Dying for the Highlife (23 page)

He dialed the number for Harrah’s on his disposable, untraceable cell phone and asked for Jimmy Homestead. When the clerk said no one by that name was checked in, Mort was neither surprised nor frustrated. Instead, he felt an odd emptiness, as if he had been drained of all emotion. Crawling into the back of his little car, he wrapped himself in his jacket and slept until dawn. He woke shivering, walked into the mini-mart, and bought himself a coffee and a donut that left a coat of grease on the roof of his mouth. When he finished eating he drove off into the dark gloom of the morning, heading around the black lake toward Reno.

The fleabag he chose in Reno was among the sleaziest hotels in town. A pair of whores leaned against a car, eyeing him sullenly as he went into his room. After washing his clothes in the shower and hanging them to dry, he counted the remaining money stashed in his suitcase. Then he called the security firm in Reno and asked for Joe, the man who had originally traced Jimmy’s cellular signal to Las Vegas. Joe agreed to meet with him but needed to wait until tomorrow.

Mort hung up and sat in the wooden chair in the hotel room and stared at the wall. A police car pulled into the parking lot, siren wailing. There was a commotion involving a guest and a prostitute, and the cops eventually sorted it out and took them both away in cuffs. Mort continued staring blankly. Hours later, when his clothes had dried, he dressed in his disguise and drove to an army surplus store, where he bought a survival knife and a sharpening stone. Back in his room, he sat holding the knife, weighing its presence in his hand. The furrows above his eyes eventually eased, and his jaw went slack. He began honing the blade, meticulously working it until it was razor sharp.

The next day he paid Joe $400, and drove back to his hotel to wait, after the initial attempt to connect to Jimmy’s phone was unsuccessful. He tore pages from the phonebook and passed the time dangling the sheets from his fingertips, slowly slicing them to ribbons.

That evening Mort saw a dude riding a chopped Honda check into the hotel and take the neighboring room. Within a few minutes the volume from the TV next door was cranked up so high that Mort could hear every word. He pounded on the wall, and the man, who looked like white trash prison riffraff, pounded back. The TV continued to blare for the next hour. Mort held his knife, his hand trembling. It would be so easy to kick the door down and slit the man’s throat. Instead, he settled for puncturing the Honda’s tires in the wee hours of the morning.

He left at daybreak, found another discount hotel, and called Joe, who said it seemed that Jimmy’s phone was turned off. Joe promised to continue calling until he could get a signal. Mort began exercising in his room, doing hundreds of pushups and sit ups. He wanted to be ready to take down Jimmy Homestead when the time came. The physical exertion made him feel focused and he felt his angst recede. So far, Jimmy had been very lucky. That was the only explanation Mort could fathom for him being so hard to track down. But Jimmy’s good fortune was coming to an end. Mort could feel it in his bones.

• • •

When Garrett Rancour walked outside in the morning and saw his motorcycle’s tires were flat, he turned in a slow 360, staring hard in every direction. The sun had just edged over the horizon, and the parking lot was still and empty of people. The signal light on the boulevard turned green, and trucks and busses went through their gears, filling the air with gritty fumes. A young black man stepped out of his room a few doors down and lit a cigarette. He walked past Rancour, looking at the Honda.

“That’s fucked up, man,” he said.

“You see who did this?”

The brother shrugged, and a shit-eating grin formed on his face, as if Rancour’s misfortune had brightened his day. He continued walking down the street to the bus stop.

Rancour sat on the pavement and inspected his front tire. He hoped someone had simply let the air out of the valve. But the chrome stem cap was still in place. He looked closer, his stomach sinking, and saw the sidewall had been punctured. His eyes clouded in despair when he saw the rear tire had suffered the same fate. Both tires would need to be replaced.

He had intended on having a big breakfast at the Denny’s out near the freeway. Now he would have to deal with buying new tires and finding a shop to install them. He went back to his room to look through the phone book for the closest motorcycle repair shop. But he stopped when he noticed the empty parking space next to his bike. Last night a shit-box silver Toyota Corolla had been parked there. It probably belonged to the asshole next door who pounded on the wall.

Rancour knocked on the door of the room next to his. No answer. He knocked again and put his ear to the window. Then he went to the hotel office. A fat, unshaven man with bad breath sat behind the counter.

“I need the name of whoever was staying in 108,” Rancour said.

“You do, huh?”

Rancour slid a ten-dollar bill across the counter. The man glanced at it and smirked. “Not much I can do with that.”

Rancour placed two fives on top of the ten. The man took the bills and flipped open the registration book. “John Smith,” he said with a chuckle.

Rancour leaned over the counter and grabbed the book. He saw that license plate numbers were recorded next to each guest’s name, including his own. He copied down the plate number next to John Smith, then tossed the book onto the lap of the fat man.

“My tires were slashed outside my room last night. Don’t you got any security at this roach pit?”

The man rolled his eyes. “Yeah, Reno PD. You got a problem, take it up with them.”

Half an hour later, Rancour was pushing his motorcycle down the street. He’d underestimated the effort it would take to push the bike with two flats. He made it a quarter mile before stopping to rest, the repair shop still a mile away. His pits were soaked through, and he’d stripped to his T-shirt even though the temperature hadn’t yet hit fifty. By the time he made it a half mile, he was swearing out loud and had to rest for ten minutes before the burn in his shoulders and legs faded. He sat on the curb, smoking a Marlboro 100, wondering who rat-fucked his ride, and why. He knew there were uppity bikers out there who considered his Honda a joke. He even beat the shit out of a smartass yuppie once, for referring to his bike as a chopped moped. But most likely he felt it was John Smith who screwed him over—whoever that chickenshit bastard was. Maybe the prick was pissed about the TV being turned up too loud. But slashing his tires was a pretty extreme reaction.

Until today, Rancour had been enjoying his stay in Nevada. The last seventy-two hours had been especially pleasant, since he had a pocketful of cash, and there wasn’t much to do since his security agency buddy claimed he needed to lay low for a bit. Without any input to help him locate Jimmy Homestead, Rancour was content to chill and wait. He was in no hurry, and he found the small casinos and strip clubs in Reno to his liking.

He started down the street again, and decided to definitely find John Smith and beat him to a pulp. With the license plate number, locating him might not be too tough. Ripping off Jimmy Homestead was still his first priority, but he would find time for Smith too—let there be no mistake about it. He would do so as a bonus to himself.

D
ressed in leather pants, snakeskin boots, and a button-down designer shirt, Jimmy watched the street from his upstairs window. His new shirt has cost $185, and was embroidered with a trippy purple and green pattern. He felt the shirt conveyed his cool and edgy persona, and he wore it outside his jeans and unbuttoned halfway down his chest. The watch he’d bought along with the shirt read 2:30. When Jimmy looked again, three minutes had passed. He went downstairs and double-checked his bedroom and bathroom. Shit, he wished he’d had time to hire a maid.

The doorbell rang, and Jimmy bolted to his feet, then stopped and took a deep breath. He walked to the door and slowly opened it, his lips parted. The female standing in the doorway wore tight bell-bottom jeans low on her hips and a short, orange top showing off her tanned midriff.

“Hey, Debbie, babe,” Jimmy said, eyeing her up and down.

“And you must be Jimmy.”

“None other.” She walked in and gave Jimmy a little hug, pushing her boobs against his chest while closing the door herself. She made sure it was unlocked, just the way Eric told her.

“Nice pad,” she said. “Are you gonna show me around?”

“Sure, Deb. How about a drink first?”

Heather was glad he asked. The five-hour drive to Reno with her husband had been hell. Eric made her repeat every order he gave her on the operation. When he was finally satisfied that she’d memorized his instructions, he turned on the music and ignored her. When she asked what his plans were for the money they planned to coerce from Jimmy, he told her that information was only available on a “need-to-know” basis. “I’ll give you an allowance, don’t worry,” he said.

Jimmy gave Heather a tour of the house, getting behind her every chance he got to check out her magnificently curvy ass and the tattoo on her lower back. They went out on the deck overlooking the swimming pool, but it was too chilly for a swim. When he asked if she wanted to burn a joint, she declined, and instead asked for another Vodka Collins.

As they walked around the house, Heather’s nerves calmed. Clearly Jimmy didn’t recognize her from that regrettable one-nighter when they were in high school. She barely recognized
him
, all wrinkly and looking like a middle-aged man trying to cling to his youth. The fact that he didn’t remember her meant he must have really cooked his brain on alcohol and drugs, because she
knew
she hadn’t changed that much in the last seventeen years.

They took a seat on the couch and listened to music, mostly annoying classic rock, while Jimmy talked about himself. Heather let him blather on, and at exactly 3:30, she touched his leg.

“You haven’t showed me the bedroom yet.”

Jimmy gave her a knowing leer. “Ah, yes, my
boudoir
is right this way.” He led her down the hall, his heart beginning to thump in anticipation.

The master bedroom was large and spacious. Jimmy sat on the king-sized bed, leaning back on his elbows. She asked him to put some music on, then came to him and began performing a lap dance. Jimmy pawed her ass and rubbed his face in her bosom, and she pulled her top up so he wouldn’t cover it in slobber. She told herself to relax, and that she’d done it a thousand times, but she was repulsed by the man who had given her warts when she was a teenager. She let him squeeze her breasts through her bra while she checked her watch. Three more minutes, then Eric would be here.

Almost on cue, Jimmy reached down, unzipped his pants, and freed himself.

“Just needed to give the big guy some room,” he said.

Heather backed away, dancing and killing time. After a minute she reached down and pulled his leather pants down to his ankles, carefully avoiding his hairy rod, which was at full attention. Where the hell was Eric?

“Come on, Deb, let me check out your hot ass.”

Heather toyed with the buttons on her jeans and pushed them partially down her hips.

“Oh yeah,” Jimmy said. “Man, you’re teasing me. Come here, baby.”

With Jimmy’s pants bunched around his ankles, Heather thought she’d be safe, as long as she kept out of his reach. She danced around him, watching him squirm. Then Jimmy kicked his boots off, and his pants were next, and in a second he was up and lunging toward her.

“Hey!” she yelled, squirming, trying to avoid his stiffened member. He got behind her and pushed her pants down and she felt his cock hard against the flesh of her ass. She was beginning to panic when Eric burst in the bedroom door.

“Get your hands off her, slimeball!” he yelled.

“Rape! He tried to rape me!”

“You scumbag piece of shit,” Eric said, rushing forward and hitting Jimmy with a tremendous uppercut to the gut. Jimmy collapsed to the ground, his wind gone, his mouth wide in a futile effort to catch his breath.

“Oh my god, he’s turning blue,” Heather said.

“He’s gonna wish he was dead when I get through with him,” Eric said. He lifted Jimmy by the hair and pinned the bare-assed man against the wall. “Say your prayers, asswipe.”

Jimmy’s eyes were round with shock and fear. He couldn’t breathe, but finally his diaphragm relaxed, and he gulped air and then projectile vomited his lunch onto the bedspread. Eric deftly stepped aside to avoid a direct hit.

“Jesus Christ, what a pussy. You don’t deserve to live. I’m gonna snap your freaking neck.”

“Wait, don’t kill him!” Heather said. “Let’s just call the police and send him to jail. Then he can get raped and see what it’s like.”

“It’s a nice thought, but I don’t think so,” Eric said, and reared back his fist.

“No, please,” Jimmy moaned.

Eric shot a punch at Jimmy’s face, but pulled his fist back at the last instant. “Ah, fuck it. You’re not worth skinning my knuckles, you piece of shit.” He tossed his mobile phone to Heather. “Call 911. And you,” he said, turning back to Jimmy, “put your pants on. I’m tired of looking at your scrawny ass. You’re going to prison. Your ass will be real popular there. It will be the size of the Holland Tunnel in no time at all, with at least as much traffic. Count on it.”

“But I didn’t try to rape her!” Jimmy cried.

“It’s your word against ours. Good luck on that one.”

“Why?” Jimmy stammered. “Why are you doing this to me?”

“Because you’re a spoiled little homo, trying to prove he’s a real man. Which you ain’t.”

“But, who are you? What did I ever do to you?”

“Sit down and stop cringing,” Eric said. “You’re pathetic.”

Jimmy yanked his pants on and sat on the edge of the bed, trying to calm his breathing and compose himself.

“You want out of this mess, you got one chance, right here, right now. We drive out to your bank, just the three of us. You withdraw three million in cash. Then I’ll drop you off somewhere, maybe a little inconvenient, but you’ll live.”

Jimmy’s eyes shaded for a moment, a gesture that did not escape Eric. “You don’t like this deal, just say so. Then I’ll decide whether to call the cops or maybe just put you in a wheelchair for life.”