The Secret History of Las Vegas

by Chris Abani

  Why do you keep this thing, he asked, still tracing the tattoo. Do you still love him?

  No, she said, eyebrows arching at his tone. I keep it to remind me never to be so stupid again.

  Love isn’t stupid, Sunil said, surprising himself.

  Of course not, she said. She got up and crossed the room to the minibar. Want something?

  No, he said, and headed into the bathroom. When he got back she was draped in a chair sipping on a glass of scotch. Why did we meet here, she asked.

  I was at work. It was convenient.

  You live closer to your work than this, she said. Is something going on?

  It’s not like we’re dating, he said, a little sharper than he’d meant to.

  You’re right, she said with a hurt tone.

  Look, he said, I’ve been seeing these twins and—

  Twins?

  I mean at work. They are my patients. Anyway, they are conjoined twins and treating them is stirring up stuff for me.

  You’ve never talked about work before, she said. Should you be telling me about your patients?

  I’m sorry I brought it up.

  She smiled and took a sip of scotch. It’s fine. I just don’t want to talk about work. I mean, imagine if I talked to you about my work.

  Point taken, he said, and crossed the room to pull on his pants.

  We can talk about other things, she said in a conciliatory tone. Like why you love this hotel so much.

  How do you know I love it so much?

  Well, I know you come here a lot. You said as much in the past and I’ve seen you here several times.

  On dates with other men?

  Not talking about work, remember, she said sweetly. So why do you love it so much?

  It reminds me of my mother, he said, buttoning his shirt.

  That’s a little weird, if you don’t mind me saying. Is that why you wanted to do it here?

  I have to go, he said, stepping into his shoes. The room is paid up until tomorrow, you’re welcome to stay as long as you like.

  She crossed the room and wrapped her arms around him, her head soft on his chest. I’m sorry, she said, I didn’t say that to hurt you. I was just surprised.

  He held her for a moment, nosing her hair. It smelled of sandalwood as always. He pulled away. This was a mistake, he said. I shouldn’t have called you.

  Don’t say that, she said, her voice small.

  I don’t know what I expected.

  I do, she said, knowing full well that he was in love with her. But you know what I do, I can’t, she said. I just can’t. As she spoke she rubbed her tattoo reflexively.

  He stopped at the door. It’s in the Bible in the bedside drawer, he said.

  She didn’t look at him. Thank you, she said.

  He closed the door behind him and immediately wanted to walk back in. He leaned against it for a moment to steady himself, wishing he had showered. Now he would have to stop at home on the way back to work. Just as well, he thought, pushing away from the door and heading down the corridor. He didn’t want to carry the smell of her around with him all day. Unknown to him, she had been leaning on the other side of the door and as she heard him walk away, she rubbed the hard wood of it.

  Twenty-six

  I have a complaint, Fire said as soon as he got in the door.

  Sit down, please, Sunil said, pointing to the couch.

  The twins sat.

  Some coffee first, and then we can get to your complaint?

  Turkish bridegrooms promised their wives on their wedding day to always provide them with coffee, Water said.

  We will both have coffee, Doc, Fire said.

  Sunil poured two Styrofoam cups of coffee and passed them to the twins. Pouring his into a real cup, he leaned back.

  Coffee was discovered in the Kingdom of Kaffa in Ethiopia, Water said. Even though there the bean was called bunna, coffee took its name from Kaffa.

  Do you realize that the police think you are killers? That you are connected to a series of deaths from two years ago?

  Serial killers? We are the witchdoctor, Doc, not killers. You know this deep down.

  I have to keep you here until you tell me what you were doing by that lake with the blood.

  We never saw the blood until the police pointed it out. We were there to sightsee.

  I find that hard to believe, Sunil said.

  I think you’re keeping us here because you are chasing old ghosts, Fire said. Something about us reminds you of them.

  Is that so, Sunil asked. But he knew better than anyone that psychiatry was all about chasing ghosts. There was no precision to its science, no technology that allowed a doctor into a patient’s head. It was a game of deep insights, good instincts, and luck—the same as for any good priest. Eugene had told him as much.

  We are songomas, you and I, he’d said to Sunil. We throw bones and read them for meaning, for hope, for direction. Your bones are more ethereal than mine. I mean, I usually throw people’s actual bones, but in the end it’s the same, we are both chasing spirits. We are hunting the demons that haunt others. We get a smell and off we go. And you know why, Sunil? You know why we are so good at hunting the demons of others? Because we are so good, gifted even, at stalking and evading our own. But all demon hunters think that they are really heroes, and you know what all heroes need? They need a myth. For me it is the ideal of order, of understanding that the world would spin off its axis without the order I bring. For you . . . for you it might be the illusion of doing good, of saving others.

  The illusion, Sunil asked. What are you talking about?

  Eugene smiled, a cruel peeling back of the lips from the teeth. Your myth, Sunil. I mean that you have yet to find your myth. When you do, you’ll be free like me. You will be a pure angel of purpose.

  As much as he hated it, Sunil realized that Eugene was right. He hadn’t found his myth. What he didn’t know was what kept him from it.

  He looked at Fire and shivered when he saw his lips peel back in a smile not unlike Eugene’s. Were the twins the gatekeepers to his myth? Was that why he was chasing them in a pointless game of bait? Something an intern could handle for him? The twins weren’t the killers from two years ago, but he didn’t know what they were. Two years ago he’d been clear about why he was helping, or pretending to help, Salazar. Now he had lost track of what the charade was about. Was he stalking himself, or Brewster? Or was Brewster stalking him? He remembered something Eugene had said. If a hunter ever loses track of his prey, he becomes prey.

  You okay, Doc?

  Yes, Fire, I’m fine, Sunil said.

  Are you sure? Because you don’t look so good. You look like you’re suppressing something, something unpleasant, like, say, a sad truth?

  The truth shall set you free, Water said.

  Perhaps you’re projecting something onto me? Something you’d like to share, Sunil said.

  Classic evasion, Doc. Very good, Fire said.

  Why don’t you leave the psychiatry to me, Sunil said. You may be a little out of your depth there.

  You know I’m right, Doc, you know you’re holding us because somewhere deep down you think we can help you with this truth that’s burning a hole in you.

  Did you make your call to Fred, Sunil asked.

  No, we didn’t and we want to, Fire said.

  Fred will come for us, Water said.

  And where is Fred right now?

  Fred is in the desert, Water said. I love Fred. Fred is whom I love.

  Can you tell me where to find Fred, Sunil asked.

  Water was drinking his coffee, but Fire was just twirling the cup in his hands, not drinking. Sunil made a note about this, wondering if Fire could actually ingest anything. In spite of his earlier protestations to the contrary, he was looking forward to the results of
the MRI that Brewster would be performing.

  Why do we have Styrofoam cups and you have a real one, Fire asked.

  Institute policy, Sunil said. Patients can’t use breakable crockery.

  It’s not like we are terrorists, Doc. That’s apartheid, Fire said.

  You never answered the question. Where can I find Fred.

  Does it matter? Like Water said, Fred will come for us.

  But what if I wanted to see your circus act, Sunil said. Where would I go?

  Sideshow, Fire said.

  I’m sorry, I don’t understand, Sunil said. What’s the difference?

  Circuses are about entertainment and juggling and animals and all that shit. Sideshows are about freaks, about people and the limits of acceptability. We push those limits. If a circus is an escape, Fire said, a sideshow is a confrontation.

  I see, Sunil said, writing. And you feel empowered by this difference?

  Damn fucking right we do, Fire said.

  “Circus” comes from the Latin for “ring” or “circle,” Water said.

  What does a fire wizard do, exactly, Sunil asked.

  I can show you, Fire said.

  You’re not going to burn the building down, are you, Sunil asked.

  Fire just glared at him. Watch, he said.

  But it was Water who moved, not him, reaching for a piece of paper. With quick but graceful movements, he shaped it into a white origami moth with an eight-inch wingspan. Water held it up to Sunil and cupped his hand around the paper moth.

  Fire began a mesmerizing incantation, and as Sunil watched, Water opened his hands and the paper moth fluttered into flight for thirty seconds. It hovered over his palms for another ten seconds and then burst into flames, the ash falling into Water’s cupped palms. He rubbed them together and once again held up the white origami moth.

  Smiling, he passed the paper moth to Sunil.

  How did you do that, Sunil asked, turning the fragile paper moth gingerly over in his hands.

  We are the witchdoctor, Fire said.

  Impressive, Sunil said.

  Water got up and walked toward the wall of photos. What are these, he asked.

  They are photos of cows, Sunil said.

  A cow stands up and sits down fourteen times a day, Water said.

  I would like to meet Fred, Sunil said.

  Well, we all like what we like, Fire said. Did you take these photos?

  Yes, a very long time ago, with a dinky old Kodak camera. I was seven or eight. They are Nguni cows. They remind me of home.

  Ah, home. More nostalgia than memory, Fire said.

  The Nguni name all their cattle, you know? This one here, Sunil said, pointing to one of the cows, is called Inhlakuva, sugar bean, because its markings resemble a sugar bean; and this one is Imfezi, the spitting cobra; and this creamy speckled one is called Amaqandakacilo, egg of the lark, Sunil said.

  For real, Doc, Fire asked.

  Sunil explained that each beast in a Nguni herd was an individual that carried its uniqueness in its color patterns, horn shapes, and gender, which bestowed on it a status and even a history. With the respect accorded to family, the cows were classified according to what symbols or landscapes the color patterns of their hides resembled. And while the monikers were used primarily for identification, this system of naming was part of a highly sophisticated philosophical worldview.

  This one, Sunil continued, is Insingizisuka, the ground hornbill takes to flight. These ones here probably have a compound name, Sunil added, pointing to a group of cows under a thornbush tree. Izinkonwazi Ezikhula Zemithi, I would guess. It means the cows which are the gaps between the branches of the trees silhouetted against the sky. And this one is Inkomo Ebafazibewela Umfula, the women crossing the river.

  You’re making that last one up, Fire said, laughing.

  No, I’m not. See here? It’s because the cow has white legs and belly and a colored body with this wavy line here separating them. The wavy line looks like water lapping the legs, see?

  And all the cows are named, Fire asked. Strange, don’t you think, that the Zulus were so good at classification, and then the Boers came along and used it against them.

  Sunil shook his head. It was too much to consider. All empire is about classification, he said. For the Zulu it was cattle, for the Boers, it was blacks. The Boers perverted everything.

  They had help, Fire said.

  Sunil turned his attention back to the photographs. With his index finger he traced the horns of one of the cattle.

  There is a whole other nomenclature associated with horn shapes, he said.

  Yeah, Fire asked.

  There is a beautiful saying that refers to the first light of dawn that makes me think about cattle horns silhouetted against the byre sky. Kusempondozankomo, I think it is, which means the time of the horns of the cattle, Sunil said.

  What’s that one called, Fire asked.

  That one is called Umndlovu, the elephant, because its horns are curved down straight like the trunk of an elephant. I can’t really release you if I don’t think there is someone who I trust to vouch for you. I need you to tell me how to find Fred.

  You’re not going to release us anyway, Doc, Fire said. Why would you when you can keep us here and study us? Now, tell me more about the cows.

  I think that’s enough for now, he said.

  Are we ever going to get that phone call, Fire asked.

  I’ll call a nurse and I will come by later this evening to check on you.

  Twenty-seven

  Salazar pulled across the wood, the sharp wood plane shaving a slight curl that fluttered to the ground. He ran his finger over the grain and, satisfied, put the wood plane down. Light balsa wood showed through, contrasted by the walnut stain around it. Salazar had been building boats for almost twenty years, and this one, a replica of a seventeenth-century Spanish war galleon, for about two years.

  He’d built them since his first kill on the job: Jim, a junkie kid.

  Jim had been something of an institution in the Fremont section of town, and cops were always called out to handle him. He was basically harmless, Sergeant Vines, Salazar’s partner and ten-year veteran of the force, always told him. But then they’d been called out because Jim was wielding a knife and threatening a homeless woman.

  Following procedure, Salazar trained his gun on the kid, while Vines, a Vietnam vet who loved to chew on cheroots and was plainspoken, tried to talk Jim down.

  Now, son, put down the knife.

  Stay back! Jim shouted. I’m warning you.

  What’s happening, son? You know you don’t want to hurt anyone, Vines said.

  Stay back!

  See that man over there with a gun, Vines said. That’s my partner, fresh out of the academy. I don’t want him to shoot you, but right now he’s more scared than you are.

  Jim lowered the weapon, then suddenly lurched forward. It was unclear if he meant to lunge or if he had merely felt his legs giving way, but Salazar panicked and squeezed off a shot. The 9mm slug slammed Jim against the wall behind him before he dropped. People seldom die in real life the way they do on TV, and Salazar watched Jim writhe for a long time, bleeding out. When the paramedics arrived, it was too late.

  Hell of a fighter, Vines said. As messed up as he was you’d think he would’ve died sooner.

  Yeah, Salazar mumbled.

  Sorry, rookie, hell of a first week. Listen, there’ll be a board of inquiry to determine if it was a good shooting. Don’t worry, you’ll be fine, just don’t say anything without a union rep present.

  Okay.

  Good. They’ll also want you to see the department shrink, who’ll try and get you to talk about your feelings.

  A shrink?

  Don’t worry. It’s procedure. Just do it.

  Okay.
/>   That won’t help you much, you know?

  How do you know?

  Stop asking questions, rookie, and listen.

  Sure, yeah.

  More than likely, you’ll start drinking a lot to calm yourself, and then you’ll get the shakes every time you draw your weapon, so you’ll drink some more to control those shakes, and then your hands will shake some more and you’ll either kill someone else or you’ll get killed. Either way, it’s no good.

  Jesus, Salazar said. Internal Affairs hadn’t even arrived on the scene yet to determine if it was a clean shoot. Everything was moving too fast.

  Vines said: The thing that will save you is finding something that you used to love as a kid, something that involves your hands and labor and time. You understand? And I don’t mean masturbation. Find the thing. I don’t care what some newfangled shrink theory says; building things has saved generations of American male souls.

  A few months after the shooting, waking up drunk, Salazar decided to take Vines’s advice. He dug deep for the redemption Vines promised would be there and a memory of sailing toy ships in the park with his dad, Elian, came to him. Elian Salazar had been a fisherman in Cuba, but in Miami he worked twelve-hour days stacking boxes. When he could, he would escape to the park with young Joey Salazar, sail toy boats, and regale him with stories about storms off the coast of Cuba that washed up sea serpents and mermaids. His father drank too, and when he did, he was liberal with his fists. Those moments by the small pond in the park, their boats competing with the ducks, were some of the happiest for Salazar.

  His first attempt was a lucky accident. As he felt the sharp edge of the wood plane catch and shave the first sliver off, he surrendered to his rage and shaved and shaved, feeling all the fear and self-loathing fall away in soft wooden curls that littered the floor of the garage like the locks of a blond Pinocchio. What he was left with was barely big enough to make a two-inch rowboat out of. But he worked hard and finished it with an exactness that slowly brought peace. A few days later he presented it to Sergeant Vines, who looked at it with something approaching awe as he moved the one-inch oar about.