Chapter 3 #2
The older one looked, shrugged. “It’ll kick up. Last week, he went two cycles before hitting the cutoff.”
“But he’s bleeding.”
“That’s what happens. Some of them tear, they get cauterized, and next week they’re back again.”
The young one didn’t answer. She kept looking at the man in the chair—middle-aged, big gut, maybe ex-con from the ink on his calves. He was crying, silent, eyes leaking into the foam headrest.
“Let him go early?” the young one said.
The older one snorted. “Nobody gives a shit if these ones pop. We need the numbers, or the girls upstairs will dock our split.”
The young one squeezed her hands into fists. “Fuck the split. If it’s gonna blow, I’m not cleaning up.”
The older one rolled her eyes and reached for the next sample.
After a second, the young one spoke again, lower this time. “Are they still sending the overflow to the basement?”
The older one’s jaw tensed. “That’s not our side. Only deal with the volunteers.”
“What about the others?”
A pause. “Basement’s full. Brought in a new batch this morning. Don’t ask where from, just know they won’t be here long.”
They moved out of range. Aces turned, and for a second, I thought he was going to snap the window off its hinges.
“Fuck,” she said, very quietly. “That’s not just a sperm bank. That’s a body shop.”
“Worse,” I said. “Half those guys are here because there’s no other option. The other half…?”
“Basement,” she finished.
I watched the next rotation. The blue light, the rubber gloves, the lazy rhythm of the machines. None of the men ever protested. They just pumped out and left, or got recycled until they couldn’t anymore.
“We going in?” Aces asked, like she was already counting the steps.
I shook my head. “Orders were eyes only. We go in, we burn the job and lose the element.”
She glared, not at me, but through me. “You want to leave them down there?”
“I want to do it right,” I said. “Selene needs the full picture.”
Aces clenched and unclenched her hands. Her jaw flexed, and I could see the vein in his neck from where I was kneeling. I didn’t say anything more. After a minute, she nodded.
We started to leave, but I caught a glimpse of another computer monitor. “What the fuck?” I whispered.
“The fuck are they doing?” Aces squinted as she tried to get a better look at the screen.
What we saw gave credence to the saying, What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. A dozen women sat in bathtubs in another room—the basement, I guessed. Each tub was filled with a shiny liquid.
“For fuck’s sake,” Aces said. “Is that what I think it is?”
It was. Above each tub, hanging from the ceiling, was a clear tube. The tubes were coming from the facility where the men were being pumped.
“I don’t believe this shit,” Aces said.
“It’s a fucking cult.” I pointed at the monitor. “They fucking think that shit will make them younger.”
Aces giggled. “Hope they’re wearing pussy plugs.”
“Come on, I’ve seen enough.”
We slid the window back into place, checked for prints, and made our way out of the alley. The three-legged dog was still there, licking at the edge of a rain puddle. I gave it a piece of beef jerky from my pocket, because it looked like it needed a break.
Aces mounted up, cranked the throttle, and shot out ahead. I followed, the engine hummed in my bones, the blue-white light still burned onto my eyes, and the unspoken shit between us thickened with every block closer to home.
***
The bone room hadn’t moved. Same yellowed bulb, same dead air, and Selene at the end of the table, only now there was a glass of bourbon in front of her. The color looked rich enough to be a gemstone, but she hadn’t touched it. She just traced circles on the rim with her index finger.
Aces and I sat.
“Report,” Selene said, like she was calling for cards.
I started from the beginning: the block, the building, the window, the camera.
Described the layout of the milking room and the men inside—how they rotated in and out, how none of them ever said a word.
I listed the details: the recliners, the porno screens, the collection tubes, the cycle times, the workers in scrubs.
Aces picked up the thread, clocking the angle of the rear camera, the weakness in the window, and the rough square footage.
“No sign of a second floor,” she said. “But basement access wasn’t visible from the back or side. ”
Selene nodded after every beat, eyes narrowed, as if she was sketching the whole thing out in her head.
I paused, then told her about the basement. The overheard conversation, the word “overflow,” and the suggestion that it wasn’t all volunteers. Described how the workers tensed up, how they wanted nothing to do with what happened below.
That was when Selene’s mask faltered. Not much—just a tightening of the jaw, a little squeeze at the edge of her eyes. She picked up the bourbon glass and looked at it, but her hand didn’t shake. She set it back down, untouched.
“Any sign of club presence?” she asked.
Aces shook her head. “Didn’t see a single patch. Staff and, uh, talent only.”
Selene nodded, filed it away. “You think it’s a Queens operation, or are they fronting for somebody else?”
“It’s them,” I said. “They were using lingo I’ve heard before. Same hard edge, no frills, no men in sight except on the receiving end.”
She took that in.
“I need time to decide how we play this,” Selene said, voice low, almost soft. “This isn’t just a turf violation. It’s something else.”
Aces said, “The basement’s the problem.”
Selene flicked her eyes at him, then me. “Agreed.”
She let it hang. The silence stretched until it started to hurt.
“I’ll call a sit-down with the officers when I have a plan,” she said. “In the meantime, no chatter. Not even to your seconds. I want the club clear of any blowback until we control the field.”
I nodded. Aces did too, but slower.
“Understood,” I said.
Selene finally looked straight at me. Held my eyes with a weight I felt more than saw. “You did well,” she said, as if she’d practiced saying it and was still surprised by the taste.
“Thanks,” I said.
She released the look, and the room seemed to empty out all at once. Aces stood and left first, the same as always. I lingered a second, eyes on the glass of bourbon.
Selene didn’t drink it. She just stared into the amber, like there was something there to be read if you looked hard enough.
“Something you’re not telling me?”
I nodded. “There were women in the basement bathing in come.”
“What the fuck is wrong with people?”
I didn’t mean to smile, but it came out anyway, and Selene watched it like she was daring me to make a joke.
I didn’t, mostly because I couldn’t decide if that shit was funny or just the least surprising thing about Vegas since the time I’d seen a guy get stabbed with a frozen hot dog on a dare at the Riviera.
I stood there waiting for Selene to pull something more from me, but she just nodded like the confession squared with everything she’d already mapped out. Her lips twisted, maybe at the memory of the old days, maybe at the shape of what our club had become.
“You’re not disgusted at all,” Selene said. “None of this is even breaking new ground for you, is it?”
“Not really,” I said. I could feel her weighing all my answers against some internal scale, the kind they used in meat-packing plants, strict as God and silent as a dead judge. “We all have our vices.”
She stared at me for a long time. “Yes, we do.”