Sammy Keyes and the Showdown in Sin City (5 page)

“What is it, Mom?” Marissa asks. “Is Dad all right?”

Mrs. McKenze is panting. Hyperventilating. “That was the security manager at the casino.” She pinches her eyes closed. “Your father,” she finally says, “is in jail.”

“Jail?”
Marissa gasps. “What did he do?”

Now, the McKenzes have always been really hush-hush about their personal problems. Marissa’s not
allowed
to talk about them, and I do understand that … kind of. But it’s not just that Marissa’s parents don’t want her bagging on the family like a lot of kids at school do with theirs. It’s that they have an
image
to uphold. They want to be seen as “successful investors.”

From what I’ve been able to figure out, a “successful investor” makes money investing other people’s money. In what, I’m not sure, but I think the stock market’s a big part of it, because all the McKenzes’ problems started when their stock investments took a nosedive. And I guess if you’re playing with other people’s money, you don’t really want them to know that you’ve got financial problems yourself—especially not a gambling problem.

So where Mr. and Mrs. McKenze used to just project success—you know, with their cars and their mansion and the way they dress and act and all of that—since their finances went in the toilet, they’ve also become super
secretive. And even though I know that Mrs. McKenze has been tearing her hair out for months over her husband’s gambling, she still always
acts
like nothing’s wrong. She drives the same car and dresses the same way and talks like everything is just dandy.

But inside the mansion, dishes have been flying.

Anyway, the point is, she would never let on to me that her world was falling apart, and according to the McKenze Code of Honor, Marissa should never have made a peep about it to me or anyone else.

So when Marissa says, “Jail?” I can see the tired wheels in her mother’s brain calculate the damage as she looks from her daughter to me and back again. And I can tell she’s trying to devise some cover-up reason why her husband could possibly be in jail, only the wheels won’t turn.

She’s just done.

“Mom?” Marissa finally prompts. “Why’s Dad in jail?” Then she adds, “Sammy knows about the gambling,” which makes Mrs. McKenze put a hand up to her forehead like she can’t believe Marissa did such a stupid thing. So Marissa tells her, “Look, I had to talk to somebody—living with you and Dad has been a nightmare!”

Mrs. McKenze closes her eyes and nods. “I know.” She gives a sad little shrug. “And I’m afraid things are beyond repair at this point.”

“What happened?” Marissa asks, sliding into the chair beside her.

Mrs. McKenze looks at me and sighs. “I hope you can be a good friend to Marissa and keep this between us.”

I nod and Marissa says, “Sammy’s like a vault, Mom. You know that.”

Her mom takes a deep breath, holds it for forever, and finally says, “He punched Leon in the face. Broke his nose.”

“He punched
Leon?
But … he always talks about Leon like he’s his best bud.”

“Well, your father was—and probably still is—drunk.”

Marissa shakes her head. “But still, he
punched
him?
Why?
”

“Because your father came to town with a big bundle of cash and lost it all at Leon’s blackjack table.”

“How much money are we talking about?”

“A lot.”

“But … where’d he get the money? I thought everything had been cut off.”

Mrs. McKenze studies her for the longest time, and finally she says, “He got it from his brother.”

“Uncle Bruce?” Marissa gasps, and when Mrs. McKenze nods, I understand right away that this has become bigger than a gambling problem.

This has become a hole so dark and deep that there is no getting out of it.

See, Marissa’s family may have been rich, but Marissa’s uncle is richer. And Marissa has told me that it’s not just that her uncle has more money than her dad, it’s also that her uncle is an eye surgeon. And since he’s on local commercials and billboards promoting his “world-renowned vision center,” he’s become kind of a celebrity in Santa Martina. People around town see him and whisper, “Hey, isn’t that the guy on the billboard?” And when Marissa’s
dad meets new people, more and more he gets asked, “Say, are you related to Dr. McKenze?”

And as Dr. McKenze’s world-renowned vision center became at least
county
-renowned, he got richer and now lives in a place that makes the McKenzes’ mansion look like a tract house.

Which all of a sudden hit me was maybe the reason Mr. McKenze started gambling in the first place. How else was he going to keep up?

Anyway, after Marissa gasps, “Uncle Bruce?” she follows up with “Why in the world did he lend Dad money?” but I’m pretty sure I know the answer.

He didn’t know his brother had a gambling problem.

“You’ll have to ask your father how he managed that,” Mrs. McKenze says as she collects her things and stands up, and I can tell she’s thinking she’s already said too much.

“Wait, so what are we going to do? Bail Dad out of jail?”

“I’m not sure how to go about doing any of this.” She frowns. “But I’m sure Sammy’s mother is wondering what’s taking her so long, so we should get going.” And after we’ve walked for a ways, she asks me, “Is she meeting you in baggage claim?”

“Uh … I didn’t check any luggage.”

She looks me up and down. “Aren’t you in the wedding? Don’t you have a dress?” Then before I can figure out how to wiggle out of
that
one, she decides the answer for herself. “Oh, she’s probably doing one of those rental packages.”

I nod. “I don’t really know what the plan is.”

“I’m surprised your grandmother isn’t here with you.” She eyes me. “I wouldn’t send Marissa to Las Vegas alone.”

And since there are obvious holes in my story, I try to change the subject before she asks me any more questions. “I’m really sorry about your problems. I wish there was something I could do to help.”

She sort of shakes her head. “I wish there was, too.”

Then we walk—actually, more like march—through the airport, past glitzy shops and restaurants and slot machines.

Loads and loads of slot machines.

And when we get down to the bottom of an escalator, Mrs. McKenze looks around and says, “Well, this is baggage claim. I’d think your mother would be waiting for you here.”

So we follow her past these big metal luggage carousels, which are mostly just sitting there empty, to one that’s going around and has luggage on it. “This is the one for our flight,” she says, looking at the people hanging near the area. “Do you see her?”

I walk to the other side of the carousel, checking here and there and all around, and finally I come back and shake my head. “I don’t see her.”

“Hmm. Well, the two of you wait here for her while I take care of the car rental.” She points across the building. “I’ll be right over there.” Then she gives Marissa a stern look and says, “Do not go anywhere until I get back!”

The minute she’s gone, Marissa says, “This is insane! What are you planning to do here? How are you going to
get around? You don’t even know where your mother’s staying or where they’re getting married or anything? And my dad’s in jail. Jail! If my mom finds out your mom isn’t coming and that you just jumped on a plane, she is going to kill me.”

“You? Why you?”

She tilts her head. “
How
did you get to the airport?
Who’s
going along with your crazy scheme? Sammy, there’s no way she’s going to believe I didn’t know anything about this.”

“So we’ve just got to find my mother.”

“We?”

I shrug and look down.

“Sammy! My dad is in jail, do you get that? We’re having a family crisis! I can’t excuse myself from it to find your ditzy mother!”

“I know, I know.”

“So what’s your plan? What are we supposed to do with you?”

“Nothing. I’ll be fine.”

She rolls her eyes.

“Look. I have money. I’ll just get a room.”

“What if they won’t rent you a room? What if you need a credit card in case of damages?”

“What?”

“You know—like you throw the television out the window or rip up the couch.”

“What?”

“People do that, you know.”

“Why?”

“ ’Cause they think they’re rock stars. ’Cause they’re stupid.”

“Well, I’m not a rock star and I’m not stupid.”

“But they don’t
know
that.”

“Look at me!”

She eyes my ripped jeans and high-tops. “You could pass for a rock star. Some of them dress like that.”

“I’m thirteen!”

“Exactly! And nobody’s going to rent a room to a thirteen-year-old rock star. You would totally destroy the place.”

“I’m not a rock star!”

She shrugs. “They don’t know that.”

I throw my hands in the air. “Good grief.”

So instead of talking about things that maybe could have helped the situation, Marissa and I argued about dumb stuff like that, and then all of a sudden Mrs. McKenze is back and our time is up.

“Maybe she’s outside?” Mrs. McKenze asks, and she’s looking pretty frantic.

So we go to a pickup area outside big glass doors, and after I’ve pretended to scour the sidewalk and streets for my mother, I ask Mrs. McKenze, “Could I use your phone to call her?”

“Sure,” she says, and it’s easy to see that she’d really like to move this along.

So I dial my mom’s cell phone, and when I get the “unavailable” message, I click off and hand the phone back. “Her phone’s off.”

“It’s
off
?”

I nod.

“Well …” She looks around. “What are we going to do?”

“I’ll just wait for her here,” I say with a shrug. “I’ll be fine.”

“No, you won’t!” Marissa says, then turns to her mom. “We can’t just leave her here.”

Mrs. McKenze scratches the back of her head. “Your mother’s probably just running late, right, Sammy?”

I look down and shrug again. “I’m sure that’s it.”

She studies me a minute. “Well, she wouldn’t
not
pick you up, right?”

I keep on looking down ’cause I’m feeling pretty bad about working her toward what’s obviously become Step Three. I mean, I can’t just let her
leave
me here. But instead of confessing what I’ve done and begging for mercy, I tell her, “Just go ahead. You’ve already got enough to worry about. I’ll be fine.”

She looks at her watch, then checks all around trying to figure out what to do. “Are you sure?” she finally asks.

“No!” Marissa cries. “There’s no way we’re leaving her here!”

So we wait around another ten minutes searching for my phantom mom, trying her phone again, shaking our heads, until finally Mrs. McKenze asks, “What hotel is your mother staying at?”

And I’m about to say I don’t know, but Marissa scoots behind her mother and mouths something big and exaggerated at me.

“Uh …,” I tell Mrs. McKenze as I try to figure out what Marissa’s saying, “I think it starts with an
M
.”

Marissa nods like crazy, then does her big, exaggerated mouthing thing again, but I’m still not getting it.

“Mandalay Bay?” Mrs. McKenze asks.

Marissa shakes her head and air-paints the letters
M-G-M
.

“Uh, no,” I tell Mrs. McKenze. “I think it was …” And then I just go for it. “Is there a hotel called MGM?”

Mrs. McKenze’s eyebrows go flying. “You’re staying at the MGM Grand? That’s where we’re staying!”

Marissa steps forward. “How about we give Sammy a ride over and figure things out from there?” She looks at me. “Your mother must have checked in by now, right?”

The instant I nod, Mrs. McKenze grabs her stuff and says, “Well, come on then, let’s go.” And as she heads off to a moving walkway across the street, I take a deep, choppy breath and tell Marissa, “Thanks.”

Then right away I start wondering how in the world we’re going to pull off Step Four.

By the time we’d taken a shuttle bus to the car rental lot and were driving into town, it was seven-thirty, but it didn’t
seem
like nighttime because everything was lit up, including the nonstop billboards for concerts and fights and comedians and “illusionists” and “peep shows” … all blazing with lights and flashing parts.

“How much were tickets to that show?” I ask Marissa as I point out the billboard for Darren Cole and the Troublemakers, ’cause his “Waiting for Rain to Fall” is Casey’s and my song, and Marissa had told me that her family had seen him in concert during one of their pre-crisis trips to Las Vegas.

Darren Cole is no kid, and people like Candi Acosta swoon over him, so I try not to think too much about the fact that “our” song is done by an old guy, or that Candi Acosta also likes it, because thinking about that is just … gross.

But there was the billboard, and I found myself asking anyway.

And missing Casey.

“Mom?” Marissa asks. “Were they expensive?”

“Were what, huh?”

“The Darren Cole tickets.” Then she adds, “Sammy’s a fan.”

“I’m not a
fan
,” I tell her, but it doesn’t matter. Mrs. McKenze is already giving me a buttery look in the rear-view mirror.

“Worth every penny,” she sighs.

Which didn’t answer my question, but it’s not like I had time to go check out Darren Cole anyway. I had a mother to find!

Marissa points to a billboard with blazing blue faces. “They were good, too,” she says, then points to the next one. “So was he! … And so were they!”

Mrs. McKenze says, “We have seen a lot of shows, haven’t we?” She shakes her head and mutters, “And now we get to see the jail.”

What a roller-coaster life the McKenzes were having. And the truth is, I used to be jealous of everything they had. Not that I’d ever wanted their
life
—Marissa and Mikey were basically orphaned by their parents’ jobs, left on their own in their mansion like ignored pets—but all the
stuff
? The
vacations
? When everything you own fits inside one little drawer, and you’ve been a whole lot of nowhere for vacation, watching your best friend living large can get pretty discouraging.