Vegas (Story Circle)

[esupin]

[10:56 AM. 30 minutes outside Las Vegas]

“The only good thing that's creeping in city! Elvis had fifty but this one's mine… Japanese cars, man, such a pity! AM radio suits me fine!”

Jeff looked over at the tall, big and handsome man sitting beside him, who was singing along to the radio and thrashing around the seat with his arms in the air. Jeff took a deep breath, and fought the urge to punch him in the face. Not that he would actually have done it. But sometimes he wished he had the balls to approach a drunk guy bothering a girl at bar or a wedding party or something like that and punch him in the face.

“Hey, Danny. Stop-”

“Mean machine!”

“-doing”

“Mean machine!”

“-that!”

Danny turned to Jeff and grinned. “My daddy said son, you’re gonna drive me to drinkin'!”

Jeff slammed the radio dial off. His piercing, babyish voice was starting to get on his nerves. “Danny! I told you to stop!”

Danny grinned again. “Wassamatter, Jeffrey? ‘My gonna drive you to drinkin’?”

"You’re going to what?" Jeff turned toward Danny and thrust his finger at him. “Listen here. This is my car and my job. I tell you what to do, and right now you need to shut up.” Jeff was already angry about having to go on a mission, and the fact that the boss had assigned an autistic hit man with him didn’t make things any rosier. Jeff was the brains behind all the plans, and he couldn’t believe boss made him go along. What if he got killed? The organization would crumble!

Danny slumped in his seat, pulling his Full Tilt Poker cap over his face. “Sorry, Jeff,” he whispered in a guilty voice.

Jeff nodded, satisfied. He usually wasn’t in a position to boss anyone around, and it felt good to flex his muscles. Well, his proverbial muscles, anyway, because he didn’t have real ones. Not because he was naturally weak, but because he never had the time to work out, he thought to himself. He was too busy hatching all the hit plans. If he had the spare time, he would definitely go to the gym.

“That’s right,” he muttered under his breath. “If I had the time, I’d be just as jacked as Danny here. Or maybe even more so.” Jeff glanced at Danny, who still had his cap over this face. “Well, maybe not more so. But just as jacked.” Jeff nodded. “Yep. Definitely just as jacked.”

[1 Week Ago]

Jeff pointed at the screen. “I’ve gone through all the scenarios. Any kind of assault would be suicide. They’ve even got snipers on the roof.”

“Who’s got snipers on the roof of their restaurant? Jesus H. Christ.”

“Maybe he’s just paranoid like that Ill Kim guy in North Korea. Hey, look I’m a mother fu-”

“Guys! Stay focused.”

“Shut your hole, Jeffrey.”

“Yeah, Jeffrey, shut it.”

“Hey, Jeffrey- don’t have a cow, man.”

“Shut up, Tweak. That’s not funny.”

“Yeah, Tweak. Shut up, you fool.”

The tuxedoed old man sitting at the head of the table surveyed the four bickering men and cleared his throat. “Excuse me. Boys. Please. Let’s get back to business.”

“Sorry, boss.”

“Yeah, boss. Really sorry. Won’t happen again.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry, too, boss.”

The old man cleared his throat again. “Jeffrey. Please continue.” His voice was quiet and calm to the ear, but the hint of annoyance was unmistakable.

“Uhh, yeah.” Jeff tugged at his collar, feeling the pressure of four sets of eyes trained on him. “I developed this playing card knife. It cuts through skin easily. I was thinking our mole Tim could get our assassin hired as a musician, who could bring along a deck of cards, with the special card knife tucked in it. We’ll need another man to cut the power to the building if we’re going to get our assassin out alive, though. Training the man to cut the power correctly so that their generators don’t kick in for another 30 seconds would be the only hard part.”

“How long would that training take?” The old man asked quietly, folding his hands together.

Jeff paused. “Um, well, I’m not sure.”

The old man smiled. “You’re not sure? Well… guess what, Jeffrey?”

“Um.” Jeff tugged at his collar again. Sweat threaded its was down Jeff’s armpits, and he was sure his back was swamped, too. That’s always been the problem with me, he thought. I sweat too much. I would have been so much more popular in high school if I didn’t sweat so much. If only I had better genes. If only my dad didn’t have such a hairy back.

“Uh…what?” he finally said, snapping out of his thoughts.

“Well. Jeffrey. Since you already know, what’s the point in training someone else?”

Jeff’s heart froze. “Ah. Boss,” he stammered. “I-”

The old man leaned forward and stared at Jeff with blue eyes that, despite their age, had lost none of their piercing intensity. “And I’m assigning someone special as the trigger man.”

[Present. 1:45 AM.]

“Alright, you two. The saxophone goes through the metal detector and so does your pal’s bag.”

“I told you not to bring the bag,” Jeff whispered to Danny. He still couldn’t believe boss paired him up with an autistic hit man. The guy was strong and handsome, but Jeff wasn’t sure he had the IQ of a ten year old. I just can’t believe it, he thought to himself. Just can’t believe it. If I were gay I would totally bang the guy, but hell.

Can’t believe it.

A big bald man took Jeff’s saxophone and put it through the metal detector as nine other stony-faced security guards with black Kevlar vests and machine guns watched. Then, he motioned to the paper bag Danny was holding.

“Give it here.”

Danny looked at Jeff. “But they’re my apples,” he whined. “I like apples,” he said a-matter-of-factly.

Jeff tried to snatch the bag from Danny’s hands, but the only thing he caught was air. “What the?” Jeff hadn’t expected the guy to have reflexes. After all, he was autistic.

“Fine.” Danny said. He threw bag into the garbage bin right outside the metal detector and took out a bright pink pocketknife. “Here’s my knife in case I get into a street fight.”

****, Jeff thought. Street fight?

The fat, bald security guard stared at Danny strangely. “You know I could kill you for bringing that here.”

“He’s autistic,” Jeff explained impatiently, pulling his shirt from his sticky back. He was starting to sweat through his undershirt in the hot Nevada air. That’s the thing about me, he thought to himself. I don’t like waiting. Bad things always happen when I have nothing to do, because then I always worry too much. Like right now, I’m worrying. I should just stop. Because there’s nothing to worry about. Jeff nodded to himself. Nothing.

[2:37 PM.]

“How long’d it take you to get here?” The comedian asked Jeff, who was tuning his saxophone. Jeff had been practicing, but he hadn’t played in six years and he had no idea how good he’d be. The comedian was wearing a red and white polka dot suit and a fake mustache. He used to write for some random Comedy Central show, but Jeff couldn’t remember the name. “It took me almost three hours. This restaurant sure is in the middle of nowhere, huh?” He looked around furtively. “I hear it’s so they can see their enemies coming from miles away,” he whispered. “Blow ‘em up, you know.”

Jeff grunted, and focused his attention back on his instrument. They had been here less than an hour, and every security guard and caterer already knew Danny’s name. He shook his head. Why does everyone always feel sorry for the autistic guy? It’s not fair. I mean, it’s the smart people that make the world run. Why do we even need autistic people for? We should have just killed them off like they were going to do in the early 1900s. Yep. If I could, I’d definitely kill all of them off. Definitely.

[3:12 PM.]

“You know what I hear, honey?”

Danny stared blankly at the woman’s face.

“I hear that old man Zambrotta’s too cheap to pay for lunch. That’s why he had us come at one.”

Danny nodded eagerly, his eyes focused her chair leg.

The woman laughed and her moon shaped earrings shook, catching the glare of the multiple chandeliers hanging from the high, vaunted ceiling. She took Danny by the hand. “Come on, honey. Let’s get you some punch.”

Jeff gritted his teeth as he watched the woman put her arm around Danny. I swear to god, when I retire I’ll buy four wives from Russia. Swear to god I will. Not joke. He entertained the thought for a moment. I’d make them scrub the toilet and do the dishes and cook for me.

I swear to god.

[4:31 PM.]

Jeff sat backstage, wiping his saxophone with a cloth and muttering to himself. There he was, first saxophone in his high school, conductor of his college band, and he was being outdone by an autistic guy on a piano. Every few seconds, he could hear cheering pour out onto the stage and spin its way to his backstage seat. That’s probably his talent, he thought. Some autistic people have random talents like that.

“Excuse me,” a timid voice supplicated. Jeff turned around and found himself staring at two beautiful young women in wavy, expensive looking dresses.

“Uh…” Jeff couldn’t find the words to reply.

“We were just wondering, since you’re with Danny, if he’s got any physical defects,” the one wearing the red dress asked.

“Yeah, you know. Other than his head,” the other one added.

Say something, Jeff thought to himself. Come on. Come on. Wow, those girls are cute. Wow. Say something.


“What?”

Damn. Idiot.

“You know,” the first girl replied, glancing shyly down at the floor. “If he has any problems… down there.” The girl looked at Jeff’s crotch, winking.

“Um.”

“Never mind,” the second girl laughed, dragging the girl in the red dress away. “Guess we’ll have to find out ourselves.”

[9:59 PM.]

Jeff was crouched in the back of the kitchen, brooding. He’d better have that card ready, he thought. He’d better not be late. He’d better not. I swear to god, if he’s late and he’s still with those two girls and we make it out alive I’ll ditch him in the middle of the mother ****ing son of a bitch dirty ass desert. He looked down at his watch again.

I swear to god, I-

[10:01 PM.]

Uh oh! Jeff realized. I’m late! He could already hear a chorus of screams coming from the main hall. He fumbled with the wires, and killed the power.

I’m a minute late. I can’t believe I’m late. We were supposed to have synchronized it perfectly. Why would they send me on a hit, anyway? Jeff groped his way past the kitchen and back into the main hall, which was immersed in total darkness. Don’t they know I’m not cut out for this?

Jeff was in the middle of blaming everyone else except himself when he bumped into someone in the dark and was tackled roughly to the ground. Just then, the lights turned back on. He could see a tuxedoed arm out of the corner of his eye, grinding his face into the ground, and the old man Zambrotta lying on the floor with his throat cut, his blood camouflaging with the rich, red carpet.

Suddenly, the man on top of him grunted and fell off. Jeff managed to roll over, and saw a bright pink pocketknife sticking from the man’s throat. A pair of hands grabbed him, pulling him into the adjacent hallway. It was Danny.

“Hey!” Jeff cried before Danny shushed him. Danny pulled out two apples, and threw them into the hall before pushing Jeff into nearby a room. A few moments later, Jeff heard a massive explosion. The room’s right wall collapsed, revealing a hallway blanketed with flames. The heat and smoke from the fire pressed against Jeff’s skin, suffocating him.

“Napalm,” Danny remarked in a soft, silky voice quite unlike the one Jeff had heard him use. “Napalm apples. Hot damn.”

“Wait a minute,” Jeff yelled as Danny grabbed a few forks and knives from a serving tray and tucked them into his belt. “Whoa!”

“I’m not really autistic, by the way. Figured it’d be a good guise. Boss told me you were liable to mess things up.”

“What-” Jeff blubbered. He could hear confused yells and intermittent bursts of gun fire.

“It’s not like I enjoyed it, you know. I felt like I was making fun of them.”

“But-”

“I sure hope those two gorgeous ladies made it out, though,” Danny said, winking at Jeff.

Jeff opened his mouth to speak, but just then an armed guard burst into the room. Before he could react, Jeff saw a blur to the right, and suddenly the guard was on the floor with a fork through his throat and a knife stuck in his left eye.

Jeff managed a tiny squeak before his knees gave out and he sank to the floor.

Danny smiled and patted him on the back. “I know what you’re going to say, Jeff. Same thing the boss said to me; son, you’re gonna drive me to drinkin'!”