Las Vegas – AcciDental
By Peter Bailey
Copyright 2011 Peter Bailey
Smashwords Edition
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Certain locations discussed in the story are fictional or used in a fictional context.
A short but comically dark tale of how a dental abscess destroys a routine smuggling operation to Vegas. Pausing only to kill his toilet the courier escapes into the strip where between the emergency room, Tania the stripper, prostitutes and their blackberries he plots his salvation using his in depth knowledge of handbags.
The LocK flight had been in the air for less than an hour when they started to serve lunch, well they called it lunch, Alan called it an accident in plastic on a plastic tray, served by a , well you get the idea. Alan moved restlessly in his seat as the cart approached his cramped seat in row 48H. He was hungry, breakfast had been some time ago, and it had been the strange combination it had been on each of his previous five (or six? Or seven?) trips. His seat had been booked for him specifically because it was close to a toilet, just in case any sudden changes needed to be made, but he didn’t want to risk anything to eat. As the cart drew closer he checked the trolley dolly pushing it, it wasn’t anyone he remembered. Already he knew the flight routines of the LK Gatwick to Vegas flights better than most of the staff on the planes and once he became a familiar face on the flights he would be of no more use to his employers, he just hoped that they understood that ‘retired’ did not mean ‘kill’
Finally the bump ‘n’ stop of the cart arrived by his seat, the pretty girl driver flashed an almost imperceptible smile roughly in his direction.
“Chicken, Beef Stew or Curry sir?” she asked as her hands started to assemble the made to measure parts of the meal
“Nothing thanks, I’m on a diet” he knew it was a flimsily excuse, his body had passed “slim” sometime ago and was now well into “wasted”, but it had always worked before
Until today
For the first time the pretty girl really looked at him
“Are you all right sir?”
“Yes, I’m just..”
She cut off the end of his sentence “Your face sir, is something wrong?”
He looked at her with confusion, his face? He held his hand to the right side of his face, it was perfectly normal. He moved his hand to the other side of his face; it was swollen, badly swollen.
He got out of his aisle seat in confusion and headed to the nearest vacant toilet without another word, behind him he heard the trolley resume its mating call of “Chicken, Beef Stew or Curry sir?”
As he locked the door behind him the light in the small room came on, in the mirror he could see, well he could see far too much
The left side of his face was badly swollen, hell it looked as if he was smuggling Danny Devito in there. There was no way this could have developed in the short time he had been in flight. Perhaps he should have noticed this morning, but between the special breakfast and the trip to the airport in the shiny black limo, sandwiched between two freaks with so much muscle that he doubted they could talk even if they wanted to, and they didn’t, his morning had been a bit busy
He gently prodded the distended skin over his jaw. Perhaps it wasn’t too bad? Could he still use the jaw on that side?
He bit his jaws together as hard as he could
The floor was cold and his back hurt as it was pressed against the toilet, he wondered how long he had been there. Standing up he could feel his jaw, it throbbed and burnt as it it was both alive and really unhappy about what he had just done. It was at this point that years of watching day time TV came in useful. He had an abscess.
The TV had defined an abscess as a painful infection under a tooth,
He would define it as something that he wished was happening to someone else, preferably someone who wasn’t at 30,000 feet with six hours flying to the nearest dentist
There was an urgent knock at the door, are you all right sir? Sir?
The knocking was loud, perhaps it had been going on for some time now
“I’m fine” he paused thinking how stupid this sounded “I hurt my mouth, but I’m ok really”
“As long as you are sure sir?” but he could tell that the voice had believed in this, perhaps it had urgent drinks to hand out
He looked again at the mirror; it was Quasimodo with a miss placed hunch. At least it would fix one problem, American customs would not think he was smuggling something, they would ‘know’ he was smuggling something, but whatever it looked like they could search his mouth for as long as he liked and still not find any thing in there.
He bared his teeth at the distortion in the mirror, each of them was miss shaped and discolored, perhaps it was a surprise that they had held up this long without trouble, he was sure he had a toothbrush..Somewhere and he remembered a dentist? Mr Sing? Mr Sign? But was it in Swindon’s old or new town?
He shook his head, and then immediately decided never to do that again as it hurt too much. He had no choice but to carry on, there was no way they would suddenly turn the flight around and take him to Mr Sign/Sing and he needed the money, badly
He would just have to man up and deal with it, as he left the small room he thought he had learnt that phrase from John Wayne
He pulled his flight bag from its “convenient” storage location, trapped under the seat in front, and dug around in there for the Ibuprofen tablets which was the strongest thing they had allowed him to bring, this was a shame as he had stuff at home that would have allowed him to chew broken glass if needed.
After sorting through the containers of Imodium and Pepto-Bismol he finally found a packet of generic Ibuprofen , the packet said that “the maximum safe dose was two tablets every four to six hours” but he knew better than that and dry swallowed four tablets. Keeping the tablets close to hand he closed the bag and forced it back into its safe storage location.
As he sat back he saw his neighbor, hell these seats were so close he wasn’t a neighbor they were practically living together, looking at him with the polite British expression that meant “I really want to talk/kiss/love you but I’m far too uptight to even talk to you” he gave an empty smile in his general direction and put in his headphones and closing his eyes tried to drown out a 747 with the White Truth’s latest offering, free from the internet.
The flight seemed to take much much longer than its scheduled 10 hours. Perhaps the pilot had tried circling Swindon for a while to see if they really could land 200 tons of 747 on the Great Western Way, just for him. Either that or the pain relief wasn’t really doing its job. The pain had muted from throbbing and burning to just really unpleasant. But finally the snail slow little plane on the seat back TV was closing on Las Vegas, he did a quick internal scan, did he need more pain relief? Yes, but he suspected what was left of the packet would not help much, did he need more Imodium? No not really perhaps the Ibuprofen helped hold things together.
As the seatbelt light went on he planned how he was going to play this at customs and immigration. For the first time since he had done this he had the perfect excuse for looking pale and nervous , every time he tried to be calm and collected but there was something in the way that security looked you over , with one hand on its gun, that blew through his façade like, well like a thumb through cheap toilet paper. Putting his seat back into “upright and locked” ready to land he smiled to himself, this time getting into America would be easy.
The line for the taxi wasn’t too long and soon he was heading for the Vision hotel. As normal he stated “no tunnel please” and checked which way they were leaving the airport, one time a cab driver had been smart and had back snapped back at him “So which way should I go then?” and had been taken back with a swift reply of “Paradise and Swenson”, its amazing what you can learn from the internet, not that he knew “Swenson” from I95. Each time he was placed in a different hotel, so he did not become a too familiar face, and at least the Vision was perfectly placed on the strip so he could amuse himself after he had made the hand over. Each time the stop was three or for nights, just enough to make it look like a stag weekend or a lovers weekend, this time it was four nights, so after the handover he would have plenty of time to get some antibiotics and see if he could win with the hot and cold system on the craps, he’d like to try place betting but even with the money he was going to get from Christo this was just too quickly a way to throw his money away.
Arriving at the Vision the taxi fare was $20 which was about right, sometime it was as low as $14 and sometimes as high as $25, he had no idea why, sunspots? Traffic? Creative driving?. He paid the taxi driver after he had hauled his single case from the boot (no it was the trunk), mostly the case was just to help make it look as if this was a stag/lovers weekend but once they had gone too far packing the case for him. When he had opened it in the French hotel he had found it stuffed with sex toys, lingerie and lube in every flavor from vanilla to chili, for the first time ever he had thought about calling one of the phone numbers on the hooker cards just to see what the chili lube was like in action, but he decided that doing this might get him far too much attention, and a hard to cure rash.
Checking his bag with the kerb side bell hop he asked the way to the nearest Walgreens, he knew exactly where it was, but once after checking his bag he had set off towards it and the bell hop had shouted after him at the top of his voice “reception is inside to the right sir, inside to the right” this not only made him feel embarrassed but it also drew far too much attention to what he was doing and might have made someone think why he was doing this.
He loved shopping in Walgreens, he wasn’t sure if it was the friendly staff who not only knew where everything was and could take you to it in a second or just the huge array of stuff they had, but he could spend ages in there just buying random items as he moved through the long aisles. Somehow it seemed to sum up the difference between the UK and the USA, at home there would be 5 types of soap, but in Walgreens there was a whole aisle of soap, with every possible flavor, color and make. It made the UK feel like a third world country. Most of the time he just dumped the shopping basket and left buying nothing, but other times he came home with everything from hair spray to mouth wash ,perhaps he should have used the mouth wash more.
But this time he didn’t hang around, he picked up just what he needed and was out of the store in a few minutes.
Behind the desk at reception was the largest fish tank he had ever seen, but he didn’t have much time to admire it as the queues were short and Check in was quick and painless and the reception girl was friendly, and more importantly did not remember him from his previous visit. When she saw the state of his jaw she was horrified “oh no what’s happened to you”
He thought for a second of replying that he had been trampled by a herd of mutated wildebeest, but decided that she would not understand irony , she probably thought this was something like steely,
“I’ve got an infection in my jaw “he said, although he thought this was self evident “it started just as I got on the flight this morning”
“Oh I’m so sorry” as if it was her fault “can we do anything to help?”
“Do you have any contact details for a dentist or doctors?”
“We have a list sir, I’ll get it sent up to you”
Room 10-52 was pleasant with a view of the Casino Royal and the Venetian, but also a great view of the casino roof. But the view was of little importance. The bathroom was a little small, but he wasn’t planning any parties in there. Putting his case to one side, he would investigate its contents later; he just hoped it wasn’t some unpleasant surprise, again. He opened the Walgreens bag and emptied its contents on the table , Senna, ex-lax , syrup of figs and lots of water
Sitting down he started on the hard part of the trip,
tablet, water, figs, water, tablet, water, water , water
30 minutes later, his stomach was completely full of every laxative known to man, all he had to was wait now.
He turned on the TV and started to flip through the channels. As ever the problem was finding the programs through the blizzard of adverts. American TV always seemed 80% adverts, 5% TV and 20% invitations to medical conditions that seemed to come with a hot wife, a cute pet and walks by the sea, eventually he got lucky and found the film “true grit”, the original of course, and settled down to watch Kim Darby abuse John Wayne, while waiting for nature to take its course.
An hour later he emerged from the bathroom feeling much lighter and clutching a small plastic bag that was dripping with water and smelling of hotel soap. He bounced the bag in his hand, it felt much heaver than any of his previous loads. He had heard though the grapevine that his last delivery had been worth 20 mill, this had to be worth 30 easy.
He didn’t know what was in there, but they had been at great pains to tell him that it was not anything he could eat, drink or shoot, whatever it was, (he suspected diamonds), it was nothing he could use. Of course he could always fly to another country (that he didn’t know) and sell whatever it was to a contact (that he did not have), and then spend the rest of his short life jumping at every sound. No, he took the easy way, he would take this to Christo at the Rio in, he checked his watch, two hours , get his money and have a nice relaxing break losing at craps until it was time to go home.
There was a knock at the door, no, there was a thumping at the door
“Security, open up”
In an instant he was on his feet, he knew instantly what had happened,
Somewhere on a previous trip the line had been broken and he had picked up a trace, hotel security were with the swat team for insurance reasons only and now they had him with the delivery and in a moment they would be through that door and have him just where they wanted him. He thought how long he could stand to be in a small room being questioned with no hope of anything that he needed, he wouldn’t last a day, he would tell them everything, where he made collection, who he delivered to, what color the walls of the rooms where, their age height and inside leg measurement if that’s what it took.
He knew what he should do, his instructions had been very simple and to the point, if revealed he should hide the load if possible, but otherwise get rid of it. Getting rid of the load would make the bust a waste of time, with no proof of anything they could not hold him and get him to talk, “the fruits of the poisonous tree” they had called it. The police investigation would be a matter of record and make sure he survived the loss of the delivery.
Again a thumping at the door
“Security, open up”
“Coming”
He quickly stepped into the small bathroom, in one fluid motion he dropped the small bag into the toilet and hit the flush lever
In a second the bag was gone. He checked the room, the huge array of laxatives was by best suspicions, but there was nothing that could turn up on a warrant sheet
He took the door handle, he braced himself for the throng of the swat squad bursting through the door, they had shown him in simulations what would happen, they would get him on the floor, handcuff him and get him out of the room while forensics took the room apart inch by inch
He opened the door
Outside was a large well built middle aged women with a happy welcoming smile but without a swat team, he looked in disbelief at her, he looked up and down the corridor, and there was still no swat team. He looked closely at her in case the swat team was hiding behind her. There was no swat team but she was wearing a blue uniform with “security” written over her the left of her two matching mount kilimanjaro’s.
“Security?” he asked, he absently noted how calm and relaxed his voice sounded
“yes, you wanted a list of dentists in the area?” she handed him a sheet of paper “your face really is quite swollen” she pointed at part of the sheet he held limply in his hand “these are the local dentists and this one is on call for the hotel, but you could be looking at quite a cost for these, if you just want some antibiotics for the infection these are the emergency medical centers in the area but you could be looking at a significant waiting time “
She carried on talking, but now it was “you are dead, you are dead, you are dead, you are dead,”
He realized that she had stopped making any noise and was looking at him with a worried expression “Are you alright?”
“Yes, but my jaw hurts” he had to ask the question that had killed him
“I didn’t expect hotel security to deliver the list, it gave me quite a turn” quite a death was what he meant
“Medical is part of security sir, are you really ok? You look quite faint”
“jet lag and the infection, I just need to lie down for a bit” as he closed the door he heard her parting “well if we can be of any more help sir” well he would be getting a lie down soon, a very long , cold stiff and not breathing lie down.
The very small part of his brain that was not planning his death suddenly presented an idea
He ran from the door to the bathroom and looked at the smart low level flush, there was nothing to see, and dropping to his knees he forced his hand into the vanishing hole where everything, including his life, got flushed away. There was nothing
He sat down on the floor; no he collapsed on the floor. He stared at the porcelain throne that had eaten his life, behind him the side of the bath pressed into his back; slowly he stretched out his legs. The small bathroom made the fit of his body between the bath and the toilet just right. Placing his feet on the lip of the toilet he arched his back putting the maximum force on the highest part of the toilet. Behind him he heard something break with a snapping noise, he just hoped it was the bath and not his back. The toilet did not move, he straightened his back until it was completely clear of the floor, he hung suspended between the two bathroom fitments. Nothing moved. In desperation he straightened his back to the maximum possible extent, this time it was something in his back that gave way. With a sudden crack the toilet moved an inch or so, the extra room freed his body from the gap and he collapsed to the floor.
He lay there for a second, his back screamed its agony to him, but he had no time for this. Coming up to his knees he wrapped his arms around the toilet as if he was embracing a lover. Ignoring the sharp pain in his back he lifted and pulled the toilet away from the wall, the floor was wet now with the bleached sterile water that was escaping from the bowl. Pulling the toilet as far as he could from the wall he could see the hole in the floor that had connected the toilet to the hotel drains. Dropping to his chest his pushed his hand into the hole as far as he could, all he could feel was the smooth pipe around his hand, there was no package. A foot or so into the pipe there was a sharp turn as the pipe fed away from him into the wall, pushing the toilet out of the way he moved his body so it was now parallel to the wall behind the toilet, he was soaked now and the room stank of bleach and shit. Now he could move his hand down the pipe and around the corner, and his body was flat on the floor with his hand was at maximum reach, there was no package.
The very small part of his brain that had not been planning his death gave up and joined the majority verdict.
He lay there for a while, his arm fully extended into the drain system of a major Las Vegas strip hotel. He had no energy to move, he had run out of everything.
After some time his arm started to hurt due to the unnatural angle it was being forced into, rolling to one side he started to bring his arm back towards him, it was trapped. Pulling gently, and then not so gently he tried to free his arm, it would not move. Collapsing on the floor he laughed, his voice high and strained, it might be a race between Christo’s men and hotel security to see who would get to him first, but he wasn’t going anywhere now. Below him his arm rotated slightly in the pipe and it came free, sitting back against the wall he held his arm, with all of its mess and smell and pain to him.
Still holding the arm, not his arm, he moved unsteadily back onto the carpet of the living area. Behind him he left a trail of water and something else, on the pale carpet.
He was probably aiming towards the chair by the desk, but it was only a few steps later when he fell to his knees.
Back home there was a rumor about Christo and one of his couriers. He had handed over a package that turned out to be 10 grams short, Christo had been very understanding about the whole situation and had not touched one hair of his head, unfortunately the head was the only thing ever found of him.
The room turned a strange shade of gray and moved swiftly away from him.
The view of the room was strange seen from an eye that was in contact with the carpet, an endless expanse of carpet swept away from him and in the distance there were things that were either furniture or distant monoliths. It took some time to roll onto his back, it barely seemed worth the effort, did it really make any difference where they found him.
As he lay there waiting for them to get to him, he tried to make his peace with God, Buddha or Zen, in his time he had tried, a little, to follow each of them but none of them had given him the peace of mind he found in his fixes. How had it gone so wrong? , at school they had said how gifted he was, how he could do anything he wanted, but then that had been the problem. He had been far too clever to settle for working in an office for some stupid middle manager he was going to do it all by himself, he was going to be a music big shot or run a major company or something else. Time had taken all his plans away, but then it wasn’t just time that had done the damage, perhaps he would have failed anyway, but would he have fallen so far if a friend, (ah but how much of a friend had he really been), had not introduced him to pot. For years pot had been the wind beneath his wings, letting him soar away from the increasing mess of his life, and when pot had not been enough any more to keep himself away from himself he had moved on to snow. That had only managed to hide him from himself for a short time, and then finally it was H or junk or shit, and wasn’t shit just the right term for his life. He had moved quickly from crap jobs into minor theft, he had flirted with a new dream of being a major league drug dealer, owning the market for all of Swindon. That dream had soon failed when he found that the people who already owned the market wanted to carry on owning it and were very happy to use extreme methods to squeeze out new starters. Unless he wore socks to the beach his left foot would always scare young children.
Finally the only job that was left to him that paid enough for his extensive needs was not to be the next Simon Cowell or a bigger Richard Branson but was all about the amount of stuff he could hide in his gut. And his sole talent was that he could manage without his ‘medication’ for long enough. From here there was only one step left further down, and he tried hard not to think about that, this would be the end
Perhaps he should have listened to school, he laughed at the image of him with his ear pressed to a large brick building, they had said he could do anything, but he didn’t think that anything included being fed into an industrial shredder in Las Vegas.
Ignoring the pain in his arm and his back he rolled over onto back and lay there looking at the ceiling, they had said he could do anything. Perhaps he could even do what that end of the line junky could not do, he could save himself. If he could get through this he could start over, no, he would have to start over fresh and dump the tattered luggage of his old life.
He checked the time, fortunately his watch was on the other, clean, arm. It was still an hour until his meeting, and then they would give him an extra thirty minutes or so before the heavy squad came looking for him.
He had three possible plans, without realizing he held up three fingers,
One: the first finger went down
He could go to Christo at the Rio and confess all.
They could see the mess his room was in and look at his jaw and know he was telling the truth, but the only positive out come of this plan might be that he would be already dead when they fed him into the shredder.
Two: the second finger went down
he could follow the wasters original plan and stay here and wait for them to come to him, but this would only guarantee that he would certainly be awake when the fed him into the shredder
Three: the third finger stayed where it was
He could run
He sat there for a moment, his hand showing what he really thought of the situation. He had about two hundred dollars in cash and the pre paid credit card they had provided for him had $1000 available on it, but they had pointed out that the hotel would reserve $150 per day of his stay for costs like room service and charges to the room, he didn’t think this would cover the damage to the bathroom, this would leave only $400 available on the card and as it was in their name he was sure they would be able to track its usage
He had about $600 dollars, a return ticket to the UK and an hour.
He could try staying in America, but he had no ID and no contacts or friends, and without help or money he would picked up in a matter of days and sent back to the UK. He was sure he would have a welcome committee at home, but would he be welcome to see them? He had to get home on his own, where he had friends and contacts that could hide him, for a while at least.
His ticket was for a flight in four days time, he was sure he could hide for that time, Las Vegas was bound to have lots of holes he could hide in. But by then the airport would be so full of Christos men that he would be lucky to make it through the doors, the only choice was if they would finish him there or take him away to deal with later.
He could try for a flight right now, but he bet that Christo would have someone at the airport watching while the playing the slots until he had handed over the package , just in case he ever decided to leave early.
Mccarran was off limits to him
From what he remembered from the air map on the plane, the nearest other airports would be LAX or Denver, he had an idea that LAX was 5 or six hours drive and Denver perhaps twice that.
He was sure LAX would be watched, but Denver? Would they think of watching this? Would they think someone like him could get that far without someone holding his hand to show him the way?
He remembered what Mr King had said during his endless lessons on building a decision tree, he forgot how he and his ‘friends’ had sat at the back of the class making rude remarks and throwing paper pellets, “Solve problems as you come to them, don’t try to solve the whole process at one time”
The immediate problem was getting out of this room, he sat up quickly, his back complained but he ignored this, he had to be fit to be seen in public so he could get out of here.
Heading back into the bathroom he surveyed the damage, the floor was a mixture of water and other waste and the toilet would never work again, but at least water was not pouring in from the cistern, or whatever they used here. He shoved the toilet until it was back in location, not so much as to hide the damage as to give him more room to work in. Throwing all the towels, save one, on the floor seemed to mop up most of the water, and gave him something clean to stand on. The shower was hot, much hotter than it needed to be, and he used the complete set of bathroom potions to scrub away the filth, in the mirror his face could do with a shave, but he didn’t want to go near the swelling with anything, much less a razor, safety or not.
Back in the living space he carefully avoided the mess he had tracked in before. The clothes he had worn on the trip in were useless to him, he had to hope that his case contained some clothes he could use and not some amusing joke.
He was in luck
The case had been packed for Mr middle class English on holiday and in his size too.
Quickly he stepped into an outfit that screamed “I’m on holiday in Las Vegas and didn’t quite know what to pack for the weather”. Compared to his normal outfits he looked stunningly average and forgettable, it was exactly what he needed.
At the door he made a last check, he had all the cash he had left, the credit card, his passport and, why not, his return ticket to the UK. The room was a disaster area, the carpet could only be burnt and water was beginning to seep in from the bathroom. If hotel got here first, perhaps they might just think that the array of laxatives on the desk had just worked too well.
He stepped out into the corridor, there was no one waiting for him there.
He still had thirty minutes before he would be late, but it was always possible that Christo might have sent someone to collect him, unpredictability was the key to success he had told him once, but it looked as if this did not extend to changing the rules with couriers.
Heading down in the elevator he checked his appearance in the mirrors there, had he missed any sign of the chaos in the room, was there a stray bit of human waste stuck to his ear? No he was clean and clear.
Down stairs he used their credit card in the ATM, and he asked for $400 and hit the ‘go’ button. Surrounded by the noise and chaos of the casino he held his breath while the machine chewed over his request, then the machine made the best noise in the world as it spat out four $100 bills
Now he was out of the room and he had money he moved to the next node in his decision tree, he had to get some help for his jaw. As it was he stood out far too much, a good description at the moment would be “look for a large swelling with a small ratty man hiding behind it”
He had the list of emergency medical centers in his hand and he had made a note of the one suggested by security, just to make sure he would not use that one. Outside the casino the air was cool and pleasant after the noise and the clouds of cigarette smoke inside, there was no queue by the taxi sign as he walked towards it, and then kept on walking. It was too much of a risk that his face might be remembered getting into a taxi there, and then with the CCTV and a few phone calls later they would know exactly where he was.
On the strip the traffic was as busy as ever, he had never seen it without queues of traffic no matter what time he had been there, and sometimes it had been so late it was early. There was a pedestrian crossing just in front of the hotel, but he preferred to use the over pass bridge a bit further down the strip, he had seen too many accidents caused by someone still driving as if they were still in their mid west sleepy town or gawking at the pretty lights.
On the other side of the strip he joined the taxi queue at Casino Royale. It was only a few minutes before he was on his way to the vaguely Orwellian sounding “Medical Facility One”. The only things he knew of the American ER he had learnt from programs such as “St Elsewhere” and ER (with gorgeous George) so he expected a gritty urban environment all flickering neon lights, broken plastic chairs occupied by gang members in full ‘colors’ using switch blades to carve their initials into the walls (or each other) and the room patrolled by hard eyed rent-a-cops with guns
The reality was very different
It was a clean tidy (modern) facility with a TV (which became useful) and most of the people there seemed to be middle aged employees from the hotels on the strip. In fact it was better than his limited experience of the NHS ER at home. Reception said the initial investigation fee was $95 (but by now he would have quite happily have given them the complete contents of his wallet and permission to have a wild time together) and the wait would be an hour. Promptly two and a half hours later he got to see a doctor and after a brief ,but in depth, check of his ‘vitals’ , the nurse clucked like a hen over his blood pressure, he got not only the antibiotics that he needed, but also some prescription pain relief. Prescriptions were something he liked, a lot.
Reception ordered him a taxi back to the strip and the nearest Walgreens. It was while he was in the queue to get the prescriptions made up the that he noticed that the antibiotic was “keflex” which as a lapsed Stephen King fan he knew played a big part in the “Dark Tower” series, it had fixed The Gunslinger so he was sure it could fix his tooth, given time.
The tablets were one each, three times a day, he decided against taking the first tablets right here in the middle of Walgreens, even in Vegas downing prescription pills in a public place was liable to get you noticed and he headed into the nearest casino to use their toilet. As he passed through reception following the ‘restroom’ signs he had the first moment of happiness since flushing his life away, he had new clothes , some antibiotics for his jaw, money and a plan to leave his old life behind and start over fresh.
He would have been less happy if he had known that as he passed the slots one of the drones pulling the handles suddenly did a double take as he passed by. The drone left the machine and its grand total of $2.50 winnings behind him as he followed Alan towards the restrooms talking urgently on its mobile phone.
In the restrooms he headed toward the stall furthest from the door, opening the bag of prescriptions there would create less fuss. Pulling the stall door closed behind him he sat down on the toilet seat, as he pulled open the bag he looked up at the stall door. Like all Vegas stall doors it started at knee height and ended at mid chest level, compared to the solid full height UK doors these looked as if you could either limbo under or jump over them. Perhaps it was to stop anyone having fun of a none gaming sort while in a casino, but they looked to be no barrier at all. In the bag were two pill containers, each taped to the front of a small paper backed book. Each book was labeled “Important, about your prescription” , he quickly flipped through one of the two books, certain words jumped out at him “important” “danger” “contraindications” “hazard” “seek emergency aid” the other book was even worse. As he dry swallowed the two tablets he thought that only in America, and its fear of the Lawyer, could the warning leaflet be something you could take a weekend and a thesaurus to read.
Now he needed the next part of his plan, by Vegas standards it was late, and by his UK body clock it was very early, he needed sleep and, he gently touched his jaw, something to eat from the easy to eat part of a menu.
He needed a place to sleep well away from the main strip, and more importantly, where he could not be traced to. As he got to the head of the taxi queue the bellhop asked him
“Where to sir”
“The stratosphere please”
As he closed the door behind him he heard the destination repeated to the driver, and the cab moved away.
As they waited in one of the many queues of traffic Alan rehearsed his lines, he knew it might seem odd, and so memorable, if he suddenly changed his destination and asked to be taken to a cheap hotel, any cheap hotel. Someone might wonder why he had come from the UK without a hotel. There might be places a short walk from the Stratosphere and its ball on top of a needle tower but he could not remember the area that well. But he had an idea to find a hotel, without asking for a hotel.
As they closed on the tower, with its observation platform far above, he leaned forward and spoke to the driver
“Are there any, well, you know girly shows near the stratosphere? “
The driver looked at him, which was worrying as he was still doing more than the speed limit
“You want a girl?”
“No no, a show with dancing girls, on stage, a strip tease place”
For the first time the driver looked interested “back up toward the strip, there is Passions, Foxies and “
“No I’d like it close to the Stratosphere, so I can get back to my wife quickly when she phones me”
He smiled as if they were all men of the world, all used to being under the thumb
“Well there’s Maxims a bit further down from the Strat, I think that’s ok”
“Maxims sounds fine”
As he sat back he thought it had gone well, the taxi would take him to some dive well away from the strip and there he would get out, and make as if he was going into the club as he paid. The moment the car was out of sight he would head to the nearest hotel/motel sign, he guessed there would be several in the same area as the strip place, they might come in useful.
As they pulled up in front of the club he thought he had been particularly clever.
Shame Vegas was even smarter
The moment the car stopped the door was opened for him and a happy voice announced “welcome to maxims sir, right this way”
To make sure he knew the way a large hand took his shoulder
“But the taxi, I’ve got to pay for it”
“Don’t worry sir; we’ll take care of that for you”
As the large hand propelled him into the club he looked behind him at the taxi, with its happy smiling driver.
In the club he was processed as quick and efficiently as he had seen a fish gutted on TV, and ejected into the club feeling much like the fish and $70 lighter.
Inside the club it was so dark that he could see nothing at all, but then a voice came over the speakers “and next Tania” and the lights over the stage came on, now he could see, well, everything on the stage.
He looked around the club in confusion, he had never been in anywhere like this before and didn’t really know what to do. On his right was a small bar and on the right a row of red velvet chairs, and a stage where a pretty(ish) girl was showing off just how easily her french maids uniform came off. A pretty girl, in fact prettier than the girl on stage, wearing a portable bar moved towards him as surely as if was he a magnet attracting iron dust.
“Drink Sir? “ she pointed at the bottles in front of her “we have bud, bud lite, coors, corrs lite, frogs, alesmith , duck rabbit, mil”
He thought this was some sort of water torture and the flow of words would continue until be bought something, anything.
He picked up the nearest bottle and the flow of words stopped instantly
“Thank you sir”
There was no mention of how much it cost so he pulled one of the $10 bills from his pocket that he had kept ready for the taxi and placed it on top of the remaining bottles
“Keep the change” he said, big roller in town was the sub text
“Sir, the beers are $12 each”
Another $10 bill joined the first and the girl, and the portable bar, moved swiftly away.
Alan clutched the expensive bottle to him as if he was clinging to a life belt, and watched the audience to decide how he could best fit in.
After a few minutes he decided that the right way to fit in was to sit in one of the faded red seats as close to the stage as possible while hooting and shouting “yeah baby” and stuffing bills into a young ladies G string
Taking his seat he played his role, after a while he decided that while his hooting was quite good, his “yeah baby” lacked conviction and his bill stuffing, well the first time he did this he was so embarrassed that his hand shook so much he was afraid that the girl might think he was trying to give her some sort of vibro massage.
But the girl seemed happy with the result, perhaps because he had never noticed what bills the others were using so he had used a $20. The girl seemed to like the $20 so much that she gave him a special reward, turning her back towards him she bought her bum, moving and shaking as if it was self powered closer and closer to his face.
Eventually his field of view contained only two endless moving spray tanned cheeks, and with his nose less than an inch from the gusset of her glittering G string it occurred to him that if she had had curry the night before the next few minutes could be, interesting.
Fortunately her buttocks moved away with out any unwanted emissions, perhaps intestinal health was an important feature in her job, but at the very least he would never be able to look at a peach in quite the same way ever again.
After a few changes of girls he got into the routine of the whole thing, don’t tip too much, don’t hog one girl, take turns in bill stuffing. He noticed that the strip never went further than a skimpy G string, or a modesty patch covering the ‘essential’ areas. He had no idea how these patches were applied or, more importantly, removed but he was sure that done incorrectly it could be an eye watering experience.
He vaguely remembered from his first trips, when he still had interest in things that did not come in hypodermics, that there was a strange order to strip clubs in Vegas. Full nude clubs could serve only soft drinks, while part nude clubs could serve beer. Perhaps it was some sort of protestant sin balance; full nude meant you had no sins to spare for the beer, while part nude meant a few sins left over for beer. It made some sort of sense, as down on the strip you could watch people fully clothed, most of the time, while drinking beer until you fell over. Perhaps somewhere there were clubs where you drank lite beer and every other act was nude.
He still found the whole thing more embarrassing than arousing, but he was getting good at hiding in plain sight.
A voice spoke directly into his left ear “hello”
They had found him, Chisto’s men were here to take him away.
He looked to his left, at least he should look into the eyes of his killer.
The eyes of his killer were a soft hazel brown and were smiling at him as if he was the centre of the universe. He looked at the owner of the eyes, Christo’s men came in many shapes and sizes but he doubted if any of them were stunningly pretty young women with a top so low that for a moment he was flying over a fleshly grand canyon and a skirt that was, well, a belt. He was sure he could fit her whole outfit in a small glass, and probably drink it without noticing.
Her smile said that he was the love of her life, the centre of her being and their souls were joined for eternity, and he was sure this could all happen for a low low price.
“So do you want to party?” her fingers ran over his thigh in a very distracting way “we could be very good together”, his brain started to shut down as the blood was needed somewhere else, urgently.
His higher brain was trying to say something but his reptile brain was firmly in control, it liked what it saw and it wanted to party. Her fingers danced on his thigh and his pulse joined in the tempo. He smiled at her “what’s your name?” he asked and his words were a promise
“Mary, so you want to go somewhere?” Somewhere was a word that was important, her fingers continued to dance on his thigh but now they were beginning to lose interest. The loss of interest managed to allow an urgent message from his higher brain, “we don’t have the money and we are on the run”
“I’m sorry, but my wife will be expecting me soon” he made a show of looking at his watch “I’d love to, but, sorry”
“You sure? Let me show you some “she checked the area quickly “holiday snaps”
From a pocket that had no right to exist in her tiny outfit, she produced a blackberry and she showed him some photos on it.
It took him a few seconds to work out what he was looking at, the angle was strange and was that? It was, and so was that, and he had no idea what that was doing at all. In a second he completely lost interest, in every sense of the word. He used to enjoy the full English fry up in the morning, but now the humble sausage would never seem the same again
“I’m sorry” he said firmly “but no thanks”
Her smile vanished as if it had never existed and his role as the center of her universe was now vacant. Without another word she moved off back into the center of the club. Watching her go he had an idle thought about where she fitted into the protestant sin balance, perhaps to sleep with her you needed both money and to sign a life long temperance pledge
He made to take another drink of his over priced beer, but somehow in the rarified air of the club the beer had evaporated, the portable bar/girl materialized by his side
“Another beer sir?”
Perhaps if he stayed for one more beer it would look about right before he left, besides the next act was Tania, her of the endless sea of spray tanned bottom, and he thought she had a lovely smile.
As he took another drink he thought that perhaps these places weren’t so bad after all. He settled back to enjoy the show and got a few $20 bills ready for stuffing.
It was only a little bit later when he realized that he felt, well strange, either the over priced beer in here was really 100% alcohol or mixing beer and his prescriptions had been a very very bad idea.
It was time to leave, but it had been time to leave some time ago. Getting up seemed very complex, but after that it was easy as the door to the outside slid smoothly towards him getting larger and larger until it was large enough to swallow him.
Outside on the street the cool air brought him around, a little. The doorman was the same one who had greeted, well forced, him into the club
“Taxi sir?”
“No thanks, I’m just over there” and with that confused statement he headed towards the motel/hotel signs he had seen a short distance away. Walking seemed to be complicated as the ground was so uneven, it looked nice and flat, but it had hidden holes his foot dropped into and then in the next step his foot hit a lump in the road that had to be several inches high, and so stumbling and staggering the signs slid slowly towards him.
The nearest hotel turned out to be the “Marcel Motel”, at least it would be quiet he thought. At the door he paused, he had to make himself presentable; he didn’t want them to think that he was drunk or wasted
What was he thinking, that’s exactly what he wanted
Opening the door turned out to be surprising difficult as he could not quite get the right depth perception to operate the handle
“Hi, we’d like a room for the night?”
The clerk looked up from his school work and looked at him across the desk “we’d like a room?” he looked around at the complete lack of a third person in the room
“Laverne’s in the store getting some “he winked “supplies”
The clerk checked the register in front of him, “just the one night sir?”
it wasn’t really a question “Room 15 is free, double bed, hot tub and adult channels unlocked, $30 please”
He handled over the money, but got no key in return
“You’ll have to leave a card imprint or a $100 refundable deposit”
“I’ll go with the $100, best to keep something’s off the record. I wanted to go to Vegas and she wanted to stay home and decorate. Turns out we did both”
He handed over the $100 and got back a key, a real key not a swipe card, attached to lump of brass the size of his pocket
“Outside the door, turn right and then right down to the corner”
He managed the door better this time, it only took two attempts to get it open. Turn right and then right down to the corner was a lot more complex than it sounded, but at last he had the door, and most importantly had the door open.
Inside the room had a bed, it might have had other useful things but for now the bed was everything, a few steps took him to the foot of the bed, its dark blue spread made it look like a pool. He dived in, it took quite some time to hit bottom
Bump, bump, bump,bump,bump in the darkness he opened his eyes, there was nothing he could see and all he could hear was the sound coming from the next room. It took quite some time before he could remember where he was, everything up to this point seemed dream like and hazy, his old life was lost to him now and the future? Well that remained to be seen.
In the tiny bathroom he took a long drink directly from the cold tap, he drank and drank until his stomach was distended and full of water.
On his way back to his bed, oh so comfortable, he took the next pain relief and antibiotic. Back in the bed, instead of on top of it this time, he lay there listening to the bump, bump, bump from next door, either they were doing late night remodeling of the room or they were having much more fun than him
It took only a moment for the darkness to reclaim him.
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(Pages 1-23 show above.)