I repeated it in my head, committing it to memory. He looked like he expected me to recognize his name, but I didn’t know who the hell he was. I hadn’t exactly been around Vegas long enough to know who the important people were and besides, I wasn’t exactly having drinks with the mayor.
He waited a minute, then asked. “And you are?”
I opened my mouth, “Joe” on the tip of my tongue. Instead, I heard myself speak. “Hammer.”
“Hammer,” he said, nodding. “What you did to my guy out there, you were a beast. Better than anyone I’ve seen in a long time,” he said. “You get the right training and you could do well for yourself.”
“Thanks,” I said. “But I’ve got a job.”
Aston laughed. “I’m sure whatever it is you do, the purse on these fights will be worth it.”
Whatever it is I do. I stifled a laugh. I wasn’t exactly in the poorhouse, doing the kind of security work I was doing. “I don’t need a job.”
He scowled, and I was certain it was because he wasn’t used to being told no. He reached into his pocket and withdrew his business card, handing it to me. I didn’t take it.
“I don’t think I stuttered,” I said. “Did I? I said, I already have a fucking job.”
He glared at me through narrowed eyes, then slipped his business card back into his pocket. This pretentious douchebag rubbed me the wrong way, and not just because he was with the girl from the casino. I didn’t fucking like his attitude, walking in here like he owned everyone and everything and could purchase me. Especially at one of Benicio’s places. Fuck him.
Aston’s eyes drifted around the room to each of the men standing there, and then toward the door. “I’ll be seeing you around, Hammer,” he said.
“Count on it.”
When he exited, I looked past him in the doorway, searching for a glimpse of her. It was an automatic response, something I did without even thinking about it. I knew I didn’t like that guy, and I liked the idea of her being with him even less.
It was my weekly ritual, one of the few things in this life that gave me a moment of peace. The monastery stretched out before me, the grounds a reflection of their Thai and Burmese influences. The buildings were trimmed in gold, characteristic of the temples that were so common in southeast Asia.
The first time I'd come here to the monastery, it had seemed strange, the idea of a Buddhist monastery in Las Vegas, a city dedicated to everything that a monastery was not-sex, gambling, drugs, and alcohol. But I quickly realized that all of those things were precisely the reason this monastery existed in this town. It was a refuge, an escape from the harsh, gritty, ugly realities of life in Las Vegas.
Of life in general.
At least, this is what it was for me. Even though I had never come here for a retreat, and only rarely to meditate, I still thought of this place in much the same way I suppose people view their own houses of worship as a place of refuge, a sanctuary from all of the things in life trying to harm me.
For me, it was also a place to atone.
I did not believe in the idea of heaven and hell. To me, there could be nothing worse than the hell through which I had already been, the hell through which my sister and my son had been put through. If there was a hell, it didn't scare me. I had already been through far worse, and I was still alive.
Even so, I felt the need to atone for the things I had done, the things I was forced to do while being with Aston.
And the things I planned to do.
I hoped that all of the good deeds I might accumulate might somehow balance my karmic debt, might somehow push the balance in my favor.
But no matter how many good things I did, it would never be enough. It would never erase the fact that I'd been responsible for my sister, and that I'd failed to protect her.
The same way I couldn't protect my son now.
I looked up to see Tayza Sayadaw, the senior monk, walking toward me. He was a constant source of goodness in my life, a life that was ever changing, chaotic, frequently filled with acts of depravity and darkness.
His saffron colored robes swirled around him as he moved, his feet bare on the gravel except for the minimal sandals he wore. He was an older man, but like most monks, seemed to possess an ageless quality that I'd always thought was because they spent their lives in pursuit of enlightenment.
I bowed my head slightly as he approached me.
"Meia," he said, his voice soft.
"Tayza Sayadaw," I said, holding my donation and offering of food for the monks. It always seemed like a pittance, compared to what I took from coming here, the soothing this place did for my soul. He took it wordlessly, our routine perfected by a hundred weeks of practice. It was a strange choreography, our dance, the monk and the sex slave.
“You look worried, Meia,” Tayza noted. He noticed everything. He'd said something, once, about the bruises. I didn't answer, told him I couldn't answer, and he stopped asking. I think he understood that I wouldn't.