Divas Las Vegas (18 page)

What Justin said was true, but not what I really wanted
to hear. Underneath my boiling hatred, I still cared for
Marvin. Yes, I realize we had only known each other for a
few short days, but so what. Sometimes that's all it takes.

"Okay, I'll take that under consideration," I allowed.
"And that only leaves one person: Ahmed. And he was...
with, er..." (Uh-oh, I was trampling on shaky ground here.
Justin gave me a face that indicated I better shut up if I
didn't want to be murder victim number four, but it was
too late.)

"Ahmed was with who?" Jacques shouted, and rose to
his feet.

Justin rose as well and held Jacques's hands. Probably so
he wouldn't be bitch-slapped in the next few minutes. Then
he said, "Um, okay, you're not going to like this, but he was
with me."

"With you? With you? But I was with you!" Jacques
declared, loud enough for most of the patrons at the bar to
hear. Miss Thing was beyond caring by that point, though.
Man, he was red in the face, but that may have been some
preapplied makeup. It was awfully hard to tell.

"Yes, you were, sweetie. But then you left, and-"

"Oh, my God. You slut! And after all I've done for you
two. You have one hour to pack your things and leave this
hotel. I will not be treated this way!" he declared, and
stormed off in a huff, sounding too much like a wounded
Scarlett O'Hara. Thankfully, in his long history as a slut,
Justin was used to such theatrics. And the rest of the bar
seemed only too happy for the free show.

"I hate to say this," I said, "but let's not rule her out.

How much do we really know about Jacques, after all?"

"Idiot. He switched our rooms for us and knew that the
money was in the safe. Why would he kill two innocent men
like that?"

"Oh. True," I said. "There is one more suspect, an
unlikely one," I added. "But you're not going to be too
happy with me for telling you."

"Oh, God, now what?" he asked.

"Well, as you might have figured out by now, I ran into
Bradley yesterday. Though he goes by Brad now. Can't say I
blame him. Bradley sounds so formal. So stiff. So-"

"So continue, please! We only have an hour to find a
place to stay now."

"Oh, okay. Anyway, I may have mentioned to Bradley
where we were staying. It wouldn't have been too hard to
find out our old room number. Maybe he did recognize you
the other day at Caesar's, and when he saw you yesterday
he went wild with desire to see you again, broke into the
room, found two men sleeping there, thought it was you
and another man, and in a moment of insanity killed the
both of them," I suggested, rather animatedly.

"Are you through?" he asked, with a heavy sigh.

"Yes. Sorry," I mumbled.

"Good. Now let's go get our stuff and start looking for a
new place to stay. And may I say one more thing? This vase
adventure is turning out to be one big pain in the motherfucking ass. And I don't mean that in the good sense of the
term."

"At least we got to see the desert," I tried.

"Shut up, already!"

"'
ay.

First thing we did was call our travel agent back home.
When we told him of our predicament, he informed us of the
obvious: there were still no rooms in Vegas, as COMDEX had another several days to go. (Do you think COMDEX
was around two thousand years ago? Maybe that's why
Mary and Joseph had such a hard time finding a room.)
Then I called Chris at work. It took forever to get a hold
of him, but once I did, he told me that he wished he could
help, but that he didn't think it was a good idea to have
guests at his boss's boss's home for an extended stay. And,
to our greater dismay, he had rented his apartment out for
the week to some conventioneers.

So, dispiritedly, we packed our belongings and left our
lovely hovel away from home. No teary farewells. No long
goodbyes. Just a speedy exit to...to... Well, we had no idea
where we were headed, but we hopped inside a cab just the
same.

"Where to?" asked the cabbie.

"Just drive around a bit and we'll let you know in a few
minutes," I replied, and then looked over at Justin, beseechingly. I had a plan, but I knew he'd dislike it immensely.

"Uh-oh, I don't like that look, Lucy," he said to me in a
thick Cuban accent. "What are you thinkin' of doin'?"

"Okay, Ricky, here are the facts. The authorities have
forbidden us to leave Vegas." (The cab driver gave us a
nervous look when he overheard that, so I decided to have
some fun with him.) "Until we are cleared of the three
murder charges, we need to set up a new base of operation,
but there are no rooms at the inn. It's possible that someone
is trying to kill us, so we need to find a place where nobody
knows we're staying. We have no leads, nowhere to go, and
virtually no friends to contact. Except..."

"Except whom?" he asked, sneering at me.

"Well, we do know one other person who could help.
Someone who has hotel connections. Someone intimately
connected to us. Someone imperial..."

"Nuh-uh, not him. I'm sure there's a nice YMCA we can
stay at somewhere. Besides, I doubt he could help. And why make contact if he can't?" Justin said, but I sensed a lack
of resolve.

"Look, we have no other choice here. Let's at least go try
to find him and ask. What can it hurt?" I asked.

"It can hurt plenty, but, as much as I hate to admit it,
you're right. Let's make it fast, okay. In and out. I don't
want to prolong our meeting any longer than we have to."

I knew he'd cave. Justin is not one for YMCA life. Well,
maybe the showers, but certainly not the sleeping accommodations.

"Driver, Caesar's Palace, please," I commanded.

"Yes, sir." He obeyed, sounding a tad scared at having
two suspected felons in his backseat.

When we got to Caesar's, the cab driver said it was on
him, hurried us out of the cab, and sped away. I made a
mental note to remember that nifty little trick. I wonder
what else you can get for free if people think you're a homicidal maniac. Did Son of Sam receive complimentary haircuts? Did Ted Bundy have his lawn mowed at no cost? Just
a thought, but let's continue.

With luggage in hand, and yes, my moolah was with us
as well-so much for tight security-we made it inside and
parked ourselves, yet again, in the mall. When the gladiators started passing by, we knew our wait wouldn't be long.
And not five minutes later, the emperor's court appeared,
followed by Caesar himself. I let out a quiet "Yippee," and
was painfully nudged in the ribs for doing so. Justin was not
at all happy at our being there, but there was no way I was
going to sleep on a cot anytime soon. It was bad enough that
I was down one man and one hotel room, not to mention
one vase and three corpses.

Happily, Caesar spotted us right away; not too surprising,
as we were the only ones in the mall with more than several
pieces of luggage. Well, that and the big sunbonnets we had
on that we bought for a mere five dollars at one of the many discount stores along the Strip. Not wanting to make an
even bigger spectacle of our appearance there, he nonchalantly strolled over to our area and started making small
talk with us.

"Good day to you, fellow Romans," he said, Caesarly.

"Good day, your Highness," I said, and curtsied. Justin
slapped my ass and told me to knock it off. I grimaced and
whispered that he was jealous because he was just a mere
queen and Bradley was an emperor. Bradley giggled, very
unroyal-like.

"And what can I do for my loyal plebeians today?" he
asked, enjoying his status, tenuous as it might have been.

"Funny you should ask," I remarked.

"Oh, really? Anything I can do for the working-class
man, I'm here to help," he offered.

"Would anything involve finding us a hotel room? We
have, rather suddenly, found ourselves without a place to
stay and are in somewhat dire straits." I explained, without
going into the gruesome details.

He nodded, smiled, and stood there rocking on his
leather-clad feet. Justin rubbed his forehead and wrinkled
his brow. He absolutely hated not being in control. I, on the
other hand, had faith, and sat there smiling up at Bradley.
My confidence didn't go unrewarded.

"You are in luck, my friends. Caesar has friends in high
places." (Justin whispered to me, "I bet he made them in
low places, though.") "Bring your belongings to the bell
station and meet me for drinks at six in the main bar. Tell
the bell captain I sent you. I'm not promising anything, but
I'll do my best."

Justin and I nodded that we would indeed meet him at
six. Then we shook his hand, thanked him profusely, and
let him get on his royal way.

"See, not so bad," I said to Justin as we headed out of
the mall.

"Like taking candy from a baby... alligator," he replied.
"You know he'll want something in return."

"Please, dear heart, enough with the negative talk. We're
here, we're queer, and we're out of harm's way, for the time
being. So let's go enjoy the day, okay?"

"Fine, but when the time comes for the I told you so, you
better not get pissed."

"Fine by me. Now let's get rid of our bags and out of
this place."

Which we did. But first, Justin had a pit stop to make.
"Um, we have to go to the Aladdin before we do anything
else," he said.

"We do?"

"Mm-hm. Ahmed was supposed to come over tonight,
and I want to tell him that we're not at the Atlantis
anymore."

"Are you going to tell him where we are?"

"Maybe. I mean, we know it couldn't have been Ahmed.
He was with me the whole night during the murders.
Right?"

"I suppose so, but let's be careful about this. No more
dead people, okay?"

"I'll try."

So we headed on over to the Aladdin, which was basically
across the street from Caesar's. And since we are speaking
of geography, sort of, maybe I should quickly tell you about
the Strip in general.

It's about three miles long, but don't think it's not
manageable. Almost all the newer and fancier casinos run
along the last mile, where we had been the entire time.
The two miles that are ahead of that are scattered with the
remnants of the original Strip. Basically, everything before
Treasure Island and the Venetian is old. Here you'll find the
casinos your parents visited way back when: the Riviera, the
Sahara, Circus Circus (WARNING: Stay away. Maximum child overload.), the Stratosphere, etc. The one exception
to this is the Wynn, and this is just a smaller version of the
Bellagio, and not much worth the walk past the Venetian.
And if walking isn't your thing, and who can blame you,
then there's the inter-hotel tram or the double-decker buses
that run along the Strip, both for a small price.

So, unless you have unlimited time to spend in Vegas and
you're not trying to escape death, like us, you don't really
have to go to these places. They're tired and run-down and
full, full, full of old people and cheap tourists. (Save for the
Wynn.) There is one other exception, just off the Strip down
that way, and that's the Hilton. It's fairly grand, has a nice
casino, and best of all, houses Star Trek: the Experience. I
can't recommend this highly enough if you're even remotely
interested in Star Trek. Added bonus: there is a righteous
Star Trek casino tacked on. Oh, and a cool Elvis statue, for
photo ops.

Anyway, back to our adventure. We went directly to the
disco at the Aladdin to find Ahmed, as he had told Justin
that he was working days there now. The disco, not surprisingly, was dead, and there were only a few bartenders
working, none of whom were Ahmed-though all of them
looked sexy as hell in their little genie outfits.

"Can I help you?" asked the genie closest to us, who, as it
turned out, did sort of resemble our lithe little Palestinian.

"Yes, thank you, we're looking for Ahmed. He's a friend
of ours," Justin said.

Talk about your immediate reactions. His demeanor did
a complete one-eighty. He went from friendly to fierce at the
mention of Ahmed's name. He leaned across the bar to us
and whispered, in a rabid Middle Eastern accent, "Ahmed
no work here anymore. You know where he is? Tell me if
you know."

"No, no, we don't know where he is. We're looking for
him too," Justin said, stepping back a couple of inches, lest the bartender intended to reach over and grab him.

"If you see him, tell him Zahir is looking for him. You
tell him, yes? Is very important," he told us.

His tone indicated that Ahmed was in trouble, and
trouble was not what we were searching for-though it had
a certain knack for finding us. So we backed away, nodding
our heads to indicate that we'd tell Ahmed if and when we
saw him. Zahir nodded a gruff thanks and went back to
work. He scared the crap out of me, and I eagerly pulled
Justin away and toward the exit of the disco. But, just before
we were completely outside, we heard a "Psst."

Reluctant as I was to turn around, I did. Another genie
was beckoning us over to another bar on the other side of
the disco. This genie was blond and looked nothing like
Ahmed. I took this as a good sign, and we crept over so as
not to call attention to our return. Zahir seemed not to have
noticed. I breathed a sigh of relief when we were out of his
sight. Fortunately, the bright lights above the dance floor
blocked the two bars well enough to keep our second genie
conference a private one.

"Did I hear you asking about Ahmed?" asked the
bartender, thankfully with no sounds of fury, rage, or wrath
in his tone of voice.

"Yes, do you know where we can find him?" Justin
asked. "I was supposed to meet with him later on tonight,
and I need to change our plans."

"Actually, I'm not sure myself. He sort of, well, disappeared. Never said a word to anyone; just didn't show up
for work. And I miss him, too. He's a great guy," he said.