Sin City (22 page)

“Look, I'm sorry, but I've got to find my friend. It's urgent.”

“The way he looked, I'd leave him on his own.”

“What d'you mean?” I'm scared now. Did Victor see me with Snake Jake and walk off in a huff; or did he lose his game, lose a lot of money; or has he simply gone to have a pee?

“Did he say where … ?”

“Gimme a break, will ya? I'm tryin' to play, not run a datin' service.”

“All I want to know is …”

“Get lost. And if that's not clear, fuck off.”

I storm back to the bar, buy myself a daiquiri. Christ! They're rude in Vegas. I gulp my drink, try to calm my rage, calm down generally. If Victor's playing still, he'll be back in just a second, and if he isn't …

He can't have seen me, can he, with his back turned and his eyes glued to his cards? And even if he did, what's so terrible about exchanging names with just a passing stranger? Jake and I weren't kissing, for God's sake. All these guys are far too keen on gambling to waste precious time on clinches. No, Victor's gone to find me, obviously, and so long as one of us stays put, we'll meet up in a moment.

I drain my glass, join the few spectators by his table. Best for him to find me there, not loafing in the bar. I'm ashamed now that I was bored. That other player's girlfriend is still in harness, so to speak, boosting his morale. She's been there hours, yet still looks quite content. She's called a “sweater” – another jargon word, but one which Vic explained: someone who sits behind their partner and “sweats” for him or her, supports them, roots for them. They may be financial partners who've both put money up and have arranged to split the winnings. More often, they're just women – wives or girlfriends, submissive passive females with no part in the action, but who just sit tight and wait.

This one's brought her sewing and looks the picture of tame womanhood, plying her needle while the Big Guy does the winning. I must admit, it bugs me. It's like those Japanese wives who walk three steps behind their husbands, or these stupid cocktail waitresses who are simply sexual turn-ons for the men. One's wobbling past me now, her micro-skirt slit right up both sides to show her black lace knickers. It'll be the twenty-second century before Women's Lib hits Vegas.

I'm a sham, though, aren't I? I don't believe in Lib; am desperate for a man, don't feel real without one. I only picked up Jake because Victor seemed so distant, completely changed from the kind, devoted admirer he'd always been before. Once he sat down at that table, his face went cold and closed; mouth set hard, eyes steely. I was scared that was the real Vic, and that the indulgent tender one was just a play-act.

It all seems stupid now. Of course you've got to concentrate if you're a high-powered poker player, risking next week's caviare or next year's winter cruise. If I weren't so paranoid, I'd have just sat back and enjoyed it. It's nothing like the bridge evenings. Am I blind or something? They don't have dealers in red frilled shirts and bow-ties – not in Portishead; or men in diamond bracelets (one who's lost three fingers); or way-out female players like that gigantic blonde in frills who's brought her teddy bear and appears to be explaining all her hands to it. This is really living. It'll be a lot more boring back in Florence Ward, watching Ethel Barnes cheat at snakes and ladders.

No, it's Carole who's the patient – and I've decided to be Jan, placid, happy Jan, drinking it all in, waiting for her guy who'll be back in just three seconds …

Half an hour later, I'm still standing there without him. I'm really panicked now. He's left me, abandoned me, paid me back for my own disloyalty. He told me himself how casual people were in Vegas, how friendships never lasted, how the folks you met were mainly “transients”, passing through, passing on. Yet didn't he regret that, seem to want me as a friend? He never took his eyes off me, for God's sake. Perhaps he's ill, came over faint or something, gone back to his hotel.

I snatch my coat up, dash towards the exit. Dolt I am, hanging around this table like a ninny. I never even thought of his hotel.

“Caesars Palace, please, as quickly as you can.”

The cab streaks along the Strip, past the Sahara, Riviera, Circus Circus, Stardust, Sands, the Imperial Palace, all trying to outdo each other with their attractions and their light-effects. Caesars wins hands down – more fountains than the Gold Rush, more lackeys than the Ritz. It reminds me of Versailles with its dramatic sweeping entrance, its floodlit pools and trees, though its official theme is ancient Greece and Rome. There are Carrara marble replicas of all the classical statues, mostly over life-size and made at frightening cost – the Venus de Milo, Venus de Medici (and other assorted Venuses I've never even heard of); the winged Victory of Samothrace (which has neither head nor arms), and a score of naked gods doing nothing whatsoever to hide their private parts.

The ‘Rape of the Sabine Women' stands right outside the entrance – another blow to Women's Lib. I avert my eyes from the struggling shrieking victims, enter into gloom. The more exclusive the casino, the lower the lights. Here, you almost need a guide dog to find your way at all. I blunder past bronze sphinxes, alabaster Pegasuses – almost blasé now about the overkill. They're exhausting, these casinos. All that luxury seems to weigh you down, as if the bronze and marble is pressing on your skull; the hothouse air drying up your juices. And there's always so much noise – dance bands playing; gab and shrill from crowds of foreign tourists, the constant maddening jangle of the slot machines.

At least it's quieter by the hotel reception desk. I join the queue of people waiting to check in, gaze around at the dozen Christmas trees, the 1920s white Rolls Royce tethered on the carpet to advertise some show. It all looked so exciting when I saw it first with Victor. Was I mad to … ?

“Can I help you, Ma'am?” The impatient female clerk is tapping a red talon on her desk. I've wasted a whole second of her time.

“Er, yes. I … wish to contact one of your guests. Could you please phone up to his room, or get him paged, or …” I'm glad I've got the trench coat on. It gives my words some class.

“What name is it and what room number?”

“Victor …” I say, then stop. Victor who? Victor what? I must know. He told me, didn't he? And if not, wouldn't I have asked him? You can't spend two whole days with someone, have them paying court to you, telling you you're beautiful and still not know their surname. Anyway, wouldn't I have seen it on a credit card, a driving licence? An initial even, on a wallet or a pocket. Americans love monograms.

The girl grooms one sleek eyebrow with her pen. She manages to combine extreme heroic patience and politeness (she's even stopped her tapping) with a hint of sheer contempt. I rack my brains, gallop through the alphabet. Victor Ace? Victor Barnes? Victor Zebedee? Mind you, he didn't know
my
surname, or even Jan's. Names were a dangerous subject, one I deliberately avoided.

“Look, I … um … can't quite recall his other name. The first name's Victor. Vic.”

“If you have his room number, that will be enough, Madam.”

Madam doesn't have it. Madam is horribly embarrassed now, blushing and muttering, trying to explain to some supercilious desk-clerk that she's really bad at numbers and it's just slipped her mind. Perhaps I should guess a room, pick one out like a Keno number. But I haven't exactly proved my skills at Keno and there are only eighty numbers on the Keno board, not one thousand seven hundred (fifteen hundred rooms and two hundred suites at Caesars. I read it in my guide book.) The girl must imagine I'm some out-of-work hooker or a rejected Other Woman. Her expression suggests both at once. She's right. I
am
a failure. I haven't even seen his room. It didn't seem that strange at the time. We were so busy driving, dining, talking, playing, sightseeing, why sit around in stuffy hotel suites? Anyway, he's far too old for bed and I'd have simply slapped him down if he'd suggested it. He did stroke my hair and squeeze my hand, but that was different, not really sex at all. It made me feel – well – precious, which sounds soppy, but it's true. All my wild and greedy feelings had somehow all calmed down, and I felt just happy, mind and body.

Now I feel like grot. Victor didn't fancy me – that's obvious – even though I'm twenty-odd years younger. I just didn't turn him on. He mistook me for an escort girl, but a true Las Vegas escort or Brigitte Bardot look-alike would have been stripped off in his suite that very evening, not playing slots and stuffing steak, then sleeping in separate beds in hotels a mile apart.

Another complication: Victor still thought I was staying at the Tropicana; even drove me there both nights, said his chaste goodbye downstairs in the foyer. Both nights, I waited till he'd gone, then took a cab straight back to the Gold Rush. Oh, I know it sounds plain daft. Why couldn't I have explained, for heaven's sake, owned up about the lies, said I'd only made things up because I feared he was a mugger? But that's not exactly flattering, and anyway, I should have done it straight away, not let him get to know me as Jan, aged twenty-one, training as a florist, staying at the Tropicana. All lies.

More lies, as I try to fob the desk clerk off, answer her bang-bang-bang of questions. Am I a friend, or business contact? Can I leave my card? Do I remember where his room was – in the tower, or … ?

I've no idea. All I know is he didn't want me in it. I sniff my fingers, back away. Perhaps I smell of nicotine. Victor doesn't smoke, so it might have put him off. I can only smell Wild Musk, which the blurb says drives men wild. I'd sue them for false claims if I didn't feel so miserable.

I slink back the way I've come. Victor's trench coat seems to drag me down now. Forget the fact I didn't turn him on. I've lost him as a friend, as I lost Jon in the summer. Men don't like me, do they? I'm too bossy, too impatient, can only take, not give. I pass a brace of nymphs, six pairs of perfect breasts in non-sag marble. I hate this place. You can't walk a step without some Model of Perfection showing up your own flab.

I've reached the shops now. All the big casinos have their own boutiques – sometimes strings of them. I stare in at the toyshop. Even Caesars' dolls are dressed in mink. One has diamond earrings – real ones. I press on to the casino, wander idly up and down, bumping into people. Caesars' slot machines spell out little messages to encourage you to play. I stop in front of one. “Quick! Play me now,” it says. “I'm easy.” I just stand there doing nothing, so it tries again. “Cash in on your luck. You look like a winner.”

“You're joking,” I tell it. “I couldn't stop Jon going and now I've just lost Victor.”

“When you're hot, you're hot.”

“Victor didn't
want
me hot. That's what made it so relaxed. I could just be me and …” Well, actually, I couldn't. I doubt you ever can. You must always keep pretending if you want to keep a man. I should have played the sexpot, or the impassioned poker addict.

“Don't quit now,” the machine begs, trilling out its little tinkly tune.

“I haven't much alternative. He's gone.”

“Columbus took a chance.”

“Oh, fuck you.” If I'm reduced to conversation with a slot-machine, it proves I've got no friends.

No friends but Norah. Christ! Norah. I've totally forgotten her, left her hours ago, still feeling weak and ill. She needs me. I need her. She's my only link with England, the only one who seems to really like me, even when I'm vile.

I rocket to the exit, call another cab. It's Victor's money I'm using for these cabs. He never gave me money – wouldn't be so patronising – but when we played the tables, he laid all his bets for me, and every time he won, he insisted they were
my
winnings. It was only me who'd brought him luck, he said.

“Luck!” I snort, over-tip the driver, dash towards the lifts. Norah may be fast asleep. It's nearly midnight. Selfishly, I hope she's wide awake.

I find her with her eyes closed, but on her knees; kneeling on the carpet in our bedroom in just her thermal petticoat, one bare arm outstretched, palm held flat against the television set. For one ghastly moment, I assume she's gone quite gaga. Las Vegas can do that, so Victor said – drive people over the top. Then I see the godman. She's got her hand pressed against his own. He's dressed in primrose yellow with obtrusive gold back teeth which keep flashing as he smiles. He smiles a lot. He's telling us to keep our eyes tight shut, keep our hands pressed against the screen and to say out loud with him, “I expect a miracle.”

“I expect a miracle,” says Norah.

I don't move a muscle, just stay motionless, watching her in silence from the doorway, torn between pity and sheer fury. She's already wasted half our precious money, sending it to preachers who are already filthy rich and so blatantly commercial that Jesus would have whipped them out of the temples, overturned their God-wares – Jesus-printed tee shirts, Holy Spirit brandy glasses. They don't even preach in temples, but in huge great stadiums bristling with microphones and thick with hothouse flowers – God's pop stars playing to their groupies. The whole thing's just a racket. They're preying on the fears of mugs like Norah, frightening them or conning them, so they send off all their cash.

God! I was furious when she told me what she'd done. Victor was there, too, which was just as well, since I'd have probably lynched her otherwise. I admired him actually. He never raised his voice, yet calmed us both down, said what was done was done, and pointed out (later, and very tactfully and gently) that since I'd used, and lost, all Norah's gambling chips the very same evening, then maybe we were quits. He also made it up to us – gave me his own chips and all his winnings, and bought Norah the prettiest box of chocolates in the chocolate factory shop, slipped some ten-dollar bills beneath the coffee creams, then replaced the wrappings and the ribbon, so she'd think all the boxes came complete with cash.