Preston Allen - Las Vegas Noir

The father whimpered, “I hear you.”

And Crip released him and patted down his shirt, which he had rumpled up in his rage. The father’s eyes were the little girl’s eyes. He was a man with beautiful eyes, despite the shiner. They were teary eyes. Crip said to him, “I got something for you. I got some money for you.”

“What?”

Crip reached into his mustard jacket and pulled out the envelope with the ten grand in it and pressed it into the father’s hand. “It’s all there. It’s everything you need. Give this to the Gold Man the next time you come. Then be a father to your daughter.”

“Ohmygod,” the father said, looking at the thickness of green bills in the envelope. “Ohmygod. Thank you. Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it. I gotta get back to my life. Babysitting kids is way too hard.”

On the sixth night, Crip got there on time. Slap her around a little and Sapphire not only stays off the weed real good, but she shows up where she’s supposed to show up and on time. Crip was happy. In a few nights, it would all be over. The father would pay the Gold Man and the kid would be free to go on and grow up to be a doctor. Plus, it was a nice crowd tonight, no troublemakers, no college guys, mostly tourists, men in their fifties and sixties wanting to see the titties dance, wanting to maybe get a little bit of the old special treatment in one of the back rooms.

When Goggles came out, Crip was on his throne, sipping his bourbon like the way it used to be, with his hat and his cane in his lap. He smiled at Goggles trying to put the moves on Candy Apple, riding his hand on her ample buttocks during a slow spot in the line. Candy Apple was a good kid, working her way through college. A man like Goggles was not her type. Thank God.

Goggles caught Crip smiling at his failed attempt with Candy Apple and sauntered over to the throne and slapped him five. “What are you smiling at, old black man?”

Crip grinned his lopsided grin. “Smiling at you, no-game white man.”

“So you didn’t go with ’em, huh?”

“Go with who?”

“Snake and Radney.”

“Go with ’em for what?”

Goggles lowered his voice. “Shit. They didn’t tell you about that asshole? The father?”

Crip’s heart sped up. “Whose father? The kid’s?”

“Asshole went into the casinos last night and blew a big wad. Huge. Then he packed up his shit and caught a plane outta the country. One-way ticket to Germany or some shit like that. Don’t look like he’s planning to come back—”

Crip jumped out of his chair and hobbled as fast as he could to the parking lot to his car. He knew the deal. He didn’t have to stick around to hear Goggles say the rest: “—so the Gold Man sent Snake and Radney to deal with the collateral.”

If all they were going to do was deal with her, then, well, her old man did owe the money, and a debt is a debt. You gotta pay back your debts. But she was such a pretty little girl, and Snake was not called Snake for nothing. Crip punched the accelerator and the Lincoln roared through the glittering nighttime streets. He was praying the only prayer he knew — “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want” — and sustaining himself with a vision of the girl all grown up and wearing all white with a stethoscope around her neck and a name badge on her chest that said Doctor .

When he was a boy, he had wanted to be a doctor, but he had grown up in the streets and become a killer. Maybe it had something to do with the seven foster homes he had run away from. Maybe it had something to do with how ugly he was. Maybe it had something to do with the babysitter who had stolen his sister and caused his mother to give up on life and jump out of that window. He had hate in his heart, a hate uglier than his face. A doctor is not much good if he has hate in his heart. And the only thing this pretty little girl had in her heart was hope and courage and good wishes for everybody, all the things that make a good doctor. And the only chance she had was him.

When he got to the house, the light was on inside and Radney was standing guard outside, which meant Snake was alone in there with her. Radney watched him as he lumbered up the stairs. Radney had his gun hand under his coat and fear in his eyes.

Crip just wanted to get close enough to him before he took that gun out. He was half-way up the stairs when he waved at Radney and said, half-joking, “What? You guys start without me? What, you break into my house when I got the key right here? You’re gonna pay to fix my door, I swear to God.”

Radney, showing his teeth, withdrew the gun hand from the coat. “Don’t blow a fuse. It’s Snake. He said we hadda do it now. He outranks me.”

Crip was at the top of the stairs with Radney smiling at him. Crip smiled back and shoved the blade between Radney’s ribs, stepped over him when he fell, and pushed through the front door. In a flash, he took it all in. The TV was on. He could hear Sapphire locked inside one of the bedrooms, pounding on the door and screaming to be let out, probably because of what she saw in there. You didn’t want to be locked in one of those rooms, alive or dead. Snake was on the bed — there was a bed now. And the girl was on Snake’s lap and his hand was under her shirt and his other hand was pointing the gun straight at Crip, who lurched forward because there was nothing else he could do. He was her only hope.

The first shot ripped through him, though he didn’t feel it much, but his blade was gone, so maybe the shot through his ribs had caused him to drop it. But he wasn’t worried too much about that because his hands were around Snake’s neck now. Trying to muster his strength. Rolling on top of Snake on the bed. Trying to snap his neck. He was slippery as a snake. The second shot, that one he felt. That one went through the guts, zapped his strength. The girl screaming. Sapphire pounding to be let out. The TV on too loud. Snake was slippery as a snake. Trying to stop Snake from raising the gun. Snake was trying to shoot him in the head. He lowered his head. Face to face like he was kissing Snake. His stinking gold-teethed mouth. The pervert. The child molester. He found his strength. He felt it and heard it loud when Snake’s neck snapped. It felt like his own fingers had snapped too. He lay on top of Snake like a lover and caught his breath.

Crip called the girl over, told her to stop screaming, stop crying. She was a brave kid. She stopped crying. He told her, Take this key, go to the closet, close your eyes, don’t look inside, there’s stuff in there I don’t want you to see, get on your knees, feel around for shoes, there’s something in the shoes feels like a wad of paper, bring it back to me. She did as she was told and she came back with all the money he had left in the world. He took the money, four grand in hundreds, and rolled over on his back next to Snake. He told her, Now take the key, go get Sapphire out of the room, then close back the door, don’t look inside, tell Sapphire to come here.

A moment later, the pounding and pleading to be let out stopped. When he opened his eyes, Sapphire was looking down at him. He handed Sapphire the money. “You gotta get her back to Tennessee. You gotta get her there now. She’s got a grandmother. You can’t find her grandmother, find somebody. An aunt. An uncle. Somebody. She has to have somebody. What money’s left over, you keep.”

Sapphire said, “Gold Man is gonna kill me. What about Gold Man? What about him, huh?”

“Come here,” he said to Sapphire. “Lean down.” When she leaned down, he grabbed her by the throat and slapped her around a little bit. “Get the kid outta here. Get her back to Tennessee. You hear me? She’s just a kid.”

“Okay, okay, I’ll do it. Okay,” said Sapphire, hollering and crying.