by Martin Seay
7
The Hard Rock is on Paradise Road, between the Strip and the UNLV campus—not far, but Curtis doesn’t want to risk missing Albedo, so he hops a cab and is there in minutes.
He’s been here before, but only briefly and drunkenly, and he doesn’t remember it well. It’s small, chalk-white and curvy, lit from below by purple-gelled spots; the glowing diodes of a streetside readerboard flash OZZY OSBOURNE! as the cab turns onto the palm-lined drive. A parade of revelers—off-duty dancers and bartenders, highrollers from the coast—pours inside by the light of an enormous neon-strung guitar.
As soon as he’s stepped through the Gibson-handled doors Curtis knows Stanley won’t be here. It’s all young MBA types inside, college kids on extended spring break: aside from Ozzy, Curtis is probably the oldest guy in the place. On his way through the crowded lobby he passes a cardigan-clad Britney Spears mannequin, somebody’s glassed-in drumkit, a chandelier made of gleaming saxophones. Aerosmith blasts from speakers overhead. In the circular casino Curtis stops to read the mulberry baize of a blackjack table: there, above a line of lyrics he can’t place—something about getting lucky—is a notice that dealers must hit soft seventeens. Stanley wouldn’t be caught dead within a hundred yards of this joint.
Close to the disc-shaped bar it’s even louder. The crowd, the machines, the PA blend and collide into an indistinct roar, a new silence. Curtis only gradually becomes aware of someone screaming his name from a few yards away: a longhaired white guy. Ripped jeans, Guns N’ Roses T-shirt, motorcycle jacket. He’s grinning, half-silhouetted against the wavery light of a flatscreen TV, one splayfingered arm swaying over his head like a strand of kelp. Curtis is certain he’s never seen this guy before in his life.
Up close, Albedo looks like a bad blend of Chet Baker and Jimmy Buffett. His fingers are sepia-stained; his grip is firm but clammy, tentacled, and Curtis is quick to release it. He’s tall, six-three at least, but soft in the middle. His thin brown hair is pulled back in a curly ponytail, gray at the temples. His eyeballs are rose-rimmed, watery, and he smells of whiskey and pot.
Albedo’s sitting with two young women—one pale, blond, the other dark, probably Hispanic, both wearing sequined halters. Curtis can’t read anything in their faces aside from exhaustion and low expectations. The women move apart and leave two empty barchairs between them; Albedo claps a hand on Curtis’s back and steers him into the one on the right. As he sags into his own seat, his fingers drag drunkenly down Curtis’s blazer and brush the shape of the revolver at his waist, and Curtis knows immediately that this is wrong, that he ought to get out of here.
Albedo’s ordering him a Corona; he introduces him to the women as if they’re old friends. We were in the Desert together, he says. The first Iraq war. The women’s names are unusual, foreign; Curtis is thinking fast, trying to keep his shit together, not really paying attention, and he forgets them immediately.
You been keeping up with the news from over there? Albedo asks. You believe all the bullshit that’s going down?
What? Did it start?
Any minute, man. Albedo nods sagely, as if privy to secret knowledge. And I tell you what, he says, raising his glass. Better them than us. Right, my brother?
Curtis nods, sips silently.
I was just now trying to articulate to my two young companions, Albedo says, neither of whom has the good fortune to be a citizen of this great nation of ours, the magnitude of the fucked-up-ness going down in the Middle East tonight. Because, see, the first war—our war?—that was total bullshit. No doubt about that. But this just takes the proverbial cake. Am I right, Curtis?
Curtis picks up his beer, then rotates the cardboard coaster under it, aligning the text with the edge of the counter. He sets the beer down again. He doesn’t want to talk about this, or think about it. It’s a messed-up situation, he says.
Truer words were never spoke, my man. You are putting that shit mildly.
A pack of cigarettes and a silver Binion’s lighter appear on the bar, and Albedo lights up with a flourish. He’s leaning way back in his chair, balancing it on two legs; Curtis has to crane his neck to keep him in sight. The blond girl to Albedo’s left is looking back and forth between them, her brow wrinkled, like she’s trying hard to understand. Something about her reminds Curtis of the Balkans, almost but not quite, and he figures her for Ukrainian, or maybe Slovak. He’s calming down now, assessing. His beer is still three-quarters full.
So how’s civilian life treating you, Albedo?
Real good, man. Real good. I am every day relishing my freedom. And I’m telling you, this is the place. Shit is happening out here. Lots of opportunities for guys like us. I oughta make a few calls while you’re in town. Introduce you to some people. Would you be into that?
Sure, maybe. How long you been out here?
Albedo flashes a sharky grin. Long enough to get the lay of the land, my friend. To learn the ins and the outs. This town is all about the juice, man.
So’s everywhere else.
Well, okay, sure, man. Touché. But here especially. And it’s different here. It’s wide-open, entry-level. There ain’t the antidemocratic bullshit you get most other places. No country-club secret-handshake jive. No artificial barriers to trade. Everything just is what it is.
What are you doing now?
What? For dollars, you mean? Albedo smirks, shaking his head, like this is a dumb question. I’m doing lots of shit, man. I’m just taking it as it comes. And lately it’s been coming faster than I can reach out and grab it. I got action to give away.
Anything steady?
Some of it is. A couple nights a week I been chauffeuring these lovely ladies around town. To their various assignations. Them and a number of their professional cohorts. And that earns me enough to live on: two nights a week, eight or ten hours a night, chauffeur and security. Shit, the fucking valets out here pull down six figures per annum. It’s a boomtown, baby. For the right kind of guy. Boom boom boom.
Curtis gives Albedo a thin smile. This is a bunch of static, and it’s good to see him dishing it out, overplaying his hand. The guy’s dumping a lot of chum, but he can’t seem to figure out how to get any hooks baited, and Curtis starts to think that maybe he’s not in trouble here after all. Unless Albedo’s just stalling, lining him up for the blindside. Curtis turns away, scans the screaming crowd. Somewhere behind him a slot machine is playing a tinny rendition of “Tequila”; the familiar melody emerges from the surrounding noise like light coming through a pinhole. His beer is half-empty now.
The Hispanic girl is smiling, watching him, and he gives her a polite nod. He wonders what she and the other girl are doing here with Albedo when they could be out earning, and then he thinks maybe they’re earning right now. She’s leaning close to him. I like your glasses, she says. With each syllable Curtis feels a tiny puff of air on his neck.
Her accent isn’t bad; she’s been in the States awhile. I wear contacts, she says. Her irises are the color of Windex, so Curtis isn’t surprised to hear this. She reaches for his face. Can I try?
Curtis lets her. They are not so strong, she says, handing them back.
They’re nonprescription.
So are my contacts, she confides. Also nonprescription. She sleepily bats her mascaraed lashes.
¿De dónde eres? Curtis asks.
I am from Cuba.
He wouldn’t have guessed, but it’s there in her voice, in her stretched vowels and dropped s’s and nonprescrikshun. He wonders how she ended up here instead of Miami or Tampa or NYC but has neither the vocabulary nor the inclination to pursue the topic. ¿De qué región?
Santiago de las Vegas. You know where is Santiago de las Vegas?
Está cerca de la Habana, ¿verdad?
Yes. You have been to Cuba?
Sí, Curtis says, he estado en Cuba, but he doesn’t say where, or why. If he hadn’t taken his retirement he might be there right now, and he thinks about that for a second. Recalling a bright mornin
g last April in the hills above Granadillo Bay. Looking down at the camp. All the orange jumpsuits like cactus-flowers caught in the wire.
You speak good Spanish, the girl says. She’s not very convincing; her smile has started to wilt. She has fingers on his thigh now, a foot brushing his ankle. Moving automatically, like this is something she learned from an instructional video, which for all Curtis knows maybe she did.
He pats her roaming hand and turns back to Albedo, who’s trying to explain to the blond girl who Condoleezza Rice is. Taps him on the shoulder.
What’s up, my man? Albedo says. You need another beer?
How’d you find out I’m in town?
Albedo looks surprised, nonplussed; he sputters theatrically for a second. It ain’t exactly a secret, he says.
No. It’s not. But how did you find out?
They stare at each other. Albedo’s face is empty, frozen between expressions. A big vein flutters on his throat; Curtis half-consciously counts the throb: one-two, three-four, five-six.
Damon, Albedo says. He told me. Called me up last night. Gave me your cell.
Curtis narrows his eyes. And how do you know Damon, again?
What do you mean? I know him from the Desert, man. Same place you know him from. What are you talking about?
I know Damon from Leonard Wood, Curtis says. I was in Saudi during the war. He was on float, on the Okinawa. I wasn’t with Damon in the Gulf.
Albedo grinds out his cigarette, drinks from his empty glass, leans back farther into Curtis’s blind spot. Well, whatever, man, he says. That’s where I know him from.
Curtis waits for him to tip forward again. He’s dropping his baffled act; there’s a challenge in his eyes. He’s not as drunk as Curtis thought. Okay, Curtis says. Where do I know you from?
Albedo looks at Curtis, shrugs, and turns away. His index finger shoots up like a snail’s eye. Corona, he says across the bar.
Do I know you?
Albedo turns back, an oilslick grin spreading across his face. Well, he says, you goddamn sure know me now. Don’t you? Barkeep, get this gentleman another—
No thanks. I’m done.
Hey now. Chill out, Curtis. Any friend of Damon’s is a friend of yours. Right?
Curtis kills the last of his beer, pushes the bottle away, rubs the condensation into his chapped fingers. Did Damon tell you why I’m in town?
Just that you’re doing some work for him at the Point. Looking for a guy who skipped on a marker. That’s about it.
Did he tell you who I’m looking for?
Albedo’s little black eyes flit in their sockets. I don’t think so, he says after a while. I don’t believe that he did. Anybody I’d know?
No. Nobody you’d know.
I know a lot of people, Curtis.
I’m sure you do.
Albedo takes his beer from the bartender, then fishes out his lighter and another cigarette. He cups his hand around the flame, and he and Curtis study each other through the curling smoke. Curtis feels his eyesocket twitch, tear up. He swivels, scoots his chair back, and moves the Cuban girl’s hand into her own lap. She jerks like she’s been asleep. Goodnight, he tells her. Good to meet you.
Albedo’s getting up too, juggling his cigarette, coughing a little on an errant breath. Whoa now, Curtis! he says. Where’s the fire, son?
I’m gonna hit the road.
What are you talking about? The night is still young!
I’ve had a long day.
I got stuff I want to show you. Very interesting things.
Maybe next time.
Albedo laughs and nods—all right, all right, he’s saying—but he’s also trying to block Curtis’s exit, and Curtis shifts his weight, starts thinking about where to hit him.
At least let me give you my cell number, man.
I got it. It’s in my phone.
Some of the people at the bar are looking at them now. Albedo glances around, then grins, relaxes, becoming harmless and diffuse. Okay, he says. Okay, kemosabe. You’re hurting my feelings, man. But look here. I’m gonna tell you just what I told Damon. I know this town. This town knows me. I can open up a lot of doors for you. This is not bullshit. You can ask Damon if you don’t believe me.
I’ll do that.
Albedo steps aside. His big right hand flutters to his mouth, leaves his cigarette there, drops and hovers in the space before him. Curtis stares it for a second, figuring distance; Albedo’s face floats above it, blank and watchful. And now, at last, the man does seem familiar. Curtis has never met him before, but he’s met guys like him—in the Desert, in Mogadishu, at Gitmo—and he’s been sorry for it every time.
He wants to take Albedo’s hand while looking him in the eye, but he’s tired and rattled and can’t do it: he looks at the hand. Goodnight, he says, shaking it. Thanks for the beer.
He turns on his heel and goes. There’s a band of towering NBA types headed his way; he steps among them and lets himself drift toward the saxophone chandelier, the lobby, the marquee. Hearing Albedo’s lubricated voice somewhere behind him—You’re never gonna find your guy if you can’t stay up past two a.m., marine!—before it’s drowned out by the conversation shouted a foot above his head. A few yards on, he shoulders past a couple of college kids in tennis shirts and vanishes, anonymous again, encoded into the crowd. Everyone looking everywhere. He feels eyes sliding off him, water beaded on wax.
The pack of people just ahead slows to look at a gleaming black-and-chrome Harley on a raised platform, and Curtis turns back for an instant. Albedo’s still standing there, flanked by the two women, scanning the round room with squinted eyes. One big hand is pressed to his left ear, his cellphone is in the other, and he sways like an anemone on his planted feet as passersby jostle him. When Curtis looks forward again his path has cleared, and he steps swiftly and lightly to the hotel exit. Walking into the neon glow, the clean night air.
8
When the cab hits the Strip about a mile down Harmon, Curtis drops a twenty through the gap in the plastic divider and is on his feet before the wheels have stopped. He doubletimes to the squat twin domes of the Aladdin, through a horseshoe arch and into the Desert Passage mall, zigzagging between shoppers, catching details from the blur of ornaments and signs: tunnel vaults, porticos, jeweled mosaics, screens and lattices, eight-pointed stars. Hookah Gallery, Pashmina by Tina, Napoleon Fine Fashions, Lucky Eye Design. Fake rain falls from a fake sky. Patterns proliferate, as if in terror of blankness: geometric, vegetal, endlessly elaborated. Every surface seems vented, weightless, shot through with numberless holes.
Curtis makes a right at a twenty-foot hurricane glass—he mistakes it at first for a neon minaret—and finds himself in a parking lot on Audrie Street, a block off the Strip, alone and exposed under the humming monorail tracks. He crosses to the back entrance of Paris and takes the skywalk to Bally’s, cuts through their casino to Flamingo Road, hops another cab. He doesn’t think anyone’s following him but he wants to be sure; he’s spending a lot of Damon’s money now but fuck it, fuck Damon for putting some sketchy shitbag onto him without giving him a heads-up. He’s digging out the new phone, dialing the only name on the CONTACTS list.
He’s not sure if the number Damon gave him is home or work or cell or what, and there’s no greeting when it picks up, just a beep. Damon, he says. It’s Curtis. I just met up with some guy called Albedo who says he knows you, and who says you told him to call me. I’ve never seen him or heard of him before, and I hope you’ll call me back and tell me what this is about, because the dude seems wrong to me. All right? It’s five a.m. your time. Sorry if I’m waking you up. Later.
To be careful, and to give himself time to think, Curtis has the cabbie drive him as far south as the airport before turning north again. The cab nudges doggedly through the slow after-midnight traffic; Curtis adjusts his cap, settles in his seat, leans his head against the side panel. Staring at his phone’s display till the blue light goes out. A nasty down-elevator feeling in
his gut.
This doesn’t mean anything. Not necessarily. It doesn’t mean anything’s wrong. If Damon’s been making moves without keeping Curtis in the loop, well, that would be SOP for Damon, who is loath to so much as circulate a shopping list prior to a grocery run: everything always has to be need-to-know. It drives Curtis nuts, but it’s also partly why Curtis loves him, partly what makes him such a blast to roll with—and partly why Curtis agreed to come out here at all. With Damon, any routine errand could turn into an adventure you’d tell your grandkids about; being kept in the dark was the price of the ticket. Signing on meant drinking a little Kool-Aid, suspending a little disbelief. By now Curtis should know to expect it.
Not everybody finds it charming, though. Slim Shady: that’s Danielle’s nickname for Damon, and not because he looks all that much like Marshall Mathers. He’s that cracker scoundrel friend of yours when she’s pissed off, which lately has been pretty often.
Curtis squashes the phone’s keypad with his thumb. The display lights up again: 2:06 a.m. Three timezones east, Danielle’s probably leaving for work. This is a good time to catch her, but Curtis can’t bring himself to dial, can’t begin to imagine what he’d say. He’s not even mad anymore, not really. He puts away the phone, presses the heels of his hands to his eyesockets. The taxi rolls to a stop at a traffic signal, rolls forward again when the light changes; inertia tips Curtis forward and back in his seat. He turns to the window, opens his eyes.
The first big blowout since they got married. He’s walked out on her before—a few times, not long after they first moved in—but those times he always came right back: home before she’d changed into her PJs. He had no place to run then, nowhere he could imagine himself going. This time he did. And he went.
To keep himself from remembering the argument, he tries to think of the airport: sleepless hours slouched in the cushioned seats at the concourse gate, alone amid a scattering of laid-over travelers. Concentrating hard on the urgent monotonous drip of news from ceiling-bolted televisions. Barely noticing the sunrise in the windows behind him, doubled by the surface of the Delaware. Watching the war take shape.
