EYEHEARTZOMBIES

The next week I had some time off coming my way. I decided I’d spend it at the beach. First, though, I wanted to find me a mouse to spend it with. A real cool chick, one that wouldn’t turn up her nose at a romp in the sack, or sand.

This one girl, a waitress at the Flamingo, had been eyeing me for a while now and I decided to ask her. Joy wasn’t as bombshell as some of the girls around, but she had a cute little turned-up nose. I asked her if she wanted to got to beach that weekend and she said “yeah.” I told her I’d pick her up that night at eight and we’d hit Max’s casino before we split for the sand and surf.

I packed a bag and showered and shaved. At eight o’clock, I was in front of the Flamingo, car running and waiting. She came out in a black satin dress that clung in all the right places. The rocket in my pocket didn’t really feel like going to the casino, but I had to play it cool if I wanted to sack this one. And I did.

We rolled up to the casino about ten minutes later and I tossed my keys to the valet. He got in and we entered the casino proper.

This place wasn’t like the Flamingo. It was more old school. The machines and tables were all farther back. You had to pass through the hotel lobby and past the restaurant and lounge before you found the tables. We weren’t there for the gambling, though. We turned in at the lounge and found a nice table in the middle. We were there for a show.

We ordered drinks and instead of the waitress bringing them to us, Max did. He said he’d seen us walk in and wanted to have drinks with us before the show. We invited him to join us at the table and he accepted. I introduced him to Joy and they shook hands.

“Lovely girl,” he said. She blushed and took a sip of her drink. I think she had gotten a daiquiri or something. I had ordered a scotch on the rocks. I nodded and took a sip of my drink, too. Max didn’t have anything, but he didn’t seem to mind. He kept taking small swigs from a hip flask. When I asked him, he said it had bourbon in it.

“So, how’s the casino business?” I asked him. He looked a bit startled, then smiled.

“Good, good. How’s the bouncing business?”

I chuckled and nodded at him. After another sip, I said, “Going great. I meet the nicest people.” We all three smiled and laughed quietly.

“I think I need to powder my nose,” Joy said, and Max volunteered to show her were the staff restroom was. They left and I sat down to really enjoy my drink. I finished it and ordered another before Max returned.

“Looks like a great girl,” he said, sitting down again.

“Yeah. She’s pretty fun,” I said. “Don’t really know her that well, though. We’re going for a weekend at the beach, near L.A. Should be fun.”

He nodded. “Yeah. L.A.’s great. You’ll like it there a lot, I think. The worst part is the drive between here and there. You’ll think you’re driving over the same stretch of highway for hours. Nothing out there but sand and sky.”

“Yeah.”

We sat there until Joy came back. She seemed flushed and nervous, but that could have just been for being on a date. She asked me if I wanted to get an earlier start and miss the show. It wasn’t anyone famous, just some crooner from back East so I agreed. I dropped a couple of dollars on the table to pay for the drinks and a tip and we left. Max walked with us, on the other side of Joy, and helped her into her side of the car.

I started the car up and Max leaned in the passenger window. “You kids have fun. Do me proud.” He patted the car and we drove off.

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I settled into work and life pretty quick, truth be told. Manny was in town, working for the same casino that Max was. I remember the name now, but I don’t want to say anything. Manny still works there and so far I’ve done nothing but get myself into hot water. I don’t want to endanger his freedom or life, so I’m going to try and keep him as clean as I can.

A few weeks or a month went by with no real trouble arising. I walked the floor every day and night, watching for cheaters, counters, scams, and ruses. I caught a few on my own, but mostly the “eye in the sky” people saw them and just sent me in. The Mooch was great at picking out the undesirables, too. He’d sit at the table, playing a few hands with them, then suddenly reach up and grab their neck with his meaty hands. Those fuckers were the size of salad plates! They squeal like they’d been cut open from stem to stern and drop whatever cards they had hidden up their sleeves. Or you’d see their accomplices jump up from their games and run for the door. We’d pick ‘em off one by one as they reached the revolving glass door and we’d end up with a group in the back, all trying to sell each other out.

It was one of these roundups where I first saw the raw side of Sonny. Mooch had snatched two guys at one table, one in each hand, and me and three other guards had grabbed a guy each near the door. The guy I had in my hands tried to buy his freedom, promising me he’d cash in his chips and give me all the winnings. Over $5,000 he said. I just shook him a bit and continued to goose-step him back to the offices.

When we got there, the other three guards left and Mooch and I were left alone to tend to the five con artists. They had been sat in chairs and tied down with nylon rope.

The only door into the office, the one we had come through and Mooch and I had our backs to, opened and Sonny came in. He was dressed in a dark blue Gabardine suit, fitted out to the nines, so to speak. He had a quiet voice most of the time, low and invasive. It got in your ears and just wouldn’t leave. He looked at us, nodded, then turned to face the prisoners.

“Why do you boys want to steal from me?” He said. Quiet, as always. But there was an edge there. He wasn’t as nice as you wanted to believe when he spoke to you. “Huh? Why do you come here to cheat me?”

They didn’t speak; didn’t move. They just sat there, staring at their knees. I heard some whispered prayers from one or two of them. I had only been here a month but I had heard stories about how Sonny treated those who skimmed and stole from him. It just added to the story of him telling Lucky about Bugsy. I wonder if he’s the one that put the five slugs in Bugsy’s skull?

He walked over to one of ‘em, the guy that tried to buy me off. He tapped him on the shoulder, then smacked him on the back of his head. The guy looked up - startled up - then his eyes met Sonny’s and he looked down again. “Why do you want to steal from me?” His voice had started to rise and I could see the guy he was standing next to start to shake a little. The guy mumbled something. I thought I heard “sorry.” Sonny just ignored him, walked to the next guy.

He hit this head in the back of the head first off, no shoulder tap for this one. This was one of the two that Mooch had grabbed, so he was probably one of the ring leaders. “Why the fuck are you going to steal from me?” Sonny was definitely starting to yell.

He went around to the other three, doing the same thing, ignoring any comment or sound they made. Not that they really made any noise anyway. They muttered and mumbled, but that was about it. When he questioned all five, he turned the Mooch and me and said “Well, boys, we tried to get it out of them. Just an apology. A simple ‘I’m sorry, Sonny. I fucked up.’” He looked at us with complete sincerity.

“Yeah, boss. They just won’t fess up.” The Mooch’s strained voice seemed out of place somehow.

Sonny walked over to one of the cabinets on the side of the room. He opened it up and took out a baseball bat and a hacksaw. “You boys have another chance to apologize,” he called back, over his shoulder. All five of them erupted in apologies, but Sonny turned a deaf ear. I was a company man. I didn’t intervene. He handed me the bat, but I gave it to the Mooch. I didn’t want any part in this. Sonny shrugged when I handed the saw over and then turned back to what he was about to do.

I don’t really want to go into too much detail on this. You’ve all heard the stories. I’m sure you can picture it in your head. I didn’t approve of this. I thought Sonny should have made an example, yes, but not to this degree. Needless to say, the five cons weren’t in much shape to go anywhere once the Mooch and Sonny finished with them. They all had broken bones, ribs. Missing teeth. And three of them were missing fingers courtesy of Sonny’s hacksaw.

He went too far for me. But it wouldn’t really matter in the end. Everything changed soon after that.

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I had saved up quite a bit of money over the years. That first big pay off, the job where Simon got killed, had lasted me for a long time. Sure, I spent more on broads than I should have, but you have to enjoy life while you have it. I never found a frail I wanted to spend the rest of my time with, haven’t yet anyway, so I was able to toss most of ‘em before they sucked too much of my money away. I wasn’t one that went overboard one booze, and I never got onto the money leech known as drugs, so I had enough to throw around for snatch and still have some to put in the bank at the end of the month.

I stopped by a bank and pulled a few thousand out to facilitate my cross-country drive. Then I left Saint Louis and never looked back. I loved the arch, but the city was dirty to me. Too many kids doing grown-up jobs, too many people trying to be bigger than themselves. So I left for a city even more full of big egos and small warlords.

I left Saint Louis driving west toward Kansas City, two hundred and thirty-five miles away. The Plymouth seemed to float down the road and I got about a hundred miles that night. I stopped at a little mom-and-pop motel for the night. The old man behind the counter seemed almost troubled to take my five dollars for the night. I paid him, tipped him an extra two dollars and asked to not be disturbed for anything. He assured me I wouldn’t and I went to my room. The key he had handed me was for room number five.

Room #5 was a single-bed, a sink, a bucket for ice, and a bathroom with just a shower stall and a toilet. It was all I needed for a night, though. I laid down on the bed after sliding my shotgun under it and fell asleep in my clothes. I woke up around six-thirty the next morning, showered, shaved, and left after dropping the key off through the mail slot in the office door. I picked up breakfast at a diner, two eggs sunny-side up, sausage, hashbrowns, and coffee thick enough to stand a spoon up in. Then I hit the road again, eating away at the hundred and thirty-five miles left until I reached Kansas City.

I pulled into the City about two hours later, around ten o’clock in the morning. I wasn’t in a great hurry to reach Vegas, and I knew I’d be on the road for quite awhile before reaching my next big city, Albuquerque. I decided to spend the night in Kansas City and start my trek into the desert tomorrow.

I found a nice hotel in downtown and checked in around noon. I grabbed a bite to eat in the hotel restaurant for lunch, a sandwich and some tomato soup, then decided to walk around town.

I passed by several shops and curiosity stores. I stopped in a tobacco shop and picked up a few cigars and some rolling papers and tobacco. I’d always wanted to learn to roll my own cigarettes and the clerk showed me how. I sat on a bench in a park in downtown an hour or so later and rolled my own for the first time. I spilled about half of the tobacco out on my lap at first, but in the end I managed to get a serviceable smoke. I sat and puffed and watched a couple of squirrels chase each other around a candy store paper bag.

I got up from the bench a few minutes after I sat down and started walking around again. I found an old theater tucked away in the back of a shopping arcade that was showing some slightly older movies for a nickel. I saw they were playing Sabrina that night at seven. I had really liked Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca, so I decided to give it a go.

I stopped in a small cafe near the theater around five-thirty or six to have dinner before the movie. I ordered a steak and mashed potatoes and I don’t think I’ve ever had a better piece of meat. It seemed to part before my knife without even cutting it, like Moses and the Red Sea. I was sad to see the last piece on my fork. I paid for the meal and tipped fifty percent. Full, satisfied, I walked the couple of blocks between the cafe and the theater. I bought my nickel ticket and sat down to watch Sabrina.

I miss the old movies. The ones that flickered and danced off of the screen at you. You’d sit in a hard-backed chair for two hours, completely oblivious of where you were at, wrapped up in a story. And after that two hours, you’d stand up, stretch, and walk out, filled with the story. Movies aren’t like that now. Now they’re just sex and violence, cursing and fart jokes. I miss the old grand storytelling. I guess it’s just one of the ways that the world has moved on.

Anyway, after Sabrina I walked back to the hotel remembering the romance between Bogart and Hepburn. They were so great together. I wish they had made more movies. I had nearly started crying with laughter when Bill Holden sat down on the wine glasses and filled his ass full of glass. Actually, that wasn’t the really funny part. What got me was the hammock with a hole cut out for his injured rump!

I got back to the hotel and went up to my room. I was on the third floor, suite 306. I had a bed, king-size; a bathroom with tub and shower, toilet, and sink, of course; a wet bar and a small patio looking out over Kansas City. There wasn’t much to look out over, but it was a nice view all the same. The moon was still full and it cast a silver glow over everything. I hadn’t been around anything killing all day. I hadn’t even thought of it. It was a very refreshing break.

I went inside from looking out over the balcony and called Ray on the suite’s telephone. His wife, Anna, answered. She still had that wonderfully sultry voice and I still felt weak at the knees everytime I called and got her. She said Ray was out with some of the boys. I had forgotten that it was midnight over there, I had probably woken her. I apologized and she said she’d been up anyway, waiting on him to come home. I told her I’d call back tomorrow morning and she hung up the phone.

I went over to the wet bar, took out a beer, popped the tab and took a big swallow. My life seemed so empty that night. It was probably just the movie. I always seemed to get caught up in the glow of the movie screen. Real life always seems so dull and dark. I finished the beer, took a shower, and went to bed.

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