Back stateside, my head was filled with the smell of burnt Marines and the face of a dead woman. My C.O. got word that my mother was in the hospital, he offered me hardship leave to go to her. I told him it must have been a mistake, I was an orphan.
I spent my off hours in the base club drowning my head in beer and whiskey. To their credit the officers understood that what we had been through over there had taken its toll, but even they had their limits. My almost constant drinking and general insanity led to a medical discharge. I didn’t fight it, I was sick and tired of their rules eating into my drinking time.
I was waiting for the paperwork to clear when I got word that my mother had died. I should have felt guilty for not going to her, but I didn’t. I only felt free.
The drive was giving me way too much time to think. Sometimes I wish I could contract Alzheimer’s so I could start every day with a fresh slate. Once, in the joint this lifer, who had discovered AA six dead bodies too late, had told me that my mind was a dangerous neighborhood and I shouldn’t go in alone. I could see the wisdom in that but the truth was if I invited anyone into my head they’d lock me down and toss away the key.
At Baker I pulled into Bun Boys for a burger and a cup of coffee served by a waitress named Dolly. I think she had the last beehive in captivity. Back on the road I headed for the Nevada State line. Out on an empty section of highway I decided to keep my mind occupied by seeing what the Crown Vic could do. Mashing down the gas pedal it leapt from eighty to one-twenty like a racehorse. Slamming on the brakes it skidded to a stop in a relatively straight line. It proved to be a good solid piece of Detroit iron. I knew that if they took this battle to the roads I could trust its moves.
About five feet across the state line Buffalo Bill’s casino stabbed up out of the tan dirt desert floor. In a nod to the family fun theme of it all, they have a roller coaster running five stories up above the place. Come on down and bring the kiddies, let them ride the whopper while mom and dad get hammered and spend the rent check. Oh yeah, that has family fun written all over it. I pulled in to fill the tank. Standing in line to pay, the ping and ching of slots clattering around me in the service station, I looked out the window to the welcoming face of the casino across the road. I had a roll of cash, hell a couple lucky hands and I would be square with Bob the bookie and maybe with just a little more luck I could put my ex-wife finally behind me. Just a few quick hands and then back on the road, no one would ever know I had stopped.
“That’s right where it happened.” I turned to see a greasy haired clerk watching me. “I saw you staring, we get a lot of that. It was all over the news. I was working that night, saw them pull her out, even got myself on the eleven o’clock news.”
“What?” I said in total confusion.
“That little colored girl that got raped and murdered in the men’s room, it was right over there. That boy did it while his friend watched or some shit.” The story came back to me, it had been all over the airwaves a few years back. A little girl of six or seven had been raped and strangled by this nice looking freak in his early twenties, his pal had seen him starting to do it and had walked out, didn’t try to stop him. Her mom was right outside in the restaurant the whole time, not fifty feet from where her daughter was being dragged through hell. I wonder if that woman ever got another peaceful moment’s rest; what does she see when she closes her eyes at night? The kid who did it, he was broken beyond repair long before he dragged that scared little girl in there. I know what they do to short eyes in the slam, so he is getting his daily, but the fuck who really needs to be taken off the count is the punk who saw it start and walked away. In my book that’s the worst of all, because at some level he knew better and wasn’t man enough to act.
I shoved my change into my pocket and cranked the beast over. I made a friend a promise and gambling wasn’t part of the deal, so I pulled past the casino and onto the highway, dodging that bullet one more time. At Sin City I took a left onto highway ninety-five. The Cock’s Roost was sixty miles from Vegas, just outside the Clark County line. Back in the sixties when prostitution was made legal the mob boys and the state struck a deal to keep it out of the gambling capitals of Vegas and Reno. The sex trade is small potatoes compared to the real cash cow, the twenty-four-hour hum of slot machines. The gaming business, with its stage shows and roller coasters was after all good clean all-American fun. The smaller counties were free to license brothels, it helped their tax base and hurt no one. They had strict health codes and the girl’s safety was protected. In a world that always had and always would have hookers, it seemed sane to regulate it. Not that anyone ever asked my opinion. The same hypocrites who screamed to outlaw all “deviant” sex acts were no doubt banging their interns behind closed doors. Power attracts creeps, that’s just the fact of the world.
It was about ten thirty when I started to see signs with a cartoon rooster and hens inviting me to stop on by for a good time. Pulling down the long driveway I discovered the Cock’s Roost, a squat, spread out complex of interconnected single story houses. The slapped together additions looked like sorry afterthoughts. An eight-foot cyclone fence surrounded the property. The fence was to keep the girls in. The way the rules worked is that while the girls were employed, they couldn’t leave the compound, they didn’t want them going to town and freelancing. The large gravel parking lot was only a quarter full. I parked the Crown Vic and slipped the.38 into a boot holster. At a gas station along the road I’d changed into my suit. Pulling up my bolo tie, I rang the bell. The gate opened with an electronic click and I walked the thirty feet up the path to the door where I was greeted by the floor manager, a professional looking older woman who piled her gray hair on top of her head in a tight bun. She smiled pleasantly and invited me in.
Twenty-five girls stood in a line waiting for my approval. They were all dressed in skimpy outfits, from lace baby doll nightgowns to short shorts with bikini tops. They each held out a hand and demurely said her name. “Lacy,” “Shayla,” “Daisy,” “Mercedes,” “Bianca,” “Trinity,” “Pleasure,” “Sunset,” “Savanna,” “Dallas,” “Phoenix,” “Cherri,” “Shanda,” “Jessie,” “Ginger,” “Kiki,” and “CoCo”. Their names like their breasts and their lusty smiles were all counterfeit. Not that most men would care, not as long as they knew how to make him come, which, by the way, ain’t really rocket science. All the dancers I knew had two fake names, a stage name and one to tell a big spender so he could feel like he really knew her.
At the end of the line of names I would never remember, the floor manager asked me to make my choice. It was all so cold and businesslike, devoid of any of the romance one might expect in a whorehouse. No old black man playing piano, no men playing cards and laughing with the girls. This was a place you bought sex clean and cold. I acted nervous, said maybe I needed a drink first. I moved to the small bar and the line broke up. The girls lounged around the lobby, some trying to catch my eye. Others wrote me off and sat chatting with their girlfriends. I ordered a rum and coke, sipping it while several young lovelies came by to see if I wanted a party. I told them maybe later and they drifted off. “Party,” that’s their classy way of saying “fuck,” it made it sound so clean and fun. “I would like an oral party followed by a you-peeing-in-my-mouth party?” Oh yeah that sounds so much better. Jessie, a woman about my age sauntered up and leaned against the bar, resting her thigh against my leg.
“First time?” she asked.
“Yes… truth is I’m looking for a friend of mine.” I casually set a hundred dollar bill on the bar. “Her name is Cass.” Jessie looked at the hundred then up at me. Her eyes flitted to the floor manager who was watching me like a hawk.