"No! Have them sent to Brooks in San Francisco! Who told you to send them to San Diego? Well Steffen is a Moron!" Ron Larson hollers into his cell phone, unbeknownst, he continues bounding across the pavement, pushing and shoving anyone who slows him down.
As he nears the corner of 116th and Freemont Street the light turns green and the flashing cross walk turns red. A scrubby, stiff arm swings in front of his chest, jolting him to a halt. He misses the speeding car by centimeters; his heart skips a beat. Ron looks over to see the man who just saved his life. A bearded man, about his own age, stands beside him, dirty and thin from the streets.
Larson looks into the eyes of the stranger; he has the same crystal blue eyes, the stranger is roughly the same height as Ron too. The haggard old man bends down, Liquor bottle in hand, and sits on the edge of the curb. He looks up at Ron, "I remember you."
The cross walk chirps and the crowd push past Ron, urging him forward, but Ron stops. He turns back to the man and gives him a weird stare and says, "Thank you," and drops a 100 bill on his lap. He immediately turns around, slightly embarrassed, and meets the pace of the crowd.
Later that night
"Ronald, thank you for coming so far, you know if I had been able to leave my own family that I would gladly take on this case myself. I'm sorry you have to write the conclusion statement on your own. Coming this far to deliver it in person, however inconvenient, was an excellent way to show your devotion."
"No problem, Shirley. I owe you big time, it's hard to find an honest lawyer these days. If anything I should be thanking you!" Ron's voice is humbled as he continues, "If you think you owe me anything then you underestimated just how hard it is to arrange a flight from New York to Nevada overnight, you're a saint, Shirley!"
"Well, I figured I should arrange all your accommodations, it's only polite. You have a lot of work to do tonight, you have three days total in Las Vegas, make it worth your while! Just finish up tonight and you have a day and a half for yourself. You really deserve it. Have fun, Ron! I need to get back to my kids" Shirley laughs timidly, and waits for Ron's response.
Ron says, in a more serious tone," Shirley, really, thank you so much. Have a great weekend."
"You too, Ron! Don't forget! 4p.m. on Saturday, you need to get on that plane! Bye-bye!"
"Bye." …click…
Ron takes out his laptop and sits on the loveseat centered in the five-star hotel room, opens a file called "Larson.Case.1" and starts editing grammatically to ensure the seriousness of his argument; Ron is fighting for custody of his daughter, Lorelei, this is the text that will determine whether he gets to see his daughter again.
Moments later the phone rings. Ron curiously looks at the bedside table with an older, corded, beige telephone. It stops. He brushes it off and gets back to work, no longer than 10 minutes later the phone rings again. This time Ron gets up and answers the phone in a sophisticated, professional voice.
"Hello, this is Ron Larson."
"We know. Come to the Mirage, your package is waiting."
"Excuse me, I don't underst--click" The other line hangs up. Ron stands, drops his hand from his face and looks suspiciously at the telephone. I wonder what that was about, Ron thinks to himself.
Ring ring ring….
"Who is this?"
"Fate calls you. Come to the Mirage, Ronald, your package is waiting."
For the next 2 hours a series of calls informing Ron that he has won 2 million dollars and is scheduled to pick it up within the next 60 minutes at the Mirage casino.
"The Mirage? Room 116? Are you sure you have the right person?"
"We don't make mistakes. 60 minutes. Your time starts now."
Skeptically, Ron picks up his black blazer and grabs his cell phone as he walks out the door. Before closing the door he checks his pockets for his key-card and quickly looks over the room to see if anything is out of order.
When he arrives at the Mirage Ron is abruptly greeted at the door. A man takes his coat and leads him to a back room. Here Ron meets a woman; her straight black hair pulled tightly back, big black sunglasses, bright red lipstick over thin, dry, lips. Her head is half covered by an opaque black scarf and the rest of her body is behind a large, metal desk.
"Sit down Mr. Larson." She smiles slyly, her teeth slightly yellow in contrast with the lipstick. Not the most attractive of women, but decent looking. She motions for the seat, Ron sits down. The woman pulls out a piece of paper and a red pen from the desk. "Sign here."
Ron looks over the document, looks up once or twice to meet the steady green stare of the woman's eyes. He goes to scribble in his signature on the bottom left line, "there's no ink, do you have another pen by any chance?"
"You don't need ink," her voice is raspy, a slight European accent emerges as she says, "Pull off the top of the pen, press your finger down hard. Do no worry, it is sterile, we understand how you Americans worry about diseases." She sits back in the big leather chair.
"Are you sure this is safe?" Her smile quickly changes to a serious stare, Ron opens the pen up and presses his finger down. "Ouch." he whispers as he watches the blood run down the partially clear center of the pen. He signs his name. The moment the pen is lifted from the paper a large man appears beside him, grabs the paper, and Ron's right arm and lifts him.
"Go to room 116 now. Your package is waiting." He does not make eye contact, Ron heads for the door.
113.… 114………115... Ron stops walking.
"What am I doing here?" His thoughts wander for a moment, doubt and confusion filling his body, he feels his knees weaken; he proceeds to room 116. He enters the hotel room. It's empty. He looks forward, takes a few steps in. This isn't like a hotel room, the walls and floors bare. In the center of the room there is a large crate. Ron opens it slowly, cautiously. In side is a large leather suitcase with a piece of paper taped to it that reads, Ron Larson, Las Vegas, Nevada. He opens the suit case and drops it. Bunches of 100 dollar bills fall onto the floor, Ron begins to laugh. He picks all the money up and organizes it perfectly into the suitcase and leaves the room.
Smiling, he walks to the Casino floor. As he nears the exit he spots a poker table. High stakes rollers all around, big men, hundreds of thousands of dollars on the table, and an Angelina Jolie looking woman beside them. Her hair draped over her back, long wavy and blonde. Her dress was a red satin that can do nothing but shimmer around the voluptuous curves of her body in the dim casino-night lighting. Could she be more than this? A beautiful beast stand before him, naturally Ronald was compelled to be near her. His step was stuttered as he began to sweat, he looked at the table, realizing just what he had in tow; he lifted and opened the suitcase on the table before the woman, "What's the entry fee?" he spoke loud and casually.
Gasps fill the room and almost as if he had planned it, the bombshell blonde lean beside his left shoulder, sits her hand on his lower back and whispers "I'm Denise," in the sly, mysteriously sexy voice most men only dream of. His night began with mystery, but from this point on the world knew that Ronald was heading on a downward spiral to his inevitable downfall. Not long after the bets started pouring in Ronald started cashing in like there was no tomorrow. At about 9a.m. the next morning, Ron had doubled the amount he came to the table with. Of course Ronald because arrogant. Of course he gave Denise more than she needed, sent her off shopping and bought the presidential suite at the top of the hotel out for the next week.
Ron opens his eyes, two hotel security officers stand above him, "Sir, you need to vacate the premises, your hotel payments are no longer active." Larson stands, pulls on his clothes, and in a daze walks out of the room. He walks outside, the hot sun flaring in his eyes, he thinks back to the night before, all the alcohol, his last night with Denise…
"Ronnie! Baby! Why don't you get me that car before you lose the rest of the money?" Although incomparable her voice is that shrill whiney tone that you can only associate with the voice of The Nanny's Fran Fine. "Denise, I told you, I barely have enough to get home." As a going away gift Denise pours him wine and they share a, now blurry, night of passion and useless regret.
Larson's thought wander. He recalls the missed flight and ponders on how he'll get back to New York. As he walks down the strip he holds his thumb out, 16 cars pass before a young man stops. "Sir? Are you looking for a ride? I'm heading east, going to Colorado to visit some relatives, where are you heading?"
"New York." Ron gets in the car, the twelve dollars he has to his name he sets on the dashboard. "I'm sorry; it's all I have left. Other than the clothes on my back" The two men share a quick laugh.
"No worries, I understand the things Vegas can do a lot better than most anyways." The boy's smile fades into a serious expression as he stares into the road. Concentration on his destination, the kind of discipline Ron felt he now lacked. Not only had he missed his flight, he hadn't finished his paperwork. He has missed the hearing that would determine his relationship with his daughter, and probably was on the verge of losing his New York apartment.
The boy dropped Ron off at a truck stop somewhere in Colorado. Hitchhiking across the country was safer, and easier, than Ron had ever imagined. The only downfall was personal hygiene. It has been eight months since he last shaved. Six months since his belongings were thrown into the streets of New York. Ten months since he has last seen his daughter and a total of three months since he has last been sober. Ron can not remember his address, social security number, birth date, or the name of the job title he once held.
If there's one thing Ron remembers its New York. New York, New York, the city he strived to belong in; the city that consumed so many and left them behind in its torturous shadow. Ron may not remember his mother's maiden name, but he remembers a man; more importantly he remembers the intersection of 116th and Freemont Street, where he dropped one hundred dollars in the lap of a complete stranger who, in Ron's eyes, did little more than slow him down.
Within two days of arriving in New York, Ronald Larson found his back against a wall, his legs spread, the hand on his knee limp and clutching a large liquor bottle wrapped in a paper bag. Homeless and alone, Larson sits sulking in his own waste as he sees a little girl crossing the street with her mother. The little girl looks back at him, their eyes meet and lock. Their gaze is only disrupted when the mother of the girl pulls her across the street, yelling into her cell phone. Ron tries to stand, stumbling he reaches for the bus stop sign in front of him. He inches his way to the cross walk as it changes to red. That flashing hand, mocking him, he stares at it, counting the each blink. Larson whips his hand around, reaching for the cross walk button with the force used when trying to pull one's self up from the edge of a cliff. Ron's hand meets the chest of another man. A large car speeds by, only centimeters away. Ron looks over to see a clean-shaven man, about his age; clean and filled with the food of a business man. The man looks back at Ron, a look of distaste, uncertainty, and confusion in his crystal-blue eyes.
Ron loses contact with the man's eyes and fixates his own gaze onto the general direction that the woman and her daughter were headed. He glances at Ron again and says, "I remember you," takes a step forward and sits on the curb, just as the cross walk chirps the binding spell of the city and sips the unknown substance still grasped in his hand.
Overview
The little girl Ron spotted was the Daughter of a business man named Henry Palmer, who was saved by a bum on the corner of 116th and Freemont Street earlier that day. He was in the midst of a custody battle with his ex-wife. He was scheduled for a flight to Las Vegas, Nevada to submit his side of the case to the SNJC (State of Nevada Judicial Court). Following his encounter with the man at the intersection, Henry was so spooked that he immediately checked into the New York hospital. He claims he was hyperventilating.
Henry later won the custody of his daughter, Lorelei.