by Andrews
She pointed to the chart she had created, her finger tracing the symbols for the six planets that had found their way into the Eighth House at that exact moment in time. Then she fired up her laptop, plugging in numbers and data, tapping on the keyboard and watching the planets change position on the screen, finally announcing decidedly, "October thirty-first, Halloween, Las Vegas, three p.m., with a new Moon, and Mars at 29 critical degrees, the day of the groundbreaking, part of an Eighth House Stellium in Scorpio!" Callie explained how she'd told him that kind of power, particularly in the Eighth House, could be used for good or for evil, depending on one's intent, so he would have to watch carefully to avoid the darker side of the hotel business.
"He laughed and said, 'Tell you what, Blondie, if this joint ever gets into trouble growing up, I'll send for you.' I asked how I would know it was he, and he smirked, 'I'll give ya a little clue,' and in a mock whisper, as if he were saying Rosebud, he uttered, 'Stellium in Scorpio,' and then laughed, shouting to Robert, 'Like your girlfriend, Isaacs. Very entertaining little broad.' And then, I'll never forget it, he looked at me seriously and said under his breath, 'That guy ain't no good for you.'"
"Meaning Isaacs?" I asked, and Callie nodded. "I like the guy already. Who is he?"
"Mo Black," Callie said.
"So what's on this little torn piece of paper?"
"Just the Eighth House—with the Stellium in Scorpio," she said quietly.
"Sounds like he's trying to tell you something about the hotel. Right after I make love to you," I said, pulling her into me, "we'll give Mo Black a call and hear what he has to say."
"Mo Black is dead," Callie said.
Chapter Four
I picked up the phone and explained in detail to the woman at the front desk that I'd found a manila folder bearing a hotel logo in my suitcase and I had not put it there, so someone had rifled my luggage. The woman apologized, but she wasn't too concerned beyond that. After all, a manila folder hadn't ever harmed anyone to her knowledge. I didn't tell her about the astrological chart, which would have taken me all day to explain. I decided to wait and see if whoever put it there would follow up. My focus was on Callie and just being as close to her as was physically possible.
"What did she say?" Callie asked when I hung up the phone.
"She wants me to bring it down to the front desk. We'll do that later," I said, pulling her down on the bed and kissing her, going instantly hot.
"We'd better do that now." Callie pulled away and slipped her jacket back on. "We might be busy later." She kissed me again.
"Thanks, Elmo." I shot him a look. "Your sussing out this folder in my suitcase has derailed my evening. Try to remember that you're a basset hound, not a bloodhound, okay? You're cramping my style."
Elmo snorted as I headed out the door.
I bolted across the lobby and slapped the folder onto the counter at the front desk, more out of sexual frustration than anger over my luggage being invaded. The young woman behind the desk gave the folder the once-over and asked if there was anything in it. I hesitated before replying that there wasn't. She then exhibited true managerial finesse by inquiring if the folder had damaged any of my clothes, or if the ink had rubbed off on my luggage, or if it had caused any other issue for which she could reimburse me, thus diverting me from the real issue of my luggage having been opened. I mentally applauded her polished handling of my circumstance and went back to Callie with the news that there was no news about the envelope.
"As long as we're downstairs, there's someone here I have to meet, a client's daughter. Will you go with me?" Callie asked. "Her last show ended at 11:00 p.m. We might catch her at the theater."
I was miffed to say the least. I hadn't seen Callie in weeks, we were here to be together, and our reunion was feeling like two sorority sisters away for a weekend. Self-doubt was my psychological Samsonite. I tried not to take it on every trip, but I had to admit to myself that it did appear that Callie Rivers wasn't exactly unable to stand it until we made love. Here we are visiting showgirls, for God's sake! I thought as I followed her along the trail of posters and banners that heralded the Boy Review as the oldest, biggest, and best nightclub act in Las Vegas!
"You look smashing, those strong legs, and your great ass," Callie said and leaned in, kissing me on the lips before veering off toward the hotel theater. I perked right up. I am so easy! I thought.
The Review was a staple with visitors to the fabulous Strip because it had just the right combination of exotic costumes, death-defying feats, and blatant sexuality that appealed to everyone—a blend of male and female and a challenge to determine which was which.
"Why do you have to go see a showgirl?" I asked.
"My client is worried about her. She's young. There are a lot of things you can get into here."
"Yeah." I put my hand down the waistband of her pants. "Gotta watch yourself all the time."
She jumped and batted my hand away as we walked hurriedly along the concourse beneath the wide expanse of massive marble that reached to the sky, then arched and crisscrossed the heavens in graceful arcs that ran as far as the eye could see. The hotel was stunning.
The in-hotel theater was a city block's distance from the main lobby. In fact, no two places were conveniently together. Just getting from the gift shop to the front desk was a feat. People left the lobby for the elevators and while still in sight shrank to half their size due to the distance between each destination, and if you weren't tired when you checked in, you would be by the time you walked to your room. Mo Black obviously loved Italian grandeur, because the Desert Star was, sans gambling machinery, an architectural homage to the spacious and dramatic cathedrals of Rome. I couldn't imagine what a structure like this cost, or what people paid to sleep in this cathedral. I was just glad our rooms were comped.
A young boy with a name tag that read Desert Greeter Joey opened the theater door for us, revealing a tiered seating arrangement for at least a thousand people. It was theater on a grand scale and completely unexpected. How could a theater this large be inside a hotel?
The theater's interior was irretrievably overdone in that gay-man-gone-mad fashion that characterized the entire city. One couldn't blame the theater for trying to keep up.
"I love empty theaters. They seemed to capture the essence of what we do in life: prepare, execute, take a final bow, and exit stage left," I said with a bit of melancholy.
"Too confining," Callie said. "Life in a box."
I couldn't help but laugh. Callie was obviously not a person who indulged in melancholia or sentimentality, while I partook of it routinely.
Callie asked Joey to let Rose Ross know that we were here. He radioed another man who came over and escorted us up a staircase to a set of dressing rooms where the cast got ready for their show every night. Beyond the dressing room was a greenroom, the theatrical name for a private area where stars await their cues and their family and friends are entertained.
"So is the theater owned by the hotel?" I asked the man, thinking that if they filled all one thousand seats, six shows a week, at a hundred bucks a pop, they'd gross thirty million annually. Even if they only netted a third of that, it would be a nice payday for the hotel.
"Uh, I think it's leased out to the theater company that does the Boy Review, but I could be wrong," the man replied. "It's a great place for theater kids to work because every job in the hotel is treated like a part in a play. When you're not in a production, you can be a bellman, or a desk clerk, or a valet parker and still be performing. Theater people fill in for regular staff wherever needed and the idea is to play your offstage role so perfectly that everyone believes you're part of the core staff."
"So who are you really?" I asked playfully.
"Today, I'm your guide to the greenroom. Who knows tomorrow what I'll be for you," he said with a twinkle.
"What happened to your name tag?" I asked him, by now hooked on the ridiculous hotel titles and missing an opportunity to grin over s
omething like Camel Boy Kevin.
"Forgot it this morning. My name is Rob," he said, depositing us on a couch in the clubby setting, opening a fridge and offering us wine. The tables were already laden with fresh cheese and crackers, and on the wall, a flat screen TV was muted. "I'll get Ms. Ross for you."
"Nice manners," I said to Callie.
Moments later, a long-legged, redheaded twenty-three-year-old showgirl strode into the room.
"Are you Ms. Rivers?" she asked, extending her hand to Callie.
"I'm Callie Rivers, and this is Teague Richfield," Callie said.
"I'm so silly! I freaked out that night at the party. I realize worrying my father, and now you, was a mistake." Her stance, and her movements, and everything about her communicated that she felt her own importance.
"It's wonderful to meet you. You look a lot like your handsome father," Callie said.
I didn't particularly like the fact that Callie thought meeting this young girl was wonderful, or that her father was handsome, or that she was handsome by proxy. I wanted all Callie's admiration reserved for me. Childish of me, I thought.
Rose Ross didn't duck her head in shyness, as most young girls would with a compliment. Instead she jutted her jaw forward in a striking pose and said with a big smile, "Thank you!"
A tall, glamorous, brunette drag queen swept into the greenroom and kissed Rose on the cheek. "Hello, darling," she said, "Excusez-moi! I didn't realize you had guests."
"Joanie Burr, this is—"
"Callie and Teague," Callie interrupted.
"I'm Joanie Burr, Rose's best and only friend because, of course, she's from Oklahoma and no one in Las Vegas even speaks to anyone from Oklahoma," she teased. "Where are you from?"
"Oklahoma," Callie enjoyed saying.
"Oops." She put her long slender fingers to her electric-red lips in mock embarrassment and slid gracefully onto the couch next to Rose. She took Rose's hand, and the light bounced off the huge amethyst on Joanie's ring finger and off the gold piping of her white silk lounging pajamas. While no one in her right mind could deny that a young woman like Rose was attractive, she paled in comparison to the exceptionally well-made-up Joanie, whose facial features and body parts were sheer elegance on a grand scale—femininity embellished and enhanced. Her moves were practiced and fluid, with a casual sensuality. She was a fascinating experiment in gender bending, her every waking hour obviously occupied with the way she looked, and dressed, and moved. She was the glamorous woman who was not woman—a genetic mirage in the desert, and I could not take my eyes off her, despite knowing that she wasn't really there.
Rose spoke openly in front of her, telling Callie that she'd become frightened when she'd made the ghost's ghoul pool list.
"Because she's a baby girl, aren't you, precious? And she didn't know that it's an honor to make the list," Joanie said, and with one long, slender, manicured hand, she tossed her short hair back out of her eyes where it remained for only a second and then slid seductively back where it originally hung, half concealing the long lashes of one perfectly mascara-lined eye.
"What's the ghoul pool list about?" I asked.
"Just a spook night for every spook in town...at midnight they draw names and everybody on the list freaks," Joanie said with even more dramatic flair.
"It's a list of people you think will die in Las Vegas in the next twelve months," Rose managed to say and glanced sideways at her friend to make sure it was okay to say it.
"I'd rather make worst dressed," I quipped. "So does the ghost actually show up?"
"Giovanni Gratini does," Joanie said, gesturing with her hands and whispering to Rose. "He loves wearing that toga. If his skirt gets any shorter, the entire front row can gobble his baubles, instead of just Marlena."
"Anyone on the list ever die?" I asked.
"Just their hair, honey," Joanie said raucously.
"Do you have the list?" I asked.
"Every queen in the city has been on the damned thing at one time or another. I think Rose is the only one who ever remembered she was on the list! Everybody else was too freaking drunk!"
"Your father asked that we check on you and make sure that you're okay." Callie gave Rose a meaningful look that seemed to say this was her chance to tell us if she needed help.
"Perfectly okay. Really." She shrugged and smiled, but an underlying nervousness belied her cavalier attitude.
"We had a weird thing happen to us, actually a couple of weird things," I said, deciding as I spoke to skip the one about the dead body in our tub. "When we checked in, someone had put an astrological chart in my luggage." I watched them both for even a twitch of a reaction.
"Did it say you would meet someone exciting?" Joanie gave me a knowing smile, and I wondered if my feelings for Callie were flashing across my forehead like images on the Times Square JumboTron.
Callie quickly changed the subject. "We're headed over to the buffet. Would you like to join us?"
Rose looked as if she were about to accept our invitation.
"Gotta run through that scene we blew tonight, honey," Joanie reminded her with just the appropriate note of regret in her tone.
"Thanks for coming to my rescue. Sorry it was a false alarm. It was nice meeting you both," Rose said.
We said our goodbyes and they departed, leaving my mind bouncing around in my head performing its own lie detector test—and Rose was failing. Was Joanie hanging around to report our conversation to someone, or to protect her friend Rose, or was she trying to derail our interest in the ghoul pool by trivializing the game?
We exited the theater and walked back to the lobby. I slung my arm around Callie's waist, walking slowly beside her, enjoying the feeling of her body against mine, our hips moving in sync as we walked.
"So what do you make of that?" Callie asked.
"Lying. What do you make of it?"
"Same."
"You see? I could have been the psychic and you could have been the cop; we both got the same vibe. So what are you going to do next?" I asked.
"Eat," she said, already heading toward the buffet line in the open-air restaurant. She filled two plates with food that she first examined as if it were loaded with explosives, carefully lifting the edge of a pastry, tilting a slice of ham toward the light to see its true color, asking the chef behind the chafing dishes if he knew how long the sausage had been sitting out under the lights. After tedious selection techniques had been applied, she Saran-Wrapped the plates and handed them to me to carry so that she could juggle our drinks, asking the waiter where the water for the ice had come from. I was starting to fidget, patience not being my particular virtue. I wondered if this was her ongoing modus operandi.
Perhaps, at the end of the river of love, there's silt: that which is left to wade through after the waves of ecstasy have washed over us. I was on the lookout for silt. Would Callie turn out to be too good to be true: a sexually passionate, exciting woman of insane beliefs and annoying little habits?
Callie unwrapped the plate to have one more look at the condition of the ham, just to make my point. Fairly certain we would not be poisoned during this particular meal, she smiled at me. "My mom and dad are flying in."
"Really, when?" I was caught off guard, still focused on the ham pat-down.
"In a couple of days, I think. They'll let me know. You'll love them. I've told them all about you. I want them to meet you. We'll all go out."
We're visiting your client’s kid on our time together, we have barely had a moment to ourselves, and now you're flying in your parents. What in the hell are you doing?
"They're not staying in our room, are they?" I asked, my inner child turning nuclear.
"Adjoining," she said, unintentionally rubbing it in.
"Adjoining. Not across the hall or on another floor?"
"That way we can be..."
"...together!" I finished her sentence with an upbeat sarcasm. "Is there going to be any personal time for you and me, or is it just goin
g to be dead folks and old folks?"
Callie gave me a look that said she might want to reevaluate having a relationship with someone as callous as me, and then gave me a rather lengthy dissertation on the meaning of family. Callie's family were her friends: her father, Palmer, and her mother, Paige. She'd apparently told Paige and Palmer about us, much in the way one would talk to a girlfriend.
"I told them that you and I are having a relationship and that I wanted them to meet you. That's perfectly reasonable, since we are lovers."
"You told them we're sleeping together?" I asked, slightly alarmed.
"What does a relationship mean between two women over forty?" Callie leaned in and kissed me somewhere between the sausage patties and the fruit bowl. "I'm going to set you free, Teague. You're way too uptight."
Callie picked up a tiny piece of steak, held it between her fingers, and fed me as if I were no more than an exceedingly loud baby bird. My mouth wrapped around her fingertips and gently pulled the meat from them, caressing her fingers with my tongue. "There are even better things to eat in our room," she said and I swooned, completely forgetting the issue about her family. They could all show up as far as I was concerned. Then she wrapped a few small steak bites and some boiled potatoes in a large napkin and rolled it up.
"Elmo has to eat too," she reminded me. "He's getting anxious to see us, I can feel it."
"Oh, my gosh, I forgot," I said, taking the food from her and thinking she might just be a better mom to Elmo than I was.
Callie furrowed her brow and shook her head as if to shake out loose thoughts and keep only those that were tightly anchored. "The paper left in your suitcase with the Stellium in Scorpio keeps flashing through my head, and the whole ghoul pool thing, everything's connected, you know," Callie said.