Divas Las Vegas (20 page)

Midway through my stream, I noticed, out of the corner
of my eye, the guy next to me was checking me out. Years of
bathroom cruising had made me ultrasensitive to that sort of
thing. I quickly glanced up and found that it was the closet
case from moments earlier. He smiled at me when I caught
his eye. The poorly planning architect also failed to install
urinal dividers in the too-tiny lavatory. I was beginning to
appreciate his lack of forethought. Or maybe he was gay,
and all of this was on purpose for just such an occasion. In
any case, I wasn't complaining. I just adore an unobstructed
view. And the view I was getting wasn't half bad.

Mr. Straighty backed up a few inches to give me a better
look-see. Obviously, he'd done this before, and he wasn't
shy. Oh, and he wasn't peeing either. So, I decided to play a
little while I was in there.

"Nice family you got," I said, still staring over and down.

"Thanks," he mumbled, and moved back into his urinal.

"Nice family jewels, as well," I added, and got the reaction that I wanted.

"Thanks," he replied with more conviction.

This time he pulled half a foot away and two inches
closer to me. He also dropped his shorts a few more inches
to afford me a better view. My paunchy daddy was now
sporting a rather hefty boner. Well, when in Rome, or
make that New York, I always say, and I showed him my
burgeoning member in return. He let out an appreciative
moan. I decided to take the game to the next level and
walked over to the stall. He followed and closed the door
behind him.

Word of advice: a gay guy is always in control of a closet
case. Basically, they are at your disposal, since they're
usually so desperate for man-meat and all. I took advantage
of this fact immediately.

"Drop 'em and bend over," I commanded, and he quickly
obeyed.

The sound of my hand slapping his straight ass made a
nice ping sound in the tiled room. And, judging from the
rocking going on in front of me, my daddy liked his ass
getting assaulted. I decided to make our encounter brief,
however, seeing as he had a rather large family waiting for
him outside and I had an impatient Justin waiting for me.

So I pulled down my pants, spat on my hand, and told
him to get ready. A few strokes later, I shot a huge load all
over his ass. Apparently he liked that because he started
to shudder and moan almost immediately after I came on
him. Then, seeing as we had no more business to attend to,
I toilet-papered off, got redressed, and left my daddy in the
stall. Just doing my share for gay-straight relations.

I felt considerably better upon leaving that restroom.
Taking out my aggressions on a strange, straight ass was just what I needed-and I was ready to do some heavy bragging
back at our table. Unfortunately, upon my return, Justin
was nowhere in sight. His remaining hot dog was only half
eaten and his hat and glasses were on the floor. My heart
started to race. Where the fuck was he?

I searched the food court, and nothing. I ran through
the casino, and nothing. I raced through the hotel lobby,
and nothing. Needless to say, I was truly freaking out. I just
knew that something was way wrong. Then I ran out to the
street, and there was something. About twenty feet up the
sidewalk, I could see the back of Justin's brunette head, and
I could see a blond man right behind him. I walked faster to
catch up and get a better view. When I was only a couple of
feet away, I could tell that the stranger held something up
to Justin's back and was pushing him forward with it. Now
I have to tell you, I had watched enough television to know
what that meant.

All of a sudden, my burgeoning maternal instincts kicked
in, and I knew that I had to save my best friend. I stopped
walking, took in some deep breaths to get my adrenaline
flowing, then kicked my heels up and ran, with all my
might, straight for them. (Oops, sorry, forward for them.) I
leaped high into the air and landed on the blond man's back,
sending him and Justin down with a crash. The rest was a
blur. With all three of us on the ground, my hand instinctively went for the gun, which had been knocked out of the
bad man's hand. Then, feeling oh so Angie Dickenson/Sgt.
Pepper Anderson-like, I raised the gun up in the air and sent
it smashing down on his blond head. Whatever movement
there had been beneath me instantly subsided.

"That's for messing with my family, creep," I hollered,
and then jumped up, grabbed Justin's arm, and helped him
up. Then we both took off running through the small crowd
that had quickly gathered to watch the spectacle. I slid the
gun in my pants pocket for safekeeping.

We ran fast and hard until we made it back to our
hotel, and headed right for our room and our minibar. The
familiar scent of chlorine was actually comforting, or maybe
it was the gin, but we both managed to catch our breaths
and regain our composure before Justin told me what had
happened.

"Thanks," he said. "That was too insane. When did you
get so butch?"

"Dude, it's always been there, just packed deep, deep
down for emergencies. Now, what the hell happened?" I
asked.

"Well, I was sitting there waiting for you to come back
from the bathroom when I felt something cold and metal on
the back of my neck, and a man was telling me not to turn
around. Then he grabbed my arm and lifted me up from my
seat, and proceeded to push me out of the food court and
then through the casino."

"Did he say anything to you during that time?" I asked.

"He told me to take him to the money or else. That's all
he said, and he wouldn't answer any of my questions. So,
my dear Em, I'd say, for sure now, we're in trouble."

"Damn, damn, damn. Did you recognize him?"

"Nope, never saw his face, but his voice sounded familiar.
I guess we're being followed after all, huh?"

"Seems so. At least the money is in the safe, though, and
no one knows where we are. I think we should keep it that
way. Still, we have to figure out how someone found out
about the money in the first place."

"I totally agree. Now go call our detective friend, tell
him what happened, and then I think we should go check on
Ahmed tomorrow and see if there's any connection there."

And that's what I did. Detective Lombard sounded overworked. He apparently took down everything I said, told me
that he'd keep an eye out for us, but that since we couldn't
identify the man, we'd just have to be extra careful. That's it. Very unhelpful.

Well, it looked like Justin and I had only ourselves now,
but that was okay, as that's all we ever had, anyway. We
hoped, at any rate, Ahmed could shed some light on all
this.

The next morning we called Earl, who had taken the day
off to tend to Ahmed. He invited us to come on over and see
how our friend was doing. Kind of ironic to take a cab to a
cabbie's home, but we were through with walking for now.
Too dangerous. From now on, we would only catch rides
from the back entrance of our hotel.

Earl didn't live too far from the Strip, but I suppose
most of the people who work in Vegas live fairly close by.
Besides Mary, I doubt that many people choose to live out
in the desert. Earl was no exception. He lived in a small,
one-bedroom house in a nice, clean neighborhood about ten
minutes away. He greeted us at the door like long-lost relatives. I suppose he rarely had company-and judging from
the fresh vacuum tracks on the carpet and the tidy appearance of his house, he had taken some time to make a good
impression on us. Well, we thought it was for us, but we
were soon to learn the real reason.

"Ah, welcome to my home," Earl said, and then gave us
the grand, but short, tour.

His home was very basic, with just the necessities to live
comfortably. The only overwhelming characteristic was
the stench of cigarette smoke that permeated everything.
Thankfully, he had the windows open or I don't know how
long I would've lasted in there. The last stop on the tour was
his bedroom. We stopped in front of the closed door to talk
before he showed us in.

"How is he?" Justin asked.

"He's better now, just a little tired," Earl whispered.

"Did he tell you what's been going on? Why he fainted?

Who's following him?" I asked, also in a whisper. I guess we
didn't want Ahmed to hear us talking about him. Not that
it mattered. We were about to ask him the same questions
to his face.

"Not too much, no. Whenever I bring it up, he goes sort
of silent. He did tell me that he's having some immigration
problems. That he lost his job for some reason, but wouldn't
go into specifics. And that he's basically broke. I guess the
reason he fainted was more out of starvation than anything
else. The boy's been eating like a pig since he got here. He
sure is a sweet kid."

Well, that didn't answer too many questions for us.
Though, by the look on Earl's face, I'd say he was smitten
with his new roomie. But who could blame him? Ahmed
is adorable. It also explained why the house was newly
cleaned. And then Earl opened the door to let us see Ahmed
for ourselves. And yes, he most certainly was still adorable.
He was propped up on the bed, wearing an overly large
pair of jammies, and had a box of doughnuts sitting to his
right and a bag of chips to his left. I wasn't sure if Earl was
tending to him or fattening him up. In either case, Ahmed
looked happy to be there.

"Hello, Justin. Hello, Em," he mumbled through his
stuffed mouth.

"Hello, Ahmed. You're looking much better than the
last time we saw you," Justin said.

"Oh, yes. Mr. Earl is taking much good care of me. I am
very sorry for causing you worry," he said, looking like a
remorseful child.

"Em and I are very happy to see you looking better. You
had us very worried yesterday. Can you tell me why those
men were following you?"

The smile on his face faded fast. He swallowed his food
before answering. "What men were following Ahmed?" he
asked.

"The men in the black car that made you so nervous,"
Justin replied.

"No men. I no remember any car. Just felt weak and
ended up in casino," he explained, but there was hesitation
in his voice, and his face was giving him away. He was definitely keeping something from us.

Justin backed off the topic and moved on. "Okay, then,
Ahmed, can you tell me how you lost your job at the bar?"

"They fire me," he said.

"Yes, but why?"

"Oh... (pause)... immigration come around, asking questions. They not like that at the hotel, and they tell me to not
come back. No job, no money. This is why I faint yesterday."
He was looking more nervous by the second. I would've felt
guilty had we not all been in such apparent danger.

"I'm sorry to hear that, Ahmed," Justin continued. "But
why was immigration asking questions about you?"

"I don't know. My papers are in order. I have work visa.
But when immigration comes looking for you, is a good
idea to keep away from them. No way Ahmed is going back
home. I like it here in U.S.A." Again I sensed we were only
getting half-truths, but it seemed like a bad idea to argue:
we didn't want to scare him off.

"Okay, Ahmed, I see your point. Can I ask you one more
question?" Justin asked.

"Sure, okay," Ahmed told him, tentatively.

"Did you tell anyone that we had money with us or that
we were looking for that vase I told you about?"

Now a bead of sweat trickled down from his brow.
Whatever he was hiding, whatever danger he was in, I was
sure it was somehow connected to us. But how? It didn't
look like we were about to find out just yet, unfortunately,
because Earl, seeing Ahmed's obvious distress, cut in and
put our interview to a sudden end. "Okay guys, I think
that's enough for the day. Ahmed here is weak and tired, and the stress is gonna make him sick. You can come back
when he's a bit stronger. Right, Ahmed?" Earl said.

"Yes, please," Ahmed groaned. "I'm sorry I am no help,
but I tell you everything I know. I swear. I know nothing
about these things. I'm just trying to get by."

"Okay, Ahmed. We believe you. You just get your rest
and we'll come back and see you when you're feeling better.
All right?" Justin said, though I know he didn't believe him
for one minute.

"Yes, Justin. That would be nice. Bye for now."

And that was the end of that. What else could we do?
It was Earl's house, and we didn't want to piss him off, so
we said our thanks to both of them and left. And really, it
seemed pointless to argue, anyway. He was obviously not
going to tell us what we needed to know. We'd just have to
bide our time until he was ready to come clean. We prayed
that we had the time to bide. Whoever was after us had left
a trail of bodies, and if we had anything to say about it, we
weren't going to be next. With or without Ahmed's help, as
Gloria Gaynor used to sing, we would survive.

"Hey, Em," Justin said as we left Earl's. "You forgot
Ahmed's backpack again."

"Damn it, I did. Funny how he didn't ask about it," I said.

"I think he was just relieved to see us go," he said.

"Well, next time remind me," I suggested.

"Yeah, that'll happen. With your two brain cells left,
and my one, which is dangerously close to flickering out, I'd
say we should just carry that damn backpack with us from
now on if we're ever going to remember to bring it back to
him."

"Never mind."

"Uh-huh, thought so."

And so we left, with a lot ventured and nothing gained.
Par for the course, my friend. Par for the fucking course.