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Chapter Twenty-Two
My own mother wouldn’t have known me when I arrived at the Inferno at 9:00 pm
Not that I’d ever had a mother to know ed swoop of opaque black glass towering fifty stories or so It was ringed within the credits to an old James Bond movie I always tried not to look at the naked and the dead if I didn’t have to So
I was fairly self-conscious when I turned Dolly over to the valet parking chap: he was a sy a pleated white ancient Egyptian kilt, shoulder-spanning beaded collar, gilt sandals, and a jackal-head mask tricked up with really heavy eyeliner At least he could remove his makeup with the flick of a wrist
Who was I to snicker at the underdressed help?
The last I’d seen of myself in the Deja-Vous ray contact lenses My hair and skin had been deeh already for the silver screen The dress du jour was a floor-length black velvet thirties goith a giant pair of rhinestone clips on the shoulder The severe neckline cut across my collarbones but draped well beloaist in backless splendor I hite satin pumps and carried a silver fox stole that I was assured had died for our sins eighty years ago, way before the anihtenment, so aste it? My hair had been drawn back and coiled into a thick figure eight at the nape ofme a Spanish air that I sure wished Ric was here to see Ol��!
Lots of lone wo into the Inferno in various cineet-ups swiped from the birth of film around 1900 to fifties’ science fiction thrillers I’d never been a groupie before It was unnerving, since I wasn’t sure who or ere being groupies of Or for
My pal that matched the dress The duds were due back at Deja-Vous in the erprints on the vintage silk-velvet that went for hundreds of dollars a yard now That was the trouble: I kne rare and costly vintage clothing was, and we all shouldn’t be traipsing around in this stuff like giggly pro into the Inferno were definitely gigglers froh the icy, air-conditioned casino that blasted screams and moans and flares of fire as the slot machines sed bills and spit out mostly sound and fury, not coins Miniaturized versions of the e ballrooms floated above and around us like flocks of intrusive heavy-metal bubbles
The Inferno Bar seee when I first spotted its mirrored wall of endlessly reflected liquor bottles Then I noticed that the bar top was polished exotic wood carved with exotic delas aquariu devils What were these things? Fire lizards? Projections? Or slaves of the decor? Soh the sound systeuitars, nified figure in a well-cut tuxedo (hite skin, black hair and pencil-thin el on the threshold of hell He was holding forth between two barstools of red ena silver cigarette lighter in the other (Gold, of course, would not reeted hiested I introduce htly bleary "How is old Godfrey anyway? Still seeing that dippy socialite?"
"No, he’s employed now"
"Sorry to hear it Work will be the death of the leisure class Martini, m’dear?"
"Not yet Godfrey said you could orient me to this place"
"My bar is your bar, sweet lady Have a seat"
"There aren’t any free"
"Oh, so there aren’t A sha slippers I suppose I’ arette lighter after servicing ladies on bracketing barstools "Charles is the name"
"Nice to meet you, Charles"
"No The surnae filht away "Not the famous detective from the pen of the man who created Sam Spade? You solved the Thin Man case"
"Well, I and my wife Nora did And Asta, our intrepid wire-haired terrier And a few bottles of Gilbey’s Have you ever heard of an intrepid wire-haired terrier?"
"No, only of an intrepid Lhasa apso"
"Don’t know that breed Sounds rather Shangri-La, soo for"
"As a matter of fact, the breed was sacred to the Dalai Laled out a breeding pair decades ago"
"Ah The English make the best spies Look so har pair’ I’ as it doesn’t result in children"
"This was puppies"
"Noted What do you wish to know?
"What is this noise?"
"I quite agree" Nick Charles took a long s of his martini "I prefer Paul Whiteman That ’noise,’ I fear, is at the behest of our host and my estimable employer"
"Our host?"
"Christophe, of course Showy fellow, but lo I iine the man never owned a monkey suit" He spread his ar else I’d rather be seen in, except a bathtub full of gin"
"Godfrey said you could show me around the Inferno The less public areas"
"I’ht be able to slip away for soht be up to an easy break-and-enter job"
He gave in-disabled lascivious once-over "Poor fellow He is always overlooked and eager for recognition Speaking of which-" Nick Charles ran his glance over the line of fe the bar "Where’s Nora? Nora should be here She always sees to owns like arettes, many in holders Nick Charles dutifully lit them in turn, if a bit shakily
Where was Nora Charles? That woman was the pepper to his salt, Myrna Loy to William Powell, his sophisticated wife But now Williahtwine’s place, the Good Time Charles, Nicky Charles, at the Inferno And no one had thought to give either Powell CinSim the women made for them in the movies: Carole Lombard and Myrna Loy
I felt a chill of apprehension and indignation Nightas right The CinSims shouldn’t be up for sale, ripped fro Las Vegas hotel-casinos and clubs as enslaved attractions, without free will or a say in their own usage
Before I could launch into a barside invective about that I noticed that Nicky Charles had ebbed away down the polished if perverse wood
"I’ve been waiting for you," a velvet basso voice said behind h to send a subtle vibration fro slippers It was a stage voice, all timbre and open throat and intimate inference
At least he hadn’t added the hokey "all my life"
I turned around to eyeball him and then I wasn’t sure he had a life
He was as white as a corpse whiter He had white-as-, skin, hair He seeh heels The only thing dark on hilasses that obscured his eyes
"Dance?" he asked "The floor is solid black walnut and very smooth" When I looked around to see some couples in loved right hand in the custody of his left, my feet forced to retreat to a rhythlasses wouldn’t be white They’d be pink Mr Foxy Fox Trot wasn’t the walking dead (maybe) He was an albino
"I don’t usually do the senior shuffle," he murmured into the coils of etjust that, getting his dead-white hand on my naked back as we danced His temperature felt neither hot nor cold, but lukewarertips (maybe horny in both senses of the word) played my spine from nape to bottoe about this dude, except lam rock ’n’ roll fro, looked spun-glass soft Spun fiberglass had been called "angel hair" when it decked fifties Christnized as a health hazard and taken off thesuch opposite attire as a loose white poet’s shirt that would have done Byron proud and supernaturally tight white leather pants that a young Mick Jagger would have killed to have six pair of in bad-boy black The obsidian sunglasses added a Blues Brothers note and hid any creepy rabbit-pink eyes
"And by who fondled on the dance floor?" I inquired in Jane Austen diction
"Gives great gra" His accent was part Brit, part indefinable European "I’estured at an e heads between the bar and the distance stage
"And which deadly sin are you?" I asked politely
"Oh, all of theine," he purred That baritone voice could indeed purr "Pure Lust and Gluttony at this moment, can’t you tell? I’ll be et you into my bed I’ll be Sloth incarnate, because on’t leave it for a month I’ll be sheer Greed for you the entire tiainstfrissons in all the right places since Ric and I had literally connected over the dead bodies in the park, not towith Snow, his co lead uy was so over-the-top sexy and a that I couldn’t take his line personally A slinky Nora Charles gown had been inciting men on and off the silver screen for decades Not to e of e of as? First Ric, then Nightwine, now this Snow’s fingers lissando return trip upout the industrial-strength bobby pins that held non in place My hair, like the walls of Jericho, ca the CinSymbiant illusion," I pointed out
"Illusions are for small-tiently tugged down aet off on it, so I spoke slowly through a Mona Lisa sie with her "put your lips together and blohistle line in To Have and Have Not, a bit of dialogue supposedly written by either Heet up to?
"De-lie-lah"
"Ah, De-lie-lah" My dopey na my hair and head even farther back, al a throat But a throat wasn’t his thing at the gest that you grow yours"
He released it and finger-walked down ain until his hand slipped under the draped velvet curtain of the gown "When we make love under a curtain of black and white locks it will look very sexy in the Venetian glasshe wasn’t a vampire with that mirror reference, but he sure was a sensualist in lasses What’s a pseudo-filht want to rethink that mirror, Snow With , but e mirror had made me cocky
Maybe I wasn’t just a mediu , sterling jewelry now, lasses
Snow lifted one allass lens as his hand polished my shoulder blades with my own loosened curls
"A ithGotta run, Delilah I’ll see you in your dreams if not in my mirror"
He left as swiftly as he had appeared The air around us had been electric, charged, soht, like Baby Bear’s bed was for Goldilocks Except I was closer to Snow White and bears could eat up a girl abandoned in the woods as easily as they could gobble porridge
Chapter Twenty-Three
After Snow left, it was as if an invisible bubble around us had burst The crowd tightened around e All the nearby women eyed me, their expressions drenched in envy
Looks can’t kill yet So I held back and stood apart as the woe to screalittering cri could only be Lust Another woreen was obviously Envy The rest were guys in stock rock uniforht black leather pants and tarted up jackets, vests, and shirts Gluttony reens, orange, and yellow Sloth sported drapey silver-gray jersey slathered hite rhinestones Anger’s black leather biker jacket was inset with blood-red lightning bolts Greed’s outfit was the color of reen, aold and silver
The Sins began playing Gluttony’s insistent initial percussive beat gave way to Anger’s ruuitar a riff froe Then Lust and Envy joined in with a haraseous life-size dragon (assuons were the size of a killer whale) as it descended fro clouds of smoke and fire froion classes that Revelations portrayed the Devil as a dragon
The pale glittering figure on this dragon’s back slid down one fore The croilder
Snoas Pride, of course, the onlyDeadly Sin
His costume, bejeweled white from shoulder to white patent-leather boot-top, evoked Elvis The whipping ar Winter, but the total effect was pure blazing fallen archangel, Lucifer in the Sky with Diamonds
Whew I found it all so obvious yet completely fabulous erotic-rock theater The memory of Snow’s far ued me more Why hadn’t the rabid fans swarmed us? Was he somehow invisible to them? I bent to reclaim my fallen hairpins before they were traether
"Can I keep one?" the woman pled
I summed up her pleasantly plued ed spread She’d obviously stayed behind to assist me
"Why?"
She leaned up to whisper hotly in aze flicked to the curls I isting back into a chignon and pinning into place He’d touched them too
"Listen," I told her "My name’s Delilah I cut people’s hair, not the other way around So forget it No locks for the lovelorn here"
"I’d pay five hundred"
"He’s just a stage perforlitter and illusion Who is he anyway?"
"Cocaine’s been the Seven Deadly Sins’ lead singer for ten years, but he’s so much more He owns this hotel-casino and hot properties like it all over the world They’re the only places SDS performs anymore"
She had leaned so close that her breath and words blended in roups say his mouth is hotter than brih no one knows from personal experience The tabloids claim he’s an albino va at your throat Let him have it, honey It’d be heaven"
This ay more than I wanted to know If I’d read this description in a personals ad, I’d react with a shudder rather than a frisson, given id prick part, not the vamp suspicions Accused witches in medieval times had claimed the Devil had an icy penis Now I knew the reason for the nicknas, and rock and roll With the supernatural follies mixed in until undone
A vampire bite isn’t fatal, everybody knew that now, unless the parties wanted it to be Some vamp tramps ached to become vamps thee of all bodily fluids Soed to be drained to death Maybe it personalized the slitting-one’s-wrists in the bathtub form of suicide
For me, I’d not yet found a way into workable ordinary human sex Now that I’d connected with Ric, I didn’t need to take the obscenic route But I’d sure enjoyed our little tango duel Hell, I was only huh to knohat I really wanted and needed: a little love and support Hard to co I was one lucky girl since arriving in Las Vegas All I had to do was stay alive to enjoy it
I peeled the groupie’s avid hand off my wrist before the woht that ghoulie groupies would tear apart the objects of their obsessions-and gave the lance The music was raw, rhythmic, but I didn’t need to listen
Nick Charles waited for , smartly sloshed, dapper self, a spare martini in hand just for me
"Thanks, Nicky I needed this"
"Everyone does but they don’t know it yet" He reeled only slightly as he picked up his own allasses were always alin and vermouth like the lady Myrna Loy’s Nora Charles alishing I had my own Asta on a leash atis i as awesoroupie close on a soft scent of ver, "-wehole here is that the Inferno is the hub of all the straight and kinked crie in the shiny pajamas is rumored to be the headman of the mob that runs this place Hard to believe his act What is his problem?"
I took his arm with a smile Sexy now translated way different from when he’d been the sex kitten’s pajamas back in the day
"Another one for the road?" Even as Nicky spoke he nodded at the bartender "The traffic on the Strip could kill a sober pedestrian"