Desiderium: longing for something that has been lost

Chapter 22

"death is not the end/ death can never be the end"---sri chinmoy

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Las Vegas 

February 21, 2008

10:09 am

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El Cortez casino was tucked away in a little hotel that only the local Vegas natives knew about. It took Rossi and Emily several turnabouts, and backtracked paths down alley ways before they finally tracked down the place. 

The owner was less than interested in their badges and more interested in the money that his house brought in. It took Rossi less than restraining him, and Emily thrusting her badge up his face for him to sigh and show him to his office. 

"Now, what do you agents want, exactly?" He sat down, refusing to show them any seats. 

They exchanged glances. "How long have you been the owner of this casino?" Rossi folded his arms over his chest. 

He shrugged. "Eh, since the seventies. Got it from a friend, friend died." 

Emily shook her head at the morally ambiguous statement, and pulled out a picture of William Reid and Frank Lewis. "Recognize them by any chance?" 

He pulled the pictures over his desk, and picked them up, peering at them intently. "When did they use to visit, do ya know?" 

"Anywhere from the seventies to the early eighties, for him. But him," Emily tapped the photo of Frank Lewis. "He could have been coming for as long as, say, last week." He glanced at her, and she cringed in commiseration. "I know, I'm sorry, the timeline is large." 

He looked back down at them. "They look familiar, they partners or something?"

Rossi nodded. "Yeah, come here every week. William Reid and Frank Lewis."

He sat back and groaned. "Oh shit. And here I thought I saw the last of those two good for nothing fuckers." 

"So you do know them." 

"Yeah I know them. Kicked them out practically every week, they got arrested practically every week. Reid was a bastard, blew out his savings on gambling, had a kid too."

Emily picked the pictures back up. "Did he, they, have any enemies?" 

"Hell yeah they did. Nobody liked them, they were crooked, always slipping money and counting cards."

"But does any one stick out in particular, any particular arguments, or fights? Anything like that?"

"Nah, police always had to be called to break those up." He leaned back in his chair, thinking. "Wait. They always had a bone to pick with this doctor guy. Super young, barely out of school. Ryan?"

Rossi pulled another picture out of his folder. "Dr. James Ryan?" He felt his heart speed up.

"Yeah that's the bastard. Those three couldn't stop fighting each other. God awful mess every time." 

Emily took the picture back, her mind working fast. "Do you think it would be possible to get a list of consistent clients from here from the time you've worked here to the at least the nineties?" 

"Consistent?"

"Yeah, like they showed like every week, they had a table devoted to them, you knew their order, that kind of stuff."

"That'll take a while."

"Just get it to us, thank you." 

As they left, Emily turned to Rossi. "So once we get that list, we're going to compare it to our original list of suspects right?"

Rossi nodded. "I still don't know where the doctor plays into all of this, but somehow he's taking center stage." 

"Maybe our guy saw one of the fights, and got some dirt on him? Used it as blackmail, to keep Reid shut up for so long?"

"Maybe but why wait to kill Reid then? Why not just kill him when he's a kid. Why put him in foster care, and then in a rehabilitation just to go to all the trouble of this?"

"Maybe it wasn't our original unsub who bribed him them, maybe it was our current unsub." 

"But that leads us back to the age-old question: why keep him quiet when you could just, kill him?"

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It was like everything had vanished away, and all he could feel, breathe, and focus on was the fact that there was a knife, scraping along his throat. His frantic breathing didn't help, and a small trickle of blood made its way down his neck. 

Then suddenly the pressure disappeared, and reality slammed back to him. The other two (Morgan, and Garcia, Morgan and Garcia) were begging the man behind him not to... not to what? God, he wished he could just see! 

His head was still held uncomfortably back against someone's chest, and he could hear a steady, even heartbeat. Whoever this person was, they had absolutely no fear. He slid his head roughly against the chest, dislodging the blindfold marginally. At this angle he could maybe see the ceiling. 

There was an awful pause, and a moment of silence. Then his head was let go, and his blindfold fixed. His stomach dropped and he felt dread seep inside of him. 

Two hands grasped his legs, and he gasped at the suddenness of it. "What did I tell you about moving?" The voice had a forced cheeriness to it, and he found himself shaking again. "Oh, is he scared?" The voice was mocking now. "Yeah he should be." 

He felt another pressure on his finger, and he shook his head wildly, too overcome to even beg. 

"What did you want to say something?" The pressure increased, and pleas for him to stop tumbled faintly in the background. "Say something, you little freak, and I'll stop." 

God, he tried. He tried so hard to get those tumbled up words out of his tumbled up mind, but he could only open and close his mouth. 

"Yeah, that's what I thought." He bent his finger back until a pop filled the room. It was somehow worse than the first one, and he let out another scream. 

A hand tangled itself into his hair, and he stiffened. Hot air blasted on his cheek, and suddenly that voice was in his ear. "If you thought that hurt, then..." 

His head was pushed away, and he let it hang while he recovered. 

"I don't intend to drag this out, agents. I'm not one for dramatics, and he's been a pain in my ass for far too long." He stood in front of the two, twisting the knife in his hand. "Oh cheer up, sweetheart. He's not worth the tears, promise you that." He looked both ways and squatted in front of her chair. "He's a little on the crazy side, if you know what I mean." He winked and stood back up. 

Morgan craned his neck to check on Reid. "Why are you doing this?" Stalling was in everyone's favor at this point. 

"Why? Did we not go over this already. Are you all that impossibly slow. This" He pointed at the unconscious Spencer. "Is my burden to bear. My father told me on his goddamn death bed about all his life's mistakes and of course the fucker pulls me in and says 'Ethan, swear to god, kill that bastard, kill that bastard boy.'" He smiled and walked back over to Spencer. "I've always hated my father, but you know who I hated more? Hated this son of a bitch. Ran my dad to ruin, trying to keep everything under wraps." He slid the knife down his arm slowly, a long trail of blood following. "My dad killed kids quick, one slice here, another there. But me? I'm going make him feel every, last drop of blood." 

He slapped him hard across the face. "Wake up you bastard, wake up, it's time to die."