Steal the Lightning

by Tim Lees

  Vegas was new to me, as ludicrous and stunning as I had always dreamed, with its monuments to kitsch that nonetheless would leave me awestruck in their scope and their audacity. No movie scene had ever done it justice. We took a cab to the hotel, checked in and sat around for an hour. I didn’t push her, didn’t try to make her talk. But I watched her, struggling to read her body language, gauge her mood. Presently, we went down to the gaming floor. The main entrance was closed for cleaning, so we detoured through a side exit, into an alley, flanked with builders’ hoardings. There were flyers plastered everywhere.

  We took about three steps, and stopped.

  “Chris.”

  “I see them.”

  Every flyer was the same, a crude cartoon in thick, black lines: a boy or young man looking back over his shoulder, an ugly grin across his face, a bitten apple in his hand.

  Under the scene, in red and yellow letters: Second Eden.

  People wandered by, oblivious.

  “He can’t have known,” she said.

  There were other posters further on: ads for shows and services and restaurants and girls; and then again: Second Eden Second Eden Second Eden.

  “If he thought we’d be here. If he—”

  I pulled her back against the wall, out of the stream of passersby.

  “It’s advertising.”

  “I know! But—”

  “It’s not meant for us. We’re only seeing it ’cause everybody’s seeing it. I bet the whole town’s full of them.”

  “It’s him, though, isn’t it? Right out in the open?”

  “Yeah. I think so.”

  She took her phone out, tapped in Second Eden. She chewed her lip.

  Taking a breath, she read, “Casino. Hotel. Bars, restaurants. Off the Strip, like, two, three blocks. New—no. Reopened . . .”

  “Makes sense.”

  “It’s not even hidden! All this way, and it’s just out in public, right here, and—”

  “I’m wondering if that isn’t what he wanted all along.”

  “The guy’s a psycho, Chris. You heard what Stella said—”

  “A psycho with a business plan.”

  We walked on, eyeing the flyers as we went. I said, “First thing, he sells, builds up a stack of money, right? Then all that stuff with Stella. What do you call that? Market research? And what’s the picture for?” I gestured at the leering image. “It’s like the company logo or something. Don’t you think?”

  “Kind of far-fetched, Chris.”

  “Even the name. Think about it—Johnny Appleseed! That’s barely one step down from Uncle Sam, for God’s sake! And—”

  “Chris—”

  The traffic noise had thinned. There was nobody around. Something had changed, but I was too caught up to notice it.

  “You couldn’t get a better name. The picture, it’s weird, but I’ll say this. It’s memorable. It sticks in your head, all right. If it was me, I’d maybe go for something else, but—”

  “Chris!”

  And then the ghosts came down.

  They swept towards us, rolling, swarming, a great wave of flickering, unsteady light, like faulty neon: ghosts in bright Hawaiian shirts and slogan Ts, in Ray-Bans and Gucci shoes, in cowboy hats and jeweled turbans, swimsuits and old dinner jackets, and I stepped in front of Angel, and the first of them was on me. His white tuxedo shone and flashed, his mouth moved silently, so close that I could see the hairs on his upper lip, the burst veins in his cheek. He raised a hand as if in greeting, then, with sudden shock, passed through me. I felt my heart trip. My nerves shook. I stumbled, shivering, then someone grabbed me by the arms and pulled me back into a doorway.

  I expected Angel, but it wasn’t her.

  A male voice growled into my ear, “You must be careful, señor. Vegas is not Vegas anymore. You understand?”

  I was looking at a short, squat man in a white jumpsuit sewn with bits of colored glass. A black pompadour, stiff as wire mesh, bulged over his brow, and narrow little eyes peered out from under it.

  He patted my cheek. He pulled my eyelid down and checked the color.

  “Elvis Perez,” he announced himself. “You have camera? For photo, I charge ten dollar, but to you, my friend, I charge only five. You—me.” He grinned, a row of yellow teeth. “Selfie, yes?”

  Chapter 49

  Running Boy

  Angel watched me with her head on one side. She had a look as if I’d just tripped over my own shoes.

  I asked her, “Are you OK?”

  “Course I’m OK. I didn’t try walking up and saying hi, did I?”

  “Is that what I did . . . ?”

  “Might as well. Jeez. And you’re the one keeps telling me, be careful . . .”

  Señor Perez clapped me on the shoulder. He spoke to her with all the reassurance of a hospital physician. “He will be good. It is just a tingle that they give, no more. And he is strong. Strong, handsome man, yes? Handsome man and beautiful lady! And, best of all—” He seized our wrists, pulling our hands together. “You are real, yes? You are real!”

  I leaned against the wall. After a time my heart stopped knocking in my ears. My arms stopped shaking. “What the hell just happened?”

  I looked up and down the alley. Everything was normal. I heard traffic noise; I heard rock music, blaring from an open door.

  Señor Perez clicked his tongue. “Las Sombras, my friends. Today, they are everywhere. Most often one, two. Easy—” he sidestepped, with a little flourish, like a matador. “But sometimes, many more. Then, I think, you need a friend to help.”

  Mock-modestly, he spread a hand across his chest.

  “It is a service I provide, a small service. And for twenty bucks, I serenade the lady, too. You take video. Twenty bucks—fifteen, because you are my friend! Yes?”

  “Las Sombras . . . ?”

  “Shadows,” Angel said.

  “Shadows, yes. Shadows here, there—they make my life unlivable.” He pressed his fingers to his head. “My friends, my friends. What I do, it is not easy. It gets harder every year. People here, they no longer want Elvis—they want Spider-Man, and film stars! But I tell a story. Only yesterday this happens. I meet a man. He is rich—I know this from the way he walks, the way he stands. It is my job to know. His hair is white. The woman with him, she is young. This is the best for tips, always. I sing to her, and she is happy. Both are happy, he and she. It is perfection! I am counting up the dollars in my head, when suddenly, las Sombras come. One is tall, stretched out like chewing gum. There are others with him. They blow along the sidewalk,” he fluttered his fingers, “and away blow both my friends, and my tip with them. What can a man do? It is as I say: Vegas is not Vegas anymore.”

  “These things are new?” I said.

  “A month—maybe more. The police say they will do something. But what? And when?”

  I gave him ten, and he posed between us, grinning fit to bust his cheeks. I took our picture.

  “You will see me in the big parade tomorrow. They ask for me to lead, but I say, no, I am too famous! People will see me, then go home!” He leveled a finger at my chest. “Remember, friend! I save your life!”

  “I’m not sure about that. But I’m grateful.”

  “Then gratitude is my reward.”

  He stood on tiptoe, kissed Angel on the cheek.

  “Beautiful lady. Do you want to know a secret?”

  “If you trust me.”

  “Oh, I trust you! So I tell you. My real name,” and he dropped his voice, “is not Elvis Perez.”

  “Well, I’m shocked.”

  “Yes. Shocked.” He shook his head, then looked up, slyly. “My real name—it is Elvis Garcia!”

  And his whole body shook with mirth.

  At the Harley Davidson Café, a motorbike the size of a small bus jutted out over the doorway. Buildings leaned like drunks in a bar. A small, elderly woman handed me a card with a phone number and a picture of a naked girl. “Enter to win,” it said. I handed
it to Angel. She wrinkled her nose.

  Slow crowds went ambling through the dusk. Short pants, short sleeves, T-shirts sharp with colorful motifs: Lucky 7, Tiger Boy and Las Vegas Correctional Department. The Strip was settling down into that weird neon glaze they pass off as nighttime. Loose knots of pedestrians, drifting on a lazy current, while we drifted with them, past another Elvis, and a woman in a cop uniform—almost—legs and midriff bare, billy club bumping on her crotch. A man dressed as Chewbacca rested by a wall, smoking a cigarette through a hole in his neck. So much weirdness, one more piece of it would hardly even raise an eyebrow.

  And here it came.

  A child, skipping down the street, a boy of ten or twelve, with cherub curls and shoes that flashed each time they hit the ground, a T-shirt with BABES LOVE ME in a big red heart. And straightaway, I said to Angel, “Watch him.”

  He looked a nice kid, full of bounce. But he didn’t respond. To anything. The world went on around and he was not a part of it. He’d duck and weave and jump and people near him would get out the way, and once, I swear, he clipped a street sign, and the sign did not so much as shake. He seemed to pass straight through it.

  I saw Angel do a double take on that.

  A car, pulling from a side road, caught him in its headlights and he flickered, wavering, his brief hold on reality suddenly lost. For a second he was gone. Then back, and closer—barely three yards off. His mouth opened and closed without a sound. I felt that if I tried hard, I could read the words.

  He put his arms in the air, flexed like a circus strongman, and then scampered past us, vanishing into the crowd.

  I took the reader from my pocket, switched on.

  I showed her.

  “Sky high.”

  “What’s happening, Chris?”

  “I’m trying to work that out.” I glanced around. “You hungry? We should eat . . .”

  “You think it’s safe?”

  And he was there again. The same route, sneakers flashing, curls bobbing, and he faded as he passed the bright lights, sprang up into color and solidity against the shadows. He yelled, silently, raising his arms—

  We watched him go, then waited, five, ten minutes. But he didn’t reappear.

  “There’s a god here.”

  “You sure?”

  “Don’t act like you’re testing me, Chris. Training’s done.”

  She’d ordered salad. She wasn’t eating it, just pushing it around her plate.

  She said, “There’s a god. I think we both know where.”

  “Second Eden, hotel and leisure.”

  “And what’s the great Registry database pronounce on that?”

  “Yeah, well.” I’d checked this one. “Technically, Vegas is ‘a place of interest.’ Lots of ambient emotion, lots of buzz. No listed deities.”

  “Surprising.”

  “I thought so, too. But, no shrines, no history. Though I’ll admit—a god of gamblers sounds like a strong premise. Don’t you think?”

  “Sounds like a country song to me. It’s McAvoy, right?”

  “McAvoy, Appleseed, whatever he calls himself. The guy’s a fucking amateur. Same as the Ballington place. Here’s your god. No, I don’t know how to hold it, don’t know how to keep it quiet, stop it leaking out all over everywhere. Here’s the result.”

  “Kind of professional pride, then, huh?”

  “It’s a job . . .”

  “Someone on your territory. In your corner, messing with your stuff.”

  “A bit,” I said.

  “Doing it badly. That’s what really gets you. If he was any good—I think you’d kind of like him. At least, it wouldn’t bother you so much.”

  “He’s killed people. One of them right in front of me. And screwed up a lot of others. Look,” I said. “There’s something that we need to talk about.”

  She pushed her meal away.

  I said, “You feel OK, don’t you? Right now?”

  Her face didn’t change.

  I said, “I’ve got to ask. There’s a god near, and that can mess your head up. Specially—”

  “—when you’re weak and vulnerable. Right?”

  “That isn’t what I meant.”

  “Yeah. I know. And yeah, yeah, I’m a bit on edge right now. Shows, huh? But I’m OK. I can handle it.”

  “Last night—”

  “I’m over it, all right? It’s been going on a while, but I’m over it. I took a bit of time on the plane, thinking it out. While you were snoring.”

  “I don’t snore.”

  “Actually, you do.”

  “Look. In my experience, these things stop, eventually. But not—”

  “I got too close, it knocked a few things loose. I know what’s going on. I’m all right.” She straightened up, tilted her head, flexed her shoulders. “See?”

  “‘Knocked a few things loose’ is not exactly textbook good health.”

  “Jeez.”

  She wouldn’t look at me.

  “I have to say this, right? Don’t get mad or anything. But, if you start to feel it, you hear things or, if it starts to get to you, you’ll tell me? Don’t brave it out. It’s important for the job, OK?”

  “You’re sweet.”

  “Am I?”

  “‘It’s important for the job.’ You English can be so fucking romantic.”

  “What I meant—”

  “I’m being sarcastic, Chris.”

  “Yeah, I . . . realize that.”

  There was a long, uncomfortable silence.

  “I’m OK,” she said at last. “I’m totally OK.”

  She kept her voice soft, measured, and she met my eyes.

  “Now tell me what you think is going on,” she said.

  Chapter 50

  Side Effects

  “I think it’s runoff. Surplus energy.”

  I was still watching the street. It was automatic, like a nervous wildebeest eyeing up the long grass, never trusting the appearance of normality.

  “The kid—the kid’s the easiest to talk about. We saw him—he went through twice, same path each time. Intervals are probably irregular. None of this stroke-of-midnight bollocks. Still—same thing, over and over.”

  “Like a GIF.”

  “Exactly like.”

  “The kid’s a god? Part of a god? And all that other shit we saw?”

  “Uh-uh. I think they’re what the guy says—shadows. Sombras, right? If I had to guess, I’d say—oh, yesterday, or this morning, the real kid wanders down the street. Something picks up on the image. Not the kid, exactly—just the movements, reflections, patterns of light he makes. All that. And the whole thing gets recycled, on and on, till it fades, or burns out, or whatever. The god’s just blowing off steam. This is the by-product. Leaked energy. It’ll get worse, most likely. Usually does.”

  “An echo. But visual.”

  I nodded.

  “And it picks up on the boy, and all the rest, because—what? It likes them?”

  “Might be random. Or there might be a trigger of some kind—emotion, activity. I don’t know. They react to us.” I kept watching the street. “But this is leakage, not the main event.”

  I, too, pushed my plate away.

  “It wasn’t like this when I started. I’d just get sent somewhere, usually a church or something, and there’d be a god, maybe getting restless, troublesome, a lot of paranormal business going on—and I’d lay the cables, mess around a bit, and, bam, stick it in the box. I never thought I’d say it, but it was pretty easy, back then. Mostly . . .”

  “What changed?”

  “People. Everywhere you go now, you get people, messing it up. Christ’s sake . . .”

  “You know what I thought? First thing, when I saw the boy?”

  “No.”

  “I thought: what kind of fricking parent lets their kid out on his own in Vegas, this time of night?”

  She was smiling. I smiled back.

  “And what is really crazy,” she said, “I stil
l feel that way, and the darn kid isn’t even real! Is that nuts or something, huh?”

  She was at ease again. Yet I’d a feeling something had passed over us, a shadow I could neither clearly see, nor properly define. Passed over, and maybe waiting to return.

  She asked me, “OK. What next then, maestro?”

  “Next . . . I think we see what we can stir up, shall we?” I took my phone out of my pocket. “Let’s make a nuisance of ourselves. I’m good at that . . .”

  “Second Eden.”

  The woman had a shiny, feel-good voice, like Christmas tinsel.

  So I put a kink in that, straight off.

  “I’d like to speak to Preston McAvoy, please.”

  “I’m sorry, sir. What was the name?”

  “McAvoy, Preston McAvoy. Tell him it’s Copeland, from the Registry.”

  That got silence: the technical equivalent of a hand over the mouthpiece.

  “We’ve no one here of that name, sir.”

  “I’m sure you have. Preston McAvoy. Can you check, please?”

  Silence once more. I liked the silence. I could read things into silence: nervousness, uncertainty, a call to a superior . . .

  Or she genuinely had no idea what I was talking about.

  “Is this a guest, sir? You appreciate, we can’t give out information about guests.”

  “You may know him as Johnny Appleseed.”

  Another silence. Then, “Is that a stage name, sir?”

  I sighed. “Tell him this is Copeland. Registry. I’m here in town to see him. Will you tell him that, please? Reg-i-stry.”

  Did she draw a breath?

  “I don’t believe that I can help you, sir.”

  “It isn’t me you’re helping. It’s Mr. McAvoy.”

  Silence.

  “Look,” I said. “Why don’t you let me talk to your manager, or whoever’s there with you? How about that?”

  “Thank you for calling.”

  And the phone went dead.

  Twenty minutes later, and I tried again. A man this time. Same routine, a bit more brisk, a bit less friendly.

  We drank another cocktail. And then Angel said, “Let me.”

  She used her own phone. Made her voice go slow and husky.