“I guess we know as much as any layperson,” Gus said. “Which is to say not much at all. We know that eight months ago you opened the Starlight Theater for him here in the casino, and that he’s played to packed houses ever since. Aside from that, it’s mostly what we-and the rest of the world-don’t know that’s so interesting. P’tol P’kah has never given a single interview. He’s never been photographed without his makeup. No one even knows his real name.”
“Unless, of course, P’tol P’kah is his real name,” Fleck said.
“In which case I know where he is,” Shawn said. “Tracking down his mother and father so he can kill them.”
This time Fleck didn’t spare the effort to convert his faint smile into a laugh. “You say he’s never been photographed without his makeup,” he said. “And that’s how his story is generally reported. Right now, I’m not convinced that’s the absolute truth.”
“You mean you think there are photographs of him without makeup?” Gus could feel the excitement rising in him, but he tried to tamp it down. He still remembered the bitter disappointment he’d felt when, after years of desperately wanting to see what the members of Kiss looked like without the face paint, he finally did.
“I mean I’m not sure anymore that he’s wearing makeup,” Fleck said.
“If he’s on the run, that’s probably a safe bet,” Shawn said, dragging a piece of bread through a deep dish of melted butter. “Pretty hard to stay inconspicuous with a complexion like that.”
“I mean when he’s on stage,” Fleck said.
Shawn and Gus allowed themselves to exchange a quick glance to see how the other was taking this statement. It seemed like a bad idea to laugh in the face of a paying client, especially one with a history of ruthlessly destroying anyone he felt had disrespected him. But neither of them was sure what their option was.
“Are you suggesting that P’tol P’kah is actually a Martian?” Gus finally managed to get out without giggling.
“I know how absurd it sounds,” Fleck said. “If anyone had said the same thing to me eight months ago, I would have laughed in his face. But I’ve studied my client for a long time, and I’ve never seen a hint of anything that would contradict his story.”
“How about his Social Security number?” Shawn said. “He must have given it to you at some point, unless Martians don’t care about money.”
“Oh, they care,” Fleck said. “But my deal is with P’tol P’kah’s loan-out corporation, so all I have is his company’s ID number.”
“How about the first time you met him?” Shawn asked. “You didn’t just bump into a seven-foot Martian walking down the Strip.”
“Not at all,” Fleck said. “Our first introduction was as mysterious as everything else about our relationship. One night I was home alone, and he just appeared.”
“What do you mean?” Gus said. “He beamed into your living room like Captain Kirk?”
“No, although I don’t think that would have surprised me any more than what did happen,” Fleck said. “I was watching Jim Cramer on CNBC, the image flickered, and then this seven-foot-tall green man was talking to me directly through the screen.”
“How could you tell the difference?” Shawn said. “Oh wait-was he right about something?”
“At first I thought I was dreaming,” Fleck said. “Then I got a little scared. I tried changing the channel, but he was on every one. I turned off the TV, but it kept coming back on. So finally I decided I had to listen to him.”
“I hope he didn’t try to sell you a panini press,” Shawn said.
“He invited me to come to an abandoned warehouse in Henderson to see a show that was going to change my life.”
“An abandoned warehouse?” Shawn said. “What, he couldn’t find a deserted amusement park?”
“I went with some trepidation. I had no idea what I was walking into, but the green monster on my TV screen had been quite explicit that I had to come alone, and it never even crossed my mind to disobey,” Fleck said. “When I arrived, a young woman met me and led me into the warehouse.”
“Was this Mrs. P’kah?” Shawn asked. “Because maybe we could ask her where her husband went.”
“I never learned her name,” Fleck said. “I never even heard her voice. And her face and head were completely covered with a hood. She led me to a single chair in the darkened warehouse and gestured for me to sit down. Then she left. I never saw her again. Or maybe I’ve seen her every day since. I have no way of knowing.”
“There’s nothing else you can remember about this woman?” Gus asked. “Something about the way she moved, the perfume she wore?”
“Even if there was anything, it would have been knocked out of my consciousness by what happened next,” Fleck said. “The few lights that had been on in the warehouse went out and I was in total darkness. Then a spotlight fell on a glass tank at the other end. And P’tol P’kah stepped into it. He climbed up a set of stairs into the tank, and, well, you saw the Dissolving Man.”
“Most of it,” Shawn said. “I gather that this time he actually did rematerialize?”
“Right in front of me,” Fleck said. “Then he reached out into the darkness and dragged a table over to my chair. On that table were a contract and a fountain pen. He said one word to me: ‘Read.’ Then the lights blinked out for a second, and he had disappeared.”
“Hey, that’s how we were going to present our contract,” Shawn said. “I can’t believe that green giant stole our idea.”
Gus didn’t even bother kicking Shawn under the table. Fleck was so lost in his memory that he didn’t seem to hear him.
“What I read in that contract was outrageous,” Fleck said. “I was to build a special theater to P’tol P’kah’s exact specifications. It would hold no fewer than five thousand people, the seats were to be arranged so that every member of the audience had a clear view of the stage, and-”
“And that they’d all pay two hundred bucks to attend?” Shawn guessed.
“No, that was my call,” Fleck said. “Once I ran the numbers on just how much this was all going to cost me. Because the stage was just the beginning. I needed to provide him with a place to live.”
“Houses aren’t exactly rare around here,” Gus said, remembering the colorful mosaic of real estate signs so closely packed together that they could be seen from the plane on the descent into McCarran Airport.
“P’tol P’kah didn’t want a house,” Fleck said. “He wanted a floor.”
“Well, that’s got to be cheaper than a whole house,” Shawn said. “Because with a house, you not only have the floor, you’ve got all those walls. And ceilings, too.”
“He wanted a floor of this casino for his private residence,” Fleck said. “Or if not an entire floor, then an enormous luxury suite that would be completely walled off from the rest of the hotel. The only entrance would be a private elevator that ran down directly into his dressing room in the theater. There were certain demands about the way the suite had to be furnished, about the level of room service he demanded be provided, the housekeeping that needed to be performed only while he was on stage. There was a long section detailing how much he was to be paid, and how it was to be wired directly into an untraceable offshore bank account. And, of course, there were his key demands-he would grant no interviews, make no public appearances besides his own shows, and meet no people other than me.”
“And when you were done laughing?” Shawn said.
“I signed.”
Gus thought back on all the articles he had read about Fleck’s incredible business acumen, the punishing deals he extracted out of everyone who ever dealt with him, and tried to reconcile that with what he was hearing now. “Just like that?”
“You saw the Dissolving Man,” Fleck said. “In all my years as a promoter, I’d never come across anything so breathtaking. It reminded me of the first time I saw Cirque du Soleil-only with a fraction of the payroll expenses. If the green guy’s schtick seemed a little heavy-handed at the time, I figured that just meant he knew how to work his image.”