Chris Abani - The Secret History of Las Vegas

Vegas, someone once said, was no different from any small American town, except that everything hidden and denied there was celebrated in Vegas. It was, effectively, America’s, and increasingly the world’s, darkest and brightest subconscious.

Horny Nick was bored. He polished his horns and lit a cigarette. He’d had no takers yet, but Sundays were quiet and drew a more conventional crowd less likely to go for a rent boy with filed teeth, tattoos, and implanted horns.

Farther down the street, Annie and Petrol worked a corner. Annie was having a great night, and who didn’t want to fuck an elf from Lord of the Rings ? Petrol drew a class of men who wanted to dominate or be dominated. Horny Nick was an acquired taste but one that cost more, so he wasn’t worried. With only a few johns he could make what Petrol and Annie took twice as long to earn.

Peggy patrolled nearby, keeping a watchful eye on her friends, earning her keep as security. She was walking past Petrol and Annie when she saw a silver compact pass by, headed up the street. There was something off about it, she intuited, and for her that was enough. She began to run up the street shouting as Horny Nick leaned into the window.

Peggy was less than ten feet away as Nick opened the passenger door and got in. The car peeled away from the curb and joined the traffic with practiced ease. Too slow to draw attention, fast enough to get away quick.

I’m Horny Nick, Nick said.

The driver smiled and, turning to him, jabbed a Taser to his jugular. Nick was unconscious in three seconds, a wet patch forming on his jeans.

Outside, receding rapidly, Peggy hadn’t given up the chase.

She finally stopped in the middle of the street, breathless, where Petrol and Annie joined her.

What is it, Annie asked.

Nick is in trouble, Peggy said, dialing.

Who are you calling, Petrol asked.

Salazar.

Salazar’s phone went to voice mail.

Shit! Peggy screamed. She knew it wouldn’t help to call the regular police.

In the growing desert cold, the lights of the carnival were like sharp points. The man in the wheelchair still sat in the spotlight, singing, his only concession to the cold a blanket draped over his legs.

Fred, are you involved in any downwinder action groups, Sunil asked.

Salazar sat forward.

Do you think we’re eco-terrorists now, Fred asked.

Fire said he was a downwinder nationalist, Sunil said. That’s a direct-action group.

Even if that were true, you think I’m involved?

It bears thinking about, Sunil said. Given that you share a similar… I’m not accusing you of anything, just trying to understand.

No offense, but that’s just dumb. How would getting arrested at Lake Mead next to a blood dump help you commit an act of terrorism?

I don’t know, Sunil said.

Let me ask you something, she said.

Fair enough, Sunil said.

Where are you from? There’s an accent.

South Africa.

Well, since you share the fucked-up history of South Africa, have you ever killed anyone on either side of the political divide?

Sunil shifted. Killed someone, he said. No.

Fred smiled cruelly. Watched someone die, she asked.

Sunil looked away.

I’m not accusing you, Doctor, I’m just getting to know you.

So you think that Fire and Water are innocent of all charges and they aren’t crazy?

Yes, Fred said. Let me come and talk to them, she said. I will get them to open up. Get this whole thing cleared up by tomorrow afternoon.

That would be very helpful, Sunil said. You would do that?

For the twins? Sure, she said.

Hold up here, Salazar said. Now, wait just a fucking minute. They are my twins, my case. You get to help on one condition.

What is your condition?

That you come into the station voluntarily and that we run your prints and take a statement.

Fine. Can I talk to them, she asked Sunil.

Now? On the phone?

Any objections, Sunil asked Salazar.

Now you care what I think.

So?

Let her have her fucking phone call, Salazar said.

Sunil called the institute and asked the duty nurse to put the twins on.

What’s up, Doc, Fire said.

Hold for Fred, Sunil said, passing the phone.

Fred took it. Some privacy, she said.

Sunil looked at Salazar, who nodded. Fred left them on the porch and stepped back inside, closing the door behind her. She was on the phone for only a few minutes before she came back out and handed the phone to Sunil and thanked him.

Now you two need to leave, as I have a carnival to run, Fred said. She herded them to the door, taking their beer bottles.

So you’ll come by in the morning, Sunil asked.

Yes, I’ll meet you at the institute at ten.

She walked them back to their car. Two men sat in a golf cart beside it.

I see you have your own security, Sunil said.

It’s a ghost town. We need to keep it safe, she said.

Crowds were already beginning to mill about. The town suddenly looked alive, like a horror-film town, or a Stephen King novel, where everyone was dead in the daytime but came to life at night.

Where the fuck did all these people come from, Salazar asked.

All lost souls come to commune at the carnival, Fred said, laughing.

Fuck, Salazar said. He got into the car quickly and started the engine.

As Sunil turned to go, Fred touched his arm. Thank you for coming, she said. This is the closest thing the twins have to a home. I would like to bring them back. You understand, right? You lost your home too. Have you ever been back?

Sunil smiled. Good night, he said, and got in beside Salazar.

As they drove down the yellow brick road, Salazar said: You know she’s lying, right?

Of course she is, Sunil said. The question is, what is she lying about, and why?

The drive home was faster. Ten miles from the town, both of their cell phones began to beep.

Finally, some service, Salazar said.

Yes, Sunil said, looking at his phone.

Asia had called seven times. Sheila five. Brewster five.

Wow, he thought, busy night. He was curious about Asia’s calls, but Sheila and Brewster could wait. He tried Asia’s cell. There was no answer. As they hit the open road and gathered speed, Sunil thought back to Fred’s question: Have you ever been back?

He had been once: but not to J’burg, or Soweto, but to Cape Town. Thinking about it now, Sunil was reminded of one of those moments of uneasy grace that he’d found on a beach in Cape Town shortly after his return.

An overweight woman walked across the sand with one arm tucked close to her right side, body bent into a slightly angled sway. Sunil recognized the signs of a small shame, of a person used to an unkind gaze. The young woman sunbathing topless, spread to the glory of the sun with the abandon of the proud. Older women more modest with their bodies, but less with their envy, shot her disapproving glances.

An old white man slept in the sun: fully dressed and looking like an untidy pile of towels in the sand. A woman on her cell phone turned away from him, her muscled and uncovered back had a Ganesh tattoo spread like a rug across it. Kids of all colors and races clustered around an old black man selling ice cream from a blue-and-white cooler.

Returns are never what we expect them to be. The glory of old wins pales in the face of the reality of compromise. The Cape Town beach with whites, blacks, Indians, and coloreds fading into burnt sepia — the color of tolerance, a smudge over the sharp, angled pain that still struggled under the wash of it — was no different. There was no feeling of restitution in this. There should be more than giving back what was free and collective in the first place. He didn’t know what, but felt that there should be.