Cowboy Bebop Fan Fiction ❯ Viva Las Vegas ❯ Viva Las Vegas ( Chapter 1 )

[ P - Pre-Teen ]


Session 13

VIVA LAS VEGAS

By jak981125

Note: This story is part of a series. It will make more sense if you
read the earlier sessions.

"Oof!"

Lau had a rather rude awakening. Faye kicked him in her sleep so
hard that it knocked him out of bed. It had been a long time since Lau
had shared a bed with someone and he certainly wasn't used to this. Not
only did Faye twitch a lot in her sleep, but she snored. I suppose you
can't blame her with that tiny nose of hers.

By the time Lau picked himself off the floor, she had flopped
around so much that she was taking up the entire bed. He couldn't get
back in. He sighed, and laid down on the floor. Some honeymoon this was
turning out to be so far. First of all, they had hardly enjoyed a minute
alone together because Jet and Ed were still in Vegas with them and Ed
wanted to hang out with Faye as much as possible. Second of all, they
had suffered some rather unfortunate gambling losses. And no, I'm not
going to give you any of the X-rated details of the honeymoon, so don't
ask. You pervert.

If you think Lau was having a bad night, it was nothing compared
to the night the casino on the bottom floor was about to have. Jet had
been downstairs playing a late night game of craps. He had stepped out
for just a couple of minutes to use the bathroom. In that time, three
masked gunmen ran in, killed two guards, robbed the cash register, and
left. Con artists are common at casinos but robberies are a wee bit more
rare. It left Sin City in shock.

The next day, Lau sat at a table next to a breakfast buffet,
waiting for Jet. He didn't have to wait long. The two of them loaded up
their trays and sat down. "So where are the girls?" asked Jet.

"I think they're watching some Elvis impersonator," replied Lau.
"Jet, you have just got to keep Ed on a leash. Faye and I have hardly
had one minute to ourselves since the wedding."

"I'm not sure how to explain that to Ed without hurting her
feelings," replied Jet. "Say, did you hear about last night?"

"No, what happened?"

"The casino got robbed and two guards were killed. All of this
happened while I was in the can."

"No, Jet."

"What?"

Lau sighed. "I know what you're about to say and the answer is
no. I'm not hunting for any casino bandits on my honeymoon."

"It might help make up for some of our gambling losses," replied
Jet. "No offense Lau, but I've seen dogs that could play a better game
of poker than you."

"Maybe I should have let Faye go ahead and switch the dice at
the craps table," said Lau. "Honestly, I was never a gambling man."

"Look, while the girls are out anyway, what harm could it do
just to look around a little?"

"There's no such thing as looking around a little when dealing
with the black dog," replied Lau.

"Then you know how persistent I can be," replied Jet with a grin.

Lau sighed. "Before you go dragging me all over town to look for
these guys, can I at least eat my breakfast before it gets cold?" In
reply, Jet started eating his own food. The people at this hotel really
knew how to cook.

After breakfast, the two of them asked at the cashier's window
if anyone was around who had been there last night and witnessed the
robbery. The cashier didn't know. Just then, a security guard
approached. "You two aren't cops, are you?" he asked. "Wait, you guys
are bounty hunters. If you think it would help, I could show you some
security footage from last night."

The guard escorted them upstairs to the security office, where a
bunch of other guards were huddled around monitors, watching everything
that went on in the casino. Like I said, plenty of people try to swindle
casinos. The guard put a disk into a computer that contained the footage
from the robbery. Jet studied it carefully.

"As you can see, the problem is that these guys had masks and
gloves on, so we don't have their faces or fingerprints," said the guard.

"You knew one of the guards that died, didn't you?" asked Lau.

"Is it that obvious?" asked the guard.

"Well you were exceptionally eager to cooperate," replied Lau.
"See anything helpful, Jet?"

Jet zoomed in a little closer. "Here we go," he said to himself.
"These guys shouldn't have worn short sleeves. This one has a tattoo.
Kind of funny looking, isn't it?"

Lau took a look at the tattoo on the arm of one of the robbers.
"Looks like Greek letters," he replied. "Maybe these guys belong to a
college fraternity."

"Gees, the frat world must have changed a lot since I was in
college," remarked the guard. "We just got drunk a lot and put the
dean's car in the courtyard of the administrative building."

"Excuse me gentleman," came the voice of a guard behind them.
"Does this belong to you?" He was holding Ed by the arm.

"Oh Ed, what did you do?" groaned Jet.

"Edward didn't do anything!" she replied angrily as she shook
herself loose from the guard's grip.

"Sir, we tend to frown on persons under the age of twenty-one
being on the gaming floor," said the guard. "When we spotted her, she
claimed she was thirty-five."

"In dog years, maybe," grinned Lau.

"Well Edward was on a winning streak," she bragged. "Edward
found a slot machine that was paying off big time!"

"That figures," replied Jet. "The only one of us to have any
luck, and she's too young to gamble. I thought you were with Faye."

"Faye Faye went to look for Lau," said Ed.

"Uh oh!" replied Lau. "I think I'd better go see what she's up
to." He walked out leaving Ed and Jet alone with the security team.

"So, does she get to keep what she won?" asked Jet hopefully.

It didn't take Lau very long to find Faye. She was sitting by
herself, next to a giant aquarium in the lobby that was full of sharks.
She looked lonely. Lau sat down next to her and started rubbing her
back. "What's wrong, sweetie?" he asked.

"Let's go somewhere right now, just the two of us," she replied.
"And I don't want to go to another casino." Lau put his hand on her
forehead. "What are you doing?"

"Checking to see if you have a fever," he replied. "Unless I
just heard wrong, you just said you didn't want to go to a casino." Faye
smiled and elbowed him in the ribs playfully. "Ow, careful, that's where
you kicked me last night. It's still a little sensitive."

The two of them went to a botanical garden on the north side of
town. Well, at least it was quiet. Boring, but quiet, and no Jet or Ed.
"I hope you don't get nailed for contributing to the delinquency of a
minor," said Lau.

"What do you mean?"

"After you ditched Ed, she decided to go try her hand at the
slot machines," replied Lau. "She was actually winning when security
finally caught her."

Faye laughed out loud at that. "So what were you and Jet doing
before that?" she asked.

"Oh, Jet's convinced he can make up for our gambling losses if
we catch the guys who robbed the casino," replied Lau. "If he wants to
get those guys, he can do it without me. Hey, what's wrong with you?"
Lau had noticed a sudden look of concern on Faye's face.

"Something's been bugging me. It's just that we're married
now...and...well I married you because I love the person you are,"
stammered Faye. "It's just, I never wanted to ask you about the person
you were. It didn't matter...but it does. There's just so many things
I've been curious about. And not just about you either. Never mind, I'm
sorry, just forget I said anything."

There was a long and awkward pause. "You want to know about my
syndicate days?" asked Lau. Faye nodded. "Well that's not a time in my
life that I'm exactly proud of. I don't know how Spike felt about it
afterwards, but I don't like to think about it."

"You murdered people?" asked Faye quietly.

Lau hung his head. "You have a right to know. Yeah, I did. My
main job was to provide security for the Clan's drug dealers. If someone
messed with one of them, I'd mess with that person. Mostly I'd just
threaten or occasionally beat on someone. In all that time, I only
murdered three people. I feel like crap about all three, if that's any
consolation."

"It is, but why did you do it?"

"One of them was a White Tiger. It was tit for tat. He shot one
of our dealers, so Vicious ordered me to get him back. The second guy
killed the three year old daughter of a friend of mine. The third guy I
feel the worst about. He was a syndicate guy who ran down a dealer of
ours with his car. But he didn't mean to. He was driving drunk and hit
one of them by accident. Not only that, our guy survived. But the Van
made me kill him anyway. I should have told those old farts to shove it.
You know that if I could do it all over again, I never would have joined
the Red Dragons in the first place. But I was young and stupid, and I
was terrified of suffering to put two cents together, the way my dad did."

"Thank you," replied Faye. "I don't think any less of you. I
just had to know. We should have talked about this before we got
married. I shouldn't have rushed things so much."

"Maybe that's the real reason we haven't enjoyed ourselves,"
said Lau.

"Yeah, but let's just keep blaming Jet and Ed," replied Faye.

At that moment, Jet and Ed were searching the computer for any
local college fraternities whose letters matched those on the robber's
tattoo. They came up empty. "Oh man, I hope these guys aren't from out
of state," groaned Jet.

"Maybe the robber men were Greek and those letters were their
names," offered Ed. She tried to see if the letters worked out to form
any names but came up empty again. "Nope. Silly Edward, why would robber
men come all the way from Greece to rob a Las Vegas casino?"

"Or maybe it's a fraternal organization and not a college frat,"
said Jet. "You know, some cops belong to fraternal lodges and some of
them moonlight as security. I wonder..."

Across town, Faye and Lau walked back towards their hotel. "Lau,
not to beat a dead horse here, but while we're on the subject, I was
hoping you could tell me a little something about Spike," said Faye.

"I could tell you more than a little something," replied Lau. "I
knew the guy very well for years."

"What I don't get is the whole thing with him and Julia and
Vicious," replied Faye. "I don't mean to knock your brother-in-law, but
I can't understand what Spike or Julia ever saw in the guy."

"It's a long story," replied Lau. "Spike and Vicious had been
friends since childhood. They met in juvenile hall on Tharsis. Spike was
an orphan who had been running away from foster homes for years. He was
a street kid, so he made a living selling drugs. He ended up getting
caught."

"And Vicious?"

"Vicious was a sad story," said Lau. "His mom was a real loser.
She was a junkie and a nymphomaniac. His mom's reputation made him an
easy target for bullies as a kid. And the fact that his hair went gray
before he was even thirteen didn't help either. He got into a fight at
school one day and accidentally killed a kid. So he got sent to juvie
for manslaughter. He and Spike ended up being roommates and when they
got out, they started their own street gang."

"How did they get involved with the syndicate?" asked Faye.

"When they were eighteen, they were recruited by Mao Yenrai. He
was looking for young blood. The old guard wasn't getting any younger
and the elders were already in their eighties. Mao basically founded the
new guard. Vicious and Spike were the leaders of that group. They were
partners and would constantly be sent out after rival syndicates.

"Then when they were about twenty-three and I was twenty-two,
Julia showed up. Vicious was walking home from a bar one night and saw
her arguing with her boyfriend. He called her something rather
unflattering and she actually beat the crap out of him. Vicious was
impressed and offered to walk her home. She said yes to make her
boyfriend jealous. The two of them ended up dating. He thought she was
amazing and ended up showing a her softer side of himself that hardly
anyone ever saw. But even then, he was still a brutal person where other
people were concerned and as much as she loved him, it kind of turned
her off."

"So how did she wind up with Spike?" asked Faye.

"Vicious hardly ever discussed his personal life. For example, I
was the only one he would talk to about his sister. And he never told
anyone much about Julia, except that he was seeing someone. Then one
night he was playing billiards with me and a couple guys from the
neighborhood when Spike walked in. He took one look at her and thought
she was really something else. Vicious had her doing some negotiating
work for the new guard. One day when she was leaving headquarters, Julia
and Spike got stuck in an elevator together for nearly four hours when
it malfunctioned. I don't know what they talked about in there, but
that's when the betrayal started. Spike and Julia started seeing one
another behind Vicious's back. This went on for about a month. Then
someone must have ratted them out to Vicious and he decided to surprise
them by waiting for them outside Spike's apartment. He caught her and
Spike coming back from an amusement park. He got mad and tried to kill
Spike. If the cops hadn't broken up that fight, I'm sure they would have
killed each other that night."

"Did they still work together after that?" asked Faye.

"No. They hated each other's guts after that. Mao split the new
guard in half. He had Spike head one team with Lin as his lieutenant,
and Vicious head another one with me as his lieutenant. The whole thing
broke Mao's heart. It was always tense at headquarters and we all hated
it. Spike was my friend but I felt like if I hung out with him anymore,
I was being disloyal to my brother-in-law so the two of us lost touch.
Then one day Spike was dispatched to bust in on a meeting of some White
Tigers at a local church and kill them. He got shot up pretty bad. I
heard he stumbled over to Julia's place after it happened. But he made
it look like he'd been taken out of the church in an amubulance which
then exploded. I guess he set the whole thing up to fake his own death.
Not long after that, Julia disappeared too."

"I could never get him to tell me anywhere near that much," said
Faye. "Just one more thing, and this is going to sound kind of dumb. How
did he lose his eye?"

"You knew about that?" replied Lau in surprise. "He suffered a
mishap with a grenade. I think it really affected him. When people asked
Spike why his eyes were two different colors, he always went around
saying that one eye saw the past but he never told anyone that the eye
was fake. I'm amazed he told you. I guess he really trusted you."

Back at the hotel, Ed found exactly what she was looking for.
"Here we go, local fraternal order of police. Yup, that's where the
letters come from."

"So I was right," said Jet. "It must have been some of the
guards who work here. Of course. They of all people would know this
place better than anyone. Man, killing your own colleagues is about as
low as you can get."

"Should we call Lau and Faye?" asked Ed.

"No," replied Jet. "Let's give them some time to themselves. It
is their honeymoon after all and we haven't given them any time alone."

"You can give us some time alone later," said Faye as she and
Lau approached from behind. "I'm bored stiff and for once I don't feel
like gambling. So what have you got on these guys?"

"We think these guys were actually off-duty cops," replied Jet.
"One of them had an FOP tattoo on his arm and the security here does
consist of off-duty cops."

The security team at the casino wore short-sleeve shirts. Jet,
Faye, and Lau went around casually watching them to see if any of them
had FOP tattoos. A couple of them did, but the tattoos were the wrong
color. They waited until the shift changed and then went looking again.
Still nothing. "Well it couldn't have been the late shift," said Jet.
"That's when the robbery was pulled off. They would have been on duty then."

"Maybe it was someone behind the scenes," suggested Faye. "They
usually watch casinos like a hawk for people like me. Hmmm, that gives
me an idea here."

A few minutes later... "Wahoo, Ed wins again!" exclaimed Ed as
she found yet another slot machine on the casino floor that was paying
off. Sure enough, her presence once again attracted the attention of
security.

"Hey kid, I thought I told you never to come back here!" Ed was
taken back up to the security office. "OK kid, you sit here until we
contact your parents."

Ed ignored the guard and began to wander around the room humming
to herself. She looked at the arms of the various guards, who were too
busy watching their monitors to notice her. None of them had tattoos.
Then Ed noticed one of them who had on long sleeves. She ran up and tore
off his left sleeve with her teeth before he could stop her. Sure
enough, he had the right tattoo.

"Kid, are you crazy?"

"Mmm, fabric tasty!" replied Ed.

"This is why I don't have any kids," said the guard who brought
her in.

Just then, Jet came in. "Now Ed, what have I told you about
eating fabric?"

"It'll spoil Ed's appetite?"

"Something like that. Now come along. And don't let me catch you
gambling again. By the way guys, do I get to keep what she won this time?"

The next day, that off-duty cop with the tattoo was on traffic
patrol in his squad car. As he was driving through the neon-illuminated
streets of Las Vegas, he noticed a car in front of him that was weaving
all over the place. He turned on his lights and pulled the car over. Lau
stumbled out.

"Excuse me sir, but have you been drinking tonight?" asked the cop.

"Well ocifer, I mean officer, that's a long story," replied Lau
who was doing his best to sound roaring drunk. "But I'm not to drive to
drunk. Really. Why are there three of you all the sudden?"

"OK pal, you know the drill, put your head back and stick your
arms out and try to touch your nose. Eyes closed."

Lau made several attempts to touch his nose but the closest he
ever got was his chin. "Well I bet I could touch your nose," he replied
as he did just that.

"Now cut that out!" yelled the cop. "You're under arrest for DUI..."

"...K-E-Y...M-O-U-S-E," interrupted Lau as he fell to the
pavement laughing. The cop sighed and reached for his handcuffs only to
find they were missing. "Hey, what the..."

"Looking for these?" asked Faye who was standing behind him,
holding his cuffs. "Here, you can have them back." Before the cop had a
chance to react, she quickly handcuffed him with his own cuffs. Lau
emerged behind him and grabbed the cop's gun from his holster. Jet
emerged from a nearby parked car.

"He's probably got another one on him somewhere," he warned.
Sure enough, the guy had an ankle holster as well. Just then, three
other police units showed up. You didn't think that a bystander would
just sit back and watch a cop on duty get handcuffed and unarmed by a
bunch of strangers and not call the police, did you?

"Gentleman, I present your casino robber," announced Jet, as the
other cops approached. "I'll take my bounty right now."

The cop confessed to the whole thing and told detectives who his
accomplices were. The Las Vegas police wouldn't offer a bounty for the
other two, but paid ten million for the guy they had caught. Back on the
casino floor, Jet, Faye and Lau had an enormous streak of luck. Lau
stayed away from poker and stuck to roulette, Faye made a killing at the
blackjack table, and Jet cleaned house playing craps. All of them walked
away with some huge gains.

Later on, the three sat in a restaurant a few feet away from the
casino entrance. "We've still got three days left on this vacation,"
said Jet. "I'll switch hotels and me and Ed will stay out of your hair
for the rest of the time."

"Say, where is Ed right now?" asked Lau.

"Kid, I told you three times not to come back here!" came the
voice of a guard from the direction of the casino.

Jet groaned. "Aw, Ed! You guys remind me to call that 800 number
for her. I think she's becoming a gambling addict." He walked away
towards the casino. "Hey, you damn well better let me keep her winnings
this time!"

Faye and Lau just smiled and clicked their wineglasses together.

SEE YOU SPACE COWBOY

(c) 2004 Joseph Kerner

jak981125@catholic.org

Disclaimer: I did not create Cowboy Bebop. I wish I had, but I didn't.
This is just fanfiction.