Chris Abani - The Secret History of Las Vegas

Jesus, Salazar said. Internal Affairs hadn’t even arrived on the scene yet to determine if it was a clean shoot. Everything was moving too fast.

Vines said: The thing that will save you is finding something that you used to love as a kid, something that involves your hands and labor and time. You understand? And I don’t mean masturbation. Find the thing. I don’t care what some newfangled shrink theory says; building things has saved generations of American male souls.

A few months after the shooting, waking up drunk, Salazar decided to take Vines’s advice. He dug deep for the redemption Vines promised would be there and a memory of sailing toy ships in the park with his dad, Elian, came to him. Elian Salazar had been a fisherman in Cuba, but in Miami he worked twelve-hour days stacking boxes. When he could, he would escape to the park with young Joey Salazar, sail toy boats, and regale him with stories about storms off the coast of Cuba that washed up sea serpents and mermaids. His father drank too, and when he did, he was liberal with his fists. Those moments by the small pond in the park, their boats competing with the ducks, were some of the happiest for Salazar.

His first attempt was a lucky accident. As he felt the sharp edge of the wood plane catch and shave the first sliver off, he surrendered to his rage and shaved and shaved, feeling all the fear and self-loathing fall away in soft wooden curls that littered the floor of the garage like the locks of a blond Pinocchio. What he was left with was barely big enough to make a two-inch rowboat out of. But he worked hard and finished it with an exactness that slowly brought peace. A few days later he presented it to Sergeant Vines, who looked at it with something approaching awe as he moved the one-inch oar about.

I see you found your therapy, he said.

Salazar followed that first dinghy with a fleet of craft — slopes, canoes, sailboats, and yachts. Most of them were arranged in display cases around the garage. A few he gave away to friends and to kids at the local hospital at Christmas. Only rarely did he ever put any of his boats or ships into actual water.

The first time had been to honor the junkie he’d shot: a kind of warrior’s send-off. For that, Salazar had driven out to Lake Henderson, where he’d placed the second boat he built on the water, drenched it in lighter fluid, and set it on fire. He watched it sail away until it burned to nothing twenty feet from the shore. Since then he’d built only five craft that had touched water, five for the five people he’d shot over his twenty-year career. It was an unusually high number, but over time Salazar had come to wear his kills with an odd kind of honor.

This new ship, the Spanish galleon, had been ongoing for two years, the longest it had taken him to build a ship. Destined for the water — not in honor of any of his victims, but rather for the girl whose murder he’d been unable to solve — it was growing more ornate. It measured four feet from stern to bow and it had eight sails, twelve cannons, three decks, and real stained glass for the windows of the captain’s quarters. It was essentially finished, but since he hadn’t solved the case, he couldn’t let it go. Then yesterday he began what he realized was the final touch, a masthead, nearly a foot long: a siren with the face of the dead girl. It was a cool evening and Salazar was sanding down the siren, wondering what colors he would paint her.

Vines had dropped by earlier. Long retired, he spent his days playing golf and his nights gambling in the casinos off the Strip where the locals went.

Vines took in the muddy black shoes in the corner. Been fishing, he asked.

Salazar followed Vines’s gaze and shook his head. I’ve been out by Lake Mead searching for shallow graves. Fucking muddy and shitty work.

Still fucking around with that case?

The killings started again, Salazar said, catching Vines up, telling him about the twins, Sunil, and his frustration.

Aha, well, at least you’ve got the divers, Vines said. They find anything yet?

No, and they left this afternoon.

Shit, so you have no help?

Not even a partner, Salazar said.

No partner? That’s just what the department does as you get close to retiring.

It’s not that, Salazar said.

Shit, I was just trying to be nice. You know, maybe no one can put up with you since I left.

Fuck you, Salazar said, laughing. I do have some help though.

The shrink.

Yeah, the shrink.

That’s all well and good, but don’t get lost in all that profiling shit, Vines said. Good police work is about following the small details diligently. Don’t forget who taught you that.

In your fucking dreams.

Any good leads?

No.

Vines walked around the workbench in the middle of the garage. Ever notice how a ship kind of looks like a coffin, he asked. Square at one end, tapered at the other. This one’s about the size of a child’s coffin, he said.

A fly alighted on the ship. Salazar flicked at it. Aren’t you late for senior discount at the casinos, he asked.

Fuck yeah, Vines said, glancing at his watch. At the door he paused and, looking back, he said: Burn this one quick, rookie, and move on.

The moon was full and yellow as Salazar walked Vines to his car. Harvest moon.

You look like shit, Sunil said to Salazar.

Salazar, unshowered, unchanged, unshaven, sporting bloodshot eyes and nursing a cup of coffee, stared at himself in the reflective glass of the casino door. Yeah, he said. Well, you’re no fucking beauty queen yourself.

When his cell phone rang thirty minutes before, Sunil had just walked into his apartment and was quite looking forward to some downtime with a beer and basketball on TV. Salazar wanted Sunil to meet him at Fremont Street in front of the Golden Nugget. Immediately. Salazar sounded so like a B-movie gangster, Sunil was tempted to laugh. But there he was, meeting a surly Salazar and wondering to himself how much neon there was in this city. Now, that was a question he was sure Water had an answer for.

See those kids over there, Salazar asked, pointing to a group of kids lounging in the middle of the covered pedestrian walkway that sheltered this part of Fremont. They were sprawled across a white bench reflecting the crazy video projections on the roof of the walkway, eating hamburgers and sipping noisily on drinks. You remember that text you sent me about Fred, Salazar said.

Yeah, did you find anything on her?

No, no record, nothing in the system, not even a social security number.

Then why am I here?

Well, I figured if you were looking for a freak lover with a sideshow, where better to start than with the freaks themselves.

And you need me for what?

Freaks are your thing. Besides, I don’t have a partner so you’re it.

Who are these kids?

Street kids. I try to watch out for them and they in turn keep me informed on things I want to know. They’re kind of like CIs.

Hey guys, Salazar said to the kids. This is Dr. Singh. Dr. Singh, meet the gang. This is Horny Nick, he said, pointing to a teenager with star-shaped horns implanted in his forehead.

Coral probably, Sunil thought. With time it would fuse to look like real bone. They were disturbing but beautiful. When Nick smiled, Sunil could see that his teeth had been filed to points and he was sporting two-inch-long fingernails painted black.

And this, Salazar said, pointing, is Annie.

Annie took off her sunglasses and tucked them over her hair, revealing pointed ears, like an elf or a Vulcan. She ran her tongue over her lips and Sunil saw it had been split down the middle, but it was her eyes that transfixed him. Her sclera were a deep purple and her pupils a royal blue. There were two other teenagers with Annie and Horny Nick, a boy and another girl, and although their entire bodies, faces included, were covered with tattoos and piercings, they looked normal in comparison.