Naked City: Tales of Urban Fantasy

gesture.”

He swept them to him much less tentatively. “We came through when the dam was going up, according to my father. She met a man and she married out,” he said. “I don’t know what else to tell you. We never heard from her after.”

Stewart, standing behind me, cleared his throat. “Who did she marry?”

“Some guy,” Bartoloměj answered. “I can call my dad at the home and check. He’s still pretty sharp for a guy in his eighties. He’ll remember.”

“That’d be great,” I said. “Bartoloměj, can you answer me one more question, maybe?”

“I can but try.”

“If she married out,” I asked, “why did she keep her own name?”

“She did?”

I nodded.

He let his head linger in that tilted pose for a moment before he shook his head. “I can’t say, Jackie. It wasn’t done, in those days.”

* * *

“She’s divorced,” Stewart said in the car, quite abruptly. He always was the smart one, blond or not.

“We can pull the marriage license,” I said.

Charleston Boulevard runs west all the way to Red Rock and the mountains from which it takes its name. Stewart and I go up there when we need to think, and we had planned to take our cell phones and wait for Bartoloměj Bukvajova to call. But Stewart pulled a U-turn right in the middle of Charleston, while I bent my luck hard to make sure that if there were any cops in the neighborhood, they were distracted by a flock of passing teenagers. It seemed like the least I could do.

Twenty minutes later, we had parked at a downtown casino and were crossing the street to the courthouse. Pulling the marriage license was easier than you’d expect; we’re not really big on the expectation of privacy around here, and anyway it was a matter of public record. The hardest part was figuring out the date, but it was slow—just after lunch—and we got a helpful clerk, and I made sure she got lucky.

Sure, it’s abuse of power. What’s the point in power if you can’t abuse it? Anyway, it was in a good cause. And it’s how I make my living.

You know, it’s more honest than what a lot of guys do.

She brought the photocopy to the window of a waiting room where we sat side by side in scoop-shaped plastic chairs, me slumped and Stewart kicked forward like a vulture on a bender. Stewart was on his feet first, and so he paid the fee and collected the copy. When he glanced at it, the color faded from his cheeks. He looked up at the clerk, who was regarding him with raised eyebrows, obviously waiting for some response. She smiled when she got it: “Thank you,” Stewart said automatically. Then he caught my elbow and, without explanation, steered me toward the street.

When we passed outside the courthouse door, into the wall of heat, onto fresh-mown grass dotted with sleeping vagrants and fat palm trees, I planted my feet and jerked him to a stop, because he didn’t let go of my arm. He looked at me as if startled to realize I was still there and had opinions, and then shook his head. “What?”

“Still not a mind reader,” I answered, and held out my left hand—the one he wasn’t using as a tiller. And Stewart blushed right up under his hairline and handed me the still-warm photocopy.

“Sorry?”

“S’okay.” The paper shook in my hand; the day seemed very bright. “Elijah Powers? Eli Powers? Babylon Hotel and Casino? That Eli Powers?”

“Shh,” he said. He took the paper, folded it one-handed, and tucked it into his pocket. But he was still looking at me, and when I mouthed, “She married Eli Powers,” he nodded.

Well.

Shit.

Just then, my cell rang. It was Bartoloměj Bukvajova, calling to tell us that his dad said his sister married some guy who ran a gambling hall in Block 16—the old red-light zone—when the dam was going in over in Boulder City and Vegas was where the workers came to blow money and chase skirts on weekends. He thought it had been annulled shortly after, but he never spoke to her again.

Elijah Porter, his father thought. Some Biblical name like that.

* * *

Stewart took me to the Lucky 7’s buffet at the Plaza, plunked me down in a corner, and brought me a plate before he fetched his own. I ordered him a Sprite and a glass of the house red—you try to get ginger ale in Vegas; it’s worth your life—and coffee and an ice water for me. I waited to start eating the fried shrimp until he got back the second time.

“So,” he said, settling himself behind a plate of roast beef and cornbread, “how are we going to get at Eli Powers?”

“He’s ninety years old and he owns half of Las Vegas. Why the hell would we want to get at him?” There’s something about the way breaded fried shrimp crunch that’s deeply satisfying. The battered ones just aren’t as good.

“Please tell me you’re kidding.” His cheap knife squeaked on the cheap plate as he cut his meat.

I winced. “Kidding?”

“Shit,” he said. “Oh, shit. Branislava Bukvajova? No? Nothing?”

“Bukvajova,” I said. “I swear I know that name.”

“Of course,” he said. “Who can make a city forget like the guy who runs it? Jackie, I think I know what’s going on. I think I know what the problem is.”

“Good,” I said. “Can you explain it to me?”

“Drink your coffee and I’ll try.”

But I wasn’t finished with the food yet, so I ate that and drank the ice water, smushing army-green peas between the tines of my fork. They tasted more like porridge than like a vegetable.

“Powers wasn’t anybody yet when he married Bukvajova, was he?”

“Wait,” I said. “Who did Powers marry? He’s got a wife, doesn’t he? His third one. The brunette. Used to be an actress.”

“Not a very good one,” Stewart agreed. “That’s beside the point. She’s his fourth wife, according to this. He married Branka Bukvajova in 1935. It seems like it was annulled less than a year later, but she never went back to the circus. Like she was stuck here, or she didn’t remember that she could go home.”

“Everybody forgets stuff in Vegas,” I said, and didn’t understand why Stewart would find it so troubling. It was only true. “Vegas forgets stuff. Imploded, bulldozed, blown away.”

“Yeah,” Stewart said, and stole one of my shrimp. “Almost makes you think somebody’s stealing its memory, doesn’t it? Do you want some chocolate cake, Jackie?”

“Jackie?” I said, picking up the cooling coffee in its white institutional stoneware cup. “Then who are you?”

I didn’t really believe him when he said I was Jackie—isn’t that a girl’s name?—but it didn’t bother me.

It really did bother me that I didn’t know who he was, though. That seemed really rude. Especially when he was apparently buying me dinner. “Stewart,” he said, and the strain on his voice cracked it clean across. He rose to fetch me cake, which made me feel bad that I couldn’t remember how I’d met him. Surely I wasn’t drunk? Surely I hadn’t been that drunk?

“Am I drunk?” I asked, as he put the cake down before me and waved our busser over to refill my coffee mug.

“I wish,” he answered, and patted my arm. Following the line of his motion, I realized suddenly that there was an awful lot of ink on my arm. I put down my fork, a bite of cake still speared untasted on the tines, and poked my bicep with a finger.

“Huh.”

“Eat,” he said. “You need your strength. And then we’re going back to visit Ms. Bukvajova, and we’re not leaving until we figure out what’s going on.”

I swallowed a mouthful of cake. “Who’s Ms. Bukvajova?”