The Secret History of Las Vegas by Chris Abani Read Free Book Online Page A

psychiatrist could handle this, Sunil said.
    No, Salazar said. I am convinced it’s the same case we worked on.
    Then surely it’s a police matter.
    No, I need your help on this.
    Okay, look, I’ll call you back in an hour.
    Can you make it sooner?
    I’ll do my best, Sunil said, hanging up.
    What was that about, Brewster asked.
    It’s a police matter.
    All the more reason I need to know what it’s about, Brewster said. Can’t have any potential security breaches.
    Remember the body dumps from two years ago?
    Of course, he said.
    The police think they’ve found the killer and want a psych eval from me, but I don’t think I’m going to do it.
    What’s the matter with you, Sunil? This is perfect for us, and in particular for your project.
    The killers are apparently conjoined twins.
    Imagine the opportunities. We’ve never had the chance to study the brain chemistry of a monster before.
    Sunil flinched at the medical term for genetic abnormalities. I study psychopaths, he said. Not monsters.
    And conjoined twins can’t be psychopaths?
    They can be, yes. But we have to be careful about finding psychopaths everywhere. My research has to be very focused and free of anything that could devalue its science. Besides, we both know that there is no killer.
    There’s always a killer, Sunil, Brewster said with a smile.
    Sunil hated Brewster. It was Brewster who said what everyone must have been thinking when they first met Sunil: You don’t look Indian. You are very dark; you look black.
    Which was true. Sunil was very dark, near black, with kinky hair, but still, he was pretty sure he looked Indian enough. After all, there were plenty of dark-skinned Indians.
    But when Brewster first said it, Sunil had wondered if he was referring to the fact that he didn’t look Native American, and felt his anger rise. But he realized years ago that it never helped to go down that path, so he explained that he didn’t look Indian because he was half Zulu, and no, they didn’t have Zulus in India, at least not that he knew of, but they did have them in South Africa. And yes, he added, there were a lot of South African Indians. Mostly in Durban, thank you very much, even though Sunil was from Johannesburg. Well, I’ve never met an Indian like you before, Brewster had insisted. What kind of Indian doesn’t have a lilt in their voice or talk with their hands and head? In that moment Sunil had been glad the man was over seventy; otherwise he might have given in to his urge to hit him.
    There was something else about Brewster that bothered Sunil. He reminded him of the old guard of apartheid: privileged and smug in their power, but even worse, carrying a deep conviction in their own rightness. Sunil liked his job, though, so he tempered his response. But that’s the thing with fights; if you fold too early, you keep folding.
    I don’t really know that much about conjoined twins, Sunil said. How their biology might affect their psychology.
    That’s okay, Brewster said. I will have the research department put a file together for you and have it delivered to your doorman tonight. It’ll be there before you finish at the hospital.
    Fine, Sunil said. He had to admit to himself that he was curious.
    Just make sure to sign the papers so we can have them for at least seventy-two hours, Brewster said. Here, at the Desert Palms, not County.
    This isn’t the way I like to work.
    Just go get me those monsters. With the weekend, we might get away with holding them for five days, Brewster said.
    Sunil returned to his office to get his stuff. The elevator took only a moment to get to him.
    As he stepped into the lobby and walked briskly to the front door he passed the usual Halloween decorations. There was one new addition this year: a hanging skeleton. He paused for a moment to regard the lynched figure and wondered if it was inappropriate before heading outside, where he