“We were fighting about something stupid. I tracked mud on the kitchen floor. She was yelling at me in Vietnamese, cursing me. I couldn’t stand it. It wasn’t fair.”
“How did you hit her?”
“I hit her hard, okay? She hit me many times too.”
“No, tell me. You want to defend yourself, so tell me exactly what you did.”
“I slapped her. Twice. Three times. The third time was a backhand — hard as I could. She bled at the mouth. Nearly fell over. You really want the truth? It was like fulfilling a fantasy. Each time I hit her, it felt like something coming true. It felt like a fucking remedy.”
I could hardly believe what I was admitting, but Mai’s questioning had been like a challenge. Was I man enough now to lay it out straight to her and to myself?
“I knew it was wrong,” I added. “I knew I’d regret it. But I’d be lying if I said it didn’t feel good.”
The light turned green, and Mai revved up close to the red Mercedes like she was ready to roll over it. But then she turned right and we were on Las Vegas Boulevard again, trailing another long line of cars.
Finally she said, “I’ve decided I don’t care anymore. I care about the money and I care that she gave it to me, but she never wanted anything more than that. So why should I go chasing after her like she’s someone I lost? She was never mine to lose anyway.”
For the first time since we met, I had no pity for her, even if she had it for herself. Maybe her moment of clarity was my own too. I looked in the Jeep’s side-view mirror to check if my face looked as defeated as I felt.
“What would I have said to her anyway?” Mai concluded.
“Go to Vietnam with the money,” I said. “Go find yourself a husband somewhere. Have a kid or two.”
She laughed suddenly, a slightly bitter laugh. “No need for a husband really. But I’d like to have a son. Teach him how to play cards one day. Raising a daughter would be like mothering yourself.”
THE FIRST THING we encountered as we reentered the Coronado was a guy in baggy corduroys and a Christmas sweater hitting a jackpot on the slots. Over five grand. It was one of those Elvis slots, so “Viva Las Vegas!” was blaring obnoxiously as lights flashed atop the machine, terrifying the little girl in his arms. Heads turned, a swarm of eyes pausing out of envy before returning gradually to their own pursuits.
Mai stopped to watch. The guy was so busy freaking out that he seemed oblivious to his sobbing daughter, whom he cradled in one arm like a bag of groceries as he peered stupidly at the clanging machine. An attendant arrived to handle his winnings, and all the guy could ask, over the little girl’s wails, was, “Do I get it all now?”
“Let’s go,” I said to Mai.
She started moving again but kept eyeing the scene until we turned the corner and headed toward the elevators.
The casino floor felt like an endless theater stage swarming with actors, the floodlights glaring, a balcony of eyes watching from somewhere above. I wondered if Victor had gotten anxious about how long we’d taken, if he was still keeping his word. One more question had started worrying me, ever since I retrieved the room key from the potted plant in the garage. It had been nearly eight hours since Junior sent me here, and neither he nor his father had called.
We rode the elevator with four drunk businessmen on their way to some room party. They leered at Mai the entire way, smirking quietly at each other until I started glaring at them. As we got off on the twelfth floor, one of them whispered, “Sayonara, missy,” and the elevator doors closed on their dumb sniggering.
We walked side by side to room 1215, and I unlocked it. The lamp was still on, the curtains still drawn, and the brown suitcase still standing glumly where we had left it inside the closet.
I opened it with Mai’s chrome key to check the money. I took back the five hundred Junior had given me, just in case I had to return it to him in person.
Mai had wandered into the center of the room and was peering at the dark walls and the shadows cast across the ceiling. She stood there with her chin raised like she had smelled something.
“What is it?” I said.
“It’s like someone was here.”
“Everything looks the same to me. You see something?” I noticed a trembling along the bottom of the curtains, but it was only hot air blowing from the heater’s vents.
“No.” She gave me a sheepish look. “I just feel it.”
“Got to be more specific than that, kid.”
“I don’t know. It’s like sitting down in a chair that someone else was just in.”
She remained motionless as though trying to remember something, and I let her do that for a bit, not sure what to ask her or what to make of her sudden clairvoyance, until finally she shook her head and started for the door.
We didn’t say a word to each other the entire way down, through the casino, to the parking garage, and finally to her Jeep, where I loaded the suitcase into the cramped backseat, squeezing it alongside her things.
I stood by the driver’s-side window as she keyed the ignition. On a faded Chinese takeout menu she gave me, I wrote down Tommy’s address in Oakland. I thought of what he’d say to her when she arrived at his doorstep. I thought of how Laura, his beloved wife, was going to have a fit. Then I remembered all the times I’d saved Tommy from himself back in the day, from bar fights and unsavory women, from moments on the job when he’d been on the edge of losing it just as, countless times, I had been.
“It should take you nine hours,” I told Mai, “but drive the speed limit. You hear me? And drive straight there. Don’t stop for anything but gas and food — and take that food with you. When you get there, tell Tommy I sent you and that you’ll be staying for a few days. Tell him I’ll be coming soon to explain everything. Don’t say anything else — about me or Sonny or the money. I don’t care how hard he tries to get shit out of you. And stay put, understand? Don’t go anywhere until I get there. It should be no later than noon Saturday.”
“And if you’re not there by then?”
“I’ll be there by then. Remember, stay put and stay quiet. Tell him I ordered you to be a mute.”
Her hands were in her lap.
“What is it?” I said.
She shrugged. “My mother. . ” she said. “Just because you guys were married doesn’t mean you have any responsibility to me.”
I just nodded. I checked the time: 8:20. Ten minutes to spare. “You’ll be okay driving for that long?”
“I’ve done it plenty times before.”
I stepped back. As her window went up, the glare from the fluorescent lamps overhead swallowed up her face.
The Jeep lumbered away, its tires squealing as it turned onto the ramp and dipped away from view.
AFTER SMOKING A CIGARETTE by the elevators for a good five minutes, enough time for Mai to have left the Coronado entirely, I walked back into the casino and made my way as casually as possible to the front entrance. Outside, a new pair of lifeless valet attendants stood leaning against the conquistador. They nodded perfunctorily at me as I passed them and crossed the rain-slicked street.
At night, the Coronado was lit up like a pinball machine, brilliantly reborn out of its dullish daytime appearance. It stood at the mouth of the pedestrian mall on Fremont Street, which went on for blocks beneath a mammoth canopy of white latticed steel, like a cavernous circus tent, flanked by all the old Vegas casinos. A colossal Christmas tree stood at the midpoint of the mall amid a swarm of revelers. It seemed impossibly real, towering over the casinos, reaching almost halfway up to the canopy.
I walked slowly, trying my best to steer clear of the crowds streaming onto Fremont. The rain had stopped but the wind picked up. Nobody noticed. People were too busy sipping at their plastic tumblers and snapping photos, their heads turning skyward when suddenly the lights dimmed and the canopy came alive, like a digital sky, with video of reindeer prancing down the length of the mall and pulling a sleigh manned by Santa and a gaggle of beautiful showgirls. A parade of nonsensical images followed, elves morphing into dancing trees, girls riding candy canes, yin-yangs spinning into flowers into snowflakes into psychedelic whirlpools of color, all as dancy Christmas music filled the mall and the crowds cheered and snapped more pictures.