The Secret History of Las Vegas (24 page)

T
he security man shoved Water unceremoniously into his room. He sat on the bed for a moment and, lifting his shirt, he stroked Fire's head gently, singing softly under his breath. Half an hour later the door opened. Brewster stood there sucking on his oxygen tank flanked by two security guards.

Water, the man said.

Water said nothing.

It's okay, boys, Brewster said to the guards. I think this one is harmless.

If you say so, Doctor, one of the guards said.

Brewster waved them away. Go, go, he said. Turning back to Water, he said, Don't you think that's creepy, stroking your dead brother's head like that?

How would you know that, Water asked.

Brewster pointed to the ceiling. I have eyes everywhere. Remember me? I believe you belong to me now. Did Sunil explain to you that you are now here for good?

Has anyone ever told you that you have a sort of Dr. Mengele manic look about you?

Dr. Brewster laughed. This is good, he said. You are as feisty as I have been led to believe. I am really looking forward to studying you.

Fuck you, Water said.

No, no, my friend, it's you who's getting fucked. You are not going anywhere. You don't seem to understand that I have complete power over you. Unlike Sunil, I am not soft, or trying to make restitution for my sins. In my experience, men of science—true men of science, mark you—are like unto the gods. I have no interest in your humanity. No, I am only interested in your monstrosity, and that, my friend, is the medical term for your condition. So if I decide to cut your hands off as part of my exam or dissect you where you stand—

It's vivisect, Water corrected.

What?

Vivisect if alive; dissect if dead, Water said. You should know that, being a doctor and all. Or are you so high off that oxygen tank you've been sucking on?

Why you—

Oh, shut up, Water said. While he spoke, Fire retreated under his caul.

I—, Brewster began.

Fuck this, Water said. He reached forward, ripped Brewster's ID off, and then, wrapping his oxygen line around his neck, he slowly strangled him. It took longer than he expected. It was like Brewster wouldn't die.

He let himself out with Brewster's key and headed to the elevator, which he rode down to the hidden labs in the basement, the ones he knew Sunil had never seen. Selecting one that seemed right in the middle, he gathered all the tanks labeled
FLAMMABLE
into a pile. Next he took out the cell phone that Fred had given him. He pushed the buttons in sequence and the countdown began. He had five minutes to get out. Best to go, he thought, placing the phone in the middle of the pile of tanks. He took off at a fast trot, and three minutes and fifty seconds later he was out the back door, past the loading dock, and into Fred's car.

Fred gunned it out of the institute's grounds and quickly onto the main road.

Did it go well?

I had a bit of unexpected luck, Water said.

Oh yeah?

Yeah, Brewster came to see me.

Did he?

Yes, with his own oxygen line.

They laughed, and Fred gunned the engine some more, pushing the car even faster. Then she pulled off the road into a strip mall that afforded a perfect view of the institute from its lot, parking right next to the black SUV that held the midgets. They all got out and sat on the roof of the SUV. Fred glanced at her watch.

Not bad, she said, we have ten seconds to spare.

In exactly ten seconds, the institute went up in a ball of fire. It was spectacular, as though the old days of the bomb tests were back. Flames and smoke in a big plume that rose over a hundred feet into the sky, throwing debris everywhere, showering the parking lot of the strip mall with ash.

I told you I was a fire wizard, Water said.

Yes, baby, Fred said, kissing him.

We should have brought Champagne, he said.

You don't drink, remember?

Oh yeah.

I feel bad about all those poor apes still trapped in the building, one of the midgets said.

I know, the other said. I wish it could have been different.

By the time the fire brigade got there, there was nothing left to save. They just concentrated on making sure the fire didn't spread. The entire institute was gone; even the peacocks had gone up in flames.

Spectacular work, Fred said.

Water turned and kissed her deeply.

Where now, he said.

The desert for a while. The carnival has already moved on. We'll catch up later.

And like that, Fred, Fire, Water, and the fighting midgets were gone.

VERB

 

W
e are many things—shapeshifters, actresses, mothers, sisters, virgins, whores, homemakers, and home wreckers—but more than anything, prostitutes are mirrors. We reflect only what the john wants, what he has paid to see, to experience. There are many different kinds of johns and a prostitute to match each need. In that way the best prostitutes are those who aren't ever there. Not really. We are only the desire of men slowly taking shape in the muted lights and scented rooms of their shame and need.

I never have figured out why we call them johns. Some say it's because men arrested for soliciting always give their names as John Smith. I don't care much for this stuff. The origin of things is more Sunil's thing.

In fact, it was Sunil who once told me that the word “prostitute” comes from the Latin verb
prostituere
, which means to put forth in public, to expose, to dishonor, to put to unworthy use. I thought it curious that he mentioned it was a verb, and not a noun, because that means we can only exist in the moment, in the doing. We are always prostitutes but since we are not always prostituting, we cannot therefore always exist. A real mind fuck, if you ask me. Like the world truly disappears when we close our eyes. I only exist in the verb of doing the thing, the nasty, so to speak. Shit, I've even started to sound like Sunil, proof that five years with someone you adore but who doesn't really see you will make you mold yourself around your own desire to be seen.

Personally, I think the word john comes from John Doe, as in a person who is and who can never really be there except in body, a need that forms only in the reflection of us. Any true hooker will tell you that this is never really about sex for the men—no matter how horny the john is. Maybe that is why it becomes easier with time, to fuck all those men, this knowledge that you are never really fucking them, you are never really having sex. Some johns come to empty themselves in your mirror, to peel away their own loss, until finally they see what they truly are. The trouble with this kind of john is that they often don't like what they see, because they stunted their own growth so long ago. What is most longed for, their deepest nostalgia, is lost forever—and while that youth they imagine, that virile self who could have taken over the world, is dreamed of, the truth is that in the face of the mirror, they are little more than grotesque dwarves. And then the desire for you turns to hate. These johns vary in tone from the mild asshole to the very dangerous, violent kind. Hookers learn very quickly how to obscure the true face of the monster in the mirror. It can never be fully obfuscated, but it can be mitigated, the john brought back from the edge before it is too late.

The other type of john wants to be kind. He wants to lavish attention on you, gifts even. He will pay you more to let him kiss your lips, your breasts, and your vagina, to trace his breath on your neck in tender arousal, to bury his nose in your hair and nuzzle you. He will try hard to make you come. He will ask you your name, your real name, and he will whisper it as he enters you. He will always be clean when he comes to you. Will always smell good, will never disrespect you, and will always act like he is on a real date with a woman he loves, or can love. But he cannot, and that is why he has chosen you. Because you will let him love you, but only in the ways he wants to, the ways he thinks you should like, the ways in which he is capable, the ways that make him feel good. For him you reflect how gentle he is, how special, how unlike other men he can be. How he is the man all women dream of. How he is misunderstood, hurt by his own deep tenderness. He is a deeply wounded soul yearning to be beautiful, and there is the danger. Some girls become entranced by him and fall in love: yes, we fall in love.

This kind of john can never love you back. Not in any real way, because not even you, with all the true gifts of the courtesan, can live for any length of time in the illusion that he has of you, wants of you, and even demands of you. You will be too tired to have sex some nights, you will want him to fuck you in ways that you want to be fucked, you will grow tired of always having to reassure him that he is good, that he is loved, that he is everything you don't deserve. So your heart will get broken.

The deeper danger, though, with this kind of john, is that the monster he sometimes glimpses in the mirror of you is so far away from what he can accept of himself. Because unlike the asshole john, this john's vision of himself is not of a virile self who dominates women, it is of a saint. When the saint glimpses the monster, if his will is too weak, he turns not into the enlightened one but into the worst kind of violent man—the kind who will burn the world down.

But in the end, I suppose, hookers are women and so we are drawn to this flame of destruction by our own need, our own fear, our own weakness, which is, I suppose, that we all want to fall in love.

At least, that is what I want. I want Sunil to fall in love with me, to say without reservation, Asia, I love you.

TUESDAY

L
ake Mead and a gathering dusk, loons coming in to land in the rustling tamarisk, the sun little more than a memory, the foundations of the ghost town, all silent and brooding.

It was quiet when Sunil pulled up. A little too quiet, not even a cicada to be heard. He parked next to Salazar's car and walked down the crunchy, shell-lined path to the edge of the lake.

Salazar was already there. He had come prepared. There were two canvas chairs and a folding table, all of which had been set up. There was a paraffin lamp hissing on the tabletop and two giant cups of coffee.

In the center of the folding table sat the ship. The beauty of it took Sunil's breath away.

When Salazar had rescued him from Eskia, they had talked. And for the first time in more than seven years, Sunil unburdened himself to someone. No secrets, half-truths, no deceptions or deflections, just the whole unadorned story of him. It took longer than he had expected so that it was nearly dark when Salazar called in the tribal police. They examined Eskia and seemed somewhat uninterested since the victim wasn't from the reservation. They wrote up a statement that suggested it was self-defense and then called in the coroner. Still, by the time all the paperwork was done and they drove back, it was quite late.

They heard about the explosion at the institute on the radio.

I knew there was something off about them. I knew it.

I guess they weren't joking about that Downwinder Nation action group, Sunil said.

I should go arrest Fred and the twins myself, Salazar said.

They'll be long gone by now, Sunil said. Then he added: I'm sorry I didn't believe you.

That's okay. You'd better not leave town, though. The police, and maybe even the military, might be looking for you, plenty of questions.

I know, Sunil said. I know. Do you want to go by the institute?

We're never going to solve this case, are we, Salazar asked.

No, we'll never know for sure. But I have a sense that it's over now.

Yeah, you're right.

As he dropped him off that night, Salazar had asked Sunil to join him at dusk the next day by Lake Mead. Same place the twins had been arrested, by the ruins of St. Thomas.

I have this ritual thing that I have to do. A way to let go of all the ghosts. I would be privileged if you'd come.

Sunil liked that. The idea of setting free all the ghosts of his past. As long as no human or animal dies in this ritual, he said.

No animals. I build these model ships for the dead I have known or been touched by. I take them to a large body of water, light them on fire, and set them free, Salazar explained.

That sounds spectacular, Sunil said. I'll be there.

And so here he was. But still, he hadn't expected the ship to be this magnificent. The truth is, he wasn't sure what he'd expected; a paper boat, some facsimile made out of balsa wood, but not this.

This was a perfect replica of a seventeenth-century Spanish galleon, three feet long, about two wide, and with its masts up and sails unfurled, it was at least another three feet tall. The detail was incredible. There was even a masthead with a mermaid.

Wow, Sunil said. This is a beautiful ship.

You came, Salazar said, passing him a cup of coffee. He said the last part as though he was genuinely surprised by Sunil's voice, even though he must have heard him coming.

I brought something for the cold, Sunil said, holding up a bottle of single malt.

Fuck yeah, Salazar said.

So this is the ship you built for that girl from two years ago? The one we never identified.

Yes, yes, this is the one. But you know, it seems like I was building it for more than just her.

I know what you mean, Sunil said, circling the table. It's really, truly exquisite. Are you sure you want to burn it?

It's my swan song, my last ghost. I plan to retire soon. So yes, I'm sure.

What'll you do?

Salazar shrugged. Travel maybe. I've never been to Cuba. Or I may stay here but get close to it, like, say, Florida. Open up a shop and build ships for collectors.

That actually sounds fantastic, Sunil said.

You think so? Fuck, that means a lot coming from you.

Sunil coughed and looked away, taking a sip of coffee.

Look at us, being sentimental like a couple of fucking girls, Salazar growled.

Sunil laughed. There's my Salazar, he said.

He cracked open the bottle, tipping a libation to the ground. Salazar watched.

Force of habit, Sunil said, catching his look.

I was thinking how beautiful it was, Salazar said. My father used to do something similar.

Sunil splashed generous amounts into their coffee cups and took a deep swig from his own.

How's your throat today, Salazar asked.

Better.

Salazar nodded.

So, exactly how do we do this, Sunil asked.

Well, I think we should say a few words, Salazar said. Taking note of the look on Sunil's face, he added: Or we could just think of them.

Yeah, that sounds better. You know, it's just that I'm not that into God.

Salazar nodded. He put his coffee cup down, picked up the bottle of lighter fluid that sat beside the ship, and doused it liberally. Then he delicately lifted the ship and walked over to the water. Sunil followed. By now it was pitch-dark and the only light was the distant glow of Vegas in the background.

The ship bobbed on the water, kept close by Salazar's foot. Sunil thought Salazar was whispering what must be prayers. And then he realized that it wasn't Salazar whispering, but him, and that if anything Salazar was waiting for him. The prayer had been a simple one: Forgive me, Mother, forgive me.

Salazar bent down and lit the tip of one sail. He held the ship back until the flames were steady and then he pushed it off with the tip of his shoe.

Both men watched the flaming ship ride out on the dark water. By the time it was halfway out, the flames had climbed to about six feet and spread out, like a being of light was retreating over the waves.

So what will you do now, Salazar asked.

I really don't know. It seems I do have to go back to South Africa for a while, make amends with my past, my history.

To making peace, Salazar said.

I'll drink to that.

They stood there, watching the ship sail away, each man lost in thought, lost in his own unique release.

A loon took off from the tamarisk and rose toward the sky.