– Yeah.

I stick the key in the ignition, turn it, and the Olds pops to life. I pull us out of the parking space and Branko starts fiddling with the radio. I stop at the exit, waiting for a break in the traffic. Branko hits Lauryn Hill singing “Ex-Factor” and stops spinning the dial. He taps his finger on his knee, slightly out of time.

– I miss Hal Jackson.

His Serbian accent makes it sound like Hell Jycksin.

– What?

– Hal Jackson. Sunday mornings. WBLS. I miss him from New York.

I had a girl back in New York once. She liked Hal Jackson. Sunday mornings reading the paper, coffee and bagels.

I pull us onto The Strip. Branko is looking at me.

– Sunday Morning Classics?

She’s dead now. Now. As if it happened recently. It didn’t.

I drive to the end of the block and stop at the light and wait for a green arrow that will let me turn left. Branko wants me to remember. He sings.

– Listen to the Sunday Classics. Doubleyou bee ell esss. Hal Jackson. He’s got a lot of soul.

I get my arrow and turn.

– Yeah. OK. I remember.

He nods.

– Yes. Everybody knows Hal Jackson.

I have to wait again to make the left into the Mandalay’s drive. A siren sounds from somewhere up The Strip. I glance into the mirror and see an ambulance pulling into the Happi Inn Motel lot. I look at Branko. He shrugs.

– I call the 911.

He holds up his hands.

– He would have to dial with his nose.

He taps the tip of his own nose.

I turn into the drive and join the long line of cars and cabs waiting to pull up to the entrance of the hotel. I glance once more back at the Happi.

– Guy was a cop.

Branko nods. I rub my right eyebrow, grinding away the last of the singed hairs.

– No one told me he was a cop.

Branko shrugs.

I watch the taillights of the car in front of us, flashing pale in the shaded drive.

– I’d like to’ve known he was a cop.

Branko nods.

– Next time.

Next time. Next time I’m supposed to bait a guy into a motel room with coke, they’ll let me know if the guy’s a cop. Color me reassured. We pull up to the valet stand and climb out. I take the ticket from the valet and follow Branko into the lobby where we get slammed by a wall of cocoa butter-scented freezing air and the screams of caged parrots and macaws. Branko points toward the elevator banks.

– Twenty-seven-twenty.

– You coming up?

– No.

– Where should I meet you?

– Nowhere. I will stay here.

– OK.

He sticks out his hand and I take it.

– Good today. Better.

I look at his hand holding mine.

– Thanks.

He lets go of my hand, slaps my shoulder and walks off toward the sports book. He’ll sit there until David calls for him, watching the ponies and placing the occasional two-dollar bet. He disappears around a bar just off the lobby. Squat, balding and potbellied. He looks like any number of tourists in here. The cheap blue pants, the sneakers, the short-sleeve collared shirt and the Wal-Mart Windbreaker. He could be any Slavic American on vacation.

I step into an elevator and see myself reflected as the shining metal doors close. I don’t look like anybody. I don’t even look like myself.

THE DOORS OPEN on the twenty-seventh floor and I wander until I find the right room. I knock and wait and David opens the door. He smiles.

– Come in, come in.

He looks the same as ever. Buzzed gray hair, trimmed beard, silver-rimmed glasses, the slight belly and the hairy hands. I step past him and he pats my back as I walk ahead of him into the room. The gold tinting on the outside of the windows tinges the air green.

No one else is in the room. This is how I always meet with David, alone, in private. I am his ghost. The weapon no one knows he owns. No one but Branko.

He points at the honor bar.

– Something to drink?

– No, thanks.

– No. Something. You must have something.

He squats down in front of the bar.

– I am having Black Label. I know you will not join me. But a juice? Water?

I shrug.

– You will have juice, then. It is good for your blood sugar. My daughter tells me.

He looks heavenward. The things young people worry about.

He takes a bottle of orange juice from the bar, shakes it and hands it to me.

– A glass?

– No.

He points at a chair and I sit. He plops onto the bed and scoots his back against a small pile of pillows he’s arranged. His jacket and shoes are off, and he sits there in slacks and socks, the knot in his designer tie loose at the collar of his designer shirt. He picks up the remote and points it at the TV, muting the hotel station that has been telling him how to play roulette. He drops the remote on the bedspread, picks up his glass of Scotch from the nightstand and takes a sip.

– When I was a younger man, the first time I was in a hotel with one of these.

He points at the honor bar.

– I drank everything clear. Vodka, gin, white wine, and filled the bottles with water from the bathroom and put them back just as they had been.

He smiles, closes his eyes, and shrugs. Yes, I too was once young and stupid.

He opens his eyes.

– It embarrasses me now because there was no need. It was not long after I had left the Soviet Union, but still, I could have afforded these things even then. But, we have all done things of which we are embarrassed. Things we regret.

I take a sip of my juice. He looks at the TV, at the silent figures of smiling people now rolling dice.

– Branko tells me you are still taking the pills.

I shift in my seat.

– My face hurts.

He looks from the TV screen to my face.

– Still it hurts?

My hand goes to the scar.

– Some days are worse.

He looks into his glass.

– I am sorry for that. If there had not been a need…But.

He looks back up at me, raises his eyebrows and tilts his head to the side. Why talk about “buts”?

I take my fingers away from the scar.

– It doesn’t matter. I can live with it.

– That, I have never doubted.

He points at the window.

– And today? It went well?

I look out the window. Across The Strip I can see the purple-and-green sign of the Laughing Jackalope and, next to it, the tarpaper roof of the Happi. The ambulance is pulling away, but two LVMPD cars are parked in front of the room.

– The guy’s a cop.

David swings his legs over the side of the bed, stands and walks to the window. He looks down at the police cars.

– This matters?

– What if he hadn’t bit on the coke? What if he busted me instead?

He glances at me, looks back out the window.

– You would let that happen?

– It might have happened.

He faces me.

– And this is what it is that bothers you about this job? That you might have been arrested?

I look back out the window. I can see a blue uniform walking across the parking lot toward the Jackalope.

– You broke his hands?

I swallow.

– Yeah.

– You did it? Not Branko?

– Yeah, I did it.

– And yet you try to tell me you are bothered now because this man is a cop.

He hoists his glass slightly, sighting his eyes at mine over the rim. Do we not know each other better than this by now?

He sips his drink.

– This man, this cop. Do you know what he has done to make me so angry? So angry that I would have his hands broken?

– No.

– He is a cop that I pay. Every month he is paid money. It is a good arrangement. It is especially good for this cop because he is a man who knows that I can do him more harm than he can do to me. But still, still he abuses this arrangement. He takes more than is his fair share. He takes drugs from my dealers. He takes extra protection from my whores. He is especially greedy with the whores. Two nights past, the same evening after he has been paid what he is due for this month, that very night he shows up at the apartment of one of my whores. He wants money, yes, but he wants also to fuck. Well.