Page 62 of An Honest Lie

She shrugged. “He’s, like, a few inches taller than you. White like a vampire. Black hair, light eyes. He’s just a guy.” The look on her face said,Get the fuck outta here.

But Rainy couldn’t do that just yet. This was an information-gathering mission. If she didn’t get enough of it, or get it right, she’d die.

“Anything special about him?”

Susan blew air out of her mouth with apffftsound.

“Yeah,” she said. “He drinks that coffee syrup.”

Rainy smirked. “What about any tattoos?”

That got a little pause. “No,” she said finally. “No tattoos. But his roots were showing like he hadn’t dyed his hair in a bit...and they were light.”

“Hey, thanks,” Rainy said. She ducked out of the store. That would have to be enough.

Her duffel slung across her back, Rainy lit a cigarette and walked along the shrubbery-lined walk that led to the back alley of the Bellum. She hadn’t smoked since New York—she’d given it up for Grant—but the rush of acrid smoke filling her lungs had a dangerouswelcome homequality. Slipping through the gap in the fence that divided the gas station from the hotel, she noticed a couple strands of blond hair clinging to one of the fence prongs. She wasn’t the only one who’d noticed the shortcut advantage. She wondered if Paul went to work this way, buying his coffee syrup and slinking off to stalk women. She choked down smoke as she surveyed the back end of the grand Bellum Hotel; like everything in Vegas, it was garish, hideous in the daylight. Without the night and the oozing neons to disguise the ugly, the sun revealed it for everything it was—loading docks, the stench of trash rotting in the heat, and construction. Rainy smoked two cigarettes before she kicked off from the wall, spitting down a grate as she walked over it. That was the part she hated: the trash-mouth aftertaste. Slowing down, she realized that people were coming and going from the docks; she caught a glimpse of a long hallway as a woman slipped outside through a service door and pulled a pack of Marlboroughs from her apron pocket.

“Here...” Rainy offered her a light before she could find one of her own. The woman eyed her suspiciously but took it, anyway, never taking her eyes off Rainy as she rolled the wheel and the flame licked her cigarette to life.

“Thanks, I always forget mine in my bag,” she said, frowning. “You looking for a job? Because there’s a right way and a wrong way to do things and you can’t go sneaking around the back—”

“I’m looking for a person actually.”

The woman sucked twice on her cigarette, and then paused to flick something off her lips. She didn’t look at Rainy when she said, “Who is it, then?”

“Just a guy.” She shrugged. “I need to find him.”

She rolled her eyes. “You’re going to have to give me more than that. Hundreds of people work here.”

Rainy shrugged. “His first name is Paul, I don’t know the rest.”

“Oh God,” she sighed. “We got a lotta Pauls at the Bellum. Is he, like, a server, a manager or what?”

Rainy shook her head. “I’m not sure.”

“We have a Paul who’s a line cook, and another four of them front of house that I know personally. Oh, and I drink with some of the housekeepers after work and they call the maintenance guy Vucifer—Vegas Lucifer, get it?—but I think his real name’s Paul.” She dropped her cigarette butt and started walking for the door marked with a big number twelve.

“Wait! Are any of them from the east coast? Or does he, like...drink coffee syrup?”

The woman’s hand froze on the door handle. Rainy thought she looked a little nervous when her head swiveled around to look at her. “Yeah,” she said quickly. “And he’s a mean man.”

She was about to lose the woman, and she still had items on her fucked-up shopping list.

“Hey, do you think you could get something from Barry for me?”

She whipped around pretty fast, arms crossed over her chest. Rainy hadn’t expected that. Suddenly, her new friend looked hostile.

“Are you fucking with me? Are you?”

“Nope.” Money was the universal soother. Rainy pulled two hundred dollars out of her pocket and held it up for her to see. “This is for you. All you have to do is get something for me from Barry. When you bring it to me, I’ll give you two hundred more, plus the cost of the product.”

“How do I know you’re not a cop?”

“How do I knowyou’renot a cop?” Rainy shrugged. “I’d be a real cunt to do that to a woman who was just trying to make a living, right? What does a cop gain from a middleman like you? All I want is what’s on this list—just take a look.” She extended her receipt from the Quick Mart on which she’d scribbled three words.

“It’s a four-hundred-dollar gamble,” Rainy said. “This is Vegas.”

The woman took the list and the money and disappeared inside wordlessly.She won’t come back, Rainy thought.She’s going to take the two hundred and split.The door opened when two male housekeepers stepped out to smoke...or sample Barry’s wares. They took one look at her, sitting against the wall, swore profusely and went back inside. Thirty minutes later, when Rainy was convinced she’d been ghosted, the door opened again. Rainy stood up, smiling. The woman wordlessly handed her a tiny envelope.

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