Preston Allen - Las Vegas Noir

M grits her teeth over his sexism, but simply says, “Ah, good old affirmative action, the process by which the administration insures that there will be no equity for anyone. Remember how we fought to get an Affirmative Action Officer, then they hired that poor semi-literate ex — football player who sat around and looked terrified while they told him what to do?”

Realizing that she’s late, she bids Raph goodbye and rushes to class.

Later that evening, she is sleeping fitfully, dreaming that she is negotiating her way down a narrow several-hundred-foot-high stairway with no handrails, leading to what looks like a food court on a beach, when she’s blasted into heart-pounding wakefulness by the telephone. She’d fed Raph dinner earlier and they’d both drunk too much wine. Raph was reeling when he left, but she was too far gone to take his keys, so she let him go. She is losing her capacity to handle alcohol and she feels rotten.

“It’s me,” Raph is saying. “I’m in jail. You have to get me out right now!”

She fumbles for the light. “What’s up — drunk driving?” A cascade of books from the nightstand hits the floor and her toe while she scrabbles for a pen.

“No, old traffic warrants, but there might be more,” he wails. “Get me out of here!”

“Are you in City or County?” Awake now, her faculties working, she tells him to hang loose while she arranges bail.

“M,” he whines, “they were really nasty, making noises like now that they had me, they might even look at me for the murders. I think they hate poets. Get me out of here!”

“Listen, Raph. They always hassle people. They’re just messing with you. Don’t answer any questions. This is crazy! I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“M, I have to hang up. A bunch of guys are pushing me. They want the phone. You’ve got to help me!”

For a moment, she looks stupidly at the phone, now buzzing a dial tone, then drops it into its cradle. Cursing under her breath, not bothering to comb her hair, she drags on a pair of soiled khakis from the laundry basket, adds a Greenpeace T-shirt and sandals, checks in her purse for credit cards, and heads out the door for Main Street and Fast Freddie’s Bail Bonds. She is really sick of taking care of people who can’t seem to take care of themselves.

Fast Freddie, who she met in the days of her activism, is in the nature of an old friend and likes to deal with the pahfessor , as he calls her. He’ll be able to find out what’s going on and recommend a good lawyer. He’s a Vegas character of the type mentioned before who always seems to be there when she needs one. From convicts to con men, they all love M and love to take care of her, all the while lecturing that she should never trust anyone like them, especially them, and should get rid of the losers who seem to surround her and want her to take care of them.

Like a Hopper painting, Main Street is deserted, a few neon signs illuminating the dark street. At first she thinks that she’s missed Fast Freddie’s, then realizes that an alien name is on the doorway. Jennie Ledbetter, Bail Bonds. Jennie is every inch a bondswoman.

About forty-five and heavily made up, clouds of metallic frosted big hair surround her suspicious face. She sports a pair of handcuffs painted on one fake thumbnail and a key on the other. She peers at M over her bejeweled half-glasses. “What can I do for you?” she sneers.

“I’m looking for Fast Freddie,” M answers, and realizes that she must look like a bag lady in her unkempt clothes.

“Fast Freddie ain’t here anymore. Maybe I can help.”

“I used to know him. I liked him. I have a friend in trouble. I need his help.”

Deciding M isn’t worth her time, Jennie tells her that Freddie got in some trouble and sold her this place, but that he has a new one, Jack Be Nimble, further down on Main.

“There’s a neon sign with a guy jumping over a candlestick out front. I don’t get it, but you can’t miss it. Tell the guy at the desk you’re looking for Freddie. He’ll know where he is.”

Moments later, M drives past the Jack Be Nimble sign and has to make a U-turn to get back. Entering, she sees a heavy, bald black man sitting at the desk. He looks up. “Hey, it’s Professor M,” he says, smiling and rising.

It takes her a moment to rake Tommy’s name from the bottom of her memory and adjust it from the elegant young man who used to escort her to get her spouse out of jail where he’d landed for civil rights protesting to this middle-aged stranger. Suddenly, the world comes into focus and she’s grinning.

“It’s great to see you, Tommy. A friend of mine is in trouble and I came to find Freddie.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“He was picked up for traffic warrants tonight and told me they said something about hassling him for the murders. He’s wimpy, and they were probably just rattling his cage. He’s flipping out.”

“Whoa, that’s heavy. Any chance he’s the killer?”

“Come on, Tommy, you know me better than that. What’s up with Freddie?”

“He started drinking again and screwed up the accounts, so they stood on his hands for a while. He’s okay now, but doesn’t usually come in until about 9.”

“I can’t wait. This poor guy doesn’t have a macho bone in his body. He’s terrified”

“Is he a fag?”

“Not unless it’s happened in the last two hours.”

Tommy tells her to grab a cup of coffee from the pot in the corner while he checks on things. Staring out the window at the flickering shadows of Jack Be Nimble jumping on the pavement, she can’t hear what he is saying, but his expression seems grim. She contemplates taking up smoking again, the seedy atmosphere seeming to require it, but changes her mind as Tommy says, “You’re in luck, lady.” She turns to hear, “The computer’s down again, which means we may be able to spring him before they know what’s happening, then you can get a lawyer to buy him some time. I don’t know what they’ve got on him, but for some reason they screwed up and took him to City instead of County.”

“Who shall I get?”

“Does he have any money?”

“You’ve got to be kidding. He’s another professor. Just got fired by the Little Colonel. Oscar Goodman is not in his league.”

“So that Colonel shit is still around?”

“Some things never change, Tommy.”

“I’ll close up and we’ll see what I can do with the boys in the lockup.” He puts a Back in twenty minutes sign on the door and slides into the passenger seat of M’s ancient Toyota.

“It seems like old times. What do you hear from Grover?”

“Not much. He writes at Christmas and sends a really weird present, like six months of the Fruit of the Month Club. He’s crazy about Lena, who is absolutely gorgeous and in grad school in Tulsa, so he goes to see her a few times a year and helps with her expenses.”

Tommy reaches over and pats her hand, white-knuckled on the steering wheel. “We’re getting old, kid.”

“Not only that, but we are here,” she says, gunning the car up the parking ramp. They walk through the tunnel-like area from the parking garage, across the atrium with the dirty fountains that seem to spit old candy wrappers rather than water, through the doors on the other side, to the desk where the officer in charge looks at her like she is shit. She is momentarily startled until she remembers how she is dressed. A few words from Tommy and the cop quickly changes his expression to one of helpful concern.

For a moment, her old self surfaces and she wants to scream — but first spit in the bastard’s face. Tommy’s foot grinding into her instep reminds her to smile back.

“If you will just have a seat over there,” the cop says, pointing her to the orange plastic chairs, “I’ll have him for you as soon as I can.”