by James Swain
“How long you've been working for Bill?” he asked.
“About a year. Bill told me you figured it out.”
“Does anyone else know?”
“No. Unless you decide to tell Nick.”
“I wasn't planning on it.”
She laid her hand on top of his and flashed a weary smile. Her cigarette had died without her taking two puffs. “Does it bother you that I like you as much as I do?”
“I'm getting used to it,” he admitted.
“Any other women in your life?”
“Just Mabel. She's my neighbor back in Florida.”
“The same Mabel who sent you the funny fax?”
“That's her. Speaking of which, did you happen to see a fax for me in the past hour or so?”
“God, Tony, I've been so busy, the casino could have caught on fire and I probably wouldn't have noticed.”
“Holyfield really draws the crowds, huh?”
“It's like Fourth of July and New Year's rolled into one.”
Valentine motioned to the waitress for another round.
“So,” Roxanne said, “are you serious about Mabel?”
Serious about Mabel? He'd never looked at their friendship in that light. With a smile he said, “It's not that kind of relationship.”
“Oh.” She twirled the rim of her wineglass with her manicured fingernail. “What kind of relationship is it?”
“We tread water together.”
“No other girlfriends?”
“No.”
Their drinks came. The waitress said, “This one's on the house,” and nodded at the bar. Valentine caught the eye of his favorite bartender and lifted his glass to him.
“You know,” Roxanne said, “I'm older than you think I am.”
Valentine almost said “I know” and wisely stopped himself. “How old are you, twenty-eight?”
“Very funny. How old are you?”
“I'm sixty-two,” he confessed.
She didn't blink. “I'm thirty-eight.”
Sixty-two plus thirty-eight was one hundred—divided by two was fifty, the prime of life. He could live with that.
“So what's holding you back from dating,” she said. “Your health?”
“Everything worked the last time I checked.”
She cracked a smile. “Then what?”
“You ever been married?”
“Stop avoiding the question.”
“I'm not. Have you ever taken the plunge?”
“Yeah. It lasted a couple of years.”
“Mine lasted thirty-five. My wife died in November. Part of me is still married to her. Letting go isn't easy.”
“Ever thought about seeing a therapist?” she said quietly.
“It hasn't been a problem until now,” he admitted.
There were a stack of faxes in the tray when Roxanne checked a few minutes later. Mabel's latest parody was on the bottom of the pile, and Roxanne brought it to the front desk and handed it to him.
“I need another favor,” Valentine said. “Can you make it look like I've checked out of the hotel?”
“Sure,” she said. “You feuding with your son again?”
“No, no, just trying to send up a smoke screen.”
“Consider it done.”
“Thanks a lot.”
“I'm off tomorrow,” she said as he started to walk away.
Valentine came back to the desk. “Any plans?”
She shrugged. “Sleep in, watch the soaps. Maybe rent a movie. I've been wanting to see The Full Monty.”
The Full Monty? Did she really want to watch a bunch of pasty-skinned Limeys get naked? Women had sure changed since he'd last checked in. It was his turn to say something, but he was not sure what. Should he ask her to grab a cheeseburger, go see a movie, get an ice cream cone? None of those activities sounded with it anymore.
“Can I call you?” he asked timidly.
“Sure.” She jotted her number on a blank receipt. “I know a great little vegetarian burger place on the south side of town.”
Vegetarian burger? Wasn't that an oxymoron? And who'd said anything about dinner? A phone call was all he was promising—only, she was beaming like a lantern and he was not about to shut her off.
“Sounds great,” he said.
There was a mob at the elevators. Valentine got behind two African-American couples wearing EVANDER HOLYFIELD—PEOPLE'S CHAMPION T-shirts who seemed to be part of a tour group. They chatted excitedly, their voices filled with the kind of electricity that only a heavyweight contest can produce. Unfolding Mabel's fax, his eyes quickly skimmed the page. She'd gone back to what she did best, parodying the classifieds.
Attention, internet sex junkies. Tired of the same old porn? Young naked girls in voyeur dorms no longer turn you on? Pamela Lee starting to look like someone's old coat? Grandma Mabel has got just the solution. That's right, naked pictures of old ladies. Don't laugh—they turned your old man on! Send $5.00 to P.O. Box 1005, Palm Harbor, Florida, 34682.
“Mabel, Mabel, Mabel,” he was saying into the phone a minute later, staring at himself in the mirror over the bed. “This has nothing to do with Gerry and me. You can't run this ad.”
“Of course I can,” she insisted.
“I'm not saying it isn't funny,” he said. “It's very funny, and it will probably make a lot of people laugh.”
“So what's your gripe?” she snapped irritably. When he didn't call back right away, she had gone outside to feed the birds and now answered the phone breathless and out of sorts. “Afraid your little boy is starting to usurp you?”
Valentine stared at the receiver clutched in his hand. Suddenly Roxanne's question about the nature of their relationship was taking on new meaning. “Are you angry at me?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“A thousand apologies,” he said from his heart.
“Thank you. Now, what's wrong with my little parody?”
“You're breaking the law, that's all.”
She let out a gasp. “Are you going to explain,” she said after a lengthy pause, “or is this your version of Chinese water torture?”
“You put your real P.O. box in the ad. The post office will have a problem with that. They'll probably fine you.”
“I can live with that.”
“If some idiot sends you a check, then it's mail fraud, which is a felony. You don't have a previous record, so they'd probably go easy on you. Six months' probation and a few hundred hours' community work down at the library. And you'll get your picture in the paper—or should I say your mug shot.”
“You're serious about this,” she said.
“Dead serious. You can commit a crime without having intent to commit a crime. You understand what I'm saying? The law doesn't cut you much slack in that regard. I tried to explain this to Gerry a few years ago when he was running a mail-order business out of his basement. He didn't listen.”
“What was he selling?”
“Edible condoms. He called it A Taste of Paris. He shipped a few boxes to some state like Utah where everything is illegal and he got nailed. I had to bail him out of jail.”
“Oh, Tony, I hope I can get this ad out of the paper.”
Valentine sat up on the bed. “You already faxed it in?”
“This afternoon. They have a twenty-four-hour line.”
“Call them and cancel. Better yet, drive down and cancel it. Mabel, you've got to kill this thing.”
“All right, all right. I'll do it.”
She sounded hurt and defeated. Leave it to Gerry to screw up the one thing that made her happy. How long had it taken him, two whole days? That had to be a record, even for his son.
“I've got some more bad news for you,” Valentine said.
“What?”
“You need to get out of town for a couple of days.”
“Why on earth . . . ?”
“A guy in Vegas is threatening to kill one of my friends.”
“How does he kno
w I'm your friend?”
“He's got my address book.”
“Oh, Tony . . .”
“I'm sorry, Mabel. Look, there's a Carnival Cruise sailing out of Tampa every day. Go to Mexico for a week. My treat.”
“Sure,” she said, “if I'm not in jail.”
Valentine felt his neck burn.
“Good-bye, Tony.”
Valentine stared at the dead receiver in his hand. Then he dialed his son's apartment in New York. The answering machine picked up. After the beep, he said, “Gerry, it's Pop. Listen up. Some thugs got ahold of my address book and may come looking for you. You'd better lay low for a while. I know this is a real pain in the ass, but these guys are serious. I hear Bermuda is nice this time of year. And Gerry, this is on me.”
He started to hang up, then thought better of it and said, “You take care of yourself, kid.”
The words sounded wooden. He and Gerry had been in so many wars over the years it was hard to be civil. He dropped the receiver into its cradle, wondering who was the bigger jerk, him or his son.
18
Wearing a floppy I LOVE LAS VEGAS hat and a pair of Terminator shades, Felix Underman crawled across the broiling desert in a rented Dodge Intrepid. Doing the speed limit was annoying, especially on a quiet Sunday afternoon, but he didn't want to risk getting pulled over.
Soon he crossed the county line. A garish billboard welcomed him to Armagosa Valley, soon-to-be-home of a U.S. Army MX missile site. Underman smiled at the ingenuity of the local boosters. This was Nye County, birthplace of bordello-style prostitution in Nevada, its founder the legendary Bugsy Siegel. The only business here was whoredom, and building an army base would insure huge profits for years to come.
A green exit sign shimmered in the distance. Seeing empty road in his mirror, Underman flicked on his indicator.
Soon he was on a two-lane service road. Signage was sparse. A man had to know where he was going out here. Turning down a rural road, he glanced in his mirror. If there was anything he had learned over the years, it was that you could never be too careful.
Five minutes later, the Pleasuredome appeared in front of him. The original building had been razed in 1984 during the Nye County brothel wars, and in its place stood a two-story Victorian with sloped roofs and minarets, the windows stained glass. As whorehouses went, it had an ounce of class. He pulled up, popped open his door, and stepped onto the baking macadam. Desert heat was different from city heat, and sweat poured down his face as he hiked the short distance to the entrance.
A sleepy-eyed bouncer held the door for him. The interior was dark and cool, and Underman sat on a red leather couch and looked for a hostess. The parlor had been designed with a Roaring '20s theme and had red carpet, red velvet drapes, and a white baby grand on a raised stage with a sparkling Tiffany chandelier hanging above it. The pianist, a chalky-complexioned woman in her fifties, sang Cole Porter. He didn't look important, so they weren't hurrying. He twiddled his thumbs, waiting.
The truth be known, Underman was against prostitution, especially the way it was practiced in Nevada. Legally, the whole issue was a disaster. There was not a general law specifically allowing prostitution, nor was there one prohibiting it. Since 1949, brothels had existed in nearly all of the state's seventeen counties. Only Clark County, which comprised all of Las Vegas, specifically prohibited it. Everywhere else the law was vague.
But that wasn't the only issue. There was the problem in how the women were treated. Their regimen was extreme: one week off, three weeks on. Being on meant on call twenty-four hours a day, just an intercom away from crawling out of bed and standing in a lineup before a potential customer. Conditions were harsh, alcohol and drug abuse rampant. The women came from all walks of life—rich, poor, middle class, and all ethnic backgrounds—but one thing was always the same. They lasted a year or two, then left damaged beyond repair, their self-esteem destroyed.
A cocktail waitress slipped through the curtains. She wore a tasteful ruffled dress, her face heavily painted.
“Cup of coffee, black,” he ordered.
“We got a special on the piña coladas,” she said meekly.
“No, thanks. I'd like to see someone in charge.”
“Sure. I'll get Charlene.”
The coffee came before Charlene. It was very hot and tasted very good. He guessed it was a Columbian blend. His waitress reappeared with a menu, which she stuck in his hands.
“Charlene's kinda busy,” she explained. “So she asked me to take care of you. My name's Sassy.”
“I'm looking for someone,” Underman explained.
Sassy sat down on the couch beside him. Beneath the makeup, he saw a young woman from the Midwest, maybe Ohio, who'd come out here chasing a dream and gotten behind on her bills and sucked into this crummy situation. Underman smiled at her pleasantly. To his surprise, she smiled just as pleasantly back.
“Aren't we all,” she said sweetly. Taking the menu from his hands, she read aloud his choices. “Everything's à la carte. First, there are Warm-ups: sensual massage or a lingerie show, or you can have a party starter. That's where a girl gets you hard with her mouth. Next is Ready, Baby. That's your basic sucking and fucking: missionary, on your back, half and half, reverse it, or on your knees. You with me so far?”
Underman nodded. Her matter-of-fact delivery reminded him of the pizza boy reading the choice of toppings over the phone.
“Next is Keep It Going. Your choices are a Jacuzzi party; Show Time, which is two or more girls having sex with each other; or the Orgy Fantasy, which is just about whatever your little heart could desire. Then we've got One Step Further. That's for guys who like to indulge. There's Dominance, Pajama Party, Bondage, and Fantasy. Then we offer a refreshing massage and shower. Each lady is an independent contractor, and prices vary with different activities. We accept cash, Visa, MasterCard and traveler's checks, with proper ID, of course.”
She stopped and smiled. Before Underman could tell her what he wanted, her hand flew up to her mouth.
“Whoops, I almost forgot. There's something new that isn't on the menu. Titty Fucking. That's where you put your erection between a girl's breasts and you come or she sucks you off. Your choice.”
Underman took a deep breath. Just imagining this creative little endeavor was getting him aroused. He would turn seventy in October, which put any idea of experimentation out of the question. It wouldn't be the actual act that would kill him. The heart attack would come a few days later, just remembering it.
“So,” Sassy said abruptly, “you ready to see the lineup?”
“I actually had something else in mind,” he confessed.
“What's that, big boy?”
He dropped his voice. “I'm looking for Al.”
The name didn't register. Sassy said, “You want a guy? Mister, I think you made a wrong turn. This is a whorehouse.”
“I know what it is,” Underman said, her patronizing tone losing its charm. “Al works here, at least the last time I checked.”
“Never heard of him,” she said.
“You must be new,” Underman said.
That got her mad. “I've been working here two years next week, buster, and I've never heard of him.”
“Al Scarpi,” Underman said.
“Not ringing any bells.”
“Little Hands,” he said.
“You want to see Little Hands? Why didn't you say so?”
“I just did. His name's Al.”
“No one calls him that,” she said defensively.
“His friends do.”
“Little Hands has friends? That's a new one to me.”
Sassy approached the stage. The pianist stopped her playing and they had a little chat; the pianist raised her eyes and gave Underman a hard look. Underman stared right back while sipping his coffee. It had grown ice cold but still tasted great. Maybe he could talk the management into putting a bluebird special on the menu: coffee, talk dirty to a hostess, more coffee. It was
about all he was good for these days.
“Follow me,” Sassy said, offering Underman her hand. She escorted him to the entrance and then outside into the sweltering desert inferno. Instantly, her face turned old, the harsh sunlight keeper of few secrets. She pointed down the road in the opposite direction from which he'd come.
“Get in your car and go west five miles. There're a couple of trailers down there, girls who service the migrants. Little Hands lives there.”
“Thanks,” he said, reaching for his wallet.
She slipped the fifty between her breasts and pecked his cheek.
“Stop back in if you need anything.”
“I'll do that,” Underman said.
The Intrepid was too hot to drive. Underman started the engine and got out, letting the AC run while he hid in the building's shadow, thinking about Sassy. She was a hostess, not a hooker, so her offer intrigued him. She probably talked to a thousand sex-starved men a week, which made her a real pro on the male condition. With a selection like that, why service him?
Driving down a miserable gravel road ten minutes later, Underman was still wondering about it. Just about all he was good for these days was playing chess and listening to records. Wouldn't Sassy have figured that out? He'd lost his vanity long ago and assumed everyone saw the same old crow he saw in the mirror each morning. How bad was the light in there?
The migrant brothel was an ugly sore on the landscape. Four inhospitable double-wide trailers surrounded by a row of razor-sharp cyclone fencing. Underman pulled up to a guard booth and rolled down his window. Inside sat a dark-skinned Mexican with a shotgun, a small electric fan beating back his stringy hair.
“What you want?” the Mexican said.
“I'm looking for someone,” Underman said.
The Mexican raised an expectant eyebrow.
“Little Hands.”
The Mexican had a face of stone. Underman decided he wasn't nearly as stupid as he looked. For all he knew, the Mexican owned the place.
“Who?” the Mexican asked.
Underman held up his hands and wiggled his fingers. “Little Hands.”
