It should be noted that they did not want to be there, of course not. Even as the younger, Santana Saxon (by two minutes! Doctor said so) sat at ease with the woman, his stool tilted, his leg balancing himself in that confident, casual pose. Flirting. He always flirted.

They didn't want to be there, Michael Saxon had to remind them. Only that they had to, partly because Mrs. (It's Ms now, isn't it?) Salome had threatened to incarcerate them. Partly because there was a reward to be had, not at the capture of someone but at the finding of evidence of something or someone.

"And what happened," Michael Santana said. A drunk snored to his rear, sleeping, with snot coming out of his nose. His head was left side down, his mouth slightly agape. An older gentleman, red nosed too. "We were caught stealing some cars. Right in the damn parking lot, they got a photograph of us, me with the bag of tools and my brother - that idiot over there," He pointed to the straw-hair colored man still talking with the young waitress. "With the damn wire-jigger right into the car window. He tried to run too. Which, I'm sure, made things worse,"

"We were never lucky. Mom grandma guaranteed that. A couple conversations and deals with the devil sealed it. We were never going to be lucky," He spun a glass in his hand and looked up. "If you grew up like we did you wouldn't criticize our choices though. It's not like we took much anyways. A little zapping power for me, a tracer for Santana (the idiot). That's it. And even this has been a nightmare the last four years."

"Who would have thought," He leaned over to the drunk and shook him. The bartender stood at the opposite end, tired, rubbing liquid off a mug. "Stealing cars with magic isn't that good of a profession. You should have told me, vices with the devil aren't good at all. Look at where it's brought us, after all,"

They didn't want to be in the bar with the unhinged tables, and the seedy looking patrons and the smoke of cigarettes about them like mist. They didn't want to be there, flirting, talking to the barkeep and harassing the men.

We're better than this.

Michael tipped over the stool.

And if it wasn't for the cool fifty K, I'd have ditched this shithole four days ago,

They got caught with a shitty Volkswagen, of all things. It could have been something better, at least!

But they were desperate, hungry, and it was the first car undefended that caught their eyes in that open-sky parking lot. And had it not been for Santana, he was sure, they'd be in a jail cell.

The ability to find a person with nothing more than a picture was a good one. A utility Michael never appreciated from Santana until now, when they were to find this Richter fellow. Richter, who Ms. Salome thought was the murderer to the recently deceased Thomas Wolfe.

Michael tapped Santana on the shoulder. He looked at him, groaned. From the pocket of his blazer, he hid a compass and flashed it underneath the table. It spun wildly. Santana focused, what looked like currents running through his fingers, that steadied the compass hand. South-West.

He needed a recent picture. A strange requirement.

"I don't think he stopped here, and that means they probably don't have video feed."

"This is where the compass took us last, I'm sure we'll find a clue about him. We just need to know where he's at, that's good enough." Michael walked over to the bartender.

Yes, the compass, a small silver-colored, flower-etched device had led them here. Near the edge of Las Vegas, to the Azteca Bar, where the natives of that long lost civilization was caricatured as a leopard-skin wearing, tequila gulping cartoon.

Michael walked to the bartender. He was cleaning the slop the drunk discharged.

"Have you seen this man?"

He flashed the picture of Richter, a small wallet-sized photo.

"Me?"

"Who else?" Michael laid the photo down. The bartender picked it. He adjusted his glasses.

"What's it to you if I have?"

"You're not good at this bartering thing, are you?" Michael shrugged. "It's not what's good for me, it's whats good for you. How much for the information?"

The bartender looked stunned. His eyes narrowed, his rates grew.

"Five hundred bucks. That's a nice tip."

"I'll tell ya' for three hundred." The girl, flirting with Santana said. He looked across the table, impressed.

"T-two fifty!" The bartender said.

"I'd rather give my money to the pretty girl," Saxon said from afar. Michael turned. The bartender scrubbed a hole into the lacquered bar surface. The little white rings were everywhere, looking back, reflecting out like empty eyes.

"You've seen this man?" Santana produced his own copy of the photograph.

"Of course I have," she said. "I known that strange looking feller, hell I knew he was coming even before he came in. Before he even opened the door, you could tell he was here. The ground felt funny. Not shaky, earthquake-y-funny. More like, tilted, like you lost your balance because things went up and down like a broken scale."

"What?"

"It's hard to explain. But he made everyone off balance. I guess. It usually happens like that when he comes,"

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"How often does he come here?"

"Often enough. Once every two weeks maybe? He's recent. But! He doesn't come to drink if that's what you're thinking. No, he calls himself a 'principled' man and he calls alcohol that Devil's Piss. No, he visit one of the girls, takes her upstairs and...there's not any police around, right?"

She looked to her surroundings. Most men were unconscious, others were fighting outside and throwing bottles against the walls.

Santana smiled.

"No, but there might be some soon with us around."

She smiled. Michael snapped his fingers. She came back to.

"Well, you know. He does stuff with her?"

"Fucks a whore?" Santana said. Smiling, almost. "That ain't principled."

"Do you know where he went?"

"No, but I know the girl."

"Take us to her," Michael said. She stopped him with an open palm, then turned it, waving her fingers towards herself.

"Money first," She said. "This is the service industry after all."

The brothers looked at each other, sighing.

"I got this one," Santana said and they went off with her.

♣

They passed the moaning doors.

They found the right one, with the Waitresses help. It wasn't even too far from the bar. It was across the street, and the little walk made them feel stupid for ever paying her money in helping them. Now they stood in front of the door, a 405 number, waiting for the bed to stop creaking. Five minutes later, waiting for the lamps to come up. Two minutes later, waiting for the man, smiling, to come out. To see them, the three, and to walk at a quick pace to the parking lot.

The neon light of a Motel Six shined down on them. They heard the air conditioners, and the leakage dribbling down rusted pipe and the bottoms of cloudy windows. It sounded like summer rain, like the currents of an artificial flood.

The waitress waved at both of them, gesturing them towards the door. They walked in, expecting a kind of Hell, a decrepit room of despair. They found simplicity. Clean flower wallpapers, a warm light and a girl by the dresser fixing her long hair (it touched her butt, Michael had to force himself to look away). She wore a dress, or perhaps a gown was the better word for it. As it covered everything on her body, save her face. Everything, neck down, was hidden by the baby blue gown.

"I'm not ready for customers yet," She told the Waitress.

"They aren't here for sex, honey," she said. "They want to talk about that weird feller from yesterday."

She laid her hair comb down.

"I don't want to talk about him."

"Listen, it's important. There's a lot at stake here," He wasn't lying. Fifty thousand dollars was a lot for them. "We just want to know some details,"

"Like?" She asked. "There's customer confidentiality. I have my honor, you know,"

"A prostitute with honor," Santana sat on the bed. It bent as he sat and he almost fell over. She smirked.

"Yes, what's wrong with that?"

"I don't think a woman willing to take any man, any time, has any honor left to have, is all," He lifted himself from the floor and shook off the dust from his pants.

"Sex is what dishonors a person? Why?"

Santana rolled his eyes.

"Does my autonomy scare you?" She turned. "Does dividing pussy and dick to what they're really worth scare you? It's just flesh. Blood. Skin. All it's ever been. And as far as I can tell, your dick ain't worth much. Maybe that's what you hate?"

"You give me ten minutes alone and I'll have you changing that bitchy voice. I'll get you moaning, like the wh-"

"Shut the fuck up, Santana," Michael said. He turned to the woman who was equally alarmed. "Listen, you don't need to lecture us. We're not good people. We're bad people, very bad. We're just trying to look for someone whose worse. Have you seen this man?"

He flashed the picture.

She looked at Santana, frowned at him, then back to the picture.

"Two hundred."

"What? Not one piece of you is worth two hundred!" Santana screamed.

"Three hundred." She said.

"Alright," This time, Michael offered it. And this time, they were in it for good because those three hundred was most of what they had left. Twenty-two dollars remained, and the passing of the bills seemed ceremonious.

For both brothers looked at them, the dowry to this sunken queen. She pocketed the money, didn't even need to count. She could tell by the weight, by the size of the small cluster.

"Yeah, I've seen him. It's kind of hard to forget a thing like him." She said. "And you're right. He's a worse man, than even this prick,"

"Why's that?"

"Its...do you really need to know that? It's not...illegal, what he does."

"Not illegal? Then it doesn't matter. Do you know where he is."

"Sort of,"

"Sort of?"

"He said he was off to pray, to find forgiveness." She said.

"Bitch, that was not worth three hundred dollar-"

"So you don't know his license plate or anything like that?"

"No,"

"Do you have a picture of him."

She squirmed underneath the gown.

"Bell?" The Waitress said from the door frame.

"Yeah, kind of," Her face went wrong, horrific even. She put both arms in front of her and rubbed her palms. She stretched her head and pulled her hair and looked at them, then to the Waitress.

"He likes when pictures are taken."

"Perfect," Michael said. "Can we have one of his?"

She could not hold a stable face. It edged between sadness, anger, shock. She went, deep into the dresser and uncovered a collection of photos. Polaroids.

"He likes pictures of himself taken. Tells me to keep them, to remember," She rubbed her shoulders and dropped the collection in front of her.

Michael picked one up and in his greedy pace, knocked a few over.

They could all see it, all three (for Bell looked away) and all three stared curiously.

They were pictures of Richter, sure. They were taken from a low angle. And they were taken at...evocative moments.

There was one, showing Richter with a belt in his hand, raised high above his head. Another, with his backhand ready to slap.

Another with his fist.

Another grabbing. Another pulling. And so on and so on.

Michael grabbed Bell's hand and lifted her gown. She didn't put up much of a fight. Across her flesh, riding all the way to her shoulder, were bruises and cuts and red stains of pain.

She pulled away.

"I don't judge my customers," she said.

"You should," Michael said. "You of all people should be judgmental. Why'd you let him do that to you?"

"It's good money, so what of it? I...I kind of like it too." She said.

Neither said much. Both frowned. Bell too, perhaps knew she had not convinced them. Or herself.

After a sullen silence, staring at the photos, they left. The Waitress stayed, to comfort Bell, perhaps. To plead, maybe.

They didn't stay long to hear the crying. Though Santana could feel it, swelling in his stomach. He looked down at the broken blacktop.

"You depressed?" Michael asked. "I thought she was a bitch,"

"She still is," He said. "Don't mean she deserves it though."

"Right,"

They walked a bit to their car. Santana focused on the picture, the branches of Arcana flowed through him, blue, like electrical wiring.

The compass re-adjusted. Just West.

"Hey, Michael," Santana said.

"Yeah?"

"I don't think this job is worth it,"

"We're broke, of course, it's worth it. It's everything."

"No," He shook his head. Five times, to be exact. "I don't think it's worth what we're going to pay. I think we should back off,"

Michael looked at him, at his worried face. He looked down, below a cigarette butt was rubbed into the floor. In front of him, the car.

He opened the door and slammed it. He held his head and looked out to the night road.

"And that's why you don't do the planning," He said. "We'll just catch this fucker in the act of doing some weird shit and call it a day. That's all we are, paparazzi."

"Paparazzi," Santana repeated.

"Yeah, just snooping around."

The brother jumped in. The engine did not start for two turns of the key. On the third, it sputtered on. A strange jalopy, that could barely turn and accelerate even worse.

They rode it, into the virgin night, barely an hour past midnight, chasing after a tormentor with nothing but the silver hand of a compass to guide them through the cold leveled desert.