The Secret History of Las Vegas

by Chris Abani

  I believe in this, this fucked-up land we call Africa, he said. I’m a real Boer like that. Like the Zulu or the Ndebele, I live and die for this earth. I sleep it, I dream it, I taste it, I love it, hell, I even breathe it.

  I see, Sunil said.

  It was hot, and flies were beginning to buzz around the dead man and the stack of kudu meat, both raw and cooked. The men were eating, drinking, and generally joking around. The mood seemed light, like any picnic Sunil had attended.

  Baas, you want some food, one of the men called to Eugene.

  He shook his head, never taking his eyes from Sunil’s face.

  See, I’m nothing like these barbarians, he said. That’s why I brought you in. These men care nothing for Africa, even the blacks among them. They care nothing for causes. They only care about having and using brutish power. Without thinkers like me, it will all be taken from them, because that kind of brutish power cannot survive for long. It begins to feed on itself.

  That takes no great insight to realize, Sunil said, swatting at a fly. If you brutalize an entire people to have your way then you must always live with the fear of retaliation; it means you can never drop your menacing guard. We can only live like that for so long before we slip up. That’s what you do have in common with these men, Dante or the Bhagavad Gita notwithstanding.

  Eugene let the rest of the earth drizzle from his hands. Sunil became aware suddenly that the men by the barbecue had stopped talking. The only sound was Eugene dusting his hands off and the buzzing of flies. Then there was the unmistakable click of a hammer cocking on a gun. Sunil felt the hair on his neck rise to attention. Although he could not see who had the gun, because his back was to them, he knew it was pointed at him. Eugene looked from Sunil to the men behind him and shook his head. The hammer was released and just like that, the chatting and laughter resumed behind Sunil.

  I like you, Sunil. I really need a man who speaks his mind, Eugene said, picking up his book and waving it at Sunil. So what else do you make of a man like me?

  Professionally?

  It would hardly be personal since you don’t know me.

  And there won’t be a gun to my head?

  No, no, of course not, Eugene said, smiling, eyes cold.

  Sunil took a swig of beer. He knew this was a test, but he wasn’t sure how to pass it. There were a lot of metal clanking sounds coming from behind him but he didn’t turn around.

  You are a man who strives for the power to control other people, he said.

  But why do you think that is?

  I would say it is because the striving and the power keep you from realizing just how helpless you really are. It protects you from facing the fact that others are manipulating you, that regardless of what you might claim, your philosophy is simply a way to rationalize what you do for others too afraid to do their own dirty work; that you are in a way also a victim of the apartheid state.

  You are wrong about me, Sunil. Unlike men like you and even Dante here who have wandered into the dark forest of error unknowingly and who now desperately want to return to their joy, kept from it by your own demons, your ferocious beasts of worldliness, I came here to this hell by choice. Those beasts that are your terrors are my constant companions, sometimes my pets, sometimes my leaders, but never ever the source of terror. I have no terror, you see. I’m not like Dante, who has come upon the sign that asks all who enter to abandon hope. I came here to find hope. I know that I have done bad things, that I must continue to do bad things, but I do so for the ideal. For the utopia that this land was and will remain—we drove the blacks from it and we drove the British from it, and I will be damned if I will let any Afrikaner destroy it. Do you understand? This is the only thing that will last, this land, long after those fools and incontinent cowards and liars in Pretoria and Bloemfontein have been driven from power. Let me tell you, it is hard to tell sometimes who is being controlled and who is doing the controlling, and so the only way forward is to have purpose, and purpose is an ideal. That ideal can be found in heroes like Arjuna. Do you know what Arjuna means?

  Sunil shook his head.

  Do you know who he was?

  Sunil shook his head again.

  Your father, before he died, was Indian, right? You of all people should know about the hero of the Bhagavad Gita.

  My father was Sikh.

  Arjuna means light, white, shining, bright, Eugene continued, as though Sunil had not spoken. Arjuna is a peerless archer and a reluctant hero who doesn’t want to go to war at first because he loathes having to kill his own relatives who share a different ideology. But Krishna comes to convince him of his duty, the warrior’s duty. That was his code, which was the ideal that transformed everything Arjuna did to an act of God, to an act of the highest ethical order.

  Do you think you are Arjuna, Sunil asked.

  My friend, a tracker who taught me how to love this land, a Zulu, told me that there are two kinds of people in the world, farmers and warriors. You are clearly a farmer. Listen, I don’t think the blacks are savages like my friends over there by the fire. I think that they are honorable people, but in the hierarchy of food, they are wildebeests and we are lions. The lion doesn’t hate the wildebeest; he just knows he is the better. I’m not a racist, ja? Just a pragmatist.

  Sunil said nothing.

  Let’s get on with it! Eugene yelled at the men. Pack up the food first.

  The sun was beginning to dip behind the hilltop to their west, by the river, as the men began to pack up for the night. The food was wrapped carefully, attentively even, and placed into coolers. Then more wood was gathered and the fire in the pit fed until it raged, more bonfire than barbecue. The earlier grill had been removed and from the grass a larger one had been picked up and erected over the fire.

  Did you know, Eugene said, that Dante describes hell as a funnel-shaped cone that bores into the center of the Earth? Like a wormhole, no pun intended. I like that image, the idea of descending concentric rings of hell, each ring a different level of sin, each ring its own kind of torture populated by its own depraved souls, and, at the very center, Satan himself. Now that’s an interesting being, an angel with a sense of purpose. He doesn’t whine like Christ in the garden of Gethsemane when the hard thing has to be done. He just gets on with it. He knows that he is Jesus’s dark soul, his unconscious, and his id, that there is no meaning to any of this, no God, without him. Now, that’s a sense of purpose.

  So you are both Arjuna and Satan, Sunil asked.

  Yes, you could say that. They are both balanced between their human ideal and their animal baseness. Nature worships harmony. I told you, this land is my purpose. It has taught me everything; Dante and the Gita just provided the language. My father worked as a ranger in Kruger trying to protect wildlife from poachers. He taught me that the only people who really respect and understand this world are the Bushmen; they know everything must live in balance, in harmony with everything else. Have you seen a lion stalk a wildebeest? It does so with respect. It takes its time and tries to make its kills as elegant and efficient as possible. When it kills it doesn’t do so for sport or because its feelings have been hurt, it kills for hunger and protection, nothing more. And in this way it brings honor to its victims. And what it doesn’t eat of its kill, the land takes back, using scavengers from the four-legged kind down to the microscopic kind. Nature uses everything in a cycle of honor, each thing in its right place. I told you that I am different from these men. When I kill a man, or a woman, it is with regret and honor. I never dispose of their bodies; I return them to the honor of nature’s use. I feed their bodies to the scavengers; I grind their bones up and fertilize the flowers in the compound. I pray when I do this, not in a Christian way, but in the way of Bushmen, I say to the souls of the dead, You can leave this place now and return in another form because you have been honored. I am an elegant and efficient killer, and a warrior with the
highest ideals; I take no joy in my work, except when it is done with honor. This in the end is the truth of this land.

  Sunil swallowed. And these men, he asked. I can’t imagine what they would do that could be worse.

  Watch, Eugene said.

  The men had gathered axes and machetes and they were systematically chopping the hooded man into pieces, which they threw onto the grill.

  They are not—

  Going to eat him? No, they are disposing of him. They don’t care that he be returned; they care only that he not be identifiable. It will take about six hours to finish burning his body; highly inefficient, and what is worse is that there is no honor in this.

  And yet you let it happen.

  All great generals know that they must allow their men sport. All work and no play is bad for morale. This is their sport.

  Sunil watched the policemen drinking as the hooded man burned, white and black together, united in this terror.

  Do you know why that man died, Eugene asked.

  I cannot imagine, Sunil said.

  He wouldn’t give up information about the location of ANC terrorists that he was known to associate with. That’s why you are here. I want you to find ways with psychology and drugs to improve the interrogations. I don’t want to waste bodies. I want you to turn prisoners into informants. Only those who must die will die. I don’t enjoy the slaughter; I am a warrior, not a killer.

  I traveled from Pretoria with that man, Sunil said. He begged for his life the entire journey.

  He wasn’t a man to them, Sunil. It’s like this: every creation story needs a devil. For the Boer, the blacks are the demons.

  The man never confessed, Sunil asked, the fire dancing off his eyes and skin, reflecting in Eugene’s glasses.

  Never, Eugene breathed, something like respect in his voice.

  Then I am just like that man, Sunil said.

  How so?

  Can I tell you a story?

  Sure, Eugene said. I like stories. They help us bond.

  Bertolt Brecht told of a European peasant caught by the Nazi invasion. An SS officer commandeers the man’s house and tells him, From now on, I will live here and you will serve me and attend to my every need, and if you do not, I will kill you. Do you submit to me? The peasant doesn’t answer but spends the next two years serving the SS officer in every way. Then the Russians come and liberate the town. They gather all the Nazis in the square, and just before they are shot, the peasant comes up to the officer and answers the question that he greeted with silence two years before. No, he spits at the officer, I will not submit to you. This is the end that awaits apartheid.

  Perhaps, Eugene said, and if I am that officer in your story, I will go happy knowing that all I did was in service of a higher ideal and has already been transformed into God’s work. But for now, we need to end some of this killing. Will you help me?

  No, but I will help men and women like him, Sunil said, pointing to the burning man. I don’t expect it to be transformed into God’s work, but only hope that mercy may find me before the end of my life.

  Welcome aboard, Eugene said.

  Together they stood in silence, for the next six hours, watching the burning man.

  MONDAY

  Forty-seven

  Dawn almost never brings clarity with it, and this morning was no different. It was close to four a.m. when Salazar dropped Sunil off.

  One of your guests is still waiting, the doorman said as he let him in.

  Guests? There’s more than one?

  Yes, Dr. Singh, your girlfriend and another woman. An older one.

  My girlfriend?

  The young lady who is always here. Asia, I think her name is.

  Ah, and the older one?

  She signed in as Dr. Jackson. She had the same work ID as you. I thought you might be working late, but she left very soon after she arrived.

  Huh, thank you, Sunil said. He was unsettled by the idea that Sheila and Asia had met. He didn’t understand why Sheila had come, but he didn’t like that she knew about Asia.

  Oh, also the police were here. Several units were broken into and trashed. We were unable to reach you, so please let us know when you get in if your unit was affected too. I will come up and take pictures and file a report with the police for you. At the moment we think it wasn’t a robbery but the work of vandals.

  How did vandals get into a secure building, Sunil asked.

  The doorman looked down at his shoes. The police and management are investigating, he said.

  Sunil contemplated calling Salazar. Fuck, he thought, this is not what I need now. Thank you, he said to the doorman, and crossed to the elevators. As the doors closed, Sunil reached for his phone. Why hadn’t anyone tried to call him, he wondered, and then remembered that his phone had been off, and that he still hadn’t listened to any of his messages.

  Why would vandals break into this building? Fuck, he was too tired for drama. He had barely inserted his key into the lock when the door swung open and Asia stood there, face less swollen than before, but clearly badly bruised. She was wearing his shirt and not much else, and in that moment, Sunil hated himself because he was at once turned on and torn up for her.

  Asia, he said.

  Sunil.

  What happened?

  I’ve missed you, she said, and her voice was very quiet.

  They stood there for a while, as though stranded, stuck, as if waiting for directions from someone hidden in the wings. He smiled suddenly and touched her face, and she pulled back, wincing.

  Can I come in, he asked, as though he needed permission.

  She stepped back and he shut the door behind him, then drew her to him, holding her close, yet gently, so as not to hurt her.

  Did the vandals do this to you?

  No, she said. They were long gone by the time I got here.

  Did a client do it?

  She nodded against his shoulder.

  Have you been checked out, medically?

  I’m fine, really.

  Was it, you know—

  Rape? No.

  What then?

  Someone tried to kill me.

  Oh baby, he said, and his voice was heavy with sorrow and guilt and despair. I’m so sorry, so sorry. What did the police say?

  The casino handled it. You know, it would get awkward with the police; I would be arrested for solicitation. Besides, he got away.

  I’m so sorry, Sunil repeated, realizing that, like most people, he kept forgetting that although prostitution was legal in most of Nevada, it was actually illegal in Vegas itself.

  I’m okay, Asia said, but her voice was slight, a faint tremolo against his skin.

  They stood there for a while in silence, Sunil stroking her hair.

  Sheila was here looking for you, she said, trying to keep the jealous bite out of her voice.

  Did she say what she wanted?

  To see you. Like me, she was worried. We’d both been trying to call you all day.

  I’m sorry. My phone was switched off.

  I needed you today.

  I’m sorry.

  She pulled away, wrapping her arms tight around herself. Where were you?

  Salazar and I went to chase down a lead in the desert.

  Who is Salazar, she asked. She hadn’t meant for her voice to be shrill, but it was.

  The detective who brought the twins into my institute.

  What twins?

  The ones you didn’t want to talk about, remember, he said.

  Right, she said. Of course.

  The doorman says the police were here. Did they bother you, he asked, unconsciously straightening the Kentridge painting, looking things over, trying to tell if anything was missing, wondering if it was too soon to go through his effects.

 
No, she said. Nobody came here.

  Do you need anything, he asked. Something to drink, to eat, or something for pain?

  Asia shook her head.

  Can you tell me about your attack? Do you know who it was?

  She nodded. Yes, she said.

  He sat next to her on the couch, noting that the Bible where he’d hidden the hard drive with his research was open, the disk gone. This is not the time, he said to himself, forcing his attention back to the moment, to Asia. He took her hands in his, and something about this moment, about his absence in her time of need, reminded him of Jan and of the whitewashed room in Vlakplaas. He pushed the memory down, but not before he saw a spray of crimson pattern the white walls.

  Who was it, a regular?

  A new client, relatively new, she said.

  As she spoke she saw in his eyes how difficult this conversation was for him, and something inside her took pleasure at that. At the knowledge that even beyond himself, beyond any control he could have, he loved her. And in that moment she knew she couldn’t drag the moment out. There was no kindness in protecting him, or herself for that matter, from the terrible truth of it.

  It was your friend Eskia.

  Sunil, who had been stroking her hair, felt himself stiffen, his hand unconsciously gripping her hair.

  Ow, she said, so softly it was barely a sound.

  I’m sorry, he said, letting go. Eskia, you said?

  Eskia.

  He needed to sit down. No, wait, he was sitting down. He didn’t know Eskia was in town. What the fuck was going on? Had Eskia broken in here? To harm Sunil or just steal his work?

  Why, he asked, not sure what he meant. Did he mean, Why did he hurt you or Why would you sleep with my friend, my rival, my nemesis, even if you are a hooker?

  Why what, Sunil?

  Why would he try to hurt you, Sunil said, gathering himself, bracing. Why did he do this?

  He said he wanted to hurt you the way you hurt him before he kills you.