Preston Allen - Las Vegas Noir

“I’m sorry I called you a wetback,” David said, and handed Ruben the cash from the wallet. Ruben nodded and pocketed the money. “I got a little caught up in the moment.” Ruben nodded again. Didn’t anyone know how to accept an apology anymore? David took one last look around, figuring that the next time he saw a room like this, he’d be the one on the table, and then realized he’d forgotten something important. “Tell me something, Ruben,” he added, back in the voice of Rabbi David Cohen, “what do you intend to do with the head?”

Ruben just shrugged. “I dunno, rabbi, what are you going to do with the uniform and gun?”

David thought about this, figured the truth would serve him here, figured that was where he was now, toward a path of more obvious truth. “I’m going to take them home, wash both, and then go from there.”

As far as exit strategies went, David had to admit that his was a little hastily drawn, but when it’s go time, it’s go time. It was 3:15, and though he didn’t need to do it, he’d gone full bore with his eulogy of the newly minted Vincent Castleberg, which didn’t seem to bother the five octogenarians Bennie had assembled for the funeral. He recognized a couple of the men from other funerals, but now couldn’t remember if they were for real ceremonies or fake ones. It didn’t really matter, since these guys were so old and so mobbed up that even if he’d pulled out his dick and jerked off onto the casket, they’d keep quiet about it. Bennie always plied the old wise guys with lunch and a couple bucks for their time and then had his boys chauffer them back to their houses in Sun City.

But since David had decided that today was his last fucking day cutting dicks and burying pricks and listening to the world’s problems while completely ignoring his own issues — the Hasidic rabbis always talked about this, David realized, saying that if you had proper remorse for your sin, you actually got closer to God, actually became a better person, whereas depression made you a sad, violent, insolent fuck, or, well, something a lot like that — he figured he ought to put things in proper perspective for the late Vincent Castiglione, née Castleberg. So he eulogized himself, instead.

He told the five men about his family life, about his father working as a union millwright, dying young from smoking and drinking (though he’d actually been thrown off a building), about how he ended up running with some guys from the neighborhood who taught him which joints broke the easiest (this got a knowing nod from the guys), how his mom ended up remarrying and moving to Florida after he graduated from high school, how he fell in love with this sweet girl named Jennifer who made him happy, how he ended up getting into the business and made some poor choices with regard to an important contract and ended up “retiring” to Las Vegas, finding God... and the rest was history. David changed a few important details, naturally, but found that the more he told his story, the better he felt about the choice he was about to make.

He finished with the burial Kaddish, surprised to hear the men each mutter “amen” at the proper times, and then watched as the faux mourners went about tossing clumps of dirt on the coffin. The most ambulatory of the men, dressed smartly in light-blue slacks and a white shirt, both originally purchased sometime in the ’70s, walked over and shook David’s hand. “A fine service,” he said. “Really got the spirit of the poor fucker, if you pardon the expression. I’m not a Jew, but ten, fifteen years from now, if I die, I’d be happy to have you put me in the dirt.”

David drove back to his house and packed up what he’d need for his trip — he’d been paid in cash for fifteen years and didn’t spend too much of his own money, so he had enough to last him a long time if he was able to last a long time, or, at least, Jennifer and William might have a chance for a decent life; a better life, anyway — and then took his laptop outside to poach his neighbor’s wi-fi signal, purchased a one-way ticket back to Chicago using Vincent Castiglione’s Visa card, first class, leaving McCarran at 7 p.m., a little over three hours away. And then David destroyed his laptop, beating it to death with the butt of Castiglione’s Glock.

It felt good smashing the computer, but it felt better to have a gun in his hand again. David tried to think of the last time he’d really beaten someone good with a gun, but couldn’t draw a bead. Used to be... well, fuck it, David thought, used-to-be’s don’t count anymore, just like Neil Diamond said. He worked up a nice sweat pounding on the computer, got himself warm for the task at hand.

Vincent Castiglione was a little thicker through the middle than David, but his uniform fit well enough. If he had more time, David would run it through the washer and dryer again, see if he could get the uniform to shrink, get some more of that dead stink out of it too. Still, he did stop to look at himself in the mirror before leaving the house and it was like getting a glimpse at an alternate life: Sal Cupertine looked pretty good as a cop, David decided. Sal Cupertine could have been Sergeant Cupertine. A real fucking mensch.

David checked his watch. It was nearly 5 o’clock. He took one last look around his home, thought about what he was giving up: the comfort of a predictable life, of money, of protection. Thought about what Bennie would look like when he saw David in a cop’s uniform, thought about what Bennie would look like with a hole in the middle of his fat fucking face courtesy of Vincent Castiglione’s service Glock. Thought about how, once he was on the road and the cops were swarming the airports in Las Vegas and Chicago, thinking a missing cop was on his way home, and, later, swarming the home of Bennie Savone, once Bennie’s wife found him without his face, thinking the same missing cop had done the deed, particularly since David was sure they’d recognize the uniform on Bennie’s video surveillance, that he’d stop somewhere and get a nice cut of pork loin for his troubles. Or maybe he’d just wait on that until he got back home.

Naked City

Visitor’s Center call you about a room?” I say to the woman behind the counter. It’s 11 o’clock at night, and I’ve been in the car since 4 in the morning. I haven’t yet hit the stage where the white crosses that have kept my eyes open have turned against me, but the time will be coming soon and I’ll crash and sleep the sleep of the damned, and I have business to take care of before that happens.

“Oh. You’re Mr. Gandy, hello. You’re lucky to get something. They got the Consumer Electronics show going on right now, good thing you thought to stop at the Visitor’s Center.” She’s shaped like a gourd, her hair long with ends split and dyed a shade of black that doesn’t occur in nature. Between the elastic of her paisley slacks and the bottom of her blouse, little black hairs dance obscenely around the milky white vortex of her navel. She takes a key hanging in front of a cubby in which three envelopes sit aslant and hands it to me.

“There’s mail in that slot,” I point out.

“There’s a fellow always gets this room when he comes through. Salesman.”

So I’m subletting someone else’s rented room, basically. I don’t care. I’m lucky to be getting anything, as the ladies at the Visitor’s Center pointed out to me when I pulled into town. It’s a modest little motel, the Visitor’s Center lady said, but super clean; you could eat off of those floors. I climb the open staircase to the second-floor balcony overlooking a swimming pool filled with cloudy water the color of urine. A couple are sitting next to the water smoking and glaring at one another without saying anything, and as one they swing their gazes upward toward me.