“Where we going, Marty?”
“You ever seen Patton Oswald?”
“No.”
“He’s a comedian. He’s really funny. We can get dinner and watch his show at the Havana. It’s a hotel just up the street by the Luxor.”
They drove past massive screens displaying women in G-strings and leotards dancing on a stage, videos of Jerry Seinfeld making crowds roar with laughter, and magicians making explosions on stage while lions and women ran around behind them. To Stanton, Vegas always felt like a city crafted for sin. There were few places like it. Some cities’ residents focused on the tourist trade to make their living, but Las Vegas was something else entirely. From its very inception, Las Vegas hadn’t had its inhabitants in mind.
“There it is.”
The casino was large and connected to another building by a bridge that went over the street. It lit up the evening sky and had lights that shot straight up from the top of the two buildings, seemingly into space.
“Crazy, huh?”
“That’s incredible. They were still building it when I was last here.”
They pulled up to the valet and got out. The valets, who were dressed all in black, addressed everyone as “sir” or “madam.” Stanton followed Marty through the large doors with gold leaf trim into the building.
Inside, it looked like a carnival. In fact, rides were set up for the children, and arrows pointed to hallways that led to magicians, comedians, dancing shows, and restaurants. Most of the people were with their families. Stanton noticed many of the groups were missing men.
“Is this the casino?” Stanton asked.
“No, that’s the second building. They keep everything separate here.”
He followed Marty up a hallway past a stage. Several men in suits and a couple of uniformed officers were standing by. An older gentleman was shouting and swearing while a younger man tried to calm him down. Stanton couldn’t hear what was said, but he saw the older man throw a drink into the younger man’s face. The younger man wiped it off with a napkin and walked away.
They headed up the hallway to the comedy theater and took their seats near the front. A black-and-white checkerboard served as a curtain, and a spotlight shone down on the microphone.
Marty motioned to a vendor who was standing near their seats and ordered a couple of popcorns and Cokes.
“Diet Coke please,” Stanton said. “Caffeine free.”
“Um, we don’t have that.”
“Water’s fine.”
The popcorn came, and it was drizzled with butter. Stanton took a few bites and could taste sugar on it, as well.
“I know Mindi brought the file to you,” Marty said, his eyes focused on his popcorn.
“I didn’t ask her to.”
“It’s okay. She can do things I can’t do. If we can find the person who did this, it will be better.”
“Marty, I want you to listen to me. You are no different than anybody else, okay? Don’t ever let anyone tell you that you are. We all have our strong points and our weak points. That’s what makes us human.”
“I can remember what I was like before. I was really smart. Now it’s hard to think. My words are good, but I can’t concentrate, and I forget everything.”
“You’re doing just fine.”
“I was married once, you know.”
“Really? What happened?”
“She left me. She said she didn’t want to take care of me and that I wasn’t making her happy. I don’t blame her.”
“I was married, too. And she left me as well.” He held up his water in a toast. “To not finding another wife who’ll leave us.”
Marty tapped his Coke against Stanton’s water bottle and smiled. He turned back to his popcorn with zeal, and he seemed to be in a better mood.
“I gotta use the bathroom,” Stanton said. “I’ll be right back.”
He walked outside and down the hallway toward the restroom, where he heard someone shouting again. He walked out to the main lobby and saw the same older man yelling at another man, who was much older than the man Stanton had seen him shouting at before. This man was dressed impeccably, with his balding hair slicked back and a thick mustache.
Suddenly, the mustachioed man looked around then belted the shouting man in the face. Then he kicked him in the groin and struck him again. Stanton ran over. The two uniformed officers who were standing by immediately blocked his way.
“Back off,” one of them said.
“That guy just hit that old man.”
“I said back off. I’m not gonna ask you again,” he said, pulling out his Taser.
Stanton watched as the old man was dragged from the building. The two men he had seen speaking to him were talking now, and the younger one was taking notes.
The older one ran his hand through his hair and adjusted his suit. He glanced at Stanton then looked away before walking out of the building.
“Nice to meet you, officers,” Stanton said. “Keep us safe tonight.” He turned and walked back to the show.
11
Stanton dressed and showered before seven in the morning then ate a quick meal of eggs and fruit at the buffet in his hotel. He watched the families and the couples who were there, but he was mostly interested in the individuals who sat quietly at their tables with bloodshot eyes, barely eating their meals. He knew their minds were still in the casinos.
When he had finished, he got his car from the valet and drove to the Metro PD headquarters to pick up Marty. Mindi was waiting for him outside, wearing slacks and a leather jacket.
“Mind if I hitch a ride?” she asked.
“Where’s Marty?”
“He had some work to catch up on.”
“I thought he was only assigned to me?”
“Look, I know you want to go see the Steeds’ house. Marty can’t get you in there.” She pulled out a key and held it up. “But I can. Do you want to go or not?”
“Fine. Get in. But tell me where Marty is.”
“I wasn’t lying. He had a bunch of paperwork from old traffic tickets that are going to court, and he had to catch up on it. I told him I would cover this.”
Stanton typed the address into his GPS and pulled away from the curb. He rolled down the window to get some fresh air, but there was none to be had. Exhaust fumes and the pungent odors of sweat and burning neon tainted the air.
“You know, you really should be nicer to me. I can help you a lot.”
“I saw you got Jay and Javier’s notes in the file. How’d you do that?”
“Do you really want to know, or are you just asking to make small talk?”
“No, I probably don’t want to know.”
They drove in silence for a few minutes before Mindi said, “Your partner almost killed you once. I read that about you.”
“Yeah.”
“Eli Sherman, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you not want to talk about it?”
“Not really.”
“My partner, my first real partner, was a guy named Lawrence Zira. He was from Bosnia. He… he was married, but we had an affair. Well, he had an affair. I was twenty-one and an idiot. He didn’t tell me he was married. No one in the precinct told me-not my bosses, not the other uniforms. No one. I was in the dark until a receptionist finally pulled me aside and told me about it. When I confronted him, he laughed at me.”
“I’m sorry.” Stanton glanced at her then back at the road. “Where is he now?”
“He transferred to SWAT, so I don’t see him much. He was a dirtbag, but I’ve never forgotten that no one told me.”
Stanton turned right at an intersection, where a man on the corner in a pink tutu was dancing and shouting at the passersby.
“He killed twelve girls that we know of,” he said. “That’s the only reason he joined the police force. He liked the opportunity to find victims.”
“Don’t they screen for people like him?”
“They do, but some psychopaths, the ones who are high-functioning, can’t be detected. Most psychopaths are self-destructive. In my clinical internship, we had a patient who was considered a pure psychopath. She would try to break open her skull every day to pick at her brain. She had to be restrained most of the time. That’s a true psychopath. The manipulative sadist is a much more rare kind of psychopath, and we don’t understand them. You could live your whole life next to one and never know what they really are inside. You only see what they want you to see.”