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THE FIRST TIME KEVIN met Neil Josten, it was a busy night in the Foxhole Bar and Lounge.
With the holidays around the corner and schools all around the country out for winter break, the city of Las Vegas was filled to the brim with locals and tourists. Streets were lined down several blocks of traffic, every few minutes the line moving up and other cars turning down the corners only for more cars to join in and replace the number. Neon lights lit the atmosphere and hotels within the Strip were drowning in check-ins and check-outs, whether there were several rooms available with a specific amount of beds, answering questions like if there was room service, where was the gym, what was the best attraction.
But once the clock struck midnight, all those legal and those smart enough to know someone to afford a fake I.D. came out of the woodworks and flooded the bars, the casinos, the lounges. Allison was in the dressing room with Dan and Renee, applying makeup and rubbing glitter over her shoulders and collarbones, looking every bit of the singer she was. Dan and Renee swapped their casual clothing for their uniform—black slacks and white buttoned down shirts with a black tie and an optional gray orange vest and polished leather shoes. Aaron and Nicky were already out on the main floor with Matt, scheduled for the second level with the people that had more money than what they could do with. He didn't know where Seth was but with a glimpse from the closing door, he guessed Seth had taken the short time for a smoke break out back, leaving Andrew to man the bar alone.
Kevin sighed, tossing his tie aside and adjusted his cuffs, pulling them up to his elbows and after Allison stopped him with an offhanded comment of, "Busy night, Day. You're here to get tips, not look proper," she popped the first three buttons to his shirt and flatted the collar, patting down the lapels until she deemed them perfect and sent him on his way.
Countless patrons entered and exited the establishment, seizing empty tables and taking space on the sofas while the band played through songs on the stage in intermission and to entertain the masses. Kevin had to maneuver around the place, squeezing through people to get to the bar. On the way, he picked up a tray of empty glasses, some settled for refills while others wanted to close out their tabs. Yet by the time he made it to finally round the bar and enter behind it, someone crashed into him violently. The tray was knocked over and the glasses were sent tumbling down, shattering into thousands of pieces and scattering melted ice all over the floor.
"Are you kidding me?" He groaned, pinching the fabric of his shirt away from his heated skin, sticky and wet with mixes of whiskey, vodka, and whatever other fruity concoctions Andrew liked making. "Can you watch where the hell you're going?"
"I'll pay for it," the man said hastily, glancing over his shoulder with focused eyes fixated on the door like death was on his heels and about to enter in any moment. He spared a glance at Kevin, hurried and careful scarred hands digging into his pockets to pull out a hefty amount of bills, pushing them into Kevin's hand and raced off.
Kevin blinked, at the crumpled up hundred dollar bills, at the quickly drying mess staining his shoes, then at the crowd where the brunette disappeared into. He clicked his tongue in distaste, shaking his head and waved over at Seth who finally sauntered in, looking mellowed out and smelling like weed. "Clean this up."
"The fuck happened to you?" Seth asked, leaning over to grab the broom and dustpan without a fuss and swapped places with Kevin.
"Some idiot. I need to change," Kevin said and approached the bar.
He slid over the empty tray, Andrew taking it without a word but a slide of his eyes over Kevin's form and a slight raise of his eyebrow held the question he wouldn't voice out loud. Kevin waved him off. "I'll be back in a second."
Andrew shrugged and Kevin made his way through the crowd, entering the dressing room once again where Allison still remained, warming up her vocal chords with trills and scaling her voice as low as it can go and as high as it could get. She didn't ask him anything, merely searching through the closets for an extra set of clothes without missing a beat or breaking a sweat then tossed it at him.
Kevin shot her a grateful look and turned away to peel off his clothes, chucking them into a basket in the corner and pulled on the new clean set. He exited the dressing room for the second time that night, haphazardly tucking in the hem of his shirt beneath the waistband of his pants and rolled his sleeves.
By the time he finished, he made it back to the bar without another misshap and got to mixing.
Aside from buzzed or drunken couples and groups of friends, there was a bit of peace. That is, until a trio of burly looking men slammed the door open, drawing the attention of Kevin and the others taking an order.
"Hey. You," one of them said and jerked his chin upward toward Kevin. Kevin glanced at the others then at Andrew, and sighed. "You seen someone run through here? About this tall," the man gestured, "black hair, brown eyes, shit ton of money."
"Do you see how many people we have in here?" Kevin asked as he poured a new mixture into a margarita glass and slid it over to the woman in waiting. He had a feeling they were looking for the brunette from earlier but even if he had told the truth, he wanted nothing to do with whatever the man had going on to be tracked down and searched for by gangsters. They had all kinds of people in and out of the Foxhole—gamblers, debt payers, alcoholics, drug dealers, unassuming tourists looking for a good time and a lovely show—and Kevin, like the others, held a secrecy pact. It didn't concern them nor was it their business. They weren't dirty but they weren't snitches either. As long as the money came in to satiate all of them, there was no harm or foul.
The men weren't pleased but neither was Kevin and after several minutes, they finally left.
"I hate the holidays," Kevin muttered as he bent down to scoop up ice into an empty glass and slid it down the counter for Andrew to pour in the gin tonic and drop a slice of lime into it.
"No, you don't," Andrew said and handed a rag over for Kevin to wipe down the counter and wash away the condensation rings left behind. "You know who they were looking for."
Kevin nodded and hung the rag over a small metal bar beneath the counter. "He crashed into me, handed me money then bolted. No name, nothing."
"Keeping dirty money?"
"We don't know it's dirty. It was...probably stolen." Kevin shrugged. "Doesn't matter. He's long gone."
"Is he?"
Kevin tilted his head but his question was answered when the man of the topic took a seat at the bar—directly in front of them, hidden on either side by others who remained standing near due to most of the seats on the first and second floor already occupied and used.
"If you're wondering about the money, it isn't stolen. I won it at a game. It isn't my fault people don't know how to play poker." He rested his chin on the palm of his hand, dark eyes scanning the drinks behind Andrew and Kevin, then flicked over to them and with a small smile—one that didn't look entirely right on his face—he requested, "I'll have a soda."
"The soda isn't that good here," Kevin said as Andrew placed a glass in the center with ice filled to the brim. Kevin popped the tab open one-handed and tilted it, the sizzling liquid causing the ice to crack just as Allison tapped on the mic to catch everyone's attention. "Why are you still here?"
The man hummed, picking up the glass to take a sip. He licked his lips before answering, "It's crowded in here. Less chance I'll be found since you told them I wasn't here. Is it common for people to buy your silence with money?"
Andrew shook his head. "No one cares about the skeletons in your closet."
"So you're money hungry."
"It's Vegas," Kevin pointed out with an eye roll.
"I'm not judging." He handed over a card, presumably to pay for the soda, but Kevin couldn't help looking at the name underneath the sixteen digits. Neil Josten. "Hope the money is enough to pay for that shirt. Looked expensive."
Kevin huffed, punching in the numbers to set up the payment. He handed the card back to Neil as the receipt was printing. "It wasn't."
"Keep the money. I don't need it."
"Aren't gamblers in debt?" Andrew asked.
Neil shrugged half-heartedly and took another sip of the soda without much fuss of the taste or the fizz. "I wouldn't know. I don't gamble."
"Poker is a gambling game."
"But I didn't say I played in a casino," Neil mused.
"Stealing in homes, then."
"Does he judge all first-time customers?"
Kevin took the receipt once it was done and placed it beside Neil's glass. "Just the troublesome ones. Like you."
Neil laughed but didn't say anything after that.
They cycled through conversations after that—multitasking between making drinks and serving other guests. Neil spoke a bit of his travels when Kevin asked if he was a local. With every follow up question, came rehearsed answers, the kind anyone would tell a stranger they just met. Little to no details, enough to keep an interest but also prevent any further questioning. If Andrew noticed, he didn't say anything and Kevin didn't call him out on it.
Soon enough, nearly four-something in the morning, it started getting slow and most of them—save for Kevin, Andrew, Nicky, Aaron, and Seth—had clocked out and went home to sleep. Nicky fell asleep in the break room while Seth and Aaron practically locked everyone else out of the dressing room. Kevin didn't want to know what for and didn't care enough to ask.
When he and Andrew returned after doing quick inventory, Neil was nowhere to be found. Gone just like that in the blink of an eye like some sort of ghost. The soda can was gone and left behind was a pen laying over a folded over paper from one of the notepads they often carried around. When had he gotten the time to do that when Kevin and Andrew left for two minutes, Kevin didn't have a clue.
All that was written was: Thanks for the drink. - N.J. in messy writing. Kevin pocketed it and joined Andrew behind the bar. "He's a liar," Andrew said.
"He is," Kevin agreed as he wiped down the counters and stored away any of the unused bottles onto the shelves. "Do you think he'll come back?"
"Maybe."
Kevin didn't know what to make of Neil Josten. There wasn't anything to go on aside from the fact he was working with money, he traveled, and he actually enjoyed the terrible sodas they had. Even knowing if most of the patrons visiting had fake I.Ds, they served alcohol. If they had to cut people off, then it was water. Rarely was it ever soda. Yet there was something about the smile that didn't reach his eyes, the messiness of his hair falling over them like he was long overdue for a haircut or didn't have the energy to tame it, the dark color of his irises, the scarred hands, how his gaze slid over to the entrances and exits and tracked everyone in the Foxhole once Kevin or Andrew were called over.
He knew it might end badly, that was evident. But Kevin was willing to want to know him even if what he'd learn would all be fabricated fibs.