Play Along

22

“There… there is someone else,” he stammers through his fear.

“Where?” Stace replies.

“He calls himself Wesley Snipes.”

I roll my eyes. “Now I have heard it all,” I mutter under my breath.

Stace slams his head again into the table. “Where?”

“You’ll find him in the high rollers room at the casino. You can’t miss him. He has bright red hair and dresses like Usher.”

“Do you think this is a joke?” I snap. “I’m not risking my life by going to the high rollers room in the casino and looking for Wesley Snipes dressed as Usher. Let’s go,” I order nervously as I watch Stace hold this guy in a death grip. He’s going to kill him if I don’t get him out of here. “Stace! Let’s go,” I urge again. We have got enough shit to deal with already without him going nuclear on me.

“How long does he take?” Stace snaps.

“Same day.”

Stace thinks for a moment as he holds him in his grip.

“If I could help you, you know I would,” Vernon adds. “You have already put me in shit just for being here. I’m supposed to ring him the moment you arrive.”

“Give us twenty -four hours before you do.” Stace growls. “Or I will be back to finish you off.”

Vernon nods once.

We turn and Stace grabs my hand. We walk as fast as we can up the corridor, through the office, and out into the sunlight of the parking lot. We both look around nervously as Stace unlocks the car and we dive in. He starts the car with a roar and throws his phone at me. “Google gun shops.”

With my heart hammering, I quickly Google Gun shops in Vegas. I wait for the page to load. “There’s one called A-ammo,” I stammer.

“Where is it? Hit maps,” he instructs me.

I hit maps and wait for the little red dot to load. “It’s just up here,” I cry excitedly. I turn and look behind us. Are we being followed? “Second on the left, after this street.”

Stace races toward the shop, and with a couple of turns and with renewed purpose, he parks the car in the street.

“You stay here.”

I look around nervously. The street seems industrial and deserted. I can’t see a soul. “I’m not staying out here on my own. I’m a sitting duck.”

He watches me for a moment and then his eyes flicker around. “Okay, come on, let’s go.”

We get out of the car and casually walk into the shop and straight up to the counter.

“I would like to look at your hand guns, please,” he asks the man behind the counter.

He nods emotionless and retrieves a gun from the glass cabinet and hands it to Stace. He pulls it back and inspects it, and then hands it to me. I look at it and turn it over.

I nod. “Feels good.”

“We will take two with ammunition.”

The guy nods and still while showing no emotion retrieves two boxed up guns. “That will be $389.00, thanks.”

Stace hands him the cash, and before I know it we are on our way.

The drive back to the Venetian is made in complete silence. We’re both lost in our own thoughts, our own dread of what’s to come. I hold the loaded gun in my hand on my lap in case the unimaginable happens. Funny how the unimaginable has turned into the most probable.