Read Online Las Vegas Noir by Jarret Keene - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Jarret Keene
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Horse strip club that left a tourist dead and another one without the ability to speak. Eventually, Bennie would end up getting busted on some RICO shit (or, praise be, Bennie’s wife Rachel would get a fucking slit of conscience and/or retrospect and would roll on that fat fuck) and then one morning David would wake up and the U.S. Marshals would shove a big hook in his mouth and dangle him all over the press, the big fish that got away finally on the line.
And then there was the paralyzing issue of technology: When the Savone family moved him out of Chicago after the fuck-up, he had to leave everything behind, including his wife Jennifer and his infant son William. At first, it was easy to keep them out of his mind—it was either forget them or get the death penalty, which would probably be meted out by about fifteen cops in a very small cell. But as time went on and his life became a mundane series of mornings spent holding babies’ bloody dicks, brunch meetings filled with whiny plasticized rich bitches who couldn’t decide which charity should get the glory of their attention, afternoons spent in pink and yellow polo shirts as he golfed with men who would have fucking spit on him in Chicago, and nights spent alone in his Ethan Allen–showroom living room, flipping channels, jerking off to Cinemax, thinking about disappearing, just getting the fuck out, moving to Mexico, or Canada, or even Los Angeles, he began paving roads toward Jennifer and William.
It was so easy: He just typed their names into Google and came up with William’s MySpace page. William was seventeen now and if his pictures were any judge, was in desperate need of some guidance. Every single photo, his pants were half-way down his ass, he was throwing some fucking gang sign that actually spelled out MOB , and he had a Yankees cap—a fucking Yankees cap!—turned sideways on his head, which made him look like a retard, though not unlike half the kids David saw Saturdays at the temple. He only saw Jennifer in the background of a few shots and it broke his heart to see how old she’d become, how her straight blond hair was now silver, how her body had grown frumpy. Time and pressure had turned her into an old woman while he was busy fucking strippers and running a goddamned Jewish empire in the middle of the desert.
But she was there. He could see her. She existed. He checked the archives of the Tribune and Sun-Times to see if her name had been in any marriage announcements but came up empty. David knew that didn’t mean anything concrete, but he also thought that if she had remarried, William wouldn’t have turned into such a fucking putz.
Over the last several months, he’d started looking at Google satellite photos of his old house (where, according to a simple public record search, Jennifer and William still lived). Though all he could really see was the roof and the general outline of the house, he could make out bits of himself too: the pool, which he’d purchased after he got paid for his first substantial hit (a guy he ran track with in high school—Gil Williams—whose father was a city councilman); the towering blue ash tree in the front yard, where he hung a tire swing for William; the brick driveway, Jennifer’s dream, which he laid brick by brick over the course of a long weekend. Before he understood that the photos were static and not updated regularly, David would return each day to refresh the image, hoping to catch a glimpse of his wife, who he was sure he could recognize even from outer space.
Did she know he was still alive? Did she spend nights searching for him too? Did she know he’d also turned gray, but that he’d stayed in shape all of these years, working out, still hitting the heavy bag at the gym when he could, keeping himself ready, just in case, knowing, waiting, thinking that eventually, if he had to, he could kill someone with his hands again, just like back in the day. Happy with the thought. Thinking,
And then there was the paralyzing issue of technology: When the Savone family moved him out of Chicago after the fuck-up, he had to leave everything behind, including his wife Jennifer and his infant son William. At first, it was easy to keep them out of his mind—it was either forget them or get the death penalty, which would probably be meted out by about fifteen cops in a very small cell. But as time went on and his life became a mundane series of mornings spent holding babies’ bloody dicks, brunch meetings filled with whiny plasticized rich bitches who couldn’t decide which charity should get the glory of their attention, afternoons spent in pink and yellow polo shirts as he golfed with men who would have fucking spit on him in Chicago, and nights spent alone in his Ethan Allen–showroom living room, flipping channels, jerking off to Cinemax, thinking about disappearing, just getting the fuck out, moving to Mexico, or Canada, or even Los Angeles, he began paving roads toward Jennifer and William.
It was so easy: He just typed their names into Google and came up with William’s MySpace page. William was seventeen now and if his pictures were any judge, was in desperate need of some guidance. Every single photo, his pants were half-way down his ass, he was throwing some fucking gang sign that actually spelled out MOB , and he had a Yankees cap—a fucking Yankees cap!—turned sideways on his head, which made him look like a retard, though not unlike half the kids David saw Saturdays at the temple. He only saw Jennifer in the background of a few shots and it broke his heart to see how old she’d become, how her straight blond hair was now silver, how her body had grown frumpy. Time and pressure had turned her into an old woman while he was busy fucking strippers and running a goddamned Jewish empire in the middle of the desert.
But she was there. He could see her. She existed. He checked the archives of the Tribune and Sun-Times to see if her name had been in any marriage announcements but came up empty. David knew that didn’t mean anything concrete, but he also thought that if she had remarried, William wouldn’t have turned into such a fucking putz.
Over the last several months, he’d started looking at Google satellite photos of his old house (where, according to a simple public record search, Jennifer and William still lived). Though all he could really see was the roof and the general outline of the house, he could make out bits of himself too: the pool, which he’d purchased after he got paid for his first substantial hit (a guy he ran track with in high school—Gil Williams—whose father was a city councilman); the towering blue ash tree in the front yard, where he hung a tire swing for William; the brick driveway, Jennifer’s dream, which he laid brick by brick over the course of a long weekend. Before he understood that the photos were static and not updated regularly, David would return each day to refresh the image, hoping to catch a glimpse of his wife, who he was sure he could recognize even from outer space.
Did she know he was still alive? Did she spend nights searching for him too? Did she know he’d also turned gray, but that he’d stayed in shape all of these years, working out, still hitting the heavy bag at the gym when he could, keeping himself ready, just in case, knowing, waiting, thinking that eventually, if he had to, he could kill someone with his hands again, just like back in the day. Happy with the thought. Thinking,
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