Page 26 of Angels Fall

I nod to the door guy as I exit the front and make my way across the parking lot to my car. Just as I’m about to pull the handle and step inside, where I imagine myself sitting for the next hour or so, just kind of deciding where I’m gonna go next, I hear, “Hey! Guy! Tyler!” from behind me.

I turn around. Raven’s coming toward me. She’s thrown on some kind of kimono thing and hugs it close to herself in the chilly desert night. She’s probably a few years older than me, which feels old for a stripper, and that makes me kind of sad, suddenly. But she’s still pretty. Prettier than she seemed in the club. Like being away from the world inside has painted her with a gentler brush and the mask she has to wear has come off, revealing a truer version of herself.

“This is your car?” she asks, as she approaches.

“Yeah…”

She looks me up and down and nods her head a bit. “I remember you, y’know,” she says.

“You remem… Whatayou mean?”

“The night you came in and spent until daybreak in the private room with Scarlett. I remember you. I also remember when I sent you off that morning you looked like someone had killed your puppy.”

Wow. She remembers. Which causes me to remember. The night I saw Maddie, before I knew it was Maddie. When she was still just the angel from MY DREAM come to life. My dick’s getting a little hard thinking about how she felt and smelled and tasted that night, as we talked and touched each other, and she sucked my cock. Which is now getting even harder. I decide to make a joke to distract myself.

“That’s weird,” I say. “I never had a puppy. Had a snake once. Used to let it slither around on the sand in the back yard. My pops would yell at me because he was worried it’d get loose and eat the neighborhood pets. But then one time it actually did get away and wound up getting killed by a neighbor’s puppy. Which I always thought was ironic.”

She narrows her eyes at me. “Is this the way you are all the time, or are you just fucked up right now because you’re a fuckin’ lovesick maniac?” she asks.

“Little from column A, little from column B,” I say.

Then, “I’ve seen your car, too,” she says. “The night that Logan asshole came looking for Scarlett.”

“Can we please call her Maddie? What? Who came looking? Who’s Logan?”

“I dunno his last name. Works for Carlos Castillo? I saw him follow her out into the alley a couple weeks back and then when I came looking for her to make sure she was okay, all I found in back there was this car”—she slaps the hood of the Defender—“idling, lights on, no Maddie in sight. Then later she showed up back inside with this rosy fuckin’ glow about her. Like the way someone looks after they just got fucked real good.” She tips her head in my direction, with a knowing and yet non-judgmental look. (Which is hard to pull off.)

I take a beat to let her have her Nancy Drew moment, and then I ask, “Who’s Carlos Castillo?”

“Jesus, man. Seriously?”

“Should I know?”

“You live here in Vegas, right?”

“Currently. Who is he?”

“Has a tequila empire. Owns at least a piece of just about every new casino development in town. Also supplies most of the non-pharmaceutical drugs that you see flowing through. Steve Wynn meets El Chapo with a touch of John Paul DeJoria thrown in. Seriously? You’ve never heard of him?”

“I’ve never heard any of the names you’re tossing around.” (Not entirely true. I know who Wynn is. Mostly because I lost like a hundred grand in his dumb casino one night a few months back. Fucking Wynn. Fuck that asshole.)

“Not a big news watcher, huh?” she asks.

“The world is depressing enough without watching the fucking news. But, so, this Logan guy… Was he the one in the t-shirt or the one who didn’t know how to match his belt to his shoes?”

“Fuck are you talking about?” Raven asks, fairly.

“Yes, it was me. I was there. I fucked up two guys who were chasing Maddie that night. And then she… thanked me. Nicely. Yes. I suppose I assume this Logan clown was the one holding the gun, but whatever. What do—what’s his name? Castillo?—and Logan have to do with Maddie?”

“I’m not sure, but on Halloween when she got into the car with them, I—”

“Wait, what?” I interrupt. “What are you talking about?”

“Halloween night, Maddie came stumbling up here, shoeless, like she’d just been to hell and back, and got into a car with Carlos, who was waiting for her. Honestly? I thought that was gonna be the last I’d ever see of her. I was shocked when Pete told me she was back at the club, working morning shifts.”

I understand all the words Raven is saying to me because she’s speaking English and using proper syntax and grammar and shit, but I have no idea what the fuck she’s actually talking about.

That’s where Maddie went after she left my apartment? Here? And then she—? And she’s working morning shifts? Here? At the strip club? Pete’s strip club? In the MORNING? I’m very fucking confused. So I say, “I’m very fucking confused. What exactly are you saying to me?”