FIVE
Edith was waiting by the entrance to the lounge, her manner cool as she talked quietly into her clamshell telephone. When she saw me, her eyebrows twitched and she ended the call. The smoked glass looked out over the airfield. There was a faint drone and a smell of engine fuel mixing with the scent of sandalwood and deep-pile carpets. The colour scheme was light fawns and beiges; there was pampas grass in huge terracotta bowls, geometric paintings in similar tones. Behind the door I could hear deep male laughter, the practised giggles of the hostesses following soon after at a higher, airier pitch.
‘What are they like?’ I said before Edith had a chance to say anything.
‘Have you spoken to O’Neil?’ she said.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’m very happy for you both. How are they?’
‘And you’re okay?’
‘Why wouldn’t I be? What are they like?’
‘Assholes,’ she said. ‘Total assholes.’
I paused, my knuckles whitening around the door handle. Through the narrowest of cracks I could see shapes moving around, some towards the windows, others sitting on the couches, the floating grace of the hostesses with their champagne flutes and trays of blinis. I wanted to stay there, just observing these people through the tiny slit. Opening the door would bring the rushing sounds of their lives into mine; there would be no excuse for not knowing where they wanted to go, or what they wanted to do. This was what was expected. Edith put her arm on my shoulder.
‘I’m fine,’ I said. ‘Honestly.’
‘You’ve got to go in now. We’re running late as it is.’
‘I’ve read their files. They don’t seem so bad. Not like Gardner’s party. You remember them?’
‘It’s late,’ she said, patting me on my arm. ‘Time to go to work, Joe.’ Her eyes were imploring. I opened the door and closed it quietly behind me.
The four men formed a horseshoe in the centre of the room, talking, sipping at their champagne, staring without apology at the ruffled behinds of the waitresses whose heels tapped across the black-tiled flooring.
Boulder nodded towards me and the conversations stopped. Three of the men moved closer to one another just as Brooks took four quick steps in the opposite direction. I looked straight at him and it was like looking down from the top of a cliff. My vision blurred. The waitresses smudgily made their way to the back of the room, past the bar and along the carpeted stretch which led to the kitchens. I closed my eyes for a beat and opened them again. I picked up a champagne flute that Louisa had left for me by the door. Standing next to one of the ornate pillars, I raised the glass.
‘Gentlemen. Welcome.’
*
Edith’s duplex looked like a small and highly specialized library. I had been there only once, some months after we’d arrived, and had been unsurprised at its prim practicality. There were no photographs and just one framed print on the wall – a Monet – otherwise it was books and folders and files. That evening she had given me and O’Neil a glass of wine each and promptly retreated to the kitchen to prepare the rest of dinner. O’Neil sat straight down in an armchair and looked for an ashtray; I ran my fingers along the spines of her books, noting their alphabetical organization and general good condition.
Most of the books were on group theory, or group dynamics. Titles by Bion and Tuckman, Lewin, and Schultz took up two long shelves, and each volume was bloated by just-visible yellow Post-it notes. I took one out at random – Experiences in Groups – and moved from marker to marker, making neither head nor tail of the academic language of science and psychology. When Edith returned, red-cheeked and wiping her hands on an apron, she looked at me with wounded scepticism.
‘I studied it for my Ph.D.,’ she said. ‘I find them fascinating. Groups, I mean.’
‘Tuckman’s four stages,’ O’Neil said, getting up from the sofa, clutching an empty glass. ‘Well, five actually, if you count the breakdown, right?’ He looked at Edith. ‘Dude, I used to work with a guy who swore by that shit. Good salesman too. Fucking great salesman, actually.’
They talked about that a little bit that night. Maybe that’s when they knew. Maybe they’d been fucking since then; how long ago, a year, eighteen months?
Before that meal, O’Neil and I had been perplexed by Edith’s involvement with the Valhalla, but over shrimp linguini she explained the attraction. To her, it had become a continuing experiment, a living test lab for male group dynamics. She put them together, testing theories and ideas, then noted down the results: evidence gleaned from her own observations and those from O’Neil and me, from bartenders and hookers. The financial imperative was the only thing holding her back: she would love, she said as she served a Key lime pie, to observe a group designed spectacularly to fail just to see what happened. A control, she called it, but the giddy look in her eyes suggested she just wanted to see some real mayhem.
As a salesman, you’re always afraid of losing your edge. Things like group theory are a bit like whetstones or steels in that regard: they keep you keen. Following O’Neil’s lead, I borrowed a few books from Edith and tried to get some basics down. There was little point, however: Edith was good enough at her job to be able to construct a group dynamic that was easy enough to manipulate, but interesting enough for those concerned. There had been some incidents – Gardner’s being a case in point – but for the most part, she always seemed to get the boys feeling like brothers, rather than rivals.
*
Three men stood to my right; Brooks to my left. The three were clinking glasses and whooping; Brooks was stone silent and took a very small mouthful of his champagne. His positioning had given him a distinct edge over the others; he could observe them, but they needed to turn in his direction to see him.
‘Gentlemen. Thank you for coming to sample the wonders of the Valhalla. We’ll be on the move soon enough, but before we do, I’d just like to quickly reiterate the rules. These are for your own safety and to ensure that you have the most relaxing time possible while you are with us. First, please do not use real names and please refrain from discussing specific businesses. No cell phones, pagers or other contact with work, home or family is allowed. There is to be no photography of the interior or exterior of the Valhalla.’ Each one nodded at every stipulation, even Brooks.
The rules were one of O’Neil’s better ideas. The restraint of a code gave the Valhalla the clubby whiff of a Masonic lodge or a fraternity house. ‘All men need rules,’ O’Neil said once. ‘Without them we’re just beasts. Give men rules and they know where they’re at. Especially these rich assholes.’ The rules were, however, without sanction, and had probably been broken a hundred times or more, not that we cared either way. The only rule that ultimately mattered was getting them to sign.
I finished the list of other rules and looked to the three men on my right, then, to my left, at Brooks. I watched him put down his glass and take a pair of spectacles from his inside breast pocket. He looked at them for a moment then polished the lenses with a thin cloth. He smiled flatly, put them on his nose, and the room went suddenly hot and white.
*
‘I’m not sure I like the idea, if I’m honest, Mark.’
Bethany is getting ready upstairs and her father and I are sitting in the lounge, the television switched to mute. Mike is rubbing his glasses and avoiding looking at me. Since I arrived he has been withdrawn, has not cracked a single joke, nor offered me a drink or asked after my father. He is dressed to go out himself; he smells of expensive aftershave and is in his best V-neck sweater.
‘I don’t like it at all. I know you two are eighteen and all that, but still . . .’
‘There’s nothing to worry about,’ I say. ‘It’s a big city, but it’s no more dangerous than going out on a Friday night. More chance of getting your head kicked in here than—’
‘It’s not that so much, Mark. And I don’t want to sound like a killjoy, but I’m just not happy about it. Can’t you wait until next year? When you’ve both got a bit of life experience? A bit more, I don’t know, street smarts? Isn’t that what they call it?’
‘We’ve been saving for a year, Mike. We just want to go and have some fun.’
He shakes his head. ‘I know, Mark, I know. But still . . .’
Mike stands and goes to the drinks trolley and pours me and him a whisky. He passes the glass to me like a peace offering. I thank him and he sits back down in his armchair.
He looks wounded and disappointed; this has not gone the way he expected. I wonder whether he really wants to tell me that he is keeping Bethany home. That he forbids us to leave. Perhaps he has already seen what will happen, that she will not return, that he can no longer control her life. We stay like that, in furious silence, drinking, the television still muted, until Bethany enters the room.
She looks more beautiful than I have ever seen her. Her hair has been cut especially for New York and her dress is short, revealing leggings and her boots.
She looks at me, then her father. ‘Shall we go?’ she says.
I down the whisky and thank Mike. He takes off his spectacles and rubs them again. Bethany kisses him goodbye.
*
‘. . . is just a short limousine ride from the airport. Your bags have already been taken there, unpacked, and your rooms equipped with all the comforts one would expect from the very finest hotel. If there is anything at all you require, simply call zero from the telephone in your room. We will endeavour to supply it within one hour. Your pleasure here is the only thing that is important to us. If we can help in any way, we will do so. We have planned and tailored your stay to the very last detail. You have all experienced the rigour with which we interview our clients, so you will also understand how seriously we take your happiness. We’re here to ensure that you have the best time of your life.’
‘That’s quite a promise, Mr Jones,’ Brooks said. ‘I look forward to seeing how well you can deliver on it.’
The men laughed and Brooks downed the rest of his drink.
‘I think we’re about ready now,’ Brooks said. The other three loudly agreed – perhaps just as Edith had intended them to – but I raised my hand for silence.
‘But of course. However, I just wish it to be clear that the rules are binding. Anyone found breaking them will be asked to leave. I do hope you gentlemen understand.’
They nodded, the four of them.
‘Then we shall begin. Please follow me.’
Carlo was waiting by the elevator, stiff in his polished shoes. He pressed a button and the doors opened, smoked-glass windows looking out over the south side of the Strip.
‘This is Carlo, he will be our driver for the weekend,’ I said. ‘He used to be Elvis’s chauffeur. And Frank Sinatra’s.’
‘I love Sinatra,’ Boulder said.
‘The stories I could tell you about Frankie,’ Carlo said, shaking his head. ‘The stories.’
But Carlo didn’t say another word. We rode down to the basement in silence and were soon in a cool, darkened garage, a single stretch car, its doors open, welcoming us. I took the seat to the right behind the privacy screen. Brooks sat beside me; Boulder, Miller and Hooper arranged themselves on the banquette as though they were being interviewed. I rapped on the screen and the limousine pulled away. As we drove, I fixed the men their drinks.
They talked amongst themselves. Brooks was the only one who had been to Las Vegas before and he began to tell a story about how he had attended a business conference when in the first flush of youth. He had won over $5,000 at blackjack, then lost it all on the turn of a card. He shook his head at the memory and accepted the gin and tonic he had ordered. He stirred it clockwise then counter-clockwise.
‘I learned a very important lesson that day,’ he said, holding the glass up and looking through it. He sucked on the straw and nodded slightly. ‘Yes. I learned that losing is a game for losers.’
The men laughed, all of them, and I laughed and drank down a vodka shot. I couldn’t look at Brooks, instead I kept my eyes on Boulder, Miller and Hooper: men who had made money because it was easier to do so than to not; men of high expectations, moderate intelligence and inherited morals. They fell over themselves now to admit to tales of youthful folly. Hooper told a story of a lost file that had cost his company a large contract; Boulder about the time he’d given the wrong set of results to his boss, who had to retract his statement to investors some thirty minutes after announcing bullish profits; and Miller briefly outlined how he had come to after a corporate event to find himself missing an eyebrow. Each story was greeted with the exaggerated laughter of strangers. I could feel Brooks sitting back and simply smiling.
‘And how about you, Mr Jones?’ Brooks said. ‘How about your youthful indiscretions?’
My mind stalled, blackened, emptied. I could think of nothing but taking the aeroplane to New York. The more I tried to dredge something back, the more the details flooded in: the coppery hair of the air stewardess, the small bag of peanuts I opened but did not eat, the red wine I drank until I could sleep. The cloudy sky that afforded no view of Liberty or Ellis Island. The movie flickering on a pulled-down canvas screen, an action film that even with my headphones on I could not follow. An old man hanging on to the edge of my seat just stretching my legs, young man and the cold bread roll – the only food I managed to keep down – accompanied by a dense pat of butter.
I closed my eyes, then I opened them again. ‘1992. September. A run on sterling. Need I say more?’
They laughed, all of them, and I looked out of the window to see the Valhalla in the distance. The three men were each unable to see what they had already given up to Brooks. His misdemeanour was still covered by his own glory; theirs were just the usual fuck-ups of young men given too much money and responsibility too quickly.
You can’t hate a client. That’s the golden rule: hate a client and you’re jeopardizing the sale. Because it’s not about them, it’s about the dollars. They can be the worst bastards on earth: what do you care? It’s about the money. But I still couldn’t look at Brooks, his face behind those spectacles. Finally, he inclined his glass to me. I nodded towards him as we swung off strip and down towards the Valhalla.
*
The large wrought-iron gates opened inwardly and we drove up a winding gravel driveway. The men halted their conversations and looked out of the windows, the gardens radiant with sprays of colour and rolling lawns, rockeries, waterways and tall trees swaying in the slight breeze, all tinged sepia through the glass. We turned again and the Valhalla presented itself: a V-shaped building of windows and brick.
‘The Valhalla,’ I said, ‘is not built to make a statement, gentlemen. It is, as I’m sure you’ll agree, a functional building from the outside. This is deliberate and essential to our commitment to the utmost anonymity of our guests and residents. You will not be disappointed, however, by the interiors.’
‘It’s very . . . brown,’ Miller said.
‘I think it’s really rather elegant,’ Brooks said. ‘I like its understatement. Like it doesn’t need to try.’
‘It is elegant, yes,’ Hooper said.
‘Yes, elegantly brown,’ Boulder said.
‘As I said, gentlemen: anonymity.’
The car stopped at a fountain, behind which stood a smart line of people dressed in blue Chinese-worker-style pyjamas. Two of them opened the car doors and then ran back into line. It was hot and the air was scented with jasmine and lavender and before we could break into a sweat I ushered the group past the water feature and into the huge atrium.
I paused in the centre of the room, the light spilling down onto the ornate mosaic, the fountain gurgling, the size of the space still surprising after all this time. The room had been modelled on the set design for a film about Atlantis that had never been shot, and the feeling remained other-worldly. Boulder and Miller craned their necks, looking up into the flawless sky through domed glass panels. Hooper walked to the east wall to examine the under-floor pond that ran around the perimeter, the koi, emperor angelfish, gobies and tangs oblivious to his feet above them. Brooks simply nodded and took off his spectacles.
‘Welcome to the Valhalla, gentlemen.’
*
We took a break in O’Neil’s kitchen, the evening plans for my and his groups set out on the table. We had a half-hour before I would rejoin Brooks, Hooper, Miller and Boulder in the East Wing Bar, and the two of us were half-heartedly exchanging notes. This was a time I had once looked forward to; before the tiredness set in, before the company of clients began to grate. It had been a half-hour of laughter and invective, of imagining how much we were going to sell, and how much we would make this time. Most of all, however, O’Neil’s company was a reminder that this was temporary; that this wasn’t really our life. Over the months though it had become less pleasurable, more about work. As I sat leafing through booking references and Edith’s notes, I wondered whether the change had come when she and O’Neil had got together. Maybe it was a coincidence; maybe it was nothing at all.
‘You think Brooks will go for it, then?’ O’Neil said.
‘What’s that?’
‘Brooks. You think he’ll go for it?’
I took a sip of coffee and looked at the clock.
‘Maybe. Who knows? He’s got the cash, he seemed pretty impressed with the atrium. So yeah, I guess.’
O’Neil looked down at his sheet of paper, then up at me.
‘And you’re sure you’re okay? We can always get someone else in to cover if you’re not feeling it today.’
He stood and ruffled my hair as he passed to get some more coffee.
‘I’m worried about you, son. Seriously,’ he said.
‘I’m fine.’
‘You always say that, but you look pretty far from fucking okay from where I’m standing. You’re all over the place. If this has anything to do with—’
‘It’s not. It hasn’t, okay. Fuck’s sake, O’Neil, not everything is about you.’
He came back to the table with the coffee jug and poured some more for me and some for him.
‘You’ve not been yourself for ages,’ he said. ‘Months, even. It’s like I’m watching you have a breakdown. I miss you, man. I mean how many sales have you made in the last month? I’ve never known you have such a barren run at anything. And you say you’re fine? Fuck you, you’re fine.’
‘You sounded like Alec Baldwin when you said that,’ I said.
‘Fuck you, Joe. This is serious.’
I was somehow in his arms, my tears dampening his Agnès B jacket. I could not recall the last time I had wept at anything: it was violent and without warning, a kind of declaration of war. O’Neil held me, rubbed my back in the way that a loving parent might. He shushed me, told me it was okay, that everything would be all right. His grip was so tight I almost believed him.
Eventually I calmed, and he gave me a cigarette. I lit it and watched my hands tremble.
‘Everywhere I go I see things from before,’ I said. ‘I can’t explain it. It’s just like everything’s flooding through. You understand?’
He shook his head. ‘I want to, Joe. I really do, but none of this is making any sense to me. You’re not making any sense. Last week you were just vacant, like you’d been erased or something. We’d be talking and you’d just lose the thread. Lose it completely. And Edith said you just zoned out earlier on. No one home.’
I smoked the cigarette and drank some more of the coffee. We had about ten minutes left before I was due in the East Wing Bar for final preparations.
‘It’s probably nothing,’ I said. ‘Just tired maybe, or freaked out by this place. I mean I can’t even begin to understand why you’d want to stay here—’
‘I’m just worried, Joe. I’m worried you’ll do something stupid and—’
‘What, and jeopardize your cosy little life with Edith?’
‘I don’t know you any more, Joe,’ he said and stood. ‘You’re like a stranger and it’s breaking my fucking heart.’
He sat back down and I crushed out my cigarette, drained my coffee.
‘I’ve got work to do. And so have you,’ I said and stood up. I walked to the door without looking back.
‘Don’t leave like this, we have time,’ O’Neil said. I stopped. He looked angry and sad and I wanted to take that look away from him. So I closed the door.
*
The East Wing Bar was on the fifty-first floor; wide windows looking down over the strip and over the desert. Searchlights scissored and neon bloomed and the sun went down in a smoky, pollution-pretty skyline. It was a bright room: red-plush sofas, black-leather booths, a brushed-steel bar with stools. Music was playing softly. I walked in and nodded at the two barmen. Apparently they were amongst the best cocktail-makers on the west coast. Each weekend they invented a drink based on the favourite ingredients of the guests. Their skill was often astonishing; their ability to mix incongruous flavours into something swooningly delicious a gift approaching alchemy. They were also arrogant, dislikable and fiercely unpleasant to one another.
Without speaking, Thomas, the elder of the two, poured me a club soda with ice and lime. He nodded as he set down the drink, then went back to his position, leaning against the bar, and back to the card game he was playing with Grayson. Judging by the stacks, he was losing comfortably.
To my left, three waitresses were reading magazines, drinking Diet Cokes and finishing their last cigarettes. They spoke quietly to one another, their faces bored, their features delicate. I knew most of their names but had not spoken more than a few dozen words to any of them; like us all, they kept themselves to themselves and only became animated when the clients were around.
Grayson looked at his watch and called time on the card game, scooping up his chips and putting them away in a drawer. Turning around I saw Brooks enter the room, accompanied by his assistant for the weekend. How he had managed to persuade her to allow him down to the bar before time, I never knew. It must have been a lot of money; or maybe the promise of something more precious.
‘Hello, Mr Jones,’ he said, sitting next to me at the bar. ‘I do apologize for my early arrival, but I became rather bored.’ He hailed Grayson and asked for a brand of whisky we had ordered in especially. He was not surprised at its availability, despite its price and scarcity. ‘I do so hate being bored,’ he said. ‘It’s the one thing I can’t stand. Which is why I like Las Vegas so much. So very little time to be bored.’
‘It must have made quite an impression upon you,’ I said. ‘As a young man, I mean.’
He swirled the whisky in his glass and looked at me with mild surprise.
‘I’ve been coming to Las Vegas at least three times a year for the last decade. There are few of its secrets to which I am not privy. Which is why this place’ – he moved his arms around – ‘so intrigues me. Perhaps I don’t know all the secrets, after all.’ He winked and sipped at his drink, then removed a cigar from the inside pocket of his jacket.
‘I’m sorry, Mr Brooks,’ I said. ‘I had the impression from your earlier conversation that this was only the second time you’d visited.’
Quickly, he clipped his cigar and lit it with a heavy silver lighter. He nodded his head.
‘So you did, Mr Jones. So you did. But did you really think I’d tell the truth to these . . . I don’t know what you’d call them? Anyway, let’s just say I like being someone else for the weekend. That’s what you promised, was it not: a holiday from oneself?’
He blew smoke in my direction and I picked up my club soda. I held the drink aloft.
‘You must do whatever will give you the maximum amount of pleasure, Mr Brooks. That’s what we are here for. We do not judge. Especially not where half-truths or obfuscations are concerned.’
The light caught his hair giving it a kind of auburn lustre; the hairdresser had cut and styled it to a rich kind of perfection. He kept looking at me as he smoked, his thin smile only broken to accept the thickness of the cigar.
Eventually he set it down in the too-small glass ashtray and laid his hand on my arm.
‘I shall remind you of that, Mr Jones,’ he said clinking my soda glass with his whisky glass. ‘In my experience, no one is incapable of judgement. It’s as inevitable and as pernicious as boredom itself.’