Suckerpunch: (2011) (13 page)

Lance goggled but stayed quiet. Traffic was moving like an old man in a pharmacy, so a cab might not have made a difference.

We were on the east side of the Strip, and I glanced back at the front of Caesars and the people going in the front door. Suckers. We stopped so Marcela could admire the pirate ship across the street in front of Treasure Island. We’d just missed the latest battle, so we continued on and made it to The Venetian before she wanted to stop and stare again.

She pointed at things and gasped and said, “Look. Oh, look.”

I nodded and said, “Neat, huh?”

Lance bounced from foot to foot. “It’s not much farther. Hey, we can check this stuff out on the way back, really take our time, you know?”

A genius selling seven-dollar disposable cameras for fifteen bucks out of a backpack noticed we weren’t taking pictures—a Class A felony in Vegas—and he handed one to Marcela and turned to me for the money. Marcela already had the foil wrapper open, so I paid.

Lance paced toward traffic and ran his hands through his hair.

“Stand over there,” she told me.

I stepped so the tower was behind me and waited. It would look like I was posing in front of a brick wall at this angle, but I’d stood in front of worse.

“Smile.”

I moved my mouth but not enough.

She tried to kick me from twenty feet away. “Bigger, Woody. Be happier.” She hit me with the flash, and I blinked.

Lance said, “Look, they have postcards for sale right there of the same shot. No, better. They have a full moon in them.” He bent closer. “It’s fake, but it still looks cool.”

“Woody isn’t in them,” Marcela said.

“Yeah, they’re professionally done. Guys, we’re running pretty late.”

Marcela said,
“You’re
running late.
We
don’t have to be anywhere.”

Lance sagged and looked at me.

“Let’s get this over with,” I said.

Marcela rolled her eyes. “Okay, fine.” She slapped me with the flash again as I walked toward her. She laughed. “That’s going to be a terrible picture.”

We scampered across the expanse of Sahara Avenue and managed to get past the Stratosphere without any incidents from Marcela, then cut east through some parking lots and followed a construction site fence until Lance said, “That’s it up there.”

It was at the end of a strip mall set back from the street between a Thai food place and a pawnshop. Dig through the Dumpster behind the mall, and you’d probably find a couple new elements for the periodic table. The place was called New Harvest Bakery, and the windows were dark. The Thai place was open but dead, and the pawnshop had a curtain of bars locked across its face.

We crossed the empty parking lot. I could see the skeletons of unlit neon signs in the windows. They promised coffee, bagels, sweet rolls, and bread, most of them including some kind of wavy steam lines.

Lance knocked on the glass door and we waited.

A shape walked toward us. A big shape. I figured there must be an overhead door on the other side, because this thing wouldn’t fit through the front. The shape peered at us through the glass. Marcela said something in Portuguese, and I agreed.

I heard three locks turn, and the door opened. A face the size of a manhole cover ducked out and said, “Lance.” He smiled at me and Marcela. I felt like a snack. “And friends. You’re late, but that’s okay. Come on in.”

He swung the door out like it was a newspaper, and we filed past him into the cool, dim interior. There were about a dozen round white tables with chairs upside down on them over a dark and light checkered floor; I couldn’t tell the colors with the lights off.

Ahead of us a counter stretched the width of the place, and behind that were empty bins waiting for the morning’s fresh goods. In the middle of the bins a set of swinging doors with glass portholes led into the rear. It was even darker back there.

Lance said, “These are just some old friends I ran into. Guys, this is Jake.” He put his hands in his pockets. “Yeah, we’re going to see some sights after this, so I told them to come along. It won’t take long.”

“Sure,” Jake said. He sounded like he had a mouthful of peanut butter, but I figured the words were just tired from traveling so far to get out. He had a brown buzz cut and a goatee that would have made a great toupee for a normal man. He stuck his hand out. “Jake.”

“Woody.” My hand disappeared, and I planned to never see it again.

He didn’t squeeze, though, just shook once and let me go. He did the same with Marcela and said it was nice to meet us. Then raised his hand and asked, “Who’s been frisked in a bakery before?”

Marcela and I looked at each other, our hands down. Lance raised his.

Jake said, “Great. If you could all stand with your hands on the counter and your feet spread, we’ll get you in to see the man.”

Jake checked me first. He spread one hand between my shoulder blades and kept me pushed forward while he swept up and down one side, then switched hands and sides. He whistled something jaunty. When he got to the bottom of the second leg, he said, “You’re pretty solid in there. You work out a lot?”

“Not a lot,” I said.

“Genetics, huh?”

I shrugged.

“Lucky bastard.” He moved down the counter to Marcela. “Nothing personal, sweetie.” He checked her over and wasn’t nasty about it, but she still kept her eyes flat and her mouth tight. When he was done, she turned and whipped her hair over her shoulder and spat some Portuguese at him. His eyes got big and he asked me, “She’s with you?”

I nodded, hoping she wouldn’t turn on me for doing it.

“I take it back. You’re a
really
lucky bastard.” He stood still and looked at Lance. “Do I have to check you? You wouldn’t be that stupid, would you?” Before Lance could answer, Jake said, “Yeah, you would be. Hold still.”

Lance’s hands slipped on the counter from the rough treatment he got. Maybe he’d caused enough trouble for Jake that he deserved it. Maybe Jake knew Lance would take it and not fight back. Maybe Jake wanted him to fight back.

“Well, you’re not that stupid today.” Jake clapped Lance on the shoulder and almost put him face-first into the counter. “But you fuckin’ stink. You two can follow Lance. He knows the way.”

Lance went to the far left end of the counter, past the drink station, and through a hinged gate that let him behind the counter. We followed, me right behind Lance, then Marcela. If I was here to protect Lance, I wanted to be close when he went through the door in case he got jumped.

If he got shot, I wanted a clear path over the counter.

At the gate I turned and saw Jake right behind us. He smiled and shooed me forward. I’d assumed he was going to stay out front with the door, but he just wanted to keep us all ahead of him. I had a quick debate about which was more important—keeping an eye on Lance or getting between Jake and Marcela in case things went bad—and let Marcela step in front of me. Jake knew what I was doing and looked offended. I shrugged, he smiled again, and we kept moving.

Lance got to the doors. He pushed through the one on the left, and I waited for a ruckus and a mitt to clamp down on my head from behind. None of that happened, and I followed Marcela through into a darker room lined with stainless steel racks on rollers. It smelled like Christmas morning should smell.

Lance inhaled deeply and said, “Man, that’s good.”

Marcela glanced at me over her shoulder. “We should come here in the morning for breakfast. It smells wonderful.”

“Yes, it does,” I said.

Jake said, “You get used to it.”

Marcela tsked him.

We walked toward the back left corner, past some big industrial ovens and a rack of something still giving off heat.

Marcela stopped and sniffed. “Those are big cinnamon rolls.”

“You want one?” Jake asked.

“Woody, will you split it with me?”

I was torn. There are three things it is impossible to look intimidating while doing:

Sucking a thick milk shake through a straw.

Putting on lip balm of any kind.

Eating a messy cinnamon roll and licking your fingers.

Taking a leak with just a T-shirt on used to be on the list until I met a Chechen.

“How about on the way out?” I said.

I could see her disappointment in the low light.

“Go ahead. Take one,” Jake said. Was he being nice, or did he want my hands full?

I said, “We’ll wait.”

“You’re gonna need some milk. Them suckers will stick to your neck like molasses in January.”

“Yum,” I said.

I turned, and a shaft of light cut through the room as Lance opened a door that looked like it led to a closet. Which it did, sort of. We filed into a space about twenty feet long and twelve feet wide, what was probably supposed to be an employee break room. It was so full of electronic equipment and people that if you stuck your elbow out, you’d knock four things over and assault two individuals. Mercifully, Jake stayed in the open doorway and leaned his forehead against the top of the frame.

Tall black metal filing cabinets lined the wall on the left, and I put my back to them; I’d never been ambushed by a filing cabinet. Looking down the length of the room, the left wall was crowded with two eight-foot tables piled with computer monitors showing sports graphs, stats, and updates and phone systems blinking chaotically but making no sound.

The two young guys sitting at the table each had headsets on, and they’d hit a button on the phones and say, “Talk to me . . .” They’d be talked to, then click over to another line and relay what they’d heard. No emotion, no news good or bad, just information. There were cans of energy drink lined up amidst the notes and keyboards, the same stuff Gil kept in the refrigerator at the gym. The guy nearest me took a sip from his and picked up a BlackBerry and started texting while on the phone with someone else. He would have given Benjamin a good race. I wondered if attention deficit disorder was one of the job requirements.

A row of six flat-screen TVs hung on the wall above the computer monitors, each one split into four smaller screens showing a different sporting event. In one of the corners I saw a live MMA event going on in New Jersey, a smaller promotion but some good fighters on the card. Somebody I didn’t know was going for a kimura from the mount, trying to torque the other guy’s arm like breaking off the handle of a little teapot short and stout.

“Here he goes.”

I studied the man who’d said it, standing behind the two guys and watching the TVs with a gaze that flitted from screen to screen like a hummingbird. He was tall and lean, late thirties, and looked tan in the glow from the screens. He wore gray slacks and a white dress shirt with no tie, good quality from what I could tell, the sleeves rolled up and the buttons undone enough to show a black T-shirt underneath. He was smiling and working a piece of gum like it held the secret of eternal youth.

“Here he goes, boys!”

I followed where his eyes were spending the most time and saw a horse race.

Something happened that was good for the room, and the man standing clapped once and shook each of the phone guys by the shoulders. There was a set of shelves behind him with more electronic equipment and cords, and he leaned back within an inch of touching the gear and stretched his arms out and over his head. He glanced at us and did a half decent job of looking surprised. “Hey,
there
he is. Lance, buddy, how you doing?”

Lance bobbed his head. “Good, Kendall, good. Thanks. These are my friends, uh, Woody and Marcy.”

Kendall made eye contact with me and held it and walked over and shook my hand with both of his and very sincerely said, “I’m Kendall Percy, and it’s a pleasure to meet you.” He wore a small smile when he talked, something that could easily become a smirk but had no maliciousness to it, and he didn’t try to hide the Southern notes that sprawled across his words.

“Same,” I said.