The Emperor of Glitter Gulch

The Emperor of Glitter Gulch

by Roy Finch

Copyright 2011 Roy Finch

Cover Copyright 2011 Jeroen Ten Berge

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical or otherwise, without the express written permission of the author.

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Smashwords Edition: May 2011

Chapter One

Luck be a Lady

Beep.

Mr. Orton, this is Barbara Daley from the Nevada State Bar Association. Compliance Department. It’s urgent that you get back to me immediately. We have evidence of several serious violations of the code of ethics by you and your firm as well as possible criminal behavior. We’re in the process of setting up a disciplinary review panel to handle your case and would like to speak with you at your very earliest convenience. I have left my number with your secretary on numerous occasions. Please call me.

Beep.

I pried one eye open and looked at the flashing red light of the answering machine. Incessant, hateful blinking red light.

As I tried to lift my head from my desk, I found it mortared in place by a dried pool of vomit.

Fuck.

I took a deep breath to prepare myself. Before I could lose my nerve, I jerked my head up in one swift motion, leaving a layer of skin atop a few barely digested jumbo prawns that formed islands in the sea of vomit. The smell was quite unpleasant, hot as it was in my office.

It was late August. August in Las Vegas is everlasting. Eternal.

What time was it? My eyes flicked over to my computer screen. Twenty after six. I was pretty sure that it was evening, not morning, but I lacked the frame of reference. A video was streaming across the screen. Herky jerky because of my ancient dial up connection, it was a low budget video of some flabby-titted woman servicing three guys and a donkey.

One of the problems with the Internet age for a guy like me -- a Discman guy in an iPod world -- was that it made pornography so goddamn accessible. Fucking donkey porn with the click of a mouse. Used to be you would have to head down to the corner convenience store and ask the émigré from Pakistan behind the counter in a voice barely above a whisper for the latest issue of Gent or Swank while a couple of teenagers snickered and pantomimed jerking off. Or you would find yourself shamefully darting through the perpetually creaky wild west saloon-style doors that separated the Adult Section from the family fare at the local video store to browse through an always disappointing selection of VHS titles like Anal Chiropractors and Dirt Pipe Milkshake while some six-year-old asked his mom, Where’s the man in the overcoat and sunglasses going, mommy?

Now every fetish fuck video is available at your fingertips and streamed wirelessly from basements all across the San Fernando Valley and brothels of questionable legality in far flung locales like Rangoon and Myanmar.

I slipped my hand past the frayed waistband of my underwear and poked around to see if there was any chance I might be able to get it up, but things didn’t look promising.

I can come back if this isn’t a good time.

My heart stuttered erratically in my chest. I eyed the intruder up and down until my regular heartbeat resumed. She was standing at the threshold to my office, her head poked timidly into the abyss. I felt a stirring in my loins that the donkey porn hadn’t been able to induce.

I wondered why my sometimes secretary and legal assistant, an old thrice divorced warhorse named Gretchen Kling, had let this woman past her desk without stopping her. Then I remembered that it was after six, and Gretchen had probably packed it in hours before. Not that I was disappointed by this mystery woman’s appearance at my office door. If this wasn’t the opening paragraph of a Penthouse Letter, I didn’t know what would be.

Sure, a nice potpourri aroma or some vanilla-scented candles might have set the mood better than the pungent odor of rotting animal carcass. But unfortunately my office was situated above a discount meat and seafood wholesaler with questionable adherence to the Clark County health code. A place by the name of Hoo Hing that was run by a diminutive little greaseball named Dung Luk Ling. Dung supplied most of the Chinese food restaurants in Vegas with their grade D beef, crustaceans, pig snout, and other dubious cuts of meat. It probably wasn’t coincidence that a lot of stray dogs went missing in the vicinity of Hoo Hing.

I swore off Vegas Chinese food the first time I saw Dung wander out of Hoo Hing naked and slicked from head to toe in congealed blood and deposit a maggot infested side of beef in the communal dumpster.

The mystery woman’s eyes started to adjust to the dim lighting, and I saw her pupils dilate warily as she took me in. I’ll admit that I didn’t cut the most professional or impressive figure at that moment.

Our intrepid landlord, a real piece of work named Frank Hamilton, had cancelled the HVAC maintenance contract for the building at the start of July in a new cost-cutting measure and, sure enough, the air conditioning had lasted six days without the ministrations and bailing wire of the illegal immigrant Frank had been paying six bucks an hour under the table to keep the forty-year-old units chugging along. So, with the office north of one hundred and ten degrees, it being Friday evening and not actually having seen a paying client in a week, I was sitting in my ergonomically correct black leather multifunction task chair clad in nothing but a sweat-stained undershirt and silk boxers that may or may not have afforded her a view of my sweating genitalia.

Let’s agree that her first impression of yours truly wasn’t on par with the ideal espoused in a continuing education seminar put on by the Nevada Bar Association entitled The Basics of Professional Solicitor-Client Relations.

It was a sign of her desperation that she didn’t run screaming from the office and douse herself in Purell at her earliest opportunity.

Really, she ventured, her voice barely more than a whisper. I can come back if this isn’t a good time.

I folded my hands behind my head and kicked my feet up on the desk, belatedly hoping that my dong didn’t part the fly of my silk boxers to get a look at the admittedly fetching woman at the door.

Not at all. Please, come in.

She smiled queasily and stepped through the door. She really was a looker, mid-thirties with dishwater blonde hair and the taut Pilates and lipo-figure common to gated community soccer fields nationwide. I bet she smelled good, too, not that I could tell with eau de Hoo Hing assaulting my nostrils. Her eyes darted around the office for a place to sit that might not require Hepatitis B inoculation, before sitting herself gingerly on the edge of one of the schmutz-covered wingbacks that faced my desk.

My name is Rachel Walsh. She bravely proffered her hand to shake.

Her hand recoiled like it was spring loaded when I reached forward to shake it. Some people react like that. Uncouth. Like they’ve never seen a hand missing the three middle fingers. Three pink nubs between the thumb and pinkie finger; a perpetual Hawaiian hang loose sign attached to my arm.

Leonard Orton, Esquire, I told her, emphasizing the Esquire. Never hurts to clarify professional bona fides when you’re reclined back in your chair clad only in your dirty unmentionables. I pulled back my two-fingered hand and re-deposited it back behind my head.

The silence stretched out between us, uncomfortable and heavy like the rancid meat-smelling air wafting around the office. I finally broke it.

What can I do for you, Mrs. Walsh? I had spotted the matrimonial accoutrement on her left hand the moment she walked into the office.

Well, I’m actually here about my husband, she replied. Her lip trembled just so, a sure prelude to the waterworks.

Say no more. I nodded knowingly, going for an air of patrician worldliness. The worthless douchenozzle has been cheating on you for years, and you’ve finally had enough. I’m excellent in divorces. Just the kind of pitbull you need.

No, that’s not it at all. The quivering of her lip intensified. And there we go, tears sluiced two mini-rivers down her cheeks.

I looked about for something to offer her, a tissue or something. My eyes settled on a monogrammed handkerchief, a law school graduation gift from my parents, before I remembered that I had used it to mop up an Internet-aided relief session earlier in the week. I suspected that a semen encrusted hanky didn’t rate to improve the situation.

So I let her work to compose herself. I fired up my browser and checked on my E-Trade portfolio. Down another few hundred dollars. Served me right for listening to the stock picking advice of that bald-headed fuck on CNBC, the one who jumped around like a clown and employed various props and sound effects to accentuate his worthless stock prognostications. I filled in a few sell orders until Rachel finally regained a measure of her composure.

Well, you see, Mr. Orton, my husband is actually dead. Fresh tears greeted this revelation.

Say no more, I told her as I slid a retainer agreement across the mounds of paper. This wouldn’t be my first murder one trial.

And it wouldn’t be. I, of course, neglected to inform Rachel Walsh that my one and only murder one trial resulted in a swift and decisive guilty verdict, resulting in my client taking up residence on Death Row at Ely State Penitentiary. But Jerome Johnson was one guilty son-of-a-bitch, and Johnny Cochrane himself wasn’t going to get Jerome off. Bastard stiffed me for the bill too.

We’ll pursue a battered wife defense. Really impugn the character of your deceased husband.

My offered strategy broke whatever remnants of equanimity Rachel had marshaled back. Her body shook with huge wracking sobs. I tried to jot down a few notes about her yammering on a yellow legal pad, but her wailing was just too distracting, so I spent a few minutes doodling on the legal pad. Hoping to get this show back on the road, I had no other option but to hand her the soiled handkerchief. She dabbed her eyes with it before wiping her cheeks and nose, leaving a trail of my manhood smeared across her face. She took a deep breath and handed me back the hanky.

I’m sorry about that, Mr. Orton. It’s just so fresh.

Not at all. Killing a loved one can be a traumatic experience.

Rachel puckered her face and took another deep breath. She must have enjoyed the putrid smells emanating from Hoo Hing.

I didn’t kill my husband, Mr. Orton.

Well, I must admit that I was flummoxed. No divorce action. Didn’t kill him. What the hell was she doing in my office?

I take it you didn’t come here for the ambience, Mrs. Walsh. So what can I do for you?

She fidgeted and pulled a handkerchief of her own from a knockoff Louis Vuitton purse. She should have pulled that out a minute earlier to save herself from rubbing my seed all over her face.

As I said, it’s about my husband, she started tentatively. And first off, let me assure you that he was a good man.

She paused as if expecting a response from me, so I mumbled, A prince I’m sure.

My husband had a gambling problem. It started off innocently enough, poker with a few of his co-workers, placing a few wagers on sporting events, keno during dinner. Nothing alarming. But then...

Rachel trailed off and started to twist the handkerchief violently in her hands like an angered origami practitioner. Better than the waterworks, I suppose. I resisted the urge to tell her to get to the fucking point. Some people just love to go to a lawyer’s office and ramble on about their dreams and aspirations or why they wet the bed as a child, like I’m a therapist or something. If I wanted to hear about people’s problems, I’d grow a mustache like Dr. Phil. Your husband died? Get over it. If you get to the point I might still be able to make it in time for the dollar ninety-nine buffet over at the Booby Trap.

I started to think he might have had a problem when I noticed some peculiar withdrawals from our joint account. But when I confronted him about them, he always had an explanation. New tires for the car. A replaced bridge that our dentist insisted was necessary. But our bank account kept sinking, and eventually he couldn’t dismiss my suspicions anymore. About a year ago, he admitted that he was a compulsive gambler.

My eyelids started to droop. I was sure that Rachel thought her day-to-day was fascinating, but for-the-love-of-Christ move it along, sweet tits.

We got him help. He was attending Gamblers Anonymous. Really making progress. She paused to crank up the torsion on her unsoiled handkerchief. But it’s just so goddamned hard in this city.

No shit, lady. You live in Las Vegas. The entire economy, directly or tangentially, revolves around gambling. It took your namby-pamby recently deceased husband developing a gambling problem to realize this state of affairs? For Christ sakes, every convenience store in Clark County has a fucking one-armed bandit next to the Slurpee machine.

We registered Craig with the casinos for their voluntary self-exclusion program. Thought they would honor the program.

But, of course, they didn’t, I offered in an effort to spur her on, my chances of catching the buffet special at the Booby Trap diminishing precipitously the more she yammered on.

Worse than that, she replied. This one casino host from the Grand who booked a lot of Craig’s business during the bad days ran into Craig one night at Walgreen’s. Craig was picking up tampons for me. This was just over a month ago.

She said this last like it should be important to me, momentous even. And who knew, maybe it should have been. Her comment about tampons interested me long enough to consider if the widow Walsh might shave her pussy, but other than that, I had started to zone out. Staring at a woman’s sweater puppies, even ones as nice as Rachel’s, can only keep my attention for so long.

I pulled a bottle of warm gin from my desk drawer and slugged back a healthy dose. A month ago, you say. How interesting.

Well, Craig fell off the wagon. He spent the entire weekend throwing dice at a craps table in the high limit salon of the Grand. He was in some sort of frenzy.

I twirled a pencil absently between my fingers on my five-fingered left hand. I take it he didn’t win.

We lost everything, Mr. Orton. Our home is in foreclosure. Our cars have been repossessed. It was too much for Craig to take. Her voice was barely more than a whisper. I found him hanging from the ceiling fan in our bedroom.

Sexual asphyxiation?

This somehow offended Rachel. How dare you.

I only ask because I have a witness, a licensed pathologist, who’s willing to testify that a number of apparent suicides by hanging and ruled as such by the authorities are actually mistakenly classified under suicide when, in fact, they’re the result of the increasingly popular act of auto-erotic asphyxiation.

She stared across the desk at me like I was deranged. She must have been confused about the exact nature of sexual asphyxiation. It’s when the guy masturbates while simultaneously restricting the flow of blood to his brain, usually by means of a noose around his neck.

Mr. Orton, she said, enunciating each word slowly and carefully as if I were a small child or a mongoloid. Why would you think this information would be helpful to me?

Aren’t you here because your insurance company has denied your claim on the basis that Greg committed suicide which voids the policy?

Craig.

Excuse me?

My late husband’s name was Craig, not Greg.

Hunh.

And to answer your question, no that’s not why I’m here. Unfortunately, my husband didn’t have a life insurance policy.

Probably just as well. I was pretty sure that my witness’s license had been revoked amid a scandal relating to damning DNA evidence and a few violated corpses. But it was a helluva racket while it lasted.

Well, Mrs. Walsh, I implored her. If you’re not here about a divorce or due to an impending murder charge or a life insurance settlement, then tell me. Why are you here?

I want to sue Illusion Resorts.

Whoa. I dropped my feet off the desk and sat up straight. This consultation just took an interesting turn. One of the key tenets of tort law was find the deep pockets. Illusion Resorts was the largest casino operation in the world. Publicly traded with a market capitalization of almost one hundred billion dollars, Illusion Resorts owned seven hotel-casinos on the Las Vegas Strip, two casinos on Fremont Street in Glitter Gulch, three casinos in Macau and a handful of other properties around the United States. The Grand and London, the two biggest hotels in the world with over 5,000 rooms each, were both Illusion properties. It was the 800 pound gorilla of the industry, built from the ground up by Perry Devorkan, a ruthless animal and my personal nemesis. For years I had looked for ways to even my score with that greasy douchebag. Ever since the Incident.

But just as quickly as my juices got flowing, I tamped down on the brakes.

What exactly would you be suing Illusion Resorts for, Mrs. Walsh?

Negligence. Willful misconduct. Intentional infliction of nervous shock. You’re the lawyer, Mr. Orton.

Great. Another one. Women like Rachel Walsh are a dime a dozen in today’s television expertise age. They watch a few episodes of Boston Legal and suddenly think themselves adjutant lawyers.

You’re right, Mrs. Walsh, I am the lawyer, I told her, trying unsuccessfully to keep the condescension from my voice. And unfortunately we lawyers are required to actually have what we call a cause of action before we file suit. Especially against a company as powerful as Illusion Resorts.

There’s no need to be condescending, Mr. Orton. I actually work for a law firm here in Vegas.

I raised my eyebrows inquisitively.

I’m a paralegal at Holland, Roberts and Stoddard.

I whistled appreciatively. Holland, Roberts and Stoddard LLP was the biggest firm in Nevada. They boasted more than three hundred lawyers between their offices in Vegas and Reno.

So why aren’t they handling this matter for you?

Conflicted out. We handle a lot of work for Illusion Resorts.

Law firms are typically forbidden from representing a client if its interest conflicts with that of another client even if the clients are represented by separate lawyers within the firm. Nevada does allow conflict of interest exposure within firms if Chinese walls are employed, but a firm like Holland, Roberts, and Stoddard would not want to risk pissing off a client who draws as much water as Illusion Resorts.

I nodded knowingly. So they sent you to old Leonard Orton.

Rachel shifted uncomfortably from her perch on the edge of the seat. Well, not exactly. They actually sent me to see Murray Goldblum. But Murray didn’t think there was much chance of success.

Murray and I had locked horns in the courtroom a few times. To be honest, he wiped the floor with me all three times we’d found ourselves on opposite sides at trial. I was somewhat flattered that he would think to send work my way. So Murray sent you to see old Leonard Orton.

Not exactly. Murray advised I go see Harriet Paulson if I wanted to pursue the matter.

Harriet passed and sent you to see me? I asked, desperation creeping into my voice.

Rachel pursed her lips and shook her head.

Exactly where am I on the list here, Mrs. Walsh?

She twisted the handkerchief in her hands. You’re the twelfth lawyer I’ve visited, Mr. Orton. Quite frankly, you’re dead last on the list. The last lawyer I saw, George Schutt, told me that if a bottom fee—uh, if a man of your skills wouldn’t take the case, then nobody would.

George Schutt? That fucking hack had a lot of nerve. But I guess he also had a point. My practice was in a state -- shambles? -- such that I wasn’t in a position to turn down paying work. I took a moment to pretend that I was considering the matter.

There is, of course, the matter of my retainer, Mrs. Orton.

I’ll be happy to sign a retainer agreement, but I’m going to insist that you take on the matter on a contingency basis.

So much for that. Under a contingency fee agreement the client isn’t charged an up front fee but agrees to give the lawyer a percentage of the amount received if successful at trial or if the matter is settled prior to trial. Contingency fees can range from twenty-five percent all the way up to fifty percent, which can result in huge windfalls for lawyers if they win at trial or force the other side to settle. The obstacle to such riches was the requirement for success. I hadn’t won at trial