Sin City (23 page)

The memory makes me smile. It also stops me yelling. If Victor can be decent, so can I. “Norah,” I say quietly.

She opens her eyes, stares at me in shock, as if she imagined God Himself has called her, and was expecting the Divine Countenance, not my freckled own.

“Norah, they don't want money, do they? Not again.”

“No,” she says. “The miracles are free.”

“Miracles?”

“It's the year of miracles – this next year, he said, coming in just two days' time. Everyone can get one if they ask.”

I could do with one myself – Victor at my side, still doting and devoted. I turn the set down. “Norah, you don't remember Victor's name, do you?”

“Vic,” she says.

“No, his other name, you nut.”

“Robert.”

“Was it? Did he tell you ? Was that his surname or just his second name?”

Norah looks confused. “Can I call you Carole now?”

I hesitate. She seems to hate to call me Jan, keeps glancing at me anxiously as if she's scared I'll change my face and whole identity, as well as just my name. I'm sick of all the sham myself, the stupid complications, yet if I do find Victor and immediately explain I'm someone else, he may conclude I'm crazy and disappear again.

“No, better not,” I say. “I'm sorry, love, but keep it Jan, will you, just for the moment?” I know we're on our own, but Norah gets so muddled and if I let her call me Carole now, she'll only go on doing it with Victor there.

“Do I call Victor ‘Robert'?”

“No!” I shout. “You don't. Just try to remember what he said. Was it Mr Victor Robert or Victor Robert Something-else?”

She's frowning to herself, mumbling both alternatives, yet still sneaking furtive glances at the television set. I turn it up again. It may help her to remember – all that grace and God-stuff. The Reverend Primrose has brought on his whole family, who are now singing with the choir, beatific smiles on all their faces: two white-haired aged parents, a dazzling younger sister and an elder brother who looks a shade like Victor.

Could Victor be a godman, just softening me up before he started waving Bibles or spouting holy texts? That would explain why he never made a pass. I know it sounds ridiculous, but the whole of America's crazed about religion. Las Vegas has more churches per head of population than any other city in the world. They advertise with lurid lighted signs like shops or restaurants, or offer special deals to lure you in. Perhaps Victor was employed by some Big Brother organisation to pick up teenage girls and turn them into Jesus-freaks. Or perhaps his speciality is coverting escort girls and that's why he was loitering near those newsstands – sort of Friend of Mary Magdalens. He could even be a member of that television Church, the one Norah sent her money to, and all he did was hand her back her own ten-dollar bills. Okay, I'm joking now, but religion in America's gone far beyond a joke. I read about one Reverend who runs live Sunday sex-shows for his congregation. And there's another one – a woman, who's been divorced five times and was once Miss Arizona. She's written a book called
How To Get More From God And Bed
. I saw her on TV – forty-inch hips crammed into skin-tight snakeskin jeans and that sort of white-blonde hair all piled up stiff in curls like shop meringues. You can really take your choice with these television God-shows – lean clean young men with crew cuts, or fifteen-stone blonde bombshells, or happy Holy Families, like this one.

I flop back on the bed. I'm feeling really drained. “Norah, did you hear me? Is it Victor Robert, or Victor Robert Something?”

“I don't know.”

“I mean are you sure he said Robert in the first place?”

“No.”

She's hardly even listening. Usually, like Victor, she hangs on every word. I'm losing all my power. I glance back at the screen. That's where all the power is – a congregation at least four thousand strong, a huge choir of gorgeous females, colour-matched in shades of rose and beige, backed by a full orchestra, all wearing black tuxedos. That choir have changed their outfits twice in just ten minutes. Think of the expense. All those frilled Victorian dresses and lacy petticoats, the hours of cosmetic dentistry for those rows of perfect teeth. They must be competing with the Las Vegas Show Spectaculars – twenty costume changes, thirty different sets. The camera cuts from their glowing Pansticked faces to fields of summer flowers, golden beaches, little babbling brooks. It's all so pretty, so innocent and safe – the smugly beaming family (no fathers hiding gin bottles, no mothers throwing up); the clapping cheering crowds. I feel a sudden longing to join in, to be part of God's great tribe, have someone to believe in. Jesus wouldn't leave you in a poker room, desperate and alone, wouldn't hide His surname. These girls are all in love, all praising their Beloved in some weepy of a hymn. “I surrender, I surrender, surrender to my Lord.” No prickly tricksy things like Women's Lib – just submission and obedience in return for constant love; a man who'll never leave you, who'll die for you. (He did.)

The frail old father now takes the microphone, his halo of white hair newly bleached and polished at the beauty parlour. “This New Year will be your Year of Destiny; your year of miracles; your year of holding up your head and seeing all the stars.”

It sounds so beautiful, I half believe it. His slender, fair-haired daughter is standing just beside him. They exchange real lovers' smiles. I turn away. “Stand up!” he shouts suddenly, raising both his arms. The congregation stands, then disappears as he fills the screen himself, addressing us directly, all those million million viewers tuned to him at home.

“Everyone out there watching in your bedrooms or your living rooms, or in bars or cafés, hotel rooms, get up on your feet now. Stand up to show your faith, and say with me, ‘I expect a miracle!' Shout it real loud.”

We're standing, me and Norah, holding up our arms, shouting out, “I expect a miracle, I expect a miracle!” It's crazy, yet it feels so good, so powerful. We're part of that whole extended family, joined to all America. I feel quite different now – confident and hopeful. Of course I'll find Victor. I didn't try hard enough, that's all. I should have stayed longer in the poker room, or checked the Tropicana where he'd probably gone to search for me. And now I have his surname, Caesars can locate him for me anyway. I squeeze Norah's sweaty hand.

“Victor Robert, wasn't it, you're sure?”

She nods, face shining, eyes still on the screen.

“Right,” I tell her. “Put your clothes on, Norah. I want my miracle now, and you can help me get it.”

“Mr Victor Robert?” Norah asks.

I can hardly hear her. I'm lurking in a corner, concealed behind a Caesars' Christmas tree. Thank God I brought her with me. It's the same contemptuous desk clerk as before, still tapping her red nails. If I came grovelling a second time, she'd shred me into coleslaw. She's not exactly beaming at poor Norah. I can't make out her words, but I'm already losing hope. This is our last try. We've scoured the Tropicana, hung around for ages in the blasted poker room. Is it even worth it? I mean, if Victor can't be bothered to come and look for me, why hunt him down like this?

I try to sound unmoved when Norah returns, babbling on about two Mr Roberts, one French and one J.A. No Victors. I suppose I was too greedy for my miracle. It's not the New Year yet, our Year of Destiny.

“Who cares?” I shrug. “How about a cocktail, Norah?”

She shakes her head.

“What d' you want to do then?”

“Is there a … circus here?”

“Bound to be.
And
a zoo. And probably replicas of Disneyland and Longleat rolled together.” They've got everything in the world at Caesars Palace, except one stupid boring man. “But I'm sorry, love, I couldn't face the clowns, not now.”

“Could we go to bed, then?”

“No!” I shout. “We couldn't.” I'm damned if I'll trail off back to bed. I'd never sleep anyway with all this mix of guilt and disappointment and resentment, and Norah can't be tired. She's been in bed all day, sleeping off her tummy-bug.

A fully armed sheriff is moving in on us, alerted by my shout. The security at Caesars is more suited to Alcatraz than to a mere resort hotel. It even makes the Gold Rush seem quite lax. Besides these hulks in uniforms there are swarms of steel-jawed plain-clothes men lurking in dark corners, electronic eyes scanning lifts and car parks, and maybe Special Squads to eavesdrop on eighteen-year-olds, snap them into handcuffs at the mere mention of a dangerous word like “cocktail”.

I steer Norah to the exit. I daren't take any chances when I'm under-age. I was pretty safe with Victor. His own sober middle age and bulging wallet were like a shield, protecting me. I need a guy, for God's sake. You're in danger on your own here.

I feel suddenly very small and frail. Some show has just ended and people are pouring out in droves towards the doors. I'm swallowed up in other people's arms and legs, other people's laughter; people talking over me as if I don't exist; their sweat and scent curdling in my nose. I fight back through the crowds to rescue Norah. She's hemmed in as well, looks pale and really drained. Why don't I do the decent thing for once, take her back to bed? Okay, if I can't sleep, I can always read some soppy magazine – a love story where the guy adores the girl, or at least doesn't hide from her on purpose.

“Okay, Norah. Bedtime.”

I refuse to join the queue for cabs – all those smug and laughing couples, hand in hand. If we start walking along the Strip, we're bound to find one free. I link arms with Norah, and we plod, heads down against the rain. Yes, rain again. It's been the wettest-ever December in Las Vegas since 1940-something. I heard it on the news. Just our luck. And the first time they've had snow in years and years, though at least that didn't settle, just flurried down, then melted.

Every cab I wave at is either blind or deaf or both. You need a guy for getting cabs as well. Some big bloke snaps one up with just a waggle of one finger, while I'm standing right beside him, shaking my whole arm off. I glare at him, but he's already settled back and in the dry.

The Strip is jammed with traffic, the whole town filling up for New Year's Eve. That's the big deal here – New Year. Everyone's pushing it, proclaiming it, and nothing else is mentioned on TV – re-runs of old New Years, previews of this coming one; New Year offers, New Year forecasts, hopes. It's a bit like gambling, I suppose. A new year may make your fortune or land you in the gutter; see you rich and famous, or skint and shunned. That's why people get so hysterical about it. Even people who've had a run of rotten years still cheer and dance and open the champagne. It's like someone's put a bet on them, given them another chance of winning – one which could wipe out all their previous losses at a stroke.

Thinking about champagne reminds me that I've missed three Champagne Receptions in a row – all free and part of our prize deal. They didn't seem important at the time, not compared with Victor. Now I'm not so sure. If I'd gone along, I might have met some really young and gorgeous man. No – not too young. I prefer them older, when they're kind and know the restaurants and want someone to look after and are rather sweetly grateful for nothing much at all. Victor was like that. Victor …

Damn Victor. It's his fault I've wasted all this time. He just led me on, let me think he liked me, so it would hurt more when he went. I suppose all men are like that, relishing their power. And yet I know I need one. I just don't feel important on my own. And sometimes hardly real. I stop a moment, turn my collar up against the drizzle.

“Norah?”

“Yes.”

“Don't you ever mind being, you know, single, on your own?”

“I don't live on my own. I never have.”

“No, but when you were – well – younger, didn't you ever think you'd like a man?”

“No.”

I say nothing after that. I suspect that I've upset her. She's walking sort of heavily and flatly. God! We're stupid, both of us. Here we are on the Trip Of A Lifetime, yet both looking as if we've been sent off into exile.

We're forced to stop again. We've run into another crowd, jostling round the entrance of a big casino. Some bloke dressed as a pilot in goggles and a helmet is handing leaflets out. “WIN A HELICOPTER ON OUR PROGRESSIVE DOLLAR SLOTS!”

“Hey, Norah, look at this. If I won a chopper, we wouldn't need a cab.”

She doesn't seem convinced, follows only sluggishly through the doors of the casino. I think it's the wrong one. We've found the dollar slot machines, but no sign of any helicopters. They usually park the prizes right there on the spot – James Bond speedboats or jet-set Cadillacs – to encourage you to play. Here, there's hardly room – slot machines packed tight in rows and rows; shoals of gambling tables which look as if they've spawned themselves. The ceiling is wild purple, starred with silver lights; more silver on the cut-out cardboard trees. It's hard to see the walls at all when they're three-foot deep in punters. I hand Norah some dollars, find two free machines. Now we're here, we'd better have a flutter. If we don't win a helicopter, we may well win our cab fare, and at least we're drying off.

I sit back on my stool, start feeding my machine. It's wonderful the way it calms you down. Pulling that huge lever mops up the adrenalin and you can really ram the coins in – bang bang bang bang bang – Jake's dead; Victor's dead; that man who grabbed my taxi's dead; all shrinks and social workers are dead dead dead dead dead. I'm not winning, not at all, but I don't care – it's great. Anyway, if you lose, it gives you an excuse to thump the damn machine. No one seems to mind. They're all too busy with their own concerns – winning, losing, drinking. Norah's played just one lone coin and is still sitting there, staring at her two lemons and a plum.