The Reckoning (4 page)

On the final approach into McCarran, Royce stared out the cabin windows at the jeweled lights of the Strip and wondered why he had ever gotten mixed up with Cliff Wells, the best reason for making abortions cheap and readily available Royce had ever encountered. A spoiled trust fund baby from Philly, Cliff was so repulsive his family paid him three thou a month (and set him up in a Marina Del Ray apartment) with the understanding that he could never set foot in Philadelphia again.

There Cliff—the cocky shrimp—was, up forward, putting the make on the pretty, fresh-faced blonde flight attendant who looked more like she should be swinging pompoms than food trays. This, after he had made a flaming ass of himself by refusing to eat the dinner of stuffed chicken breast and rice with the Danish almond paste cookie for dessert.

Now, he was glaring at the flight attendant with fevered, dissolute eyes—the same wanton glare Royce had witnessed when he first met Cliff two years ago in the Body Shop, an LA strip bar. Royce was there enjoying all the sophomoric high jinks of a bachelor party, and Cliff was recruiting girls for a new venture: adult “amateur” home videos.

But the girls weren’t biting that night, maybe because they suspected their first acting assignment would be to go down on Cliff’s root, without benefit of appropriate financial compensation. So Cliff, gregarious to a fault, fell in with Royce’s bunch. And when the video
auteur
discovered Royce was a Drexel investment banker, well, Cliff was all over him like a cheap suit.

Cliff was quite an idea man, and all of his money-making schemes were based on the premise that most folks were inherently corrupt, loathsome. There was, of course, Cliff’s idea to put pornographic videos “of real people, really fucking” into every bedroom in America. Then, of course, in keeping with Cliff’s own recreational habits, there was the plan to establish a national franchise of head shops named McMellow’s.

While keeping one eye peeled for bouncing titty, Royce had listened to all this gibberish with some interest. Cliff, after all, was quite entertaining and made Royce feel smugly superior. For a mover and shaker of Royce’s caliber, there was satisfaction in humoring an amateurish buffoon rooting around in the dung at the lowest level of the food chain.

“I do three, four, maybe five deals a week, each of ‘em bigger than anything you’re talkin’ about,” Royce slurred proudly. He stopped short of telling Cliff that his projected net income this year, with bonus, was just short of 350K, and that he was only twenty-eight years old.

“I know, man. But that’s where I need your expertise. I got the big ideas. You got the big financing. This Milken guy you work for, he’s got the plan. I’d like to meet him sometime.”

That would be a laugh, Royce thought. Michael Milken meeting Cliff Wells. Hell, they’d probably get along splendidly.

“Michael’s really kinda shy,” Royce said.

“That’s okay,” Cliff said, smiling. “I have a way of bringing people out of their shells.”

They toasted their new friendship with several shots of Cuervo Gold (on Royce’s tab), and later clinched the relationship with a couple of lines of toot back at Cliff’s apartment. Cliff, Royce discovered, was a cokehead and a small-time dealer. When it came to the white powder, Royce always felt he could take it or leave it. That night he took it—a lot, for him.

They started to pal around together, boozing, drugging, wenching (lots of wenching) just for laughs. It was an unlikely pair, but each got what he needed out of it. For Cliff, it was a chance to stay close to the epicenter of incredible power and avarice. For Royce, well, he told himself he wasn’t quite sure why he let the little fuck hang around. Sometimes, he worried there was a character flaw in him that had allowed himself to be used by a fringe element like Cliff. Certainly, most of his friends didn’t see what he saw in the guy.

Royce couldn’t blame his friends for being judgmental about Cliff, especially when the little prick claimed to have been bitten by a female “bitchin’ vampire” in a rat hole of a club on Sunset Boulevard, at the stroke of midnight on May 6, which happened to be some arcane holiday called St. George’s Day. Cliff had gone on and on about the significance of the date while showing Royce where he’d been “fanged” on the neck. The marks only looked like skin indentions to Royce, and that really pissed off Cliff when Royce told him so.

Cliff thought he’d finally found his true identity, that of a modern-day vampire. From that day forward, he donned the dark glasses, shunned direct sunlight, and removed all the mirrors from his apartment. He even took to sucking the blood out of fresh meat packages at the grocery store.

“Only trouble is, it makes my shit black and smell like sulfur,” Cliff would say, smacking his bloody lips.

What a lame-oh
, Royce thought. But still he stuck it out with Cliff.

The senior flight attendant announced it was time to put the trays up and seats back in preparation for landing. A voracious leer on his face, Cliff made his way back to his seat. He grinned at Royce and said, “Lookee what I got,” and deposited a wadded cocktail napkin in Royce’s hands.

On the napkin a woman’s name—Valerie—and phone number were scribbled.

Cliff winked. “Don’t let Val’s looks fool you. She’s a pro. She’s laying over in Vegas this weekend, and she’s willing to let us lay into her for some generosity on our parts.”

“Both of us? At the same time?”

“Sure. A three-way. A
menage a trois
. If this swinger’s convention fizzles, I say we give her a call. I’ll even let you go first, Royce. Hell, I don’t mind sloppy seconds.”

Then it struck Royce why he spent time with Cliff.

With Cliff, there was always the nervy anticipation that something wonderful was going to happen.

Royce’s lower back ached from parking his butt on that stool for so long.

He punched the red “spin wheel” button for maybe the thousandth time that afternoon, not bothering to watch how the cylinders ended up. He punched the button again. This time, there was a jangle of noise and flashing lights. The digital credit counter increased by twenty.

Frankly, winning irritated him, because there was a delay while the machine screwed with itself before he could press the red button again. With each win, his agony was prolonged.

Royce had made a forty-dollar investment in quarters last more than three hours at one slot. At one point, with a couple of good jackpots, he could have cashed out with 683 quarters. But that would have meant having absolutely nothing to do, instead of very little. Stereotypes notwithstanding, he was not a big fan of casino gambling. The small amounts involved (coins and chips you actually held in your hands, for Christ’s sake), the sleazy environment, the feral look of the hardcore players—all of it made casino gambling seem so coarse to him. And frankly, he found betting with his own money an unnecessary risk. Even in his callow days at Salomon right out of Stanford, he’d go on these wild weekend junkets to Atlantic City with the other fledgling Big Swinging Dicks and spend most of his time maneuvering for pussy. Or just plain buying it.

Yes, back then he’d had a reputation as a cunt hound. And what was the difference? When you went out on a date with a girl, wining and dining her, what was that? You were shelling out lots of money with the hopes of getting into your date’s panties. That was the return on your investment.

The other way, the sure way, the way Royce considered more honest, you at least had a better chance of getting what you wanted. You want a redhead? You buy a redhead. You want big tits?

He felt a rush through his phallus.

And they didn’t ask to be held afterwards, or want your work phone or start scheming to get you to the altar.

Christ, the thoughts spinning through his head sounded so callous. Carly was too good for him. He knew it. He didn’t deserve her. A good lady.

A good lady
. Royce smiled. He might as well have said she had a good personality.

No. If there were a way…here it came, the bit of nastiness he’d been fantasizing about. He’d zip Carly’s head onto another woman’s body, a busty, well-endowed one. That’s all that would have to be done, and his Carly would be perfect.

Next to his slot machine, the sticky, spent drink glasses were piling up; his temples throbbed from all the free gin and tonics he’d downed. Sweat stains half-mooned under his armpits. Further, the pores of his hands were ingrained with quarter dust, a stigma he’d picked up before figuring out the credit system and had to jam every quarter in by hand. Vaguely, he wondered about infection.

And he had to pee.

Royce punched the cash-out button. The machine made its obnoxious sounds as it emptied its bowels for him. As the trough filled, he gazed dully across the Hacienda’s casino. He could easily pick out the swingers, and not just because many of them wore these Lifestyles Organization name badges. Cliff was right, the women were here, young, attractive women, dressed as risque as the casino management would allow (and that was plenty, as he would later find out): plunging necklines exposing snowy tits; severe minidress and fishnet hose ensembles; cheeky short shorts with skimpy halter tops; sheath dresses as tight as sausage casings; oodles and oodles of luscious T&A.

Yeah, the ladies were here, but most of them were paired with their swing partners; for the most part, their older husbands, guys who wore pinkie rings and western-cut suits, and were dentists from Anaheim or construction contractors from Dallas. These boys dressed their women up like whores to attract other males, who, in turn, offered to swap their own wives. From Royce’s perspective, it seemed like a pretty good deal for the men, especially if they couldn’t afford a mistress. He wasn’t sure what the women thought of the arrangement, though most of them seemed happy enough, ecstatic even.

For Royce and Cliff, though, it had been a washout. These swingers were a cliquish bunch. Well, the Lifestyles literature had said it was a “couples only” event, hetero or otherwise. But Cliff had said never mind that, there would be plenty of pussy available, most of it free. Shit, for what Royce had spent on this little trip he could have stayed home in his comfortable Westwood townhouse and arranged through an escort service a weekend of some really excellent in-calls; two girls at once, if he wanted.

Where the hell was that Cliff, anyway?

Time to quit this nonsense. He scooped his winnings into a plastic bucket and had to use both hands to heft it. The cashier’s line was too long to bother with, so he decided to play God and pick out a worthy recipient.

Six slots down, a hairy-eared geezer with an oxygen tube running out of his nose was laboring away at the lever. Royce strode up to the old man’s stool—taking care not to tip the oxygen bottle—and dumped the quarters into the slot’s trough.

Royce said, “Pop, maybe these will improve your luck.”

The lunger’s filmy gray eyes dilated in Royce’s direction. “Buzz off,” he gasped.

Royce quickly backed off. “Sorry, old fuck,” he muttered. Jeez, what was the world coming to that good deeds were rewarded in such a manner?

He found a men’s room, then went looking for Cliff. Cutting through the casino, he reached the lobby. No sign of him. Swingers were still arriving. Outside, in the August heat, it must have been 100-plus degrees, and some of the women—especially those in leather outfits—looked like very exotic, wilting flowers.

At last, he located Cliff in the lounge, where he was at a table and deep in conversation with a couple wearing Lifestyles name tags. Cliff introduced them to Royce—Earl Shoup and his wife Marcie, who operated the Loving Tenders swing club in Seattle.

Royce shook Earl’s hand (Earl was in his fifties but looked like he worked out) and got a knuckle buster, then bowed slightly to Marcie, an open-faced, plush redhead in a pink jumpsuit with zippers located at each of her ballooning breasts and (Royce assumed) her crotch.

“I see you’re admiring my zippers,” Marcie said brassily to him.

Royce fumbled words as he stared at a
U.S.S. Iwo Jima
tattoo on Earl’s meaty forearm. “I…I’ve never seen zippers there before.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Earl told Royce. “That’s what swinging is all about, being free to express your sexual feelings.”

Royce nodded. “Great.”

“I think it’s simply fucking wonderful!” Cliff chimed in.

Awkward silence followed, then Cliff offered to get more drinks, saying, “That damn waitress must be under the bar blowin’ the bartender.”

“I’ll get them,” Royce offered, not relishing the prospect of being alone with the Shoups. He took their drink orders—strawberry daiquiri for Marcie, Coors light for Earl, Cuervo for he and Cliff—and headed off to the bar. When he returned approximately ten minutes later, the Shoups had already departed.

Alone at the table, Cliff was blowing smoke rings.

“What the hell?” Royce asked, setting the glass-laden tray down beside Cliff.

Cliff ran his fingers through his lank, greasy hair and shrugged. “Don’t know. I thought I had an in with them. I was trying to wrangle an invite—for the both of us, mind you—to their private party tonight when it all sort of fell apart.”

“They get pissed about something?”

“Well, Earl did. For awhile I thought he was going to throw a punch at me.”

“What did you do, Cliff?” Royce asked suspiciously.

“Nothing.” Cliff winked slyly. “Okay, all I did was ask Earl how much it would cost me to fuck his wife in the butt.”

“You did that?” Royce snapped.

“Yeah.”

Royce raised his glass of tequila, took a mouthful of the burning liquor. He swallowed, wincing, and said, “What’s so bad about that?”

Cliff raised his own glass, giggling. “Yeah, man, what’s so bad about that?”

Saturday night, Royce was less forgiving of Cliff.

“I told you we should just call Val for Christ’s sake, or call an escort service. This is ridiculous!”

“Give it a chance, will you, Royce?” Cliff whined. “This from a man who promotes junk bonds for a living.”

The line inched closer to the ballroom entrance, which must have still been at least one hundred yards away. They were standing outside the Hacienda, in a queue of hedonists nearly two-thousand long. And what an outrageous array of seductively attired flesh it was: slutty banshees, horny little devils, sluts, satyrs, jungle princesses, biker mommas, giant condoms, men in formal wear of tails, top hats and g-strings.

The local yokels were there, too, watching all the action from the safety of their cars in the parking lot. It must have been a late summer tradition for many of them, Royce figured. Much cheaper—and far more stimulating—than renting a porno tape.

Standing there with Cliff at his side, both of them in slacks and sports shirts, Royce felt as conspicuous as a debutante at a farting contest.

“I told you we should have gotten costumes,” he said testily.

“Fuck that costume shit,” Cliff said. “This way, we really stand out. Be easier for the ladies to spot us. Besides, what would we have gone as? Human dildoes?”

“We should have just called Val.”

“And give up so easy, Royce? No way.” Cliff lit a cigarette. “This is gonna work. It’s gonna work.”

A half-hour later, they finally gained admittance into the ballroom. Dance music throbbed heavily from a rock band; spinning mirrored globes threw squares of white hot light on sequined masks, bra tops and g-strings. Once in the ballroom, many of the women shed their tops, which resulted in what seemed to Royce a sea of bobbing titties of various shapes, sizes and colors. Many of them excellent. For the most part, they were WASP white or golden tanned, but here and there were superb examples of black, Hispanic and Asian boobies, some of them nicely full. Some of the nipples were pierced with rings, though, the sight of which made him wince.

A lust burned in Cliff’s eyes. “What’d I tell you, old buddy?”

“We’ll see.”

Cliff in the lead, they snaked their way through the press of mingling swingers. Most, from what Royce could tell, were paired off with someone. This fact didn’t stop Cliff. He patted the first female tush that presented itself.

The Rubenesque blonde belonging to the fleshy fanny squealed and backed into Cliff, giving his fingers free rein to snap up her hot pink g-string and do some intimate exploring. She seemed to enjoy it, but her escort, dressed appropriately as a Roman gladiator, didn’t.

“What are you two pencil dicks doing with my wife?” He thrust out hard, oiled pecs on a chest as broad as a Cadillac’s hood.

Cliff sneered. “You got bigger tits than your wife.”

That did it. Spartacus drew a sword that, though not sharp, could definitely do some damage. By now, Royce had crooked an arm around Cliff’s scrawny body and was dragging him away.

“Let me at him!” Cliff yelled, his thin arms flaying.

Two jocks wearing Lifestyles golf shirts stopped Royce and Cliff’s retreat and explained that if they caused any more trouble, they’d be expelled from the masquerade ball. It was all Royce could do to keep Cliff from shooting his mouth off again.

“Okay, okay,” Royce told the security guys, strong-arming his buddy back into the safety of the crowd. He managed to get Cliff to one of the cash bars.

“Why the fuck you do that?” Cliff spat. “I don’t take shit from anybody. You know that!”

“Look, you’re the asshole who wanted us to attend this damn thing. Now you want to get us thrown out?”

Cliff sputtered. “Well, okay.”

Cliff was starting to cool down, so Royce offered to buy him a drink. “Fine,” Cliff said, running his fingers through his unwashed hair. All they had in the way of tequila was Pancho Villa (an additive for the jugs of margarita mix), so Royce got them a couple of vodkas on the rocks. They sipped their drinks and surveyed the scene.

Lewdly, Cliff sniffed the fingers of his right hand and licked them.

“Deelish,” he said, leering. “There are some sweet honey pots here tonight.”

“Yeah. But look. I don’t think this is going to work for us. Why don’t we just blow this pop stand and call Val?”

“Nah.”

Royce finished his drink, pitched the plastic glass into the trash can.

“Come on. Let’s call her.”

Cliff scowled. “I already did. This afternoon.”

“And?”

“And the bitch gave us a bogus number. It belongs to the Vegas Planned Parenthood clinic.”

Royce chuckled.

“You think that’s funny?” Cliff said angrily.

“Hell, yes, I think it’s funny.”

Cliff finally smiled. “Guess you’re right. Hey, it’s that cunt who’s the loser. Missing out on a couple of cocksmen like us.”

“We’re studs all right. We can’t even get laid at a swinger’s convention.”

“Well, we’re gonna do something about that right now.” Cliff had thrust out his right forefinger to make his point and spilled his drink on Royce’s Topsiders. “What we got to do is get us an invite to one of the private orgies later. And I think I’ve got just the thing for easy entree.” He tenderly patted a tubular lump in his left pants pocket. “I’m perfectly willing to contribute some stash to the cause. All for one and one for all, I say.”

Royce frowned. “You think that’s wise? Here? They seem so straight.”

“You think if they were straight they could dress like this? No, we’ll be ass deep in pussy by midnight.”

“You might be right. But I think we should split up, work the crowd, better our chances.”

“Sounds like a plan. But don’t forget to tell them about the blow, Royce.”

“Certainly. Meet you back here, in say an hour?”

“Okay. Good hunting.”

Royce watched Cliff disappear into the crowd, in pursuit of a very tall, buxom redhead (Cliff had a special fondness for women of Valkyrie proportions).

Royce was glad to be rid of his friend for a while, especially since there was a chance of his pal making contact with an undercover narc. It seemed likely, in all this uninhibited cavorting, there might be one or two Vegas gendarmes. Hanging with Cliff you could never be too careful. Royce had developed a “You go first” posture when Cliff proposed stunts that were illegal, dangerous, or both.

Free of encumbrance, he wandered, feeling something of the nastiness of a voyeur but enjoying himself. There were many sexy women to ogle, and even some male physiques that gave Royce homophobic twinges. After awhile, all of it sort of took on a unisexual cast for him, as if overall body perfection was a more sought-after attribute than primary or secondary sexual characteristics. It struck him that he and Cliff never stood a chance of cracking this party. These swingers were just too healthy, not immoral—corrupt—enough. They didn’t smoke. Didn’t swear. Didn’t come for the gambling. And if the short lines Royce encountered at the cash bars were any indication, they didn’t drink either.

They did screw, no doubt with wild abandon under the right circumstances. He was sure of it. But they only fraternized with creatures of their own kind, which is where he and Cliff had made their big mistake. In Vegas, tonight, pay for play was the only option open for them.

Still, it did no harm to look. It afforded him a splendid opportunity to evaluate these people as a potential market (he’d minored in marketing at business school). Demographics? Firmly middle class, predominantly white, with an average annual household income of forty K. White collar and managerial blue collar, many self-employed. From what he could pick up, there seemed to be a preponderance of Southern accents—Texas, Georgia, Tennessee. Males in their forties and fifties; females in their thirties and forties (although occasionally the difference in ages was even more striking, and usually manifested itself in a potbellied, fiftyish, ex-hippie type in tandem with a hard-body blonde in her twenties). Many, he deduced, were on their second marriages. The couples were childless, for the most part, or their children were away in college.

Psychographics? A high degree of self-indulgence, with a strong desire for instant gratification. Typically American, really, except the people in this ballroom didn’t covet luxury cars, custom homes, real wealth, or financial power. No, their “hot buttons” were the desires of the flesh.

Investment habits? Certainly not active risk-takers. Managing or worrying about an active, diverse portfolio would take too much time away from the boudoir, the party room, the hot tub. This was strictly IRA, mutual fund, retirement plan and cash stuffed-in-the-mattress territory.

Royce smiled wryly. Why, there wasn’t a Big Swinging Dick among them.

At eleven the band finished its set and the MC announced a costume contest. Royce, failing to locate Cliff in the crowd, elbowed closer to the stage, where a menagerie of outlandishly dressed couples lined up to vie for the audience’s applause.

One couple’s efforts to appear as giant condoms—complete with quart-capacity reservoir tips—were cleverly executed, but the ballgoers, perhaps out of sentimentality, expressed more support for Dorothy and the Tin Man, who may have lacked heart but did possess a foot-long steel schlong.

For just plain inventiveness, Royce would have given an award to the two gay men costumed as farmers humping papier-mƒch‚ sheep affixed to the crotches of their overalls.

Bah bah!

The top prize, however, went to a stunning, bronze-breasted Mayan princess and her consort Adonis, who brandished golden locks and a warrior’s shield. They literally glowed with good health, physique excellence and sweet sensuality. The king and queen of the Erotic Masquerade Ball were presented their medals and began their exhibitionist strutting along the stage, which is when Royce bid the festivities adieu.

Cliff or no Cliff, he’d had enough of this swinger’s stuff. He’d overloaded on all the titillation and gotten himself a case of the blue balls, and finally, boredom. Outside the Hacienda’s lobby, he caught a cab downtown to the Gold Nugget. At the casino’s bar—a good pickup spot, according to an arbitrageur he knew at First Boston—he drank and foraged without result. The pickings were slim and none. A twentyish, hard-faced blonde took a bar stool two down from him, but before he could put on the moves an old fart in a lime green suit with “Sugar Daddy” written all over him arrived on the scene. She gave her benefactor a hillbilly girl giggle while he spread his left hand possessively on her little rump.

Heck, maybe Royce was giving off the wrong vibes tonight. He was, after all, young, wealthy, powerful, riding the fastest of the fast tracks. Additionally, he knew women found him handsome, in a scruffy, bad-little-boy way. He possessed a tall, almost athletic build (got to get to the health club and work on that little pot that was developing) and black Irish features (distinguished flecks of gray beginning to appear at the temples).

So what gave?

“All just out of my league,” he finally told himself. They were polyester and rayon; he was English wool and raw silk.