surprise attack by Martin Black.

  As soon as her feet hit the marble in the lobby, she slowed her pace, holstered her pistol, and made a beeline for the front exit, eyes darting in every direction, vigilant, effortlessly pressing herself through a sea of pastel clad women, whose booze-drenched conversations had morphed into a cacophony of nonsensical screams. They sported homemade t-shirts with a bachelorette’s name alongside some silly sexual innuendo about male genitalia.

  Cassie looked to the left, then the right.

  Where are you, Marty?

  Across the way, Martin Black had also taken the stairs, though his slightly longer stride got him to the ground floor of the Paris a few seconds ahead of Cassie. He, like Cassie, found himself pushing through a male bachelor party, made up of guys who looked like clones of one another. Their overly-worked biceps and cosmetic, slightly feminine looks reminded Black of a label someone once told him about: Fuckboy.

  Black was pretty sure that he had just come across whatever subspecies of humans that term was designated for.

  He made his way through the lobby before spilling out on the street. He and Cassie emerged onto Las Vegas Boulevard around the same time. Spaced about three hundred feet from one another. Black scanned every bobbing head on the strip, the lack of sun slightly debilitating the process—

  Where are you, Cas?

  Show me that pretty face.

  Cassie looked around and spotted Black while his head was cocked to the right.

  I can’t engage him on the sidewalk.

  Get the hell out of here.

  Cassie headed towards the street; head turned away from Martin Black’s direction as she removed her jacket and rolled it up into a ball in a quick effort to alter her appearance.

  Black moved into a light jog as he realized Cassie was nowhere to be found. He headed for the lobby of Bally’s. Right around the time he made it to the entrance, Cassie Palizzi approached an empty cab traveling east on the strip, rapped her knuckl
es on the window, got inside, and took off up the street. She told the driver to head towards Paradise Road. Her adrenaline began to wear off once they were off the main strip.

  Her mind wandered, wondering which emotional route Roenick would take in response to the situation.

  Back on the strip, about thirty seconds after Cassie fled; Black scanned the lobby of Bally’s, and then once more outside, until he came to the realization that she had given him the slip.

  Until next time…

  Time to talk to the guy upstairs.

  He buttoned his jacket, slowed his pace, took out his room key, and headed for the elevators. Two minutes later, he was upstairs and outside room 2401.

  A manager with thinning hair and beady eyes timidly paced near his door, lightly knocking on it with two fingers in ten second intervals. He went to knock again when he spotted Black coming up in his peripheral.

  “Yes?” Black asked him with an upward nod of his head and a tone like he had just come from the pool area.

  “Hello, sir,” the manager replied as he extended a handshake, his tone slightly distressed.

  Black pointed to his room. “Is everything all right?”

  “Yes, uh, I’m so sorry, but, we, uh… had some calls about the noise. Whoever is inside your room is not answering the door.”

  From inside 2401, Mister King let out a muffled moan that caused the manager to dart his head towards the direction of the noise.

  “It’s the television,” Black told him. “My girlfriend’s watching it. She’s, uh… a little upset with me, at the moment, so she’s demonstrating it through the use of noise. I apologize.”

  “I understand, sir. It’s just, uh…” The manager leaned in and whispered into Black’s ear, despite the fact that no one else was around.

  “Someone said they thought they heard gunshots,” he said.

  Black laughed and waved his hand about and began talking about his ‘girlfriend’ as if she were some sort of mischievous child.

  “That little lady!” Black said. Very cheesy. “Ha! She was watching The Wild Bunch. She’s a classic cinema, type of gal.”

  The manager gave a laugh, seeping with forced contrition. “Not a problem, sir,” he said. “Would you just mind keeping it down a tad?”