Jarret Keene - Las Vegas Noir

This collection is comprised of works of fiction. All names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the authors imaginations. Any resemblance to real events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Published by Akashic Books
2008 Akashic Books

Series concept by Tim McLoughlin and Johnny Temple
Las Vegas map by Sohrab Habibion

ePub ISBN-13: 978-1-936-07033-6

ISBN-13: 978-1-933354-49-1
Library of Congress Control Number: 2007939596
All rights reserved

Akashic Books
PO Box 1456
New York, NY 10009
info@akashicbooks.com
www.akashicbooks.com

ALSO IN THE AKASHIC NOIR SERIES:

Baltimore Noir, edited by Laura Lippman

Bronx Noir, edited by S.J. Rozan
Brooklyn Noir, edited by Tim McLoughlin

Brooklyn Noir 2: The Classics, edited by Tim McLoughlin

Brooklyn Noir 3: Nothing but the Truth
edited by Tim McLoughlin & Thomas Adcock

Chicago Noir, edited by Neal Pollack

D.C. Noir, edited by George Pelecanos

Detroit Noir, edited by E.J. Olsen & John C. Hocking

Dublin Noir (Ireland), edited by Ken Bruen

Havana Noi (Cuba), edited by Achy Obejas

London Noir, edited by Cathi Unsworth

Los Angeles Noir, edited by Denise Hamilton

Manhattan Noir, edited by Lawrence Block

Miami Noir, edited by Les Standiford

New Orleans Noir, edited by Julie Smith

Queens Noir, edited by Robert Knightly

San Francisco Noir, edited by Peter Maravelis

Toronto Noir (Canada), edited by Janine Armin & Nathaniel G. Moore
Twin Cities Noir, edited by Julie Schaper & Steven Horwitz

Wall Street Noir, edited by Peter Spiegelman

FORTHCOMING

D.C. Noir 2: The Classics, edited by George Pelecanos
Delhi Noir (India), edited by Hirsh Sawhney

Istanbul Noir (Turkey), edited by Mustafa Ziyalan & Amy Spangler

Lagos Noir (Nigeria), edited by Chris Abani

Manhattan Noir 2: The Classics, edited by Lawrence Block

Mexico City Noir(Mexico), edited by Paco I. Taibo II
Moscow Noir (Russia), edited by Natalia Smirnova & Julia Goumen

Paris Noir (France), edited by Aurlien Masson
Phoenix Noir, edited by Patrick Millikin

Phoenix Noir, edited by Patrick Millikin
Portland Noir, edited by Kevin Sampsell

Richmond Noir, edited by Andrew Blossom,
Brian Castleberry, & Tom De Haven

Rome Noir (Italy), edited by Chiara Stangalino & Maxim Jakubowski
San Francisco Noir 2: The Classics, edited by Peter Maravelis

Seattle Noir, edited by Curt Colbert

Trinidad Noir, edited by Lisa Allen-Agostini & Jeanne Mason

To John OBrien and his sister Erin OBrien

TABLE OF CONTENTS

THE MOST DANGEROUS CITY IN AMERICA

O oh, Las Vegas, sang the pioneering country-rocker Gram Parsons. Every time I hit your Crystal City, you know youre gonna make a wreck out of me. As Las Vegans, we regularly read about these wrecked lives in newspapers and magazines. We routinely observe people going about their wildly destructive antics on mainstream TV. Often we cant believe these stories are unfolding in our city. They almost seem like put-ons, elaborate pranks borrowed from atrocious cut-rate screenplays. But there they are, these inhabitants of our city, their mug shots staring us down, making us wonder if what Parsons said is really truethat in Las Vegas your only real friend is the queen of spades.

How crazy does crime get in Las Vegas? Well, consider these tales taken from local papers:

Husband-and-wife champion bodybuilders strangle their personal assistant, torching her body in a red Jaguar in the Vegas desert. Eventually police apprehend the couple in a shopping center, where the killers are drinking root beer and getting manicures.

Failing in his effort to sexually assault a female parishioner, a Catholic priest clobbers his intended victim with a wine bottle before going on the lam. According to a police report, he tells the church worker, her consciousness fading, I am over the edge.

And then theres this: O.J. Simpson, who years ago was found not guilty of decapitating his wife and her lover, storms into a hotel room with armed accomplices to retrieve items that belonged to him, sports memorabilia like his Hall of Fame certificate and photos of him standing beside J. Edgar Hoover.

On it goes, a litany of wicked behavior and stupid folly. People come from all over the world to do dumb, dangerous things in Sin City, whether its someone locking himself in a Fremont Street motel to kick a nasty heroin habit, hooking up to an oxygen tank in a last-ditch scheme to double his nest egg at the downtown slots, or shooting a weekend porn flick that goes disastrously wrong once a rabid pit bull is introduced. In these true-life narratives, no one shows up in Las Vegas to do anything smart, tactful, or even kind. Instead, they come here to fuck up. Big time.

The sheer range of true Las Vegas crimeno doubt spurred on by the citys explosive growth (which recently passed the two million mark)can be intimidating to crime writers and readers alike. How can literary fiction surpass the strangeness of this place? Indeed, it takes a lot to top the gaudy spectacle that is Las Vegas, and were happy to report that the writers who contributed to this volume have done just that. Theyve beaten the odds to conjure characters and stories that transcend any of the lurid dramas of Vegas youll read about in newspapers or watch on the tube.

The stories gathered in Las Vegas Noir are written by longtime residents and avid chroniclers of Sin City, authors who take you far beyond the neon of Caesars Palace and into neighborhoods too dangerous for CSI. Absolutely clich-free, these stories are full of flesh-and-blood characters trapped in dire circumstances that only real Las Vegas neighborhoods can spring.

The late John OBrien, author of Leaving Las Vegas, gives us the story The Tik, in which a junkie hooked on a mysterious drug reunites with his wealthy ex-lover to embark on a thrill-killing expedition. In David Corbetts mystifying Pretty Little Parasite, a Fremont Street cocktail waitress plagued by Holocaust nightmares believes coke dealing is the best way to become a stay-at-home mom. In Lori Kozlowskis Three Times a Night, Every Other Night, an Irish pub singer banished to North Las Vegas and at the end of his professional rope is destined for a mobbed-up fate. Jaq Greenspons Disappear centers on a down-and-out magician whose former assistant steals moneyand may be fingering him to the bad guys. And in Celeste Starrs chilling Dirty Blood, a simple pickup in a gay bar takes an unusual twist when the protagonist finds more than lubricant in his dates sock drawer.

There is plenty of heartbreak and humor (albeit of the blackest order) too. In Tod Goldbergs Mitzvah, for instance, a con man masquerading as a rabbi feels trapped in the suburbs until he plans a brutal means of escape. In Scott Phillipss Babs, an ex-stripper turned bar owner drags along a visiting Midwestern cartoon aficionado to reclaim some meth for a mutual friend. And Vu Trans devastating This or Any Desert explores the fractured psyche of a renegade cop looking to avenge his Asian ex-wifes physical abuse at the hands of her new husband, a Chinatown businessman, with searing emotional and psychological insight.