10. Dice

One time he came to the housing complex after he had been away for a while.

“When he got to the house, he had presence for me and my mom.”

He said he'd been in Las Vegas for work. My mom got a bottle of perfume.

Forever after that small always made me think of her.

For me, there was a pair of cancelled dice. He told me that at the big new casinos, they only used the dice a few times and then punched holes in them so they couldn't be used again, just in case someone messed with the dice somehow. I put the dice in my coat pocket and carried them around with me, just like the bullets.

Another boyfriend before that one was really into guns. He let me go shooting bottles with a friend of his. I loved it. One time he took me with him to a guy who made bullets, and the guy gave me a few, I kept them in my pocket all the time.

The long one for a military rifle and the short ones for pistols. He told me one was a silver bullet, but I didn't really believe them. Like I said, those dice stayed in my pocket for a long time. I must have lost them somewhere.

It always seemed like a waste to me to use these dice a few times and then punch holes

in them and then get rid of them. The doctors told us for a bit gotten lucky. He pulled his foot out before the burn got too deep. It would be hell for a while, but then it'd be okay. Verv and I left the hospital with some instructions, so keeping the wound clean and coming

back the day after to make sure there wasn't any infection. It was looking like I had hundreds of miles of driving ahead of me tonight. Verv wasn't going to be able to drive his truck, and I was going to have to drive him all the way back to his trailer.

“Do you know anyone in town who could drive you back home?”

In town? No, sure. If he'd get me back home, we could talk about Buddy Cannon on the way, and he could get me around fine. It was 7.30 on Saturday night. PD's friends were going to be at the bar, and I had to go talk to them. There was no way I could drive Verv out to the desert now, and then get back and time to talk

to PD's friends. I couldn't believe what I was about to do, but I didn't see that I had much choice. Verv was a convicted felon, but I knew we had nothing on him, not even a wallet. If I leave you in my room for a couple of hours, are you going to behave? "Well, I'd rather rather get back home if it's all to send you."

It's not all the same. I have to meet some people tonight. I can't drive you back until after that. I left him in my bed. I had my gun with me, and all the ammunition. I wasn't going to leave

“anything important in the room. I put all the files I had into my briefcase, and I slipped”

plays wallet in there as well. I've dropped Verv's foot up on a pillow and showed him how to use the remote control for the TV. He got a real kick out of the remote. He kept clicking and clicking until it was driving me nuts. The bar was indeed just down the block. It wasn't too far from the cemetery where I'd met J.B. straw. Everyone called it the Meridian Bar, but the sign said Meridian Crossing.

There were wooden cutouts of planets and stars nailed to the clapboard front of the building. Inside a wall of smoke hung over the handful of bar flies hunched over their bottles. The interior was half what I'd expected. Neon science or bud wiser and jacked angles, fat wing doors leading to what I guessed was the kitchen. Typical gold miners slot machines with a couple of desparados emptying their pockets. But there were also a lot of glowing crystals

on the wooden bar. Healing posters of astrological signs all around the room. A bunch of faded styrofoam moons and Saturn's hung from the ceiling. He was mumbling to the bartender,

a slim woman, maybe in her 60s, with long grey hair that you could tell she would never cut short.

the bar as far from the mumbling drunk as I could. The bartender looked at me with eyes like dead stars.

“"What can I get you?" What I really wanted was a warm bed in a night of peace.”

7 on 7. She seemed to vote half satisfied with that as she turned to open the fridge. We're out of 7 up and sprite. How about a ginger ale? This really wasn't my night. How would a glass of coars? Coars? I can do. The trucks late with the soda as usual. No problem. We don't get coars out of you anyway. She leaned in close. "I don't want you bothering the customers asking a lot of questions about those kids.

People come in here to find peace and forget their troubles." I'm meeting someone here.

Those black hole eyes pulled me in. "Nothing's going to bring those kids back anyways."

"You don't know that, and we don't want to lose anymore, right?"

“The obviousness of what I'd said hit her like a comet. She just walked away.”

"I tried not to look with the slobbering mess at the end of the bar I was lurching towards me. My eyes were locked on the TV. The love vote was on, but it was no use." "Did you start off higher or there?" "No." "Yeah, I was you." "You're the whole official ass." "Hey, those guys the guy who sit the whole world on fire." The bartender passed by. She made no attempt to rescue me. I even thought she had a bit of a smirk on her burned-out hippie face. "Oh, that's okay."

"You didn't mean to set it properly, but you got to put that fucker out so it's too dark now."

I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was PD's friend from earlier. "Don't mind, Andy. So I didn't see when you came in. We're at the back at the pool table." We were the only ones in the back room. A coin-operated pool table, a couple of tables. I sat down at one with PD's friend Adrian and a couple. They were all about PD's age. "Minky." "Last name, Nikki?" "Mune." "I saw writing in my no-pad.

Nikki Moon, is that your legal name?" Her boyfriend was about to say something, but she cut him off. "That's my name." "Okay, and you are...bris." "Bris, get us." Now I had another reason to stop writing. That name was familiar. I was pretty sure I'd read that name when the list of people in the county with prior convictions for certain kinds of crimes. I tried not to let on that the name was familiar. Gattas, G-A-T, Titchies.

"Thanks for meeting with me. I know it's a devastating thing when something like this happens to someone so young. Just so you all understand, what happened to PD happen in crepiscule county and Utah, and this is that sheriff's case. The FBI is here about the missing and murdered kids, but with so many serious crimes in a short time in a place like this, we have to wonder if there's some connection. While I spoke, Adrian stared at his beer, Nikki and Bruce picked away at a

plate of nachos and cheese. "Can you stop taking the ones with all the cheese?" "Sorry, I was just taking the ones from my side." "No, you weren't. That one was on my side." "So how do you guys know PD?" "Pugging over friends since we were in grade four." "Muneums in high school." "Any idea why someone would do something like this?" "Maybe fucked up someone's car." "Shut up! Don't be such a jerk!" "P PD was a nice guy. I ruined like them. One thing I keep thinking about. He hated being out

“in a desert." "That's true. Remember how scared he got when he went out to the sun tunnels for the”

solstice?" "That's right. He kept saying we should get back to town before the sun lined up with the tunnels. The sun tunnels are some kind of art installation out in the desert. A big bunch of concrete cylinders with holes in them that line up with the sun on the solstice and equinox. "That's so spooky that he ended up dying out there." "It was beginning to dawn on me that I wasn't going to get far with these guys. If this was the memorial get together for a dead friend, I felt pretty bad for

the guy. Still might as well learn as much as I could from these jokers." "I'm a blockjack dealer at the casino. I got a job there right after high school. I'm going to try to be a pit boss in a few years." "I work at a hardware store. I install barbecues and things like that." "I'm a student." "Oh, is there a college around here?" "It's a correspondence course. Herology." "Horology?" "That's

ears and for the first time. I noticed that Nikki wore all sorts of ornate fantasy type jewelry.

We're saving up to open a store in Reno or maybe Las Vegas where we can sell her watches to people. "And are you working?" "The course takes up all my time." "You live with your parents still."

“"No, we live together. He's got a crappy little apartment above a store." "What do you guys do for fun?”

You mentioned you go out to the desert sometimes to see the tunnels?" "We don't go out that much. We're just trying to save." "Like he said?" "So Petey hated the desert. Being alone out there with your killer and a place you hate. What a way to go. And those friends. Bruce Gattas. Curiosity got the better of me.

A few blocks from the bar I pulled over and got the files out of my briefcase. Bruce Gattas. D.O.B. July 1960. conviction for misdemeanor peeping. I could see that.

“submissive guy who secretly perverted their dime a dozen.”

It was enough to put him on my radar. His girlfriend Nikki, the horrorologist, she gave me the creeps to. My first instinct at Saline's crime scene was dumb kids. And these kids fit the bill. Nikki might have been the one who put the marigolds on Saline's body. Now I had Jarvis and these kids to surveil. And I still had to go meet Cannon, who lived out by Verve. Verve. As I pulled into the casino parking lot, something truly terrible occurred to me.

It was midnight. I was exhausted. There was no way I'd be able to pack Verve back into my car, drive him out to his place tonight, and then drive all the way back to town.

“No one at the front desk battered an eye when I asked for a roll-away bed. It must have been a pretty”

regular occurrence here. When the guy rolled the bed in and set it up, another horrible realization hit me. I'd been thinking I would move Verve to the cot and then I'd sleep in the bed. I could see now that that wasn't going to happen. Verve was half asleep. Probably a bit woozy from the demoral. And the roll-away bed wasn't really big enough for me to prop his leg up on. I'd made up my mind to make the best of things until I laid down on the cot and felt the metal

bars digging into my back. Still, I was so tired. It didn't take long to fall asleep. What? Good I asked you for a glass of water. That medicine sure made me thirsty.

Jesus Christ, I was never going to get any sleep.

I laid back on my bed of nails and broke out in a cold sweat. If anyone ever found out I'd brought this guy in here, Hoover had a habit of blocking people from raises or promotions for a lot less than this. I could just imagine him up there hearing about this. He'd been in an iron long up on the 7th floor of FBI HQ since 1972, but he was still running the show. Besides Verve, how many people knew he was here. I was counting them up when I must have drifted off.

Agent Harvey. Agent Harvey. You awake. Oh man, I still feel that awful feeling. I did some terrible things Harvey. I once shot a guy. I was just so young and stupid in it and I just watched the life go out of his eyes. I was so angry that I was actually glad he was dead. But it was self-defense. Judge said so too. So he only gave me 10 years. But I know all of all that I didn't have to kill that man. I couldn't stop short, but it didn't.

I know I always fuck things up. I'm thinking if I just retired out here left everybody alone,

dead eyes on me. And I know he is. Ever since I went to that damn pond.

“I was staring up at the red light of the smoke detector by this point and Verve was looking right at me.”

I couldn't pretend to be asleep, but I really didn't know what to say to that. You did your time. You just have to learn to forgive yourself. As soon as I said that, I regretted it. What a stupid bromide. He kept tossing and turning. I'm so sorry for taking your bad age in Harvey. I just fuck things up my whole life. It's nothing I meant to. It's like I just rolled a bad number and got stuck with it and I can't get away from it

no matter what I do. Those eyes. Those eyes. They just always stare at me.

Get away. Get away. I know Verve. Maybe you did roll a bad number. You just got to keep going. You never know how things might turn out. I was half delirious myself. I just wish I could roll it again, Agent Harvey. Just one more roll. But get your thing right.

“Just go ahead and forgive yourself. The guilt is crippling. You have to let it go.”

I close my eyes and fell down through the bed into the casino. Some rotting hand on a lever, pulling it. Santa's candy cane spinning. Then dozens of rotting hands on dozens of levers. Every pole sounded like a saw cutting down a tree. Half rotting zombies forever pulling on the slom machines. One hit a jackpot and yelped in some impossible way. And it's like all his parts spun

around and rearranged themselves. New cattered clothes. A different zombie with some uncanny newly one passed. The lever is kept sawing until I knew that I was staring at the red light of the smoke detector. With verbs snores reverberating around my head. Three I am. The air was too hot and close. Reaching up and shaking a verb had no effect. Whatever drugs he'd taken kept him blissfully asleep. I needed air.

Being in the huge casino parking lot was some relief. At least now it was night and it was supposed to be dark. Since I was up I might as well make the rounds check in on everyone.

My first stop was outside Katie May's house. The house was dark and I prayed she was getting some sleep.

Maybe I shouldn't have lingered so long. The fence with the ribbons and horns and the pumpkins.

“The truth is that I had to fight off the urge to knock on her door and talk to her for a minute and”

see if she was okay. Up the road I watched a man leave Julie's legal brothel and waffles. He looked around furtively, popped into his truck and drove off. Was the brothel kitchen open all night? The thought crossed my mind that I could just sleep here in the car and then I'd see Katie May leaving for work. But there'd be too many questions. A couple of the girls came out of the brothel. They let cigarettes and looked my way.

I put the car in gear and drove off. The welder's shack was only a few blocks away. Who knows Jarvis seemed like the type to keep odd hours? I didn't really expect to find anything, but his truck was there and there was some kind of light glowing in those high dirty windows. When I got out of the car I closed the door as quiet as I could. My breath caught when I heard it. Some kind of whimper from inside. It wasn't Jarvis.

Call for backup. It's Jarvis and a kid. If he's in there with a kid, you can't wait.

The door was steel and I didn't know if I could kick it down. 357 up. FBI opened up. There was a commotion inside. Open up now. I'm coming. Hang on. He opened the door and a wave of steel smoke and beer breath hit me.

“Hey! Jarvis had no shirt on. What the hell are you doing here?”

Didn't the sheriff tell you to lay off of me? I pushed past him. Only to find a woman in a bra pulling

her jeans on. She was thin, maybe 40, badly weathered and definitely not Sarah Sue. I didn't do anything. Happy now you asshole. I took in the scene. There was a ratty couch on one side of the shack. A little card table with two chairs. On the card table there was a half empty cart and a marble burrows and a lot of empty beer bottles. There were tools and equipment on the other side. Even with them being in here with a woman I was justified. I'd heard a high pitched

whimper. This guy was a suspect. Thanks for fucking my night up. Can you get out of here? That carton is cigarettes. I knew how he'd paid for it. I could have thrown up. I could have

“smashed him in the face with the bottom I'd pistol. Why the fuck you just stand in here?”

I'm calling the sheriff about this tomorrow. I holstered my weapon. This was a lot of sleeves, but that's all it was. This jackass didn't have anything to do with the missing kids. He didn't do away with his stepson so he could sell his toys for beer money. Just to run of the mill revolting stepparent. He followed me outside. Hey, you ain't gonna tell Sarah Sue about this. Who is she? You gotta understand. I didn't do nothing to Gabe. You believe that, right?

Just don't fuck things up for me, okay? I didn't say anything. She's a neighbor's wife. You saw that graffiti on the walls. For all man thinks something's going on between us. You know how it is. Pushy gets there and my right. I walked to the car and got in without a word. It was stuffy and hot and verv was still snoring. And I was wound up like I'd just been in a

fight. The caught creek when I got back in. I wasn't worried about waking my sedated friend, but I didn't expect to get much sleep. Exhaustion took over faster than I'd expected, though. The dice were rolling with faces on every side. They fell down like a game of planko, a board full of pegs, bouncing randomly into one spot or another. They all had mothers who loved

them. At the bottom, you never knew how they'd end up. Jarvis was living his revolting existence.

Verv, one bad peg after another until he'd ended up here in my room. What the hell happens to

“people? A new Harvey still bouncing back and forth? Where are you going to land?”

That was episode 10 dice. Hard to believe it's been 10 episodes already. In this episode, we have Alan and low as Verv, Sabrina Nappet, as Libra, the bartender, Roamy Evans, as Nikki, Mike Maserkovic, as Adrian and Bruce end of the bar fly and Pete Flatiche as Jarvis the welder. The show is written and produced by me, Chris McClure. I edit, create the sound design, play almost all the music. And just a reminder, season one of Harvey and hell will be 18 episodes,

and season two will be 12 episodes. If you are enjoying the show, consider supporting it by signing up for ad-free early access and bonus material at Harvey and hell.com, leaving a rating a review, and hope to see you next week. Thank you for listening.