

STROKE

OF

GENIUS

GRANT FIELDGROVE
For Julie & McClane

Copyright © 2011 by Grant Fieldgrove

ManChops Inc.

All rights reserved

ISB 978-1470026646

Published by ManChops Inc.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over or does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

Copyright 2012 by Grant Fieldgrove

Cover Design by Eric Duhart

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

First edition: May 2012

Special Edition: December 2012
1.

The sun was almost fully visible over the mountains when the man had finished up. His victim was lying down face first in dirt, still writhing around in pain. The blood streaming from her nose and mouth made the dirt stick to her face. Her body was frigid and she was shivering. Her left eye was already too swollen to see out of. She resolved to simply be motionless and wait for death.

The man got to his feet, wrenching up his underwear and pants, buttoning them closed. He glanced down and dusted himself off. He walked back towards his car. In the distance the sun's rays were glistening upon the landscapes massive composition, giving incandescence to a brand new day of opportunity for millions. A mere mile away where the city never slumbered, with masses of people strolling up and down the streets at all hours of the day, oblivious to all that went on just outside the walls of their sheltered and invulnerable lilliputian fantasy, world where the pyramids of Cairo shared common ground with the Eiffel Tower and the Roman Colosseum.

The man relished the panoramic view for a moment longer before opening his car door and removing his knife from the passenger's seat. He flipped open the four-inch blade with his thumb and caught a distorted manifestation of his face in the glistening, sharp steel of the weapon. He grinned, shut the car door and made his way back over to the woman lying before him. He knelt down beside her, grabbed her hair with his left hand and lifted her head up, forming an elastic-like strand of soiled blood that rose from the dirt to her nose. The woman was too broken to even scream. She didn't make a sound. He sawed the knife against a clump of her hair, and when it broke free the woman's face fell back into the detritus causing dirt particles to drift upward. She coughed up more blood.

The man stood back up and held the cluster of blonde hair up to the light with admiration and esteem. He brought it to his nose and took a deep inhale. It smelled like fruit. He savored the aroma.

Can we all finally agree that Tupac is dead? It's been years. Years! And every now and then I'll still hear some ridiculous bullshit about Pac still being alive, living on an island somewhere, perhaps with Elvis and Biggie Smalls. It would be funny if the people I heard this from were joking around, but they always say it with such sincerity that it's just sad. The guy got shot. A lot. On numerous occasions. I've been shot on one occasion and almost was a goner. Dude is dead. Super dead. Rotting corpse dead. Mel Gibson's career dead.

But there are still those people who look for anything they can grasp to in hopes that he is still alive. True, he is still releasing albums somehow, but they're not particularly good albums which lead me to believe they were scrapped long before his death, and for good reason. Some money-whores just found them and decided to release them at a startling pace.

If you ever find one of these believers, don't hesitate to take a seat and listen to him, especially if you've never heard the theories before. They're quite humorous. Not the explanations, exactly; they're all grasping-at-straws, believe-anything reasoning which can be shrugged off without a second thought. The comedy comes from the actual people telling it. They are so convinced and they find their reasoning to be so deep and meaningful and they always say it with such stoned-face conviction. Classic.

If you can't find one of these pathetic burn-outs, just Google it. There are way too many websites devoted to it. Be sure to check out the 7 Day Theory and all about how he went from Tupac to Makavelli, thus proof of his rebirth! Because, mannnnnn, Tupac's All Eyez on Me came out in February, mannnn, then like, his Makavelli album came out in November! And that's like, nine months man, and that's like, just like a pregnancy, man, ya see, it's his total rebirth. He's totally alive, man! That's rock-solid proof right there, bro. Coachella Pac was real, bro!

I'm rambling, I apologize. But, this is what I am thinking about while sitting in my car on a damn-near-freezing night in December. What I'm doing here isn't exactly...legal, per se, but I'm doing what has to be done. It depends on where your ethics line is drawn. Apparently mine is drawn a few feet ahead of where I am currently seated.

The house I am sitting outside of at the moment belongs to some stupid, shaggy haired dude-bro named London Sanders. This rich, pricky, bag of ass got really drunk a few months ago and ended up beating some unfortunate other rich, pricky, bag of ass half to death in a bar slash restaurant. His case was self-defense and he ended up getting cut loose, for one reason or another, I guess. Not sure, don't care. However, I do know his release was agreed upon the basis that London quit drinking and pay for the medical support for his victim, something that, at the time, didn't seem to be much of a problem, seeing as he came from such a wealthy family. He didn't pay, though and now is in the middle of a hefty lawsuit filed by the victim of the ass kicking. Here is where it gets tricky. London suddenly became broke. His bank accounts vanished. Closed and apparently gone for good, leaving this shithead completely broke. Apparently. Nobody is buying this, though. London's parents are very wealthy, but since he is not a minor, they are not of concern in this mess.

Here is what I am thinking (along with everyone else.) London's parents recognized the trouble their son was in early enough, probably the night he called them from jail, and took control of all his assets, leaving him with only the few hundred dollars he had in his Louis Vuitton wallet the night of the incident.

The judge didn't buy it, nor did the defendant's attorney or anyone else in town who heard of the case. But with no money, there was little anyone could do. Everyone was convinced this ass hat had money, just nobody could locate it. London went so far as to apply for welfare, even though he was living rent free in a house in Bakersfield Country Club, (the house belonged to his parents, so even its assets couldn't be touched, also, not to mention all his credit cards had been frozen, his car, too was also off limits, as it technically was just a loner from his parents).

That seemed to have been the final straw for the defendant's parents. They knew he had money, and lots of it. So did London's insurance company. This act of poverty wasn't fooling anyone and all parties involved were sick of it. If London was caught drinking, he would serve jail time, and if he was caught with access to money other than what he has earned since the incident and what was in his wallet at the time of arrest, he would not only serve time but pay heavily to the defendant.

That leads us back to me freezing my baguettes off here in my car in this rich, pricky neighborhood. I hacked into his personal computer, through the help of a...friend who shall remain nameless, (naw I'm just kidding, it was totally me. I've gotten quite good at this hacking shit over the past few years,) and have been monitoring his internet activity for the past few days. There is the not-quite-legal part, but we're going to keep that a secret. I'm just using this as a starting point to catching this cheap piece of shit.

Nothing exciting so far, just a lot of porn sites and various movie and music news websites, including a few illegal downloads of both types. That's not my problem, though; I have bigger fish to fry. I was hoping for a visit to a bank's website but have struck out. On some local get-laid-quick website he did manage to meet a woman. They have chatted back and forth a few times, and once London's motor probably got roaring, she dropped the bomb on him that a night with her would cost him. London had acted skeptical at first; he had never had to pay for sex before. But I'm sure the more he thought about it, the more he realized that wasn't true. Back when he had a shit-ton of money, he just paid for it in different ways. Shockingly enough, when the money disappeared, so did the women. The prostitute had sent him a picture of herself and apparently she was good enough to constitute the price. He gave the woman his phone number and she called almost immediately. They set up a meeting for the following night, as she was "busy" at the moment. This was yesterday. Today, I am sitting here waiting for that next call to come.

Ice is beginning to form on my windshield while the inside of my car is completely fogged up. On my iPad mirrors the movements of London's desktop, thanks to the Wi-Fi connection I am piggy-backing off of from the house I am parked next to. I used a password cracker I recently installed. It's a rather nifty little program. I have no idea how it works, though. Just like in the movies, it runs through tons of letters and numbers, getting one digit at a time until the password is finished. It worked well, obviously, but I could have saved some time just by guessing. This asshole's password was PASSWORD. Whenever I have to guess a password, my first guess is always PASSWORD. Every time. I'd say a good seven out of ten times I'm right. People think they're so clever, I swear to god. Anyway. Still nothing exciting on London's end, though. Illegal music downloads of shitty bands I have never heard of. Dude-bro shit rock I assume. Good, steal away asshole, don't support that shit by buying it. That will only convince more shitty bands to make more shitty albums. An incoming call comes through on his cell-phone. I listen in through the iPad's speakers. It's the prostitute.

London: Sup?

(What a douche!)

Prostitute: Hey, it's Veronica.

London: Hey baby. We on for tonight?

Prostitute: If you've got the money, I've got the time.

London: Five-hundred, right?

Prostitute: Five-hundred for the basics. If you want it all, it'll cost you another two-hundred more.

London: What the fuck, you said five!

Prostitute: I said I start at five. It's up to you but decide quickly, I have no problem moving on to the next guy if you take a pass.

London: I'd have to go get more cash.

Prostitute: Then go get it. You won't be disappointed, baby.

London: Fine. But you have to give me a little time.

Prostitute: You have one hour. Text me the address. It's 9:06, I'll be there at 10:06. If you're not there, I'm on to the next at 10:07. We're going to need a drink before we begin, too, so make sure you have a bottle of wine. Cab. And the good stuff, none of that cheap shit from the grocery store.

London: I don't have any wine. I'll have to go buy some.

Prostitute: Better hurry. Clock is ticking.

The line went dead. I sat and waited. Less than two minutes after the call ended the garage to London's house opened and I saw the tail lights of his BMW ignite. I started my engine.

His first stop was the bank, as I had hoped. It wasn't the closest ATM to his house, so I had to assume that this was his actual bank. That was great as it would make the rest of my job all the more easy. I took a few pictures of him at the machine, withdrawing cash that he wasn't supposed to have. His next stop was Country Club Liquors, just up the hill from his house. The sign advertised quality wine and spirits, and late hours. He darted inside quickly and within minutes exited the store holding a brown bag, presumably being occupied with an expensive cabernet. He crumpled up the receipt, tossed it in the nearest trash can then returned to his car and drove off. I checked my watch, I had time. I left the car running and went to the trashcan. I closed my eyes and slowly reached my hand in, retrieving the receipt with the very tips of my forefinger and thumb. I stuffed the paper into my pocket and reached for my anti-bacterial bottle that I never leave home without, in my opposite pocket. I returned to my car and met London back at his house. We had twelve minutes before Veronica would arrive. I got out and made my way to the back of the house, after a quick pick of a lock, camera-in-hand.

I heard an engine grow closer then shut off. Veronica had arrived. Spying in from the kitchen window, London answered the front door and invited Veronica inside. I couldn't hear what was being said, it didn't matter. Veronica made her way into the kitchen, looking for the bottle of wine, and making it easier for me to hear what was going on. I viewed the rest of the encounter through the lens of my Nikon.

Veronica: You going to open that up, baby? (pointing to the newly purchased bottle of wine.)

London: Yeah. Um, yeah. Let me find a bottle opener- um, corkscrew.

He seemed flustered. He bumbled around the kitchen for a few seconds until he finally produced the object of his search. He pulled the cork from the bottle and grabbed two glasses from his cabinet. He poured them each a generous helping of the wine. They sat at the table and began to drink. I photographed from outside.

Veronica: So, about my money. I need to be paid up front. I don't take any chances of being stiffed. Pardon the pun.

London gave her an uneasy smile then sat still for a few seconds before he remembered what he was supposed to be doing.

London: Yeah, understandable. Here.

He dug his wallet from his jean pocket and produced the cash. He handed it to Veronica. She grabbed it, holding it by the corners much like I had done with the garbage receipt.

Veronica: If you'll excuse me for a minute, doll, I need to go put this money in my car. I don't take any chances.

London: No way, you're not going to run out to your car and take off. You're not going to rip me off!

His voice had a tinge of anger to it. I didn't like where this could go. He did, remember, have a history of physical violence.

Veronica: Relax honey; I can unlock my car from here. I'll leave my keys with you. I can't very well go anywhere without my keys.

Veronica hit the unlock button on her remote then handed them over to London. He looked at the keys quizzically.

Veronica: Good enough?

London: Good enough

Veronica gave him a little peck on the cheek and ran her hand up his chest. She then turned on her heel and headed out the front door. London's eyes locked on her mini-skirted ass as she walked away. I dropped the camera, letting it dangle from my neck and ran around to the front of the house just as Veronica was closing the front door.

She walked towards me and I tossed her her spare keys.

"Good job, E." I tell her.

"Thanks Arch, now bury this pervert."

"Dinner?"

"I'll meet you at that Mexican place around the corner."

"See ya in a few." I removed the camera from around my neck and handed it off to Elise. She grabbed it and got in her car. I unzipped my jacket, just in case things get psychical in there.

I jog up the doorway and walk straight in to the house to find London sitting on his couch, sans pants.

"Hey stud," I say to him as I invite myself into his home, "I'm going to need those keys back. K thanks."

I made my way into the kitchen and snatched the keys from the table. I could sense London's presence behind me. I turned to face him.

"What the hell do you think you're doing, asshole?! Where is Veronica?"

"Oh her, yeah, she won't be coming back."

"What are you, her pimp or something?" he asks me as he zips up his fly.

"Um, yeah sure, why not?"

"What kind of faggot pimp wears a Semisonic T-shirt?"

"Me I guess. I'm impressed you've heard of them. Anyway, I've gotta jet. It's closing time."

"So you're going to rob me?! What the fuck? I'm calling the cops, this is bullshit!"

"Don't worry about that, kid," I say as I squeeze by him and begin making my way through the living room to the front door. "I'll take care of calling the cops for ya, handsome."

"What?!" he yells at me as I open the front door.

"Have fun in jail, asshole!" I slam the door and sprint downhill to my car, hop in and lay a patch of rubber on the street. Less than ten minutes later I am walking into Don Pepito's Mexican Restaurant. I spot Elise in the corner, she already had been seated. I walk over to greet her.

"Nice work, hooker!"

"Did we get him?" she asked.

"Oh yeah, E, we got him."

"Oh, fantastic!" She flashed me that winning smile of hers and my heart melted a little.

"I'm starving," I tell her.

"Me too. I put the cash he gave me in a Ziploc. His prints will be all over it."

"Good job. I got the receipt for the wine and plenty of pictures of him hitting up the ATM and drinking the alcohol. We're good. I'll call the clients first thing in the morning."

The waiter arrived at our table with two glasses of water, which I certainly will not be drinking. One never knows where the water comes from in restaurants. Probably the tap. No thanks. I may as well just drink the waiter's urine. I see no difference.

Elise ordered a blended margarita and I settled for a Pepsi. We also placed our orders.

When we were done eating we went to pay the bill at the front. I handed the cute little girl working the register the tab and my personal debit card. I was in such a good mood I wouldn't even be charging this dinner to my client. This one was on me. I heard a beep.

"I'm sorry sir," the little girl tells me, "your card was declined."

"What?" I ask, shocked. "That's not possible. Please run it again."

She does.

Beep

"I'm sorry, sir."

I turn and give Elise a questioning look. She gives me a shoulder shrug and a confused smirk.

"Okay, well, use my business account then." I take my debit card back and hand her my Capital One Business card.

Beep.

"I'm sorry, sir."

"Oh, what the frak?! This is a business account, it has a huge limit and I just paid it off last month." The girl gave me a sympathetic look.

Elise stepped forward, hand in her purse, saying "I've got this one, ya bum." She pulled her card from her purse and handed it over. It was approved.

"Well, what the hell?" I ask, to no one in particular. "God damn it."

Elise turns around and says, "You better look in to that, MC Hammer. You appear to be broke."

2.

I was on the phone with my credit card company before we even hit the exit. Elise waited with me in my car while I was on hold, even though I told her several times she should go home and I would just see her in the morning at the office. She doesn't listen, though. Truth is, I didn't want to resort to a temper tantrum in front of her. Lord knows she's seen me at my worst, but it's still embarrassing. I hate the way I get in situations like this, but I've just had to learn how to deal. Elise, however, should have cut and run months ago. I'm glad she stuck with me.

After ten minutes of sitting on hold and actually hearing my blood pressure rise, a friendly sounding voice came on the line, asking me for my account number even though I had just typed it in on the phone's keypad mere minutes ago!

I explained my situation and was told that my card was cancelled due to suspicious charges made on my account in Las Vegas. Stupid, stupid Las Vegas! It seems someone was trying to have a fun-filled weekend on my dime. Jerks! They caught it and apparently tried to contact me. I have a bad habit of not answering my cell when I'm working, then forgetting all about checking the voice mail. I took her word for it. When they didn't hear back from me, they cancelled it. I was assured they would have a new card in my possession early next week. I thanked her and hung up.

I pulled up the web browser on my phone and went to my bank's mobile site. It was down. As usual. I swear to God I am changing banks. Nothing but trouble with these assholes. I conceded to my defeat, realizing there was nothing more that could be done tonight.

I explained what happened to Elise and she leaned over and gave me a kiss on the cheek, "It's okay. We'll get it figured out tomorrow, okay? I promise."

"Yeah. I guess. Still just pisses me off. Did my bank cancel my card, too? I have no access to my money if they did. What if I need to buy something?"

"It eleven o'clock and we're going home. You don't need to buy anything from now until morning."

"Yeah, I guess you're right."

"I'm always right," she informs me as she opens up my car's passenger door and steps out. "See ya in the morning?"

"I'll be there."

"Drive safe."

"Safely," I correct her, all in good fun.

"Drive SAFELY, then. Can I borrow a dollar? Oh wait."

"Funny. Get lost."

She flashes me another smile then closes the door. I wait for her to get into her car and start the engine before I put mine in reverse and begin to head home.

Wrecker is there to greet me, as usual, when I walk in. I've had him on a diet for the past couple of months and we've been going on a lot more walks. We could both use it. His energy has gone up and he can now actually fit through his small dog door again. A feat that he has not been able to manage in a couple of years. It makes me happy seeing him so full of life. I need him around for a lot longer.

I gave him a treat and he followed me to the sofa which has served as my bed since my wife died nearly two years ago. One day I'll make my way back into the bedroom and try to live a normal life, but I'm just not sure when. Until then, the sofa will be fine.

I fire up the DVD player and the first disk that begins is a Full House one that I've watched all the way through no less than five times this week. I press play and lay down on the sofa with Wrecker, covering us up with our blanket and doze off to sleep without even changing into pajamas or brushing my teeth, something that I never thought would happen. Just goes to show you how distracted I was with my current money situation.

My alarm went off at seven thirty. It was time to go to work. I had some calls to make. Wrecker gets up and lets me roll off the sofa. I fold the blanket and rest it nicely on the back of the couch, then make sure all the pillows are put back, lined up and even. Now I can start my day.

I go into the bathroom to brush my teeth since, judging by the taste in my mouth, if you took the Pepsi challenge with my breath and a bum's butthole, you'd have a hard time telling which was which.

I shower, get dressed and head to work. Elise has beaten me there...again.

"Do you live here?" I ask as I walk into our office on the bottom floor of the city's tallest building.

"No, I'm just punctual. Something that you are not."

"Yeah yeah."

"You'd think with how obsessive you are over everything you would need to be on time for everything."

"Psh, yeah, you'd think. But nope." I laughed and walked to the window to open the blinds. "Hell of a view, huh?"

"Yeah."

Our view is grass and a street.

"Did you call the bank yet?"

"Not yet. I was saving that excitement for the office. I meant to ask, have you heard anything else from Cinemax?"

"Not a word. I just figured they're going to screw us over."

"Well, of course they're going to screw us over. I just wish they were polite enough to tell us about it."

Not this last summer but the one before it, Elise and I were involved in a really high-profile case involving the one and only Brad Jackson, actor extraordinaire (apparently). I witnessed him killing someone in Shell Beach. I reported it immediately to the local police, but as it turns out, in typical Lemon's Luck, the same guy I reported it to was Brad's accomplice and gay lover. Shit that could only happen to me, I swear. Anyway, on top of proving his guilt we also managed to prove the innocence of a woman wrongly imprisoned for killing Brad's wife Annette. It was a fun filled summer. In fact, it had been a fun filled year. I'd been shot, tied up...twice (!) and narrowly escaped death...also twice. Elise once. On top of that, my wife was murdered in our house. This is going to be my second Christmas without her. I'm trying to fight through the sadness and push the thought out of my mind, but I know, every now and then, it seeps through the cracks of my facade.

The Cinemax situation I was referring to earlier is; after that big Brad Jackson case, there was talk of a movie being made of the incidents. Kind of like all those terrible made-for-TV movies that come from major trials. Did we get a major network, NBC, ABC, CBS, Showtime? Hell no, we get Cinemax. I know for a fact the movie is in development but we haven't heard word one since the initial meeting.

Remember that one episode of The Simpsons when Bart gets involved in the mob and they end up making a movie out of it starring Doogie Howser and Homer is upset to learn that the studio changed the story just enough that they didn't have to pay him a single cent? Yeah, I've got a funny feeling that is what's going to be happening to us. Again, love that Lemon's Luck!

Not only that but it'll probably involve horrible simulated sex and lots of fake boobies, judging from the network's track record. Ugh!

"Anyway," I continue, "I guess it's time to call this stupid bank of mine and see what the deal is. Then we'll finish up our work from last night."

"Sounds good. I'm going to run out to the lobby and get a coffee. You want anything?"

"Yeah, that'd be great, since I couldn't stop and get anything on my way this morning. You know what I like."

"You really should carry a few bucks on ya at all times."

"Thanks mom. Take a hike."

"I'm going to punch you in your big, dumb face when I get back."

I take a seat in my plush and wonderful office chair that my wife bought me when I first started my business. "Yeah, you go ahead and try that." I pick up the phone and begin to dial. "Thanks, E."

"You got it."

A recording answered right when the door shut, giving me all kinds of options. How about the option of talking to a goddamn human? Which number do I push for that?

After fifteen minutes of smashing buttons on my office phone out of pure frustration after being told my available balance was ninety-six cents, a human finally came on the line. I swear to god I hate this effing computer automated bullshit!

She asks for my name and account number, something that, again, I just supplied to the stupid recording proving that it actually does nothing except keep the caller occupied and made to feel like something is actually getting accomplished while he is on the phone.

"What can I help you with, sir?" the woman on the line asks.

"Well, for starters, I was just informed that my available balance is ninety-six cents."

"Yes sir, that is correct."

"Okay, well it's most certainly NOT correct and that is why I'm calling. I should have several thousand dollars in there."

"Well, it says you have several pending charges that haven't cleared yet."

"Okay, can you tell me what those charges are?" Anger was rising. How could she be so calm while my bank account sits in front of her with a balance of less than a goddamn dollar?

"Well, the first charge is from the Myra Hotel in Las Vegas. That charge was for four-thousand and eighty-nine dollars. That was made on-"

"Woah woah woah!" I interrupted. "I haven't been to Vegas and I certainly haven't been to that hotel!"

"So you're saying this charge is fraudulent?"

"Yes, that is exactly what I'm saying. What other charges are there?"

"Well sir," (I swear to god, if she calls me sir one more goddamn time I'm going to lose it,) "there are several other charges from the Las Vegas area and one charge from a 7-11 on Stockdale Highway here in town."

"And no one down there could figure out that I didn't teleport from Las Vegas to Bakersfield to buy an energy drink then teleport back to Vegas to buy some more shit?"

"No sir." (Gahhhh!!!) "The card was declined when your money ran out."

No shit!

"Well," I said, "the charges are still pending, right? Can you just cancel them?"

"No, I'm afraid we can't do that, sir. What you need to do is wait for the charges to clear then come into a branch and file a fraud complaint."

"Are you serious? I have to sit here and wait," Elise walked back in holding her coffee and a sugar free Rockstar for me. I reached out and did the gimme-gimme signal with my hand. She passed it to me and I mouthed I LOVE YOU to her. She responded with I KNOW then turned and went back out to her desk.

"Sir?" the woman on the line had noticed my sudden silence.

I continued, "I have to sit here and wait for my money to be stolen before I can do anything about it? Just cancel the goddamn transactions!"

"Sir, there is no need to use foul language towards me, I am only explain-"

"You're explaining to me that I have ninety-six cents in my account and all my money is stolen and I'm supposed to sit back and wait for these assholes to finish the theft."

"That's just the way it works. Feel free to walk into a branch once the charges clear and see what they can do for you. We are done here. Thank you for calling."

She hung up.

AHHH!!!

3.

I slammed my phone down in exasperation then took a few deep breaths to calm myself before going out and talking with Elise. It didn't really seem to work, so I dropped the idea all together and exited the office anyway.

"You will not believe this, E." I said.

"Oh god," she responded, "what's wrong?"

"Well, someone had themselves a fun-filled weekend in Las Vegas, on my dime."

"Oh dear."

"And here's the best part! The charges are all still pending. Technically the money is still in my account but my fabulous bank just told me I have to wait for the charges to clear before I can do anything about it!"

"What? That's so stupid! So you have to wait and watch your money get stolen before they'll do anything about it?"

"Yeah! That's exactly what I said! So stupid! I swear to god I am switching banks! Up yours, Kern Educators Credit Union! You suck!"

"So what are you going to do? How much money do you have left?"

"Yeah, um, I have ninety-six cents."

"You owe me three bucks for that Rockstar."

"What a jerk."

***

I tried to push my anger and aggravation aside. The fact was we had good news for a client and that always improved whatever mood I happened to be in. I called the parents of the beaten up sack-of-ass and told them we had proof of London's access to funds and pictures of him purchasing alcohol and consuming it. The family was very pleased. They agreed to be at my office within an hour for final payment and to collect the pictures to be taken to the judge. Promptly, I assumed.

I removed the memory card from my camera and inserted it into my printer. When the photos were ready I put them in an envelope and set them on my desk, ready for pickup. I polished off the rest of my drink then lounged back into my chair, allowing my brain to wander to a daydream of me finding the asshole that ripped me off. Apparently, in this daydream I had mad fighting skills and wore tuxedos. I heard the phone ring vaguely but I ignored it. I assumed Elise picked it up and I continued beating the living crap out of some douche in a fancy Las Vegas casino.

After replaying the beating several times in my head, each one with the most minor of differences, Elise barged in and broke my reverie.

"I know what will cheer you up!" she said, excitedly.

"Twenty three thousand, nine-hundred ninety-nine dollars and four cents?"

"Close! A new case!"

"Okay, that's good I guess. Am I missing something...?" I ask.

"Yep! It involves a dead body..."

"Okay...?"

"But, it's not just any dead body."

"I'm listening..."

"This dead body happened to become dead while... You ready?"

"...yeah?"

"Masturbating!"

"Score!"

***

Elise filled me in on the semi-vague details she had just received via her brief phone call. A dude named Vincent Maxwell has a friend, sorry, HAD a friend named Balthazar August, (seriously) who cashed in, shall we say, with a smile on his face. Here's the best part, he died in Las Vegas! And not only did he die in Las Vegas, he died in the same hotel where some asshole just spent all my money. The coincidence was amazing and I started to get excited about the possibilities of where this case may take us.

A maid at the hotel entered the room during her usual cleaning rounds to discover Mr. August dead in the closet, pants down with a belt wrapped around his neck, hanging from a hook. The maid calmly phoned hotel security to inform them that she found another dead body, her ninth this year.

The LVPD we're called to the scene and eventually came up with an accidental death ruling. But, Balthazar's friend, with whom he was vacationing, thinks things didn't add up. They were roommates together here in town and went to Vegas for a quick weekend getaway to celebrate the selling of their latest script. Get this, they write low-level, soft core booby movies for Cinemax! This case was going to be great!

Anyway, the friend who called us, Vincent, isn't happy with the ruling. He said he had known the deceased for years and he never showed any sign of being interested in choking himself while...choking himself. Even with the massive amount of alcohol involved during their Vegas weekend, he still couldn't see it happening like that. He suspected foul play. He didn't say why on the phone. He would explain when he arrived at the office late this afternoon.

As for now, our previous clients were just arriving. They would be happy to see us.

4.

I checked my bank account again later that afternoon and lucky for me, all my money had been stolen! Hooray, now I could finally do something about it. Thanks crappy credit union!

I wanted to get to the bank before they closed today but we were still waiting on Vincent to arrive. Looks like it would have to wait until tomorrow morning.

Vincent showed up thirty minutes later. I asked Elise to join us in my office to hear this awesome story.

I invited Vincent to take a seat. He obliged.

"So, Mr. Maxwell..."

"Just call me Vince," he said.

"Great. I have a friend named Maxwell."

"Good to know," he said and he gave Elise a quick glance. What's that all about?

"Anyway, Vince," I say "Tell us what happened and why you need our services."

"Well, we decided to go to Vegas last week. We had just finished some work and were in the mood to do some drinking and some gambling. We usually get over there about twice a year or so. We have fun."

"Of course," I said.

"So, anyway, we're having a good time, playing some blackjack, drinking some really expensive free drinks, enjoying the scenery, if you know what I mean..." He added a little nod, making sure I knew what he meant, I guess. I didn't.

"Nope."

"Ya know, the ass, man."

"The Assman?"

He turned to Elise again. "Is this guy for real?"

"I get asked that a lot," she answered. "Please continue, Mr. Maxwell."

He smirked then went on. "Anyway, Balls hit a bit of a losing streak and decided to head back up to the room to cool off for a minute and grab some more cash. He said he'd be back in a little bit and would text me if I wasn't still at the table. He never came back. That was the last time I saw him alive."

"I'm sorry; Balls?" I ask.

"Yeah, that's just what I called him. Just a joke, since-"

"Okay," Elise chimed in, "you said earlier that the maid found his body. I'm confused about the timeline. How long had he been gone before he was found dead?"

"Not too long. Maybe a little over two hours or so? We had been up all night. When he left the table it had to have been after 6am. The hotel said the maids start their rounds at 8am."

"Okay. So why do you think it wasn't an accident?"

"Because I've known the guy for years. We were roommates. I think I would know if he was a pervert."

I interrupted, "So, what you're saying is; your friend wasn't known for masturbating... INXS?" I looked around the room, trying hard not to giggle at my clever, and rather hilarious, joke, seeing if anyone else got it. Apparently they did not. Alright then. "I heard you guys write Skinemax flicks. Is this true?"

He returned his look to me, "Yes, that's true, but just because we write that ridiculous crap doesn't mean we're pervs. Believe me, it wasn't our lifelong dream to write that dreck, we wanted to write real movies, we just never got a break. Titty flicks were our starting point. They were easy enough to write and the money was decent. That's not the point..."

"I know, I wasn't implying anything. I was actually, ya know, impressed by it. Those movies have gotten me through many a sleepless night."

"I'm flattered, but listen; he didn't do this to himself. I know it."

"Let me ask you, how had he been acting recently? Was anything bothering him? Was he depressed or anything like that?"

"No, not at all. Like I said, we just sold another script. It was a real gem called Throbbin' Hood."

"God damn, that sounds amazing. What other movies have you guys written? You'd be surprised, I might just know them. I don't get much sleep these days."

"Hmm, well have you seen The Rodfather?"

"Yes! Oh my god! Any others?"

"Yeah, a lot. We've been doing this a while. Let's see. We did, um, Lost in Penetration, A Few Hard Men, Fatal Erection, Hatchet Wound, Lick-Ass, Throw Momma in the Train, Apollo 13 Inches, Rambone-"

"Gentlemen!" Elise interrupted! "Seriously! This is unnecessary!" She turned to me with her angry eyes, "Stay on track, Archie."

"You're right." I said, and then turned back to Vince. "I'm sorry. I guess I was a little star struck. Back to business."

"Yeah," Vince said. "My bad."

"So your friend seemed fine, yes?"

"Yes, absolutely. It wasn't suicide if that's what you're thinking."

"No, not at all. Just routine questions."

"I just know he didn't do this. It wasn't his style. I know it."

"Did you tell this to the police, Mr. Maxwell?" Elise asked.

"Yes, but they didn't seem to care too much. They ruled it as accidental and that was that. Look, Balls was no idiot who would accidentally kill himself. He was valedictorian of his high school class, which was nothing compared to graduating with honors from Harvard six years ago. He's a genius. I'm sure he could figure out that strangling himself could lead to death. I just want you guys to snoop around a bit. Put a little effort into it, because the cops sure didn't. If you can't find anything wrong, then I'll let it go, but I just have a feeling in my gut that it's not right. I wouldn't even know where to start. That's why I'm coming to you."

I was busy scribbling notes into my notebook, trying to work out the timeline of events and put together a quick profile of both parties involved, but I still managed to giggle at his choice of words at the end, there. Vince continued talking to Elise, but I was too engrossed in the paper in front of me to pay much attention. Bottom line was I was finally going to get my trip to Vegas. Oh, and a hilarious new case to solve. Things were finally looking up for me. Now all I had to do was scrounge up some gambling money. I doubt I could do much with my ninety-six cents.

"I don't really know how this whole thing works, ya know. I've never done this," Vince said.

"Well," Elise replied, "it's fairly standard. First of all, you have to trust us. If you don't get the right vibe from us, then you should walk away and find someone you do trust. If you like us, then we can proceed. If you go elsewhere, you have to make sure that the investigator is licensed by the state and is fully insured and bonded. It's mandatory for the license, but you still need to check. You need the investigators to have insurance because once you hire them, they are basically your employee, and if anything is damaged or anything like that by them, you will be liable. Other than that, make sure they have a confidentiality agreement. You don't need other people knowing your business. Get it in writing, too. Anything else is up to you. Oh, some investigators will not testify in court, others will, that's up to you, whatever you want. We, obviously, will testify when needed."

"Oh, thanks," Vince said. "Really, thanks. I'd really like to proceed. We've got money. I have money from the movies and Balls' parents are wealthy. I just talked to them and they said they'd help with anything. They're in town right now. So, like, what are the prices?"

I looked up to join the conversation again and heard Elise explaining our rates. He took out his credit card and handed it to Elise. She walked out to her desk and grabbed her iPad and the credit card reader that plugs into it and slid the card. She then looked at the card, typed something on the iPad then returned the card to Vincent. What she was doing was authorizing a mandatory one-thousand dollar charge with an additional fifteen-hundred dollar hold. The rest would be billed if the costs went over.

"You have to understand, Vince," I added, "we'll do our best to dig into this thing and see what we can find. But if the police department couldn't find anything fishy with the scene, don't get your hopes up. The hotel room has been cleaned and rented out several times since his death, I would assume, so we're going to have to go strictly by photos and interviews."

"I understand. I just have to try. The room should still be vacant, though. The hotel manager said something about that in regards to death. Balls' stuff is still there, too."

"Right on, then. We will do our best. We will be in contact with you often so you'll know exactly where we are every step of the way and you can make sure your money is being spent well."

"I appreciate that. Thank you, guys. Really."

I drew up a contract for him and he read it over, signed it and returned it to me. We were now officially in business together.

He stood up and shook both our hands then made his way out the door. Once he was gone, I asked "That credit card didn't have my name on it, did it?"

"Ha! No. I even checked to make sure."
5.

After Vince left, we decided to call it a day. I was gathering my stuff when Elise dropped her bombshell on me. Apparently, she had a date tonight. Some doucher that Jamie set her up with (remind me to punch Jamie) who was recently divorced. I've never been good with my emotions, but I was pretty sure the one I was feeling now was not a pleasant one. It felt like someone was standing on my chest. I couldn't find my breath. I stood silently for what felt like minutes.

"You can't go on a date." I told her.

"And why can't I?"

"Because. Um. You didn't tell me about it."

"I just did tell you about it. I just found out about it last night after dinner. It's just a casual thing."

"Yeah, well I don't like him."

"Well, you don't like anyone, so that doesn't really bother me that much."

"Well, what about the kids? You can't just up and leave them?"

"How am I leaving them? They're with Jamie, just like always. Don't worry, Archie. We're just going to dinner."

"Well, I don't approve of this at all. I'll go get the kids, we can hang out at your house. They spend too much time with Jamie anyway, and if we have to go to Vegas, I need to spend time with them."

"Yeah, I'm sure that's the only reason. Fine, I give up. I have to go and get ready."

"I don't-"

"Quit being such a baby. It's a date. My first in a long, long time. Now knock it off. Ya know what would do you some good?"

"You not going on a date?"

"Nooo, why don't you try going on a few dates?"

"Um, because I'm married."

"Babe, you're not married. It's coming up on two years since Marianne died. I know you had a rough time with it, hell, so did I? But it's almost Christmas time again."

"Yeah, well Christmas sucks."

"LAST Christmas sucked, Archie. I know it was hard on you, but you have to move on."

"I don't have to do anything. Just go on your date."

The truth was, last Christmas was the worst day of my life. It was my first without my wife and the entire week leading up to it I spent huddled in the corner of my bedroom sobbing like a child. In fact, the couple of months after Christmas, I was a complete wreck. I was completely disheveled, rude, obnoxious, and rather stinky. Elise saved me, as usual, and pulled me from the brink of self-destruction. And now she was going on a date.

Dislike.

***

I met Elise at her house about an hour later after running home and grabbing Wrecker and giving her enough time to pick up the kids. While Elise was out on her date, the kids and I ordered pizza and watched an old, uber-cheesy Sci-Fi movie on Netflix called Robot Monster.

Although I wasn't supposed to, I let the kids stay up way past their bedtime until their mom returned from her...date.

Yeah, maybe I had my own selfish reasoning behind it, but whatever. Shut up.

When she finally arrived home, she was happy to see the kids awake, but irritated with me at the same time for letting them stay up.

Women.

"So," I said, "how was it?"

"It was nice," she answered. "He's a really sweet guy."

"Yeah, wow, great, super. I'm outta here." I walked over to the kids and gave them each a fist bump and told them I loved them. I told Elise I would see her tomorrow at the office after I was done with the bank. She said fine, (with a little attitude, I must say) and I made my way out the door, down the driveway and to my car, Wrecker by my side.

When I returned home, after opening the front door, I threw my keys across the room. The start of a frustration-induced temper tantrum. Of course, the keys hit a picture frame, sending it crashing to the ground.

I yelled the dreaded F word and several variations of it then moped my fat ass over to the sofa, taking a seat.

I couldn't ignore the mess, though. I stood up and cleaned all the glass fragments from the carpet, then took everything to the trashcan outside. The whole time I was cleaning I kept repeating "He's a really sweet guy" in a wonderful, wide array of varying mocking tones.

My emotions began to confuse me again when I retook my seat. I cried myself to sleep.
6.

I found myself in a dark basement. The sour, dank smell was giving me a headache. I looked around the room for an exit but couldn't find one. I walked around the perimeter looking for any escape, to which there was none. My claustrophobia was beginning to kick in and I felt sweat droplets forming above my eyebrows. My breathing got heavy, my mouth got dry. I couldn't swallow and the air filling my lungs was getting hard to obtain. The lights cut out leaving me trapped in total darkness. I heard gunshots as mussel flashes momentarily illuminated the room. I hear my wife's voice from somewhere outside.

"It's time," she tells me. "Archie, it's time."

The room grew quiet again.

I began to panic. I was turning around looking for any way out. I needed to find her. A buzzing sound filled the room. White noise in a black area.

A light comes on in the distance. I walk towards it. A refrigerator. The door is open and I look inside. A woman emerges from inside and stabs me in the throat with something hot and sharp. My blood splatters across her face as she laughs and I fall back into reality.

I got out of bed and dressed first thing the following morning and headed straight to the bank. It didn't go too well for me. They had one person working the member services department and the line was six people deep. I checked the clock. The bank had been open nine minutes. Ugh!

After thirty minutes I came to the conclusion that pretty much every business in the world is tuned in to the same exact radio station. They have to be. I don't understand why anyone would listen to this crap, though. I swear to God, I have only heard these songs in like, grocery stores and what-not. I couldn't imagine anyone buying any of these songs for their personal enjoyment.

I shook my head and decided to go back to my people watching. Nothing too exciting here. Just a bunch of impatient assholes standing in a row. I take my phone out and begin to play some games. When my battery hit thirty-percent, it was my turn at the window. The man helping me looked to be about eighteen. I didn't have a good feeling.

I was right, as usual. Another forty-five minutes later, I'm leaving the bank, still with my fortune of ninety-six cents intact. I had to fill out paperwork and even write a short essay about what happened. Apparently, telling them my money was stolen, please do something about it, just isn't good enough anymore. I had a homework assignment.

Stupid bank.

Then, after that, I was told I would get a provisional credit of my money back...in ten to twelve business days! What? What the hell is so difficult about my predicament that it will take two weeks to get a PROVISIONAL credit?!

Stupid, stupid bank!

And to make matters worse, I can't even get a new Visa Check Card for another ninety days, until the investigation is over. They gave me a temporary ATM Card. Do you know how worthless this goddamn thing is? Ugh! And my real credit card is still cancelled with a new one on the way, so as of now, I have no money and no access to money. Unless you count my business savings account, which I may just have to dip in to.

I kicked the tire of my car, then for some reason, apologized to it. I was becoming soft in my old age, apparently.

I got in and started the engine. It was time to head to work and face the awkwardness of being with Elise. I wasn't proud of the way I acted last night. I honestly don't know what came over me. Sometimes I hate the way my brain functions. Most of the time I proud of it, but I tell ya, sometimes it is infuriating.

Stupid brain!

Stupid autism!

Stupid emotions!

Stupid fears!

I hate you all, today!

***

"So how'd it go at the bank?" Elise asks me as I enter the office.

"Yeah, no real satisfaction. Just as I thought. I don't really want to talk about it. I guess we have work to do, right?"

"I guess so."

I walked into my office and closed the door. Why am I acting like such a baby? I hate this. It was one date. Right? Big deal.

I sat down at my computer and did a quick background check on our new client and the victim. The first rule of private investigating is; Never talk about private investigating. Ha, nah, just kidding. First rule is always suspect the client. Something I should have remembered two years ago, could have saved me a few gunshot wounds and a whole lot of pain, but no, stupid Archie Lemons forgets everything when some good looking dame walks in to his office.

I run my hand over one of my old wounds. I can still feel the bullet tearing through my flesh. Silly, I know, considering it's completely healed. But the pain is more than the simple psychicality of it. It always floods my body with mental anguish. The pain of my dead wife and daughter. The agony of being forced to take the life of someone.

Just like the scars, it will never go away. Everyone I allow myself to love eventually just goes away.

Maybe if I were better with people my problems would lessen. But, I'm just not. My people skills are lacking. I don't get along with very many folks and I like even less. It amazes me how much I love Elise and my nephews. But,-

A knock on the door and Elise peaks her head in.

"Anyway, are we going to get to work on this thing or what?" she asks.

"Yeah," I respond. "Just finishing up background checks on the both of them. They're both clean; both are who they said they are. No arrests or anything. Just a couple of smart nerds who write amazingly awful movies."

"Yeah, I bet you and Vince end up being BFF when this thing is over with."

"Maybe. Maybe."

"What's with the button-up shirt today? Did you run out of terrible band shirts?"

"Funny. No. I'll never run out of those. I just wanted to look presentable at the bank."

"When was the last time you wore than thing? It looks a little...snug."

"Yeah, I get it. I'm fat."

"Those poor buttons look like they're hanging on for dear life. If one of those things pop it could take out an eye."

"Thanks."

"God, I'm only kidding around. What's up your butt today?"

"Nothing. What's up yours?"

"Wow, okay. Let me know when you grow up a bit. I'll be at my desk."

And with that, she walked back out the door, closing it a little more hard than what was required.

Stupid Elise.
7.

A few hours and a couple of phone calls later, I was in possession of the official police report on Balthazar August's death in Las Vegas. I printed out everything, including the sad pictures of a corpse holding his little wiener. Normally I would laugh at the mere mention of this, but not even photographic proof could make me crack a smile. The last picture this poor bastard had of himself was with his pants down, tongue hanging out, belt around his neck and his pathetic stub of a penis in full sight of everyone. The picture was all the more humiliating because, I knew, once the blood stopped pumping, it all drained out of his penis, leaving something that even a child would laugh at.

I looked through the rest of the photos. Nothing too interesting. Different angles of the body, various personal effects on his bed and in his suitcase, and everything he had on his person set out on the table near him, which included two five dollar Myra Casino chips and a wallet with his driver's license, two credit cards, a debit card and eighty five dollars in cash. In his pocket was three quarters and three pennies. On the table at the entrance of the room was a pack of gum, a box of delicious Junior Mints and a napkin left over from the room service they ordered the night before. Like I said, nothing very exciting.

Elise returned with her lunch. I had decided to skip it today. Apparently, I'm too fat to love.

She sat down across from me and asked what I've got so far. I tossed the stack of papers in her direction. She choked on her sandwich when she saw the top photograph.

"Oh man, I'll bet you've been having a field day with this one, huh?"

"No," I answer. "Not really."

She dropped her sandwich down on the desk. "Okay, asshole. What the hell is wrong with you?"

"Nothing is wrong with me."

"Bullshit! I'm not stupid. Am I not allowed to date? Is that part of my job description?"

"You can do whatever you want."

"You're right. I can. And you can either talk to me about it or you can go whine about it while you're huddled in the corner like a baby," she snapped.

"Fine. Just forget it. Let's just get to work."

"No, I'm not going to forget it. Why don't you try going out once in a while? It doesn't have to be with a girl. I know you have friends out there. Max calls you all the time to see if you want to play golf and you shoot him down every time. Why?"

"Because I don't want to play stupid golf. It's boring and it's frustrating. I don't want to be out on a giant lawn, chasing a stupid little ball around and trying to hit it in a hole a million miles away. It's the sporting equivalent to kicking a can down the sidewalk as you walk. It's stupid. I have better things to do than be out there with a bunch of stupid, stuck up, snobby white people."

"So, it's your fear of white people that keeps you off the golf course? Really?"

"And everything else, but yeah. White people. Ugh."

"You're white!"

"Yeah...?"

"Oh my god! Well, Tiger Woods plays golf and he's not white."

"Please, the only thing black about Tiger Woods is the white women. We're off track anyway!"

"I know what you're thinking, Archie. You think I'm going to leave you. Like I'm going to meet someone and off I go. I am not going to leave you. Nothing will be different at all. You'll still always have me and the boys. Me going out to dinner with someone other than you will not change anything in even the slightest of ways. Okay?"

"Yeah, okay. Fine."

"And?"

"And what?" I ask.

"You're sorrrrrrr-"

"I'm sorry. Shit."

"Thank you." She picked up her sandwich and took a bite. With a full mouth she said, "Now let's find out what happened to this needle-dicked bastard."

God damn it. Lousy tramp just made me laugh.

"This guy's dicks so small, bacteria laughs at it," I cackled.

"That's my boy!" Elise exclaimed. "Thank you! Don't stop now."

"Let's see. It's so small, when it's cold outside it actually gets bigger."

"Oh, what about, it's so small, sperm has to come out one at a time."

"OH MY GOD! ELISE!"

***

By the end of the work day, Elise and I were pretty much back to normal. My happiness facade was good enough, I guess. I couldn't shake this weird emotion I kept feeling deep in my gut, though. I didn't like it. Not one bit.

After going through every word of the skimpy police report and studying the (now) comical pictures of the deceased, we decided we had no real leads here and I would get my secret wish. We were off to Vegas.

We met back at Elise's house again and worked out all the details. Jamie agreed to watch the kids while we were gone. We had recently begun paying her, against her will, but she was way too much of an asset to us to take for granted.

We assumed we wouldn't be more than a few days. In fact, I had a pretty strong feeling this case was going to be a complete dud. After only a week or so it was already cold. And closed. Nobody much cares about accidental deaths. We would need to get extremely lucky to find anything. I didn't have my hopes up. I was pretty excited about hanging out in Vegas though. Stupid, stupid Vegas.

Elise booked us a room at the Myra, which kinda pissed me off. They stole all my money now I have to give them more? Where is the justice in that?

Mark my words Myra, I shall exact my revenge!

Exact it? Is that right? No time to look it up. Have packing to do. Heading home.

***

I packed enough for about four weeks. I usually do. Better safe than sorry, though. Especially after our last trip where we stayed like a million days longer than we were supposed to.

I was too excited to sleep so I got on my bank's crappy website. I was surprised to see that it was actually working. I took a notebook from my shelf and wrote down every transaction from the month of December. When I was done, I went to my credit card's website and checked all those recent transactions and compared them to my bank's transactions. If both of my cards were stolen, the odds would be good they were stolen from the same place.

It was easy enough to narrow down. During the entire month, I had only used both cards at one place. The Sav-Mor Grocery Store across the street from my house in the shopping center where I got hit by a car two years ago. I remember it well. I did some shopping for my house and the office. My personal items I used my debit card for, the office stuff I used my business card.

That's where it had to have happened. Someone jacked my shit from the stupid grocery store. This means that it is a local operation. When I get back from Vegas, I will need to go visit this place and see what's up. It was a good lead and I was excited to bust the son of a bitch that ripped me off.

I lay on the sofa and cuddled up with Wrecker. I had a big day tomorrow and needed my rest.

Didn't happen. I stayed up til 4:30 watching six straight episodes of Greatest American Hero on Hulu. (believe it or not!)

8.

I'll save you the details of our ridiculously long drive to Vegas. We actually got a nice, early start, but it was killed by traffic, rain and an accident. And my little girl bladder. We had dropped the kids and Wrecker off with Jamie, then hit the road. The average drive time from Bakersfield to Las Vegas should be about four hours or so. Our trip took seven. I wanted to smash my face into the steering wheel on several occasions. I tried my best to occupy the time with many of my humorous observations, mostly commercial themed, like;

-What's the deal with commercials for stores that say they'll beat any price or it's free? Like, why wouldn't they just undercut the lowest price by a dollar instead of losing the entire cost of something by giving it away? 'What?! That other store has it for two hundred, ninety-nine dollars and ninety EIGHT cents?! Fuck it! I can't go any lower! Just take the fucking thing!' I don't even want it! For some reason I just don't see that happening.

-Or, If you or anyone you know have died from Whatever Drug, call this number now. If I died...call this number.

-Or, what's the deal with every single commercial that features a married couple, the wife is always a hot babe and the husband is a loafy, balding moron? Duhhhh, my wife said she ate Boston Crème Pie every day for a week and lost five pounds. Duhhhhh, where da pie at?! Gah!

-And like, nobody is being fooled by you saying your shitty oven bake pizza is being confused with an actual delivered pizza from a real restaurant. Come on, DiGornio, we're not all slack jawed, inbred hillbillies who will believe whatever you tell us.

-And what's the deal with people dancing while cleaning? Nobody does this. Ever.

-And don't get me started on Pajama Jeans! Have you seen these things? Oh goodness. They're basically pajama pants that look like jeans so you can wear them in public. It breaks my heart a little more each time I see this commercial. Their slogan should just be: Pajama Jeans; For when you just don't give a fuck anymore.

-What's the deal with lawyers in commercials who wear cowboy hats? Nooooo thank you! You want me to hire this guy? How about I just light my money on fire while sticking large foreign objects up my b-hole? Pretty sure the outcome would be the same

-Or that pizza roll commercial where the goofy looking stupid mom takes the disgusting rolled up slop from the microwave and the kid's hand comes smashing through the wall to grab one and the mom just stands there with a dumb ass look on her face and says "Okay....Okay...." Gah, that commercial makes me want to punch kittens!

It's stupid shit like that that makes me convinced that every single marketing firm on the planet should have at least one black dude. I guarantee you, ninety-nine percent of those terrible-terrible commercials we are forced to watch in-between reruns of our favorite shows were thought up, written, produced and created by a room full of crackas. There is no way a black man would stand for some of the stupid shit that rapes my eyes and ears every single day. Black dudes would have cooler ideas; they'd bring back Billy D. Williams to push some shitty malt liquor or something. When some whitey came up with another one of their ridiculous ideas, the black dude would stand up and say "Yo! Dat's whack," or whatever it is that they say. Maybe pull a gun on them. I don't know. I don't have many black friends. (Note to self: Please find a black friend so jokes do not seem racist. Oh! And a Mexican friend. Perhaps two Mexican friends. Good lord, I need Mexican friends. Perhaps an entire Chevy van with blacked out windows full of Mexican friends.)

Speaking of; How come on St. Patrick's Day, everyone wants to be Irish, but noooobody wants to be Mexican on Cinco De Mayo? I mean, these drunken assholes will wear the most ridiculous, green hats, ties or costumes for St. Paddy's but there isn't a single person out there who will wear a flannel shirt with only the top button buttoned and steal a kid's bike on Cinco De Mayo. Poor Mexicans. Apparently, they rate even lower than the drunken, ill-tempered Irish, even with their Irish Curse.

But anyway, that is just a small sample of what a car drive with me is like. You can thank me for saving you the other six hours and fifty-five minutes poor Elise had to endure. Anyway.

The lights of Vegas came into view and my frustrations melted away. I was ready to have some fun. Oh, and um, work. Of course. I had hit up the ATM at my good bank with my savings account and took out a rather ridiculous sum to lose (win) at the tables! Elise didn't know, though. Didn't want to hear any nagging. As far as she knows, I have four hundred dollars on me from the office safe. Yep, that's it. Just four hundred measly dollars.

I checked the speedometer, I was going 110.

"Slow down, Speed Racer," Elise said. "Vegas isn't going anywhere. They'll still take your money an hour from now, too. Just ease it up, Red Asphalt."

"Such a party pooper!"

Fifteen minutes later we were exiting the freeway on Frank Sinatra Blvd. The air was electric, the lights abuzz. It was pure sensory overload, something that used to scare the hell out of me when I was a child. We spotted our hotel. It was a massive structure. On our way up to it we passed a pyramid, a castle, a Hooters and giant MGM lions. Then, when I overshot our hotel and had to flip around, we passed the Eiffel Tower, the Roman Colosseum, a giant active volcano and dancing water. When we finally arrived, I realized that ours was least inspired hotel on the strip. A drab, cold bit of architecture that was a bit too modern, even for my high standards. You can have a five-star hotel and little personality, ya know. This place had nothing. Of course.

We parked in the underground structure and made our way to the front desk. We decided to check in first and get organized before we started poking around. We had reserved the two-bedroom penthouse. It was a little pricier but the office area would serve our purpose well. We went to check in and were told by the idiot at the front desk that our room wasn't ready. In fact, it was never going to be ready. The previous occupant had decided to stay a few extra nights and refused to leave. I hate hate hate this hotel!

I tried to keep my cool. I explained that this was unacceptable. The room was fully paid for, this was bullshit.

"I'm sorry sir," the dumb cootch at the front desk told me. "I'm afraid we don't have the room. There is nothing I can do about it. I can offer you a standard room."

"You can offer me- Wait, no. This is complete bullshit. If you don't have the room we goddamn paid for and reserved, you need to UPGRADE US! Upgrade! Not DOWNGRADE! Do you understand the difference?"

"Yes sir, I understand."

Arguing like this went on for another twenty minutes. I was completely shocked that a staff of such obvious intelligence would ever process a fraudulent or stolen credit card. Nope, not this crack squad of brain aces! I turned around and looked across the casino. Tons of people crowded the floors, drinking glass after glass of liquid-stupid and dropping their mortgage payments on that slim chance the rest of their lives wouldn't be spent with store-brand groceries and basic cable.

"Sir?" a voice from behind beckoned me.

"Finally. Shit. That was like waiting for an action scene in The Thin Red Line."

"Sir?"

"Forget it."

Anyway, I finally got to speak to the "manager". She wasn't much more help. She was rude, lazy and completely incompetent. This hotel was in desperate need of a new management team. Who did they pay off to get that five-star rating?

Honest to crap, another two and a half hours later, we were finally entering out two bedroom suite, which was a downgrade from our penthouse, with a wonderful view of the top of the building behind us and some desert. Yay. My frustration and anger actually kept me totally preoccupied during the rather speedy elevator ride up to our floor. Good thing. I didn't even realize we were on the elevator until we were stepping off. Elise was impressed. Now I just had to figure out ways to manage going back down. Anyway, thanks for the downgrade!

Stupid Myra Hotel!

At first glance, the room appeared rather nice; two nice big bedrooms and a common room with a decent television, sofa, small kitchen table and kitchenette. The bathrooms were also impressive with a large tub, a steam shower, two sinks and a toilet featuring a warm seat and a bidet. It was almost tempting enough to make me try out a used toilet seat.

Almost.

If the room had stayed that impressive I would have been happy and able to put our previous setbacks out of my mind. No luck though, of course. I opened my suitcase and removed my pre packed Rockstars. Then I took out my fresh can of Lysol to spray everything down. I was going to give the inside of the fridge a good once over so I could put the drinks in there when I discovered that it was not cold. Nope. Not cold at all. What it was, though, was fucking broken! I called the front desk. Apparently, someone would be up to fix it.

I wasn't holding my breath.

Second, I plug my iPod into the dock near the TV. Does it work? Of course not. I called the front desk again. Someone would be up shortly. MmHmm.

I was getting aggravated and was mildly pleased to see Elise getting rather pissed off herself. She decided she would take a bath to try and calm down and relax a bit. I told her I would be sitting here in an anger filled stupor.

Less than two minutes later I hear a loud GOD DAMN IT echo through the bathroom and rattle my soul. I quickly shot up and headed into Elise's bathroom. My first step onto the tile soaked my sock. The ground was covered in water. Apparently, Elise had the nerve to turn the jets on in the bathtub. Instead of shooting air and bubbles into the tub, this particular unit shot water out of the base and onto the floor. Elise was livid. So pissed, in fact, that she didn't even mention me standing there while she was naked.

"Get dressed, Archie!" she barked at me. "You, my good man, are taking me out for dinner and drinks. Lots and lots of drinks."

"You know she's dead?" I ask.

"What?! What the hell are you talking about?!"

"Mayra... Urkel's girlfriend from Family Matters. She died a long time ago from cancer while the show-"

"GET DRESSED!!!"

Yikes! I stepped back a few feet and told her I would go get ready. She got out and started getting dressed while I went back to my suitcase and unpacked my sheets. I stripped the linen from the bed and began replacing them with mine after I drenched the mattress in Lysol. Elise caught me.

"What the hell are you doing?"

(The mouth on her lately, I swear.)

"I'm putting sheets on my bed."

"Well, this is a new one. I don't recall you doing this at the beach. You were terrified of a motel but not the sheets. We come to a five-star hotel and now the sheets disgust you?"

"The motel was at the beach. A nice family vacation spot. These sheets are located in this aids-pool called Las Vegas, with their hookers and their crabs and their greaseball, juiced-up douchebags in Tapout and Affliction shirts. There is no way I'm lying on these disgusting sheets. Jesus himself could descend from heaven and wash them with his magical bible powers and they still wouldn't be clean enough for me to sleep on. No way, no how. Now get dressed."

"What are you going to do about the scary, scary toilet? Are you afraid of that, too? Did you bring your own toilet seat in your bag there?"

"Very funny. Don't be silly. I don't use the toilet at all while on vacations. At least not sitting. Strictly number one."

"Right, you had to sit on the toilet at the beach, we were gone for over a week."

"Nope. My body knows what's up. Didn't have a single poop the entire time we were gone. No sweat."

"Wow." I could tell she was totally shocked and mildly disgusted, but I was proud of myself. "That's just...Wow."

I could tell she still didn't understand, but whatever. She said fine, she would get dressed, then returned to her room. Forty-five minutes later she emerged wearing tight white jeans and a tight red top.

"That's what you're wearing?" I ask.

"Yes, rude! What the hell is wrong with it?"

"Oh nothing, I guess."

"You guess?"

"Yeah, well, it's just...you kinda, a little, look like a giant used tampon."

She turned around rather quickly and stormed off back into her room, slamming the door behind her.

"That's for making fun of my poopies!" I yelled to her. I snickered, rather proud of myself, if I do say.

Fifteen minutes later we were exiting our shitty hotel, Elise wearing a black top now, and were on our way to somewhere with a little more inspiration in its design.

We had a much needed fun night out. I'm not a big drinker, it's not something I really enjoy or look forward to, but seeing as we were in Vegas I decided I would let Elise pick our evening's entertainment. Between the kids, me and the job, her nights of partying had all but come to an end (unless you count that stupid date,) and she decided our first stop would be the next door's hotel bar. Followed by another hotel's bar. I ordered a Medina and told the bartender to make it funky and cold. He stared blankly at me, un-amused and ready to rip my throat out. I changed my order promptly. I ended up having one vodka-Redbull at each stop, trying to take it easy. Elise had three drinks to every one of mine. Our final stop on our casino crawl was the MGM Grand across the street. As we were walking up to it from the outside, above us on a massive screen as bright as the noon hour's desert sun, was my main man, Tom Jones.

I stopped in my tracks and grabbed Elise by the arm, stopping her forward motion with a quick jerk.

"Oh. My. God!"

"What?" Elise asked slowly, drunkenly and rather apathetically.

"TOM JONES!!!"

"Oh dear."

"Look, look!" I pointed up towards the screen and bouncing up and down in excitement, like a child on Christmas morning. "Look! Seven straight nights starting Thursday! We have to go, oh my god, please can we go?!"

"We have to leave on Thursday night, 'member, Honey?" Elise said. At least I think that's what she said. Her voice was slightly slurred. She rested her head on my shoulder. I'm not sure if this was affection or pure drunken laziness. Either way, I'll take it.

"Well, maybe?" I desperately ask.

"Yeah, babe, maybe we can leave Friday morning. We'll see." She reached out and took my hand and we continued walking into the casino. After a few more drinks we had to call it a night.

We returned to our room two hours later, drunk (me slightly, her ridiculously) and exhausted. Elise gave me a kiss on the lips that seemed to linger longer than her normal, friendly kisses, her even going so far as to give my lower lip a little bite, then she turned on her heel and quickly vanished into her room.

What! The! Fuck?!

Confusing much?!

Stupid girls!

9.

I heard a sound coming from the other room and got up to investigate. I entered the living room that didn't belong in the hotel. It looked familiar to me, but I couldn't quite place it. It was dark outside. I went to the window and threw open the curtains, revealing the massive rainfall illuminated only by the night's full moon. I stared for what seemed like a long time before a loud crash of thunder startled me from my reverie. I closed the blinds and rubbed my eyes. I was still groggy and wanted to return to bed.

Someone coughed behind me and I flinched in fright. I turned to look but there was no one there. I went back to bed. A different bed than the one I had just gotten out of. I was just crawling back under the covers when I heard another cough. I kicked my feet over the slide of the bed.

"Who's out there?" I ask with no response. "I have a gun!"

I began to walk slowly back into the living room. The rain is pounding on the roof of whatever house I am in. My heart is beating faster than it should be. I step silently on the carpet, entering the next room. My phone rings loud and I am again startled.

"Hello?" I whisper into the phone.

A gruff man's voice answers, "You call a cab?"

"No. No, I didn't call a-"

"Fuck you!" the man yells at me. "I'm going to rip your eyes out and shove them down your fucking throat! Do you hear me?! DO YOU UNDERSTAND?!"

I release my grip on the phone and it falls silent onto the plush carpet. I can still hear the man's voice from the floor, threatening me. It doesn't concern me now because in the far corner of the room I see Elise tied to a chair. Her back is to me but I know it is her. She's crying.

I walk up behind her and put my hand on her shoulder. "I'm here," I tell her. "It's okay. I'm here. I won't let them hurt you."

Elise suddenly wasn't bound to the chair anymore. She turned freely in her seat to look at me. I noticed her hair had grown a little longer than when her back was turned. She looked me in the eyes and put her hand on top of mine and I found myself looking at my wife now.

"It's time, Archie," Marianne says to me.

"Time for what?" I ask. I can feel myself starting to cry

"I have to go."

"No wait!" I yell, but my wife and the chair she was sitting in was already gone. The rain had stopped. Tears rolled down my face and the only sound left in the room was coming from the carpet where someone was continuing to threaten my life.

I awoke the next morning feeling good. I know I'm not the biggest drinker, but I've still yet to have a hangover. I'm pretty proud of that. I got out of bed with a smile on my face, something I haven't done in a long, long time. My dream had already slipped away but had somehow left me...better. Then I remembered the previous night's moment and I became really confused again. Oh well, I'll have time to worry about that later. Today, we had work to do. I showered and got dressed and was very pleased to see that, for a change, I would get the chance to wake Elise up. I snuck into her room and approached her bed. She was laid out flat on her back with her mouth wide open. She reeked of booze and was snoring softly. Her head shifted a bit and a ray of sunlight from the crack in the blinds made the drop of drool rolling out the side of her mouth glisten a bit. Funny, for how repulsive she looked, she was still beautiful. I opted out of punching her in the arm for her wakeup call and decided to touch her on her shoulder.

"Hey Butthole. Wake up," I whispered.

Nothing.

"Come on, darlin, we've got to go."

Still nothing. Oh well, I tried. I put my weight behind her and gave her a quick, hard shove. She rolled right off the bed and hit the floor with a thud. She quickly shot up and yelled at me.

"What the hell?!"

"Ha! Payback, beyotch! Get dressed. We've got work!"

She groaned and gave me a dirty look. Her eye makeup was smeared and she looked like some sort of drunken raccoon. She was still fully dressed from last night.

"I need a shower," she mumbled.

"Bullocks!" I exclaimed! "You look marvelous!"

"I look like death."

"Yep! But we're in Vegas, nobody will even notice. Hurry it up."

"Ugh, I'm nauseous."

"No you're not."

"Like hell I'm not."

"I think you meant to say you are nauseated. Nauseous means something has the ability to make one nauseated. Like; the sloppy horse vagina they're passing as roast beef at Arby's is nauseous. You're nauseated. Not nauseous."

Elise stared at me with her empty eyes and did a disgusting closed mouth burp which she then blew in my direction.

"Actually," I said, "I was wrong. Upon further inspection you are nauseous."

"Hate you."

"Go get ready!"

I was able to watch a terrible movie on HBO from start to finish before Elise was ready to go. We were really behind schedule. I hoped we could make up some time. A big break early on sure would help us out.

We made our way to the front desk and asked to speak with the head of security. The brain-dead zombie behind the desk asked what my business was and I responded by flashing her my P.I. license. This seemed to satisfy her and she told me to take a seat. Shortly after, we were invited into a private office just off to the left of the check in area.

"What may I help you with, Mr.-"

"Lemons," I add.

His name, according the plaque on his desk, was Greg Adams, Head of Security. He didn't seem very threatening from here. While he was tall, he didn't have much muscle to him. I wondered how he would handle a situation which needed securing. Then I remembered that he probably sat on the bench and told a bunch of meat-heads what to do.

"Mr. Lemons," he continued. "And your name, Miss?"

"Reynolds. Elise."

The two hours of prep didn't help her hangover much. She was a mess. I found it rather humorous.

"Sir, we are here about a recent death in your hotel?" I told him.

"I see," Greg said, appearing confused.

"It appears early last week a man died in one of your rooms."

"It happens," he said. "All too often, actually."

"I would imagine, but this guy died, how shall I say, while in the act of self-gratification."

"Oh yes, I won't be forgetting that one anytime soon. You'd be amazed to know what we discover in these rooms. This is a new hotel, so that was our first death by autoerotic asphyxiation. Probably won't be the last though. That case was ruled accidental. What do you have to do with it?"

"Well," I answered and then glanced towards Elise. This is usually where she interrupted me. She was staring at the wall behind Mr. Adams, eyes glazed over, with a lifeless expression on her face, breathing through the gap between her parted lips. I continued, "We were commissioned by his friend and work partner, whom he was traveling with at the time of his death. It seems his friend was his roommate back in our hometown and knew the deceased quite well. Our client doesn't believe at all that his friend died in this manner. He wants us to take a closer look at it, see if we can find anything maybe the police missed."

"I appreciated your situation, Mr. Lemons, but I can-"

He was cut off by a slight groan from Elise. We both looked at her with expressions of shock and repulsion upon our faces. She hadn't even realized she had made the sound and was clueless to our gazes.

"-Is she okay?" he asked.

"Yeah, she's fine. Just. Ya know. Vegas."

"Right." He went on, "Anyway, I can assure you, Mr. Lemons that I took control over that case and we found absolutely no signs of foul play. We found the young man on the security camera, sitting at a table when he stood up and went up to his room. We have him stepping on the elevator alone. That's where the camera loses him, but ninety seconds later he used his keycard to enter his room. The door was opened again with the keycard only once more a half hour or so later, but we assume he pushed his room service tray out into hall and the door closed on him. The cart was still outside his door when they body was discovered. And that's it. Nothing more. The door was not opened again until the maid used her pass card to do her cleaning duty. I promise you there is nothing else to investigate. There is nothing to find."

"All the same, Mr. Adams, we'd still like your permission to poke around."

"As you wish. The room is still vacant, as is company standard. The young man died last Tuesday and the room has to remain vacant for two weeks. It is Tuesday again. You have one week. But I cannot promise you much help from our end. We are involved in something much more pressing."

"What would that be?"

"We had a young woman who claims she was abducted from our hotel and taken to a vacant, dirt lot a mile or so away where she was savagely beaten, raped and left for dead."

"Oh my god," Elise gasped. It seems she had regained consciousness. If there is one thing she hates more than anything, it is a rapist. Mr. Adams's story had grasped her from her hungover stupor and caught her attention.

"What does being sued have to do with you?" I asked.

"Well, I'm not really at liberty to say. It is a private matter," he responded.

"Come on," I urged him. "We're both professionals here. Maybe you've heard of me. Remember the Brad Jackson case?"

"I thought that name sounded familiar," he said.

"See. I'm a good ally to have. And it's not like this isn't something I couldn't just find on the internet in about two seconds. We're intrigued. So, please. Share."

"Very well, I'll give you the basics. The young woman claims she was attacked by two men here in our hotel. Her memory is hazy, unfortunately. She blacked out from the attack and when she finally came to she was being raped. She remembers having her hands bound behind her, but that's about it. She blacked out again and when she awoke, she was alone, face down in the dirt, blood and muck covering almost her entire body. She was found some four hours later buy an officer driving nearby."

"Oh my god!" Elise gasped again.

"Wow, that is terrible," I added. I felt sick to my stomach. I'm sure Elise did too. I could see it on her face. This wasn't the hangover. "So, excuse my obtuseness, but what does that have to do with being sued and you? I don't understand."

"Simple, Mr. Lemons. She is suing the hotel, so naturally myself and the hotel detective have to investigate this matter intensely. Unfortunately, the world we live in today, we can't just take everyone at their word. We need to make sure we are not being conned. We need to make sure she really was abducted here. And we need to find out exactly what happened and who did it. If for nothing else than to just prevent it from every happening again.

Unfortunately, Mr. Lemons, we run a business here, and the bottom line is always the cost. We could have just paid her off, but compared to what it would cost to run the investigation as opposed to what she is asking, it is cheaper for us to dig deeper in to it. I'm sure you are sympathetic to our procedure, being a P.I. yourself."

"No! We are not," Elise said. "The woman was beaten and raped and you are going to treat her like a criminal?! That is complete-"

I put my arm on her knee to quiet her down. "We understand, Mr. Adams." I looked at Elise. "It's just like what we would do. Always suspect the client first."

She gave me a dirty look then sat in silence.

"So, how is it going?" I finally asked.

"Not well. Not well at all," he answered.

"What's the problem?"

"The problem, Mr. Lemons, is we have yet to find her leaving the casino. We've spent countless hours watching video after video from the night of her disappearance. We follow her all over the hotel until she makes her way to her room. That's the last we ever see of her. It's like she vanished into thin air."

"Interesting. What day was this?" I asked.

He closed his eyes and gave his head a slight shake.

"Last Tuesday."

10.

"Welp, let's make like a baby and head out, Elise," I said. "Thank you for your time with this matter, Mr. Adams. I'm sorry that you don't think there is something a little odd about finding a dead body on the same day as an apparent rape, but I guess that's why I'm the investigator and you're the security. Thanks for the room key." I reached into my pants and grabbed my wallet and removed one of my cards. I handed it to Mr. Adams and said, "Here's my card, my good man. You call me if you need any help solving this case." I grabbed Elise's arm and we busted out the door back into the lobby. My adrenaline was pumping.

"Well, that was interesting," Elise said to me as we snaked our way through the crowds of people pissing their money away. Normally this many people gathered around me, bumping into me, would drive me insane, making me breath heavily and my vision become tunneled, my legs unsteady, but today I barreled through them with hardly any hesitance. I was on a mission and none of these pathetic, drunken losers with their dreams of hitting it big could stop me.

"It certainly was," I said. "Come on, let's get some lunch and talk this one over."

"Great. I am starving. Need bacon! And French toast."

"Hey Calvin Coolidge, you were asleep for twelve hours! Breakfast is over."

"No way, Vegas has tons of buffets that serve all foods at all hours of the days."

I stopped in my tracks, amidst the gray haze of cigarette smoke and the dank, dour air of booze ridden sweat and broken dreams, to look at my partner, my friend, my love, the mother of my two favorite people on the planet. I looked her straight in the eye, with utter disbelieve, shock, repulsion and mild anger. Of all the things I have gone through in my entire life, of all the ups and all the downs, of all the pain I have been through, the heartache, the tears, none of that compared to the horror of this. I looked at Elise, right into her glossed over, empty stare of last night's drunken stupor. Time seemed to stop around me. The room seemed quiet and still.

"I'm sorry. Did you just suggest we eat at a...buffet?"

"What? No."

"You did! You did suggest it! I heard with my own two ears! Do you know what goes on at buffets, Elise? Do you?"

"Um, you can eat until you're full for fairly cheap?"

"No! That's not what goes on. I'll tell ya what goes on! It's about one step above a potluck! People make this FOOD," (I actually did air quotes around FOOD. I'm not proud but I had to make my point, here!), "then they set it out in large trays. Then do you know what happens? Do you know, Elise?"

"Um, people eat it?"

"PEOPLE EAT IT! They line up for it like horses at a trough. They breathe on it, they stick their disgusting, unwashed, money-dirtied meat hooks in MY food and shovel pounds of that shit on to their plate, then stick the disgusting used spoon back into the slop for the next mouth-breathing, slack-jawed yokel to have his go at it. And this goes on, all day long at the good old buffet. Sure, it's only ten bucks for all you can eat, but is it worth it? I THINK NOT!"

"God, you're such a pussy. We'll go to a restaurant then." (The mouth on this woman, nowadays, I swear to god! I tried to clean up my language since the kids have become human sponges, but hers has gotten worse. I first realized there was a problem with the kids when we got a call from the principle a few months ago saying that my little, sweet, adorable Eric kept saying "down with whitey." Then he called his teacher an ass burglar... He then went on to explain to her exactly what an ass burglar was: he who burgles ass!" I've kept the language to a minimum since then.)

"Thank you! Fancy restaurant it is!"

We wandered around for a while looking for a place that would pass muster with my insanely high standards. We settled on some Chinese place, the name of which I can't even remember. The Stray Kitten or some shit like that, I dunno. Anyway, we got a secluded table towards the far corner of the restaurant. It was nice and quiet, still a bit too early for the dinner crowd and a little too late for the lunch crowd. It was perfect.

Elise pulled out a small notebook and pen from her purse and we began listing the facts in bullet points down the page. I used my phone to Google details of the rape. Things began coming together nicely.

The timeline we were able to form was basic and desperately in need of some filling in, but it was a good enough starting point.

Late Monday night, Balls and Vincent return to their hotel, intoxicated, and sit at a blackjack table, where they pretty much spend the rest of the night, the money fluctuating from high to low and back again, until Balls hits a losing streak and decides to take a breather. He gets up, presumably goes to the elevator, taking it to his floor, and then, according to the data provided from the computerized door locks, enters his room where he eventually dies.

Now, according to the article I am reading about the rape, it says the victim was abducted from the Myra Hotel in the early morning of Tuesday, December ninth, the same day that our victim died. The article doesn't feature too many more facts and is pretty vague about the story telling. I have a feeling a lot of it was kept under wraps from the hotel. It does, however, state that the investigating officer is named Clint Howard (I assume it's not THEE Clint Howard) and he is still working on the case. He would be our next lead. We needed to track him down. I also needed to find out the name of the hotel's house dick and speak with him. He would have been involved in both cases and could possibly offer up the most assistance, if he was willing.

Our food arrived and Elise buried herself in it like she hadn't eaten since August. I ate my food like a human.

11.

We arrived at the LVPD shortly after finishing our lupper. Or linner. Or Lunchy McDinner. Whichever. Turns out, Detective Howard was in the building. We explained our situation to the front desk and the homely old lady allowed us to take a brief meeting with him. Five minutes later we are sitting in a stereotypical detective's office, before us sits a rather non-stereotypical detective. He is rail thin, with longer than your average cops hair, no mustache. No ashtray on his desk, no stray papers. He had a clean look about him and his clean shave made him appear much younger than I suspect he really way. The craziest thing about him, though was that he was polite. No hard-assness to him. It was a refreshing change from what I was used to dealing with.

"How may I help you folks?" he asked, standing up and reaching across his desk to shake our hands. "I'm Detective Clint Howard by the way."

"Big fan of your work. I met you at a Fangoria convention probably seven years ago. You look different..."

"Oh yes, the infamous Clint Howard," he said, with a good humored smile on his face. "I wish. I wish."

"Thanks for not being offended by my lame joke," I said. "I'm used to the Bakersfield PD. Shit like that will get your shot over there."

"I've been through Bakersfield many a time. So what's on your mind?"

The food had apparently cured Elise from her hangover as she took her usual cue to interrupt me and take over the conversation. "My name is Elise, and this is Archie. We were hired to work a case about a young man who died last Tuesday morning at the Myra Hotel and Casino. We understand that you were there that day, perhaps on two occasions?"

"Would this be the man who was killed while, pardon me, ma'am, but while he was diddling himself with the belt around his neck?"

"Yes, that would be him."

"I was not involved in that case. It appeared to be an accident. In fact, I didn't arrive at that hotel until much later that day, working on a rather nasty case."

"That's right," Elise said. "I got my facts mixed up. You showed up on Tuesday afternoon after the rape victim was found in the vacant lot, yes?"

"Oh, so you know about her? Terrible thing. Terrible. That poor girl."

"I couldn't agree with you more. But, you see, sir, we were hired by a friend of the boy who was killed. He claims the victim would never, ever do something like that. This boy had a bright future. He had a 165 IQ and was a recent Harvard Graduate. On top of that, him and his friend had just sold a movie script. They were in Las Vegas to celebrate."

"Well, as I recall, this was never ruled a suicide. Yes?"

"Yes, that's right, but our client still doesn't believe the scene fits his friends, how do I say, personality."

"I see."

"Trust me," I interrupted, "If there was even a chance of this being a suicide, we certainly would not be here. I have no sympathy for grown-ass men who kill themselves. Seriously, like, you want to kill yourself? Good. Fine. Don't be such a pussy about it, though. Throw on a makeshift costume and go fight crime- be a superhero for a day. Get your ass killed that way, while doing the world some good and being a badass, not while sitting at home being selfish and lame." Blank stares across the board. "Um, ya know, that's just my...own...personal..." I trailed off and Elise eventually recused me, acting as if I had never spoken and picking up the conversation directly where Howard had left it.

"Yes, so we were hired to come down here and take a look. This guy over here," pointing to me, of course, "has a pretty good eye when it comes to these kinds of things. And no disrespect to you or your department, of course, but our client just wanted someone with unlimited time to take a good hard look at the case and see if anything was, perhaps, overlooked."

"I'll help you all I can, but like I said, I wasn't even there at that time."

"I know, but maybe you can help us with something else."

I took over, "Sir, our victim died on Tuesday morning, the same morning that the woman was taken from the hotel, beaten, raped and left for dead. We talked to the head of security, and while I didn't get exactly which floor the woman got off on, I do know that our victim and your victim used the same elevator. The way they're set up there is one elevator is assigned a certain number of floors, as I'm sure you're aware. It speeds things up a bit, for which I am quite grateful. Elevators aren't exactly my...thing. Anyway. We think it's too big of a coincidence to ignore, that both victims used the same elevator, on the same morning, within the vague timeframe. If you would be able to help us narrow down some times, maybe we could get the ball rolling on our case, and it may help you with yours."

"I'm sorry, but I can't share details of a pending investigation with anyone. I know you are trying to help, but it's just something I cannot do. I am working the case, along with our sex crimes division, and we are not at liberty-"

"I understand. What if we were hired to work the rape case?"

"I don't understand."

"What if we got the hotel to hire us? Me and her, to help work it. They're in the process of being sued by the victim and they need all the help they can get. If we get hired by them, would you be willing to share information with us to help figure this whole thing out?"

Elise gave me a look. I knew exactly what she was thinking. We didn't have time for this, and how in the hell could we solve a rape case that the entire Las Vegas PD was working on. It was a long shot, I knew it, but it was worth a try. I gave Elise a nod. We both turned back to the detective.

"Look," I continued. "It's a win-win for you. If we don't solve anything, you're out nothing, and if we do come up with something or even solve it, we give you the arrest. It's all you. We don't need fame or publicity; we just need our cases closed so we can move on to the next. We're good, sir. I can promise you that."

He sat silently at his desk for a few moments, contemplating his decision. Finally, he agreed.

"You've got a deal. But! But, you have to get yourself officially hired on, on the hotel's behalf."

"Deal."

We stood up to make our exit. I handed the detective one of my cards and assured him he would be hearing from us very soon. He gave us a friendly nod and we were out the door. Back to da hotel!
12.

We returned to the front desk of our crappy, over-rated hotel and again asked to speak to Mr. Adams in security. He was still on duty, luckily for us. We took a brief meeting with him and spelled out our situation. He agreed to let us meet the in-house detective. Things were looking up.

We were lead down a corridor of offices completely hidden amongst the hotel's walls, and were told to take a seat in a small, cluttered office. We heard our detective being paged. Fifteen minutes later the door opened and in walked the house dick.

"Hello, my name is Garret Mulroney, how can I help you two?"

"Hello sir," Elise said. "My name is Elise, this is Archie. He is a private investigator from Bakersfield, I'm his assistant."

"Partner," I interrupted. I flashed him my license.

"Partner, assistant, whatever, right?" Elise tacked on. "We're here working a death that was ruled accidental and we kind of stumbled upon another case that we believe may be intertwined with our own. We understand you had a rather nasty allegation of a rape and abduction having occurred here?"

"Yeah, that's right. Some lady is saying she was abducted from our hotel, but we're calling bullshit on it. We think it's a scam. We pretty much think everything is a scam."

"Understandable," Elise said, with a faint smile upon her face, but I could tell what was really going on behind it. She wanted to gouge this cocky asshole's eyes out and spit in the sockets. Another typical case of making the victim the suspect. We do it in our profession, but it's a whole other thing when the victim is raped, beaten, left for dead and only discovered upon pure chance. She continued, "but we were wondering if perhaps you could take us on, maybe allow us to work both cases? Security has already granted us access to our client's victim's room, but the coincidence of both events occurring on the same day, around the same time, is just too great for us to ignore. We really feel like we would be a great asset to your team."

"Well," Mulroney said, "I don't have a team. It's just me and I'm in charge of this hotel, and I think I do a pretty goddamn good job at it. We're being sued by this lady, ya know. Like it was our fault. Nonetheless, I still have to get to the bottom of it. I don't have the time or the energy to babysit you two. I can't just go-"

I interrupted, "We'll do it pro-bono. You can call a detective in Bakersfield by the name of Anderson, he will vouch for us. Not only that, but whatever we find goes through you first. We solve it and you get the glory."

"Deal."

Well that was easy. Didn't even have to offer him five bucks. Whoop!

Thirty minutes later we are in the surveillance room, looking at a huge wall of televisions, people filling every screen from all angles. It's overwhelming and hard to take in. Mulroney tells us to take a seat so he can share with us what he has so far. I can feel my heart pumping hard in my chest. I can't wait.

"All our cases are labeled and saved," Mulroney said. "We actually have your case here, too."

"We'd love to take a look at everything you have," Elise said.

The main television sitting directly in front of us flickered, turned to a snowstorm, then returned with a freeze frame of Balls stepping on to an elevator.

"Here is your boy, I believe."

"That looks like him," I said, "but I can't be sure."

"It is," Mulroney assured me. "We have his entire evening on record here. This, unfortunately, is where we lose him. Once he steps on to the elevator it's the last we see of him."

"Are you kidding me? There are no cameras on the elevator or on the floors?"

"I'm afraid to say there were no cameras in the elevator aside from the emergency camera that is only on when the emergency button is hit. Even then, the camera is only located above the buttons and doesn't give an entire view of the area. And no, we have no cameras on the floors, except near the emergency stairwells and those are on a motion sensor."

"Okay, so no camera on the elevator. No camera on the floors. But the keycards keep a record every time the doors are unlocked, yes?"

"Yes, except for maids and maintenance. They have passkeys which don't work the same as the guests' keys. Guests keys are registered and logged, staff keys are not."

"So what is the deal with your case, detective?" Elise asked. "Explain to me the problems you're having?"

"Well Ms.-"

"Reynolds."

"Ms. Reynolds, yes. This woman claims she was taken from our hotel Tuesday morning, beaten and raped, left for dead. She is now suing us. What we need to do is either solve who did it, or prove that she was not taken from here, as opposed to somewhere else? Do you understand? If she was taken somewhere besides on our property, we obviously wouldn't be liable for it."

"I understand that you have to doubt everyone, but why do you doubt her? Make sense?"

"I suppose so, Ms. Reynolds. The biggest obstacle we have in front of us is that no one knows where she went. No one ever saw her leave the hotel. We have gone over hours and hours of video footage, we locate her several times throughout the night, and even follow her to the elevator, where she assumedly goes to her room. That is the last we see of her. The next time anyone sees her she is in a field, raped."

"So what are you thinking?" I ask.

"I don't know what I am thinking."

"Was she smuggled out in a maids cart or laundry hamper?" Elise asks.

"I certainly hope not. That is another reason for our investigation. If it were members of this staff who did it, it would be extremely damaging to us."

"I understand," Elise said, "but you can't rule it out. We'll get to the bottom of this."

"Maybe this is a scam, maybe she left the hotel in a disguise," I suggested. "It could happen."

"We thought of that as well. We looked at everyone on the video."

"Okay, do you mind if we have a look at this for a while. We tend to work best when it's just the two of us."

"Very well."

He gave us a brief run-through of how all the cameras worked and how to operate them correctly. He also loaded one screen with our boy and another screen with our rape victim. I informed him I knew how to work this system and if I had any questions I would call him. He agreed then left. We got to work.

13.

"Okay," I start, "this woman, Leslie, our rape victim, said in her statement that she was attacked by two men. Did anyone tell us where she said she was attacked?"

"No, it just says in the hotel."

"Well crap. Okay, and then what? That's all she can remember? She blacked out?"

"Yeah, she was attacked in the hotel, blacked out, woke up to being raped, blacked out again, then was eventually found. No descriptions on either of the men. She said she simply couldn't remember. Everything was fine and then she got attacked. Two guys, that's all we know."

"Okay, then I guess we start looking for two guys."

"How the hell are we going to do that?" Elise asked, in a rather sarcastic tone of voice, one that I was not too fond of even though I practically invented it.

"Simple. By eliminating everyone else."

"Shit. That sounds boring."

"Oh yeah, baby, by the end of this shit you'll be begging to watch The Tree of Life just for a little excitement."

"Never again!"

I rewound the camera and took us to when Leslie first entered the hotel late the night before. She was staying at the Mayra with another woman; they were there on a getaway similar to our clients'. Her friend, however, apparently met a man at Caesar's Palace that night and decided to take up residence with him for the remainder of the evening, resulting in Leslie taking the long walk back to this hotel alone.

The video was put together rather nicely, I must say. The screen flickered as different cameras tracked her every movement throughout the entire casino floor, very rarely ever losing sight of her. She sat at a blackjack table, where apparently she had some pretty good luck. She stayed there for three hours, according to the time stamp on the video.

Elise read my mind and wrote in her notebook, Possible Robbery Attempt. I glanced down at the paper and told her good work. She gave me a wink.

After Leslie left the table, she cashed in her chips at the cashier window then went to the closest bar and sat down. The camera cut away from the blackjack table too soon for us to see if anyone got up right after her. I had memorized every single person who sat at the table, though, and would look for them throughout the course of that night.

After she finished her drink at the bar she stood up, grabbed her purse and headed off screen. The video said it was 7:05am. Our boy had already gone up to his room and I never caught sight of him on any of Leslie's videos. I told Elise and she scribbled down more notes.

At 7:09am on Tuesday morning, Leslie made her way to the elevator, pushed the button and waited. At 7:10 she stepped on to the elevator. Just as the doors we're closing, a rather large man, fat not muscular, and rather tall, came into the picture, waving his hand. Leslie reached her hand out to stop the doors from closing, allowing the man to step on. The man appears to give her his thanks and Leslie is seen giving him a polite smile and saying something back to him. Still 7:10 and the doors to the elevator close and the cameras never capture Leslie again. Couple hours later she is left for dead in a field.

At least we had a time frame.

My eyes had already begun to burn from staring at the screen for so long. Elise suggested we take a break, go back up to the room for a bit and relax. I agreed, even though I wasn't looking forward to the elevator ride. Elise had an idea.

We exited the surveillance room and made our way back out to the lobby, crossing the secretary's desk and telling her we would be back shortly. She said there would always be someone here, as this was a 24 hour racket. We thanked her and made our way out into the land of hopelessness and desperation, the casino.

Elise told me to follow her and we once again wove our way through crowds of idiots dropping their family's Christmas money on a roll of the dice and entered a small souvenir store. Elise purchased a bottle of Southern Comfort.

"Here is the solution to your elevator problem." She removed the cap and handed me the bottle. "Take a shot. I'll keep the bottle in my purse for all your elevator needs."

I did as I was instructed, though slightly against my will. I took two swigs. "This is stupid," I said. "This is NOT going to work."

It worked.

My head felt a little lighter when we got back to my room. I've been drunk before but never in public (last night doesn't really count, as Elise was the sloppy drunk one, not me.) Fact was, I wasn't really a big drinker at all. I've had a few vodka-Redbulls while staking out some joints from time to time, but nothing that would really intoxicate me. I needed to be alert and on my feet at all times. But what the hell, it's Vegas.

Elise went into her bedroom to call the kids and talk to Jamie. We decided we couldn't spend too long on this case and we needed to ensure Jamie that we wouldn't be pulling another Beach Trip on her. School would be getting out for Christmas Vacation soon and we certainly didn't want to miss the holidays at home with the boys. Apparently, everything went well and Elise exited the room with a smile on her face. It was my turn to call Vince and let him know we may have found a lead, but to not get his hopes up. It was still a long shot.

I called and he seemed pleased. As pleased as could be, I suppose. His heartbreak was evident.

We decided to call it a night on the investigation and head down to the casino to hang out for a bit. I agreed. Elise pulled the bottle of SoCo from her purse and waved it back and forth for me. I took three quick drinks then we made our way to the elevator, taking three more chugs upon arrival. By the time we hit the ground floor and I handed a half-empty bottle back to Elise, my legs felt wobbly and I'm pretty sure I was speaking gibberish.

I had my secret money in my wallet and was ready to go play some cards when Elise's cell phone rang. We stopped so she could answer it. She didn't recognize the number.

"Hello... Oh Hi!" She covered the speaker with her palm and mouthed JIM to me, then went back to talking.

Jim. Elise's blind date.

That little pimple.

That little thigh-chafe.

That speck of food stuck between your teeth that cuts and bloodies your tongue because you can't stop trying to flick it out.

That stupid...guy! Ugh!

I didn't want to hear it. I stumbled out on my Jell-O legs onto the casino floor and found a table with a few empty seats. I threw down two hundred bucks and the dealer gave me eight green chips in return. I placed a fifty dollar bet and the dealer flipped over a 21. God damn it.

I played for a few minutes more, losing every hand, and noticed everyone seated at the table with me had picked up their chips and departed. Fine, who needs 'em. I'll play by myself.

Two more losing hands later and a woman comes and sits next to me. She leans into my ear and says Hey.

"Hey" I say. That's about as wordy as I get with females I don't know.

"Winning?" she asked.

"Nope."

"Oh, too bad. You want to get out of here? Maybe go have a little fun?"

I turned my attention from my cards to the woman sitting next to me. I noticed she didn't have any chips out and had no idea what she was doing.

"What the hells it look like I'm doing right now, lady?" At least that's the way it sounded in my head.

"It looks like you're losing, hon. How about you come with me and start winning?"

"Are you good at cardths or thomething?"

"Yeah, or something."

My brain, swimming in a pool of booze, came up with a brilliant idea. I'd be seen hanging out with this girl, thus making Elise extremely jealous. I'm pretty sure that is how jealousy worked. It was brilliant. That'll teach her to take phone calls from stupid Jim. Jim the...Dim! Yeah, more like DIM! Up yours DIM! I stood and realized I was quite a bit more drunk than before. My legs nearly gave out and I leaned into the woman for whom I was to be hanging out. She caught me and said something along the lines of EASY. I felt like a bobble-head. I looked up at her and said "Whasss your name, lady?"

"Gena, honey. My name is Gena."

"Hi Gena Honey. My name is Gena." I laughed at my clever joke. She did not. "I'm hungry. You hungry? I hungry. Leth's get food."

"That's not really what I had in mind, babe."

"Need food. Restaurant. Buffet. Lesgo. Fuggin A!"

"You're the boss, Sugar."

***

Fifteen minutes later we are sitting at a booth at a 24-Hour buffet in our hotel. The very same buffet Elise had suggested earlier. For some reason it wasn't bothering me. I thought of it as progress. I could feel my head finding its footing upon my neck as I began to sober up. I thought. I checked my phone. I had several missed calls from Elise and several texts. She didn't seem happy with me. I wrote her back telling her where I was.

"So Gena, huh?"

"Yep, that's me. Thanks for the dinner."

"Yeah, no thweat. Be right back." I got up to stumbled to the bathroom. Hitting the water at the bottom of the toilet bowl proved to be far more difficult than I remembered. Shit got pretty wild in there. When I left not even the flush handle was dry. Oops. I was gone five minutes and returned to Gena still sitting there.

"I'm back!" I proclaimed.

"I see that. Again, doll, thanks for the dinner. I don't usually eat this much. Ya know, always on a diet..."

"Psh, diet shmiet. Did you know I invented my own diet?"

"Oh yeah? And what's that?"

"It's the Archie Lemons Diet."

"Okay, doll, but what does the diet consist of?"

"Oh! Well, you see this t-shirt I am wearing?"

"Yes...I don't know what Dharma means, but alright."

"It's from Lost. Not important. Anyway, this shirt, I'm pretty well known for wearing it. In fact, I usually wear pretty much the same ten or fifteen or so t-shirts."

"What's this have to do with a diet, babe?"

"The point is, people recognize my t-shirts. So, let's say I pack on a few pounds, or am supposed to be dieting, or whatever the case may be. The Archie Lemon's Diet consists of me going out and buying these same shirts...in a larger size. So next week, let's say I buy an extra-large Dharma shirt and wear it and people notice it's a little loose on me. That's when I say, 'Oh yeah, ya know, I've been workin' out...watching what I eat.' See, booya! Diet success!"

"Wow...that's actually...genius."

"Thank ya! Oh look," I said, and Gena turned her head to see Elise walking up to us. She looked not-happy. Not happy at all.

"Are you fucking kidding me?!" she snapped at me.

"Oh god," Gena said. "I didn't know he-"

"Don't worry, I'm not his girlfriend."

"We were just playing cards together and dethided to get thome food. Elise, this is Gena, Gena, Elise."

"Hi," Gena said as she extended her arm out for a friendly shake. Elise backed up like Gena was waving a stick with dog poo on it.

"Sit down, E. Please."

She did, and she sat down next to me, which I took as a good sign.

Silence.

I tried to start some friendly banter. "So, Gena. I once met a girl named Gina."

"Oh yeah?" she replied, with genuine excitement in her eyes.

"Yeah, she worked at The Gap down in Beverly Hills. We were there a few years ago. She rang me up for my underwear."

"And you remember her?"

"I remember everybody. Hey, Gena, have you ever noticed on sitcoms whenever a new character is guest starring or introduced and they have the same name as a pre-existing character, there will always end up being some whacky misunderstanding concerning to two same-named people?"

Gena's eyes shot wide open again and she exclaimed, "Oh my god! You are so right! That is so true!"

"Yeah, it's kinda what I do," I say, with no modesty whatsoever. "I spot these sitcom clichés all the time. Like, whenever a sitcom character gets an important phone call, they always act like it's bad news but then they hang up and yell that they got the job, or whatever. "

"Wow. Just wow." She looked at Elise, "Right?"

Elise answered with a silent, blank stare.

"Oh," I continued, enjoying my moment in the spotlight, "I have a million of them. I'm actually thinking about writing a book. Whatta ya think? Sitcom's Greatest Clichés!"

"Oh man, wow, I would totally buy that book!"

"Oh yeah?

"Fuck yes, for sure! It sounds amazing!"

"Oh, it totally would be. Like, you ever notice that every character owns a tuxedo? Whenever the situation calls for it, boom!, they have a tuxedo. Always. Or like, you ever notice in sitcoms whenever there is a gang or a group of the bad kids, they always have to have at least one member of every major race? Right?"

"Oh my god, that's so true! So true!" She was laughing so hard I heard a snort. She slammed her palm down on the counter, rattling the glasses, from her fit of hysterics. Emotions have never been my strong suit, and jealously was confusing to me, as I could never figure out, exactly, how it felt. It was the one the emotion that confused me the most and I hated it. But right now my mission was to make Elise jealous. So jealous. As jealous as I perhaps was. I'm pretty sure I was succeeding. How could I not be? This attractive woman sitting across from me was hanging on my every word. I decided to press on.

"Or like, how there are never any normal births on sitcoms? They always have to be whacky! Like, in a cab or they're snowed in, or they're all dressed like a bunch of assholes from The Flintstones. Always something ridiculous. And why is everyone getting trapped in elevators, too?" (One of my top fears, but no need to share that right now.)

The laughter continued. She was totally intrigued.

"I can go on and on. That's why I want to write a book about it."

"Wow, that is fascinating." She looked back at Elise who was still sitting silently with a bitchy look on her face. "Isn't he fascinating?"

Elise answered in a rather flat, sarcasm dripping tone, "Yeah. He's real fascinating. He can also spot a panty line from a hundred yards away, go weeks without pooping and tell you every major motion picture that shows wiener. Fascinating." She leaned in close to my ear and whispered, "What's with the whore?"

"WHORE?" I say louder than I should, completely stunned! I look towards Gena, expecting her to be just as shocked. She's not. She smiles and nods her head. Like, duh.

God damn it. Gross. I never even understood the allure of hookers, anyway. I always imagined it would be like fucking a hallway. Ugh.

That night was one of the longest nights of my life. The vomiting. Oh my, the vomiting. Every new step to soberness made me vomit more. First I vomited up the thoughts of hanging out with a Vegas whore, then I vomited when I was sober enough to remember I just ate at a buffet, then I vomited when I realized I was holding on to a disgusting toilet seat while doing all the previous vomiting.

14.

I was pretty worried about what would transpire the following morning, but it turns out my concerns were for nothing. Elise was too busy making fun of me to have time to be mad at me. I'm pretty sure she realized that it was all her fault, anyway, by forcing the booze on me. I think she figured if she kept me occupied with her insults I would be too distracted to realize this small fact. I didn't care though. The last thing I needed was a fight with Elise. My night was shitty enough without this capper.

I showered and got ready then we made our way to the elevator. Funny girl here decided to take the bottle from her purse again and offer me a little nip. I whole-heartedly declined and decided I would just try to man up and make the trip alcohol and drug free in '93, ya'll.

We stepped on the lift and I made my way to the far corner and stood there perfectly still with my eyes closed the entire way down. The thoughts of the unfortunate alternative of whore-cooties helped me stay calm until we reached our destination. We stepped off. I was quite proud of myself.

We stopped in one of the little souvenir shops, a different one from last night, and bought a couple of Rockstars for our fun-filled day of staring at cameras. Caffeine in-hand, we made our way to the security offices of the Myra Hotel and took our seats in front of the wall of screens again.

Our task for the day was to eliminate all those who couldn't have done it. From the time Leslie stepped on the elevator from the time she was found in the field gave us a timeframe of three to four hours. That meant, in order for us to eliminate suspects, we would have to account for every single person who used that whole bank of elevators, not just the people who used her specific elevator. There were stairs we had to account for, it would be too easy to take the elevator to a higher floor then take the stairs down. Elise remembered something, though.

"That guy, Whatshisname, said there were security cameras at the stairwells though, remember? He said they were motion censored and would only flick on if they were tripped."

"Shit. Okay, so where does that put us, then?"

"Well, if we can rule out the stairwell then that'll make it a hell of a lot easier to start eliminating people. We can just focus on one elevator instead of the entire bank of six."

"Good idea, so we need to see if there was any activity at all that morning from the stairwell. Should be easy enough."

"Righto, I'll start looking."

"Great. I'll keep looking at these assholes then."

It took Elise all of ten minutes to locate the correct camera and about ten seconds to discover that there wasn't even a seconds worth of footage from that entire day. The motion sensor had never been tripped.

"Well, look, solves that problem, right?"

"Um, not really, E," I said. "Not quite yet."

"How do you figure?"

"You remember that old Robert Redford movie Sneakers?"

"Yeah! With River Phoenix."

"Yeah, from back in his non gutter days."

"Ouch!"

"Anyway, my point is, remember that scene where they're trying to beat the motion sensor in the office and ol' Butch Cassidy has to move something like less than one inch every few seconds or something like that?"

"Robert Redford was the Sundance Kid. Duh. Sundance Film Festive."

Ugh! She's right. I've really been slipping lately.

"Anyway, butthole, remember what I'm talking about?" I ask.

"Yeah, I remember."

"Okay, then I think we need to test this out. I'm assuming the attackers would take at least a few precautions to not get caught. If he has even a mild knowledge of security systems then he would know what a motion sensor looked like."

"Okay, hold on. Are we operating under the assumption that Balthazar-"

"Balls."

"Sorry. Balls. Are we under the assumption that Balls was involved in this or are we still treating these cases separately?"

"Still separate. As of now we have nothing to link the two things together aside from it happening in the same hotel around the same time."

"Seems like a pretty big coincidence. To me..."

"Yeah, but not big enough. If Balls was one of the attackers, then who was the second? It was just him and Vince in town for vacation and Vince never left the tables the entire time Balls was upstairs killing himself. And if Balls was one of the attackers, why would he just give up, go back into his room and masturbate? It doesn't fit."

"Okay, we'll come back to that, then. Right now let's find us a dirty rapist."

"Agreed. So who wants to be Robert Redford?"

"I'd say you but that would be a pretty big compliment on your appearance."

"Argh! Hate you! I'm Redford! How do we do this?"

"Just go up to the stairwell and trip the camera so I can find you, then when it flicks off again, try and get through the door undetected."

"Okay, I'm just going to do this on the first floor so I don't have to go-"

"Oh no no no," Stupid Elise interrupted. "You're doing this on the correct floor Mister. It has to be exact."

God damn it, I hate when she's right. Shit shit shit.

"Fine" I reluctantly agree. "What floor was she attacked on?"

"Hold on." Elise opened up a folder and rummaged through a bit. "Floor thirty-seven. Your lucky number."

"Are you kidding me?!"

"Nope, why, what's up?"

"What floor was Balls found on?"

"Thirty sev- Oh shit."

"Yeah, oh shit is right. We should have been asking that question from the beginning."

"We Suck!"

"We totally do."

"Well, crap. Let's get goin'. Good luck up there."

15.

I finally reached the thirty-seventh floor after the world's longest elevator ride up. I was alone. And frightened. As silly as it sounds, Elise being with me really does help calm me and hinder my fears a bit. But this time it was just me versus scary elevator and I didn't like it. I was armed with a kick ass walky-talky from the security room to keep in contact with Elise. It was fun to play with. While I walked to the stairs I pretended I was a cop from E.T. who had his shotgun erased by Spielberg and my walky-talky was just a digital insert.

Oh man, don't get me started on that though. At least Spielberg was nice enough to put both versions of the movie on the DVD, unlike Money-Whore George Lucas with his special SPECIAL editions of Star Wars. Ain't nothing special about that shit, George. Nothing at all. What goes through that guy's mind when he's making these choices? It's embarrassing. Like; Hey guys, let's have a racially offensive slave alien here and make him talk like a jiggaboo, OH! and he'll fart a lot and be really annoying and ruin the movie!

Genius George! Let's do it!

Great, oh, what about during the most powerful scene in Return of the Jedi, I have Darth Vader turn to the camera and yell NOOOOOOO? That way, everyone who watches the movie won't be confused as to why Vader is turning against his master. They'll all realize now that he does not want his son to die...because he says NO. I feel it's much too confusing the original way.

Brilliant George, You should do it!

Oh I will do it. Wah wah wah, I'll laugh all the way to the b-.

"Lemons, what the hell is the goddamn holdup," Elise cackled through the speakers.

"Oh sorry, breaker breaker, I got distracted."

"You were thinking about Star Wars again, weren't you?"

"No! No I wasn't"

"Sure, then what were you thinking about when I called. Quick!"

"Um.... Darth...Rapist..." Shit!

"Darth Rapist, huh?"

"No. Um. You misunderstood. I didn't say Darth Rapist, I said DARK rapist. I think we may be looking for a black guy."

"Mhmm, and why is that?"

"Because...um...black people... Um... Shit! Fine, I was sidetracked with Star Wars, sue me."

"I will. No go to the goddamn stairs so I can find you. Jesus."

"Okey-day"

I wound my way through the long corridor until I reached the emergency stairwell. I looked up and saw the camera aimed at the door, next to it was the motion sensor. I would have already tripped it if it worked correctly.

My speaker crackled, Elise's voice coming through after a second of static. "Okay, I've got you. Back away and let it die. I'll give you a signal."

"You mean you'll just tell me the camera is off?"

"Yes, smart ass, I'll tell you when the camera is off."

"One more thing," I added.

"What's that?"

"Cannndddyyyyyccaaannnneeeeee."

"God, will you be serious for a moment? And I can still see you. Back away!"

"Fine."

I stood there and waited for three minutes before Elise instructed me to go. I took a deep breath and slowly moved into the range of the censor. I felt like I was moving maybe an inch per every five to ten seconds. It was hard and rather nerve racking. Still no word from Elise on my discovery. My foot stepped down softly on the carpet and I shifted my weight to make the next step. I reached the door after around two minutes or so. I had moved a total of three feet. Still no word from E.

I slowly wrapped my hand around the door handle. Still undetected. I turned the handle and slowly pushed the door open. Once the door broke free from the frame, Elise's voice came on.

"Disco," she said. I was discovered.

"Well shit. Okay, well at least we know it's possible to reach the door without tripping it. Now we just have to get this thing open."

"Okay, well let's try again. Just stay perfectly still where you are and the camera should reset, that'll save you from have to Sneaker across again."

"Good deal. Over and out, Al."

"Al?"

"Yeah, Al Powell. From Die Hard? Duh? Remember, McClane is up in the bathroom picking out glass from his foot and his talking to Carl Winslow down below. That's what this reminds me of."

"So you're John McClane and I'm Urkel's friend. Great, seems fair, thanks."

"No sweat. Over and out."

I waited another three minutes until I got the word from Elise. I tried the door again, this time even more slowly. No dice. I couldn't even get a crack in the door without being discovered.

We stayed at it for two more hours, never gaining any progress. I was fed up and hungry and called it quits. In fact, I was so pissed off I was actually getting worse with each try, instead of better and I wanted to kick the goddamn door in. I told Elise I was coming down. I was frustrated as I stepped on to the elevator. When the doors closed, I said out loud, "How the fuck did she get out of this goddamn building?!" The question kept me preoccupied the entire way down.

I got back to the security office and Elise told me it was a valiant effort. She was right, it was something that needed to be done and now it could be crossed off our list. Leslie absolutely did not leave her floor via the stairs. It was something.

"How the hell did she get out of this hotel, though, E? It doesn't make sense!"

"Well we're just going to have to look harder. Mulroney said they checked everyone closely for a possibly disguise, but WE didn't look. We'll just have to look harder."

"God, do you think she was lowered out of the window or something? There is a roof a few floors below their floor. It's possible?"

"No its not, Vegas hotel windows don't open. Besides, how would someone get on the roof in the first place, unless he was...staff?"

"Is it possible?"

"I don't think so, but it's worth checking. Let's put that on the back burner for right now. We can, however, focus on the staff for the time being. She could have been taken out in a laundry basket or a food cart."

"Okay, we'll focus on that next. But for now, can we please get some food?"

"Sure, I know this great buffet."

"I hate you."

"You love me."

"Such a bitch," I say, trying to contain my smile.

"Hey, whatever works."

"Yeah, well...Being a bitch didn't work out too well for Meredith Brooks. Just remember that."

"Meredith who?"

"Exactly."

16.

We decided to leave the hotel and cross the street to the MGM Hotel & Casino and get a late lunch at Rainforest Cafe. We don't have one of those back in Bakersfield, so it was a nice diversion. We tried not to talk about the case too much, deciding instead to talk about the kids. We missed them. We wouldn't be able to stay here much longer so we were really going to have to kick it in to high gear and get this thing solved. We had pretty much pushed Vincent's case aside; we just didn't have much to go on. We decided we wouldn't charge him any extra, even if by some miracle we did solve it.

We sat there a while longer, eating our meal. Elise had ordered this ridiculously large Mai-tai that came in a glass with lights flashing in it. Seemed to fit in with our surroundings, oddly enough.

I continued thumbing through the menu featuring nice photos of various rainforest critters. "Damn, for seeming to be all animal friendly here, they sure don't have very many vegetarian options."

"Sorry, hon."

"Like here," I said, turning the menu towards and showing her a picture of a frog. "Look, on this page it's all; Look at this beautiful red-eyed tree frog. Then you turn the page and they're like; Hey, try our new Red-Eyed Tree Frog Burger! Fuck you, animals, you make our burgers authentic! Because everything is totally authentic here at The Rainforest Café. Meanwhile, there's a fucking animatronic gorilla over there about to catch fire."

"Would you like to go somewhere else?"

"Nah, I'm good. Hey! Ya know what I was thinking?" I ask.

"Oh lord, I can only imagine. What, Archie? What were you thinking?"

"You remember that show Hunky Vampires of the Hollywood Hills?"

"Yes, of course I remember it. I was the one who told you about it. Remember?"

"Oh yeah. Well anyway, after the Brad Jackson case, I read up all about it, just out of idle curiosity."

"Okay...?"

"Well, Brad's character was a vampire, yeah?"

"Yes..."

"And him and that werewolfy, shirtless fella were fighting over the love of that dead-eyed shitty actress chick, right?"

"So far so good. Where ya going with this one?"

"I'm wondering. So Dead-eyed Shitty Actress Chick ends up choosing Brad Jackson's vampire fellow and getting impregnated by him. You with me so far."

"Yes, I am familiar with the story, remember?"

"Okay, here's my question. Brad is a vampire. He is dead. He has no heartbeat, no pulse. He has no blood pulsing through his veins. So how, I ask you, was he able to get the boner needed to impregnate the girl?"

Elise stared at me, mouth slightly agape for what seemed like minutes. When she finally spoke up, it was not with an answer to my question. "I'm going to need another drink."

When we were finished eating we returned to our drab security room. Mulroney had stopped in to check on us and see if we had any new leads. We didn't. He reminded us that the clock was ticking on Balls's room being unoccupied. We thanked him and got back to work staring at our monitors.

It was time to start eliminating some people. First thing we looked for this time was any staff members traveling in a pack of two. We struck out on that quite quickly. The only staffers in packs of two were women. Rather petite women at that. They posed no threat. Only six times during the entire three hours was a cart of food brought up to one of the floors on Leslie's elevator, and all six times the men bringing the food returned minutes later completely empty handed.

"Maybe," Elise said, "just maybe, someone finished their breakfast and pushed their cart out into the hallway, then someone attacked Leslie, knocked her out and hid her in one of the carts and got her later."

"Maybe, but the cart would still have to come down the elevator, and none have. Plus, look at the carts." I freeze framed on a busboy pushing someone's breakfast into the elevator. "The carts have no bottom shelf. It's pretty much a moving table."

"Then why didn't we realize that the first time we saw this and rule out this possibility all together?"

"Because we are exhausted and our eyes are going blurry from staring at these goddamn things for too long." I let out a rather loud, frustrated grunt and slammed my fist on the table in front of me, sending our empty cans crashing to the ground below.

"We don't have to do this, ya know?" Elise said, as she reached over to rub my back with her left hand.

"Yes, we do. Yes, we do. We can't let rapists go free. You know this. You would never let it go, either. I don't even know this woman but I feel some connection to her. An obligation to make things right. I want to catch these fuckers more than anything I've wanted in a long time." I closed my eyes and lowered my head. (There's one thing I want more, actually.) I opened my eyes and looked at Elise. She smiled at me. I returned one of my own.

We went back to the cameras.

"So, what exactly are we looking for?" I asked.

"Let's see," Elise answered. "Two men. Spoke English. That's all we've got."

"Wow, that's great. I think I saw those two guys earlier. Ugh! So pretty much the only people we can immediately cross off are single men wearing giant sombreros. Great. Just fucking great."

The next four hours of our lives were spent in the most ridiculously boring manner ever, aside from watching The King's Speech back to back. What we did was set all the cameras in the hotel to the same starting point; five minutes before Leslie enters the elevator, while she is still sitting at the bar. Then we focused on the elevator camera, taking note of every.single.goddamn.person that entered or exited it. We would do one person at a time. If someone went up the elevator, we matched what room he went in to with the data from the keycard readout we had. If that person never reappeared on camera during the timeframe, he was a suspect. If he came down again, obviously alone, we would follow them through their travels until the timeframe was closed. If there was no funny business, that man was removed from the suspect list.

While it was true we were looking for a pair of men, we couldn't afford to just focus on duos. We have no idea if the attacker followed the victim up to her floor then had somebody already there waiting for them. Keycards recorded all the data of being used, but there was no data on file from doors being opened from the inside. There was really no surefire way to tell what happened, so we followed everybody.

We had the screens lined up in sequence. The one thing we had going for us was that it was morning. The casino floor was not very crowded and a lot of people were coming down into the lobby for coffee then going right back up. Also, several people were checking out. We watched them all. If someone was going to check out, they got off the elevator then would have to cross through the casino, into the lobby then out the lobby doors to the outside. Or, they could have gotten off the elevator, made their way to the parking garage elevator, taken it down, and then entered the garage directly from the casino. The camera caught their every move, even through the maze of cars. We had all our screens in order. We continued watching, checking off people one at a time who left empty-handed before or after our time frame.

When all was said and done we had a handful of people still on our suspect's list and no real way to dig any deeper in to them. We had to think of something else. We decided we would have to just start taking guesses. At first, if someone went up to their room and never came down, we kept them on the suspect list. The reasoning behind this was; if the girl got out undetected, so could the attackers. But after hitting that final brick wall, we had to start eliminating that particular set of people.

We still had more than a handful of suspects.

"E?"

"Yeah?"

"What time did Balls go up to his room, according to the key log?"

"Hold on, six something. Let me check." She flipped through our rather expansive notebook of suspects, notes, non-suspects, time tables, drawings of happy faces, games of tic-tac-toe and various other crap all somehow related to this case until she found the information she needed. "He got up to his room at six-forty am and apparently again at seven-twelve. Wait..."

"The security guy said Balls got to his room then later pushed their room service tray out into the hallway a little while later. The tray was still in the hallway when Balls was discovered. You were in a waking coma at the time of this conversation."

"Jesus Christ, so now our times are over-lapping, you realize this, right?"

"Why do you think I asked?"

17.

We decided to go up and take a look at Balls' and Vince's room. The elevator ride was hell. Pure torture. And on top of that, first we had to take one elevator up to our room so I could grab my work bag, then take it down to the lobby, then get on a different elevator and take it to the thirty-seventh floor where all the action occurred. Hell, I tells ya, hell!

We entered the room using the key we were given by Mr. Adams, the head of security. It was a two bedroom suite, but much smaller than ours up on the higher floor. Elise carried all the photographs we had and we used them to compare them to the scene. I went and kneeled down at the entry way of the closet where he was found dead, rightfully mindful the whole time that I may be crouching near some crusted up semen on the carpet. I held my breath while I poked around inside for anything out of the ordinary. Nothing popped out at me.

I stood back up and continued looking around the room. It was exactly how it was in the photograph, right down to the pack of gum and junior mints on the table. His suitcase was still sitting open on the bed, clothes removed and stacked neatly. A pair of Nike shoes at the bedside. Empty glass on the night stand. In the other bedroom, where Vince had probably stayed, was nothing. It had been cleaned. Only the room where the body was found was undisturbed. This bothered me, but I let it go. If I was Vince, I wouldn't be willing to leave all my stuff unprotected in a hotel room for two weeks while someone, MAYBE, worked on the case at hand. Who knows who would be coming and going from the room. He had every right to take his stuff with him. I just wish he hadn't, for some reason.

Elise had started looking under the bed and tables, behind the TV and what-not, looking for, I suppose, anything that might help us out. She wasn't having much luck. I went out in to the common room and put my bag on the table and squatted down next to it. I laid the photographs on the glass tabletop and removed my magnifying glass from my bag-o-goodies. I focused in closely on the dead body.

"Something tells me you're not the first person to use a microscope on that guy's junk," Elise said as she came walking out from the bedroom.

"This is a magnifying glass, but not a bad joke, all the same."

"Thanks. I learned from the best. I actually can't believe we are sitting in a room where a guy died masturbating and with an open box of Junior Mints on the table and you haven't made a single Marcie Playground joke."

"Huh?" I ask, distracted. "Oh, um, I smell sex and candy. Wacka Wacka!"

"Really? That's it?"

"Sorry. I'm just looking for something."

"Ooookay. And what are you looking for, oh wise one?"

"Actually, I'm trying to see if he is wearing a belt. I looked through his clothes on the bed there and there wasn't any kind of dress clothes or shoes. They obviously weren't here to go classy or go to a club. Nothing but a pair of jeans, two pairs of shorts and the jeans he died in."

"Yeah, so?"

"Yeah, well, that's what I wear, too. And guys like us don't bring more than one belt with us on vacation. It's one of the luxuries of being so handsome and laid back casual."

"So laid back casual is the new lazy with no style?"

"Whatever, nice skinny jeans, Mary Tyler Moore."

"Nice try. You know you like these! Just look at my ass in these things? What two kids?!"

(Gah, knock it off. Your ass distracts me enough, vile woman, I'm trying to work!)

"Yeah, real good, now shut up for a second while I figure this out. I don't know why I didn't think of this earlier. No belt on and we're right back where we started, but if he is wearing a belt I think we hit pay dirt. I just...cant...tell." I squinted into the magnifying glass, trying desperately to see anything. No luck.

I flipped to the next photo and took another look. Nothing. On to the next. I clearly saw a belt loop in this one. Nothing underneath it. No belt. Out of luck. Game over, mannn, game over.

"Shit, he's not wearing a belt."

"Don't you think the detective would have figured that one out by now?"

"Ya never know, sometimes the most obvious clues are the ones that are overlooked. It was worth a shot."

"You're right. Nice try, kid."

I stood up from my squat, slowly and rather painfully. I was getting old and was still ridiculously out of shape. One day I would work on that. One day. Just not, ya know, today. But one day. Probably.

I reached into my bag again and grabbed my tape measure. "Here, follow me. I need to see something."

"Okey dokey."

She followed me back in to the bedroom and we made our way to the closet of orgasmic death.

"Do me a favor," I said. "Sit down right here." I pointed to the spot where Balls was found, right in the doorway.

"Um, okay," Elise said, as she reluctantly sat down. "Why can't you do this?"

"Because, ew, what if that guy jizzed all over the carpet right there? That's exactly where your boyfriend Killed Bill and that's gross. I'm not sitting in that."

"God damn it, Lemons!" Elise yelled as she started to stand up.

"It's too late now. You're practically already pregnant from it, may as well just see this through to the end. Sit sit."

"I hate you. This is gross!"

"You love me. Here, sit exactly like this." I handed her the picture I had just studied. Balthazar was slumped over to his left side; the only thing keeping his body from falling to the floor was the belt around his neck. His pants were pulled down around his knees and of course, his wiener was left standing there like a lone baby mushroom in a deserted field of shit.

"How am I supposed to sit like that?"

"Gawd, use your hand to prop you up. Duh. Come on."

"Fine." Elise sat there exactly as Balls had died.

"Speaking of semen, what's with those Sobe drinks? Seriously, they look like someone took a bottled and filled it with ji-"

"FOCUS!"

"Okay, okay. Shit," I said. "Well judging by these pictures, how tall would you say this cat is?"

"I dunno. Looks about average height I would assume. 5'10" maybe?"

"Okay, how much do you think he weighs?"

"Oh geez, I have no idea. He's not fat but he's certainly no skinny minny."

"You're right. I'm going to guess about 200. That would put his waist at, probably, thirty-six inches or so. Hmmm."

"Whatcha thinkin'?"

"Hold on. I'm going to have to call Vince. This needs to be right on."

I took out my cellphone, found Vince's number in my contacts and hit call. Thirty seconds later he picked up.

Me: Vince, Archie Lemons

Vince: Archie, any news?

Me: Not yet, my man, not yet. We're trying though. It's just hard to do without having been here when the body, I mean, when Balls was still in the room.

Vince: I understand, man. I appreciate you still trying, though.

Me: Absolutely, man. Absolutely. What I'm calling about is, I need to know Balthazar's exact height and weight if you know it. I have his driver's license here but it seems to be a bit outdated. His picture looks like it was taken when he was like fifteen and he looks to be at least a couple inches taller and little more hefty than his stats would suggest.

Vince: Yeah, well college will do that to ya, ya know. As will sitting around writing stroke movies.

Me: We're up in his room right now and we need this information to do a little experiment. Any idea?

Vince: Well, I'm almost positive he is..was...five-eleven. I'm six-one and I have always been about two inches taller than him, barely even noticeable with that mop of hair he had.

Me: Five-eleven, great, great. What about weight? Any guess?

Vince: Probably just a little more than me. He was a little denser than me. I'd guess two-hundred, two-ten mayyybe.

Me: Fantastic. Hey listen, Vince, we're going to get back to work now. If we find anything, you're the first person we contact.

Vince: Thanks again, man, I appreciate-

I hit End Call on my phone. No time for goodbyes, Sucka.

"Five-eleven, two hundred to two-hundred and ten pounds," I tell Elise.

"Okay, so?"

"So? So you ask? So this!" I walked over to the bed and grabbed the pair of jeans. I flipped up the tag, size 36/32. I showed it to Elise. "See, 36 inch waist."

"Where ya goin' with this, Monk?"

"Okay, so he's five-eleven with a thirty six inch waist. That means the longest his belt would be would be forty inches." I started pulling the extracting the ruler from the measuring tape, locking it when I got to forty inches.

"If you deducted all that from his pants, Columbo, why the hell did you need to call Vince?"

"Shut up, I was a bit scatter brained. I was meaning to call him today anyway. Just. Shut up. Shut up. Sit back down."

"Nope, that's gross. Plus I know where you're going with this and you are way closer to Balls' height and weight. It's easier for you to shrink two inches than it is for me to grow six inches. And the weight thing, well... ya know."

"I hate you."

"Good to know, but you're sitting in the crusty semen this time, big boy. Go grab a towel from the bathroom and lay it down first if it makes ya feel better."

"Gah! Fine!" I walked to the bathroom and returned with all four towels. I laid them all out on the carpet, one on top of the other, for extra protection.

"Ok Nancy, take a seat."

Very slowly I knelt down and eventually planted my big fat ass on the pile of towels.

"See," Elise said, "now what you're doing here is seeing if his belt was long enough to wrap around his neck and stay hanging on that hook, all the while he is moving around vigorously and eventually slumps over to his final position. Yes?"

"Very good, Mac. If the belt doesn't fit, either too short or too long, then me-thinks the belt belonged to someone else. If someone was in here and strangled Balls with his own belt, he would probably leave the belt behind so the wounds matched up with the width of that belt. And, if the killer was smart, he would have removed Balls' belt to make it seem like he had used it himself while he died. I know that because that's what I would have done if I killed someone in the matter."

"Very good observation, now let's see if it amounts to a hill of beans."

"Very well, very well." I positioned myself on the towels exactly how Balls was found. Elise put the lip of the measuring tape on the hook in the closet and tried to wrap the end of it around my neck. It didn't work. The lip wouldn't stay on the hook. We had to reverse it. She wrapped the lipped end around my neck, (rather tightly, frak!) and raised the housing of the tape up to the hook. It fit. Barely. My plan had backfired and we were right back at the same dead end we'd been hanging out at since we arrived. Damn.

"It was worth a shot," Elise said, trying to cheer me up.

"I know. Maybe this whole thing was just an accident and a huge coincidence. I don't know."

"We don't have much time left here, ya know."

She was right. We had to be back on the road by tomorrow night at the latest. Sorry, Tom Jones, but Elliot has his Christmas program at school on Friday and there was no way in hell we were are to miss it. After that, it was the politically correct WINTER BREAK. We had twenty four hours to solve two cases with very little leads.

Things weren't looking promising. I wanted some dinner. We decided to call it a night so we could order some room service and get a good night's sleep. Tomorrow would, more than likely, be a very long day.

18.

We went to bed fairly early, which was good for me since I was exhausted from the night before. We showered and got dressed, getting ready for our day. We also packed our bags, thinking it would be better to be able to work as late as possible, then just grab our stuff and leave when the time came. I removed my sheets from the bed and replaced them with the proper, Vegas Style, Crab-Infested linens. On our way out, I pushed the room service tray out into the hallway, giving it a good once over, making sure there was no way to smuggle a body out on it. There wasn't. Damn.

We made our way back down to the security office to scrutinize more boring video footage. Once we arrived and took our seats, my cell phone rang. I didn't recognize the number.

"Hello," I answer.

"Hey honey," a woman's throaty voice cackles at me.

"Um, hey. Sorry, who's this?"

"It's Gena, baby, what are you doing?"

"Gena?"

Elise stopped dead in her tracks and looked at me, eyes wide with half anger, half disgust...and I guess another half of disbelieve.

(Three halves, whatever, that's possible in Vegas.)

"Gena..." I continued, "From the Gap in Beverly Hills?" My face had contorted to what I could only imagine as a look of pure fright. My eyes were clenched tight and I actually realized two of my fingers on my left hand were crossed.

(Please be Gina from the Gap please be Gina from the gap.)

(That's stupid, why would Gina from The Gap call you?)

(Oh my god, is phone herpes possible?)

(Ohmygodohmygod)

"No baby, Gena from the other night. Remember, you took me to dinner? Wined me, dined me but you never six-"

(ohmygod!)

"Gena! Oh my god," I yelled, cutting her off before she could finish that sentence, the sentence that would make my ears bleed for all eternity. "What...? Wait...How...? Why...? How...did you get my number?"

"You gave me your card, silly. Told me to call you anytime. You don't remember?"

I looked towards Elise who put her hands up in defeat and began to scoot away in her chair.

"Ohhh...yeah...sure I do. Sure I do. So, um, whatcha dooooin?"

"Oh nothing, I'm just bored, ya know. I'm working your casino, thought I'd give ya a call. I ain't even slept yet, ya know. Had nothin' goin' for me last night. Buncha fuckin' deadbeats around here on a weeknight. Only time a weeknight is good for me lately is when there's one of them big conventions in town, ya know? This place hosts a lot of them. So does Mandalay Bay. There was a big one here last week. It was great. That's good money right there. Those poor ol' bastards are desperate and lonely; they'll pay anything for a slice of ol' Gena." She tried to laugh at her own witty joke but it ended up coming out as some rancid, wet and phlegmy smoker's cough that seemed to go on for about a minute and a half. I wanted to drop my phone in bleach. Scratch that, I wanted to drop it in a mixture of bleach and ammonia, and breath in the heavenly fumes to enjoy that sweet relief only death can bring. I had another idea though.

"Hey Gena," I said, (holy shit, Elise is going to kill me...) "Do me a favor. Since you're not busy right now, would you mind coming down the security room of the hotel. I need you to take a look at some people for me."

Elise's chair had magically, and rather swiftly, returned to my side. Her arms flew up like a drowning victim and her eyes were so wide you could see white all the way around her irises. I won't tell you what she was mouthing to me, just use your imagination on that one. Let's just say I haven't heard the F word used so colorfully since the last time I watched Pulp Fiction. Actually, that's a lie; I heard that glorious word woven through such a fine tapestry of awesomeness the one and only time I ever went skiing with her.

I put my finger up, letting her know I knew what I was doing and had an idea. She slapped it back down.

(ow!)

"I've been to the security offices here before, big stud," Gena responded. "I don't really want to go back, ya know'im sayin'?"

"It's not like that. If you know where the office is then I will meet you out front in five minutes. I'll go get you a clearance so you can come back here with us."

"Okay, baby, I hope this ain't no setup or nothin'?"

"Why would I set you up? Don't be lame. Five minutes." I hung up the phone. I swear to god I didn't even hear the call disconnect before Elise was yelling at me.

"Calm down! Shit. Just trust me on this one. It's worth a shot and we're running out of time. Look, here's what I'm thinking. We've been staring and this stupid video for hours and hours, looking at person after person after person. Looking for anyone who looks suspicious, anyone who is acting shady or nervous or anything. Studying every frame looking for even the slightest little tick in every goddamn person that comes off that stupid elevator. We can't find anything, correct?"

"Yeah, so?"

"So this. If someone just beat a woman and is smuggling her out of the hotel somehow, wouldn't it make sense that he would be pretty stinkin' nervous?"

"Yes, we've gone over-"

"But wait! What kind of person wouldn't be nervous? What kind of fucking nut job could do something like this and walk right out the door, totally nonchalant?"

"Someone...shit. Someone who has done this before."

"Exactimundo." I gave her a thumbs up and rose from my seat. "Look, we have a handful of suspects left. If this dumb broad works this casino a lot, then there is a chance, albeit a small one, but still a chance that she could recognize someone. It's our last day and we have to try. Now I'll be back in a few minutes. Do me a favor and go grab as many cans of Lysol as you can scrounge up... Also, get fire and possibly some holy water. Oh, and a chair she can use that we can burn afterwards. K thanks."

Elise rolled her eyes at me and I turned to walk away. I'm not sure, but I'm nearly positive there were some obscene hand gestures going on behind my back.

19.

I returned soon with Gena trailing behind me like a lost puppy dog.

"Wow, I ain't ne'er been down here before. I've been in the security office, like where they take ya before they take ya to jail, but never here. Neat!"

Her glossy, bloodshot eyes gave the room a once over. Her face had the look of astonishment on it and I began to think maybe my idea wasn't the greatest. Oh well, too late now.

"Hey, look at all dem TVs! Ya'll get cable down here?" she asked, seriously I'm afraid.

"Gena, you remember Elise from the other night. Elise, Gena."

"Yeah, how I can forget Gena?" Elise asked with a bit too much biting sarcasm in her tone. Good thing Gena appeared to be oblivious to everything.

"Hey," Gena said, "ya'll mind if I smoke?"

"No Gena," I answered, "remember two minutes ago when I made you put your cigarette out and said there was no smoking in the office?"

"Oh yeah, hon, I forgot."

"Yeah," I said, "now just enjoy your can of Bud Light there, (at 9am) while I find the right videos we need you to take a look at."

"Alright hunny, you're da'boss. So, this real excitin' down here or what? Ya'll feel like that Sharon Stone movie, what's it called? With the guy? And them cameras?"

I waited for Elise to answer in her snappy little sass tone, but she sat silently, plotting my murder I suppose.

"No, Gena," I answered. "It's actually extremely boring. Super boring. Like, Nascar boring."

"Ohmygod, I loves me some Nascar! One time last year I showed Tony Stewart my tittes! He was in town and I was like, Hey lover boy, and out they came. I could tell he was impressed. Ohhhhh, if he were here now, let me tell you-!"

I don't know how to explain what was happening when she was sharing her lovely Tony-and-Titties story with us, but when she said the part about If he were here right now, she bent over, put her Bud Light-filled left hand on the desk to brace herself then slapped her ass with her right hand. I had to put a stop to this. I was about to speak up when Elise beat me to it.

"Gena! STOP! How fucking old are you anyway? Like, what, fifty?"

Gena stood up. The look on her face suggested she had no idea why we were getting snippy with her. Apparently in Whoresville, bending over and pretending to have sex with an imaginary non-athlete was perfectly acceptable. Her look soon turned to confusion and she looked like a deer that was about to get smashed in to by a semi.

"Age ain't nothin' but a number, hunny. You 'member that. Plus, these youngins around here ain't got experience. Guys don't want some rookie. They want us mature ladies, who know how to work it." She began thrusting in our direction. "Just ask your boy here. " She looked at me and gave me a wink. "Right baby?"

"Okay, that's enough!" I yelled. "I don't want to talk about tittes or stupid Nascar, or some beer guzzling hillbilly whose major talent is being able to turn left! I want to find a rapist! Elise, queue up the videos, Gena, sit down and shut up, and throw away that tacky Bud Light. You look like you should be sitting in a goddamn plastic lawn chair instead of that five hundred dollar office chair. Please."

Technically she did what I said. She stood up to throw the can away but chugged the rest of the beer on the way to the trashcan. (Fine whatever, god!)

"Okay, look," I continued, "you don't need to know the basis of the investigation, you-"

"I already know it, silly. You told me all about it during our wonderful evening together."

The look I got from Elise would have made the baby Jesus shutter in fear. I closed my eyes and thought about how stupid I had been. Stupid alcohol.

"Ugh, okay," I shook my head and said. "Look, right now all we have left are people leaving this elevator with suitcases. That's all we've got left. I need you to look closely at all of these men and see if you recognize any of them. Maybe someone who has been hanging around the hotel, looking suspicious, anything."

"Ay yi, cappin'!" Gena said, with a salute and a smile. (maybe this chicks not so bad.)

We played the first video, a man in a nice suit leaving the elevator at 7:16am, six minutes after the last time we saw Leslie. This was my favorite lead because out of all the men, he seemed to have the only size suitcase that could hold a body. Elise pointed out to me, though, that the man was carrying the suitcase instead of pulling it, which would have made him Superman, apparently. I still liked him the best and was glad we started off with him. We had all but abandoned the idea of the two men team. We had to just assume the second attacker stayed behind for a while and left alone later. There would be no way of finding him.

Gena leaned in closely to the monitors and took a good hard look. "Naw, he don't look familiar to me."

"Doesn't," I corrected.

"Huh?"

"He DOESN'T look familiar to you..."

"Yeah, that's what I just said, aintcha listenin'? (Nevermind about what I said before. ugh!)

"Okay, then here is the second guy." Elise started the video. This guy I recognized as the large man who stepped on the elevator with Leslie as it was going up. He was seen at 7:10 as the doors closed on him and Leslie, and appeared again at 7:25 rolling out a suitcase. He would have seemed like a logical choice but we didn't think the bag he was wheeling out was anywhere near big enough for a woman of 5'3" to be smuggled out of. It just looked way too tiny. Anyway, this guy's door, we are assuming, was opened five minutes later, two floors above Leslie's. I said we are assuming before because from the time after we last saw them on the elevator, four doors were opened using keycards. One was Leslie's room on the thirty seventh floor, one was Balls' room also on the thirty seventh floor, and two rooms we're opened on the thirty ninth floor, all within just a few minutes of each other. We had to assume he was one of the two on the upper floor, especially since he was seen again so soon after with his bags packed.

After he stepped off the elevator with his suitcase, he made his way to a slot machine and gave it a few pulls, his suitcase left unattended by his side while he pissed some more money away. Hardly something someone would do with a body in the case. Also, as he was exiting the hotel, right when the automatic doors opened and he was crossing the threshold, his suitcase caught on the door glides and fell over. The door man immediately bent over and picked the case back up, all the while our man was calm as could be, even giving the door man a friendly pat on the shoulder. Again, not what we were looking for in a man smuggling a woman outside against her will. The camera followed him all the way along the outside of the hotel and into the parking garage. Even if we did believe the attacker had done this before, those were risks no one should ever take. Stopping at the slot machine is what pretty much clinched his innocence for us.

Gena gave the screen another hard look. No dice. She said she didn't recognize this guy either.

"Ya'll got these guys's names?" Gena asked. (guys's?)

"No," I answered. "That would be way too easy. Apparently the only file this stupid hotel keeps on their guests is their credit card number. Mighty fine business they're running here, huh?"

"That's stupid."

"Ya know what, Gena? That is stupid. You are absolutely right. I would rather call up every single person and flat out ask them if they raped some girl than sit here and try to sift through all these assholes. How a hotel can have no record of their guests beyond a credit card absolutely behooves me. They're really taking that Whatever happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas bullshit pretty seriously."

"That's stupid."

I shook my head and rolled my eyes. We moved on. This was our last real chance. The rest of our suspects were extreme long shots, wearing backpacks or messenger bags. Yeah, if this guy wasn't a hit then we were done for. We would have to leave Las Vegas, just like everyone else, as losers.

Elise started the video. Out of the elevator stepped a young man of about twenty five or so. Shorts, a hoodie sweatshirt and flip flops. An odd attire for a December morning, but that wasn't our concern. He was pulling behind him a suitcase that looked like, MAYBE, could hold our victim. We assumed Leslie wasn't exactly riding in comfort and she would had have to be knocked out anyway. I dunno, I guess it was possible. I wished it was possible.

Gena squinted and leaned in closer towards the monitor. I thought I saw a glimmer of recognition in her eyes. My heart sped up and I got excited.

"Yeah, yeah," she said, "I think I seen him before." (seen him? You think you SEEN him before?! Come on, people, this is basic first grade grammar, here. You SEEN him?! Gah!)

I tried to hide my cringe and Elise noticed, giving me a hearty smile as she leaned back in her chair and I leaned forward in mine. "You've seen him before?"

"Yeah, wait, no. No. False alarm. I was thinking of that guy...from that show...ya know, the one with the other guys that used to be on TV a while ago?"

Elise spoke up, "Oh yeah, I know exactly what show you're talking about. Come on, Archie, the one with that guy. Duh." She shook her head in a desperate attempt to clear the stupidity from the air. "Thank you for your time, Ms....Gena, we'll call you if we can think of anything further we may need you for." Elise reached into her purse and took out a five dollar bill and handed it to Gena. "Go buy yourself another can of Bud Light, on us for your trouble."

"Well shit stain! Right on, thanks guys!" Gena exclaimed, genuinely excited. "Looks like it's about Beer-Thirty for this ol' gal!"

And that was that. We had nothing and it was almost time to go home. We left the security room and stopped at Mulroney's office after we let Gena out. We informed him of the bad news but assured him we would keep working on it from home in any way possible. If we found anything we would be sure to call him. He thanked us for our effort and told us he had been working on it pretty much non-stop too with the same results. He had insurance adjusters breathing down his neck and if he didn't come up with something soon the whole hotel was in for quite the beating. We told him we would stay in touch and closed the door on our way out.

Our next stop was at the police station where we met up again with Detective Howard of the LVPD. He told us pretty much the same thing Mulroney had told us. It was a case that had everyone stumped. He wasn't going to be able to let this one go though, the women cases we're always the hardest to get out of your mind. I assured him that we wouldn't be letting this one go either.

Elise told the detective that just because we would no longer be in Vegas didn't mean we would stop working every angle we could come up with. We wished him luck, he did the same, and we walked out to our car, starting our journey through the desert and back home, my mind never leaving the case. I was so frustrated I wanted to cry. I fought through it though and the two of us ended up barely speaking the entire drive home. We were both just too preoccupied so we let my iPod fill the silence.

20.

The drive back home was actually shorter than the drive there, something that usually never happens. Traffic leaving Vegas is notorious for being horrible all the way until Barstow, but I guess we just got lucky by leaving on a Thursday afternoon.

We picked the kids up from Jamie's house first thing. We needed to see them. We hadn't been away from them for that long in almost a year and a half when Jamie had to take them home from the beach when Elise and I were caught up with the Brad Jackson drama. They were excited to see us. It made me feel a whole lot better. I missed my dog, too.

We were exhausted from the drive but decided to take the kids out for a quick dinner before they had to go to bed. Not only was tomorrow the last day of school for two weeks, but it was also Elliot's big Christmas program. I wasn't really sure what exactly a Christmas program consisted of, but it didn't matter much I guess. I had volunteered to get there early and help set up. Again, I didn't know what would need being set up, but all the same, I'll do anything for those kids, and this seemed like it could be fun.

We ended up eating dinner at In N Out on Stockdale Hwy about two miles from my house, then Elise dropped me and Wrecker off and took the boys home. I checked my mailbox, which, if I were popular, should have been overflowing due to my absence. It was not. An ad for the grocery store that ripped me off, a mortgage bill even though I signed up for paperless statements four times and my glorious replacement Capital One Business card. Thank ya Jeebus! I dumped the ad and the bill straight into the trashcan by my gate then proceeded to walked inside my house. It felt good to be home. I went into the bathroom and washed all the Vegas dank from my body with nearly-scalding hot water, then put on some ridiculously over-priced Abercrombie sweatpants and retired to my sofa.

I actually got to sleep in a bit the next morning. It was a rather nice luxury that I had nearly forgotten about. I didn't have a single appointment today and Elise and I decided there was no need for us to even be at the office. All I had to do was call Vince and tell him where we stood. We would also be releasing five hundred dollars of the hold we put on his credit card. The five-hundred he paid us up front along with an addition five from the hold would be enough to cover our expenses. We had every right to keep the entire amount, being as we told him up front the case was a long shot and we did spend several days on it, but we felt bad. I also needed to tell him that we weren't giving up on it just yet, either.

After I made the call the rest of my morning was spent watching television and relaxing. I kept checking the clock. I was excited to help Elliot set up at his school tonight and I was excited to have a nice evening out with my loved ones.

My cell phone rang at 3:50. It was Elliot. It was time to go!

I walked out to my car and drove over to pick him up. Elliot and I would get there early and Elise and Eric would meet us there before show time. I was happy to have some time together with the little dude.

We got to the school and Elliot held my hand and led me to the office where I had to check in and get a GUEST sticker. We were then instructed to go to the auditorium where various staff members were preparing for tonight's show. Elliot ran. I followed behind.

The inside of the auditorium was actually pretty impressive, especially for a grade school. I had often seen it from the outside, but never once had a reason to go inside until now. The stage was busy with men and women setting up various sets, chit-chatting and drinking coffee. Some kids were huddled in the corner watching and Elliot saw a few of his friends and took off to visit. I walked up to the first adult I could find and told her who I was and what I was here for. She instructed me to check in with some other lady, a Mrs. McClintock. Apparently she was in charge of this fiasco. She was pointed out to me and I took off to get my orders.

"Mrs. McClintock?" I inquire as I lightly tap her on her shoulder.

"Yes?" she said, turning around.

"Hi, my name's Archie. I'm Elliot's...I'm here with Elliot." My finger wandered over the crowd until I finally spotted him and pointed. "That dude, right there."

"Oh yes. You are here to help set up, right?"

"That's right. Just tell me what to do."

"Great, you see that guy standing over there with the flannel shirt on?"

"Yep."

"That's Bob. He's in charge of the sets. There are a few large items that need to be put out on to the stage and we need some strong, strapping young men to do it for us. Do you think you're up to the task?"

"Um, sure. Yeah. I think I can handle it. So, check in with Bob?"

"Yep."

"Great. I'll be back," and off I went to talk to Bob.

Bob didn't appear to be young, strong or strapping, whatever that meant. In fact, he reminded me of Dan Conner from Roseanne, but whatever.

"Bob?" I asked as I approached him.

"Yeah, I'm Bob."

"Archie Lemons, I'm here with Elliot, who isssss..." I glanced around the room , "well, he's over there somewhere. I'm here to help. Heard ya had a few heavy things that needed to be moved on stage."

"Oh great. Yeah, we have a few fake trees and some other crap back there. We also need the speakers pushed out and set up. You know anything about speakers?"

"Actually, I do. Shouldn't be a problem."

"Great, well, let's get started. Everything is on dollies so it'll make it a little easier to push out. The hard part will be taking them off the dollies. It's not that these things are really heavy, they're not, some of them are just a little top heavy, ya know."

"I know. I'm pretty sure we can handle it. Let's go."

Bob led me through the curtains to backstage. Here was where all the props were being held. It didn't look like it would be too difficult of a job. In fact, I'm pretty sure Bob could have handled this on his own. Oh well, no big deal. I was happy to help, especially if it made Elliot happy, even though he had all but abandoned me and left me alone. With Bob

Bob walked over to the side of the stage and opened up the curtains. There were long slits with metal runners fit down inside them on the floor at the back of the stage where the backdrop pictures would need to be fitted in to so they could slide in and out on their grooves for the scene changes. We would do that. First we had trees to bring out.

The trees were all handmade and rather impressive for an elementary school Christmas program. They were each about ten feet tall and set on a dolly, which was really just a square piece of cheaply carpeted wood with four wheels. It was an easy move, seeing as our only obstacle was the little set runners at the back. They glided over them with perfect ease and we arranged all three trees on the stage. We would take them off the dollies once we were finished with everything.

Our last dolly was piled high with the stereo equipment. There were more speakers than I thought there would be, and I figured it would take me at least an hour to run all the wires and get everything up and running.

The speakers were stacked with two huge subwoofers, (for a children's program? Really?) two mid-range speakers and a cardboard box filled with microphones, microphone stands and a receiver. It was wobbly and unsteady. (Just great.)

Bob and I wheeled the pile of electronics very slowly, steering with one hand each and holding the top of the pile with the other hand. We had good momentum going but as soon as we hit the divot in the stage the wheels caught and down came crashing the box of microphones and all the microphone stands, making a horribly loud, tingy clank that echoed all throughout the auditorium.

All eyes were on us (hey look, there's Elliot) as I could offer up nothing more for an apology than a lazy, apathetic shoulder shrug.

"Oops." I said. "My bad."
21.

Nothing was badly damaged during the unfortunate spill to the ground and I was able to get everything in perfect working order and totally set up in just over an hour. I was shocked. It was the first time I had ever set something up and not had something go terribly wrong on me. I was rather impressed with myself.

As I was doing that, several teachers were scrambling around the auditorium setting up all the chairs and putting up all the last minute touches that apparently make grade school Christmas productions seem to move so smoothly. None of that would help the kids' acting abilities though. Oh well.

I checked the clock on the wall. It was almost time for Elise and Eric to arrive, along with all the other proud parents. It was already dark outside. Elliot came up to me and finally decided to leave his friends for a minute and come say hello. I rustled his hair up a bit and told him he better go get ready. He thanked me, gave me a hug and hurried off back towards his friends and out of my sight to get prepared.

The parents began flooding the auditorium, but still no sign of the E's. I sent her a text but it went unanswered. With ten minutes left to show time and most people already in their seats, I began to get a little worried and stepped outside to call. I didn't even finish dialing the number before I saw them hustle up through the open gate towards me.

"Oh man," I said, "I thought you guys weren't going to make it. What's the deal?"

"Sorry sorry," Elise said. "I couldn't find my keys! I looked everywhere and they just vanished."

"Mmhmm, and where were they?"

"Pocket of the sweatshirt I wore earlier today."

"Ha! Yeah, that's what I thought." I bent over and picked up Eric. "Hey buddy! Long time no see."

"Mommy tried to make us late," he whispered to me.

"Yeah," I said. "That mommy. She's a troublemaker. Ready to go watch your brother?"

"Yeah!" And with that we all walked into the auditorium and took our seats towards the back. I had to have the aisle seat of course. Any other seat is too risky for me, for a rather large number of reasons, none of which I will bore you with. You're welcome.

The lights dimmed and the show started. It was the younger kids, one year older than Eric, who lead off the show with a couple of generic Christmas tunes. I leaned over to Little E and whispered, "Get ready, homes, that's going to be you next year."

Eric screwed up his eyes, stuck out his tongue and said "Yuck!", perhaps a little too loudly. Elise gave us both a look and told us to shh. We did as we were told.

When that group of kids finished and marched off stage, Elliot's group came on. They did a version of Charlie Brown Christmas, or whatever it's called, and it was actually quite cute. Sure, all of the kids looked like they attended the Denise Richard's School of Shitty, Flat and Cardboard Acting, but whatever, right? They're kids; they deserve a little slack when it comes to these types of things. I clapped the loudest and obnoxiously longest when they were finished. I was proud of the little guy. He played Schroeder.

I didn't much care about the rest of the show and my A.D.D. was already kicking in in full force. My mind began to wander as I searched around the room for anything more entertaining. No dice. Some teachers were on stage setting up the microphone stands for the next performance. I chuckled to myself.

"Dude, Elise, I almost broke those stupid microphones earlier."

"What? How?"

"We were-" And that was it. My mind clicked and my eyes began to tunnel. I couldn't even keep focus. I vaguely heard Elise saying my name and someone, probably Eric, pulling on my shirt sleeve, but I had no choice but to ignore it. I'm pretty sure the lights went down again and the show started back up and I heard the noise in the room grow louder. I paid no attention to it, though. I was working on something.

When I finally came to, Elise and the kids were standing by my side. The show was over, the parents had gone. We we're alone in the auditorium. I was still sitting.

"Archie! God, we were about to call an ambulance for you," Elise said, as I finally began clearing my head. "God, I've only seen you get like that twice before in your life. Is everything okay? I had to explain to the staff here what was wrong with you and talk them in to letting us stay for a bit. They're not happy, Archie. We have to leave. Come on."

Still I sat.

"Come on, Uncle Archie, we're hungry," one of the kids said, though I'm not exactly sure which one. My head was still a bit fuzzy. I closed my eyes tightly to try and clear the fog then finally stood up. "We have to go back to Vegas."

22.

We made a deal with Jamie and the kids; We would be gone for no more than three days, back in plenty of time for final shopping, Christmas eve and Christmas day. Then, after Christmas, I would be springing for a trip to Disneyland. The kids were an easily sell. I assured Jamie that her and Calen would be coming, too, and her husband, Whatshisname, was more than welcome to attend to if he could get the time off. Jamie hesitated, saying it wasn't a big deal and that I didn't need to do that. I insisted and she finally agreed. That same morning Elise and I were back on the road to Las Vegas.

Elise wasn't very thrilled with me that I was refusing to discuss my epiphany until we were back at the hotel. But I had to work this entire thing out in my brain, and besides that, there were still a few things I needed to double check before I could finally be one-hundred-percent positive my theory was correct.

It was a long drive.

I tried to lighten to mood with my normal rants and raves and ramblin's but nothing seemed to work very well.

"Okay fine," I say to Elise, finally giving in a little bit to her silent treatment. "I know who the rapist is."

"Well I figured that, but who?! Who?!"

I pulled over to the side of the road. We were in the middle of the desert. The wind was blowing a dirt tornado off in the distance as I told Elise.

***

We got to the hotel an hour and a half later and walked straight to the security office, stopping only to check in again with the secretary out front.

"I thought you guys left." she said.

"We did," Elise answered "We had a previous engagement back home that we had to attend. But we're back down and we're not leaving until we finish everything this time."

"Fuckin' A," I added, for some unknown, stupid reason. I regretted saying it before it was fully even out of my mouth. Oh well.

She let us into the surveillance room and told us Mr. Mulroney was out on the floor but she would let him know we were here. We thanked her and she closed the door behind her.

The screens were all reset and showing the real-time actions of all the people on the casino floor and other areas of the hotel. We had saved all our videos and knew exactly how to retrieve them. I had it up and running within five minutes. I stood up and tapped the glass of the monitor. "There he is, E. There he is."

"Now we just have to figure out who he is and where to find him."

"We'll get him. I promise you." I returned my attention to the monitor. The video was paused. On the screen was our victim and standing right next to her on the elevator was a large man in a flannel shirt. I leaned in closely and got a good look at him. "We got ya, Fatboy."

I resumed play and watched as the elevator doors closed. Fifteen and a half minutes later, according to the video, that same man exited the elevator, this time rolling a suitcase behind him. A suitcase that I was convinced Leslie was shoved in.

I heard the door open and we both turned to look.

"Mulroney. Just the man we wanted to see," I said

"I thought you guys left," Mulroney said.

Elise took over. "We did. But we're back. We've got it."

"Oh, do share," he said as he walked over to the monitors. "I hope you're right because I have a meeting today with hotel management, security and our insurance adjusters. Something I am not looking forward to. I would love to bring them good news."

"Well," I said, "here's what we've got. You see this guy right here?" I tapped the monitor again. It was paused on our suspect exiting the elevator with, hopefully, Leslie in his bag.

"This guy?" he asked. "How do you know?"

"I know because no one else could have done it. We've accounted for every single goddamn person that came in to this hotel and used that elevator. No one used the stairs; no one used an emergency exit. It's him. I know it is. Watch."

I rewound the video and started with Leslie stepping on the elevator. I narrated for our guest.

"Okay, here is the last time we see Leslie. And here is our suspect." I paused the video. "We followed this guy backwards and all he was doing for most of the evening was wandering around the casino. He would occasionally sit at a table or a slot machine, but for never more than five to ten minutes. He also stops at two bars and has a couple of drinks. He had several chances to see our vic throughout the night. At one point they even came within five feet or so of each other. He never gives her a second look though which leads me to believe he knew what he was doing. Our vic makes her way from the bar to the elevator. The suspect must see her get up and begin to follow her. The vic gets on the elevator alone, the doors start to close, and here comes our suspect. The vic holds the doors for him, he steps on and says something to her. The vic is seen smiling as the door closed." I resume the video and watch as the doors shield us from her.

"Okay guys," Mulroney said, "I'm going to need more than this, here."

"Oh there is more," Elise replied.

"Much more," I added, rather over-dramatically. I fast forwarded to 7:25am on the video and the doors open again. This time our suspect steps off. "Here he is. You see his suitcase?"

"Yes."

"I'm ninety-nine percent sure our victim is shoved in there."

"I've seen this video a hundred times. How do you know? Look at the size of that suitcase. She's not in there. There's no way."

"There's more."

"Besides," he continued, "this fatfuck just walks out of the elevator and straight to a slot machine. This is not something I would be doing if I had a woman stuffed in my suitcase."

"I agree," I said. "We thought the same thing, too. That's why we were so quick to dismiss him. I probably still wouldn't have given him another thought had something not happened back home. Here, watch." The video continued to play. Our suspect sat at a slot machine for a few minutes then stood up again to leave. "You watching?"

"I'm watching."

"Here he goes heading for the exit."

"Okay..."

"Here it comes." On the screen, our suspect's suitcase tips over as he is exiting the building. "Kaboom!" I yell. I paused the video just as the doorman is bending over to pick up the case.

"Kaboom?" Mulroney asks, rather confused. "Kaboom what? What happened?"

I tap the screen again. "Here. Right here. You see this?"

Mulroney leaned in, squinting. "What? What am I looking at?"

I run my finger in a horizontal line across the bottom of the screen, tracing the lines of the automatic door's runner. "This."

"The door tracks?"

"Correctimundo! The door tracks. Look. Every other asshole with a suitcase on wheels walks right out the door with no problems whatsoever. Except this guy. Except this asshole right here."

Mulroney still looked puzzled. I turned towards Elise and watched her smile grow wide. She was convinced. I pressed on.

"I was setting up the stage for my little nephews Christmas program yesterday. They had the entire bunch of set pieces on these flat little four-wheeled dollies. It was my job to wheel the dollies out and set up the stage. Right behind the back curtain was a runner, just like the one for the doors here, but these were used to roll the backdrops back and forth. I wheeled all the dollies over that little groove with no problems at all. Except one. The last one." For some reason I put one finger in the air. I leaned in closer to Mulroney. "The last dolly was piled high with stereo equipment. Two large, heavy speakers, some smaller speakers, a box with microphones and wires and things and some microphone stands. It was heavy to even push. We hit that runner and the front wheels caught and down goes Frasier. The boxes and several stands came crashing down. It was the weight." I sat back in my chair and let the smile take over my face. "The sheer weight of that stereo equipment caused the wheel to catch. All the lighter ones went right over it, just like how all the other suitcases glided right over this one. What made this guy's suitcase so heavy that the wheels wouldn't be able to glide over it?"

"Holy shit."

"Holy shit is right," Elise said.

"Look," Mulroney went on, "we have to be sure. I still don't even think a woman can fit in that bag. We need to find out for sure."

"I know how we can find out," Elise said as she stood up and removed her phone from her purse. "Archie, rewind the video to right when this fat bastard takes his first step off the elevator."

I did as I was instructed and Elise held her phone to the screen, snapping a picture.

23.

Elise's idea was a pretty good one. The three of us were currently standing in the open elevator, the doors being wedged open.

"This guy was a giant," Elise says. "Regular size things would appear much smaller than they probably are. Archie, get your tape measure out."

I opened up the flap on my messenger bag and retrieved the tape measure. I tried to hand it to Elise but she told me to hold on to it for a minute. "Actually, Archie, I need you to stand right in the doorway here." I positioned myself in the center of elevator. "Okay look," Elise pulled up the picture she just took with her phone. The picture showed our suspect standing right where I was, pulling his suitcase that we believed contained our vic. "Now, what we need to figure out, once and for all, is if this bag he is pulling is big enough to stuff a 5'3" woman into. In order to do that, we need to figure out the dimensions of that bag."

"How is that possible?" Mulroney asked.

"I think I know," I answered. I knew where Elise was going with this and I was quite proud. I tossed the measuring tape up in the air and caught it. I did this a few more times as Elise continued with her plan.

"Look at the tiles here," she said as she pointed to the floor of the elevator. We both looked. "All we have to do it figure out how many tiles our suspect filled up and how many tiles the suitcase took up, then do the math and figure out their exact sizes."

I had begun using my tape measure as a yo-yo, holding the tip and throwing the base down, unwinding, then snapping it back up. It's that whole A.D.D. thing again.

"Can we do that?" Mulroney asked. "I mean, is it possible?"

"Of course it is," Elise answered. "This guy right here can do anything." She gave me a nod, followed by a wink when Mulroney wasn't looking. I smiled back at her.

"Good job, Elise."

"Thanks, Arch."

I snapped the tape back up and measured a tile. Each one was eight inches by eight inches and with the door open there are nine tiles in the opening, for a total of six feet. I looked at the picture and saw that our suspect's body took up five full tiles. Starting from the very end of the door on my right-hand side, the first tile was left empty; the space above it was filled with his right arm. On the second and third tile was the man's right foot. The fourth tile had the man's left heel on it, with the fifth tile housing the rest of the foot.

I looked at the picture again and estimated where the top of his head was to the top of the door. I measured and put his height at about 6'4". I dug into my bag and removed a pencil and marked on the tiles the location of his feet.

"Mulroney," I said, "I need you to stand right here."

He walked over and entered the elevator next to me. "Okay."

"Great. I need you to put your feet on these marks here. You will be our suspect." Mulroney hit his marks and I backed up to take a good look at him. I held the phone up comparing the pictures to the reality. Elise leaned over to take a look for herself.

"This guy is a giant," she said. "What's the wrestler guy's name? The one from Princess Bride?"

Ha! "You mean Andre the Giant?"

"Yeah, that's the one. Where has he been lately?"

"Um, rotting in a grave for like, the past twenty years."

"Oh. Damn. I guess we can rule him out, then."

"Brilliant deduction. Moving on."

"Agreed. At least this explains why the suitcase looks so small. The guy is a gorilla."

"How many tiles does it look like the suitcase is taking up?"

"I can't really tell," she said, leaning in closer to get a better look at the picture. "Look, that one wheel is dead center on that tile."

We walked back into the elevator and stood behind Mulroney. We located the tiled that the wheel was on when the suspect began walking out. We lined up everything as well as we could, marked the tiles, and then measured. Our final estimate (or GUESSTIMATE if you're a douche) was that the bag was a little more than two feet wide and about three feet tall.

"I never would have guessed it was that big," I said. The eyes can play tricks on you.

"Now we just have to find out if someone can fit in a bag that size," Elise added.

"Mulroney," I said, "is there a store in here that sells luggage?"

"Of course. There are several high end shops in our mall area."

"Great," I said. "Can you take us to one. We need a bag this size. Elise...?"

"Yep?"

"I think you're going to have to be our victim. How limber are you?"

"What? I can't fit in that bag!"

"You're going to have to try. You're the only one who is close to our vic's height."

"I'm like three inches taller than her, it won't be exact."

"Yeah, but if you can fit then we'll know that Leslie could fit."

"Come on, I don't want to do this. We can find someone else. One of these stupid, giggly drunk bitches will probably do it if you buy them another beer."

"Actually, you just gave me an idea. I know who is a little shorter than you and probably will work for a beer."

"Oh lord."

"Yep. I'm going to call up Gena the Whore."

Elise palm-smacked her forehead while I pulled out my phone and began scroll through my call log. I hit dial then looked up at Elise again, "She's probably more flexible than you, too."

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure she's used her ears as foot rests before. She should work."

Gena picked up on the fourth ring. "Archie baby?"

"Um. Yeah. Hi. It's me. My number is saved in your phone?"

"Of course baby, you're the most interesting john I've had in a long time."

My face went flush. "I...I'm...I was... I'mma never. I was never a...a... john."

Elise snorted with laughter, so loud she had to turn around and walk away. I'd be taking shit for this one for months. I can see it now.

"Well, whatever, baby, not yet I guess," Gena responded.

"Hey, uh, yeahhhh, anyway. Um, we have a favor to ask of you. Where are you right now?"

"Me? Oh yeah, just hanging out. I thought you went home."

"We did, but we're back. If you're available, could you come back to the Myra? We have a favor to ask."

"Oh sugar, I do enjoy favors. I'm across the street. Give me fifteen minutes, darling."

"Oh. Oh great. Okay. Meet us at the front desk. Fifteen minutes."

"Okay baby. See you then."

"Um. Yeah. Okay, see ya then." I ended the call on my phone and put it back in my pocket. Three seconds hadn't even passed since I disconnected when Elise punched me in the arm and keeled over laughing at me. Lousy broad.

"You are quite the ladies' man, Archie Lemons. Quite the ladies' man, indeed." More laughter. All I could do was shake my head. Ugh.

The man's inaugural victim was a young redhead woman whose tresses smelled of cigarette smoke. He had spotted her at the hotel's pool and kept a close watch on her, studying her daily routine and making certain she was alone. It was his first time and he was overly cautious and paranoid. For years he had attempted to combat his indocile and irrepressible impulses but could no longer contain the beast that lay within.

He had diligently surveyed the hotel's layout. He had to map an escape route once he abducted his victim. He assumed he would have to abstain from elevators since they often had cameras. It would be best to stick to stairwells, even though toting the bag containing her would be a bit of a hassle while descending the steps.

Midnight was approaching. The woman had the custom of staying up late, sitting outside by herself and having a drink and a few cigarettes. The man never saw her with anyone. He assumed she was put up here on business. That would be the best scenario for him. He walked out on the terrace, dragging his empty suitcase behind him and looked down upon the redheaded woman smoking. When the woman snuffed out her cigarette and stood up, the man made his way down to the woman's floor. He had just stepped off the stairs as the woman was exiting the elevator. He knew which room was hers so he had to pace himself just right. The woman arrived at her room while the man was ten feet away. She opened her door and stepped inside. While the door was shutting, the man sprinted and wedged his foot in the jamb just in time. He barged his way into the woman's room and quickly muffled her screams with his massive hands. He punched her in the mouth and nose until she fell unconscious to the floor. He then scooped up her petite, limp body and stuffed it into the suitcase.

He was nervous and skittish. He hands were trembling with aflutter.

He departed the room, pulling the woman behind him and made his way to his car, where he put the suitcase in his trunk, started his engine and journeyed out to the middle of nowhere completely unheeded.

After that initial time, things only got easier for him. He continued fulfilling his desires at nearly every stop his occupation took him.

24.

Apparently whores are quite punctual. There's a little fun fact for ya. Fourteen minutes after ending my phone call, in walked Gena through the front doors of the Myra Hotel. She threw up her right arm in an over-exaggerated wave in my general direction. "Hey baby! I made it!" She lowered her arm and when she got within ten yards of me, started to run towards me then jumped into my arms. Out of instinct I caught her. It was a full five second, or a fucking eternity, before I realized my hands were on her ass. I promptly let go, setting her back on the ground where she belonged. The look on Elise's face was halfway to laughter, halfway to terror. I gave her a stupid little smirk and a shoulder shrug. "So what's up, Buttercup?" Gena asked.

"Thank you for coming, Gena," Elise said.

"No worries. Anything for my baby here," Gena said as she put her hand on my upper back and rubbed it back and forth. (aids aids aids, get her off get her off!)

"Yeahhh...Anyway," Elise continued, "we need you to do us a favor. How flexible are you?"

"Woah, this sounds like my kind of favor."

"Gena...how flexible are you?"

"Pretty flexible, I guess. I'm not as young as I used to be though."

"No one is," I interrupted. "That's not even possible to not be as young as-"

"Archie," Elise cut me off. "Stay on target."

"Red Five standing by."

"What?"

"Stay on target...stay on...nevermind. Gena. Elise and I and Mr. Mulroney here need you to try and fit into a suitcase for us."

"Again?"

"What?"

"Oh nothing. A suitcase, huh? Sure, why?"

I explained the scenario and Gena was happy to help. We hadn't had time to find a suitcase to use yet so we had to go into a store and get one. We were lucky and found one that looked like it matched the dimensions. Mulroney was able to talk the store owner into letting us take the floor model bag out of the store, on the promise that we would return it within the hour. He explained who he was and what the situation was, flashed her some paperwork and we were good to go. We took the empty bag back to the elevator and matched it to the picture. It appeared to be almost exactly the same size.

"Welp. You ready to give this a try?" I ask as I unzip the bag and open it up.

"Yeah, I wish I would have known what I was going to be doing. This skirt is pretty short and I'm not wearing chonies." She laughed then winked at me.

(oh.my.god.)

"Oh wow, okay, well just...try your best," I said.

She licked her lips and said, "Anything for you, baby." She squatted down into the suitcase, then bent forward. "Can you zip it up?" Her words came out mumbled.

"I dunno. Let's give it a try." I kneeled down and grabbed the zipper. It was a little hard to move but I eventually got it fully closed. It worked and I was now one-hundred percent positive we had our man. "That's it. I'm convinced."

"Me too," Elise agreed. "Can we leave her in the suitcase though?"

"Elise, come on, be nice."

"I am being nice. You know you're going to have to burn that suitcase. No one wants to buy luggage with herpes."

From inside the suitcase came the muffled voice of Gena. "I don't fucking have herpes, bitch!"

"Sorry honey," Elise said, rather insincerely, if I do say, then turned and started to walk away. "I'll meet you back in the office, guys."

From inside the suitcase, "If you're done arguing with your girlfriend, will you please let me fuck out of here. It's all dark and shit."

"Oh shit. Yeah. Sorry Gena!" I unzipped the bag and out she popped like fake snakes from a joke peanut can.

"It's okay!" She smiled and wrapped her arms around me. She nodded towards Elise walking away and asked, "So what's with her?"

"I don't understand women. Sorry."
25.

I gave Gena fifty bucks which she promised me would go towards a nice dinner. I could tell she was more full of shit than those bullshitty paper towel commercials that tell you ONE SHEET IS ENOUGH. Yeah, bullshit. I'm pretty sure Nice Dinner translated to her as TWO THIRTY PACKS OF BUD LIGHT. But whatever. She said she would keep in touch with me and I was actually momentarily frightened that she would keep her word. She was a nice enough old gal, I guess. Ya never know when a hooker might come in handy on a case. Haha, handy.

Elise, Mulroney and I are back in the surveillance room, the main screen paused on our suspect. I leaned back in my chair and stretched my arms out. While yawning I asked Mulroney, "Hey man, any chance we can get some Rockstars down here or something?"

"I'm not sure if we have Rockstars. I know we have Redbull."

"Good enough, man."

"I'll have a waitress bring them down."

"Great. Don't be stingy with 'em, either. I'm beat."

"Yeah, me too. Keep 'em flowing," Elise said as Mulroney was standing up.

"You got it."

"Hey Mulroney," I yelled as he was walking out the door.

"Yeah?"

"How much time do we have before your meeting with everyone?"

"One hour."

"Okay great. We're going to come with you."

"Good."

After we were all hopped up on caffeine, we had to make our way to the conference room where Mulroney, and now us, were to be taking a meeting with security, management and insurance men.

I walked into the meeting terribly underdressed. Oh well. We each took a seat and waited for the hotel manager to arrive. When he showed up he went over the current hotel's situation. Once he was finished yapping, the insurance man began to speak.

"Gentlemen," he said, then remembered Elise being there, quickly adding, "and woman, I apologize." Elise nodded. He continued, "Do we have any new evidence in this accusation?"

"Actually yes, we do," I answered.

"And who might you be?"

"I'm one of the investigators on this case. My name is Archie, this is Elise. We've been working with Mr. Mulroney and to a lesser extent, Detective Howard of the LVPD. We were hired by a man in our hometown to look into an accidental death that took place around the same time and place of the incident we're discussing now."

"I see. And what did you come up with?"

"Well, actually we've all but solved the case." All eyes were on me. Of all my fears, phobias and whatnot, speaking in front of people was not one of them. Speaking one-on-one was terribly nerve-racking and difficult for me, but talking in front of a group, no sweat.

Before we arrived at the meeting we made a quick DVD copy of the surveillance video to show to these assholes. I dug into my bag, retrieved it and put it in the player in the corner of the room. On the large television flashed our man. I grabbed the remote, sat back down and continued. "This large man right here. Yeah, he did it. That's ours guy."

"And what made you come to this conclusion?" the insurance man asked.

I played the video and went over the story one more time with Elise and Mulroney adding little tidbits here and there. When all was said and done, I could tell the insurance man wasn't impressed.

"Listen folks," the insurance man said, "I understand you guys have really done your homework on this one and we appreciate it, but we have reason to believe this woman was nothing more than a hooker who got beaten up by a one of her johns."

I stood up, already enraged. "Bullshit. You don't have any proof of that. You know goddamn well the this girl was not a--" Elise rose up out her chair and pulled me back down, telling me to cool down for a second.

"Sir, what is your name?" I asked the insurance man.

"Richard Cummings."

I snorted a laugh and leaned back in my chair. "Shut up...Really? Cummings. Right. Well, Mr.... Dick... Cummings," I really did try to stifle my childish giggle, but failed miserably. I look around to see if anyone else found this as amusing as I did. They didn't. Oh well. "Here's the deal. I understand that you're all about the bottom line. I understand the arithmetic involved in a case like this. A settlement versus a loss versus paying our fee and still risking one of the first two. I get it. But we can prove this guy was the man. We just can't do it for free. This hotel brings in millions every day, I can't imagine this even being an issue for you. We prove that no one in your staff had anything to do with the attack, lowering your liability and lowering your probable settlement. But, if you want, you may continue walking around with that stick up your fat ass and go in to court with that fucking ridiculous hooker story and get laughed the fuck out of the room with your balls in the defendant's hand. It's really your choice. But just know this; if you do not go with us, and you choose to cut us loose, not pay us, we will go to work for free for the defendant and we'll make it our absolute priority to fuck you as hard as possible...Dick... Cummings."

I sat back down and Elise leaned over and whispered in my ear, "Nice tact, buddy. Good job, though. I want to catch this fucker though, so tell him we'll work cheap." I nodded. She totally thought his name was funny. I just know it.

"We'll work cheap. All we ask is for all our expenses to be paid in full and for our fee we want only enough to buy seven deluxe season passes to Disneyland and a stay in the best hotel they've got down there. You won't find a better deal than that."

Cummings sighed loudly then flipped open his notebook, quickly glancing over some papers. He leaned over and whispered something to the hotel manager and they held a silent conversation for a few moments. When they concluded, the hotel manager said, "Very well, Mr. Lemons. We have a deal, but the clock is ticking. You will be reimbursed for all expenses and be paid enough to buy your...tickets. Do we have a deal?"

I started to say yes but Elise interrupted me. "Not yet, actually. We'll also require two tickets for Tom Jones tonight across the street. I know you can get those at absolutely no cost to you. That's non-negotiable."

He leaned back over and whispered more into the manager's ear. "We have a deal."

I was all smiles. Tom motha-effin Jones!

I leaned over and whispered into Elise's ear, "Thank you so much! Be sure to wear a skirt so you can get your underpants off easily to throw on stage."

"I'm not doing that... Well, maybe."

We stood up. "Gentlemen, thank you for your time. I'm pretty sure Tom Jones goes on at nine so we will work until seven thirty, then resume again first thing in the morning."

The hotel manager spoke up again, telling us that our tickets would be at the box office will- call window. We said thanks and the three of us exited the room and headed back to the surveillance room.

"Well, that went well," Mulroney said once the door closed.

"Yeah, not bad," Elise said. "Now all we have to do if figure out who this guy is."

"It's not going to be easy," I said. "Come on, we've got an hour to try and find a lead."

We each took our seats once we got back and I had the idea to rewind the cameras twenty four hours. We had nothing to go on to find this guy. It would have been nice if the hotel had his name and phone number in their records, but they only keep email addresses and credit card numbers matched with room numbers which would make it damn near impossible to sort through and figure out who was who. My idea was to watch the elevator non-stop for the entire previous day until we spotted our guy, and then follow him as much as the cameras allowed to see if he talked to anyone, did anything unusual, anything. Anything at all that could help us pinpoint him. We didn't get very far until it was time for Elise and I to get ready for the show. We were glad to have the break. We got up to leave and Mulroney said he would stick with it. If he spotted our guy on the camera he would send me a text. We said we'd see him first thing in the morning then made our leave.

Tom Jones was awesome!

Haha. Dick Cummings.

Classic.

26.

The sound of a phone ringing in the distance woke me from my slumber. I got out of bed and went to answer it. I was back in my house in Bakersfield, getting out of the bed I hadn't slept a full night in since my wife passed away. The phone stopped ringing but I still walked around the house. I could hear it raining outside again. The thunder crashed loudly above me and I could hear the hard raindrops pounding on the windows. I walked in to what would have been my daughter's room and flipped on the lights. Standing by the window watching the rain was a little girl I had never seen before but instantly knew to be my daughter.

"Honey?"

"Hi Daddy. I'm just watching closely."

"Watching what closely, sweetheart?"

"The lights, daddy."

"You want me to turn the lights back off?"

She giggled and it broke my sleeping heart. "No silly. The lights"

"Isabelle," a voice called out from beyond the room. "Isabelle sweetie, it's time to go."

I turned around and see my wife standing in the doorway.

"Aw do we have to, mommy?" Isabelle asked.

"Yes honey, we have to."

Isabelle lowered her head and began to pout. "Okay," she finally said.

My wife turned to me and wrapped her arms around my waist, giving me a small kiss on the lips. "We have to go, Archie. Take care of yourself."

I was trying to convince her to stay, beg her to stay, but nothing was coming out of my mouth. I wanted to tell her I was sorry. I wanted to spend more time with my daughter. I just stood there, completely frozen though, not making a sound. I couldn't move and I couldn't talk. Marianne bent over and picked up Isabella. Standing there in the doorway, my wife with my daughter in her arms, gave me one last look then turned and walked back out of my life.

I woke up silently weeping, my pillow soaked from the tears. I checked the clock next to the bed. It was almost time to get up, anyway. I laid there in the dark for a minute more, trying desperately to cling on to my dream, but soon it faded and became as incoherent as a PG-13 movie's action scenes.

I got up and went into the common room. I would just watch television until Elise got up. I landed on a mind-numbing Christmas episode of The Maury Show. Surprise, surprise, more DNA testing. Maury Christmas, everybody!

As I actually began hearing my brain cells die, my mind wandered off to what an ideal Christmas episode of Maury would be. My eyes, still open and staring at the TV, now began to see a completely different show. Maury is sitting in his chair, the Virgin Mary is sitting next to him, crying, saying "Maury, I am 110% sure God is the father!" Meanwhile, a screen to their left projects God, sitting in the green room, split screened with the baby Jesus looking all innocently into the camera. God is yelling, "She a liar, Maury! I ain't even sleep wit' her, Maury! She trippin'!" God walks out on stage, yelling "You a liar, girl! You a liar!" Maury raises the manila envelope and tells us he has the DNA test right here, but first a commercial break.

Before I can find out the results, Elise snaps me from my daydream. She's ready to go.

Mulroney had come through for us. He located our suspect getting off of the elevator the previous morning. It was now our job to follow him as much as we could. We set our grocery bag full of caffeine and snacks, which were part of our expense account, on the desk and then took our seats. We played the video and watched our boy get off the elevator then walk around the casino floor for a little while, occasionally stopping at a machine or a table. He was dressed in a suit today. Following him proved to be rather complicated as he wasn't following the same route our screens followed. As soon as he would exit the frame, we would have to pause the video until we spotted him again. After an hour or so of dicking around the casino floor, he made his way towards the rear of the hotel and started off down a long corridor lined with offices. He opened one of the doors and stepped inside and we lost him.

Mulroney hadn't arrived yet so we followed our suspect's path and made our way to the room he entered. We opened the door and discovered a large room that looked to be used for big gatherings or such. I remembered Gena telling us that large conventions were often held at the hotel. I assumed this would be where they were held. This was good. It was a lead. When we left the room two men were walking down the hallway. Elise stopped them.

"Excuse me guys."

They both stopped and turned around. "Yes?" one of them said.

"Hi, yeah. Do you happen to know what this room was last used for?"

"Sure," the other man said. "They use it for conferences, meetings, conventions. Stuff like that."

"That's what I thought. Do you know the last time it was used?"

"No, there was a convention there last week I think."

"Great, yeah, do you know what the convention was for?"

"No idea, we're in accounting here. They don't tell us much."

"No problem. Thank you for your help."

"Yeah," I said, "thanks guys." They turned and walked away. "Well, let's go watch this door and see who comes out. I'm sure when Mulroney gets in he'll be able to tell us what was going on in there."

"Good. Let's go. We need to hurry too, we have today and tomorrow."

"I know. We got this."

Back in our boring, drab prison of a surveillance room. We watched the video on three times speed, watching more and more people enter. Four hours later on the video, people started to leave. We slowed the video down to normal speed to make sure we didn't miss our guy. After nearly everyone left, out walked that son of a bitch, talking with another man. "Boom goes the dynamite!" I exclaimed and Elise rolled her eyes at me. Apparently she thought my experimental catch phrase was lame, and probably rather unoriginal as I stole it from a viral YouTube video. "I loves me some new people!"

"Yeah, how are we going to find this guy though?"

"Look look look!" I rewound the video and paused it. I tapped the screen where the new man was standing. "He's wearing a lanyard. He was part of the convention. Ahhhh!" I leaned all the way back in my chair and threw my hands up in victory. "He's in the goddamn convention! And look, look!" I leaned in closer. "He's got a logo on his shirt. A LOGO, ELISE!!! A LOGO!!!"

"Oh my god oh my god! Can we zoom in on this thing?"

"I don't think so. We could if this was live but this is a video. We could probably print a blow-up though. It won't be very clear."

"I'm on it!" Elise stood up and ran over to the printer, turning it on and getting it ready. "Print as many different frames as you can."

I printed out the first scene, then clicked it ahead one frame at a time, printing each sequential picture. When all was said and done, we had twenty-four pictures sitting on our desk. We split them up and looked closely at each one. No luck. I dug into my bag and removed my magnifying glass to take a closer peek. The lanyard and laminate was impossible to make out but I'm pretty sure his shirt had the letters M E T on them with a logo that looked like a sun. I passed the glass to Elise and after studying the picture for a few seconds, she agreed. M.E.T. with a sun.

"Holy shit," Elise said, blowing out a huge breath of air. "I'm going to run up and get your MacBook. I'll be right back."

"Bring drinks."

She arrived back with my laptop and set it on the desk, booting it up. "What should I try first?" she asked.

"Well, you can either try Googling it or just try MET.com."

"Let's try MET.com and hope we get lucky." I heard her punch a few keys on the keyboard. "Wow, that didn't work at all. That's the Manhattan Ensemble Theater in... Well, Manhattan."

"Google away, baby doll!" I rolled my chair over near Elise so we could share the computer screen. She did the search and the first thing that came up was for MetLife, followed by The Metropolitan Museum. We eliminated the obvious ones right off the bat, then continued down the line, clicking on every webpage that might help us. "Wait, put periods in between the letters, see if that helps."

"I'm on it." The page reloaded and it was pretty much more of the same. She scrolled down some more, reading every site that came up. "Wait wait wait!"

"What what what?"

"Look! M.E.T. Solar!"

"Solar! Sooooooooolar!"

She clicked on the link and the page opened up. There it was. M.E.T with their stupid sun logo. "Oh my god, that's it! That's it!"

"Does it say what M.E.T. stands for?"

"What the hell does that matter?"

"Oh, I dunno. Just wondering I guess."

"Anyway...Archie! Here we go. Should we call them? What do we do?"

"I'll call!" I pulled my phone from my pocket and dialed the number on the website. A woman answered the phone, introducing herself at Jessica. "Hi, yes. I have a question for ya, was wondering if you could help me out."

Jessica: Sure, how can I help you?

Me: Actually, I believe your company was being represented at a convention I attended last week in Las Vegas.

Jessica: Yes sir.

Me: Yes, that was you guys?

Jessica: Yes sir, that was us.

Me: Oh great, I got your information from the guy there but I must have misplaced it. Is there any way you can give me his contact information? I honestly can't even remember his name.

Jessica: I'm sure I can get that information for you, or if you'd like I would be able to answer your questions and get you set up with whatever you may need.

Me: I really appreciate that, Jessica, but I would really like to talk to the same guy. He was really nice and I told him I would be in contact with him soon.

Jessica: No problem. We had two gentlemen there; you don't remember which one you talked to?

Me: I don't, I'm sorry. Actually, wait. He was a really, really big guy?

Jessica: I don't know if we have a really, really big guy on our sales team.

Crap. Oh well, it was worth a shot.

Me: Actually, I got confused. That wasn't him.

I shuffled around the photos on the desk and grabbed the one that had the clearest shot of the guy.

Me: He had dark hair, skinny and glasses.

Jessica: Okay, that would be Mark. Yes. I can give you his contact information. Do you have a pen?

Me: I do

I quickly fumbled around on the desk looking for anything to write with. Elise reached into her purse and retrieved an eyeliner. It was good enough. Jessica gave me Mark's cell number and email address. I wrote it on my arm with that greasy, disgusting "pencil" I was handed. I thanked Jessica and hung up. I dialed the number on my arm. Mark answered, introducing himself, even though I couldn't make out the mumble of his last name. No bother.

Me: Mark, hi, my name is Tyler Dur...dinski. I met you last week at the Myra Hotel in Vegas at that convention.

Mark: Oh sure, Tyler, of course. What can I do ya for?

I always thought that was a bit of an odd question. What can I DO YOU for? Yuck.

Me: Actually, I have a question for you. About a guy you were with at the convention. I don't think it was your associate.

Mark: Yeah?

Me: He was a really big guy. In a suit. I actually saw you leave the convention with him.

Mark: Sure, sure. What about him?

Me: Who was he?

Mark: Excuse me?

Me: I mean, like, what did he do?

Mark: Oh, he was a marketing consultant.

Me: Ah, that's what I thought! Would you happen to have his contact information?

Mark: Actually yes. Our company is considering hiring his firm. I have his card.

Me: Oh great, I actually needed to get in touch with a consultant for my business but he didn't come over to me at the convention. I don't even know where to start and since, well...you know.

Mark: Yeah, sure. Let me get his card.

The line went silent for a moment then Mark came back on, giving me our suspect's contact information. I snapped my fingers twice to get Elise's full attention and let her know we scored. She threw both her fists in the air in celebration when I wrote a name and two phone numbers on the desk with her eyebrow pencil. I thanked Mark then quickly hung up without giving a shit about anything else he had to say.

"We've got this son of a bitch, E!"

"Holy shit!" She leapt out of her chair and threw herself on me, wrapping her arms around my neck, nearing knocking me off my seat.

"So this is him?" Elise asked as we both glanced down at the desk.

"That's him."

Scribbled on the desk were two telephone numbers and a name: Larry Lundagaurd.

"Well, this is amazing," Elise said. "One down, one to go!"

I looked at her, confused. "Huh? What do you mean?"

"Leslie said she was attacked by two men, remember? Hence, one down one to go. Duh. Pay attention."

"Oh yeah"

"Come on, let's go take this to Mulroney or security!"

"Yeah, great. Let's go."

Elise stood, closed the laptop, gathered our stuff and made her way to the door way faster than me. She was already in the hallway when she looked back and saw me just getting up. "Don't forget to hit the lights. Hopefully we won't be back here."

(the lights.)

(the lights.)

(watching closely)

(the lights silly)

"Elise!" I called out.

"What?"

"Hold on for a second. I think I've almost got something."

"What do you have, Archie?"

"Hold on." I turned around and headed back to the security monitors, rewinding it to the point where Leslie and Larry first step on to the elevator. I hit play and lean in close to the screen. This whole time I was so focused on the closed doors I never bothered to pay attention to the floor lights above them.

The light was at the far left when the doors closed, disappeared for a few seconds then reappeared in the next spot over, then the next, then the next until it stopped. This would be Leslie's floor, the 37th. I watched the time in the corner of the screen. The light stayed steady. From behind me I heard Elise ask what I was doing but I ignored it. Never moving my eyes from the screen, I randomly felt around the desk hoping to find our notebook. No luck. My eyes stayed focused. A full three minutes passed before the light went out and reappeared, moving two spots to the right, on the 39th floor.

(sorry we're late, I couldn't find my keys)

(I couldn't find my keys)

(find my keys)

The light went out and began moving backwards until it arrived at the lobby and the opened again. Four minutes went by according to the timer before the doors closed again and went back up to the 39th floor, where it had just been. The light moved left two more spots and landed back on the 37th floor. The elevator then returned to the lobby. Six minutes later the elevator returned to the 37th floor. At 7:23, the lights started moving to the left again. At 7:25:03, Larry Lundagaurd stepped out of the elevator. He had come from Leslie's floor, pulling his suitcase behind him. How had I missed that? (holyshitholyshitholyshit)

"What, Arch? What do you have?"

My mind raced. I could feel the scattered pieces of this fucked up case begin to come together in my brain. It took me less than a minute to figure it out.

"Elise. There was no second attacker. It was Balthazar."

"Balls did it?!" Elise asked, stunned.

"No. I think Balls tried to stop it." I turned in my chair to face Elise. "Larry attacked Leslie and killed our client's boy."

27.

Larry sat comfortably in his first class seat of the airplane transporting him from Denver to Reno. His stay in Colorado was quite frustrating for him. His urges were getting the best of him but he decided to cool it for a bit following the severely close call he had encountered in Las Vegas last week. He reclined in his plush seat and recalled the events that proved to be a little too precarious.

He had tracked that blonde whore for hours, all around the hotel and casino. He had first noticed her early the previous morning when she had a friend with her. They were both stepping off the very same elevator he had just used. Normally if his subject wasn't alone he would abort and find someone else, but this was Vegas, nobody was unaccompanied. He hoped he would see her again soon. Normally, he would follow the subject and keep close tabs on her, but he had business which needed attending.

He had stayed in that god-awful convention for far too long. He preferred attending genuine meetings with clients, not whoring out his firm to a agglomeration of assholes and dot-comers. The whole time in there, his mind never strayed from his current subject.

After he left the convention with a few new business prospects, including a chatterbox named Mark he couldn't seem to shake from his side, he lingered around the casino floor like the thick and bitter aroma of smoke long after the fire has been extinguished. He was hoping to see her and ended up staying down there all night. He checked his watch. It was nearly 6am. He decided to call it a night, unsatisfied. He stood up from the slot machine and turned to leave when he saw her enter the hotel. Alone.

He was agog and aroused. He maneuvered through the thinned-out crowd behind her and took a seat near her when she found a table to play a few hands. He was close, but not nearly adjacent enough to be suspicious. He spied her playing blackjack for a while and sit at the bar for a drink, even though she appeared to already be inebriated. When it seemed as if she were going to retreat to her room, he color-upped his chips, left his table and wearily careened through the casino's obstacles towards the elevator. When he saw the woman solitarily step into the lift, he picked up his pace and called out for her to hold the elevator.

He remembered telling her thank you and her saying it was no problem. He told her that was the most exercise he'd had in months and the girl offered up a friendly giggle as the doors shut them in.

He didn't like elevators but he had scoped this one out pretty well the day before. There didn't appear to be anything more than an emergency camera located above to security button. He also knew the floors were completely camera-less too. It was going to be a risk. He knew that. He also knew this would be his only chance before parting ways with this atrocious town.

The doors yawned opened on the 37th floor and out walked the woman, issuing him a small smile and nod upon her departure. He withdrew his knife from his back pocket and, once the woman was out of sight, used it to wedge the doors agape. He peeked around the corner and saw the woman languorously walking to her room. He looked the other way to make sure the hallways were vacant, checked the time on his watch then swiftly made his move.

It felt to him like he was moving in slow motion. Various scenarios flashed in his head. If worse came to worst, he could always just carry the woman back to his room two floor above. If he was spotted, the simple, yet brilliant excuse of Hey, it's Vegas would work perfectly. I'm sure she wouldn't be the first person to pass out from massive intoxication here. Hell, people probably wouldn't think twice about it, he thought. Perhaps they would laugh about it.

As he strode silently past room 3716, the door opened directly behind him. He was incognizant to it. He was mad at himself, in hindsight, for not noticing. His sights were on the woman just a few steps ahead. She was just starting to turn around when he reached her, grabbed the back of her head and slammed it into the wall. The woman fell to the ground, dazed. That's when that little fucker attacked him from behind. He felt something hard slap against his head and draw blood. He turned to see his attacker. The boy had removed his belt and struck him with the metal buckle. The boy had attempted to bear upon him again but Larry was simply too brawny for the weak kid. He grabbed the belt and yanked it from the boy's hands. He slung the belt around the kid's neck and strangled him with it. He turned around to check on his subject. She was still on the ground, struggling to get to her knees. He pulled the boy like a puppy on a leash towards the woman and delivered a powerful kick into the woman's side, sending her fully down to the carpeted floor. The boy's body went slack. He had passed out. Larry let the boy fall. He looked up and down the hallway, still no one in sight. He saw the door to the boy's room was being held open by the inside hook-lock being engaged, making it unable to close fully.

He left the boy on the floor and picked up the subject. He uncaringly threw her in the room then went back into the hallway and picked up the boy. He walked back into the room with the boy in his arms, delivering another kick to the woman as he passed by, this time in the face, causing her to black out and fall limp again.

Larry quickly thought of a plan to properly dispose of the boy. He held the belt tight around the boy's neck until all life escaped him. When he was dead, Larry dragged the body to the closet, hooked the belt to a loop and pulled down the boys pants. It was a good cover. It would have to work. It was the first time he ever killed someone. It felt good. Invigorating.

He looked on the desk for a room key. He found it sitting on top of the kid's wallet, grabbed it and made his way back out into the hallway, making sure the door was locked behind him, and proceeded down to the elevator. He remembered checking his watch and noticing a mere two minutes had passed since he stepped off it, initially. It had felt like much longer. He was impressed. He took the elevator to his floor and went into his room to retrieve his suitcase. He emptied the clothes on the bed. He would be able to come back for his stuff later and could transport it out in his suit bag.

He made his way back down to the 37th floor and entered room 3716 with the keycard, finding the woman still on the floor unconscious. He absent-mindedly put the key back into his rear pocket then picked her up, smashed her head into the side of the table for good measure, then stuffed her in his suitcase. He gave the room a good once-over, making sure there was nothing he left behind. The boy was over in the carpet, lifeless and pathetic. Everything else was untouched. There wasn't even blood on the carpet where the woman had lain. He was good to go. He wheeled the suitcase out into the hall and into the lift. He remained cool and calm. When the elevator doors opened up in the lobby, he strolled out like he owned that bitch. His ego even got the better of him and he decided to stop and play a few slots. Nobody was wise. And nobody noticed.

That was his fifteenth time and only the first time he'd ever had any problems.

28.

I explained to Elise my theory. Apparently my brain had had it all along and was just being uncooperative prick with the rest of my body, choosing instead to leave me heartbreaking messages in the form of unrelenting dreams. Thanks brain!

I told Elise to discard all the information we had and just go simply by the video. To hell with the time, to hell with the keycard logs, we we're going to trust our eyes. The elevator lingered on the 37th floor for way too long. It was obvious once you looked for it. Then it went up, then all the way down, then up again then down. The last time it reaches the lobby the fat, bulbous pile of shit comes wobbling out.

"Look, the thing that finally clinched it was I finally realized what was missing from the room. There was no room key. Balls obviously came up alone, set his wallet and change on the table; it would stand to reason the key would be there too. When I got into his wallet for his ID, it wasn't there either."

"So what do you think?"

"I think Larry followed our girl off the elevator and attacked her. While he was doing that, Balls either heard something or was leaving the room and saw it. I think he tried to intervene. Balls and Larry were probably fighting while our girl was a little woozy. That would account for her thinking two men attacked her. Larry kills Balls, stashes him and our girl in Balls' room, takes the key then goes back up to his room, gets what he needs and comes back down and finishes the job. It fits, and if we look at the timesheet for the keycards, I'm sure it will fit too. When Balls left to help, he probably wedged the door open, that's what most people do when they're just stepping out for a second. That would account for his card only registering two openings. Once when he first arrived at the room and once when Larry came back to finish up."

"Holy shit."

"Holy shit is right."

"We've got to go to Detective Howard with this."

"I agree. The only problem is this is far from hard evidence."

"The room would have his fingerprints all over it, so would the door handle."

"You're right. But unless this guy has a record, there is nothing to match it to. And judging by the amount of DNA he left behind on the victim, it stands to reason he's been untouched."

"So, now what?"

"Now we need to find him and get a DNA sample."

"And how the hell are we going to do that?"

"We find him and set up a sting."

I looked at Elise. She had a blank stare on her face and she was trying to comprehend what I was suggesting. "Oh mannn," she finally said. "Shit."

"Sorry, baby girl!"

"It's okay. There's nothing I hate more than a fucking rapist."

"Nobody hates anything more than a fucking rapist. They're cinema's greatest villains this side of the Nazis."

She lowered her head and mumbled, "Ugh."

"Great! Now will you go call Detective Howard and Mulroney, tell them what we've got. I'm going to call this assholes firm, see if I can trick them into telling me where he is. If that doesn't work, I'll just call him straight out."

"Wow, good luck with that." She picked up her phone and walked to the far corner of the room to make her calls. I picked up my phone and dialed the business number Mark had given me. I hung up before it had started to ring.

"Elise!"

"Hold on." She finished her first call then walked back over to me. "What?"

"We so stoopit, we have this asshole's cell number. The odds are pretty goddamn good he's got a smartphone for all his business dealings."

"Oh shit. We can totally track him. Call him and get his connection."

I dialed his phone number. When he picked up, I talked as if our signal was bad then hung up. Our hope was to get him to call us back. It worked. The call came in a few second later. I picked up and told him sorry for bothering him. I had simply dialed the wrong number. He voice was calm and collected. There were noises in the background. He was somewhere with a large crowd of people. I hung up and tossed my phone on the desk. "Got it!"

Elise got up and dug through my bag, retrieving my iPad. Every phone number has a code, and that code can be obtained, if you know how, every time someone places a call to you. It's illegal but at this point I wasn't very worried about it. This code could be used to hack into mobile tracking devices and used to monitor the movements of someone without their knowledge. It's a lot easier to do, and legal, when you own both phones and simply want to keep close tabs on your children or whatnot. It proved to be much more difficult and outside the law when you hacked someone without their knowledge. That's what we would be doing now. Nobody had to know. My ethics had dropped pretty low lately, but for a rapist, a possible multi-offending rapist, my ethics reached the nether regions of the planet. Fuck this guy.

I turned the iPad on and linked it with my phone with Fatty's connection code. After a few minutes of snooping around, I noticed he didn't even have a Mobile-Me account. This would be easier than I thought. All I had to do was set up an account for him and turn on his Find My Phone feature. I had all the information I needed after a quick background check Elise conducted on the MacBook. After the account was set up, I clicked on Locate. A GPS map popped up on the screen and dropped a pin up north about four hundred and fifty miles away, in Reno.

Map Quest told us it would take around eight hours. Elise checked her watch, deciding it was early enough. "Pack it up, Stud, and let's move it out!"

"All our equipment is already in the car."

"Gun?"

"Oh, I never leave home without that, anymore."

"Good. I'll go get our clothes and meet you back down here in ten minutes."

"Good luck in the elevator."

"I'm not the weirdo in this duo, remember?"

29.

We stopped at a gas station on the edge of town, filled the tank on the company card and picked up plenty of caffeine and snacks. It was going to be a long drive. A long and boring drive, actually.

We got into Reno a little before 8pm, less than seven hours after we left. The town wasn't exactly what I was expecting. It had vague similarities to Vegas, but was actually quite different. I haven't been here in twenty five years when my dad toted me along with him for some random, distant family member's wedding. We parked in a hotel's parking lot and got our bearings. I needed a Wi-Fi signal so we ended up driving to a Starbucks and sitting inside with our laptop and iPad like a couple of shaggy-haired, broke-ass hipsters.

We located Larry. He was less than a mile away. The map had him pinpointed almost exactly.

"Well, what's the final plan here?" Elise asked. We had discussed several during the long car ride up. Elise had also placed a call back to the Myra Hotel and left a message for Mulroney. We still hadn't gotten through to Detective Howard, either. Elise had left him a message before we left and two more during the drive, but he had yet to return them. Common sense would have told us to wait and let the police deal with this, but I told common sense to go fuck itself. We had a dirty rapist to catch.

"We need his DNA. I don't care how we do it but we just need a sample of it."

"Well, let's just find him and follow him around. He'll have to leave a few strands behind eventually. If that doesn't work, just run up to him and rip out some of his hair."

"Yeah, I'd like to not be killed, thanks. We'll save that as a last resort."

"Agreed. Let's go."

We packed up our stuff and left the Hipster's Paradise. We followed Larry's marking on our map to Reno Heights Hotel and Casino. We parked and went inside. I was holding my iPad, keeping tabs on the blinking blue dot of Larry. I added our location to help us. We were the solid red dot. And we were close. We followed the screen for less than a minute before I spotted him at a blackjack table. He was wearing a flannel shirt and a baseball cap. If we could snatch that hat it would surely have a few hairs in it.

"That's him," I said as I pointed him out to Elise.

"Holy shit." She moved in front of me, stopping my forward progression and faced me. "Archie, let's just shoot the fucker."

"Yeah, that's a hell of a plan. Walk into a crowded casino and open fire. You feel free. I'll stand here and watch."

"Argh! Fine. What now?"

"I'm going to sit at his table, get a feel for him."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah, why not. It's worth a try. Can you extract DNA from a cup someone drinks out of?"

"How should I know? You're the expert!"

"Google it and text me. Here, take this." I handed her the iPad and my bag full o' gadgets. "Go find somewhere close to sit and watch."

"Ay yi."

I began walking through the small crowd of people loitering around the casino floor. I took a seat directly next to Larry. "Hey hey, how's the table treatin' ya?" I asked.

"It's been rough," Larry answered. I recognized his voice from the phone. He still had that easy demeanor to him. Thinking of what he was capable of sent chills down my back.

"That's okay. I like it rough." (What the hell was that, Lemons! He's going to think you're hitting on him! stupidstupidstupid!)

"Right. Well, good to know. Are you going to join in or just sit there?"

"I'll join." I had forgotten to lay some cash on the table. Good thing I still had plenty left over from Vegas. I pulled out two hundred dollar bills and threw them on the felt. The dealer, whose name tag identified her as Georgia, pushed me a stack of chips and I put out a twenty dollar bet. The dealer got blackjack. Of course. I had no idea what to say to a rapist, so I just winged it. I turned to him and said, "Fuckin women. Am I right?"

"Ha. Yeah."

"Georgia, you are NOT on my mind!"

Georgia gave us a well-warranted dirty look as I pressed on with Hairy Larry. "Hey, what do you do when your dishwasher stops working?"

He gave me a puzzled look and asked, "What?"

"Your dishwasher. What do you do when your dishwasher stops working?"

"Um. I have no idea."

"You punch her in the face!"

This actually caused him to laugh a little and got me another fuck-you look from the dealer. I set out another twenty dollar bet. The dealer got blackjack again. "Good god, are you fucking kidding me?" I asked her.

"Sir, watch the language," she instructed.

"I think you're bad luck," Larry said to me.

"Meh, what can you do." I put down another bet. "Hey, what do you tell a woman with two black eyes?"

"I don't know," he sighed. "What do you tell a woman with two black eyes?"

"Nothing, she's already been told twice!" I held up both my fists to add a little emphasis. This one didn't get a laugh, although I did get another fuck-you look. That's three in like a minute, that's got to be some sort of a record. Elise must have noticed my struggles and decided to put me out of my misery. She came over to the table and took a seat on the other side of Larry and greeted us both. Larry gave her a friendly greeting in return and I was assuming that Elise just pulled an audible. I had failed and now I should retreat. I grabbed my chips and stood up, excusing myself from the table.

I sat at a slot machine and watched Elise cast her spell over Larry. I could only imagine how disgusted she was, but she is a trooper and will always get the job done. Twenty minutes later she stood up from the table and walked away, signaling towards me to meet her around back. I watched her leave then watched Larry watch her leave. This was a good sign. I stood up and walked outside once Larry's attention was back on the game. Elise was waiting for me.

"So?" I asked.

"Well, I flirted the shit out of him."

"Yeah, and?"

"Then I shot him down."

"What? Why?"

"Because, he's a rapist. Don't we want to catch him in the act of attempting to rape someone? Wouldn't that make it a lot easier on us?"

"What are you...wait. No way, Elise! I'm not letting you set yourself up something like this. No way, out of the question."

"The gauntlet has been thrown, my friend. We need a new plan."

"No, we do not need a new plan. I would rather walk away and go home and forget about this whole fucked up case than put you in harm's way again! No way no how!"

"Not a chance. We can do this! He's interested! I know he is. I mean, come on, how could he not be?" She smiled at her own witty remark of false modesty. Or whatever you would call that.

"Elise, no way we are-"

She cut me off, "We're doing this, Archie. There is no way I'm letting this bag of shit get away with what he did to that girl. And who knows how many other girls he's harmed."

There was no winning the argument. She was right, too which just annoyed me even more. Neither of us could live with ourselves if we walked away now. We needed a plan.

"Here, you have all your stuff in the car. All you have to do is wire me up. That way we can communicate. I'll strut myself around, making sure he sees me, you can track both of us. You still have him on the map and I'll take your phone. You can watch the screen and know right where we both are so there will be no surprises. In the very least I'll grab a chunk of his hair and you can frighten him away. Say I was attacked and even have some DNA. It will work. I promise."

"Fine. Let's go get you wired. I really don't want to do this, though. I'm unreliable and...weak...and I don't- Christ, I'm about to have a panic attack just thinking about this. I don't think-"

"Archie. You are not weak. And neither am I. I'm a lot stronger than you think. I'm going to do this. Okay?" She leaned in and gave me kiss on the cheek and I was all hers. We walked back to the car and got the communications devices. We put a small speaker into Elise's ear and an even smaller speaker taped to her shoulder under her sleeve. I held a small walkie-talkie-like receiver that easily picked Elise's voice, even in a whisper. I went to the front of the car, out of earshot, and tested the equipment. Everything seemed to be working. Now she just had to get inside before Larry's dot starting moving and risk him seeing us together. I handed her my phone and told her to be careful. I dug out my gun from the back of the car and tucked it into the back of my shorts. Elise jogged back into the casino as I monitored her on the iPad screen. Larry was still in his same spot. I walked back inside and sat at a table in a little cafe area, pretending to work. I ordered a water. The only visuals I had on both of them were their dots. My stomach began to feel uneasy. I had a really bad feeling about this. I tried talking to Elise, just to test the equipment again. No response. Fucking great, it's not working. I began to sweat even though I wasn't warm. A surefire sign of an impending panic attack.

I shut my eyes tightly and tried to calm my breathing. I braced myself on the table and scooted my chair back to give myself a little room. I was nervous for Elise. I hated this. I promised to never put her in harm's way, but here we are again, for the second time where I have broken my promise. Circles of light formed on the inside of my eyelids and terrifying silence overtook all forms of sound in the room, leaving me completely alone. After a few minutes sounds eventually returned to me, like someone slowly turning up the volume on a muted television. I took a drink of my water and waited out the rest of attack. When it finally passed I looked at the iPad and noticed Larry's blue dot coming up fast on Elise's red.

30.

Larry's desires were overtaking him. He had made small talk with an attractive woman at the blackjack table. He had even tried to ask her for a drink. An offer she rejected. This enraged him. He tried to do it the correct way and it got him nowhere. No matter, though. The sex was only part of the thrill. The rest came from the violence. The empowering feeling of dominance.

He continued sitting at the table playing blackjack, absentmindedly hitting or standing strictly according to the book. His thrills were not gained from gambling. He weighed his risks. He had never before been seen with one of his subjects before capturing her, but then again, she had approached him and simply played a few hands. If any questions were brought up, even the dealer would say she heard Larry ask her for a drink and her decline. He would stay at the table long enough after her departure to clear any suspicion. Besides, he had only about three hours' worth of business to do tomorrow then he was catching a plane out of this shit hole. Would the woman even be found by then?

A thought occurred to him. He remembered his last encounter when he choked the life from that man. Now that was an empowering feeling. Taking the life of someone with your own, bare hands. He mulled over the prospects of such a decision. That would be a sure fire way of keeping his victims from talking. It would also almost guarantee that he would be long out of town by the time her body was discovered. Yes, he thought, this would definitely be a very real possibility.

He pushed the rest of his chips in the betting circle and took his cards. He hit until he busted then stood up from the table. He had a woman to find.

He walked into the men's restroom and emerged two minutes later, eager to stalk his prey. The piece of shit casino they had put him up in, (one of the worst hotels his company had ever placed him,) was uncrowded. And rightfully so. They have some nerve even calling this a hotel, he thought, as it's obviously just a motel with a casino. He continued surveying the floor and spotted her in the corner by an exit. He walked slowly towards her and watched as she opened the door and stepped out back towards the pool area.

"Archie, Archie, are you with me?" Elise whispered in the direction of her mic. She got no response. "Archie, can you hear me? I'm going to step outside and make sure this thing is working. Can you hear me? I'm out here by the pool. It's totally deserted." She waited a few seconds more then decided to walk around to the front of the casino and re-enter through there, hoping to avoid being seen by Larry and risk being followed to Archie. "Okay, I'm coming around to see you. I don't think it is working."

Larry slowly opened the door, taking one last look around the casino to see if he was being watched. He was in the clear and stepped out into the freezing night's air. Up ahead he could see his subject walking through the darkness. He quickly surveyed the area, noticing a stairwell coming up on her left. He took off at a sprint towards her. She never heard him coming. He grabbed a handful of her dark black hair, snapped her head back quickly then smashed it into the stucco of the wall next to them, leaving behind little droplets of blood. He pulled her hair backwards and she fell right into his arms. He slung her over his shoulder and headed up the stairs.

His rental car was parked around front and it would be far too risky to chance it by walking with the girl. He needed his suitcase. She looked like she would fit. A bulge wouldn't matter, it was dark out and no one would pay attention.

He took the stairs to the third floor and entered his room, dropping Elise on the floor with disregard. She moaned a little when she hit the ground then quickly slipped back into darkness. Larry watched her.

When she was still again, Larry opened his suitcase, removed his clothes and put the empty case on the floor. He rolled Elise over the bag then proceeded to fold her contorting her to the dimensions of it. She was a little taller than the usual subjects and it took few hard tugs on the zipper to get it fully closed, but it worked. He walked to the table and grabbed his knife. His heart was pounding with anticipation.

31.

"Call 9-1-1!" I yelled to the woman behind the cafe counter. She gave me a snotty, confused look. "Call the fucking cops! Now!" I grabbed my iPad and walkie and ran through the casino following the two dots that were now right on top of each other. When I reached the end of the room I stopped to look around. The GPS said I should have been right on them, but at this close of range, the accuracy is hard to pinpoint. I looked around some more with no luck then realized she must be outside. The walkie finally crackled to life and I heard a small moan followed by deathly, horrifying silence. I ran out the side exit and began yelling her name. More heartbreaking silence. I withdrew the gun from my waistband.

The bottom floor of the hotel was all casino so I took the stairs up to the second floor, walking slowly, listening for even the slightest of sound. Again, nothing. The two dots still on top of each other. I had to be close. I should have been right next to them; I just had no way of knowing which floor they were on. I headed up one more flight, iPad in one hand, gun in the other.

The hotel was really just a motel, it wasn't fooling anyone. The walkways to the rooms were dark, the only light coming from the stairs and whatever illumination was pouring out between the gaps of the in-room curtains. I decided to try and peek into every room. I was at the fourth window when two rooms ahead a door open and out walked Larry. The iPad fell out of my hand and crashed to the floor; both my hands were gripping the gun handle, pointing it at the back of Larry's massive head.

He heard the iPad break and turned quickly to face me.

"Hold it right there, Kobe!" I yelled. Larry just stared at me with cold, emotionless eyes.

"Fuck you," he said to me with a little nod in my direction. He reached down, grabbed the handle of his suitcase and gave it a hard tug to get it over the door jamb. "You here for her?"

"That's right, you fat fuck! How about you put your disgusting fucking ham hock arms up and tickle that ceiling."

He let go of the handle and took a solitary step in my direction.

"What the fuck did I just tell you?! Hands up, Kubiak!"

He took another step towards me. He was about five feet from the tip of my gun, his massive, imposing figure blocking out the entire walkway behind him, light from the parking illuminating his silhouette, making him appear to glow. What I really wanted to do was run away and cry in a dark corner. Another step and he says, "How about this? How about I break your fucking legs and force you to watch me make your girlfriend my slut?"

For such a large man he sure is spry. All I managed to get out of my stupid mouth was, "How about I-," before he collided with me, lifting me off my feet and slamming me against the back wall that, I thought, was a good twenty feet behind me, leaving my poorly selected choice of footwear for such a freezing-cold night, an eighty dollar pair of Abercrombie flip-flops, sitting on the walkway, sans feet. I hit my head hard and was left slightly dazed. His forearm was pressed firmly against my throat as I gasped for air. His left hand was bracing my right hand, still holding the gun, against the wall above my head. My feet were dangling and I desperately tried to find land. I began thrashing my legs around trying to break free. His grip on me slipped and my toes felt the disgusting, soiled carpet below. He removed his arms from my throat and moved his giant hand to my chest to continue holding me still. He then head butted me in the face, breaking my nose.

He picked me up again, turned me around and threw me down the walkway. I hit my head again and lost my hold on the gun, sending it skidding down the hall towards the suitcase that held Elise captive. I didn't even have time to regain my wits before the fat man was on top of me, tossing me in the air like pizza dough, sending my back into the underside of the walkway above us then swiftly returning to the ground.

"Time to check out," he said as he picked me up again. I was frightened for Elise and frightened for myself and for the kids, but in that one flash of a second I couldn't help but be pissed off at that he came up with a kick ass catch phrase! Where the hell does he get off stealing my-(oh fuck.) He lifted me and nonchalantly tossed me over the railing. I was able to grab on to one of the rails and momentarily delay my earthly departure. I tried kicked my legs to get a swing going. My plan was to pull a John McClane and crash into the floor below, only I guess, without the glass and only about an eighth of the awesomeness. Bare feet, though! Larry watched my struggle and kicked my hand grasping the metal rod causing me to lose my grip and fall. Luckily for me, I had enough forward momentum on my latest sway that I fell on the railing the floor below, totally fucking ribcaging it, knocking the wind from my lungs and causing me to fall backwards into the hallway. Larry leaned over and watched me. I was slow getting to my feet. My lungs were desperate for air as I stumbled towards the stairwell. I took the steps two at a time and when I reached the third floor Larry was waiting for me. I caught my breath and delivered a rather impressive punch to his jaw. He was momentarily stunned and I took the opportunity to run past him in hopes of grabbing the suitcase and making our escape. He reached for me and grabbed the hood of my sweatshirt, slowing me down. I straightened my arms out behind me and the hoodie slipped right off. I continued my journey towards Elise, Stay-Puft chasing after me. I couldn't see my gun. He must have had it. Damn. I reached the case and grabbed the handle on the fly, pulling it behind me and heading towards the stairway on the far end of the hotel. Motel.

By the time that speedy fucking trouser destroyer caught up to me I finally realized the suitcase was too light to be holding Elise. I had fucked up. This was the wrong case. I turned and looked up and saw Larry's softball size fist hurdling towards me, destroying my already broken nose and sending my flat on my ass. Why was no one coming out of their rooms to help?! Seriously, was everyone staying in this shithole down in the casino?

"I guess I'll just break your fucking your fucking legs right here," he said, looking down on me. "I don't like to do this at my hotel, for obvious reasons, but I guess it will be okay this time. Neither of you will be around to talk. Nevada has a lot of desert." He grabbed my right foot, elevated my leg and began twisting. The pressure was almost too much to bear. This was it.

"Hey!" a voice called out from somewhere behind Larry. He dropped my foot and as he turned to look I caught a quick glimpse of Elise standing a few yards away. I quickly rolled towards the railing and tried to get up. "I fucking hate rapists!" A thundering explosion echoed through the hallway, nearly deafening. Larry stood there perfectly still, his back towards me, still blocking Elise completely from my sight. Time seemed to move in slow-motion, again. I couldn't figure out what had happened. I was still in a daze.

The crotch and ass of Larry's khaki pants were rapidly becoming drenched in a crimson so dark it almost looked black. Blood began trickling to the floor. He fell to his knees, and then keeled over to his right, resting his body on the motel's stucco wall. He began to groan. The entire front of his pants was shredded wide open, a small trail of smoke wafted outwards and up from singe the bullet had caused. With one gunshot Elise had completely destroyed the rapist's most dangerous weapon.

She dropped the gun and walked over to help me him, dried blood staining her beautiful face. Larry was still up against the wall. He's breaths sounded painful and difficult. His eyes began rolling back then eventually his eye lids shut. Elise stepped over to him, pressing hard one of her size eight black Converse All Stars directly into his wound causing the man's eyelids to pop open in horror. That fat, fucking roadblock of a man screamed like a hungry baby.

"You're not dying on me, bitch," Elise said, still working the rubber tip of her shoe into Larry's new man-gina. "Death is too good for rapists." She removed her foot and regarded the bloody mess that was once a clean shoe. "Oh, and thanks for the DNA, asshole." She turned back to me and asked, "You okay?"

"Oh my god. I think I'm going to barf. I've done enough barfing this trip. Did you- Were you- Were you in that suitcase?"

"I was. Son of a bitch slammed my face into a wall, when I came to I was in there."

"How did you get out?!"

"It's a cheap suitcase, Archie, not a safe."

"Well, I guess we know now that you could have fit in that other one we tried." It was a lame attempt at a joke. The silence that followed proved just how lame it really was. "Cops are coming."

"Your nose is broken... Again."

"Your face looks like you were making out with Pinhead." I reached out to remove a clump of hair stuck to the blood on her cheek. I didn't have the chance to finish the task, though; Elise grabbed the sides of my head and pulled my lips to hers. Not like before. Never like this. I didn't feel afraid anymore. I didn't feel alone.
Epilogue

Well we did it. How we keep getting away with shit like this, I will never know. What I do know is that they pulled that fat bastard's DNA and matched it with the sample from Leslie's body. Not surprisingly it was a match. Detective Howard and the police also contacted Larry's employer and retrieved a full list of every single city Larry had stopped in since his initial hire. They were pretty certain there would be a few more matches in other cities. Long story short, Larry's not seeing the light of day ever again. The hotel and insurance folk were as happy as they could be, which was still not very happy, but whatever. Fuck 'em. We cleared all their staff, thus resulting in less liability for them. We also caught a rapist. And a murderer (unfortunately for them.) Larry's prints were all over Vince and Ball's room. So, now instead of one lawsuit by Leslie, looks like they might be facing another one from Balthazar's family. We shall see, though.

I called Vince to tell him the good news. Bad news. Either way. He was pleased and thanked us profusely. We told him we were happy to help and it was all because of him that a rapist and murderer was off the streets for good. You could tell he tried to be happy but was still heartbroken. He had lost his best friend. I told him we would be returning every cent he paid us the investigation. He said we didn't have to but I insisted. Truth was, I was going to bill everything to the stupid Myra Hotel, and actually, this case would bring us a shit ton more money, anyway.

Also on the drive home, I sent Gena a text message. Abrasive as she was, she was actually a really sweet lady and helped us out a lot. In some weird, twisted, possibly crab-infested way I would miss her friendship. She told me to 'hit her up' if I was ever in town again. I told her I saved her number. I had a feeling this wouldn't be the last time I heard from that crazy beezy. (Whatever a beezy is.)

We got home one day later than we promised the kids, but, ya know, at least we made it home. The biggest laugh upon our arrival was Elliot's present to his mom. It was a crayon drawing, which every parent would love to receive. This one was only slightly different than your average grade-schooler's art project though. This one featured a crudely drawn man with X'd out eyes, his mouth agape, tongue hanging out with a belt tied around his neck, slumped over in a closet. Apparently we had left a few crime scene photos lying around. We would have to be more careful. Sure, it was sick and morbid and rather disturbing, but it was a much needed laugh and it was proudly displayed front and center on Elise's fridge.

We made good on our promise, too. With my business card, I purchased everyone a deluxe annual passport to the happiest place on earth. It was a bill I would be sending to the Myra hotel. We would be leaving the day after Christmas. All of us.

The following morning after our arrival, we packed up the kids and took them on a short little ride to the cemetery. I had visited a few times by myself, but never with company. We parked up the hill, just a few yards away from the people I wanted to visit. The kids wanted to stay behind in the car so Elise and I let them. No big deal. It was ridiculously cold outside, anyway.

I said hi to both my parents. Told them I missed them and loved them, then walked a few more feet and said hi to my lovely wife and unborn daughter. I got down on my knees and swept the dirt off the gravestone with my hand. Something I normally would never do. This was different though. I saw tears in Elise's eyes. Sisters robbed of a lifetime together.

A light drizzle of freezing rain began to fall.

"Ya know what?" I asked, still unable to deal with my feelings, "I still need to go to that grocery store and find out who stole all my money."

"Yeah."

"Maybe I'll go later today."

"Go get 'em, Tiger." Elise said with a smile. Her breath warming up the air around her. The upward movement of her cheeks forced one of the tears from her eyes. Her phone started vibrating.

"Better get that."

She took it out of her pocket and checked the ID. "It's Jim."

"Jim. Right on. Better answer it, then."

"Jim, hi," she said as she turned around and walked away. I returned my attention towards Marianne and Isabelle.

"I miss you guys so much. Every day has been a struggle since you left me. I'm trying, I really, really am, but... I don't know. I think I know what you've been trying to tell me while I sleep. It's time to let you go, to move on. And, I don't know. There is someone. Someone I've become close to and if I do something about it I need to know that you're okay with it, because I'm scared to death, and, I just, I don't want you to think I've stopped loving you." I looked back towards Elise who was still preoccupied with her phone call.

(Go tell her!)

(I can't)

(Quit being such a baby!)

(I have too much to lose if she rejects me!)

(But you have so much to gain if she doesn't!)

(I can't. It's not right.)

(God, you sicken me! I hate you!)

I tried to ignore my thoughts and think for a moment in silence. I heard Elise talking to Jim in the distance. I can't be positive, but I think she just told him she had a nice time with him but there is someone else.

(Me?)

(You!)

She ended her phone call and started to walk back over to me. The rain had already stopped but the air felt colder. It felt like the day I buried my wife. I was underdressed now and shivering.

"There's someone else?" I asked.

"You heard that?"

"Yeah."

"Yeah, well you know. I had to say something. He wasn't really my type. Didn't want to lead him on. Just thought I'd let him down gently. You know? "

I smiled. Standing there, under the dark clouds, Elise's black hair took on a bluish hue. Her mascara had run a little bit, maybe from the rain, maybe from crying. It didn't matter. She still looked beautiful. "Sure," I said. "I know."

(Tell her! Tell her how you feel!)

(I can't. I just can't. Not right here. Not right now.)

"Oh my god!" Elise exclaimed. I snapped from my inner conflict with inquiry. "It's snowing, Archie. It's snowing. "I looked around and saw little specks of white slowly wafting down from the heavens up above, just as they had... "Arch, it hasn't snowed since-"

(There is your sign! Do it! Touch her arms and look into her eyes and tell her!)

Inadvertently, I had begun to cry. I reached out to grab Elise, rubbing her arms in a lame attempt to warm her up; really, I was just buying time to work up the nerve. I looked straight into her eyes. They were bright and wide and beautiful and haunting. This was my time. My do-or-die moment. I glanced briefly back at Marianne's grave then returned to my new love standing before me. It could only go one of two ways. A 50/50 shot.

Standing there in the middle of the cemetery.

The two of us.

Alone.

Me, with this ridiculous Jake-From-Chinatown tape across my nose and her with the entire left side of her face scraped and beginning to scab.

Holding her gaze.

Petrified.

(Now.)

She smiled, my hands still rubbing her arms, perhaps a little more fiercely than required. Time seemed to slow down. I took a deep breath.

"Elise..."
AFTERWORD

Aw, Stroke of Genius. The book that has so much hatred flowing through it that it couldn't have been written by anyone but me at my most cynical. With this one I had the entire story before I even had a plot. Let me explain.

I was coming off of, what probably could be described as, the worst weekend vacation ever, in a little town called Las Vegas. You ever have one of those trips where nothing goes right? Where, after each new pile of shit you step in, it would almost seem comical if you just weren't so fucking pissed off? Well, that was this trip. What was supposed to be a big weekend with a large group of people ended up reeking of runny shit and ending my friendship with several people.

In the book, I wasn't allowed to say the real name of the hotel, but here, in the wonderful afterward, I say fuck it. It was the Aria. The worst hotel I have ever stayed at. I've stayed in Motel 6s that were better than this hobo-shit operation they call a hotel. First of all, we go to check in and we end up waiting for an hour. AN HOUR! The first night we were staying there was just in a regular room and the second night was in the big penthouse for a party. Well, on the second day, we are told that the people currently staying in the penthouse are refusing to leave. They want to stay another night. True story. This is what we are told, and when we ask them to go kick them the fuck out, they say they can't. WHAT?!

Then we demand to be upgraded. Well, guess what, there are no rooms available. Or so they say. I call bullshit on that. Apparently, throughout all their properties in Vegas, there isn't a single Penthouse-or-better room available. Mmhmm. Sure, Aria. Sure.

So, after FOUR HOURS! FOUR!!! HOURS!!! they magically find a room for us. Keep in mind, we've already checked out of our other room, so we are currently homeless, just waiting around in the lobby. Anyway, we finally get a room, with a wonderful view of a roof, and inside, seriously, it is exactly as I described it in the book. Fucking NOTHING works! The stereo doesn't work, the fridge doesn't work, the bathtub, the shower, nothing. Water floods out from the tub and on to the floor, the steam shower won't start, the sofa has a big cigarette burn on it...just awful! The whole goddamn thing is just awful. So, then and there, I decide this shithole will be making an appearance in my next book. I don't know how, but oh yes, it will be here, in all its craptastic glory.

I won't bore you with all the other details, but it just got worse and worse. So, if you take nothing else away from my writings, please take this: NEVER STAY AT THE ARIA! Don't even go in there. Don't even fucking look at it. Ignore it like the fat girl at the party. Please!

To be fair, by the end of the trip, my wife and I had ditched everyone else involved and journeyed out to do our own thing, and it proved to be far more fun than what had been planned anyway. It reminded me of what really matters, the people you love.

Anyway, let me get back on track. In regards to having the story before the plot. Did I mention how hilarious I find it when people kill themselves while jerking off? No? Oh, well I do! How dumb do you have to be to die while masturbating? Seriously. So, I knew I wanted to touch on this subject a bit. It's just too funny not to. I even through in some INXS jokes and a few David Carradine jokes, just to class this bitch up a bit.

When all my jokes were in place, I decided to actually focus on a plot and a murder, and when I did, Stroke of Genius was born, and I'm pretty proud of it. A lot of people tell me this is their favorite Archie book. Thanks for that.

The character of Gena is actually based on my friend Karlee's mom. She said she wanted to be a character, so I made her a dumb hooker. Why not? She was a good sport about it and I don't think we've seen the last of Gena! She's too funny and way too clingy to not pester Archie some more later on down the line.

The masturbator is played by my buddy Carl Balthazar August Lange IV. I'm not sure if he gave me permission to use his name, but eh, we're buddies, what's he going to do?

Everyone else, except the terrible Aria staff, was fictional, again.

As for edited parts, this one had quite a few. I remember the beginning actually touched upon how emotionally destroyed Elise was after nearly being killed in A Touch of Danger, but that's boring and no one wants to read about Debby Downer shit, so it got the boot. Booted along with it was Archie's first Christmas without his wife and his spiral into self-destruction. Again, not funny and didn't fit the tone of this book. So it was gone and instead we get a pretty big time jump and find everyone happy again, where they belong, with poor Archie now, rather inappropriately, crushing on his sister-in-law. Does Elise feel the same way? Will she freak out at the thought? Will she care too much about what everyone else would think? Well, I guess that's up to you. For now, at least.

Also edited out was an entire chapter entitled A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Vegas. In this chapter, I spend about three thousand words describing a horrible, horrible encounter Archie has at The Barstow Station! Anyone who has ever driven to Vegas from Southern California has at least seen this stinking pile of disgusting mess disguised as a legitimate eating establishment. And if anyone has ever, actually, stopped in, they'll know why Archie would have such a freak out.

It's a packed, disgusting, hodgepodge of shitty shops and even shittier restaurants, crammed into what looks to be some hollowed out train cars. It's a stop for all the foreigners on their way to wherever the hell they're going. It stinks to high hell, the foreigners all have stupid clothes, it's claustrophobic and my god is it nasty. We stopped in their ONCE on a boy's trip at the request of a friend. Needless to say, I did not eat. In fact, I needed to get the hell out of there as quickly as humanly possible. YUCK!

Anyway, maybe I'll scrounge up that chapter sometime and release it as a little short story. It was quite humorous, but it was totally unnecessary to the plot and pretty much stopped all the momentum the story had.

Also gone is Archie obsessing over the television monitors in the surveillance room. It's still kind of there, but Archie in all his autistic glory, let it go on for far too long and it didn't make for very fun reading. I deleted, also, about fifty more funny porno names, again for pacing sake, and condensed the ending a bit to make it tighter and get on to what really mattered. Archie and Elise, standing in that cemetery.

That's it for now. Thank you for reading or perhaps re-reading my little stories. I have another book out now that isn't part of the ARCHIE LEMONS SAGA called The Lost & Found, which I'm also very proud of. I'm currently working on another stand-alone-but-possibly-a-series called Thick as Thieves, though the title may change...again. I think you'll like it. It's about a con-man father teaching his young son the ropes of being a thief. Not sure when it will be out, though.

Please feel free to contact me at any time with your questions or comments. I would love to hear from all of you.

Again, thank you all so much. It's almost Christmas as I'm writing this, so please remember to take some time for yourself. Don't be so rushed that you don't stop and pay attention to the small things that make life worth living. Be good to each other and check your shitters often. I hear they fill up quickly. Ha! Happy Holidays, everyone!

Love,

Grant Fieldgrove

12/09/12
Thank you to all my family and friends. Your kind words and continued support never ceases to amaze me.

You all inspire me.

Special thanks, in no particular order, to:

Julie & McClane, Mom & Dad and the in-laws, Greg, Carl, Rox, Lisa, Banker, Dani, Jeni (I look forward to your contribution to the wonderful world of literature,) Leslie, Tayler, Gena for being a good sport, Melissa, Gail, Carly, Summer, everyone who has come out to the signings and events and countless others that I know I am forgetting. Sorry.

Thank you all so very much!

Grant Fieldgrove lives in Bakersfield, CA and is the author of Darkness Once More, A Touch of Danger and The Lost and Found

www.facebook.com/darknessoncemore

Instagram: grant_fieldgrove

www.twitter.com/grantfieldgrove

