Tats Too: The Case of the Devil's Diamond

by Layce Gardner

  Shit, we’ve been spotted already.

  “We have to go now,” I say, grabbing Vivian by the back of her shirt and pulling.

  “What…?” she sputters.

  “The Mafia,” I say, pointing to the video screen. “They see us.”

  Vivian looks to the screen just in time to see the Goodfellas and the security guard rushing toward us. At the same time, Vivian and I turn and run, hell-bent on getting ourselves lost in the golden bowels of the Bellagio.

  Like Olympic hurdlers, we jump over old ladies towing oxygen machines and little Japanese tourists rolling suitcases. I run headfirst into a cocktail waitress and watered-down drinks spatter everywhere. “Sorry,” I mumble, disentangling myself from the waitress and hurling my body after Vivian.

  Vivian throws open a pair of flapping double doors and darts inside. I’m just a few seconds behind her, but a few seconds is just enough time for the doors to whack me in the face. I spin in a couple of circles before I undiscombobulate myself and realize I’m in a kitchen.

  A great big Italian chef with a Pillsbury dough boy hat and belly yells and points his big meat knife at me.

  “Che diavolo?” the Chef spits. “Prendi l’inferno della mia cucina!”

  “Which way did she go?” I pant.

  The chef aims his blade down the aisle and says, “Donna dai capelli rossi pazzo!”

  I don’t know what the hell he just said, but I sprint in the direction of his knife point. I find another pair of flapping double doors still flapping and burst through those just in time to see Vivian hauling ass around a corner.

  I hear the chef scream in Italian again and when somebody else yells back in Italian, I know the Goodfellas are right behind us.

  Shit.

  I round the corner and don’t see Vivian. Where the hell did she go?

  Suddenly, a door marked storage closet opens right next to me and Vivian’s hand reaches out, grabs the back of my shirt and yanks me inside. She quickly closes the door behind us.

  It’s pitch-black in here. I close my eyes so they’ll adjust to the dark.

  We both lean against the far wall, panting hard. We hold our collective breaths as a stampede of leather soles run down the hall on the other side of the door. I hear the slap of leather head down the hall and skid around a corner.

  After a long moment, I chance a whisper, “This may have been the worst idea we ever had.”

  “What d’ya mean?” she whispers back through the dark.

  “We’re running from the Mafia and we go straight to Vegas? Everybody knows Vegas is crawling with Mafia.”

  I hear a click. The lights come on, showing Vivian holding a hangy-downy chain connected to a bare light-bulb in the ceiling. The lit bulb dangles just inches over her head.

  “I have an idea,” she says.

  Uh-oh. Every time Lucy said that to Ethel, it spelled trouble. I ask anyway, “What’s your idea?”

  “Call up your new friend Mikey. Tell her to get as many dykes on bikes here as she can. They can help us get out of here alive and get the diamond. We’ll pay well.”

  “Okay,” I answer. “If we can get outta this closet alive first.”

  Suddenly, Vivian looks over my shoulder and her eyes widen. I jump and spin around expecting to see somebody with a gun or at least a tarantula or something. But all that’s there are some posters tacked to the otherwise bare wall.

  I follow her eyes to one poster. It’s a picture of a sensuous, gorgeous woman. She has long red hair, like Viv, and humongous tits. The poster reads: Lulu sings Broadway at the Bellagio.

  Vivian walks up to the poster and shakes her head, saying, “You know who that is?” She taps her fingernail right on one of the poster’s tits and says it again, “You know who the hell that is?”

  “My God, is that your brother?”

  She chuckles. “That’s her. He’s still here in Vegas!”

  Vivian opens the door a tiny crack and peeks out.

  “What’re you doing?” I ask.

  “Ready?” she asks back.

  “Where we going?”

  She answers like it’s the simplest thing in the world, “To find Lulu, my transsexual lesbian sister.”

  “Oh.”

  Vivian opens the door and quick-looks to either side, then takes off running.

  I glance back at Lulu’s poster before I follow Vivian out the door. There’s some righteous tits running in that family tree. I name them Victor Victoria.

  Score. Lulu’s hot.

  ***

  “What’re you disguised as?” I ask maybe just a little too snippy.

  Vivian found us disguises just around the next corner in another closet, and the reason I’m snippy is because she’s making me push the rolling bucket and mop. Her reasoning is that I look more like a janitor than she does. She gets to wear the aviator sunglasses that were in the lost-and-found box.

  “I am a hotel guest,” she replies using a haughty tone. “And, can you, puhleez, stop splashing that shitty water all over my shoes?”

  “Well, you don’t have to act all huffy puffy about it,” I snip back. “Just because you’re a paying guest and I’m a hard-working, underpaid janitor doesn’t give you the right to be all persnickety with me.”

  She turns to me and lowers her sunglasses to the tip of her nose with her index finger. “One more huffy puffy or persnickety out of you and I will complain to the manager and get your underpaid ass fired.”

  She flips her hair over her shoulder, hitches her purse up high, snorts through her nose like she’s Paris Hilton and keeps walking. I’d like to say something really smart-ass back to her, but I can’t think of anything right now. So, I just keep pushing and slopping dirty water.

  She guides us away from the casino, down a maze of halls and through an unmarked door. We step through the door and find ourselves in a roomful of people.

  I’ve heard of those sixth sense kinds of people who can bend spoons with their minds or dogs that can find missing people just by sniffing their underwear, and other people that can manifest parking spots on demand. Vivian manifests us right into the theatre of the Bellagio. True, it’s the lobby and not backstage, but it is within spitting distance of her sister.

  All the people in the lobby do double-takes at us like they’ve never seen a janitor or a fancy hotel guest before. Then they all back up and form a loose circle around us and a few even aim their cell phones and snap off a couple of quick pictures.

  Vivian and I look at each like “what the hell?” and the crowd mumbles among themselves and, holy shit, I hear one obese woman say to her skinny husband, “It’s Lulu!” That lights the crowd on fire and like a string of Black Cats popping, I hear, “Lulu, Lulu, Lulu!”

  The crowd moves in toward us with their Children of the Corn faces and our space bubble gets smaller and smaller. Cameras flash and eager hands hold out paper and pens and the crowd chants: “Lulu! Autograph?” over and over.

  One man actually grabs Vivian’s flannel shirt and pulls her toward the cavernous maw of the crowd. Thank God, for all my mad stick training. I clutch the mop handle, pull it out of the bucket and swing it around at knee level.

  “Back off!” I yell. “Get the fuck back or I’ll bust all your kneecaps!”

  The man turns loose of Vivian and she backs her ass up to the wall behind us just like she did with the billy goat. And, just like she did with the goat, she screams, “Get the fuck offa me!” puts her head down a like a battering ram and linebacks her way through the crowd.

  I follow after her, still swinging my mad stick, and we break through the crowd and run blindly through a door.

  It turns out to be the theatre itself and Vivian sprints down an empty aisle, vaults up some steps onto a stage, runs behind a curtain, down another hallway and we don’t stop until we smash face-first into a brick wall.

  Oh, wait. It’s not a brick wall. It’s a six and half foot tall drag queen that looks just like Tina Turner. Damn, if Tina’s this big,
I’d hate to run into Ike.

  Tina muscles us both back at arm’s length and purses her lips. “What is this hot mess?” she growls.

  “Hi,” I pant. “We need to see Lulu. Is that her dressing room?” I point to the door behind Tina that has a big gold star on it and a removable plaque that reads Lulu.

  Tina looks from me to Vivian. She strolls her eyes up and down Viv, then says, “Lulu is busy, darling. She doesn’t do autographs after the show. Not even for mini-me drag queens like you.”

  “I’m not a drag queen,” Vivian huffs.

  “Not a very good one, in that lumberjack ensemble,” Tina retorts.

  “Lulu has to see me,” Vivian says.

  “Honey, Lulu doesn’t have to do anything. She’s Lulu,” Tina says, pushing us back. “Now, shoo. Scat. Run along.”

  “Just tell her that Scarlett is here to see Rhett.”

  Tina looks down her nose at Vivian and thinks it over. “And who is that?” she points her chin toward me, “Ashley?”

  “She’ll want to see me, I promise. I’m her sister.”

  Tina puts her hand on the doorknob behind her and warns, “Don’t go anywhere. If I find you two sniffing her old dresses when I’m not looking, I’ll go ‘Proud Mary’ all over your little asses.” She snaps her big fingers in our faces.

  “Shoo. Scat,” Vivian has the nerve to say, urging Tina through the dressing room door.

  I look at Vivian and snigger, “She thought you were a drag queen.”

  “She thought you were a man,” she counters.

  I ask, “So what’s up with the Scarlett and Rhett thing?”

  “My mother loved Gone with the Wind.”

  “Oh, I get it. Vivian. As in Leigh. Scarlett. Oh my God! Do you realize that together we’re Vivian Lee? Weird, huh?”

  “Yes, Lee, that’s weird,” Vivian patronizes.

  The door swings back open and there stands Lulu, in the flesh and bigger than life. She clasps her well-manicured hand over her left tit and whispers, “Vivian Scarlett Baxter? Can that really be you?”

  Vivian takes off her sunglasses and smiles. “Vance Rhett Baxter?”

  Holy shit. Lulu could be Vivian’s twin. She looks just like Viv only more so. Like maybe an enhanced, airbrushed version of Vivian. Lulu’s maybe an inch or two taller, her hair is one shade brighter, her eyebrows a tad more arched, her lips a tad fuller, and even her tits are just a tad bigger. She’s got on big, gold hoop earrings just like Mr. Clean only she has two of them. She’s wearing some silky flowing pants and a matching blouse with a plunging neckline that goes almost to her belly button.

  The woman is hot. As in smokin’. As in blue-tipped flames smokin’ fuckin’ hot.

  Vivian reaches out with her index finger and pokes her sister in the tit like she’s mattress shopping and wants to test its firmness.

  Not to be outdone, Lulu jabs her fingertip into Viv’s tit.

  I’d like to poke all four tits. I stick my hands in my pockets just to make sure I don’t.

  “Last time I saw you, you didn’t have those,” Vivian quips.

  “Last time I saw you, you didn’t have yours either,” Lulu says, holding out both her arms.

  Vivian dives into the hug, smashing all their tits together and they stay that way for so long I’m tempted to join in. Finally, Lulu pulls back and says, “Little sister, you smell like sex.”

  “You don’t,” Vivian retorts.

  “Touche,” Lulu chortles.

  “Listen, I hate to rush the whole family reunion thing, but do you think we could hide out at your place for awhile?” Vivian asks.

  “Hide out?” Lulu repeats. She looks at me and rakes her blue eyes all the way up my body. “Sound mysterious,” she purrs. She turns back to her dressing room, flips her red hair over her shoulder and says, “Tina, honey, call the driver and tell him to meet us out back pronto.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Seventeen minutes and one limo ride later, I’m sitting in the lap of luxury and Vivian is sitting in the lap of Lulu. They’ve been trading barbs, jousting like only sisters can and comparing girlie secrets about fashion and makeup.

  I only listen with one ear while both my eyes soak up the opulence that is Lulu’s condo on the top floor of a rich-ass building. A wall of windows look out over the hubbub of downtown that’s all dancing lights and scurrying ant-people. It’s actually breathtaking once you’re out of smelling distance.

  I press my forehead against the glass and peer at the street below. Yep, there’s Jesus still dragging that ol’ rugged cross up and down the sidewalk.

  “I can see Jesus from here,” I utter. And because neither one of them is listening to me, I say to myself, “I read where ants can carry five times their own weight.”

  I go back to one of the sofas and sink down deep into the cushions. The living room is tastefully decorated in leather and metal and geometric art shapes, but instead of sterile, it’s comfortable. Lulu has paintings of herself on every wall. Posters, too. She reminds me of a younger, hotter Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard except for the dead monkey part. But you never know. She could have a pet monkey stashed somewhere and I just haven’t seen it yet.

  And mirrors are everywhere that there isn’t a picture of her. A woman who covers her walls in mirrors tells me two things: #1—She loves to look at herself and #2—She loves for you to look at her.

  My attention jerks back to their conversation when Vivian moves to the couch next to her sister and says, “You’re never going to believe this, but I’m getting married.”

  Lulu pouts, “So, that’s why you came here.” She pooches out her bottom lip and says, “And I thought it was to see me as the grand marshall in the Gay Pride Parade.”

  Vivian pooches out her own lip and for a moment they look like Lucy and Harpo in that scene where Lucy mimics Harpo like she’s looking in a mirror.

  Vivian breaks first. “I did want to see you,” she says. “And I love a good parade.”

  “So who’s the lucky man?” Lulu asks.

  Vivian tosses a big smile to me and I lob the smile to Lulu and Lulu catches it, opens her eyes wide and laughs. “You’re a lesbian? My baby sister is a lesbian?”

  Vivian crosses her arms and accuses, “Why must you, of all people, put labels on things?”

  “Honey, you’re the one wearing flannel, not me,” Lulu retorts.

  “Not by choice,” Vivian says, slumping down deeper into the cushions.

  Lulu leans forward, puts one slender hand on Vivian’s knee and asks earnestly, “How’s Daddy?”

  “Deaf. Which is a blessing because now he can’t hear mother. Of course that just makes her scream even louder.”

  I’ve never told Vivian that her Dad once confided in me that he isn’t really deaf, he’s just ignoring her mother.

  “He’s probably just ignoring her,” Lulu mind-reads. “Now if he could just pretend to be blind, he’d have it made.”

  They both laugh.

  Vivian curls her feet up under her and says, “Remember that one Christmas where you dressed in drag and sang that song about a cake that’s left out in the rain? Daddy thought it was hysterical.”

  “All the cousins and aunts and uncles thought so, too. Everyone except Mother.”

  “She was just mad because you were wearing her best wig.”

  Lulu shakes her head. “No, baby doll, she was mad because I looked better in it than she did.”

  Vivian slaps her knee at another memory and exclaims, “Oh my God, Lu! Do you remember the Berrys who used to live next door to us? That awful white trash family and their kids who were always getting their heads shaved for lice?”

  Lulu’s laugh joins in with Vivian’s. “Those poor kids were always outside digging in their dirt yard in just their underwear and diapers. The only toys they had were spoons.”

  Vivian counts off on her fingers, “There was Mary Berry and the twins, remember them? Larry Berry and Jerry Berry?”

  “And the othe
r boy, Gary Berry?”

  “They had a baby and we called him—”

  “Dingle!” they both exclaim at the same time.

  They erupt into twin geysers of laughter, spewing all over each other. Vivian can hardly talk around her spurts of giggles, “Barry…I think…his name was…Barry!”

  “Barry Berry!” Lulu crumples into a heap. She gasps for air, adding, “And the mom and dad were…Harry…and…Carrie!”

  “Harry Carrie Berry?” I ask. “For real? Harry Carrie?”

  They laugh even harder, nodding their heads and gasping for air. It takes them several minutes to stop laughing and even longer to disentangle themselves from each other’s limbs.

  They remind me of a younger version of the Winkle sisters, overlapping and finishing each other’s sentences. I laugh more at the symbiotic-ness of them than at the shared memory.

  “Oh! We want to find an Elvis to do our wedding,” Vivian says, excitedly. “You think we can find one on such short notice?”

  Lulu claps her hands and offers, “Rachel will do it! We can have the ceremony right here, in front of the windows overlooking the city. At night with all the twinkles in the background.”

  “Will that be in the background?” I ask, pointing out the window.

  “What?” Lulu inquires.

  “That sign,” I answer. “That big neon sign that says ‘Pussy Galore.’”

  “Oh!” Lulu laughs. “My favorite sign in the whole entire world! But I can certainly understand if you don’t want to get married in front of it.”

  “No, I love it, actually. I think it should be positioned right over Vivian’s head,” I say.

  “Naturally,” Vivian agrees, and we all laugh. “Now who’s this Rachel person?” Vivian asks.

  “My lover,” Lulu says, waggling her eyebrows. “She’s an Elvis impersonator at Pussy Galore. She’s also the emcee.” She turns her head in my direction, adding for my benefit, “Which is the most upscale drag club in the whole city.”