The Secret History of Las Vegas

by Chris Abani

  Jan stared at him intently, with an almost forensic intensity, but she said nothing.

  Are you familiar with the Swahili word askari? Like Lindiwe over there, these are members of a conquered indigenous people helping their conquerors maintain the status quo. That’s not a literal meaning of course, but it’s true to the spirit of things. Do you know who came up with it? The British, those fokkers who tried to turn the Boer into teefs. Now you conspire with that scum over your people, and to help whom? Kaffirs? You can ask Sunil here, I’m not racist, but there is an order to things, a way the universe runs, and men like me, we are the ones who keep things in place, keep things running the way they should. I take no pleasure in the decisions I have to make, but I make them, I must make them. That is my role. Just as this is the role you’ve chosen. Mine is destiny, yours is weak-willed. I am here to offer you the chance to be strong.

  Why all this performance, Jan asked. Her voice startled Sunil, the venom of it, the hard edge of strength, like a finely tuned wire holding everything in place. This was not the shy Jan he’d known.

  Performance, Eugene asked, eyebrows raised, reaching for another lobe of pear.

  Why don’t you just get on with the torture, with the extermination of the resistance to your white power, she spat.

  Eugene chewed thoughtfully, and then with an expression of regret on his face said: I abhor torture. I abhor brutality. These methods, exterminating the native, to borrow your words, are not only barbaric, they are not effective in the long term. The real power lies in securing the cooperation, even the alliance, of the native if we are to hold up this system, and it is not, as you put it, about white power. At least, not for me. I feel more Zulu than white, myself. No, no, it’s about law and order. We represent civilization, law, order, and the march of progress, and for better or worse, this must be defended and moved forward at all costs. I more than any am sorry about the cost. And torture makes me sad, it is regrettable when I have to use it.

  Jan spat at him, the gob of spittle landing on the last piece of pear.

  Eugene regarded it with a strange smile. I am a visionary, he said. That’s why I brought Dr. Singh here on board. His job is to use a mix of persuasive chemicals and conversion to bring enemies into the fold, into an understanding of the way.

  Gaan naai jou Ma, Jan said, softly, so softly that Eugene had to lean in to hear her properly.

  Sunil was shocked at the language; the Jan he knew would never have told anyone to fuck his mother. More than the shock was his fear for her. But if Eugene was upset, his body didn’t register it. Instead he leaned forward and picked up the piece of pear with the glistening pearl of spittle on it. He studied it for a moment, then put it in his mouth and, never taking his eyes off Jan, he chewed slowly, thoughtfully.

  Talk to Sunil, Eugene said, getting up. Don’t make me come back here.

  I’ll talk to him as much as you want, but nothing will change, Jan said, her eyes glued to Sunil’s face, the look in them heavy with pity and disgust.

  Eugene paused. He returned to the table and picked up the silver ornamented object.

  Remember the Victorians, he asked. They loved to collect the strangest things. This is a working reproduction of a medieval torture device. It belonged to my grandfather, who loved the fact that something so beautiful could inflict so much pain. Do you know what they called this? It’s called the Pear because there is this ornamented pearlike extension on the end of this handle, do you see? Do you know how it works? I’ll show you.

  And he did. Holding the handle in the middle, he turned the knob at the bottom. As he did so, the metal pear opened up into four perfect quarters, spreading like the metal petals of a flower.

  You see, it’s quite ingenious really. You insert the pear into someone’s mouth, and then you twist the bottom here until it begins to open. You keep twisting it and pretty soon it breaks the teeth, dislocates the jaw, even begins to rip the cheeks apart. Of course, the trick is to do it little by little, pausing occasionally to let the victim catch their breath while you wait for the confession you want.

  Everyone watched the metal pear as it opened wider and wider.

  Of course, Eugene said, if you go at it long enough, you will eventually kill the victim, but only after a very long time and pain that is unimaginable, even for me. Now, the great thing about this, as I found out once, is that it works on any human orifice. Any.

  Eugene put the open pear down on the table in front of Jan.

  This is a very rare and expensive piece. I don’t use it often, but for you, only the best will do. So please, talk to Sunil. Don’t make me come back here. I didn’t lie when I said I don’t enjoy torture, but as you now know, I really enjoy pears.

  The door closed behind him and Constable Mashile gently, almost politely.

  Jan, Sunil said.

  Sunil, Jan said.

  Harvest moon, Salazar said, as they drove through the silent desert.

  What?

  The moon, Salazar said, pointing. It’s called a harvest moon.

  Ever seen a harvest, Sunil asked.

  It’s just an expression, Jesus, Salazar said.

  Sunil looked out the window. In the dark, the landscape looked like home, like the brush of the grasslands, the heat of the Namibian desert that seemed determined to creep down into South Africa, the hills like those of Cape Town and the gold silts of Jozi.

  Why did you become a policeman, Sunil asked.

  Always wanted to be a hero, Salazar said.

  Everybody does, but was there any one thing that made you want to do that as a policeman?

  I don’t follow.

  Well, you could have been a surgeon or a fireman, but you chose policeman. And don’t tell me it’s about the gun. In all the time I’ve been with you, you’ve never used it, never even pulled it out, or even acted like you have it.

  Maybe I’m old-school, Salazar said. Maybe I like to settle a fight with my fists. Maybe I’ve used my gun too many times already.

  Maybe.

  All right. My dad was a man who worked hard his whole life in a job he hated. A job that cut him off from his first love, the sea. He gave everything up for me, my sister, Ana, and my mom. He and Ana died in a robbery in a 7-Eleven that went bad. But because he was an immigrant, a Cuban, a brown man, nobody took his death, or Ana’s, seriously. The police, it seems, didn’t care. The case was closed in a week. Insufficient leads, they said. My mom moved us to Vegas, where she could be as far from that memory as possible. But I never forgot, and I decided to join up when I could and make a difference. I wanted to show that every life is valuable, has meaning, must be honored.

  Salazar, I’m fucking impressed. You are some kind of hero, Sunil said.

  Yeah, well, twenty years on the force changes you. Teaches you that it’s all about compromise, about gray areas, about difficult moral things. Mostly I just want to make it through the day without having to kill anyone. And trust me, I’ve used my gun plenty. I don’t know why the crazies always turn up on my watch.

  I know the difficulty of trying to make moral decisions in the face of immoral moments. I know that there is no moral way to take a life, but sometimes life hands you very difficult choices. Still, you always want to do the right thing, he said.

  There was a moment of silence.

  That’s why the dead girl haunts you, she reminds you of Ana, Sunil said.

  The worst part of being a cop, Salazar said, is that everyone hates you, and yet as soon as some shit goes down, they call 911 and want you to risk your life to protect them.

  Sunil laughed. You should have been a fireman, he said. Much less complicated.

  Damned right. And what about you? Why did you become a shrink and not a surgeon?

  Sunil took a deep breath. Fair is fair, he thought. My mother was mentally ill, he said. But she died before I could help her, a
nd that, Detective, is why I became, as you like to say, a shrink.

  Salazar was silent for a moment. He took a silver flask from his jacket pocket and, without speaking, passed it to Sunil.

  Been holding out on me, I see, Sunil said. He drank deeply, the alcohol burning through him, then passed the flask back to Salazar, who took a swig and returned it to his jacket pocket.

  Isn’t drinking while driving illegal, Sunil asked.

  I’m the fucking police.

  Sunil laughed.

  Do you think anything ever changes, Salazar asked. That we can make a difference? That we will become a better species?

  I don’t know, I’m not sure if it even matters. I think all that matters is that we don’t shrink away from the truth and that we keep trying, Sunil said.

  I like that. Push the stone up the fucking hill because we should.

  Yes, Sunil said. There is merit in that, grace even. Maybe that’s what makes us deeply human. Pushing ever against the inevitable. I think the world might just be saved that way.

  Fuck, this is some heavy shit. Makes me want to tell a dirty joke as a palate cleanser.

  I love dirty jokes, Sunil said.

  Okay, here’s one. A man wakes up in the emergency room and the doctor says, You’ve been in an accident. Do you remember anything? The man shakes his head. So the doctor says, Well, we’ve got good news and bad news for you. All right, says the man, tell me the bad news. The bad news is that your penis was severed in the accident, the doctor said, and it arrived too late to reattach it. So what’s the good news, the man asked. The good news is that we can rebuild it, but it will cost a thousand dollars an inch. We found a savings book in your briefcase with nine thousand dollars in it, so you should talk to your wife about this. If you spend three thousand but she’s used to six, then it will be dissappointing, but if you spend all nine thousand and she’s used to three, well then, that won’t be good. So talk to her and I’ll check in with you in the morning. The next day the doctor calls the man and asks what he and his wife have decided to get. Well, the man said, she decided we should get the expensive granite countertop for the kitchen that she’s always wanted.

  The two men drove through the night, their laughter trailing behind them, lighting the way for Eskia’s car.

  INFERNO

  Midway through his life, Dante realized that he had strayed into the dark wood of error. From the look on your face I would say that you have just made the same realization.

  Sunil turned to the person who had just spoken. He saw a middle-aged man with a bit of a paunch and large square glasses in thick plastic frames that he kept pushing up his sweaty and blotched nose.

  Eugene, the man said, extending his hand.

  Sunil.

  They shook hands, Sunil trying not to pull away from Eugene’s strong but damp clutch.

  I know, welcome to Vlakplaas. I am sorry that this was your welcome, Eugene said, waving at the group of men huddled around a barbecue pit on the hillside, drinking beer from bottles, smoking and razzing one another.

  Sunil said nothing. He was struggling not to look at the dead man on the ground by the fire pit. The policemen he had ridden up with dragged him from the jeep and took his hood off, throwing it into the fire. Now he stared at Sunil with fish eyes.

  Do you read much Dante, Eugene asked.

  Sunil shook his head, taking in for the first time the well-read paperback copy of Inferno that Eugene clutched in one hand, a beer in the other.

  You should, you know. Smart man, Dante; between him and the Bhagavad Gita, I have pretty much found the answers to most of my questions. But Dante holds a special place for me. That tortured descent, all that Catholic imagery of misery and suffering that passes for religiosity. It braces the spirit, enlivens one to the possibilities of life. Are you a philosophical man, Sunil?

  Not particularly, Sunil said, taking a swig from the beer he’d been given. He couldn’t wrap his head around this bizarre conversation. An hour before he’d arrived at the dusty farm entrance, which was down an unpaved road that led to a dirty, mottled, once-white circular guard hut. Sunil had at first taken the big stain on the side to be a mud splatter, but it soon became evident that it was blood—a big spray of dry and now faded blood. Where had it come from?

  The Land Rover he was traveling in also held two white plainclothes officers of C10, and a handcuffed, hooded black prisoner. He had sat next to the hooded figure for the one-hour drive from the police station in Pretoria, where he had been told to wait for pickup. All through the drive, the hooded man sniffled and moaned and cried out: jammer baas, jammer. The two officers in the front drank their beer and turned up the radio, as if no one was in the backseat. Occasionally one would yell over his shoulder, Agh, man, shut up! I don’t want any kak from you.

  Now, through the gate, the Land Rover rolled into a compound with a paved road lined by trees and well-kept lawns. Several brick buildings with army regulation green doors and trimming sat behind hedgerows and flowerbeds. It was hard to imagine this place was a death camp so famous its name could make a full-grown man piss himself.

  The Land Rover pulled up in front of what looked like the main building.

  Listen, boy, go get set up there, one of the officers said to Sunil.

  Sunil stepped out and shouldered his army regulation duffel bag. As he did a three-sixty and took the place in, flagpole and flag fluttering in the breeze, he wished that White Alice had never come into his life. Because of her he’d met Bleeker, who gave him the army scholarship to college. This he guessed was what they meant by serving the army in return for five years in an area they felt would benefit from his skills. Fuck this, his father had died fighting these people and now here he was working for them. Not for the first time, he was glad his mother was dead. Sunil had been requested especially by the commanding officer of Vlakplaas, a man whose nickname was Optimum Evil, to help reform the death camp. He couldn’t see the cells or torture rooms from where he was, but he knew they were there.

  Vlakplaas in Afrikaans meant “the flat place”; a farm twenty kilometers from Pretoria, the capital, it served as the headquarters for the South African Police Counterinsurgency Unit, C10—a paramilitary hit squad that killed enemies of the state in neat, efficient operations, as far afield as Angola. Suspected terrorists were captured and brought to Vlakplaas to be tortured for information, and even turned. Those who couldn’t be turned were executed, their bodies disposed of somewhere on the beautiful grounds of this farm.

  As Sunil came in the door, a pretty blond woman in khaki fatigues rose from behind a desk and approached him.

  Dr. Singh, I presume, she said.

  Yes, I am.

  Come in, come in, we’ve been expecting you. Did you have a nice ride over? It is a beautiful drive, even though I don’t get to do it enough. I just don’t like the city, you know, all that violence. She waved him to a chair by her desk. Please sit, sit. Drink?

  No, thank you, he said.

  Okay, well, here’s what we need, she said, putting a pile of papers in front of him. I need you to sign and initial everywhere you see a red mark; no need to read it all, it’s standard counterterrorist issue contracts and stuff like that. Life insurance—you know, if you get killed in the line of duty. Your family will get the money. You do have a family? No? What a shame, a nice young man like you should have a family. Oh well, maybe soon. Here’s a pen.

  It took Sunil ten minutes just to wade through and find all the red marks to sign next to.

  All done? Good, good. Leave your bag here and I’ll have it sent to your quarters. You will be sharing with the other blacks here; their quarters are at the back. But for now, you are to go to Shed 10, which is over there, she said, pointing, and join the officers you came in with. They will take you to meet Eugene. He runs this place and he is eager to meet you.

  Shed 10 was easy to find. He
just followed the screams and the subsequent three gunshots. As he got to the front of the shed, which was more like a barn, the two white officers were loading the body of the hooded man onto the front of a jeep, strapping him down like an antelope carcass.

  There you are, one of them said. Get in. Eugene wants to meet you.

  The Land Rover roared over the rough terrain, heading out behind the farm, across a stretch of hills littered with stubby grass and rocks. The compound fell away behind them, lost in a cloud of dust and debris. Sunil noticed the ribbon of water to his left. Idyllic willows, drooping gracefully over the river, lined the entire length of it.

  Vlakplaas River, the driver said. Good, eh?

  Yes, Sunil said to be polite.

  And now here, over beers, Eugene was asking him if he was philosophical only ten feet away from the body of the hooded man.

  You like the more practical things? Maybe love? Do you have a stukkie, Eugene asked.

  No, I don’t have a girlfriend, Sunil said.

  More of a one-night-stander then, eh, love them and leave them, Eugene pressed on. No judgments from me.

  None of that, Sunil said, taking a swig of beer.

  So what do you believe in then?

  I don’t know, Sunil said.

  The fire in the pit was going strong and the men were roasting kudu steaks on a grill placed at an angle over the fire. The gamey smell was nauseating to Sunil.

  I like you; you’re an honest man. I can see we are going to get along. When I was a child, I used to believe in God, but as the Bible says, when you become a man you must give up your childish ways, Eugene said.

  So what do you believe in now, Sunil asked.

  Eugene put his weathered copy of Inferno down and scooped up a handful of dirt. As in much of Africa, it was red, like a handful of blood. Even in West Africa where the surface soil was a deep black loam, if you dug a little, the red turned up, underneath everything; like the very continent’s blood: everyone was buried in it and everyone came from it. If there was an Africa, this was it. Eugene was crumbling the earth into a fine red drizzle.