The Mirror Thief (6 page)

She’s calming down now, more sarcastic than scared. Angrier. Really, she says. Damon Blackburn. Imagine that. Small fucking world.

But I
do
know Stanley, Curtis says. That is not bullshit. I’ve known him my whole life. He and my dad used to run together.

She’s squinting again: Curtis can see her trying to remember.

Badrudin Hassan, Curtis says. Used to be called Donald Stone. You and I met one other time, at his wedding, couple years ago.

She nods. Okay, she says. Sure. Hey, I don’t suppose Damon Blackburn told you
why
he’s looking for Stanley? Did he happen to mention that?

Curtis widens his stance, settles on his feet. Yeah, he says. A couple months ago, Stanley came into the Point and took out a marker for ten grand. Damon signed off on it. Stanley hasn’t made any payments, and in four days it’s going to be delinquent. Damon doesn’t want any problems, for Stanley or for himself. He wants to get in touch so they can work something out.

Her mouth falls open, in disbelief or disgust. She’s too far into this to buy the story Damon gave him. Way farther into it than he is himself. She knows everything he knows. He’s got no leverage, nothing he can use. A delinquent marker, she says. That’s what Damon told you?

That’s what he told me.

It’s that simple.

Curtis stares at her for a second, then sighs. Well, he says, it’s a little bit more complicated than that.

Neither of them moves. Streams of people pour past them, coins rattling in their plastic pails. Soft chirps and beeps from slot machines fill the treated air like birdsongs. Tiny unblinking lenses look down from high above.

Are we finished here? she says. Damon wants Stanley to call him? That’s it?

Yeah. If you give him the message when you hear from him, I’ll be grateful.

I don’t think Stanley’s in a real big hurry to talk to Damon Blackburn
right now, she says. I think he’s mostly inclined not to do that. Just to let you know.

Maybe he’ll talk to me, Curtis says. He knows me. He’s a reasonable guy.

She laughs. Reasonable! she says. That’s good. Reasonable.

Curtis reaches into his inside pocket, slowly, for Damon’s card. Holds it out to her. My cell’s on the back, he says. So’s my room number. I’m staying upstairs. Tell Stanley to call me. Maybe I can talk sense to him.

Good luck, she says. Good fucking luck on that one, pal.

She crosses her arms, looks out across the casino floor. There’s an old couple at a craps table nearby, the old man laughing hard, the old lady waving her arms and going
woo woo woo
, both of them drunk, both better than seventy years old.

Veronica smiles. Stanley’s totally crazy now, she says. You know that, right?

I been told that, yeah.

She keeps staring at the old couple. Now she looks tired, really fundamentally exhausted. Curtis remembers that he is, too. He keeps the card in the air, unmoving.

So, she finally asks, did Damon send anybody else out here?

Curtis thinks about that. No, he tells her. Just me.

Veronica uncrosses her arms. Then she reaches out and plucks the card from his fingers. Looks at his face, his chest, his face.

Your name’s Curtis, she says. Right?

His first couple of swipes miss the card-reader, and he stops for a second, fuming, before closing his eyes and using both hands, brushing the card’s edge along his left index finger, guiding it into the slot. The door unlocks with a soft interior click.

No faxes, no messages. Curtis puts away his gun, strips down to his skivvies, collapses onto the big rack. Too tired to sleep. Too keyed-up. Thinking too much. His brain revs and revs, but won’t drop into gear. The clock on the nightstand glows like a hot coal. Ninety-one hours to go. And counting.

He gets up, goes to the head, washes his face and hands. The water tastes of stone, is hard to lather. Not like home, where the soap never seems to come off. He dribbles it over his stubbly scalp, across his eyelids. Rubbing it in.

The girl—Veronica—doesn’t seem like somebody apt to spook easily. But tonight, when Curtis first called her by her name, her fear seemed out of proportion to anything Damon told him about the current circumstances. He wonders what she knows that he doesn’t. It worries him, but it excites him, too. He did right by coming out here.

The searchlight that swept his window earlier is gone now, switched off, and the suite is lit by a low steady glimmer from outside. Curtis puts on one of the hotel’s white robes and sits at the table in the sunken living area, looking out at the city. Columns of headlights glide down the Strip and the interstate farther west: swingshift traffic headed home. Beyond that, the redundant moon, dilating as it drops. Mount Charleston somewhere under it, erased by ambient glow. Curtis pictures soft light falling on the snowcap, cold wind blowing around the peak. The view of the city as it shines up from the desert. Phosphorescence in a ship’s wake. Firelight glimpsed through a copper screen, or a worn black curtain.

Bright streaks move beyond the windowglass: early flights taking off and landing at McCarran. Curtis yawns and watches their navigation lights—dim reds and greens—cross the Luxor’s beam. He closes his dry eyelids and imagines, for no good reason, the city as a living creature: the airport its mouth, sucking stars from the sky, spitting them back like husks. The roads and highways its veins and intestines. The Strip its aorta, or colon.

He wakes not much later to the sound of the fax machine and to the night outside gone blue. His uncomfortable forehead has come to rest on
the cool wood of the tabletop. He stumbles as he stands, draws the curtain with a jerk, shrugs off the white robe, and falls into bed without bothering to check the fax. Recalling nothing of it when he next stirs, which is shortly before noon.

No memory of dreams, or of dreaming. He rises with a gasp, as if he’s just nodded off. Looks at the clock, curses, slides from bed. Picks up his jeans, pulls them on. Stands in the middle of the room. Breathing hard, certain that he’s late, that he’s slept through something. Gradually remembering otherwise. Remembering yesterday like he watched it happen to somebody else. He sits on the edge of the rack and pulls his trousers off again, slowly.

He draws back the curtains. Flat hazy light. Thick Saturday crowds below, thronging sidewalks and bridges, shooting photos of the belltower, the boats, the twin columns. Curtis switches on the TV: Bush and Blair meeting in the Azores, a kidnapped girl rescued, some new disease in China. No bombs dropping yet.

He’s in the shower when he hears the cellphone ring; he can’t get to it in time. Wrapped in his towel, dripping on the carpet, he’s surprised to see he’s missed three calls: Danielle, Albedo, his father.

Danielle’s voicemail is fake-cheerful, a little sheepish, scared underneath. Much as I hate to spoil a good fight, it says, I’d like it if you’d call me when you get the chance. Just so I know you’re still breathing, and not locked up. Trying to plan my week, is all. I love you, Sammy D. Don’t do anything stupid.

Curtis erases the message, and Albedo’s voice comes through the phone. Hope you got plenty of beautysleep last night, it says. My girl Espeja was real disappointed y’all didn’t get to get better acquainted. But I’m glad you and I could catch up on old times. Reminisce a bit. Hey, you find your skip yet? I think maybe I got some leads. Gimme a call.

Then his father. I hope you’re staying out of trouble, Little Man. I been thinking about what you said yesterday, and I remembered something, somebody you ought to get in touch with. Back in the old days when Stanley and I would go to Vegas, we’d meet up with this Japanese fellow Stanley
knew from California, name of Walter Kagami. He was a cardsharp back in the day—professional gambler, just like Stanley—but I think he gave it up. Last I heard he’s still living out there, managing some locals joint. Place is called Quicksilver, I think. I don’t believe you ever met Walter. You’d’ve been real young. Haven’t talked to the man in years myself. But I think maybe Stanley still keeps in touch. Just a thought. Hope it helps. Anyhow. Love you, kid. Mawiyah sends her love too. You watch your back out there.

Curtis drops his towel and picks up a pen and notepad. He writes down Kagami’s name, and the name of the casino, and is going through drawers for a phonebook when he spots last night’s fax in the machine, the
SPECTACULAR!
logo visible upsidedown at its bottom.

Flattened on the desk, Damon’s blocky handwriting:

Below the message, another cartoon Curtis, staring in bug-eyed horror at an oversize stopwatch in his left hand while frantically jerking himself off with his right. The pupil of the left eye grotesquely askew. The enormous ejaculating penis heavily shaded, minutely detailed.

Curtis flushes the bits down the toilet on his way out the door.

The taxi that picks him up has jazz on the radio—“Invisible,” from the first Ornette album—and this puts Curtis somewhat at ease. He stretches his legs as they turn right on the Strip; the cab’s interior smells like cigarettes and mint.

The driver is Middle Eastern, in his late fifties, with a full head of
gypsum-white hair. Careful and patient behind the wheel. He has an air of certainty that Curtis envies. The ID card in the backseat gives his name as Saad; Curtis can’t make out the last name without staring, and he doesn’t want to stare.

So how are you doing? the cabbie wants to know.

Not too good, Curtis says. Can’t seem to get anything started.

The cabbie aims an accusatory finger at the Mirage on their left. You are smart to leave the Strip, he says. Very smart.

Oh yeah?

It is true. It is always good to move around. People always say, oh, my luck is good, oh, my luck is bad. But places have luck too. The casino has luck. Everyone forgets this. If the casino is being lucky—if the dealers are hot, as you say—then you must go someplace else. Not to do so is foolish.

I guess that’s right.

The stoplight on Industrial Road catches them. Chartered buses pass by. The radio rolls Ornette Coleman into Art Pepper. Curtis looks down again at the ID card. Your name’s Saad? Curtis says.

Yes. Saad. That is correct.

You a Muslim, Saad?

The driver shoots him a hard look in the rearview: flinty eyes, deeply lined from squinting. Why do you ask me this, my friend? he says. You are from the Homeland Security Department, maybe. You think I blow up your casino with my taxicab.

No, no. I just—my dad is a Muslim. And he won’t set foot in this town.

Ah. I see. Islam says no gambling.

Saad flips on his turn signal, merges onto the northbound lanes of the interstate. I am Muslim, he says. But I sometimes like to play roulette. And sometimes also the video poker. And I like to drink a glass of wine. I do not pray very often as I should. So maybe I am not a very good Muslim. Your father is Muslim, you say?

That’s right.

Like Malcolm X?

Yeah, sure, I guess.

Or Muhammad Ali? Kareem Abdul-Jabbar?

More like Ahmad Jamal.

Ahmad Jamal! Yes! Very good. Or Tupac Shakur?

No, Curtis laughs. Not like Tupac Shakur. I don’t think Tupac was a Muslim. His mom was, maybe.

You like jazz? Saad reaches for the radio, turns it up a little. Cool jazz? Bebop?

Sure. My dad plays jazz. He plays the bass.

Saad drums along with Philly Joe Jones on the battered steering wheel for a few bars before he speaks again. I was working on the Strip the night they shot Tupac Shakur, he says. I was less than one mile away.

Is that so.

I did not hear the shots. But I saw the police arrive. The ambulance. The black car, full of holes. It was a terrible sight.

Curtis doesn’t respond. He’s looking out the window, not really seeing anything, remembering. Ladder drills on the practice field at Dunbar. The smell of new grass crushed underfoot. Sirens everywhere. Policecars speeding down Florida toward Adams-Morgan. Helicopters in the air, circling. The assistant principal jogging out, waving to Coach Banner. More than twenty years ago now. Twenty-two, this month.

Many people come to this city to die, Saad is saying.

Yeah, well. I don’t think that’s exactly what Tupac had in mind. I think he just wanted to catch the Tyson fight.

Maybe this is so. Who can say?

Saad’s turn signal clicks again; he’s exiting at Lake Mead Boulevard, turning right, toward Nellis and Sunrise Manor. The white spires of the Mormon temple gleam in the distance. Frenchman Mountain looms beyond.

Maybe your father is smart, Saad says, or is wise, maybe, to think of these things. Everything in this city is made by gambling. Yes? It builds the buildings. It builds the roads. It pays the people. It pays me. All of these things. And always with gambling there is death. You see?

Okay.

This is why we gamble. To face what is uncertain. To confront the unknown, the great unknown. You make your wager. The wheel spins. What will happen? To gamble is to prepare for death. To rehearse. This is the appeal.

You do this rap for all your fares, Saad?

Saad cackles, a rough smoker’s laugh, slapping his palm on the wheel. Only for you, my friend! Only for you. Because you are a serious man. Concerned with serious things. I know this about you. It is in your eyes.

Curtis smiles, doesn’t respond.

Or the man who died here last year! Saad continues, picking up a dropped thread. The Englishman. The rock star.

I don’t know who that is.

The Ox. The one who stands very still.

A thin electronic rendition of “La Marseillaise” is playing below the radio: the ringtone of Saad’s cell. Forgive me, he says, and answers it. Speaking first in English, then switching to Arabic. Curtis tries to follow but soon gives up; some phrases sound familiar, but he can’t recall their meanings. The cab rolls through the light at Pecos Road, passing over the depleted river in its concrete channel. Fewer houses on the sidestreets now. A low roar of jet engines overhead. Curtis settles back in his seat, tries to relax, to think. To get his mind back on Stanley.