Blake Crouch - Grab

He was twenty-three or twenty-four. Smooth-shaven. Cropped hair. Lifted weights for sure. No tats that she could see, although he wore a long-sleeved black button down which didn't reveal much.

He set her drink in front of her, said, "Seventeen dollars. Start a tab?"

"Sure, put it on my room." She gave him the number. "What's your name, by the way?"

"Darren."

"Darren, if I wanted to get my hands on something a little stronger than booze, would you be able to point me in the right direction?"

She could see in his eyes that he got asked this all the time .

"Talk to Jay at Japonais in the Mirage. He's working tonight."

"Appreciate that."

He left her to her drink.

It was strong and very good.

Yes, the night had blown up to this moment, but she was about to turn it around.

Letty leaned over her drink and sucked the rest of it down.

The liquor hit her gut in a burst of beautiful heat.

9

Letty crossed the boulevard.

The Strip at midnight sleepless and blinking and radiating a nervous energy that filled her junkie soul with the closest thing to joy she could ever hope to know.

Even at this hour, too much traffic creeping between the median of palm trees.

Almost everyone she passed was lit up.

Hell, she was too.

It felt good to be outside again, walking and buzzed and the Mojave air skirting over her shoulders, between her knees.

Surreal to be in the midst of all this stimulation and to know that twenty miles in any direction would put you in abject emptiness.

Between Treasure Island and the Mirage, a small black man wailed on a harmonica. Playing for tips, but no one was tipping. Letty dropped a twenty into the Panama Jack hat lying upturned on the sidewalk beside him.

He looked up.

"Bless you. Bless you."

Huge, milky cataracts covered his eyes, but he stared right at her. His smile both penetrating and disarming.

Letty moved on.

"You don't have to give up!" he called after her. "I hope you know that!"

She quickened her pace.

The giant marquee on the Mirage blazed down like a midnight sun.

The volcano in front of the casino erupted.

A crowd snapped photos with their phones.

Letty cruised through the tropical landscaping into the hotel.

An adult fantasy world.

The atrium filled with vegetation.

A massive aquarium behind the front desk.

It took her five minutes to find the bar, another ten once she was seated before the rail of a man with long, curly hair finally came over.

She said to him, "Are you Jay?"

"Yeah, why?"

"I'd like a Floating Orchid and some advice."

"Who sent you?"

"Darren from the Zebra Bar."

She watched him make something out of vodka, Cointreau, and the juice of a pear and a lemon.

He set it in front of her, and she gave him a fifty dollar bill, said, "Keep it."

Jay looked like Joey Ramone circa the Carter administration. He put his elbows on the bar, leaned toward her, said, "What are you looking for?"

"Crystal."

He gave her a corner in North Las Vegas, a first name, and a description of the dealer.

She never touched her drink.

# # #

Heading down the sidewalk, on the lookout for a cab, the trigger sweats kicked in. Like beads of anticipation rolling down the inside of her legs. That wasted woman Letty pictured as her need now screaming in her ear, wild-eyed, ebullient for the coming fix.

Challenge the thought—

I have. The thought kicked my ass.

Somewhere between the Mirage and Caesar's Palace, the sound of high voices pulled her attention away from the taxi search.

Up ahead, a group of Mexican kids were singing their hearts out in Spanish.

Letty didn't know the words, but she recognized the tune.

Sublime Gracia.

Amazing Grace.

It stopped her in her tracks. Something about the contrast—these little voices surrounded by all this decadence.

Before she knew it, she was lost in the spectacle.

They finished the song and moved on.

Behind them stood a small church—utterly out of place on the Strip.

There were lights on inside, and she could hear a man's voice pushing over the din of boulevard traffic.

She climbed the stone steps toward the double doors.

Shrine of the Most Holy Redeemer.

Some mysterious gravity drawing her out of the commotion of late-night Vegas.

She slunk in, took a seat in the back pew.

The sanctuary was brightly-lit. It smelled of coffee.

There was a simple crucifix behind the altar. A statue of the Madonna. A statue of Christ holding a child.

At the podium, the harmonica man spoke to the group of twenty or thirty people.

"I’m here to tell you that sobriety ain’t easy. But it is simple. If someone told a cancer patient all you had to do was follow these simple steps. Go to meetings. Help others. That you’d get well. You’d do whatever you needed to do to save your lily-white behinds.

"I lost my wife Irene last winter. My boy, Lazlo, he dyin' of Hepatitis in prison. These are not easy things."

The man cut loose a big, beaming smile.

"But I suit up and show up. See, I have true freedom. Freedom of self. Freedom of self-will. It starts with asking for help. Then you realize you aren’t terminally unique. You’re one of us. And you never have to be alone again."

Maybe she'd been primed by Sublime Gracia, by the sheer serendipity of finding this church on the Strip of all places, in a moment of weakness, but Letty felt something like a tiny crack opening in the hardened core of her being. Before she could second guess or talk herself out of it, she woke her iPhone and deleted the details of her tweak hookup.

The harmonica player said, "Anybody else got something to say? Something to share? You ain't gotta be eloquent. Ain't gotta talk for long. You just gotta be real."

Letty got up.

Her heart beating out of her chest.

She walked down the aisle toward harmonica man.

Then he was sitting and she was standing.

It had happened so fast.

What are you doing?

She put her hands on the podium.

The fluorescent lights humming above her.

The muted noise of traffic bleeding through the walls.

She looked out at all the faces.

Young.

Old.

Rich.

Poor.

Black.

White.

Cholo.

Card dealers just off shift.

Cocktail waitresses.

Doormen.

Drivers.

Tourists.

Addiction.

The great equalizer.

"I'm Letisha," she said.

The room responded, "Hello, Letisha."

"I've never been to one of these before. Only seen it on TV and in the movies. I'm sorry if I do it wrong. I'm an addict," she said. "Alcoholic. Junkie. I was on my way to score when I passed this church. Something pulled me in. I don't know what. I've hurt a lot of people in my life." She felt a storm of grief gathering, but she fought her way through it. "My ex-husband. Myself. My... ... ...my son.

"I never wanted to come to a meeting like this. I don't know what I thought. If it was pride. Or fear. But I'm looking out at all of you, and I feel like for the first time I understand. I'm not bigger than crystal and booze. They own my soul forever. But I think maybe we all are. Maybe I see that now. I hope I do. I think I can gain strength from you. I hope one day that you can gain strength from me. That's all I have to say."

# # #

Outside on the stone steps, she sat down and wept like she hadn't in years. Not since a court had terminated her parental rights.

After a long time, she struggled onto her feet.

She wasn't even thinking about finding a cab to take her to North Las Vegas.

Across the boulevard, her hotel loomed.