Speed Metal Blues: A Dan Reno Novel (9 page)

And then he shows up in the sports book in this ridiculous suit, with the two girls, whacked on booze and blow, knowing John would likely be there. Vinnie flaunting it, as if he were a real high roller, a kingpin mob boss celebrating a big score. If he’d pulled a stunt like this back in Jersey, he would have gotten the shit slapped out of him, on the spot.

John walked to where Carlo and Vinnie were having a hushed conversation. A sheen of sweat glowed on Vinnie’s big forehead, and a crusty ring of white encircled one of his nostrils. Carlo let go of Vinnie’s arm as John approached.

“You need to show a little respect,” John said.

Vinnie blinked as the words bounced off his face. “What? Who the fuck are you to talk down to me?”

“Shut up, Vinnie,” Carlo said.

“No, seriously. From what I understand, you’re a failed real estate agent working here as a charity case.”

“I was working for your uncle’s father before you were born.” John’s voice was quiet and even.

“Oh, I get it, more of this old-school bullshit. I got news for you. Who do you think is in line to take over this operation? That’s right, you’re looking at him. So get out of my face or I’ll have you scrubbing toilets.”

“You want to stuff drugs up your nose, I don’t care,” John said. “Just have the common sense not to do it on the casino floor.”

“Take your whores and bring them to a room,” Carlo said. “Or go someplace else.”

Vinnie stared them down, then strode back to his table. He took his time finishing his drink, before gathering up the prostitutes and walking out.

“I hate to rain on the little prick’s parade, but Jesus Christ,” Carlo said.

John ordered a scotch. “He’s got a mouth on him, doesn’t he?”

“A mouth like that is asking to lose its teeth,” Denny said.

John shrugged. “He’s a kid. He’ll come around when he sobers up.”

Carlo looked at John and felt an eerie sense of déjà vu, but he couldn’t place it. The three left Pistol Pete’s and had drinks and dinner at a local restaurant before heading to Caesars to watch the topless show. Then they shot some craps and had a nightcap at the VIP lounge. By the time they left, the incident with Vinnie seemed an old memory.

It wasn’t until Carlo was driving home near midnight that he remembered what it was about John’s demeanor that was gnawing at him. The casual dismissal of the insult, the unnatural calm, the impression of being unflappable. Carlo now made the connection from two decades past. It was how Irish John the Hammer acted while planning an execution.

S
tuart Gold, producer of the dance troupe performing at Pistol Pete’s, nipped at his gin fizz and contemplated the fickle and unfair world that led him to South Lake Tahoe. A year ago he’d been walking on air, managing one of Las Vegas’s most successful A-list shows and dating the male lead, a lad in his twenties built like a Greek god. Stuart took off his glasses and cleaned the lenses, which fogged up every time he thought of the handsome young stud. He’d thought he was in love, and when their affair ended after three months, he was devastated. To be so brutally abandoned was not only a horrible affront to his ego, but it also left a yawning emptiness in his soul. He’d wandered around Vegas in a daze, unable to think of anything but how hurt and miserable he was.

But that wasn’t the worst of it. When Stuart found out his boyfriend had left him for Bobby Porter, ex-Broadway bigwig and the most powerful producer in Vegas, Stuart simply lost it. Porter, known as Cornhole Porter, or CHP for short, was a raging queen with a notorious reputation for wielding his influence in return for sex. After learning Porter was shuttlecocking his ex-love, Stuart flew into a hysterical rage and stormed past security into Porter’s office. Eventually he was hauled away by the police, and spent the night in a cell in the Las Vegas county jail.

It wasn’t long afterward that Stuart found he’d become
persona non grata
in Las Vegas. Cornhole Porter had put out the word that Stuart was dangerously unstable and only a fool would hire him. In Vegas, this amounted to a virtual blacklisting. He was fired from his job, his contract declared void, and everyone in the city shunned him. He couldn’t even have a drink at a casino bar without feeling like a social pariah.

The opportunity to direct
I SPY
, a silly little second-rate show targeted at smaller markets, was something Stuart would have snickered at before his downfall. But he didn’t have any better options, and realized a break from Vegas was probably necessary to rebuild his career. So he took the job and drove his Mercedes to Hollywood, where the troupe was assembled. Stuart rewrote the script, fired half the performers, and trashed and replaced all the choreographed dance numbers before he was satisfied it was ready for the stage. Sure, it was a less talented group than he was used to working with, but at least he’d molded the production into something original, something that would be recognizable as his work. It was a starting point.

Just when he was beginning to feel better about things, fate dealt him another blow. The headline gig at Caesars in South Lake Tahoe was cancelled, and the best the producer could do was secure a Sunday through Thursday slot at Pistol Pete’s, a casino Stuart had never heard of. Fearing the worst, he drove to Tahoe to check it out. To his relief, Pistol Pete’s was a decent-sized establishment, of course nothing compared to the Vegas casinos, but not bad for Lake Tahoe. And the showroom itself was respectably large. Stuart cringed at the thought of the small audiences that would populate the cavernous hall. Maybe they could curtain off much of the seating to create a more intimate feel.

The show had opened six weeks ago to generally favorable reviews, but those were by small-time critics writing for local papers and magazines that no one in Vegas would ever read. Stuart tried reaching a half dozen Vegas reporters, people he used to take to dinner and gossip with at parties. Some friends they turned out to be—not one took his call. He considered mailing them the positive write-ups, but knew it would only make him look desperate. Those so-called writers were nothing more than a pack of parasites, and they probably enjoyed witnessing his downfall.

The only thing positive to report was at least the damn weather in Tahoe was turning warmer. Stuart hated the cold, and he always associated the most positive developments in his life with sunny days. So it was only fitting it was a warm spring twilight when Teresa Perez shyly approached him at the casino bar.

She was wearing the same outfit as the other cocktail waitresses, a tacky, forest-green-over-lime ensemble most of the girls despised. Although Stuart had not the slightest sexual interest in women, he was stunned at how dignified yet sensual Teresa looked in the outfit. The green tones contrasted wonderfully with her skin, a flawless deep bronze glowing with youth and life. Stuart appraised her figure with a glance—large breasts, slender waist, full hips, and the type of ass he knew drove men wild.

“Mr. Gold?” she said. “My name is Teresa Perez. I was wondering if you would listen to me sing.”

Stuart smiled at the brazen request. In Vegas, he was hounded by aspiring performers, most whom he sent away, and sometimes not politely. But when Teresa spoke, her gold eyes meeting his, a tiny jolt ran through him. It was a feeling he recognized—he had a radar-like instinct for talent, and when he was in its presence, it struck him like a tiny electric shock. It had been a long time since he felt the ping, but he recognized it as clearly as a crash of cymbals. A twinge of euphoria coursed through his body—his sensor was rarely wrong.

He took her to the empty concert hall and led her to the stage.

“What do you want to sing, my dear?”

“How about ‘Amazing Grace?’”

Stuart raised his eyebrows. “Interesting choice. I’m all ears.”

Before she was halfway done, Stuart’s face was on fire and tears were welling in his eyes. Her voice filled the hall, echoing in the expanse, lovely and majestic. His heart thudded, and he thought this was what it must feel like to have a religious experience. He wanted to tell her to stop, but when he tried to motion at her, his arms were like jelly. Surrendering, he closed his eyes and let her voice take him away.

When she finished, Stuart noticed two janitors standing transfixed. He shooed them off and joined Teresa on the stage. She looked at him expectantly, hope and concern in her eyes.

“Have you performed in public before, my dear?” Stuart said.

“Only at my church.”

“Have you ever been under contract?”

“What?”

“I mean, have you had an agent?”

“No.”

“Ahh,” Stuart said. “In this business you’ll go nowhere without a good agent. Come sit with me, Teresa. We have much to talk about.”

• • •

Juan Perez went to his bedroom where he kept his weight set and pumped out six sets of curls with a forty-pound bar. He checked his biceps in the mirror and moved to the bench press. Born a frail child, he had to work hard to build his muscles. But hard work was not something he was afraid of. The desire to work, the will to overcome and become something—that’s what separated real men from the Diablos Sierra gangbangers. Sure, they acted tough when they were in a pack, but individually they were just sad Chicanos who would end up dead or in jail.

When he was done with his workout, he hurriedly showered and pedaled his bike through the back roads to the restaurant where he worked as a busboy. The Redwood Tavern was an upscale steakhouse, catering to wealthy tourists and locals who liked to hang out in the adjoining bar.

The waitresses at the restaurant loved to tease Juan. They found his doe-like eyes irresistible, and they knew he was a virgin. One of them, a slinky, dirty blonde who recently turned twenty-one and now drank at the bar after her shift every night, told Juan she would catch him one day and screw his brains out. Another one, a buxom woman almost old enough to be his mother, told him to stay away from the blonde, she was unclean. Though he knew they were mostly kidding him, sometimes when Juan looked at the women, he would feel a lump in his throat, and his genitals would get hot and swollen and he would become so hard he’d have to go to the men’s room to adjust himself.

Juan knew the fire that burned in his loins was a sign of weakness. He did his best to ignore it, and secretly wished all women were more like his sister, Teresa. When she came home from her job at night, she would share stories of middle-aged white men who tipped her with twenty-dollar bills, seemingly in return for only her smile. It was no surprise to Juan that men were smitten by her. She had lustrous black hair surrounding her heart-shaped face and dark eyes that sparkled with delight when she laughed. As for her body, Juan simply considered her athletic. He never thought of her as a sensual being. Teresa did not flaunt her figure, and Juan knew if men lusted after her, they would be disappointed. His sister was pure, as was he.

When Juan returned home after finishing his shift, he waited up for Teresa, like always. They had come to the United States together three years ago, their parents saving and putting up all they owned to buy their children’s way across the border. On the day they left their village for good, Juan’s father, a stout, stoic man, gave his son a brief hug. Juan and Teresa promised their parents they’d always look out for each other, before they climbed aboard the bus idling on the dirt road in front of their home. As they drove away, Juan looked back one last time and saw his father’s face had changed, as if the muscles that held his features in place had quit and surrendered to gravity.

• • •

Sometime after eleven the door lock clicked and Teresa walked into the apartment. Juan could immediately feel her excitement. Her eyes were lit up and instead of sitting after many hours on her feet, she stood in front of the couch where he watched TV.

“I had an audition today for the variety show,” she exclaimed. “The director wants to be my agent!”

Juan jumped up and hugged his sister. It had long been Teresa’s dream to be on stage. She had a truly unique singing voice, deep and lovely and full of life. In church they sometimes asked her to sing a hymn, and when she did, even the youngest of children became still and listened as if hypnotized. At these moments Juan would close his eyes and believe her singing was that of an angel descending from the heavens.

But she had been blessed with more than a wonderful voice. She was also a natural dancer, and could move to the rhythms of any musical style with ease, her hips gyrating as if the pulse of the songs were born from within her. Juan would sometimes see her in her room, practicing various dance steps on the threadbare carpet, her hair flailing about her face, her body a portrait of fluid exuberance.

That Teresa was destined for fame, Juan felt confident. But he was also concerned, now that the opportunity had arrived for her to take the next step. Juan may have been immature in dealing with the opposite sex, but in other ways, he possessed a wisdom that belied his youth. His childhood had been fraught with the threat of bandits, kidnappers, and corrupt police and officials that preyed upon the people of his remote village. He knew once Teresa’s talent was discovered, there would be many seeking to manipulate her for their own benefit.

But tonight was not a time to worry about such matters. It was occasion for celebration. Juan prepared a plate of nachos, the tortilla chips hot and crispy when he removed them from the oven. He sat with Teresa until well past midnight, speaking of their hopes and dreams—Teresa’s aspirations to be a star, and Juan’s plans to go to college after graduating from high school. And then, once they became successful and wealthy, they would bring their parents from their poor village to America, so they could once again live together as a family.

• • •

Three days later Teresa again stood on the stage, this time with some of the
I SPY
cast members. The three women and one man were clearly pissed at being called in for the unscheduled afternoon rehearsal. When they met Teresa, they stared at her, their faces incredulous, as Stuart told them the agenda.