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
[email protected]
www.akashicbooks.com
A
LSO IN THE
A
KASHIC
N
OIR
S
ERIES
:
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
F
ORTHCOMING
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 Aurélien 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 O’Brien and his sister Erin O’Brien
T
ABLE OF
C
ONTENTS
D
AVID
C
ORBETT
Fremont
Pretty Little Parasite
V
U
T
RAN
Chinatown
This or Any Desert
P
ABLO
M
EDINA
West Las Vegas
Benny Rojas and the Rough Riders
C
HRISTINE
M
C
K
ELLAR
Green Valley
Bits and Pieces
L
ORI
K
OZLOWSKI
North Las Vegas
Three Times a Night, Every Other Night
J
AQ
G
REENSPON
Sunset Park
Disappear
J
OSÉ
S
KINNER
East Las Vegas
All About Balls
PART III: TALES FROM THE OUTSKIRTS
N
ORA
P
IERCE
Test Site
Atomic City
C
ELESTE
S
TARR
Pahrump
Dirty Blood
B
LISS
E
SPOSITO
Centennial Hills
Guns Don’t Kill People
F
ELICIA
C
AMPBELL
Mount Charleston
Murder Is Academic
J
ANET
B
ERLINER
Area 51
The Road to Rachel
T
HE
M
OST
D
ANGEROUS
C
ITY IN
A
MERICA
O
oh, Las Vegas,”
sang the pioneering country-rocker Gram Parsons.
“Every time I hit your Crystal City, you know you’re 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 can’t 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 true—that 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 there’s 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 it’s 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 crime—no doubt spurred on by the city’s 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 we’re happy to report that the writers who contributed to this volume have done just that. They’ve beaten the odds to conjure characters and stories that transcend any of the lurid dramas of Vegas you’ll 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 cliché-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 O’Brien, 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 Corbett’s 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 Kozlowski’s “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 Greenspon’s “Disappear” centers on a down-and-out magician whose former assistant steals money—and may be fingering him to the bad guys. And in Celeste Starr’s chilling “Dirty Blood,” a simple pickup in a gay bar takes an unusual twist when the protagonist finds more than lubricant in his date’s sock drawer.