Preston Allen - Las Vegas Noir

They both laughed. Her giggle was fake. His chuckle was nervous.

“Why are you doing this to me?” he asked.

“Because I can. Because I wanted you to see me in my pretty white dress. Don’t you think I’m pretty?” she said, leaning over her drink, tipping her cleavage out even further.

He hated her right then, but he was attracted too.

“You’re a cruel woman.”

“It’s part of my charm,” she smiled.

“I like your lipstick.” He couldn’t help himself.

She bit her bottom lip just slightly.

“The color is called Tempt . Are you tempted?” She smiled wider, then walked away, looking over her shoulder. She wiggled.

He told himself that he had to quit this jester-like job and find better pay doing something more normal. He was tired of cover songs and dark walls. He was tired of running into shades of his past. He wanted to emerge on the other side of this a better man.

He stared at Brenda’s train as it slithered away on the dirty floor. Not marrying Linda was the biggest mistake he’d ever made, and he knew it right then. Graceful Linda with long limbs and blue eyes. She left him and Vegas. He had heard she was with a wealthier musician now. Probably touring around Europe. Eating French cheese from the hands of that rich man. Bathing with him in an Alps-sheltered chateau.

Wally was stuck in the same pub, and he had one more set to play before he could pick up his paycheck on the fourth floor, drink a Guinness for breakfast, and then walk out of the well-lit casino into the 6 a.m. sun.

He exhaled, moving back to his half-moon stage, feeling more himself as he stepped away from the pack of people.

The middle man in the gray suit came to the stage with a twenty-dollar bill for the tin tip jar. Wally swallowed.

Middle man had long fingers and big teeth. His hair was white and slick.

“What would you like to hear, my friend?” Wally asked.

“Why don’t you play ‘Danny Boy.’ I like that one,” the old drinker said, straight-faced.

“Oh, yeah, sure. It’s my favorite,” Wally lied.

He quickly belted out the old hymn, not concerned if it was perfect or even if it sounded good. He was sick of singing and sick of being there and sick of seeing Brenda jiggling her parts all over the pub. That middle man was making him nervous, and he knew he had to get out.

Ending just after 11 p.m., he no longer cared if he left early. He grabbed his guitar case and stumbled off the stage, hurriedly heading up to the fourth floor to grab his check. Rushing through the tawny casino, a million little lights all around him. Cigar smoke rising. The face of a huge masked joker bolted to the wall. Bold baccarat signs and spinning roulette wheels. G-stringed cocktail waitresses sauntering through the aisles. Pit bosses sternly standing by, arms folded. One-armed bandits stealing money left and right. Cherry, seven, six.

He stabbed at the elevator button, wanting to hurry up and run out of the whole place. Out of the casino, out of the parking lot, and maybe out of town.

As soon as he got into the brassy elevator, he was locked inside a private funhouse. The mirrored interior gave Wally eight different images of himself. He hated every one. He stared at the floor. Grotesque casino carpet was better to look at.

His head was bowed. His heart was near his knees. It was a long ride. As the elevator ascended, for a moment he wondered if you go to hell, do you feel like you are going up instead of down? The devil’s parting trick.

Finally floor four came, and he dashed out down the hall to human resources. He had reached the end of the hallway when he heard a steel door click shut, then a swishing behind him. He turned around and at the other end of the hall, near the stairwell, he saw her.

There she was in all her tan and white glory. Psycho, fat-toed Brenda. The deranged harpy was up on the fourth floor, she’d followed him up there. Holding out the sides of her wide dress as wings.

“What are you doing?” he uttered, scurrying toward an emergency exit.

“Shut up.” She grabbed him and then kissed him hard and dramatically, jolting her head and her veil from side to side. She tasted like cheap rum.

She pulled up her white dress and unzipped his trousers in what seemed like one swift movement. His back was against the long beige wall. Sure, he had already had her. But this. The veil. The virginal white. He was overtaken. She tilted her head back, and as she did, Wally noticed the elevator doors opening. Out walked the three men dressed in gray suits.

“Sabrina! What in the hell are you doing?” the middle man yelled.

“Daddy?”

“I never took my daughter for a tramp!” he said, yanking her from Wally.

The singer slid from the wall to the floor, trying to inch away. He thought of every bad thing he’d ever done. Every one night stand, every unreturned phone call, every cheat, every lie. False hope handed out, cigarettes stolen, rent money gambled away. He wanted to confess. He wanted to plead.

Brenda looked at him cowering on the ground and grinned. She flipped her veil, hitting her father in the face.

Johnny growled.

“And you! You sick son of a...” Johnny Rosetti didn’t finish his sentence and he didn’t care. He was a man who did not like his principles marred in any way. He leaned down, grabbed Wally by the collar, and pistol-whipped him in the side of the head.

Dazed, Wally edged down the hall, still trying to escape.

Slowly, Johnny walked over to the singer’s body. His wingtips squeaked, and Wally cringed as he heard each footstep, closer and closer. The mad father looked down upon him.

With one open eye, Wally could see Johnny’s angry face. Those big teeth grinding together. Possible punishments ran through Wally’s mind. His detached head rolling down the hallway like a bloody bowling ball. Eyes plucked out with the antenna of a rusty car. Meat cutter through his middle. Thrown from the hotel roof. Legs sawed off. Something worse?

For all the fantasy, all Johnny did was reach for his gun. The quickest way was a lead projectile. Johnny harrumphed at the cowardice he saw below, then he shot the singer point blank.

Wally bled into the carpet, making the red parts redder, staining the gold squares. The amber hallway lights grew softer, and as he lay there, he watched Johnny address the other two suited men: “Get this cleaned up.”

Then the man turned to his daughter, disgusted.

Johnny grabbed Brenda’s arm, squeezing her thick tricep and the white satin wrapped around it.

Sunset Park

The best place to watch the sun set in Las Vegas was at the east end of the airport, just underneath the landing jets. Staring west, as the sun slipped behind the Red Rock Mountains, the obsidian, angled shape of the Luxor fell into sharp relief against the stretched-out orange glow. Sundown in the desert beat out any other geography, hands down. On the water the sunset would linger, bouncing on the waves, but in the desert there was nothing for the light to hold on to, nothing to trap it, bribe it to stay any longer than absolutely necessary. It ran, fled after the day like a scared rabbit. It was my favorite time of day. I loved it out here, for however long it lasted. I thrived in the liminal time, the gray area between light and dark. Playing with shadows was how I made my living.

And it was a good living. Most nights, after watching the sun go down, I’d be getting ready to earn that living. I’d be filling my pockets with cards, setting coins, writing predictions which I knew would come true later in the evening. A few years ago I’d be doing all this in a tuxedo, but not anymore. Now the uniform of choice, what the casinos wanted, was the street look. Dressed in jeans, T-shirt, and loose-fitting coat, sporting a few days growth I wasn’t exactly comfortable with, I fit in well with the tourists at the Manhattan Resort and Casino. They didn’t suspect a thing until I walked up and asked them if they’d like to see something amazing. Then I’d amaze them for a few seconds with a magic trick I learned when I was still in high school — nothing any of them couldn’t do with the right book and three minutes of practice — then send them back to the casino floor. But not tonight. I was off tonight, asked for it special.