Preston Allen - Las Vegas Noir

According to her, my name was on a laundry list of possible masterminds, all minor operators and petty thieves, and she didn’t give up anyone. There was only one other name on that list, besides mine, that was of any concern. I figured that name was the reason I was still alive. Paul Robbins was a thief, and a damn good one. He worked all sorts of odd jobs. I only met him once and he stuck me for the bill. I didn’t think he knew Raven, but then, I wasn’t sure who she knew. All his name told me was they didn’t know for sure I was in on it and there was no profitability in taking out one of your best on a hunch.

“How did you get away?”

“He threw me out the back of the van.”

“Just like that?”

She paused. “He fucked me first, gun still in my mouth.”

That also sounded like him.

“While he did it, he said he was going to do the same thing to whoever helped me.”

I thought about it. I had to ask the question. “And you decided to come to me? They already think I’m guilty, why put me in the thick?”

“They don’t think you’re guilty. They think it was Paul. They just threw your name in to scare me. Pierre never liked you.”

“He liked me fine.”

“Not after we started working together.”

“That why he fucked you?”

“That’s why he didn’t like you.”

I let it sink in. According to her, I was in the clear. I could keep working like nothing ever happened. “So what do you need from me?”

“I told you, I need you to make me disappear. Just because they let me go doesn’t make me free.”

She had a point.

“You make me vanish and I’m gone for good. No one’s the wiser.”

I turned around.

“Remy?”

I could hear the shake in her voice, the need.

“Remy, please.”

“Not here.” I started walking away. I could feel her scamper up behind me. “The warehouse.”

The warehouse was in an industrial area about a quarter-mile from Sunset Park. We shared a block with a custom furniture place, a photographer, and an Internet porn company. I opened the plain front door and let Raven in first. She turned on the lights. I locked the door behind us.

After David Copperfield built Butchy’s Lingerie, the false storefront to mask his warehouse, all the magicians in town wanted to do the same. Unfortunately, we didn’t have Copperfield’s money. I shared the warehouse with two other magicians, both of whom used it primarily as a storage facility. It helped pay the rent. The front office at our place looked like a fabric shop, but that was because it was where we did all the sewing. No hidden doors or electrified toilet seats here. We had the front office, complete with conference/cutting table, a ratty green couch along the wall, and a mini-fridge that was almost never stocked with anything Raven wanted. She looked anyway.

“Still drinking that crap, I see.”

“Help yourself.” She took out a bottle and tossed it to me. It was an old ritual, one we fell back into easily.

I opened the door to the rest of the building. The back area held a decent-sized space filled with props, illusions, some tools, and, tucked away in a far corner, a stage for rehearsals. It was crowded but not packed. The walls were covered with show posters, autographed pictures, and pin-ups. It made the place look smaller than it really was. I turned on the stage lights rather than the work floods. No need to really light the place.

Raven walked around as if reacquainting herself with an old friend. “It’s been awhile.”

She looked good, slipping in and out of shadows amongst the illusions. It had indeed been awhile. Too long. She walked up to the “Artist’s Dream” and stopped. I sipped my beer and watched her. It was a simple illusion, a way to produce an assistant. On the front panel was a picture of the girl. It was briefly covered and then, just like that, the girl was standing there and only a silhouette remained on the panel. Very Galatea... or My Fair Lady . Either way, the artist was bringing to life the girl of his dreams. I smiled as she pulled down the front panel. It was still set with her photograph. I hadn’t done the trick since she left. I think that pleased her.

Raven and I had stopped working together, professionally, about a year and a half earlier. The jobs dried up for the big shows in town and I really didn’t want to work the ships. They weren’t my kind of crowds. They were looking for safe and I equated that with boring. At least doing what I was doing, hustling tourists to give them the “street magic experience,” gave me the opportunity to keep my close-up chops. Doing nothing but boxes on a cruise was death to me. Besides, the ships didn’t really approve of you laying a week’s salary on red. So I didn’t go and Raven quit being my assistant. We stopped seeing each other personally not long after. Seems I wasn’t fulfilling potential, was only hurting myself, and she was tired of supporting me and my bad habits.

That’s the thing about habits, though, everyone has them. And I was Raven’s. Just because we’d stopped dating didn’t mean she wasn’t available for a quick fuck whenever I was in the mood. We had something together neither of us had alone, and for her it was a driving force.

“Do you have an idea?” she asked without looking at me. She had made her way to the stage. It was the first time I’d seen her completely lit in months. She still took my breath away. Did I have an idea? There was a mattress propped against the wall behind the stage. It wasn’t clean but it was more comfortable than the floor.

“I might.”

Maybe she could hear my thoughts in my voice. Maybe she knew me as well as I thought I knew her. Maybe it was all part of the game we were both playing, but she turned and stared across the room at me. She smiled. A sad smile. “I like fresh sheets these days, remember? It’s not like it was.”

We’d been on that mattress more times than I could count. It was what we did during rehearsals, after shows, before breakfast. But she was right. It wasn’t like it was. She was in trouble and I was here to help. She wanted me to be her white knight, but I was rusty. I drained my beer. The right lubrication can ease any passage.

“Did you give back the diamonds?”

She looked at me like I was a black man at a Klan meeting.

Of course. Charon pegged her for the body, not the brains. I wanted to laugh. The layman realizes how little the illusionist actually does, though. The magician dances out his choreography while the assistant does all the work, squeezing and running and hiding while the props move around them. One false move and it’s the girl in the box who’s getting impaled while the magician wields the blade. “Charon didn’t know you took them.” It was the only explanation. “And he didn’t know anything else was gone.”

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a handmade velvet bag. I’d seen it before. She got it when she bought a necklace from a beach vendor in Santa Monica. She used it to keep her valuables.

“And now he knows either me or Paul has ’em and I’m sending you away?”

“You can have half.”

“I’m covered, thanks. I got what I was after.”

She turned toward the back door. “This was a mistake.”

I could have let her go. I could have let her walk out the door and face whatever was beyond it. That would have been the smart thing to do. “Wait.” I was never that smart.

She turned back, grateful. I didn’t move. She crossed the floor and into my arms, hugging me hard. I didn’t want to but I hugged back. It was a reflex. “Oh, Remy,” she whispered in my ear. “Thank you. I was so scared...” The words trailed off as I turned my head. Her fears melted into passion. Just another emotional outlet.