CHAPTER EIGHT
"This has officially been the craziest weekend of my life." Ari says to Wolfy, lightly resting his head on her shoulder. She strokes his hair with her hand. "Thanks for all your help. You were awesome."
"Anything for my hubby." Ari stiffens a little. "I'm kidding, Ari. I know last night wasn't, you know, real…"
"I'm sorry about all this, Wolfy."
"Layla."
"Sorry?"
"My name is Layla. Layla Robatussin." She says, suddenly becoming a lot more human (?) to Ari. Which is why it pains him even more to break her heart.
"Okay. Well. I'm sorry, Layla."
"Oh, don't be. Last night wasn't the first flaky decision I've ever made in my life. I mean, I am a
stripper after all." Ari chuckles a little at this and she smile sadly.
"Where you from?" He asks, sitting up.
"La Tarzana."
"Oh yeah?" He had no idea where or what that was.
"Yeah. I work here on the weekends." She huddles into her side of the car, hugging herself for warmth. "I'd move here, but my kid is in a great school."
"Kid?" Once again, this woman never ceased to surprise him.
"I have a little girl, Philomena. She's... Well, she's everything." She proudly shows Ari her lock screen picture of a little girl who looked like the spitting image of her mother, minus the big boobs and the height. He smiles. "What about you?"
"No kids. I do have a one year old dog named Goblin though." He takes the photo out of his wallet and shows it to her. Her eyes light up. "He's named Goblin, because well, he looks more like a Goblin than a dog."
"I can see that." She takes the photo into her hands and laughs. "With that said, he still pretty cute. In my opinion."
"I know right." Ari agrees, as Nick rolls up to Mandalay Bay. Somewhat self conscious around so many well-kept cars.
"Keep er close, Pablo. We'll be right back." Iggy says while Nick wordlessly forks over the keys.
The gang anxiously hurry up to their suite. Expecting just to meet a really pissed off and disoriented guy who may never choose to forgive them for years to come, but hey, at least they would get him back in time for his wedding!!! However, with their luck, this of course doesn't happen.
"Dylan, wake up man!" Iggy calls out with his hands cupped around his mouth as Ari pushes open the door. However, instead of finding Dylan, they were greeted by one of the fake Canadians sitting on their couch. Pissed. His right arm is wrapped in a big fat white cast, courtesy of the strip club bouncers.
"Sup, assholes." The guys freeze at this murderous tone, terrified.
"Uh oh..." Layla subconsciously groans. The door slams shut behind them, making them all whip around to see the other fake Canadian blocking their exit with an identical cast on his arm.
"Not good." Nick says as the sound of a toilet flushing in one of their bathrooms dramatically erupts throughout everyone's ears as if it were a thunder strike in the midst of an already pretty bad storm. A slender man in a black button up soon enters the living room from the bathroom without so much as even thinking to wash his hands. He pettily rubs his dirty-ass paws all over the hotel's furniture, smirking. The gang scrunches their nose in disgust.
"Oh, hello. Good to see you again." The man whom the gang now recognize as Robert 'Robby' Chu, sits down in a chair directly parallel to them, with his hands folded and a leg lying across his knee. He gestures at them to come closer, but the gang doesn't budge a single inch. They do, however, have a lot to say.
"Where is Dylan???"
"Come on, man. We were just about to get home!"
"Listen, Mr. Chu, whatever we did last night, we are incredibly sorry-"
"These your rich friends you were telling me about, James?" Ari and Nick glances at Iggy, confused. "Oh, you haven't told them yet? Really, that's low. Even for you."
"What's going on, Ig?" Nick asks as Iggy stammers, trying to find the words.
"Six months ago, your friend James borrowed some money from me at what can only be described as a very unfavorable interest rate. When the loan came due, he failed to pay me back, but he promised me that he could get the money from you guys this weekend." Ari and Nick looked hurt, as though Iggy had just slapped them across the face. Layla comfortingly grabs onto Ari's hand and holds onto it tightly. Also shocked.
"Jesus, Ig…" Sure, he's been a shithead in the past (so maybe they shouldn't have been too surprised), but this was bad. Like really bad.
"How could you do this to us, man? We're your best friends…" Iggy turns away, ashamed.
"They were gonna hurt me, man…"
"Well, James, it looks like you and your friends have some issues to discuss. In the meantime…" Chuey pulls out a huge, red-plated .357 Magnum, and points it at the gang. "I need my goddamn money."
"WHOA THERE!" The guys scream, jumping backwards. Iggy holds up his hands.
"I can get it! I can! I just–"
"I've heard that before, James, including last night, when you so rudely skipped out on my birthday party. That's why I've taken some collateral to ensure your payment. His name is Dylan." The guys all look sick.
"You have Dylan?!"
"Oh. My. God…"
"..."
"If you want your friend to live, meet me at mile marker 26 off Highway 12 at dawn, and bring the
money. Are we clear?"
"Yes! Yes!!!" Iggy hollers, some hope returning back to his eyes. Robert nods and heads towards the door, gesturing for The Fake Canadians to follow him.
"M-M-Mr. Chu?"
"Yes, Mr. Batchhelder?"
"H-How much does Iggy owe???"
"200 thousand dollars?!" Nick shouts, as he and Ari pace around the suite. Beyond stressed. Iggy just stands, stoically looking out of one of the unopenable hotel windows. Layla gets them some ice water in order to cool them off. "How the hell could you blow that kind of money?!"
"..."
"This is not the time to stay silent, man! Not when our lives are on the line here!!!" Nick grabs Iggy's skinny-ass by the collar of his shirt. Iggy just blankly stares up at him.
"There's nothing more to say man!" Iggy screams in Nick's face so loud, spit flies out of his mouth. Getting unjustifiably angry with him. "You heard Chuey. I owe him money for that failed fire themed titty bar. And unless I can get him the money, he'll have Dylan's ass on a platter!!!"
"Man…we're so fucked." Ari goes over to the couch where Layla is sitting and sinks down onto her lap, hands covering his eyes.
"I manage an Applebee's for fucks sake," Nick let's go of Iggy so that his hands are free to frantically wave around as they please. "I'm anything but rich!"
"Okay, okay. I get it, Nick! I fucked up, alright. What more do you want me to say???"
"It's not a matter about what I want you to say, Iggy! I just want you for once in your life to feel genuinely sorry about all the shit you put everyone, and especially us, through." Nick fires back, unfathomably angry. "Would it kill you to not be a destructive mess every single day of your life?!"
"Do you really think I wanted my life to turn out like this, Nick?! Do you really think I don't know
that I'm a massive loser?!" Iggy grabs fistfuls of his hair, tugging at it but not hard enough to actually rip it out. The last thing he needed on top of all his other bullshit was bald spots. "Jesus, you got out of high school and immediately just knew what to do, you went to college and got a good job and found the love of your life. Ari, on the other hand, still has all the time in the world to figure things out. Much more time than I'll ever have again because I all I did was waste the last decade of my life!"
Iggy angrily throws a glass vase at the wall, shattering it into a bajillion pieces. The others flinch at the noise.
"Jesus, I'm almost 30, and the only thing I really have...the only thing I really have is you guys and my girlfriend who sometimes likes me."
"Oh, c'mon. Ig-" Nick begins, having never been good at dealing with others' emotions.
"No, man, it's true! I put on a good show, but my life is so goddamn hollow and vapid and lonely, it scares me, man. I-I don't know how much longer I can keep this sham going. And now I've gone and ruined one of the only good things I had…" Iggy tears up as Nick and Ari exchange a look. Surprised to see the usually arrogant and crude Iggy this vulnerable. "Just...please don't give up on me, okay? I-I don't know what I'd do without you guys. I really don't…"
Nick sighs, having a hard time staying mad at an obviously mentally distressed man.
"Listen man, I love you and everything, but in order to make this work you need to be more honest with us. You also need to stop treating us like garbage."
"Yes, of course-"
"Uh, uh, uh, I'm not done yet." Nick places a boney finger on Iggy's lips, shushing him. "Another thing is that while I may forgive you this time, It's going to take me a longggggg time for me to trust you again."
"Right." Iggy wipes away at the tears now messily trailing down his cheeks, smiling slightly. "Now bring it in, dudes."
Iggy holds out his arms, impatiently awaiting a group hug which the others awkwardly give him.
"Hate to cut this short," Nick is the first one to step away, glad to be free from the embrace of several hands. "but we've got about three hours to come up with 200 grand, or else."
The guys frown, thinking to themselves.
"Hey, guys." Layla verbally nudges the guys out of their thinking trance. "I think you might want to see this."
The guys walk over to Layla who had returned to the couch, with a duffle bag filled to the brim with neatly rubber banded stacks of cash (?) now laying in front of her.
"WHOA!"
"That's a whole lotta moolah."
"Y e a h."
"It is. 20 grand to be exact." She says, briefly leaving the others speechless at how she was able to count that much money in so little time. "Hey, what can I say? After being a stripper for so long, I can just eyeball a stack of cash and know how much there is."
"Where the hell did all of that money come from???" Ari asks, and the others just kinda shake their heads. Also unsure. That was until Nick suddenly snapped his fingers, remembering that one weird encounter he had with that one weird old man either a day or a few hours ago (time was starting to blur together what with all the confusing pieced together sequences of events).
"Not sure if this explains the mysterious sack of cash, but earlier, this random dude at the casino tried to stage a rematch with me over a game that I must've won against him either last night or the night before because he seemed super bitter about it." The other's eyes light up.
"I think I might know a way we can get that other 180 grand…" Iggy says what everyone else was already thinking, getting nods of silent agreement.
Nick throws down Blackjack at a Blackjack table, making all the crowd around him erupt into a loud, boisterous cheer. The dealer slides him over a large pile of chips as the old man from earlier groans. Storming away from the table while muttering all kinds of curses under his breath.
Ari yells 'BINGO' at the top of his lungs in the faces of the pissed off, uber competitive old ladies sitting around him at the table. Nick joins the group as Layla and Iggy jump up. Each giving Ari a 'high ten.'
Layla instantly throws Craps at the Craps table, and the others happily cheer. She gives Ari a tight hug which he returns without hesitation.
Iggy strikes a lucky draw at the War table and jumps up when he finally steals all of his (now devistated) competitors' cards. Layla and the guys aggressively hug him in a group hug much better than the one from earlier, and then take a sip from their own individual cans of Red Bull. Hands shaking and wired, but also still somewhat alert despite the negative hours of sleep they've gotten within this past day or so.
The gang floats around the casino for a bit longer, occasionally cheering each other on before getting right back to business.
The gang lastly hit up the Pai Gow table, unsure of how they racked up in so many chips there despite not even knowing how to play. They take their large stack of chips and quietly leave the area.
"Time check!" Ari calls out.
"12 minutes." Iggy says, looking at the timer he set a while back.
"Chip check!" Nick quickly counts the chips. "Faster! Come on chip check!"
"Dude, how many Red Bulls have you had?" Iggy asks him, quietly enough for Nick to still be able to count the chips accurately.
"I stopped counting at six! I can hear my heart beating in my head!" Ari shouts while Nick finishes counting the chips. Frowning.
"Just over 100 grand…"
Everyone winces. Damn.
"There's only one thing left to do…" Iggy's voice trails off as he shifts his gaze towards the roulette table.
The gang go over and place 100k worth of chips onto the black spaces on the roulette table. All sweaty and anxious. Ari is especially wrecked from his energy drink induced paranoia.
"You sure we don't want red?! What if the ball lands on red–!"
"Shut up, Ari." Iggy says, although he too was now wandering if black was the right decision himself.
"Betting is closed." The Roulette Croupier drops the ball onto the wheel. It bounces, hops, and spins as the guys all contort in different directions.
"I can't watch! My heart's gonna explode! Can your heart even explode?! Because I think my heart is gonna explode! I can't watch!" Ari says as the ball lands. There's a brief moment of silence before Ari once again opens his mouth. "It's red, isn't it?! I knew it! Tell me it's not red!"
"It's not red…" Nick starts, and Ari gets prematurely ecstatic."It's…"
"It's green. We got a…got a…double zero." Iggy says, gravely. Ari clutches his chest as if he was having a seizure, and slowly falls to his knees on the ground. Nick inhales, grim. And Layla closes her eyes as their humongous pile of chips are raked off the table…
The gang dejectedly make their way out to Nick's beat up Caddy with moods as dark as the pre-dawn sky. While gathered at the Mandalay Bay parking circle, they load up the car with all their luggage. Both not emotionally, or literally prepared for the journey they were about to embark on.
"Would you like me to come with?" Layla gently takes Ari's hands into her own as she asks this. He shakes his head.
"No...It might get a little dangerous. I wouldn't want…" Layla nods before he could finish his sentence. Despite his brain being partially fried from the many Red Bulls he drank, he was still able to form somewhat rational thoughts from time to time.
"I'm so sorry...about everything." Her hand lingers on him for a bit, before pulling him into a melancholic hug. Due to his now heightened senses as well as the sheer closeness of his and Layla's embrace, he's able to smell her somehow still fresh ocean themed hair shampoo.
"Thanks for all your help." Ari pulls back, shivering upon contact with the cold desert winds.
"There's no sense...in exchanging numbers or anything...right?"
"Yeah, probably not…" Ari looks down at the rocky ground, genuinely sad.
"Well...I'll always remember you as a great first husband, then." They both smile weakly. Sad that they couldn't have met under vastly different circumstances, where maybe they could've actually had a shot at a future together. "You can just send the divorce papers to the Crazy Horse or whatever… if you're still alive that is."
"Yeah…" There's a brief, awkward pause that follows this until Layla clears her throats.
"And Ari. Thanks for reminding me that there
are still some really good guys out there. I don't...I don't get to meet too many of them." She smiles a twinge sadly, and kisses him farewell. Departing the scene with a finger drawing absentmindedly across her garish unicorn ring. Ari feels a real sense of loss as he too traces his ring. Funnily enough, at this time he wasn't even scared that about dying so much as he was just kinda feeling heartbroken. Good thing for him, Nick firing up the car engine is able to snap him out of this lovesick daze.
"We gotta go, man…" Ari silently nods and gets into the backseat, alone this time.