Preston Allen - Las Vegas Noir

Escorting her to the chairs, Tommy says, “I got to get back to the office. Bring him right to me. I’ll try to have Freddie there when you arrive.” He makes a fist and punches her gently on the arm, “Hang in, kid.”

An endless hour later, Raph emerges looking like a wet chicken. She wants to kick him for being such a wimp. They must just have been harassing him with the serial killer bit. She forces a smile. “Hey, Raph, you can write an epic poem about this.”

“Take me home, M.”

“Not until we go to Jack Be Nimble’s and straighten out your bail bond.”

“Not now,” he whines.

“Yes, now.” Her voice drops and she speaks evenly, trying to hold back her annoyance. “You, sir, are in a shitload of trouble and you’d better pull up your socks and get ready to defend yourself. If you act like a victim, I guarantee you will become one. I will do what I can, but you have to care enough to help yourself. Now shape up!”

“But you don’t know what it was like.”

She can’t believe that he is whining for sympathy. She is tired and sorry that she’s come. His puffy face now reminds her of the young Peter Lorre in the old movie M.

“Bullshit!” she snarls. “Either grow up or I am going to send you back to deal with this yourself.”

He puts on a hurt look, then opts for seriousness.

Seeing the expressions moving over his face, she has a moment of cold uncertainty. “Raph, did you do it?”

“Jesus, M, don’t joke.”

“I wasn’t being funny. Why were they trying to finger you?” She pulls into a parking space in front of Jack Be Nimble’s.

It is light now, and already hot. Incredibly tired, she wants only for this to be over. Raph and his problems are too much. She’s too old to be involved with the system like this. She doesn’t want to play anymore.

Tommy is sitting at the desk. Freddie hasn’t shown up yet and isn’t answering his phone. Raph signs the appropriate papers. Naturally, he has no money, forcing M to drag her Visa out of her purse and sign for the thousand dollars bail, the ten percent that the bondsman gets up front. Ten thousand seems like a hell of a lot for traffic warrants. Her lips tighten as she thinks of the vacation she won’t have. Her salary is a lousy $23,000 a year and she knows Raph will never pay her back. She tells herself that he’s an innocent friend, that he’s just inept and she shouldn’t be so impatient.

Telling Raph to get in the car, she turns to Tommy. Catching him off guard, she is touched by the look of concern on his face.

“Let it go, lady,” he says, “You don’t need this.”

“I know, Tommy, I know. And thanks.”

Resisting Raph’s pleadings that he is unnerved and wants to stay at her house, she dumps him at his dingy apartment. She hates his apartment. It’s long and narrow, the only window a sliding glass door to the balcony at the far end that seems to let in no light. The Navajo white walls feel dirty even though they probably aren’t.

She’s dimly aware of the method to his madness. The apartment is an appropriate backdrop for the suffering romantic image that he wants to convey. His few friends hate the place, so he gets to go out a lot without reciprocating. Of course, the thin-thighed young women in his classes find him irresistible and the dinginess becomes a turn-on, which they describe endlessly to their more sophisticated friends, who don’t envy their sitting on his floor listening to his poetry and drinking bad red wine.

She drives home unaware that he’s beginning to see her as a defector. She’s been smarter than to sleep with him, keeping their relationship on a strictly friendship basis, not trusting him the way she does her ex-cons and con men with whom she doesn’t sleep either. She’s never had any illusions about him, but has always liked him anyway. He makes her laugh and there aren’t too many people around who can do that. She doesn’t really see him as one of her stray pups, although outsiders might.

She tries to wrap her mind around the possibility that he might have committed the murders, but can’t do so. The cops must have been just harassing him.

She doesn’t know that as soon as she is gone, he leaves the apartment without showering, shaving, or changing clothes.

Neither does she know that, a couple of hours later, Martha Jones will open the door to her Paradise Valley condo and half skip to her Honda, grateful once more for her covered parking space. She’s just signed a contract for her second novel and Continuing Ed has asked her to teach a creative writing course in the fall. The Review-Journal is going to do a story on her and all’s right with the world. She’s on her way to pick M’s brains for an exotic locale for her next book and has no way of knowing that M is sleeping, having completely forgotten their appointment.

M’s never paid any attention to Martha’s looks. She is a hell of a neat person, smart, funny, and loyal, and great to be with, and M has always wondered why some man isn’t smart enough to see what a great companion Martha would be. While she yearns for romance, she is truly an innocent, never having had a serious affair. It’s not surprising then that her face lights up when she spots the man leaning on the pole next to her parking space, holding a picnic cooler. Everything else is going well. Maybe her luck in love will change too.

“Want to play hooky?” he grins.

For once Martha decides to follow a whim. This is a good day. M will just have to understand.

“What’s in the cooler?” she asks.

“Goodies for you. You’ll never in this world guess, so just wait until we get to Mount Charleston,” he answers, getting into the passenger side of her car. “My wheels are in the shop. I had Findlay drop me here.” He reaches over and turns on the radio, dropping his hand to stroke her knee. She gulps, but doesn’t protest.

Once on the mountain, they have hiked almost to Cathedral Rock when he suggests a detour. There, in a secluded spot, he tenderly asks her to close her eyes for the surprise.

She leans against a tree and squints them shut, listening to him fumble with the cooler. Then she asks, “Can I open them yet?”

“Not quite.”

The last thing she sees is his face distorted by passion as he forces her back, pulling the black plastic bag over her head. “Die, ugly bitch, die,” he intones. Quickly performing the mutilations, he returns the bag and knives to the cooler, placing them under the sandwiches and plates, and takes the main trail down to the lodge where he has left his car earlier.

He enters the lodge, drinks a beer, eats some nachos, and then dumps the murder paraphernalia from the cooler into the trash.

Smiling, he makes the uneventful drive home to sleep.

It’s 3:30.

At the same time back in Las Vegas, M wakes up from her nap realizing that Martha hasn’t appeared. They were to meet here before deciding where to go for lunch.

Thinking she might not have heard the doorbell, M checks outside for a note or some sign that Martha might have been there.

A shudder runs through her. Something must have come up. Even Martha can have something come up, she tells herself, pressing her face against the cool glass of the sliding door that separates her from the inferno outside.

By 4, after telephoning all over town, she is frantic about Martha but keeps telling herself to chill, that Martha is an adult after all. Finally, to take her mind off Martha, she reluctantly dials Raph’s number to see how he is faring. There is no answer.

At 6, the doorbell rings. She opens it to Raph leaning jauntily against the porch pillar, holding a bunch of supermarket flowers and a bottle of cheap red wine. “Friends,” he says, holding both out to her.