Luke - Sex, Violence and Vice in Sin City Read online

  LUKE

  A novel by Aaron D. Cohen

  Copyright © 2013 by Aaron D. Cohen

  ISBN:

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

  Cover Design: Damonza

  Typeset by: Damonza

  For my wife…

  Chapter One

  Two black SUVs race through the desert. The temperature is 112 degrees. It feels like there are two suns in the sky.

  Inside the vehicles are twelve armed men wearing dark business suits. They are employees of Empire Resorts. All of them have killed before; that was a mandatory job qualification, along with firearm skills and moral flexibility.

  There are rules to adhere to during this operation. The first rule is to keep casualties to a minimum. The second rule is “do what you have to do.”

  The third rule is not to harm the woman in the picture. Each man has a wallet-sized picture of her. Each has memorized her face. Her name is Leanne. She is to be captured, but not harmed in any way.

  ***

  A mile away from the speeding black SUVs, inside the Bunny Runner Brothel and Exotic Dancing Pleasureatorium, Cecil soaks in a bubbling, steaming hot tub. He is 62 years old, fit, tan, and happy. Soaking with him are three chatting nude women, all dark brunettes, Cecil’s favorite. They have large natural breasts, heavy and soft, something else Cecil favors.

  The conversation ranges from diet tips to blow job techniques to the endless BMW versus Mercedes debate. Cecil hears but doesn’t listen, his eyes closed, smiling, a girl in each arm. He is in heaven.

  His body relaxes as hot water and bubbles melt away every tension. He enjoys their sexy, feminine voices. They speak with the contentment of the well-off and beautiful. He loves women, and his job.

  He is the hiring manager, marketing director, and director of customer relations at the Bunny Runner. He hires women who like to fuck and pays them to do exactly that.

  How did he get so lucky? After decades of working on the wrong side of law, risking his freedom and often his life in pursuit of easy riches, who knew that Cecil would find happiness and success at a perfectly legal business?

  True, the Bunny Runner Brothel and Exotic Dancing Pleasureatorium is located far away from any kind of civilization, much less good pizza or Chinese food. However, with a decent house cook and dozens of women running around in lingerie and heels, he can live without civilization for a while.

  He hears his name. One of the girls wants his attention. He listens but doesn’t open his sleepy eyes.

  “Cecil speaks German,” says the one on his right. “Cecil, say something in German.”

  “Why would I, my dear?” Cecil asks. “I loathe the language. Wouldn’t you rather have a lovely Italian, which makes every sentence a song?”

  “No, Cecil. Do German. I had a client yesterday that spoke German and it was really sexy.”

  “Or perhaps French,” he suggests, “which makes everything sound like a poem about fellatio.”

  “Something about the firmness of German, the strictness of it, it was so totally hot.”

  “Cecil, how many languages do you speak?” asks the one on his left.

  “Too many, my dear,” Cecil says. “I pick them up like viruses. Too much close contact with a new language and I’m infected.”

  “What accent do you speak with?” asks one sitting across from him. “It sounds English, but sometimes it sounds funny, like something else is mixed in.”

  “I didn’t realize I speak with an accent, I do say, by Jove!” Cecil says, turning up the high-bred English to get a giggle. “I believe I do! Bully! Tea and crumpets! God bless the Queen. Bond, James Bond.”

  “An English accent is kind of sexy too, but it’s not like German,” says the one on his left.

  “You have a thing for authority, mein liebchen,” says Cecil in a perfect German accent, suitable for selling BMWs or giving orders to the SS. “You must be severely punished, verstehen?”

  With that he pinches her nipple, playfully, but still hard enough to make it hurt.

  She squeals with delight. Cecil feels the nipple grow hard between his fingers and knows how the rest of his afternoon will be spent. He loves his life. He loves his job. He loves these women and will love them all day until he falls asleep or gets hungry, whichever comes first. But which one to do first? That is an important question…

  BAM!

  Cecil hopes that wasn’t a gun. Maybe it was a fire cracker, or something falling over, or the whip crack of a dominatrix, but the dungeon is on the other side of the house, so that can’t be it.

  Another shot rings out, definitely a gun. Images of a hedonistic afternoon of debauchery fade from Cecil’s head. They are replaced with images of security guards bleeding from bullet holes, girls in lingerie trying to run in heels, screams of terror in a place where there should only be moans of pleasure.

  “What the hell was that?” the one who loves German accents asks.

  “Shhh,” says Cecil, rising out of the hot water. “Everyone stay quiet. It might be a robbery or something.”

  “Or something? Like what!” she yells, beginning to panic. She needs to shut the fuck up.

  “Shhhhhh. Not to worry, dear,” Cecil says. “Probably nothing. Just stay calm and stay quiet.”

  He runs the options in his head, studying the angles. They could be getting robbed, maybe by meth heads desperate enough to try and take down a joint with three armed guards. Maybe it’s some old friends holding a grudge. How many people hold a grudge against Cecil? He doesn’t have time to count.

  If it’s a robbery, he’s better off staying put. No sense in going up front where the money and the fight would be. And no sense heading out the emergency exit in the back, as he might bump into the meth heads making their retreat.

  Best for now to gather the facts, and his pants. Damn my luck! His pants hang in the locker room, near the door to the main building where the shooting is happening. All he is wearing are three gold chains around his neck, a thick gold bracelet, and small gold hoop earrings that he thinks gives him the dashing, dangerous look of a pirate.

  Are the guards dead? Those goons would love nothing better than to get in a gun fight. If they aren’t shooting, they are dead. Shit. I need to get out of here.

  Cecil steps over to the towel rack, dries off, slides into a bath robe. For a moment, he considers his gold and wonders if it’s in jeopardy of being stolen, perhaps even putting him in danger.

  Nah. He’s got more pressing things to think about, like where to hide. He steps into a pair of cloth slippers and heads to the door. He turns back to the girls in the hot tub, who look far more tense than anyone should look while in a hot tub.

  “Keep the door locked, and don’t make a sound,” Cecil says, trying to keep them calm, hoping they stay shut up. “Let me check things out. Probably nothing. Maybe a drunk or a john got out of hand. I’ll be back.”

  He opens the door and steps out, closing the door behind him.

  “He sounded pretty nervous,” one says.

  “He didn’t sound like him anymore. His accent changed,” says another.

  “I heard that too. I think he’s from New Jersey,” the third one says.

  ***

  Cecil pads down the long hall toward the front of the house. Behind him is the emergency exit. He is ready to sprint for it at the first sign of trouble. Maybe he should have sent one of the girls out first. No one likes shooting women, except other women.

&nbs
p; He takes two more steps, listens, but hears nothing. Is it over already?

  Down at the end of the hall, a door opens. Cecil gets ready to run the other way, but then Leanne and Artie walk in. Artie, a dwarf, looks childlike from a distance. Leanne, the owner and manager of the Bunny Runner, looks amazing as always.

  Artie turns and glares at her, points toward the door. He wants to go.

  She bends over and whispers something into his ear. The little guy gets upset, surprised. Whatever secret she slid into his ear, it got his attention.

  Cecil always liked her. You could do worse for a boss. Took some time getting used to taking orders from a broad, but after a while it wasn’t such a big deal. You get chewed out by a guy, you just get chewed out. You get your hand slapped by a dame, it’s kind of sexy, if you were into that kind of thing, and he was.

  Then he hears David, that evil fucker.

  “Leanne!” David’s voice echoes through the entire building, a voice so deep and loud you feel it in your chest.

  Leanne kisses the little guy on the forehead. That lucky little bastard. She looks scared.

  Leanne heads away from Cecil and down the hall in a rush, back toward whatever badness is going on.

  Nice ass. Perfect ass. How can she run in heels that tall? Those legs are some kind of miracle of nature.

  Artie runs straight for Cecil and the exit.

  “Gotta go!” says Artie. “Pronto!” He issues three soft, staccato whistles to emphasize his point.

  “Where to?” asks Cecil.

  “None of your business. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  Artie grabs Cecil’s hand and pulls like a six-year-old dragging his dad into the toy store.

  “Hey!” Cecil barks. “Release my hand, you little pervert.”

  Artie doesn’t let go, keeps pulling. Strong grip for a guy that small.

  “Seriously Cees, we have to go!”

  There is fear in his voice, and say what you want about the little guy, he isn’t a coward. He’d fight guys twice his size, biting and scratching like a rabid cat. And now he is running for the door trying to drag a full grown man.

  A door slams. Cecil can hear shouting. Leanne and David go at it, screaming at the top of their lungs, but it’s hard to hear what they are saying. Those two never got along, some kind of bitter history there, but this is over the top.

  “What’s going on with those two?” Cecil asks.

  “Bad things. Bad things!”

  Artie hits the emergency exit door. It swings open and the shock of sun light makes Cecil squint. Christ, the world is a bright pace. The emergency alarm goes off, an angry ringing like a thousand alarm clocks.

  Artie keeps pulling him toward the parking lot. His grip on Cecil’s wrist is strong.

  A hot desert wind blows and fills up Cecil’s robe, making him miss his pants even more.

  “Hey squirt, you’re going to pull my arm out of the socket. You think you could let go and tell me what’s going on?”

  “You don’t wanna know. Trust me. Trust me.” He whistles a long note that goes from high to a foreboding low.

  “If I’m taking a ride wearing nothing but a bathrobe, I think I’d like to know why.”

  “Get in the car!”

  They arrive at Cecil’s car and his little heart goes pitter pat. Cherry red, convertible 1969 Cadillac El Dorado. It looks like a tank taking a vacation, big enough to run over anything in its path, sexy curves like it wants to get laid by something even bigger.

  Cecil doesn’t love much in this godforsaken world, but he loves that car.

  “I don’t have my keys. Or my pants. We are fucked.”

  Artie tosses him the keys.

  “What, you couldn’t grab my pants as well?”

  “No time! Let’s go!”

  A girl screams from inside the house. Then screams fill the air, from a lot of people, men and women. Whoever was shooting earlier is now causing new unpleasantness, this time without shooting. What the fuck is going on?

  The emergency alarm stops ringing as Cecil unlocks the door and slides into the car, the creamy white leather welcoming him. Artie jumps in and slams the door behind him.

  “Okay, short stack, I’ll bite. Where are we going?”

  “Can’t say. Secret.”

  “What? Your little brain must be damaged. If you think I’m…”

  “Let’s go! Now!”

  “When did you get so pushy? I don’t take orders from you. You take orders from me.”

  “If we don’t go right now, we are both dead.”

  “Dead?”

  The emergency door to The Bunny Runner bursts open, and the emergency alarm again begins its screaming. Two giant men wearing blue business suits trot toward Cecil’s car. They both pull out guns and take aim.

  Artie issues an alarm whistle, high-pitched and ear-shattering.

  Cecil thinks about bullet holes in his El Dorado, starts the car and smashes the gas pedal. Dust and gravel spit out from underneath the tires in a plume. The massive beast spins, straightens, and shoots from the dirt parking lot to the desert-baked asphalt road. Cecil looks in his rear view mirror. One of the goons keeps aiming his gun, but doesn’t shoot. The other makes a note in a little cop-like steno pad, writing down the license plate number.

  Motherfucker, Cecil thinks. That will be trouble.

  ***

  The man writing that note used to be a cop. Now he has a job that pays three times a policeman’s salary.

  The man beside him, the man still aiming his gun like he wants to shoot the El Dorado, is ex-Army, kicked out because he had a tendency to shoot at people when he was told not to.

  “I said hold your fire,” says the ex-cop.

  “Why didn’t you let me shoot?” asks the ex-Army guy.

  “At an old man and a midget who drove out to the desert to get laid?” asks the ex-cop. “Did you want to bury their bodies in this heat?”

  He puts his notepad back inside his jacket pocket.

  Chapter Two

  Inside the Bunny Runner, the 12 armed men in suits have taken over.

  The employees of the brothel sit in the reception area on red velvet couches and plush arm chairs. Hand-painted portraits of old west dancehall girls hang on the walls, red lips, bright smiles, tight corsets pushing up acres of fluffy white flesh. Below the paintings, ten scared working girls, three guards and one pissed off old lady bartender sit on the couches.

  The guys in the suits look disappointed. They were expecting more female nudity during a noon time raid on a brothel. Turns out that at noon the girls are in flannel pajamas, sweat pants and T-shirts. Most of them were sleeping when the raid started. A couple of them look ready to fall back asleep, even with armed men in the room. The brunettes from the hot tub are here as well, now in bathrobes, and still a little wet.

  The old lady bartender fidgets nervously on the couch. She has bleached blond hair and crow’s feet next to tired eyes that have seen 10,000 men traipse into the back rooms to be relieved of cum and money.

  I need a smoke. Fuck it, she thinks. What are they going to do? Shoot me?

  She pulls a cigarette out of her bra. She always keeps an extra, just in case a pack isn’t handy. She pulls a lighter out of her jeans pocket, flicks its lever and a bright spike of flame pops up.

  “No smoking!” one of the goons commands her.

  “Go fuck yourself,” she says.

  She lights the cigarette and inhales deeply, blows out a plume of a smoke that wafts over the room.

  Everyone in the room looks at her, and then at the goons with guns, wondering what could possibly happen next.

  She sucks in more smoke, closes her eyes to relish the flavor, and then blows a gray cloud out into the room.

  She stares at the goon, daring him to shoot. The goon is confused, not sure what to do next.

  From behind her, a massive hand drops over the cigarette, engulfs it into a fist, and smashes it, ember and all. The hand opens and the de
stroyed cigarette is no longer lit, though it smolders a bit.

  The man who owns the hand is huge, six-foot-five or more, built like a brick, wearing a black suit that has a soft sheen to it, expensive looking. His name is David.

  “No smoking,” he says to the goon. “Do I need to repeat myself?”

  “No sir,” says the goon, who looks close to pissing his pants.

  David throws the ruined cigarette, nailing the goon in the chest, leaving a mark on his black tie.

  “That okay with you?” David asks the old lady.

  “Yeah sure, whatever you want, mister.”

  “Thank you. Now can you direct me to Leanne’s office?”

  ***

  Inside the car, Artie gulps air, finally catching his breath. Sweat is pouring off his forehead.

  Cecil breathes a little easier. He’s alive, and when you’re alive, you’ve got options.

  He looks down at the fuel gauge. The needle stands a hair’s width away from E.

  “Fuck,” he says.

  ***

  Leanne’s office contains a sloppy desk covered in papers, several metal filing cabinets, and a gray safe. Behind her desk is a huge, framed aerial photograph of a private island near the Bahamas, a green gem surrounded by white sand and a deep blue ocean. It is an island she plans on buying one day, if she lives through this one.

  She stands in front of her desk, in the spot where her employees stand when being scolded. David is in her place, in her expensive leather chair, between her and her island, looking relaxed, not at all troubled by terrorizing a house full of hard-working people.

  Bastard, she thinks. Fucking goddamn bastard. I’m starting to be sorry you didn’t die that day.

  ***

  David looks her up and down. She’s hot, but after knowing her for so long, after taking her underneath his wing, teaching her everything she knows, he can’t quite picture himself fucking her. She is too much like a daughter, a rebellious bitch of daughter who needs a good spanking.

  Still, he has to admit she looks great, even with a few more years on her. Awesome ass, perky tits, curly black hair, kind of a Sicilian look with maybe some Puerto Rican thrown in. Nice tan. Short black skirt. White satin blouse. Tall high heels, black, with some gold embroidery, expensive, and he would know. She looks the part of the high class madam, the career he trained her for.