Page 44 of Lost Souls

“Pages forty-nine to sixty-two.”

Arnie glares at him and rushes back out into the cruel and sultry night.

***

Meantime, Melisande Garth, newly disembarked at her infinitely smarter and more tastefully excessive hotel, clicks briskly down the plush corridor to her room. She is accompanied by an assistant organiser of the side events that always garland the major erotica awards ceremonies. This younger and clearly very efficient Asian woman is scrolling a spreadsheet on her laptop whilst lugging Melisande’s bulging suitcase.

“And at midnight, Ms Melisande, you are performing… girl on girl. On girl. At the Crazy Horse.”

“Screw the Crazy Horse!”

“That’s on Tuesday.”

The great star suddenly stops mid-corridor and turns to face the young woman.

“Honey, I am having a crisis here, okay?Capisce?I’m crisising. My mentally challenged lummox of a husband is about to givemyinheritance away to what I’m guessing is some dentally retarded, Limey moneygrabber he picked up on his batshit crazy little jaunt across the pond. So, the only way I’d honor any of those stupid commitments of yours with any enthusiasm is if he kindly keeled over and died without having the chance to change his friggin’ will…” She trails off, struck by a sudden and absolutely brilliant notion. She can’t understand why she hasn’t thought of it already. But it’s never too late – except, of course, for cheating bastard husbands.

Melisande Garth, known only to her legion of fans by her first name, whistles jauntily to herself as she waves her key card at room 805, whipping her cell phone fromthe bag in one swift, practised move and grabbing her case with the other. All she hears before she slams the door on the helpless young woman is, “But what about the Crazy…”

This is probably the moment when the young woman decides that this internship isn’t exactly what she had been led to believe, but Melisande is far too busy to care.

“Hi. Irving?” she whispers throatily into the phone, aiming her still impressive body towards the minibar. “It’s Melisande! Mel – yeah, Doris… I’m good… They’re healing. Say, you remember that little ‘difference of opinion’ you had with Stormy Petrel’s agent? Her late agent, yeah. Who was that guy you…? Why would anyone be bugging my phone? Irv, I may be dirty, but I’m clean.… yeah? Big Louie? Sounds about right. You got his number?”

Melisande Garth can feel herself smiling. Something she had never believed that, emotionally or structurally, she might ever be able to do again.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Luck is like having a rice dumpling fly into your mouth.

(Japanese proverb)

Many Americans believethat once you’ve seen the wondrous Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas, with its meticulous recreation of the grandeur and beauty of theCity of Water, there is absolutely no need to sort out your passport and shlep to the other side of the planet to see its historic and slowly crumbling inspiration.

After all, this far more accessible version has no disgorging cruise ships, no unsavoury smells, no confusing currency, less garlic and far fewer Italians. What’s more, aside from all the ‘locals’ speaking relatively intelligible English, it has people-mover sidewalks, a branch of Madame Tussaud’s and giant Buddha statues. Suck on that, Venezia.

The Venetian does, of course, also have a casino. In fact, more than one. Why wouldn’t it – this is surely itsraison d’être(or should I say,ragion d’essere)? The clientele of this sumptuous Italianate gambling den, on such a balmy summer evening, whilst perhaps not so greatly surpassing the innate sophistication and glamour of their For Luck’s Sake counterparts, are distinctly better-off and looking considerably more pleased with themselves in these stunning and impressively lavish surroundings.

To be fair, some of the visitors have gussied and spruced up for the occasion, taking their lead perhaps from Hollywood movies rather than any enforceable, ultra-strict dress code. One person, however, doesn’t appear to have received the bulletin and is still looking more like a refugee fromRyan’s DaughterorHow Green Was My Valley, albeit with a touch of diamanté thrown in. She is also losing control of her newly acquired booty big time. That poor kids’ hospital back in Ullswater, UK looks like it might just have to go begging elsewhere for its new hydrotherapy wing.

“Twenty-nine red,” announces the unsmiling croupier matter-of-factly, as if lives and futures and children’s educations don’t depend on it.

Noreen Millburn sighs, watching the lion’s share of her chips being scooped away from her. She really has no idea why she has fled here of all places nor why she has suddenly developed a seemingly uncontrollable urge to plunge headlong into her first deadly or at least quite precarious sin.

The moment she fled that awful restaurant – well, it was really rather a lovely restaurant, and she had been so enjoying her obscenely large salad – she had absolutely no idea where her clumpy Lakeland walking boots would lead her. It was almost as if she had been helplessly propelled along that apparently world-famous, bustling, neon-drenched strip by pure, adrenaline-saturated shock. Shock at the wicked betrayal by a man she had been very slightly just beginning not wholly to dislike. Even greater shock at herself for being so naive as to believe that a manifestly disreputable little slug like this Mr Garth would have devoted his life and energies to making educational films about the saintly and the good, while quite patently he was a sleazy but clearly prime-moving purveyor of the most soulless and saddest exploitative content known to man. And possibly woman; she wasn’t that clued-up on porn-audience demographics.

Even when she had plunged into the vast hotel lobby – stunned almost to immobility by its exquisite domed ceiling, with all that gilt and those hand-painted frescoes – she had no idea that her feet would lead her almost inexorably down the unimaginatively named RestaurantRow towards the Venetian Casino. And, once there, you could have knocked her down with a feather, as her old mum used to say, to find herself sitting with all these exotic people, some with bottoms the sizes of which she had never encountered before, at least not on anything that wasn’t reared for its milk. She has no idea what has gotten into her and, perhaps more disconcertingly, even less idea how to get it out.

“Can I bring you anything, ma’am?”

The waitress is smiling down at her and seems very kind. Noreen checks her dad’s old wristwatch, which she wears constantly. It is still on Cumbrian time, so she is really quite clueless.

“Horlicks, please,” she tells the girl. Always a safe bet. “Four sugars.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know that one.”

“Really?” says a surprised Noreen, who thought the whole world would be endeared to her favourite milky bedtime drink. “Ovaltine?” she hazards but is met with a polite shake of the head and a delicate retreat.

Noreen simply sighs and surveys the meagre remnants of her once-healthy stash. She is so wrapped up in her thoughts and her sadness that she doesn’t immediately register the inordinately smooth, deep and rather delicious voice almost in her left ear.