...D...A Struggle...

"The struggle is imminent, no?"  The phlegm growl rattling in his exhalation, he sat in the corner of room 1639 opposite me.  Sat in the dark wood desk chair and I on the bed with my arm over my brow.  I stared at him through wisps of hair, trying to blot the little streams of afternoon sun spilling through the curtains.  He shouldn't smoke: I'll face a charge on checkout.

He had no eyes, or, I could not perceive them.  The light was a glowing smudge on the right side of his face, the details of his white hair, his light scars that crisscrossed his face were crisp.  They were tick marks of years of trouble.  Troubles that he impugned upon others in a trial of several decades.  He crossed his legs and laid his hand lightly on his knee.  A Southern genteel perhaps.  His voice had a singsong way about it.  That would be my prejudice.

"I've refined my art over many years, you see."  The use at the end, perhaps German?  The television was on, but the sound muted.  It was hard to stare at him.  This was all designed, this was dramatics.  The light in my face, the light on his, the light of the television.  He gave me something.  I felt like I had just run a marathon. Smells were harsh.  The smell of his cigarette mingled with the layers of smokes past.  The hotels on Fremont were of the old tradition.  There was smoke, unabashedly so.  He exhaled, the rattle almost soothing, it was long and rhythmic.  The cloud invader pushed toward me but dissipated.

I gagged.  He grinned.  I felt the weight in my body, a sickly heavy weight that grew with each breath.

"You see, you will die from arsenic.  A few cigarettes would not normally do this of course, the body can withstand a nominal amount of it.  In your case, I've provided an intravenous amount of lacetine.  Your body has grown grossly sensitive to arsenic.  It will be take only a few cigarettes to kill you."

I nodded.  What else could I do?  He was meaning to kill me.  That was that.

Days prior I had arrived at the D with a single duffel bag, twenty thousand dollars and a few slips of paper.  The slips of paper was worth much more than the cash.  I was to wait a day.  Assuredly, I was to wait so they would watch me.  Clovis Marshall would send a few men that I had never seen before.  I intentionally sequestered myself to the Fremont Experience.  The Experience was for those that had yet humiliated a grown man in women's lingerie.  Under the thousands of lights, rubes smiled uncomfortably at shift around the woefully desperate.  Scratch that off the bucket list.  I did not hide myself from them.  I knew I was obvious enough. Years of experience working with phantoms will do that.

I fed myself on a few shit restaurants.  I had to keep it light.  $2 hot dogs.  $2 shrimp cocktails.  I couldn't dig into the kitty.  20k in a bag is 20k, not a penny less.  There would be no problems from me.

I sat at the bar of the Four Queens, as I found them particularly helpful in providing drinks as I played .25 cent video poker.  I finally sensed a man taking an interest in me.  Those in my business have the instincts to detect another piece of shit, the soul sucking dregs that fed off of this life.

He flipped open a pack of matches and sucked on a stick.  He kept the matches out, the face to me.  The Golden Gate.  I imperceptibly nodded to him when he finally made eye contact.  Even then I could not see the color of his eye.  We would exchange bags then.

I went to the hotel, invigorated by the chance to leave this place.  I had nothing but business here right now.  I had an appointment with a guy from Madera to install some new rain gutters.  The current ones were like sieves.  It was all I could think about.

As I put away my dirty clothes in a launder bag, I miss old Vegas.  I do a few things when I come: hit up St Joan of Arc on South Casino (say a prayer for my parents), find a place with some Sinatra left in it (they are getting harder to come by) and I eat at Oscar's.  Spaghetti and steak.  Whiskey.  Water.  I've done this for the better part of seven years.  I listen to Sinatra 8-tracks the rest of the way home, a few bricks of heroin packed under the undercarriage of the Ford Fiesta.

There was a knock at the door and the white haired man stood there with a stone face, I only stared at his mouth.  It was flat, like an ocean's shore.  He moved into the room before I could even respond.  He locked the door behind us.  I kept my face to him, and we bantered for forty minutes when I turned my back.  It all made sense, but only after he hit me in the back of the skull with a sock full of dollar coin.  He hit me with one smooth stroke, a professional who did things right.

It all made sense and it all caught up with me.  Everything.