I needed to get out of town.
I popped into a record store. Picked up a couple of Allman Brothers CDs. Grabbed a cab. Curiously, it had no smell. I directed the driver to the local Avis shop. Rented a generic pale blue car, with Utah plates. I’d hit the road. A good long drive would give me time to think.
On second thought, I didn’t want to spend that much time with myself.
I called Butch.
Butch, I said, let’s hit a casino.
I hope you don’t mean what it sounds like you mean, he said with a laugh.
No, no. Let’s go play poker.
Ah. Poker. I’m tempted.
Come on. Take the rest of the day off. I did. If I can do it, you can do it.
I’m not sure that’s always true, he chuckled. But today, it just might be. I don’t have a whole lot on my plate.
I’ll pick you up in ten.
Man. You’ve got a serious Jones on.
I do. Come protect me from myself.
Okay. But I’m charging my usual rates.
No problem. I’ll take it out of my winnings.
I picked up Butch. We hit the road. I asked him to drive. I wanted to look at the pictures.
I figured we’d go to one of those new Indian reservation casinos. I’d never been to one before, but they were popping up everywhere. We could do our bit for the indigenous peoples, and scratch that poker itch.
I was pretty sure I knew which one was closest to the city, and what road to take. I wagered there’d be signs as we approached.
Once we were on the road I asked Butch if there were any developments in the Larry Silver case. That he could share with me.
Not really, he told me.
I pulled out the manila envelope. Looked at the crime scene photos. Offered them to Butch.
Nah, he said. Seen them before.
It was the usual grisly stuff. The left side of the kid’s face was caved in. Okay, right-handed perp. That really narrowed it down. I made a note to check Jules. We get lucky, he’s left-handed. Blood soaked down Larry’s shirt. Stopped and pooled at the belt-line. He was sitting down when he got whacked. Another interesting detail. Maybe. Nothing much else.
Murder weapon? I asked.
I’m not supposed to tell you that.
Come on, Butch. They find anything?
He didn’t respond.
I peered at the photos. Turned them this way and that. The wound was ugly. But symmetrical. Rounded. Narrower at one end.
Baseball bat? I asked.
Butch glanced at me. Didn’t say anything.
Baseball bat? I repeated.
He looked at me again. Winked.
I wasn’t sure what it meant.
There were signs for the casino, but it still took us hours to find the place. Once you got off the thruway you had to thread your way through rural roads and small towns, and in the end a forest. Twenty minutes of trees and the road opened up, and there it was: a string of behemoth casino buildings, stark, banal and insistent, in the middle of nowhere.
Not your father’s Indian reservation.
Inside, we navigated miles of not so tempting kitsch. Trinket shops, arcades, three zillion tacky restaurants and the usual array of glittering machines designed to take your money all night long. We found the poker room, way in the back. They didn’t want to advertise the game. The margins were too low. It was the only game you didn’t play against the house, which meant that though the take was regular – a small percentage of each pot was raked – it was not spectacular. Never would be.
Three in the afternoon. The few active tables were full of lifers. The yellow faces and stale banter of guys who’d played each other every night and day for years. Just keeping busy til some fish swam up.
Once I sat and played a hand they’d all converge like sharks on chum.
Butch had no fear. He sat down. Bought in for five hundred. Gave me the wink and the nod.
I, on the other hand, I told myself, am not that stupid.
I wandered back through noisy corridors. They beckoned me at every step to spend my hard-earned cash on things I didn’t want and needed less. Blow-up alien dolls. Ten-dollar plastic amulets. Tickets for the second coming of some washed-up third-rate crooner.
I resisted the temptations. I found the hotel desk. Checked in for a nap.
Butch was a big boy. He could take care of himself.
The elevator to the rooms was hard to find. They’d hidden it in a corner. Back behind the Indian trinket shop. They didn’t want you in your room. You couldn’t spend your money there.
The bed was hard. The TV didn’t work. There was no mini-bar.
I fell asleep.
I had a dream. I was pulling at my ear. The ear came off in my hand. I looked at it with curiosity. Turned it over in my hand. On the back were buttons. Ah, I thought, in my dream, so that’s how they’re attached.
I drifted slowly awake. I touched my ear.
It was there.
There were no buttonholes.
I had no idea what time it was. My watch said seven o’clock. Morning or evening, I wasn’t sure. The window in the room overlooked an atrium. No help there. Until I looked up. Skylights, black as pitch. Evening, then. A winter night in paradise.
I smoothed the creases from my suit.