18. Doug

EIGHTEEN

DOUG

Oh, yeah?

As late as it was, Nitti's was still bustling. Most of the tables had happy, chatting diners sitting around them, and the waitstaff were busting their asses bringing out food and drinks and clearing away empty crockery. Doug could hear the kitchen staff calling out orders to each other from behind the swinging doors, but no one occupied the stage. Good.

"Do people never sleep in this town? How do they manage it?" Nick asked.

They were waiting at the hostess station. Doug ignored Nick's rhetorical question.

"Is Velvet Elvis playing tonight?" Doug asked the young person who finally broke away to approach them, asking, "How many in your party?"

She paused her pen over the seating chart in front of her. "Oh, yes, he's our most popular performer. He's taking a break at the moment."

Reaching for his wallet, Doug flipped it open and flashed some kind of ID badge. Her eyes widened.

"Where does he normally take his breaks?" Doug asked.

"Oh," she gulped, her eyes widening further. "In the back, past the kitchen, there's an entertainer dressing room."

"Thank you."

Doug headed through the sea of tables, making a beeline for the black swinging doors that led to the kitchen and alleged breakroom. He heard Nick muttering something about getting a cool badge sometime soon. His partner was right behind him, backing him up.

The doors opened onto one end of a long, gloomy hallway. To their left was the bustling kitchen. The intense aroma of garlic, tomato sauce, and various herbs had his stomach rumbling, and Doug realized he was hungry again. The evening's events had burned some serious calories.

"Oh my god, I am so hungry," Nick complained, echoing his thought. "Serious question. When we are done with this guy, is it sex first or food first?"

Doug felt himself smile. The situation was serious, but Nick Sedgewick could be trusted to bring the tension down a notch.

"Focus, Sedgewick. Also, the correct answer is food. We have a long night ahead of us."

Behind him, he heard Nick suck in a surprised breath. Yep, two could play this game.

Up ahead and to their right were several doors, one of which had a faded Hollywood-style star affixed to it.

"Stepping out on a limb and guessing this is the right one," Doug said with his hand on the doorknob. Turning the handle, he pushed the door open.

Velvet Elvis, aka Marvin aka Melvin Garon, sat at a 1940s-style dressing table. His back was to the door while he leaned in close to the mirror and reapplied heavy black eyeliner. He wore a white sequined jacket and slacks that even Doug knew were early-seventies Elvis.

"As you can see, I'm not ready to go on yet," Velvet Elvis said to his reflection.

"If you're getting ready for the next show, I'm afraid that's been canceled."

Doug's statement had the Elvis impersonator slowly turning around to face him and Nick. From the expression on his face, he wasn't surprised to see Doug. The hatred there wasn't surprising either.

"Hello, Melvin. Lovely to see you again, Did you think Lady Luck would suck the will to live out of me? Sorry to disappoint. It took me longer than it should have to place you. Forgettable face and all. On the other hand, being forced to relive what happened that day helped this old man remember you."

Behind him, Doug heard Nick's snort.

"Long Shot." Melvin drew out the two words.

"I don't use that name these days, and I'm sure you're aware I left the agency. You're done, Velvet," Doug said, moving closer to the impersonator. "We're here to personally serve you your retirement papers."

"Oh, burn," Nick muttered.

Melvin's eyes darted back and forth, searching for a way out, for a path around Doug and Nick.

"You couldn't do the dirty work yourself because your subpower is too weak—only good for putting toddlers to sleep, am I right? You figured out what Luck was up to while performing at The Ace of Clubs. Then, by chance I imagine, you discovered The Undertaker. What happened? Did you ask him out, learn that he wanted powers for himself? Somehow, you convinced him he could be just like Luck, maybe? Then you convinced him to target my friends in order to get my attention—probably, you suggested he could harvest my powers as his reward. You were behind all of this."

"Who? Me?" Melvin replied, his tone dismissive. "You're the one who killed Aeric, and your own partner in the process. You deserve to be disempowered. You deserve to die."

"Believe me, Melvin, I've paid my dues. Not one day, hour, or minute goes by that I don't miss Todd and regret the tragic death of the innocent child caught in the crossfire. But it was Aeric who instigated the event. His name doesn't deserve to be uttered in the same breath as Todd's. You know, I'm having a hard time believing you'd throw your life away for that POS. I can assure you he would not have done the same. Why, Melvin? You weren't even a part of Aeric's organization. He cared so little about you that he didn't even try and protect you when the shit hit the fan. I bet he thought your power was too weak to make a difference."

When Melvin's eyes narrowed, Doug knew he'd made a direct hit. Aeric had never cared for Melvin; he'd just used him like he had so many others.

That email he'd received from Rich but deleted without reading popped into his head.

"How are things going with good old Rich anyway?" Doug asked. "You thought you were wrecking my life by luring him away, didn't you? Frankly, you did me a huge fucking favor. I bet he's tossed you aside already—just like Aeric did. How does that feel?"

Melvin tried to hold the sneer but Doug noted that his cheeks reddened. Rich had gotten bored of him too. His ex didn't have a lot of staying power.

"I don't have to tell you anything. You were the one who destroyed my life."

"I fail to see how I destroyed your life. But hey, you do you. We're here for Agent Carroll."

"I want to call my lawyer."

Doug smiled. It wasn't a nice smile.

"Go ahead, call your lawyer. But Nick and I don't represent that kind of justice. You can make this easy or hard. But either way, you will tell us where Agent Carroll and the others are. And neither Lady Luck nor Pork Pie can help you now."

There was a too-long pause, but eventually Velvet Elvis said, "Who the hell is Pork Pie?" in a high, squeaky, very un-Elvis-like voice.

"My bad, Pork Pie Man is The Undertaker. Much better name for him." Doug shrugged. "We know you never planned to do the dirty work yourself. What happened? Did The Undertaker get too caught up in his job, use too much of his fancy undetectable drug on Mel before you could get to them? Never mind, now it's just you left standing. So, what's it going to be? Easy or hard?"

Doug drew a breath in through his nose, inhaling all the patience in the world in order to deal with this asshole who had hurt his friends. He stared at the perpetrator. He didn't blink, just leveled a long, fear-inducing gaze Melvin's direction. For fuck's sake, the man had forced him to come to Vegas of all places.

Melvin's heavily lined eyes darted between Doug to Nick. From the edge of his vision, Doug saw Nick shrug and mouth a sarcastic, "Sorry, dude."

Making an ill-considered choice, Melvin shot from his chair and bolted for the door. On his way past, he managed to land a punch on Nick's jaw. Surprised by the attack, Nick stumbled backward and raised his hand to cup his chin. The hit had to have been accidental.

Melvin had no chance of getting past Doug though. Grabbing the man's sequined costume by the extra-wide lapels, Doug lifted him off the floor like he was nothing. It was like dealing with a small child having a temper tantrum in the middle of a grocery store. Struggling, Elvis kicked his feet out; one banged sharply against Doug's bad leg. Doug swore.

"Why do you guys always have to do things the hard way?" he asked the not-so-super villain.

If Melvin was trying to piss him off, it was working.

"Are you finished yet?" Doug asked as Melvin flailed wildly.

"I have rights!" he sputtered, futilely struggling to remove Doug's fists from his clothing. Melvin was lucky they weren't wrapped around his neck.

"You do have rights. You have the right to go before the SPAM Tribunal. But you will suffer an uncomfortable accident if you don't tell us where Agent Carroll is."

It took a few more implied threats and several more inches off the ground before Melvin broke down.

"She's stashed at my apartment," he gasped out. "I had to make her take some sedatives because she kept trying to escape."

"Go figure," Doug said, dropping Melvin to the cement floor of the dressing room. "Hopefully not the same thing The Undertaker was using. Don't bother running, cleanup is on the way."

Doug didn't bother knocking on the rickety plywood door; it looked like a stiff breeze would blow it open. He would've thought that Velvet Elvis lived in a nicer place.

Leading with his shoulder, Doug smashed the door open. Would he regret it later? Yes. His damn leg already hurt, but he wasn't waiting around for the "proper authorities" to arrive with a key. Esther was inside. He'd just take an extra-long bath later. Maybe Nick would join him.

The door swung inward, banging against the wall behind it and knocking down a framed picture of the real Elvis in the process.

"Whoa," said Nick. "That was really cool and hero-like. But maybe tone it down a bit. We don't need Vegas's finest showing up, do we?"

Nick was right, of course.

Doug peered up and down the grimy hallway, but no doors opened to see what was going on. The building probably had its fair share of late-night activity, and the tenants weren't generally in a hurry to find out what the noise was.

A quick glance was all he needed to know that Esther wasn't in the living room or kitchen. The bedroom Doug checked was Melvin's if the amount of Elvis-style costumes draped across the bed, hanging on one side of the closet door, and vomiting out of the other side was any indication.

"Here she is, Doug," Nick called out from a room down the hall. "Still alive."

Doug felt his shoulders relax for the first time in a while.