There's No Future in Reno

(CW: Drugs, Profanity)

They were the last few text messages I read before heading out to Reno in hopes of resetting my thoughts. Me and Brenda had ended it after six long years together. I often thought we'd end up settling down, but things didn't line up exactly how I planned them to.

"I worry that I wasted the best of me on you, Marcus"

"I'm beginning to think you never cared..."

I sat in an empty area of the terminal staring off at the transparent walls watching the planes taxiing and hoping they would eventually lead me to salvation in another city I knew nothing about. I needed to feel something other than this emptiness.

I had no idea how to reply to those messages she left, so I left them in a foot-note. Reno would make me feel better about it all, my friend Jerry had promised me. He invited me to the annual Mid-Autumn Festival with all expenses paid. I walked in through the Jet Bridge carrying only a backpack I packed in a rush walking with a lack of conviction.  

Three hours later, I had landed in the desert and made my way towards the exit of the RNO airport. The airport was decorated in red paper lanterns and signs welcoming the tourist for the festivities. To my surprise, I was greeted by a man in a black suit holding out a sign bearing my name on it.

The limousine driver explained to me how the city would reanimate during the festivals and people would gather in large numbers.

"Every shop on the block suddenly comes out of hibernation. It's how we live, in a perpetual change", he said. "From big city to small town".

"So what happens during off-season?"

"It's an entirely new species. You just live a humble life and stay away from fourth street", he laughed.

He drove me to the most luxurious hotel in Reno that Jerry had picked out for us. He explained to me briefly about The Red Feather hotel. It was a low-profile establishment that accommodated several of the countries most elite. A-list playboy Hollywood actors and government officials from abroad frequented the hotel's high-rise rooms. The hotel specialized in the way it pampered its guest with whatever requests they had worked up, companionship, drugs, luxery vehicle rentals, the works. Some rooms were even decorated in expensive artworks displays, and an entire locker of rare spirits.

There he was, waiting for me in the lobby. The tall skinny guy I've known for the greater part of my life wearing dark shades, an expensive suit jacket and resting his feet casually on the hotel's coffee table. He got up immediately after spotting me and the hotel staff carrying my luggage.  

"Marcus McStevens, look at you brother. We've known each other for over 13 years now and you're finally letting me take you on a boy's night-out. Do you know how long Its been?" He smiled and extended his arms out for a hug.

I gave him a long full-body embrace. "Jerry!" I shook my head and smiled. "It's good to see you man. Look at you, you're finally ironing your shirts, Haha". 

"Ha! Listen, Mark. I know you just broke up with Brenda, but we're going to forget about her just this weekend. You don't deserve what she did to you"

"Ok...Ok, man. I'm game. Can we just not talk about her right now".

Jerry turned to the bellhop. "Thank you Mr. Colton, I can take it from here" He grabbed my luggage and handed him a wad of cash discreetly into his palm.

"Thank you, oh thank you so much sir. It's much appreciated."

"Don't mention it" Jerry smiled.

Jerry seemed to be doing well in his new job. He guided me over to the elevator towards the suite he had reserved for me.

"This is way too much, dude. Are you sure this is within your company's budget?"

"Please, Mark. Don't offend me. This place is all taken care of by my company. Walk with me, I have something important to show you" he said rushing over to the elevator. 

He opened the door with his keycard as I followed him inside the room and was flabbergasted by the space inside. He walked me towards a coffee table he had laid out for us.

There was a porcelain tray and two carefully laid out lines of white powder and two glasses of scotch.

"What's this?" I turned to him.

"What do you think it is?" he laughed. "This yeyo isn't going to magically disappear, cowboy." he smacked me on the back.  

"I don't know about this..."

"Shut that part of your brain for a moment. Don't think" he said. "Just do."

"You're crazy as hell Jerry. I haven't done anything like this since College."

He nudged me with a rolled up dollar bill, I grabbed it and paused for a moment then bent down to sniff my line.

"Whoa!", I could felt the euphoric sensation and my heart palpitating in an instant, something I hadn't felt in years. We tapped our glass cups and gulped down the shots.

"Hahaha!" that's the spirit. You see this piece of plastic here, brother?" Jerry waved his credit card side to side by my face. "We're going to have a blast tonight, put all those bad memories to sleep."

*****

The next morning I woke up with a bad hangover and my skull throbbing. I was still in my underwear when I heard the door suddenly open. The sun had barely peaked through from the small gap in my curtains. A large man had walked in and turned the switches on from the lamps by my bedside. I was blinded by it for a moment before I got a clearer view of him, he was a big and intimidating guy with a mean look on his face.

He pulled out a desk chair to sit by the bed.

"Tilt your head". he said.

"Who the hell are you? What are you doing in my hotel room?" I rose up on the bed.

"Tilt. Your head". he said more firmly.

I lifted my head up, as he demanded. He proceeded to stick a strip of paper down my nose and twisted it before pulling it out just as quick. He placed it inside of a tube and sealed it. I stared at the veins on his shaved head and thick neck.

"Thank you. You'll have the results in a few hours before your flight. If it's not negative, we'll adjust it." he said before walking away.

That was strange indeed. My city had been on heavy lockdown from the pandemic, and I did require a negative test result to avoid quarantine. I figured the man was part of the hotel staff and instructed to take care of my requisites, but they had an unorthodox approach to it.

I walked over to my windows to a beautiful scenic mountain backdrop. The other rooms were visible from where I was, large Jacuzzi room, kitchen and walk-in closets. On the floor, there was a purple lingerie set and pieces of men's clothing that hadn't belonged to me. Then suddenly a loud knock at the door. Who is it now?

"May I come in Mr. McStevens?" the voice of a woman said.

"Wait a minute", I quickly put on a random shirt and shorts".

"Ok. Come in..."

It was an older blonde woman who stepped in to a soaked carpet by the door. She looked down at the water gushing from the seams and continued to walk over to me standing by the window. She mustered out an unemotional smile and shook my hand tight with her gloves.

"Good morning Mr. McStevens. I'm Carol."

She walked over to the room inspecting it. "I want to thank you and your friend Mr. Jerry Nguyen for choosing our fine establishment here. I hope your stay had been comfortable and..." she paused.

"What's wrong?" I asked watching her stand in front of an empty space on the wall.

"Mr. McStevens, Where's the painting that was here?"

I noticed an empty space on the wall. Then quickly remembered bits from the

night before, Jerry drunkenly pulling it out from the walls, said he needed it for something. I stared down from the corner of my eyes trying to remember something else from that night. Jerry looked like he saw a ghost...I remembered how scared he was".

"The painting, Mr. McStevens." repeated the old woman." I need to know where the $400,000 painting on the wall is" she smiled.

My heart sank from hearing her tone shift and learning the price. I quickly came up with a bullshit answer to buy me time.  

"Oh. Jerry is an art curator, he'll have it in shortly. He took an interest and wanted to catalog it. No big deal. Sorry, he should have asked permission...". 

"It's... not a problem Mr. McStevens". She nodded and walked back outside.

"Oh excuse me, Carol? When is my flight by the way?

"In 5 hours sir. We'll need the painting returned before that, of course."

She closed the door and left me for some much needed retrospection. My heart beat however began to race and I couldn't sit still, I ran towards Jerry's room down the hallway. I remembered it was by the elevator and the keycard was in my pocket. It was much smaller than my room but the artwork was nowhere in sight. No sight of him either unfortunately.

This mishap could potentially ruin my life with the debt. I couldn't have this burden, so I desperately paced around in the room looking for clues, instead I found my clothing there. I tried to slap myself out of this poor memory recollection I had. I stared at the empty glasses with remnants of scotch on the table and figured Jerry must have mixed something in with the drink. I had heard stories about him getting wild at parties from our peers, but I never imagined it was this bad.

I opened all the drawers and checked my wallet and pants pockets for receipts. There was a crumbled up ticket showing the room number of the other room I had walked out of, with Jerry's name, Room 1638. The other room was Jerry's so it made sense finding my clothing and wallet here. I walked back to his room to investigate further and found a receipt for somewhere called The Osaka House. 

I remembered vaguely having drinks and sushi there. After looking it up, I noticed it was by the convention center. In the receipt, it showed a bottle service and a variety of sushi and sake credited. I placed the address on the Uber and quickly got dressed with some of the nicer clothing the hotel concierge had prepared. I stepped outside passing by the drenched carpet by the doorway. 

The Uber took me to the bar and I arrived to find several suspicious men smoking cigarettes and lounging outside. They wore white button shirts and expensive gold bracelets and necklaces.

I walked towards the front of the door. 

"Wait a minute", one of the men said, a muscular Asian man with tan skin and hair slicked back. He shoved his index finger to my face and shook it side to side.

"I was here with Jerry last night."

"Private party" he said.

"Where's Jerry?"

He paused for a moment like he recognized the name, "Turn around. Now.", He jabbed his finger against my chest a little harder.

I peaked inside the window and noticed several people well-dressed inside congregating. Then small flags besides the decorations, a red and blue design with the Angkor Wat temple in the center. I had a moment to remember Jerry slurring details of the Cambodian flag last night and it fit the description. I remembered he mentioned meeting some important clients in town for the festival.

"Do you have an idea where he is?" I pleaded but it only served to antagonize him.

"I said, get lost" He pushed me back, "Or you're a corpse too... ". 

My biggest fear came true, I had felt a knot in my heart that something may have happened to Jerry. I stopped persisting further and turned around. Panic sweats overcame my forehead dripping down like a light stream from the river. I walked away quickly and hailed a cab passing by. As I rode watching the river flowing, I kept thinking about the flooded entrance to his room. Why was it soaked like that? 

I ran out of the cab as fast as I could, scanned his keycard and walked in towards the bathroom by the entrance. The bathroom was also flooded. Something had happened in there and I couldn't explain it, but it was suspicious. I opened the closet door in hopes of finding a clue and there he was...

Pale as I've ever seen him and eyes bulging from their sockets in rings of red bags and bruises. He had clearly been murdered. I flinched back and tripped over the edge of the bed while my stomach acid was sloshing back and forth in my throat. 

"Oh god, Oh god, Oh god" I pushed my back against the bed and held my chest with my right hand. I felt like my heart would burst out of my chest. They killed my best friend, Jerry. Why? Who? What could have he possibly done, he was a good person. I kept thinking about his family and how much they'd be devastated. I knew I couldn't call the cops given the nature of the hotel.

I had started to panic, I used up the bottles of hand sanitizer and wiped everything I could from the room. I grabbed whatever articles of clothing, the drug paraphernalia, the used condoms and crumbled dollar bills and put them in my pockets, among other things I could find that may incriminate me. I walked out to get rid of them.

There he was, the menacing man in the hallway that first came into my hotel room. Bald headed with muscles swollen from his dress shirt and blazer. He was walking from another hotel room. I looked down at his fists he rubbed, they were bruised up with scraped skin.

"Mr. McStevens, I'm told there was a situation with a painting. I'll need to have a word with you and Mr. Nguyen about having it returned.".

"Oh no. It's all taken care of. I'm going to him now as a matter of fact to retrieve it".

"Of course. Please don't hesitate to find me if you have any concerns."

"Yeah."

Jerry I don't know what the hell you got me into but I'm in it deep shit now. For a second I was so angry I had forgotten he was lifeless and stuffed in the closet of the suite. I needed to find that painting and get out of this city quick but felt trapped. 

I finally did the unthinkable and went scouting for them, the Cambodian gangsters, I had nothing left to lose after all. They weren't in the restaurant so I went to the popular casinos on the strip looking for some kind of sign. There were a couple of well-dressed men at the slot tables with small pins on their suits. It was the same flag design. My plan was to buy it back from them using withdraws from Jerry's credit card and my own.

I asked them if they could take me to their boss and we could work out a deal. In hindsight, I may have pushed a little too much and it may have looked suspicious accusing them of getting rid of Jerry and admitting to knowing what happened with the painting. The truth was I wasn't fully sober, with the tension this ordeal had brought up and having something clearly still in my blood stream, I hadn't felt fully composed yet. The men had brushed me off and told me to fuck off.

Later on, a desperate woman with a leather jacket tapped me on the shoulder and begged me to help her lift her motorcycle from the parking lot. When I turned the corner, I was suddenly blinded by a hood over my face. Then pushed to the ground and ruthlessly beaten. Next thing I remembered was getting shoved into the small confines of a trunk.

Inside, I managed to wiggle my way out of my constraints, then felt around for something to use as a weapon. Instead I felt an item covered in rags. What I felt was definitely a painting with a custom frame.

I reached over to the emergency lock and the trunk popped open while the car moved at 70 mph and the wind was pushing me backwards. The vehicle had hit the breaks after almost hitting the back of another vehicle on the road. I jumped out with the painting as quickly as I could muster.

There bloodied and bruised with injured limbs, I ran gripping the painting as tight as I could towards some empty alleyways.

Luckily, I still had the most important thing in my pocket, my wallet. I ran towards a taxi and had asked him to drive to the airport. There I saw the same bald man from the room waiting for me. He looked at me up and down as I approached limping and clutching the painting. I handed it to him and he removed the rags away.

He nodded and handed me a letter with a hospital results.  

I limped over to the entrance of the airport just missing the gangsters who had been following me. They spotted the large man holding the painting walking to his vehicle and decided to drive away instead.

Few hours later, I'm looking outside of my window watching the remains of the harrowing city turn into blurred miniature shapes succumbing to the clouds.

The last few days felt too unreal, and almost like a bad nightmare.