HE POKED AROUND in Kat’s e-mail. Search capacity was limited on the Mirror’s system.
wanted to confirm the figure of $20,000 the banquet raised toward Mrs. Vasquez’s medical
follow up concerning the actual size and horsepower of the prototype engine and whether “partial zero emissions” means that it actually
not confirm the Hemingway quote regarding his upbringing in Oak Park that you provided. Can you let me know whether you were paraphrasing and, if possible, what the original
will need a dozen blueberry, four bran, six corn, and a selection of scones
You could die from boredom. Then:
Subject: Re: Fwd: Story idea from Becky Chasse
To: Chasse, Becky <Becka3step@comcast.net>
From: Kat Danhoff <danhoffk@chimirror.com>
Becks:
Sorry to be responding late. I don’t check my regular email as often as I probably should. This address is the good one, FYI. I’m assuming you’re joking about whether or not I remember you. You were my best friend for eighteen years, girl. And yes, I DO WANT to catch up later.
Meanwhile, about your story: it sounds very interesting, although with the position I’m in here, which is still kind of at the bottom of the totem pole, I have to figure out if it’s worth running it by my editor, who can be sort of a pain about this kind of thing.
But it seems to me whatever you may have seen at your kid’s school function, what’s central is your allegation that casino employees are skimming from the gross receipts. Even if this man Saltino did steal $450K on his own, it sounds like it was going on for a long time and that he wasn’t working independently. Can you give me the names of any other employees who could possibly have been involved? For example, you mentioned Robert Argenziano and said he seemed to be especially upset after Saltino’s disappearance. I’d like to start doing some preliminary research. It’s important because then I can give my boss an idea of how important a story this might be.
Also it’s important that you keep this to yourself.
It’s really good to hear from you. So you’re back in Nebising. Is it just the same as ever? Better? Worse? Maybe don’t tell me. There’ve been a few times over the years when I thought I was going to have to stick everything in a UHaul and head back but something always saved my bacon in the end.
Anyway, I’ll keep an eye out for that info. Use this address!!
Love,
Me
He remembered Becky Chasse, vaguely: she’d started out on the floor as a cocktail waitress, then moved to the cage. And, Argenziano thought, like all these flat-assed Indians Becky Chasse hadn’t missed a trick, and now she was feeling conversational. Now she was back in the boondocks and itching to spill. Attrition was the big problem, of course: employees didn’t give a fuck what the casino did as long as the casino was paying the freight. She must have been half-smart, since she’d gotten it half-right.
Becky Chasse, Nebising: he found her telephone number easily enough. He closed the computer, leaned over, removed a gun case from his bottom drawer, and checked inside. Then he packed it away in a gym bag. Here he was, mopping shit up. Now he could reward himself with a mineral water, a dry piece of broiled fish, and a fresh nicotine patch on his shoulder to make him itch and give him vivid dreams. What did he ever need, except for other people to do what they were supposed to do? Why did it never happen? What a world, what a world. A pep talk in the mirror was in order. He heaved his latest great sigh and rose from his chair. He wanted to call it a night.
Out on the floor, it rang and buzzed. Saturday night. Ugly people looked beautiful in the soft smoky light, it all smelled of perfume and B.O. and cigarettes and anxiety. People dressed up, people dressed stupid, people dressed lucky, people dressed slutty, people dressed just like they dressed for any old thing. There were elderly people who had that careful evaluative expression they wore to scrutinize the early bird specials at the restaurant, or in the cantaloupe aisle at the cantaloupe store. There were young people taking evident pleasure in throwing their money away. It was all a game to measure something about yourself.
He went and he found the couple he’d comped. They were still down, but they looked happy. They had no chance, but they did have fresh drinks, and the opportunity to enjoy watching their money disappear. No chance: the dealer moved so quickly, so smoothly; Argenziano could see them studying him with evident awe, as if they’d only had to pay once to watch the spectacle. But you never paid just once: you paid and paid.
The man spotted him and toasted him with his drink. Argenziano gave him a thumbs-up.
“End of the day for you? Going to get this place out of your system?”
“I never get it out of my system,” said Argenziano. “I hear it all night, it stays in your head. The noise, the bells, the talking, the excitement. You enjoy your evening, now.”
It was a lie. Every night, as soon as he left, as soon as he got on the elevator and went up to his suite, he forgot. There were no lingering aftereffects of the casino environment. That was for the players, coming out and crapping out in their dreams. Him, he just got undressed and watched a movie, then went to sleep. No sense at all that this moneymaking machine churned on all night twenty-three floors below. The place was actually very well constructed, he thought, with pride.
TODAY
It got dark while they were driving down a two-lane stretch of Route 115. Groups of motorcycle riders kept overtaking them, impatiently buzzing close behind them until they could pass, and then opening up, bursting out of and then back into loose formation as they swept into the opposing lane and rocketed ahead. Twenty-five miles northwest of Leatonville, Kat pulled into the lot of a Big Boy. Their waitress appeared to be in the middle of a private crisis, dropping their menus on the edge of the table and rushing off, evidently about to cry. The place was pretty empty and the other waitresses gathered behind the counter near the kitchen door and talked intensely and quietly among themselves. The three of them apparently agreed to cover her tables because one brought water and took drink orders, the second took their food order, and the third brought the food. All superattentive. For Kat, the objective became to stay until the sad waitress reappeared. Kat felt a powerful need to see her. Eventually, she did reappear, as Kat was considering ordering a piece of pie, sidling out of the kitchen door in street clothes, eyes red, hair down. One of the other waitresses stopped her, putting a hand on her forearm. They talked for a moment and then hugged. The sad waitress seemed diminished, smaller; she carried this tragically faded lavender pattern — printed backpack. Kat could see it all, the rusted-out Dodge Neon waiting in the lot with the two crusty child seats in the back, the crap scattered on the front lawn; her whole life, right here, no place at all, and now it was making her cry, finally. She popped a nicotine lozenge instead of the pie.
“Aren’t those silly,” Mulligan said. They’d talked very little throughout the meal. He could tell that Kat was riveted by whatever drama was going on behind the scenes here; had no idea what it was, exactly, or why she was responding to it.
“The nicotine snacks? Beats smoking.”
“But you don’t really think so. How could you?”
“Beats dying.”
“You’re going to die anyway.”