What Happens

            “You know,” she whispered, her red lips smudged like a dying clown.  “how big do we both feel right now, and how little are we really?”  She slowly moved closer to my chair, where I sat facing out the window.

            “Yeah,” I whimpered through the pain.

 

            Let’s go back ten days, to the Vegas strip.  In my travel bag is ten thousand dollars in Bellagio chips, a fake id with the name of Mark Esters, and a slip of paper with a lefty-scribbled phone number for the girl I'm walking next to.  Blonde hair in two tightly woven braids, a s****y cowboy costume, and emerald green eyes.

            “You know Mark, I don’t normally do this,” she said, laughing.  The sun caught the green of her eyes, shimmering enviously.

            “I don’t either, you know.”

            “I could barely tell you were new, I mean, in there.”  She stopped, looking over her shoulder at the Bellagio as it got smaller in the distance.  “So why trade in all that money for chips anyway?”

            “You shouldn’t ask so many questions,” I laughed, shifting the bag closer to my body.

            “I’m sorry.  So that means you are a gangster then?”

            “No, I'm a different breed,” I smirked half-believingly.  She took my hand and walked quietly beside me, her cowboy outfit blending in more with the crowds of people on the strip more easily than my own button up and slacks.  The blonde braids, hanging limply over her shoulder.  “Have you ever heard of the people during wars who stashed all of their money in mattresses and old paints cans?  Who invested in cash instead of goods or banks?”

            “Yeah,” her small face shone. 

            “Well, sometimes if you go around to old farms, you can find cans still.  See, they didn’t tell ancestors about the money out of greed, and some of them died unexpectedly.  So now you have all of this money in cans that no one knows about.”

            “Wait, what does this have to do with anything?”

            “Hold on, I’m getting there.”  She laughed, motioning her red lips zipping shut, locking up, and the invisible key being thrown over her shoulder.  “Now, say you were to go around and find all of these hiding places.  Buy up old farms that have been passed down a few generations for cheap, and strip search them.”

            “But the houses would cost so much, and what would you even find?”

            “No, see,” he began, putting his unbagged arm around her shoulders.  “The money is great, though not a lot.  What you do then, after you strip search the place, is let it out to gangsters from the city.  What they do in there, well you can guess what they would do in an old barn.”

            “Wait, so you lied, I mean, you are a gangster?”
            “I’m like a gangster’s secretary, if you get that.”

            “Oh,” her lips curled upward playfully, the green spark starting a fire in her eyes.  “So then, you’re a gangster who is too prideful to call himself a gangster.”

            “Yeah, if that’s how you want to see it,” he smiled.  “But then again, you aren’t in a much better business.”

            “Hey,” she frowned, the deep red lips trembling a little, “you don’t have to hit a girl when she’s down.  Besides, you’re the one who hired me, remember?”

            “I don’t normally buy prostitutes though, and you aren’t for me anyway.  Besides, you were picked by someone else.”

            “I know, they said something about delivering a package, but then I thought it was a sexy call-girl routine.  This is a little more than that, though.”

            I stopped walking, the strip bustling around us.

            “Any one of these meatbags here will do the job.  If you don’t want to, just say so now.  You were the assigned girl, but I can find someone else.  The boss won’t like it, but he’ll be angrier if it doesn’t go through.”

            “Any one of these people might do work because they’re needy, but not one of them can do a job they aren’t at some point told how to do.  I just need to guidance, so calm down.”  I couldn’t help laughing at the grandeur of her voice as she stopped.

            “Yeah, you’re right.  But I can only be so honest.”

            “That’s all I’m asking for.”

            “All right.  You know how cash can be traced because it has bank numbers.  Well, say you have a payout to be made to an individual who is under heavy surveillance.  What we do is work with heads of casinos and transfer money under the police radar.”

            “Why can’t they just trace the chips?”

            She was quick, too quick.  I looked up and down her curvature.  The guys had checked her out, but then again, cops can easily fake that s**t.  The brown cowboy suit, at least what little there was, had no room to adequately conceal a wire.  But maybe a small bug.  I pulled her to a stop, into an alcove of a near building.

            “What?”

            “Precaution.”  I ripped the small deputy star off of her chest.  Ripped the leather belt with the tractor buckle out of her pants.  Padded down the rest of her body but felt nothing more than the warmth of her thin waist.

            “You thought I was a cop, huh?”

            “Can you blame me.”  She smiled, lifting her shorts into place again.

            “No, but at least now you won’t suspect me anymore.  Besides, I’m used to people undressing me when they pay me for the day.”

            “Well, maybe later,” I joked, dropping the belt and pin on the ground in the nearest trashcan, “but right now we have work to get done.  Now you asked why they can’t trace the chips?”

            “Yeah, I mean, isn’t there some kind of system for the casinos to keep track of them?”

            “Well there is.  To avoid counterfeiting they use RFID tags on their chips in a lot of places.  You know, people can’t use fake chips if they don't have identification.  But not all of the casinos do that.  It’s only a select few, and the police can only demand any kind of records if they have a warrant, and when the casino heads are helping us out, there’s no way for the records to ever get into the wrong hands.  See they take a few of our guys and some of theirs as stand-ins into back rooms, pretend to play some games, exchange.”

            “That is ingenious,” she muttered, staring incredulously forward.

            “Yeah.  Right now, there are dozens of guys like me working for the families, moving small chunks of the money.”  We continued walking, the bag heavier on my shoulder.  We stood outside the doors to the Venetian.

            “So we’re here.  Now what?”

            “You take this bag to room 1306, ask at the desk for a Mr. Reynolds.”

            “Then what?”

            “Meet me here, come right back, don’t talk to anyone.”

            “Okay.”

            She walked away, through the gigantic veranda of doors, blending in with hundreds of others, even in her skimpy cowboy suit.  Part of me tingled inside.  That rush of adrenaline in these situations.  Though they only had me moving ten thousand, I didn’t feel like I was any less than involved.  Though ten seemed an odd amount to go through all this trouble for.  I watched the entrance, waiting.  After about fifteen minutes she came back, bagless and smiling from ear to ear.

            “I feel so alive,” she laughed, grabbing my hands and swinging them.

            “I know, but we have to move now.”

            “Anywhere,” she kept laughing, pulling me towards the sidewalk.  “Should we hail a cab?  I mean, where are we going to anyway?”

            “The farmhouse, we’ll take a cab back to the Bellagio to save some time.”

            “Good, because these boots are killing me,” she muttered, pulling one of them off and shaking out debris.

            Five minutes back to the casino.  Ten to get the car from the Bellagio valet during the early evening.  A half hour drive to the farm.  The whole time she chattered about her life.

            “I had a daughter when I was seventeen, but you know, with this life, I had to give her up.  Sometimes I wonder though, if she knows who I am.  I doubt the parents, a nice pair of Harvard-America people, I doubt they told her.”

            “It’s fine.  She’s better off believing in them anyway.  You know?”

            “Yeah.  And what would I do with a kid?  Buy a babysitter, have sex with strangers, come home and tell her to dream about a perfect world?  But will she thank me for giving her up-no.  She’ll hate me.  Call me a w***e.  I’ve played it out a thousand times in my head.”

            “Kids don’t understand.  Hell, adults don’t understand.  People like to think the world is just some puzzle and the pieces fit together in some way.  What they seem to forget is that there isn’t just one answer, and there are infinite puzzles mixed together.  No matter how many get solved, we’re all still fucked.  Each of us one little puzzle piece trying to find a place in the infinite weave of life.”

            Silence took over as she watched the passing traffic like a child watching a meteor shower.

            “Why did you get into your, and let me quote you, secretarial position?”

            I couldn't help laughing.  Her inquisitiveness almost unlimited, but her childlike disposition so welcoming.  Like I could tell her I killed her mother and she would still look at me like some kind of saint.

            “Seriously, how do you start working for one of the families out here?”

            “It isn’t as hard as you’d think.  You find a shark,” I chuckled, pulling the car off the highway, “You borrow too much money.  You can’t pay him back, he threatens you.  Then he says he needs a good set of hands, and you say you got a good set of hands.  Then you do what he asks, end up liking the thrill, and keep going back.”

            “I could see that.  Pretty comfortable, to have a family that pays you to help out.  That’s got your back.”

            “Yeah,” I couldn’t control my laughter, “But they don’t help you out.  They’ve got hundreds of little Marks swarming the strip right now.  If one of us goes down, they mourn the few thousands they lost more than the faceless Mark gunned down in the streets.”

            “Oh, well,” she smiled, her eyes catching that green glow, turning to look at me.  “I guess I get into my patrons’ pants and don’t feel any closer to them either.  In a way, we both just sell ourselves, though more or less metaphorically.”

            She turned away and watched the rolling deserts, the small houses on the outskirts of the halo of lights behind us.  Head leaning towards the window, she fell more and more against the nighttime as I drove on.

            “Hey,” I muttered, gently touching her shoulder as I pulled the car into the empty space on the side of the house.  “Come on, we’re here.”

            “But, what?” she muttered, rubbing her face with the insides of her wrists.

            “Yeah, we’re at the house.”

            “Wow,” she said, lifting up and pressing her face to the glass.  “When you said farm house I pictured more, well, farm.”

            “Yeah, it’s out here with nothing.  That’s the beauty of it.”

            I got out, and she followed.  We walked up the front steps, onto the porch.  I took the key out of my pocket; let myself in.  The lights were off, which caught me off guard.  Tommy was supposed to be here with the payment for the two of us, but there was nothing, no one.

            “Were there cars in the lot?”  I asked suddenly trying to recall.

            “Yeah, a red truck right next to us.”

            “I thought so.”

            “Why,” she asked, the danger flickering in her eyes excitedly.

            “Just an idea.  You stay here.”

            I left her in the lobby, walked up the stairs.  They creaked like old door hinges under my clumsy feet.  above me somewhere a board moaned in response.  No lights.  At the top of the stairs I stopped, looking left to right to left.  There was nothing.  No movement, no sound.  Just the empty hold and haunt of dead home.  Further on, I moved to the bathroom.  Nothing.  The bedroom, some left over red panties and a single black pump scattered, but still no one.  Lastly, the office was in the back corner.  Inside I didn’t see anyone, but the large office chair was faced completely away from me.  I had to check.

            Moving closer I tried to tiptoe on the old wooden floors.  Closer and closer I waited for it to spin and someone be there.  The moonlight stealing through the blinds in slits.  Tommy with his wide blue eyes waiting to laugh at my stalking figure as I crept towards the mysterious chair.  Laying my hand on the leather, I quickly swung the chair on its hinge and prepared for anything.  

No one was their, just the empty indentation in the seat of the innumerable, faceless people who’d sat there before.

            Catching my breath, all fumbled inside my chest, I fell back into the chair laughing.  The stupidity of it all.  Tommy always leaves his truck when he’s on a hit. My eyes shut smilingly, I let my head fall back over the rest.  Tommy was always late, and I knew that.  So stupid.  Looking outside, I could see the moonlight beginning to settle on the darkening sky through the lines of blinds.  She was still downstairs waiting.  I spun the chair to get up, but as I began to move a loud creak erupted from the other side of the room.

            I Stumbled up to face the noise, but as I lifted a loud crack pierced the air.  My stomach, a burning center of bile and blood-I fell backwards into the chair.  My back arched, trying to feel and understand.  There she stood, in front of me.  Warm pistol, green eyes catching gleams of yellow reflection like tiny fireflies.

            “Why?  You shot me. Why?” I croaked, looking, my bloody hands and white shirt slowly soaking up the mess.

            “I told you, we both sell ourselves more or less metaphorically.  Sometimes when we get overused, we need to be gotten rid of.”

            “But who?  I mean why?”

            “You have too much history, too much information.  The family doesn’t like a rat, doesn’t risk one either.  Your lips were too loose.”

            “Ha,” I chuckled, the stabbing pain in my stomach intensified by the small movement.  My face cringing.  “I should have known how little I meant to them.”

            “If it helps, it’s nothing personal.”

            “Nothing is all too personal-in this business, at least.”

            “Really, though.  You seem like a nice guy and all.  I almost half considered whether you were worth the ten.  I mean really, you were sweet.”  I gave a pained smile, her green eyes glimmering back through what looked like small tears.

            “I thought ten thousand was too little for a drop-off.”  I smiled, lying back and letting my eyes shut.  The center of my chest going from stinging pain slowly to steady stabs.  My fingers and toes growing numb, my face warm.

            “What seems little to you makes a big difference to some of us.”

            “Oh, you say that.  This money might last you another month, year, but then what?”

“You know,” she whispered, her red lips smudged, “how big do we both feel right now, and how little are we really?”