Thanks to a very large sleeping pill and a slug of Jim Beam, Xochitl slept late into the next afternoon.  When she finally did get up, she put her clothes from the night before into the black plastic trash bag with the rest of her laundry.   She slipped into another t-shirt and a pair of jeans, and left out the back way to deliver the dirty clothes to the Chinese laundry on Gass Ave.  When she got back, she took Novelyne’s clothes from the day before and burned them in the barrel in the alley behind the office.  An hour later, she poured bleach over the ashes.

The night before had been grisly business: not only the killing, but the cleaning up afterwards.  On Buffy the Vampire Slayer, creatures of the night neatly burst into dust.  All one needed was a vacuum cleaner.  In real life, many undead had the unpleasant habit of coming back to life unless they were separated from their heads and then buried at an ancient crossroads.  In Las Vegas, the closest ancient crossroads was Third and Carson, and fortunately there was a manhole right there.  Lift the cover, slide the bodies out of the back of Sid’s truck, and put the cover back on.  She would have to double check that the tattoo artist had hosed out the truck bed.  It was grisly business but it had to be done.  Otherwise, some nice coroner would pick up the body and stick it in a nice cool freezer.  That was just a recipe for trouble.

Novelyne slept in too, not surprising.  Xochitl let her rest and instead took her position at reception.  Kicking her combat boots up onto the desk, she pressed the button next to the flashing light on the answering machine.

“This is Marathon Customer Service.  Your cell phone bill is sixteen days past due.  We’re sure it’s just an oversight.  You have two days in which to correct it or your service will be regrettably…”

Xochitl pressed the button and the next message began.

“My name is Howard Lank and um, I think my wife is cheating on me.  I need to hire you.  Call me back at…”

Xochitl typed in the number on her cell as Lank’s recorded voice spoke it.

“Hello,”

“Hello, Mr. Lank.  This is Xochitl McKenna at the Sin City Detective Agency.  We’re interested to hear your story.”

“Oh, good.  I don’t really know what else to do.”

“Can you come by the office this evening, or would you like me to meet you somewhere?  Your wife isn’t suspicious is she?”

“She doesn’t seem to care what I do anymore.  I’ll come by your office.  What time?”

“Six o’clock?”

It was hard to believe that there could be a block like the one at First and Harding, just half a mile from the glitter of the Fremont Street Experience, but there were actually a lot of them.  In fact, there seemed to be more of this dirty, damaged Vegas than there was of the shiny, clean Vegas.  Five old broken down store, a gas station that had been closed and boarded up for years, and an old abandoned motel that looked like something you might have found on Route 66, either the roadway or the old black and white TV show.  Graffiti artists had tagged every building.  The young man looked both ways for traffic before crossing the tired, cracked pavement of the street, but there were no cars nearby.  That is not to say the area was deserted.  Three blocks away he could see pedestrians walking and cars zipping past, but none of them turned in his direction.  This certainly wasn’t a street anyone would want to be on after dark.

The small shop in the middle of the block must have at one time been a gun store.  An ancient sign in the shape of a revolver, lined with now broken and inactive light bulbs, barely clung to the edge of the roof.  The shop was set back into the block further than the others and the sidewalk sloped up toward the door, which like the large windows had been painted over with black paint.  A neatly printed sign proclaimed “Sin City Detective Agency, est. 1976.”  Opening the door, the young man stepped inside.  It slammed shut behind him.

It was extremely dark in the shop turned office.  The only lights were a dim bulb in a ceiling fixture and the bright rectangle on the floor just inside the door formed by the sun shining through the mail slot.  Inside and to the right was a desk with two chairs sitting empty in front of it.  Behind it was a woman, or a girl.

“Sit,” she said, leaning back in her chair.

“Is this the detective agency?”

She waved her hand as if to say “obviously.”

He sat down.  His eyes adjusted enough so he could truly see her now.  She was one of those Goth girls.  She had black hair, shoulder length.  She had a lot of earrings, a ring in the right side of her nose and a ring right in the middle of her lower lip.  A large and ornate cross was tattooed on the left side of her neck.  She wore a white long sleeved shirt and a black and white striped tie, and over this a leather bustier.

“You’re not a vampire, are you?” he asked, with a chuckle.

“No,” she replied with a straight face.  “I’m not a vampire.”

“I’m the secretary,” said a voice from the back.  “I’ll take care of you.”

The man gave an almost imperceptible sigh of relief at the sight of a thin blonde stepping out of a heretofore unnoticed door to the back.  Except that she teetered on heels that were extremely high and that her dress was a bit on the short side, she seemed extremely normal.  Thank God.  The Goth girl got up, revealing a black and white checkered miniskirt and knee-high combat boots.  She exchanged places with the blonde, who sat down, tucked a strand of her long wavy hair behind her ear and picked up a pencil.

“I’m Novelyne,” she said with a sunny smile and a lilting Irish accent.  “What seems to be your problem?  Mister…”

“Sachs, Brian Sachs.  I’m trying to find my sister.  She came to Vegas on the bus three weeks ago.  She ran away, really.  I’ve tried to find her on my own.  This is the second trip I’ve made here to search for her, but I can’t find anything.  I don’t know what I’m doing, I guess.”

“Where are you from?”

“Pocatello, um Idaho.”

“I see.”  The secretary scratched out a few words on a yellow legal pad.

“I don’t have a lot of money, but… I have to find her.  You see… I’ve seen things… here in Vegas.  It’s not like Idaho.”

“No.  It’s not like Idaho.”  The secretary rested her chin on her hand, pencil still between her fingers.  “What kind of things have you seen?”

“If I told you, you’d think I was crazy.”