Free War Lord by David Rollins

get to bed before the sun rises.’ That’s what I wanted to say, but what came out was, ‘Umm . . . er . . .’ followed by a croaky kind of swallowing sound that ended in a squeak.
    ‘Can I borrow your pen, please, honey?’ Sugar asked the driver.
    The way the guy looked at her told me he’d have been prepared to hand over his Prius.
    She made a slow circular motion at me with the pen. I got the message and turned around. She rested the card on my shoulder and wrote on it. Then she whispered in my ear, ‘Use it, don’t lose it,’ and let the card flutter into my lap. ‘Goodnight,’ she said, her door opening.
    ‘’Night,’ I replied to her bare, smooth back. I fumbled for the card when she was gone. A phone number, ending with an exclamation mark, was penned on the flipside.
    Once she’d disappeared from view, and time and space returned to normal, the driver twisted around in his seat and said, ‘So who’s a lucky motherfucker?’
    *
    The street Alabama and Randy lived on was in Summerlin, a suburb twelve miles northwest of the Strip. The street itself seemed, at best, semi-occupied. Every third house or so was on the market, a faded ‘For Sale’ sign out front with a bleached photo of a smiling agent looking more like a ghost. The front yards of these unsold houses were mostly mini dustbowls of dead plant life and brown grass, the houses looking as discarded and dried out as shed rattlesnake skins. Alabama and Randy’s place was in the middle of a small green belt of occupancy, a little island holding out against the rising tide of foreclosure. A sprinkler system soaked the green lawn of the house next door, a miniature rainbow hanging over a flowerbed bursting with purple and red flowers.
    I got out of the rental and went up the short path to the stairs to Randy and Alabama’s veranda. My knuckles were poised to rap on the front door when it opened and Alabama appeared. She didn’t say a word. I caught a glimpse of her eyes as she walked out and made for the car. They were red-rimmed behind a pair of large black sunglasses that took up half her face. Despite the sunglasses, or maybe even because of them, she looked haggard, as much as someone like Alabama could look haggard. I figured she hadn’t slept much, if at all, and if she had it was probably in the old blue jeans and faded Giants t-shirt she was wearing. A red Caesars ball cap completed her ensemble for the morning’s unpleasantness. For me, it was jeans, a plain white tee and runners. I opened the car door for her and she slid in, still without saying a word.
    Shortly thereafter we pulled into the lot outside Nevada Aircraft Brokers. Two vehicles were parked outside. They had a federal look about them, that is to say tired and worn out. Alabama didn’t comment on their presence, perhaps because I’d already briefed her on what to expect as we drove there. Keeping us company on the rear passenger seat was the small ice chest and a Bally’s branded bag.
    I parked beside a white Ford Explorer with darkened windows and an FAA sticker on the rear bumper, and got out. The desert heat was thick with the smell of kerosene and burned aviation jet fuel. Three hundred yards over on the active runway, a United Airlines 767 lifted its chin and strained for height, its engines grinding through the heat of the morning. I collected the ice chest and bag off the rear seat – I didn’t want the hand fricasseed in the oven the rental would soon become in the morning sun.
    Nevada Aircraft Brokers was housed in a large white modular building, gold heat-reflecting film on its windows and front double doors. Behind the flat-roofed box, beyond a mesh fence topped with razor wire, several white executive jets gleamed on the ramp. Alabama and I walked toward the building’s gold-filmed front door just as a man and woman opened it, both in their early thirties, slightly overweight and dressed in a hundred percent polyester. The two walked out, not in any