--02 Sin City (11-2002)
For Chris Kaufmann-
the CSI who saw the body
M.A.C. and M.V.C.
When two objects come into contact,
there is a material exchange,
from each to the other.
-EDMUND LOCARD, 1910
Father of Forensic Science
LAS VEGAS-LIKE NEW YORK AND RUST-NEVER SLEEPS. From dusk till dawn, the sprawl of the city and its glittering neon jewelery enliven the desert landscape, competing with a million stars, all of them so tiny compared to Siegfried and Roy. From the fabled "Strip" of Las Vegas Boulevard to the world's tallest eyesore-the Stratosphere-Vegas throbs to its own 24/7 pulse, hammering into the wee-est of wee hours.
If such modern monuments as the Luxor and Bellagio indicate a certain triumph of man over nature, this shimmer of wholesome sin is nonetheless contained by a desert landscape, including mountains (almost) as green as money, as peaceful as the Strip is not. And a slumbering city-as normal as any urban sprawl, people living, working, loving, dying-exists in the reality of Vegas off the Strip, away from Fremont Street, a world where couples occasionally marry in a real chapel, as opposed to a neon-trimmed storefront where the pastor is Elvis, and "gambling" means getting to work five minutes late, or eating fried food, or cheating on your wife, or maybe trying to get away with murder, figurative or literal.
Nonetheless, as Sinatra said of New York, New York (the town, not the resort), Las Vegas, Nevada, indeed does not sleep. This is a city where, for many a citizen, working nights is the norm, from a pit boss at the Flamingo to a counter clerk at a convenience store, from an exotic dancer in a live nude girls club to a criminalist working the graveyard shift.
1
MILLIE BLAIR HATED SPENDING NIGHTS ALONE. SHE HAD always been anxious, and even being reborn in the blood of Christ hadn't helped. Nor did the nature of her husband Arthur's job, which sometimes meant long evenings waiting for him to get home.
Tonight, Millie couldn't seem to stop wringing her hands. Her collar-length brunette hair, now graying in streaks, framed a pleasant, almost pretty oval face tanned by days of outdoor sports-playing golf or tennis with friends from the church-and she looked young for forty. A petite five-four and still fit, she knew her husband continued to find her attractive, due in part to her rejection of the frumpy attire many of her friends had descended to in middle age. Tonight she wore navy slacks with a white silk blouse and an understated string of pearls.
Millie was glad Arthur still found her desirable-there was no sin in marital sex, after all, and love was a blessed thing between husband and wife-but she was less than pleased with her appearance, noting unmistakable signs of aging in her unforgiving makeup mirror, of late. Frown lines were digging tiny trenches at the corners of her mouth-the anxiety, again-and although she tried to compensate with lipstick, her lips seemed thinner, and her dark blue eyes could take on a glittering, glazed hardness when she was upset…like now.
Moving to the window, she nervously pulled back the curtains, peered out into the purple night like a pioneer woman checking for Indians, saw nothing moving, then resumed her pacing. Tonight her anxiety had a rational basis-Millie had heard something terribly disturbing yesterday…an audio tape of an argument between a certain married couple.
It was as if some desert creature had curled up in her stomach and died there-or rather refused to die, writhing spasmodically in the pit of her belly. Millie knew something was wrong, dreadfully wrong, with her best friend Lynn Pierce. A member of Millie's church, Lynn seemed to have fallen off the planet since the two women had spoken, at around four P.M. this afternoon.
"Mil," Lynn had said, something ragged in her voice, "I need to see you…I need to see you right away."
"Is it Owen again?" Millie asked, the words tumbling out. "Another argument? Has he threatened you? Has he-"
"I can't talk right now."
Something in Lynn's throat caught-a sob? A gasp? How strange the way fear and sadness could blur.
Millie had clutched the phone as if hauling her drowning friend up out of treacherous waters. "Oh, Lynn, what is it? How can I help?"
"I…I'll tell you in person. When I see you."
"Well that's fine, dear. Don't you worry-Art and I are here for you. You just come right over."
"Is Arthur there now?"
"No, I meant…moral support. Is it that bad, that Arthur isn't here? Are you…frightened? Should I call Art and have him-"
"No! No. It'll be fine. I'll be right over."
"Good. Good girl."
"On my way. Fifteen minutes tops."
Those had been Lynn's last words before the women hung up.
Lynn Pierce-the most reliable, responsible person Millie knew-had not kept her word; she had not come "right over." Fifteen minutes passed, half an hour, an hour, and more.
Millie called the Pierce house and got only the answering machine.
Okay, maybe Millie was an anxious, excitable woman; all right, maybe she did have a melodramatic streak. Pastor Dan said Millie just had a good heart, that she truly cared about people, that her worry came from a good place.
This worry for Lynn may have come from a good place, but Millie feared Lynn had gone to a very bad place. She had a sick, sick feeling she would never see her best friend again.
As such troubled, troublesome thoughts roiled in her mind like a gathering thunderstorm, Millie paced and fretted and wrung her hands and waited for her husband Arthur to get home. Art would know what to do-he always did. In the meantime, Millie fiddled with her wedding ring, and concocted tragic scenarios in her mind, periodically chiding herself that Lynn had only been missing a few hours, after all.
But that tape.
That terrible tape she and Arthur had heard last night….
Millie perked up momentarily when Gary, their son, came home. Seventeen, a senior, Gary-a slender boy with Arthur's black hair and her oval face-had his own car and more and more now, his own life.
Their son kept to himself and barely spoke to them-though he was not sullen, really. He attended church with them willingly, always ready to raise his hands to the Lord. That told Millie he must still be a good boy.
For a time she and Arthur had been worried about their son, when Gary was dating that wild Karlson girl with her nose rings and pierced tongue and tattooed ankle and cigarettes. Lately he'd started dating Lori-Lynn's daughter, a good girl, active in the church like her mom.
He was shuffling up the stairs-his bedroom was on the second floor-when she paused in her pacing to ask, "And how was school?"
He had his backpack on as he stood there, dutifully, answering with a shrug.
From the bottom of the stairs, she asked, "Didn't you have a test today? Biology, wasn't it?"
Another shrug.
"Did you do well?"
One more shrug.
"Your father's going to be late tonight. You want to wait to eat with us, or…?"
Now he was starting up the stairs again. "I'll nuke something."
"I can make you macaroni, or-"
"Nuke is fine."
"All right."
He flicked a smile at her, before disappearing around the hallway, going toward his bedroom, the door of which was always closed, lately.
Growing up seemed to be hard on Gary, and she wished that she and Arthur could help; but this afternoon's taciturn behavior was all too typical of late. Gary barely seemed to acknowledge them, bestowing occasional cursory words and a multitude of shrugs. Still, his grades remained good, so maybe this was just part of growing up. A child slipping away from his parents into his own life was apparently part of God's plan.