Devil's Hand Read online

  Trent looked at her wryly. “You never been in a fish-storm before?”

  She punched him in the shoulder.

  He chuckled. “Well we better get this thing out of the mud. Hope it can still move. You need to be at work in the morning.”

  The statement made him feel worthless. He had no job. It had only taken a year of unbeatable pro gambling before they blacked him out. A lot of money gained and a lot of money lost; now he did odd jobs if he could find them, and those rarely lasted long. Bad things happened at job sites when Trent was around. After the crash, when the swelling had gone down and his spine turned out to be intact, the doctors called him the ‘luckiest man alive,’ but he didn’t really feel it, not anymore at least. Except at the poker table, he felt just the opposite.

  He glanced at Susan, who had pulled her blood-smeared rain slicker around her shoulders. The storm had brought an unusually cold chill with it. She grinned at him, still shaking her head. He smiled back. Well, mostly unlucky, he thought.

  A trio of fish smacked wetly on the glass in front of him and then slid slowly down onto the hood. He flicked on the wipers, creating a transparent pink window amidst the blood, illuminated weirdly by the coruscating shafts of colorful light from Las Vegas in the distance.

  He gunned the engine. The wheels spun in the mud, but eventually caught, and the van hauled itself back onto the road. The hail chunks had nearly all melted, but the dead fish were not going anywhere, making driving even worse than before. It felt like riding on grease.

  Trent eased the vehicle back into the proper lane and gave it just enough gas to set it trundling down the Interstate, barely topping 10 MPH. Only twenty miles to go, but he figured it would be near-morning before they made it to the new apartment.

  “Hey, hon?”

  Trent glanced at Susan. “Yeah?”

  “Thank you.”

  Trent nodded, then ran his hand through his hair, matted and wet with rainwater and blood. He winced when he touched the spot where the hail had struck.

  “It’s okay,” he said.

  But he wondered at the truth in that. It didn’t seem like Vegas wanted him back any more than he wanted to be there. It definitely did not seem okay.

  2

  THE RAIN SLUICED DOWN OUT of a concrete sky onto concrete earth, cold needles pricking at the old man’s skin. Neon of every conceivable color filled the firmament with a gray-brown sludge, like the puke-stained parking lot in front of a strip club. It was a place, he thought, where no one ever looked up. There is no night sky in Las Vegas; only a dull smear of a ceiling where the tallest building ends.

  Salvatore Cortina shuffled wearily along the sidewalk, as he did night after night, his brain churning through the memories that always threatened to slip away and be lost forever.

  Alzheimer’s, the doctor had said years before. Salvatore remembered that the man had refused to make eye contact as he delivered the bad news. It was the tiny, sour memories like that that always remained. And the big, awful ones.

  He walked past the Luxor hotel, tattered shoes slopping through puddles of ice-cold rain and sidewalk grease, in which swirled endless parades of naked women on soggy paper cards. The usual men who lined the sidewalks handing out the cards had retreated for the night to wherever they go when the weather turns foul. It was, thought Salvatore, a small blessing. The weather could not stop the gamblers, though, who still filed in and out of the casino entrances like drowned rats. A soaked, over-endowed prostitute stood upon a street corner, no umbrella, rain soaking her bleach-blonde hair as her trembling hands fumbled to light a too-wet cigarette. This is the Hell that I have chosen, thought Salvatore, and not for the first time. This is my penance.

  And one of those huge, terrible memories came rushing back.

  He snarled and coughed and tried to force the images of fire and sounds of screaming from his mind. There was nothing I could do, he thought. Nothing at all. God took them. It was His will, not mine.

  He cracked his knuckles and then pulled his threadbare long coat tighter around his shoulders in a futile attempt to stave off the waves of chilling rain that were coming down now at an angle, blown by sudden gusts of wind. The sheets of cold sent young women in skimpy dresses into laughing shrieks as they sprinted inexpertly from one casino entrance to the next, stilettos clip-clopping. One of the women, tall and thin, twisted her ankle as her high heel snapped in half; she went down with a huff and a childlike cry and laid there in a puddle, looking pathetic. Her friends stood under a casino awning, pointing and laughing. Salvatore shuffled past, and couldn’t stop himself from mumbling, “whore” as he did so. The woman was too preoccupied to hear.

  Past the jet-black Luxor pyramid and the Excalibur with its gaudy castle facade, past the New York-New York and then down an alley between it and the Monte Carlo. Salvatore had made this trip many times. He needed an ingredient, and with the tunnels flooded for a few hours, there wasn’t much else he could do other than forage.

  Salvatore Cortina lived in the drainage tunnels beneath Las Vegas. Built over a number of years, and stretching well beyond the city proper into the desert beyond, the tunnels were a means of channeling rain from torrential downpours–like the one ongoing–into the desert rather than into the streets and casino lobbies.

  But Las Vegas was not a place where rain fell often, so the tunnels remained mostly dry. Squatters, bums, and junkies set up camp when they could, occasionally shooed out by the LVPD, only to return in a few days time to a different section of tunnel where the police would leave them alone.

  Salvatore had a fairly permanent residence there, with an assortment of propane tanks, gas burners salvaged from turkey-frying kits, and odd pots and pans pulled from dumpsters behind hotel kitchens. It was another sort of penance, a Purgatory that he shared with those cast out by the surface-dwellers, the underclass of the weak and ruined and addicted. And Salvatore was their preacher.

  His sermons came weekly, as they should, on Sundays in a large cross-connect between several tunnels. His was not the only ‘church’ in the tunnels, but he had a reasonable congregation; a dozen or so broken souls hoping for salvation in their lucid moments and hunting for their next fix anytime else. If Salvatore could lengthen the former and diminish the latter, he considered it God’s work being done through his voice. If he could fill their bellies with something more than despair and alcohol, he knew that God was directing his hands.

  He reached the back alley behind the Monte Carlo’s first floor kitchen, now a swamped, gravel-strewn resting place for several green metal dumpsters and an assortment of loose beer bottles and the ever-present escort service flyers. Under an awning, a fat Hispanic man with a goatee, face tattoos, and white line cook’s uniform was taking a smoke break. He looked up as Salvatore approached, smoke curling from his nostrils.

  “Whatchu want, Sallie? I ain’t got no more tonight. You already picked me clean, bro.”

  Salvatore did not recognize the younger man, but knew that he had allies in the kitchen here, once-members of his flock that had escaped the tunnels and found gainful employment, willing to part with kitchen scraps and mostly-empty jars of spices, tomato pastes, and olive oils. With the basics and some scavenged, uncooked pasta, Salvatore could work miracles.

  “Seriously, man,” said the cook, “I’m out. Whatchu looking at me like that for?”

  It was the day-to-day memories that disappeared. The recognition of someone’s face or name, the hourly sequence of events in his life, the things said or unsaid–those were the casualties of Salvatore’s disease.

  The doctor had proclaimed, matter-of-factly, that Salvatore wouldn’t even know his own name in six months. That was eight years ago. He had beaten the odds. His mind still felt sharp and clear. He had no confusion, just holes where bits should be. Things forgotten. He could probe the empty spots with his mind, like fingers probing a bloody wound whose edges were well-defined, but the more he did, the more it brought on migraines. He had, instead, learned
to accept the forgetting and forego the pain.

  “I don’t remember you,” said Salvatore, his voice quiet and trembling from the cold. “Did we meet recently?”

  The Hispanic looked shocked. “What the Hell, Sallie? You known me for two years. George Rodriguez. I helped with your church until I kicked the crank and got this job. You been getting food from here every week.” He gestured at the kitchen door behind him and took a long puff from the cigarette with his other hand. “Come on, Sal, you never forgot me ‘fore now.”

  Salvatore shook his head. “I’m sorry, I have a rare form of–”

  “Yeah, yeah, you got the old timer’s. My uncle got the same thing. I know that. But you forgetting me now? You must be getting worse, Sallie.” He took another drag on the cigarette.

  “I was here recently?”

  George nodded and blew out a big cloud of smoke that was quickly torn apart by the falling rain. “Last night. You was looking for some stuff for an arabiatta.” He shrugged. “Gave you all I had. I’m tapped out.”

  Salvatore felt his shoulders slump. Had he forgotten the sauce he had been making? He had left his ersatz kitchen ahead of the coming storm, knowing that the tunnels would likely flood. Had he secured his equipment to the tunnel ceiling to keep it out of the floodwaters? He couldn’t remember, and the probing was threatening to bring on a new migraine. He pictured his favorite saucepot, boiling away above a propane burner as the tunnel waters rose up and carried it off. There would be no meal for the congregation this week. And had he really known George for two years? Maybe the forgetting was growing worse.

  “So you have nothing,” he tried, hoping to salvage what would be a disappointing Sunday with no food. “Nothing at all?”

  George frowned and flicked the remains of his cigarette into a puddle. “Nothing, bro.” He stood up. “Hell, I gave you more last night than I probably even shoulda. I get caught given stuff to bums and the owner’ll have my ass.” He made a shooing motion with one hand and then turned to open the kitchen door. The smells of high-end cooking spilled out into the night. “I can’t help you no more. I could lose my job.” Then he stepped into the kitchen and let the metal door slam shut behind him.

  Salvatore’s stomach rumbled in response to the kitchen smells. His head ached. Had he not been through this a dozen times or more already, he might have cried.

  The next two visits went no better. At the rear of one restaurant, he knocked and had the door slammed in his face moments later. At the other, the speed-addicted line cook that talked with him gave him a single dinner roll and told him not to eat it all at once, laughing. It was the stop after that where Salvatore finally scored some provisions.

  The giant black man that answered Salvatore’s knocks looked him up and down and then said something inaudible back into the kitchen. A reply came, the black man nodded, and then turned and said, “hold on,” in a gravelly voice. He shut the door.

  Salvatore had almost given up and turned to leave when it creaked back open. The black man appeared with a plastic grocery bag full of jars and cans, topped by two half baguettes, obviously going a bit stale, but still good. “Here you go,” said the man. “Don’t tell nobody.” Then he shut the door.

  The old man’s heart danced in his chest. Enough for at least a halfway decent Sunday meal. The congregation would get something, rather than nothing. He stared at the restaurant’s kitchen door with its tiny, faded sign that read: Antonio’s. Italian restaurant. Salvatore had no recollection of the place and that made him worry. How could he not remember an Italian restaurant? The wash of joy faded from him before the reality of his deepening memory loss.

  He sighed, clutched his plastic bag tighter inside his coat, and left back down the alley by which he’d come. He was nearly to the street when the coked-out mugger stepped into his path.

  The man was jerky and highly agitated and waved a trembling knife at Salvatore. “Empty your pockets, gimme the bag.” Just for good measure, he made a mock thrust with the knife and added, “now!”

  Salvatore stood frozen, his brain confused by the unexpected situation. What to do? He had no money. Would the thief stab him for being poor? At first, his arms clutched the bag tighter to his chest, as if it were the only thing left that mattered to him. But then, a quiet, defiant voice rose up in the back of his mind, deep beneath the years of memories, sliding through the mists of forgetting.

  “No,” he said, voice quivering.

  The mugger let out a weird little shriek. “Dammitdammitdammitdammit just gimme the shit, man! Just gimme the shit!” He took another step forward and threatened a few more stabs with the blade.

  Salvatore felt his bladder loosen and warmth trickled down his left leg. The defiant voice was drowned out by feelings of anguish and embarrassment. He was so old, too old for this sort of thing. He just wanted to go back to the tunnels, where he could be alone, where it was quiet and the smells of his junk kitchen were all that mattered.

  “Please.” He shook his head. “I don’t have anything. I’m just homeless.”

  A look crossed the mugger’s eyes, a look that suggested a moment of clarity, but it was quickly replaced by rage. He rushed forward, knife outstretched.

  Salvatore fully evacuated his bladder then and his arms went weak and the plastic bag fell to the ground, spilling its contents into the grime. The loaves of bread went immediately soggy. Glass jars shattered and splashed their contents onto his feet. The provisions were lost. But no matter. Salvatore knew that he would be dead in minutes.

  The knife was inches from Salvatore’s throat when the mugger’s eyes suddenly went wide, a grimace of pain struck his face, and he dropped the knife and leapt backwards. His feet went out from under him and he fell, landing ass-first in a puddle on the cement. Salvatore could see blood soaking through the pants over his right ankle. Beside the mugger’s feet was a long, gray snake, fangs bared.

  The mugger saw it too, let out a scream, and began crab-walking backwards, hands and feet scuffling against the soaked concrete as he desperately tried to put distance between himself and the creature.

  A voice rang out in the alleyway. “Hey, fucknut. Mugging a bum? Really?” A short, scrawny man in a hooded sweatshirt stepped up beside Salvatore from behind. He gave the old man a glance and a wink. “Heya, Z.”

  Salvatore had no idea what that meant, and simply watched in awe as the snake, and three more like it that had appeared from behind piles of trash in the alley, began chasing the thief out of the alley. The man finally managed to stand, hopped a few times on his injured foot, and then ran sidelong, letting out a series of whooping shrieks, while never turning his gaze from the oncoming snakes.

  Still shrieking, he reached the end of the alley and stumbled out into street. There was an ear-splitting screech. The smell of melting brakes. A delivery truck moving at high speed. One second there, standing frozen against the headlights. Next second, a stomach-churning thump and the mugger went from vertical to a tumbling pile of pink and gray under the tires. The driver fishtailed, stopped, and then laid on the horn.

  The short man in the hooded sweatshirt looked at Salvatore with a surprised grin on his face, looked back at the mess in the street, let out a sharp, ‘Ha!’ and then whistled appreciatively. “Shit yeah!” he exclaimed. “Gotta love the timing.”

  “Y- you-,” stammered Salvatore. “You killed him.”

  The short man shrugged. “Snakes were poisonous. Would’ve died anyway in a few minutes. Better than a crack addiction for the next ten years, if you ask me. I did him a solid.”

  Salvatore’s mouth opened, but he couldn’t find the words.

  The short man gave him an ear-to-ear grin. “So how you doing, Z? Took me a bit to find you.”

  “My- my name is Sal–”

  “Salvatore Cortina,” interrupted the short man in the hood. “Sure, I know.” He nodded. “Interesting choice by the way. Feeling poetic, are we? Fire and ice?” He walked a few feet down the alley so he could get a bett
er view of the truck driver, now panicked, bending over the corpse-heap of the would-be mugger. The driver had a cellphone to his ear.

  The man in the hood turned back around to face Salvatore. “Smart, really. Made it harder to find you, but it’s gotta diminish you some.” He walked back and poked Salvatore hard in the chest. “This guy really want you hanging around?”

  Salvatore shook his head. He hadn’t the slightest clue as to what the short man was talking about. Fire and ice? And it seemed like the man was talking to someone else. Salvatore turned to look briefly over his shoulder, hoping to see another person that could clear up the confusion.

  “Huh,” said the man. “You’re really out to lunch right now, aren’t you? Alzheimer’s, right?”

  Salvatore turned back and nodded.

  The man laughed. “Right.”

  He reached under the hood and scratched at his head, then reached into his sweatshirt and removed a manila envelope. He thrust it toward Salvatore, the motion making the old man stumble back a step. “Here,” he said. He shook the envelope as if to make the point. “Take it.”

  With a trembling hand, Salvatore reached out and took the envelope.

  “I think you’ll find it interesting. You’ve been looking for what’s in there.” He paused. “Well, ‘you’ is a relative term here. Just hold onto it for now.” He turned to leave, watching the commotion in the street, which had now grown to several people. Sirens wailed in the distance. “Oh,” he said, without turning back around. “And you should probably check up on your hidey-hole. Some pretty bad floods tonight.”

  Salavatore could only mumble, “ok” at first, as he watched the hooded man, hands in his pockets now, walking slowly down the alley toward the commotion-filled street. Finally, Salvatore regained enough composure to shout out his questions.