Suzy had always been rash like this, blindfolded half the time — a hungry infant one day, a sullen child the next. And now she’d left her daughter a poisoned gift and somehow contaminated me as well. For two years I had mislaid that anger she was so good at stoking, and locating it again made me at once nostalgic and bitter, as helpless as I’d always been, and now with more questions than ever. Maybe getting Mai out of town was me protecting myself from all that old impotence.
I weaved through crowds of people whooping and high-fiving each other around the table games, then passed solitary men roaming the floor as though adrift on their cigarette smoke, deaf to the singing slot machines. A casino, I’d always thought, was a carousel of hope and hopelessness. I’d been to a few in California. They were all the same. You come for your drinks, your music and dancing, and of course your spin with fate, and then you win or lose, and then you either leave or go right back and seek shelter at another game, another chance at fortune. But when you’re there, you can’t hide. Not for long. Not with so much hope everywhere.
Maybe that’s what drew people like Sonny and Mai to this place. Its endlessness. The thought quickened me toward the exit.
In the lobby, a gaggle of young women in tight skirts and high heels were snapping photos in front of the giant glittering Christmas tree. One of them accosted me with her camera and begged me to take their picture. In the viewfinder, they raised their drinks and blew me bright lipsticked kisses. I walked away annoyed by my desire for them.
Outside the casino entrance, I waited several minutes before Mai’s Jeep finally lumbered up, tires as high as my waist. She was dwarfed by it, a schoolgirl behind the steering wheel. The Jeep was dusty and pockmarked and had a rusted foot-long gash on the passenger door, which creaked open.
“I need your room key,” I said, tossing my duffel bag inside.
“Why?” She was gripping the steering wheel with both hands.
“The money is all they want, and we’re giving it back to them. We’ll need to leave them the key somewhere here.”
She looked confused but fished the keycard out of her purse. I walked to a row of potted ferns by the wall and slipped the keycard into one of the large stone pots, pushing it into the dirt. Mai watched me carefully from the Jeep.
As soon as I got back inside, my cell started ringing, and again I silenced it.
“You’re not answering?”
“Not until we’re miles from this place. He’ll call again. Head for I-15 going south. Once we’re on the highway, I’ll answer and tell him how to get the money, and we’ll see what he says from a safe distance.”
We exited the parking garage and the desert sun hit us like a camera flash. I peered through the rear window, checking all the cars behind us. The facade of the Coronado went white in the sunlight, quickly receding as Mai barreled down the streets.
I was escaping a burning house again, I thought — but was I also abandoning someone inside?
Mai played with the heater, but it didn’t seem to be working. She spoke up, “There’s something I haven’t told you.” She stared hard at the road, shifting gears like she was restraining an angry animal. “On Tuesday a woman came to my door. Vietnamese woman. Woke me in the middle of the afternoon with her loud knocking. I’d never seen her before in my life. She had glasses on and was wearing a casino uniform and a baseball cap low over her eyes, and she asked me, real serious, if I was Mai. I noticed a cut on her lip and a bruise under her eye that she tried to cover up with makeup. When I said yes, she asked if my mother had contacted me. I was too stunned to say anything, but I guess she could see the answer on my face. She told me that if I saw my mother, if I had any way of reaching her, I had to tell her to leave town at once. Tell her Happy said this, she told me. Tell her Happy means it.”
Mai was gauging my reaction. “I didn’t get that it was her name at first. Had to repeat what she said over and over to myself. You know this woman, don’t you?”
I nodded tiredly. “Your mother’s friend. Her best friend, actually. We knew her in Oakland, but she lives here now. I have no idea where.”
“That’s why I didn’t totally trust you at first. I thought you might be the reason my mother needed to leave town.”
“Did Happy tell you anything else?”
With her free hand, Mai began rummaging blindly through her purse and finally pulled out a prescription bottle. “She gave me this. She said my mother needs it. And then she hurried away before I could say anything.”
The bottle was Suzy’s prescription of anxiety pills. Something she’d been taking in the final few years of our marriage.
Mai’s face was soft in the sunlight, fine-boned. Her short hair accentuated the size of her eyes, which — when they gazed at you — seemed to want everything and at the same time give you nothing.
“I’ll be honest with you, man,” she said, “I don’t give a shit about anyone in the world. But this is my mother, you know. I’ve stayed up every night for a month thinking about where she could be, why she’s writing me. Everywhere I go now, I’m looking for her, and I don’t even know what she looks like. It makes me sad, but it also pisses me off. It’s like she’s always just around the corner and at the same time on the other side of the world. Actually, that’s how it’s felt for twenty years.”
We kicked onto the highway, the Jeep rumbling now as she shifted into high gear. She was waiting for me to say something, but I wasn’t ready yet to say it. Her patience embarrassed me, made me understand that I was a grown man, a cop no less, asking a young girl I barely knew to help me escape the city, to save me from my worst self.
The phone started ringing again. I looked at Mai and put my fingers to my lips.
I took a breath and answered after the third ring. “Yes?”
“I’ve been trying to reach you, Officer Ruen.”
“Who is this?”
“Me and my brother brought you here this morning.”
I twisted around in my seat and scanned the cars behind us. Mai was giving me curious looks. All I could do was gesture for her to keep driving.
“I’m not following you,” the voice continued. “Mr. Nguyen doesn’t know I’m calling. No one knows, not even my brother.”
It was the older brother. His voice sounded distant. It reminded me of his sad eyes in the rearview mirror the previous night.
He said, “We should talk.”
“Why?”
“I know the girl is driving you in a black Jeep. I know she’s Mrs. Nguyen’s daughter.”
He let that sink in for a second. “There’s a bar called the Cottage on Paradise Road, just north of Flamingo and a few blocks from the Stratosphere Hotel. Small white building with a chimney, right next to a strip club. Meet me there now, both of you, and I’ll explain everything.”
“Explain just what exactly?” I struggled for a way to tell him he was crazy if he thought I’d actually go meet him face-to-face, let alone bring Mai with me.
But then he said, “You left the money, didn’t you?” When I didn’t reply, he added, “The money in the room. In the suitcase.”
“If Sonny wants it, it’s all there. We want no part of it.”
“Okay, you’re fine then. For now. As long as he doesn’t know where it is.”
“So it is Sonny’s money.”
“Every last dollar.”
“And all you want is to talk.”
“You’ll both want to hear what I have to say.”
“You’re trying to help us?”
“I’m trying to help Mrs. Nguyen. Look, I helped her steal the money. Now meet me at the bar as soon as possible. Remember, the girl comes in too.”