Las Vegas Noir (20 page)

Of course, the Mustard Man is gone, and if you want to see the only sign that he ever existed you’ve got to know what you’re looking for and you’ve got to look real close to see it. It’s right outside the Gold Man’s Gentlemen’s Club. Barely perceptible. Four smooth grooves in the polished marble tile where a throne used to rest.

Well, there is one other sign that a coal-black man with a twisted face and a tender heart once did exist, but you’d have to fly to Tennessee to find it.

She’s a young, very pretty pediatric physician who’s married to another doctor, a general practitioner by the name of Dr. Eli Yates McKitrick.

They named their firstborn son Eli Mustard McKitrick.

Not too many people know why they did that.

THREE TIMES A NIGHT, EVERY OTHER NIGHT

BY
L
ORI
K
OZLOWSKI
North Las Vegas

H
is guitar was out of tune and he was fiddling with the strings when he heard her voice.

“It’s my wedding and I’ll curse if I want to!” the bride growled, flipping her veil behind her, whipping her new father-in-law in the face.

Wally recognized the voice. His head began to hurt, and he rubbed his temples, touching his calloused hands to his unruly sideburns.

A wedding party paraded into a dark-walled Irish pub inside a locals’ casino on Tropicana Avenue, which was crowded at that hour—bustling with quick-handed dealers and green gamblers who couldn’t count.

Brenda, the bride, was carrying her train in one hand and a bottled beer in the other. She took two more steps and then murmured, “Isn’t that right, baby?” nuzzling her face into her new husband’s neck. The groom just smiled, gazing at her, pushing up his wire-rimmed glasses, saying nothing.

The wedding party took seats in the middle of the room, so they could see the round stage. She placed herself front row, center.

Wally Whittaker, the Irish singing wonder who played three times a night, every other night at the pub, eased out from behind a heavy burgundy curtain. He cleared his throat. The lights dimmed, though she remained glowing. She was a big stark white reminder in the middle of the room.

“Tonight’s a Wednesday, folks, and all the good people of Las Vegas have come to see me. We’re gonna have some fun, my fellow drinkers. Why don’t I tell you a wee story about a girl I used to know,” he began, strumming his guitar, sitting on a wooden stool. “There once was a girl named Sherry. But Sherry had no cherry. I said that’s okay, hun. We can still have fun. Cause the hole still works where the cherry came from!”

Some people giggled. Some blushed. Wally guffawed at his own limerick, then immediately burst into song. His laugh was phony, and his voice was off, but he was getting through the verses.

He looked at her.

The bride was clapping with her mouth open. She was a shade too tan for that time of year and a little too pudgy for her dress. Bright orange swells of skin for arms squeezed out of short white satin sleeves. She yelled “
Baum
,
baum
,
baum
” into cupped hands as a vocal representation of the horn section in Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline.” And as Wally serenaded her, singing, “The good times never seemed so good,” the bride cannoned back, “SO GOOD! SO GOOD! SO GOOD!”

They caught each other’s eyes. She raised a drawn-on eyebrow. He looked away.

He had slept with Brenda just once. She was nothing like his Linda. But that’s what drew him in. She was just a fun party girl he thought he could enjoy for a moment and soon forget.

She tipped well, wore low-cut tops and piles of shiny gold jewelry. She drank until sun up, chain smoked, and a never-ending heavy metal concert played in her head.

Several years back, she began attending all of his performances, every other night, wherever he played in town. Sometimes she wore green plastic leprechaun hats. It was almost as if she wanted to be Irish. He thought she was strange and annoying at first. She often lingered around the pub too long, trying to get his attention. After he played, she always wanted a hug. She was his biggest fan.

Usually he just smiled at her, acknowledging her support of his music. He was always friendly to his crowds. From the kids to the kooks, he thought he knew how to read people. Give them what they want. Sometimes she was so into his whole act, he’d sing directly to her. It was just good showmanship.

But as he saw her more, her allure grew. On Tuesday nights, she showered him with compliments that made him feel taller, smarter, and like the musician he wanted to be. Sometimes she brought him gifts. Heart-shaped ashtray. Engraved silver hip flask. Tortoise shell guitar pick with his initials embossed on one side.

She wanted to be possessed. He was willing to surrender. One too many Jack-and-Cokes, and he willfully fell into bed with her. He hadn’t seen Brenda since their coital encounter two years prior.

Sabrina “Brenda” Marie Rosetti. She was a busty blond Italian who said her father was so-and-so in the Mafia. Wally never paid much attention to her mob talk at the bar. Who in this town didn’t think they knew something about the mob? He had heard it all. It was always a cousin of a friend who had some small encounter in some obscure place. Everyone was fascinated with bodies buried in the desert and mysteries of the city’s history. Everyone thought they really knew particulars about the Bugsys, Tonys, and Moes.

Whenever she spoke, he hardly listened. Wally was never interested in her for her mind, and could care less about who she thought she knew. He just shook his head, pretended that she was significant, and continually drank the whiskey she bought for him.

Brenda was tattooed all over her back in navy and emerald inks. There was a snake over her left shoulder and a dragon covering her right. He knew her tattoos well. He had counted them once, tracing that inked back with cold fingers.

When he had taken her to his apartment nearby, he thought of Linda the whole time. Closing his eyes.

Brenda was wild, as he knew she would be. She kept laughing at odd moments. Halfway through, as she was being her most obnoxious, Wally heard a dull clank as car keys fell onto taupe carpet. He had peered up from the bed and saw Linda standing right there. He swiftly pushed Brenda away, stood up, and reached out in one big panic. “She means nothing.” He scrambled, pulling pants over himself, and knocking Brenda to the floor. Linda just stood there, stiff. Her eyes welled up, but tears did not fall.

As he practically crawled after her out the door, Brenda lay on the rug, bruised and watching him. She clenched her jaw.

When Wally moved on to his next number, Brenda kicked both feet up onto a chair and sucked on a cigarette, blowing the smoke out of her nose. Right then, she appeared much like the dragon on her shoulder, who also puffed fire and flames. The two reptiles peeked out from behind her headdress. Snake, dragon, snake, as the veil swept back and forth on her back.

There was something about it. Her veil, the tats, the thrashed blond hair. Her raspy laugh. He was attracted all over again.

Brenda was showing off—shimming and shaking up and down the front row. Tanned bust, shoulders, and back. Wally was trying his hardest not to find her sexy. But he was watching her every move. She put her bare feet in the groom’s lap. Her toes are fat, Wally thought. Fat-toed Brenda. That’s what he would think of her. Who would want to be in bed with those fat toes anyway?

Surrounding the couple, the wedding party made a collective toast. The maid of honor was covered in tattoos of lime tree frogs, the best man was stamped with a giant house fly.

The groom just sat there, so plain and placid. Run-of-the-mill tux, standard dull black shoes. He could be a computer programmer or an insurance salesman, Wally thought, as he strummed his guitar a bit harder. He could be an associate named Tim at Coldwell Banker. He could be a tax accountant. Counting Brenda’s fat toes.

He looked as straight-laced as they came. But when he embraced the bride, it was obvious: She captivated him. Cold-well Banker Tim couldn’t help himself either.

The crowd continued to grow, and Wally scanned the blooming room. This was just one of several Irish pubs he played around town. Locals’ casinos had become hot spots for the egalitarian atmosphere they provided. Warm enough for grandmas playing penny slots, dark enough for serious drinkers, and raucous enough for everyone in between. The rumor was that the casino pubs were actually authentic, broken down in the U.K., imported in large boxes, and then reconstructed. The walls were made out of old ships. The floorboards and the scaffolding from Celtic drinking halls. The décor had become familiar to him, but that night, Wally could feel the spell of the ancient—ghosts in the ship wood, eyes in the floor. A thousand dead soldiers swaying to his song.

Wally pulled at the collar of his buttoned-down plaid shirt. He couldn’t get comfortable. His neck was tense, his old knee injury was flaring up again. He tried to adjust himself on the stage, and still feign the merriment. His cheeks were sore from smiling. He scratched at his itchy sideburns. Taking off his velour jacket, he kept clearing his throat and looking around, noticing half-drunk highballs and the eager audience waiting for him to play on.

Three hollow-eyed dealmakers sat at a corner table. They appeared to be there simply for business—leaning in, making plans. They wore gray suits. They did not tap their toes. Wally thought for a moment that the one in the middle was glaring at him. His paranoia grew.

As a lounge singer, Wally saw hundreds of faces. All sorts of late-nighters. Those drowning their sorrows usually sat in the back. The real partiers always took to the middle of the room or the front row so that they could hear him better. On really rowdy nights, Wally could hardly hear himself because the crowd was singing along so loudly. He liked that, when it happened. His voice was lost among voices and it was as if they were the ones singing to him. Sometimes there was a stand-out, a personal singing telegram just for him.

That night, Brenda was the overpowering Siren. Her voice was distinct—half like a baby doll and half like Mae West. It wasn’t even 10 p.m. and she was already drunk. She spilled brown ale on her lavish wedding dress. The gown was all iridescent sequins and baubles and loops of lace, and there were ashes on the edge of the train where she was flicking her Marlboro.

Wally trembled. The one woman he thought he’d always have was gone, and in her place was the one reminder of his loss. Brenda was back and this time he was scared. As he sang each tune, he threw out jokes and put on the same faux smile that he smiled every night, but his shivering continued. He thought he saw Linda’s face in the round wall clock. She was mine, Wally thought. What he loved most about her was the way she walked. Slow and deliberate like she had a secret between her legs.

But Linda wasn’t in the pub.

Brenda was in her place, and she was doing an Irish jig all over his scar tissue, ripping him open with every heel-toe. He knew that she had come to the pub just for him. To rub it in. To show him that someone wanted her enough to marry her. She kept eyeing him. Winking or twirling a finger around a perfect yellow ringlet, when she caught him looking.

His palms were sweaty. And for the first time in a long while he felt nervous as he played.

“All right, lassies and gents, why don’t we take a wee break, so I can wet me whistle,” he finished.

He strolled past the wedding party, giving Brenda a cordial nod, trying to be polite without getting too close. Her eyes were surveillance, recording him. She was smacking purple gum.

Sitting at the bar, the singer coughed and ran a hand through his chestnut hair before sipping his pint. Wally thought more about Linda and how if she were there he would be having a drink with her right now. He would be smelling her clean hair, instead of standing alone at the corner of the bar in the middle of a crowded room. It amazed him how alone he felt in crowds of people. Though he was an entertainer—and not half bad, he thought, compared to the other hundreds of flimsy acts in town—when it came time to be part of the group, the circles of people around him made him dizzy. The feeling was always difficult for him, yet with her there he could usually get by, taking in her stories about work, how her day went, who she saw, what she bought. But now the lounge singer was alone in his own arena.

The middle man in the gray suit was examining him closely. Wally started to perspire through his clothes.

He wanted to leave. No one’ll notice if there’s no second half, he thought. But who was he kidding? It was packed for a Wednesday night. And even though he could afford the night off, he couldn’t lose this gig. The manager would never have him back if he left midway through a show.

Swallowing down his black and tan, he could feel the thickness of the room: the ad-hoc drinking songs and the clinking of shot glasses and the ringing of bells when someone hit the jackpot on the dollar slots.

He tried to concentrate on his beer, focusing on the top of it, thinking how by now Linda’s bright pink lipstick would be pressed onto the rim of the glass. He secretly liked the taste of her lipstick, and when she wasn’t looking he would drink specifically from that part of the glass. She could make an ordinary beer into a first-rate cocktail, he thought.

But now there was no kiss on the side of his glass, and this beer was just like every other beer. Just a beer. Nothing more.

He gulped down the rest anyway, flicking two dollar bills onto the bar.

He turned around to see the bride standing behind him.

“Hey, lass. Congratulations on your day,” he offered, leaning away from her.

“Yeah, thanks, man. You’re the bomb.”

“You too, hun,” he said, not quite knowing what the bomb was, wishing she’d go away.

Her French-manicured acrylic nails became claws closing in on her glass. She smiled, looking up at him. Right then, she actually seemed sweet in her fancy gown, her eyelashes curled and black. He remembered how much she used to adore him. He missed being adored.