Dietrich
One last deal, then I’m out.
If I live that long.
The concrete landing pad below wavers in the soul crushing Vegas heat. The rhythmic thump thump thump of the helicopter blades matches the pounding in my temples.
The chopper reeks of stale cigarette smoke and vomit. Sort of like most casino floors at four AM.
This month’s home base for me is the Presidential Suite at The Venetian with a high rollers pass to use the private elevators and back hallways that keep me from the incessant press of tourists that pack the massive hotel and casino every day of the year.
Hotel life suits me. My possessions fit into three large trunks along with a few suitcases and I’m comfortable in the orderly environment of a high-end hotel. Room service and a private concierge can bring you anything.
For a price.
A gambler’s life has treated me well, thanks in most part to my superhuman ability to read people.
Or, otherwise called, The Art and Science of Body Language.
It’s a horrible title for the book about my life I’ve been writing on and off for the last four years. One I’ll finish as soon as I secure this last deal and who knows? Maybe there’s a Hemingway inside me waiting to be set free.
Less the suicide. And the drinking. And the divorces.
Okay, never mind Hemingway.
I open and close my left hand as the helicopter shakes around me.
The aching in my knuckles is from a little lesson I delivered in the basement of an abandoned warehouse a few days ago.
The blood washes off but as the years pile on, the pain takes longer to subside.
My morals may be painted in shades of gray, but there are things I do not tolerate.
One of them is hurting animals.
The other is selling humans. Especially children.
I took it upon myself to cut a lock open on the back of a U-haul a couple weeks ago that was sitting in a vacant lot waiting for some flesh peddler to pick up his cargo.
Fucking mafioso fuckers I’d worked with successfully in the past decided to get deep into a new revenue stream and I caught some intel on an incoming ‘shipment’.
I should have stayed at the blackjack table talking to this rich lady who couldn’t stop staring at my cock. Margaret Malcom. Her husband died couple years ago without a pre-nup and she took control of nine figures of cash and other assets as well as some high up contacts.
I could have swindled her out of a few hundred grand there and then, but dumb fuck that I am, I pocketed her info for use at a later date and made my way into the stink of the Vegas night to set twenty-eight people free.
Wasn’t my smartest move. My years of doing profitable business with the Zeneli fuckers bought me an out but it’s one chance and if I don’t bring it in, I may get away now, but those guys are like bedbugs.
They’ll wait you out for years but eventually, eventually they get their pound of flesh.
Or in my case, as Zeneli said, he’ll feed my heart to his beloved white tiger.
Named Cruella.
Fucking dipshit.
Fuck this hot as fuck town with its shitty tasting water and everyone trying to out-rich everyone else.
The piles of money never gave me a hard on, it was the win.
Manipulating people and reading them before they even knew what was happening.
It was a rush, but not anymore. The only last micro-thread tying me here is this glimpse of a girl I caught when I dropped off a barely breathing little matted Maltese to my private contact at the Vegas animal shelter could weeks back.
I was focused on saving the dog when I caught sight of the back of one of the workers. Fairy tale ice queen blonde hair hanging down her back, nearly touching her fucking ass.
Jesus, that ass. It went on for daaaays and I wanted to bury my cock in it and never come back out. I haven’t stopped jerking off thinking about her since, which for me is way out of the fucking ordinary, especially since I never even saw her face.
Fucking weird.
But, I had to focus on the dog and get back to the owner I left chained to a pipe waiting for karma to come calling.
Hi, it’s me. I’m karma.
Outside of my work, my only hobby is quietly saving dogs that got the shit end of the stick in one way or the other, and then ending the fucking miserable lives of the ones that harmed them. Other guys play golf, I do this. It’s the closest thing I’ve had to a feeling of purpose.
But, aside from that little blonde distraction which does not serve me right now, I need to make introductions and manipulate some old money casino builders into taking a deal with my former associates.
It won’t be the sexiest deal I’ve ever made but it’s got the best payout.
My life.
But I need a daughter. Before tonight.
And therein lies the rub, because despite getting what I thought was the perfect girl lined up a week ago, turns out, she had a big fucking flaw.
Loose lips sink ships.
She took me as a man that could be led around by his dick, as if I’d give her the opportunity.
I told her I had zero interest in fucking her and I wouldn’t even remember her name after this job was done, she took that as a challenge.
I’ve got eyes and ears around Vegas and it didn’t take long, even in her low rent circles, for word to get back that she needed a lesson in keeping my name out of her mouth.
She got it.
So now I’m desperate.
I glance at the screen as my phone buzzes and grind my teeth.
It’s Zeneli Xhaka, the Krye, or street boss of the group that I used to work with before I set their human cargo free.
He’s a fucktard with a Godfather complex but right now, I gotta take the call.
“What?”
“Mr. Belotti. I have a car waiting for you on the tarmac. You will take it.”
“I’ve got my own.”
“No. My driver will keep me informed of your location.” He pauses. Yeah, I’m temporarily screwed but I’ve never been in a situation that I couldn’t unscrew given enough time. “Have you found your beloved daughter yet?”
“Nyet,” I growl.
Zeneli chuckles. “That is Russian, Mr. Belotti. In Albania we say jo. But I’m hoping the next time we speak, the answer will be yes.
You were the one that said by presenting yourself as a family man, even providing bait for Margaret Malcolm’s virgin loving son, you would surely make our deal proceed.
The only reason you are alive is because you’re useful to me.
Don’t make the mistake of changing that. ”
He hangs up and I squeeze the phone so hard silk thread-like cracks crisscross the black glass.
I could take him one on one if that had been an option.
I’ve enjoyed my share of good food and wine and I’m carrying about forty pounds worth of cover over my core but knowing how to fight and win isn’t just about fists.
There’s an X factor; you either have it or you don’t. It’s what got me through SEAL training.
But Zeneli has an army behind him. A black-hearted, creative and obedient one.
I’ve been around when they schooled others on the repercussions of fucking with their business.
I’m not clean either, I’ve got plenty of blood and dead bodies in my history, but I’m tired.
I’m fifty-two years old and I don’t sleep.
I’ve lost the ability to feel pleasure. I’m a walking dead man so it’s get out and try to find what makes me alive again or just be dead.
The chopper sets down with a bump and the whirring of the blades slows as my face stares back at me from the window next to my seat.
I look fucking dead. The gray at my temples and the creases around my eyes remind me more and more that time is not infinite.
Despite the flatline of emotions in my features, I’m impeccably put together as always.
My hand-stitched gray suit is creaseless, my white custom-made shirt is open at the collar, no tie.
I might have packed on a good forty pounds over the years but I’ve never been vain about myself.
I like good food, but I’d take hundred to one odds I could still lay out anyone that came at me.
I look rich and I am. Quietly rich, not the boisterous, tacky kind you see at the craps tables where flip flops and three hundred dollar sweat pants scream look at me.
I don’t need to stand out. I need people to want to get close to me. They need to trust me. Feel good around me. That’s the magic.
I tried to buy off my error in judgment with Zeneli but he wanted something else. He’d gotten some noise about my new friend, Margaret Malcolm, who is now the pivot point for putting together the deal that will buy back my life.
A black Bentley stretch is waiting when I step out and cross the landing pad, the blazing heat swirling in the air, and as I climb in the back of the car, my phone buzzes.
I take a moment to breathe and settle myself.
I’m running out of time to find my daughter, which is key to the deal.
Out of all the ways to try and get Margaret to trust me in the short amount of time available, I had to lie about being a father.
I lathered it on thick, with a story about being thrust into fatherhood eighteen years ago, when an ex showed up on my doorstep with a chubby ten-month old, paternity papers, a diaper bag and the news that she had to high tail it out of town for skimming on drug mule deals and she was never heard from again.
Margaret was insanely enamored with my rise-to-the-occasion fatherhood. The idea of being a father never occurred to me in real life. The way I’ve lived, there hasn’t been room or time to have a relationship with more commitment than a few hours of company, let alone a child.
But bringing my daughter to her over-the-top bullshit charity affair is just the trust magnet I need.
I blow out a breath, shake my head and look at my phone screen as the driver eyes me from the rearview.
“Where to?” he asks with a thick Eastern block accent.
“When I know, I’ll tell you,” I answer, because right now I’m not sure.
There’s an email notification in my anonymous encrypted Proton account I use only for my contacts at various animal shelters around the country. This one is from my contact at the Vegas PSCA which I decide to read before anything else.
D,
As promised, I wanted to update you on the condition of ‘Micro’.
She is going to live, thanks to you. She will be fully rehabilitated, and a home found for her according to your guidelines.
Your most generous donation, yet again, allows us to provide top level care and re-homing to the best adopters possible.
Your continued support and intervention on behalf of the animals means the world to us and them. We do wish to publicly thank you, but respect your wishes to remain simply, ‘D’.
I ball my fist then stretch out my fingers as the pleasant memory of the popping sound of every finger on that worthless fucker when I dislocated them will remain with me forever.
I give zero fucks that I was the one that ended his life.
I would have killed him ten times if it were possible for what he did to that dog.
Most of my soft spots have scarred over, but not when it comes to dogs. I have my reasons.
But, what about the blonde…
I shake my head and click onto the most recent text.
GREG HUNTER: I have an actress for you. She’s perfect.
ME: Send me the address.
I’ve known Greg for maybe five years which is a long time in Vegas. He’s got some scratch, but he’s a lowlife loan shark when it comes down to it.
I give the driver the address and close the privacy screen, leaning back onto the cool leather seat.
My recent recurring daydream of a life away from here on some sandy beach without the stink of broken dreams and stale liquor washes over me.
I close my eyes, my head rest on the top of the set then clear my mind and go to that quiet space I’ve cultivated with an unlikely mediation practice over three decades.
I breathe as the images turn vibrant. I’m on the beach under one of those fucking palm frond umbrellas with a smoking hot little triple cherry virgin-looking blonde giving off Marilyn Monroe vibes, and she’s rubbing a nine-month round belly, wearing this tiny as fuck yellow string bikini.
Her face isn’t clear, but I know who it is. I know exactly who it is.
Her epic double-D’s are spilling out of the tiny triangle top.
She’s got a ring on her finger with a ruby the size of a Sweet Tart.
It’s the ring my mother put into my hand on her deathbed.
It was the only valuable possession she managed to hide from my POS father who left us both high and dry when I was ten.
My dick springs to life, thick as a corn cob and I practically double over like I’ve taken a fist to the gut.
It’s the girl from the shelter. I know it.
I’m fucking losing it. I need to get the fuck out of this town.
In my vision, the girl is smiling and so am I. That’s how I know it’s not real. I never smile.