“Nuck this, Mirplo,” I said. “Let’s get out of here.” We left the bar. In my mind, I was already in Vegas.

  I hadn’t quite figured out what to do about Boy, but when I got home, I discovered that problem to have sort of solved itself. On the tile kitchen floor (where Allie and I’d made love—ack!) I found a note written in crude block letters, like a righty writing lefty, “Sorry, man, she needs me more.” And it was signed with a paw print.

  Oh, Boy.

  19

  Martybeth

  I was walking through the Gaia Casino in an outfit that did not agree with me. My shoes were too tight, too shiny, too squeaky. My tie was ridiculous—well, all ties are ridiculous, a noose around a neck—and my white-on-white custom suit with the Gaia-green silk shirt made me feel like a revival preacher or a pimp. Or an ice cream man. This sucked. And it sucked worse because when I play dress-up, I want it to be my choice, for my reasons. But this clown suit was Jay’s play—one I’d tried my best to talk him out of.

  That hadn’t gone too well.

  Rolling the clock back a few nights, we find Hoverlander and Wolfredian sitting in parked cars in the parking lot of Sunset Park, just south of McCarran Airport’s glide path. A beer-league softball game is in progress nearby, the donk of aluminum bats on balls cutting through the background din of landing planes.

  I had called Wolfredian. Told him about this genius young artist I knew who was suffering from a bad case of sudden wealth. I was surprised to hear that Woody’d not sent advance word of this, but I stumbled past that and proposed that Jay and I meet to discuss the best way to pluck this bird, code name Albuquerque Turkey. I told him I was already in town and could come to his office at the Gaia at his convenience. Instead he directed me here, to this grotty, anonymous ball field, where the Droogs were beating the snot out of Maxx’s Tap. I suppose I didn’t fit the profile of the sort of associates Jay greeted in his office.

  Or maybe Jay was just a huge fan of the Droogs, for just then coming to bat was none other than Red Louise, the sidewheel with the sense of humor. As I eyed Jay eyeing Red, I understood that he was multitasking: having a meeting with me while watching his hot bodyguard play ball. I wondered if they were having an affair.

  I also wondered where the hell Woody was, for he’d been tasked to lay pipe for this meeting, which pipe had gone manifestly unlaid. I couldn’t ignore the possibility that this was Woody’s own exquisite exit strategy: simply paste my picture atop his on Wolfredian’s dart-board, then do the shade and fade. I preferred to think not, but who could know? It’s not like Woody’d have dropped me a jackalope postcard saying, “Here’s my bag of shit, thanks for holding it.” Maybe he’d found another angle to pursue, which would put him off script, but at least not off the reservation. Maybe he’d met a mishap, even a premeditated one. I couldn’t bring myself to contemplate that dark scenario.

  Whatever I wanted of Woody, dead wasn’t it.

  Wolfredian got out of his car and motioned me out of mine. We slouched against our front fenders, watching Louise take her stance. She toed the dirt, bent her knees, cocked her ass. Her bat, held high and vertical behind her right shoulder, stirred the air like a swizzle stick. She looked off the first pitch, fouled off the second, and drove the third so high and deep into the night that I worried about it getting snarged in a passing jet engine. Her mirthless home run trot brought her teammates to home plate to greet her, and a wry smile to Wolfredian’s face. All I could think was, The damage she could do with a bat.

  Now Wolfredian outlined what he haughtily called his job offer. I was to join the Gaia staff as a casino host. I’d be given a salary, benefits, and a crash course in Gaia guest services. I needn’t worry about finagling a casino employee’s license, for Jay knew a guy in Gaming Control who could “expedite” (read: totally fabricate) my paperwork. As for my personal history—how I came to work at the Gaia and what I’d done prior—Jay left that to my own natural inventiveness.

  “I don’t see why I have to jump through these hoops,” I said. “I already told you about …”

  “The Albuquerque Turkey, yes. Is he ready to write a check?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Of course not. We have to fluff him first. So he’ll need his host. Someone he can trust. Can he trust you?”

  “Like a brother.”

  “How about me? Can I trust you?”

  “Like my other brother.” I saw a segue and slid through it. “Speaking of trust and family relations,” I said, “you’ve been burned by my old man before. Aren’t you worried about getting singed again?”

  He looked at me. I saw age in his eyes. “I was a kid when he duped me,” said Wolfredian. “It won’t happen again. Meanwhile, this whale of yours—what did you say his name was? Marlowe?”

  “Mirplo.”

  “Is he any good?”

  “Good?”

  “As an artist. What do you think of his stuff?”

  I answered truthfully, “Getting better every day.”

  Jay nodded, processing this through some filter I couldn’t guess. “Okay,” he said, “then let’s get him sorted. Bring him to town, show him a good time. But if he’s going to gamble in my casino, he’s going to be part of my system. Which means you’re going to be part of my system.”

  Which led to me crossing the Gaia gaming floor in ice-cream-man mufti, fingering my new photo ID and listening to my shoes squeak. I’d spent all morning in human resources, where I’d (creatively) filled in some personnel forms and selected my choice of health plan. Next came a long trek through the casino’s back-of-house, with introductions to my locker, this costume, and a time clock. Time clock! I was an employee. A working stiff at last. Against all odds, I’d actually landed a job. I wondered what Allie would think of me now. (Then tried not to think of her now.)

  I’d been instructed to report for orientation outside Grēēn, one of the Gaia’s three nightclubs. Arriving there early, I studied the club’s posted menu of infused waters, energy cocktails, overwrought appetizers, and its signature vodka, Byrd Station, chilled with hundred-thousand-year-old core ice from Antarctica. As I switched my cell phone to vibrate, I mulled the irony of a supposedly eco-friendly casino cooling grain alcohol with heirloom ice.

  A lilting voice behind me said, “Mr. Hoverlander?”

  I turned and saw a short young woman with a cascade of yellow curls framing her apple cheeks, button nose, and candy lips. Her outfit, the femme version of the Gaia host uniform, strained equally at the bustline of her white blouse and the waistline of her green skirt. Zaftig, that was the word for her; cushiony. The kind of girl who made you want to put your head in her lap and listen for ocean sounds. She extended a hand and smiled, revealing deep dimples and a set of teeth so chemically whitened they practically glowed. “I’m Martybeth Crandall,” she said in a voice with the trebly brightness of a talking doll. “Welcome to the Gaia. Mr. Wolfredian tells me you’re bringing us a sizable new player.”

  “Well, I couldn’t expect to get this job on my merits, could I?”

  This admission, an odd version of the truth, seemed to confound Martybeth, and she tussled with it for a moment before dismissing it and moving on. “Radar,” she said. “Well, that’s an unusual name. Is it a family name?”

  “Yes, I come from a long line of airborne threat detectors.”

  She looked at me blankly while the joke soaked in, then emitted a tinkly laugh, like falling beads of shatterproof glass. “You’re a joker,” she said, then repeated to no one in particular, “This one’s a joker. Come on, joker, let me show you around.”

  Martybeth led me on a quick spin through the Gaia’s main casino, a grand rotunda filled with roulette wheels, blackjack and craps tables, and bank after bank after bank of every casino’s workhorse, the slot machine.

  “You won’t spend much time here,” said Martybeth. “Players at this level don’t have hosts. They’re all rated and comped through their club cards.” She gave me a quick rundown of Club Gaia’s point system: For every dollar you gambled, you got ten points. Accrue enough points, you earned a sandwich or a hat. This was beneficence, Gaia style.

  We traipsed on, eventually arriving at a discreet door with the word EXCLUSIF emblazoned in raised brass letters across its ebony surface. Martybeth smiled at the doorman there and said brightly, “Good morning, Bob. How’s Lawrence?”

  “Fine, Ms. Crandall,” said Bob as he opened the door.

  “Over the flu?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Well, give him my love. He’s a sweetheart.” We walked past Bob and plunged into the lounge. “Lawrence is his boyfriend,” said Martybeth. “He’s cheating on Bob, of course, but I don’t have the heart to tell him.” This was quite indiscreet to share with a virtual stranger. Poor impulse control. I made a mental note.

  The club revealed itself to be an artful throwback, like cocktail hour in the fifties. Leather banquettes faced big windows looking out over a lush botanical garden. Behind the bar stood a tuxedoed barman, honing his invisibility. A single patron sat at a small round table. He was a middle-aged man in a velour tracksuit, nursing a snifter of something and fiddling with a Geoid. Its functionality must have eluded him, for his frustration flowed as he impatiently beckoned Martybeth over. She threw a genial arm around his shoulder and let her fingers dance over the surface of the tablet. In a moment he was smiling and, I noticed, grabbing her ass.

  I studied the back bar. The top shelf contained such legendary spirits as Johnnie Walker Blue, Nouvelle-Orléans absinthe, Nun’s Tears gin, and several bottles of brandy and cognac whose combined age could be measured in millennia.

  There was no second shelf.

  Martybeth rejoined me. We crossed to the far side of the lounge and stood looking out at the gardens. “That’s Mr. Jarvis,” she said. “He’s one of my regulars. Never can remember how to transfer more money into his player’s account.” She leaned in and whispered conspiratorially, “The guy’s nose is completely open. Easy as the Geoid makes wire transfers, he’s going to give us everything he’s got before he’s done. Plus, he had me lift his stop-loss.”

  “What’s a stop-loss?” Which I knew, but Martybeth seemed to want to show off, so I let her.

  “The limit a gambler imposes on himself. ‘Don’t let me lose any more than that,’ they say. Then they lift their own stop-loss and, boom, it’s party time.” She hooked a thumb at Jarvis. “His stop-loss is five hundred grand a day.”

  “Should you be sharing that information with me?”

  She squeezed my upper arm a tad too intimately. “There’s no secrets here, buddy boy. You’re one of us now.” Dropping her hand to my elbow, she steered me across the lounge to a dark alcove. “Let’s go see the rooms.” Inside the alcove was an elevator that opened to the swipe of her card key. “This goes straight to the high-roller suites,” she said. “Some of our guests don’t like coming in through the front door. They don’t want to be seen entering a bar.”

  “Mormons?” I asked.

  “Them, sure. Plus Muslims, movie stars, and alcoholics.” As we entered the elevator, Martybeth rattled off a list of famous names, delighting in her naughty indiscretions. A short stab of acceleration later, we were on the top floor.

  The suite she showed me was huge and, this being the Gaia, equipped with next-generation everything, including floor-to-ceiling windows that polarized on command or automatically at first light, and a flat-panel TV commanding one full wall of the living room. This, I learned, was independently interfaced with the suite’s own satellite dish, in addition to a server loaded with any TV show, archived sports event, or film you could think of, plus hundreds you’d rather not think of unless you’re alone or in the company of a like-minded pal.

  The sound system was similarly over the top, with a digitized library of over ten thousand titles, and smart speakers that followed you from room to room (including each of four bathrooms) and could mute or damp themselves, should you so choose, at the sound of a telephone or conversation. Apart from three bedrooms, the suite had a pool table, an office equipped with an onyx desk and matching conference table, and six custom leather Think and Leap chairs from Steelcase. On the table lay another Geoid, this one with a distinctive gold shell—the guests’ to keep, said Martybeth, so they didn’t have to worry about leaving any compromising data behind.

  Chefs stood by 24/7, not down in the basement, in the factory-like room service larders—those were for the hoi polloi—but in a private kitchen that serviced only suites like these. There was no menu: if you could name it, they could fix it, from ostrich steak or truffle soup to Black Forest gâteau, made from scratch, on demand, with freshly ground cinnamon and, by damn, authentic Irish butter. Live Maine lobster was flown in fresh every day—and thrown out if no one chose it. Ounce for ounce, it was the most expensive food in the world, but you’d never be charged a penny for it, so long as you kept your downstairs action high.

  Certain other delicacies might require a quiet word in the ear of your host. Chronic from Holland. Peruvian blow. Off-label muscle relaxants. Or the latest designer psychedelics. Of course, drugs aren’t for everyone. How about a lady? A man? A lady and a man? They’ll perform with you, on you, or for you, depending on your taste. And don’t feel at all self-conscious, please, about voicing these … ah … exotic requests. Your host is trained to provide and not to judge. You’ll find nothing but approval here, no matter how deep into depravity you dive. You are our guest. We want you to feel at home.

  All of which Martybeth explained to me while declaring herself a poster child for the concept. “Like this one time,” she said, “with this diva. I probably shouldn’t mention her name.” But she did. “She needed someone to pee on her. At three in the morning! Where do you find someone to do that? Craigslist?”

  I couldn’t help asking, “So what did you do?”

  “I managed. A good host has her resources.” She shot me a wink and I got the shivery feeling that her involvement had been, as it were, hands on. “She went off very huge. Downstairs in the casino, I mean. I got a nice bonus.” Then she fixed me in the gaze of her pale eyes. “Do you want to know the key to success in this job, Radar?”

  “Sure.” I shrugged.

  “You can only go so far with amenities. I mean, of course you nail the front-row-center seats or arrange a private meet-and-greet with the big boxer or whatever. But any host can do that. They build up a tolerance for luxury, these whales. They start wondering, ‘Isn’t there anything better than first class?’ ”

  “And is there?”

  “Only one thing,” said Martybeth. “Personal service. You go the extra mile. Give me a second, I’ll show you what I mean.” Her ample ass followed her into the master suite where, from behind closed doors she called out, “Mr. Wolfredian thinks quite highly of you, you know. He says you’re a macher.”

  “A what, now?” I went to the window and looked down at the Strip, thirty stories below. The cars looked like crumbs. Tiny, moving crumbs. I wondered how many of them were Sharps.

  “Macher. A rainmaker. Someone who can land the big whales.”

  “I don’t know about that,” I demurred.

  “Well, he does,” she called. “So that means I do. Which means that you’re my boy. Okay, come on in.”

  I went on in. Behind opaque windows, the big bedroom was dim as dusk. Soft music played. Martybeth had turned down the bed, and now sprawled across it like an overstuffed cat, her staunch bra and panties struggling heroically to stem the tide of her pulchritude. I may have said something. Probably not. Probably I just gawked.

  “These sheets,” she said, patting them with the flat of her hand, “are thousand-count, long-yarn Egyptian cotton. Each set costs five hundred dollars. And you know what I think?”

  She didn’t wait for me to answer. “I think we should mess ’em up.”

  20

  5150

  There’s this thing in my experience called girl logic: a woman’s understanding that, in most circumstances, she can have what she wants, when she wants it, just because she wants it, merely by declaring that she wants it. It carries some weight, does girl logic. For evidence, just consider the phrase get lucky or ask yourself who buys whom drinks in bars.

  Or just consider this moment here. Were our positions reversed, with me in my briefs launching this blatant coworker come-on, sexual harassment in the workplace would barely begin to describe the outrage. As things now stand (as Martybeth now stands unsnapping her bra and unleashing her formidable rack), it looks like a moment of classic male fantasy. “Dear Penthouse, I never thought this sort of thing would ever happen to me.…” Even married men are expected to stand to attention here, their marital vows wilting in the face of a tasty tryst. For someone in my ambiguous situation, it should be a no-brainer, right? Sexy woman say jump, horny man say how high.

  But for someone in my ambiguous situation, there are several problems, not the least of which is, hey, I’m really attracted to this chick. I wouldn’t have figured her for my type, for I generally don’t do Rubenesque, but one look at Martybeth and you know she knows she’s gonna be a great, sweaty, fleshy, frisky lay. Still, let’s not neglect the strategic implications, for what looks like a spontaneous roll in luxury hay is shot through with agenda. Has Wolfredian put her up to this, to see if I can pass a wuss test? Or is this her idea of a strategic alliance with the new kid in town, or just breaking him in on thousand-count sheets? It could be a muscle play: To seduce a man is often to put him in your pocket, in the face of which seduction, the only power a man has is the power to say no. This power is generally well underutilized.

  My body, meanwhile, was casting a vote of its own, a vote Martybeth noted and ratified by subtracting the distance between us, and unself-consciously cupping my junk.

  I felt a tingling in my pants.