“Get the Elvis impersonators and their bitches,” someone yelled. “The Elvis impersonators have bitches!”
The room was packed, and we were getting jostled and shoved. A Cher impersonator with a beard and mustache reached for Connie. Connie cold-?cocked him and he went to the floor like a sack of sand. After that it was bedlam.
Lula took to the stage to wrestle Tom Jones for her underpants, and Connie and I scrambled after Lula to help with the thong retrieval. We were getting pelted with beer nuts and wasabi peas, and I could see casino security at the door, trying to make its way through the crowd. Lula ripped the thong out of Tom Jones's hands and we all ran backstage.
“Which way out?” I asked a greasy-?haired guy in the wings.
The greasy-?haired guy pointed to a door and we all crashed through it, ran down a hall, through another door, and found ourselves back on the casino floor.
Connie smoothed out her skirt and felt to see if she had any beer nuts stuck in her hair. “That was fun,” she said. “I'm going to go play craps now.”
“Yeah,” Lula said, stuffing her thong into her purse. “I'm hitting the slots. I'm gonna start there.”
“Wait a minute,” I said to Lula. “Where'd you get the thong?”
“I had it in my purse,” Lula said. “I read somewhere that you should carry emergency undies when you travel.” Lula squinted at my hair. “You got something green slimed in your hair,” she said. “It looks like someone got you with one of those fancy drinks.”
Great. “I'm going back to the room,” I said. “I'm going to wash my hair and go to bed. I've had enough excitement for one day.”
“What about the slots?” Lula wanted to know.
“Tomorrow.” Maybe.
At seven in the morning Lula and Connie still hadn't returned to the room. I pulled on jeans and a Lakewood Blue Claws T-?shirt that had the message Got Crabs? printed on the front. I covered my hair with a baseball cap and went downstairs to look for Lula. I found her in the cafe eating breakfast with Connie. Lula had about two dozen scrambled eggs and five pounds of sausage links on her plate. Connie had coffee.
Lula looked wired and not much different from everyday Lula. Connie looked like she'd died and come back from the
dead. Connie's black hair was completely frazzled, sticking out at odd places. Her mascara had smudged, making the bags under her eyes more pronounced. Most shocking of all. . . she was without lipstick. I'd never seen Connie without lipstick.
I took a seat and I snitched a sausage link from Lula.
“What time is it?” Connie asked.
“Seven-?thirty,” I told her.
“Day or night?”
“Day.”
The cafe was located on the perimeter of the casino floor. That's the way it always is in a casino. Everything opens to the floor. The casino was business as usual, but the attendance was light. The tables were populated mostly by bedraggled men in shirtsleeves. Leftovers from the night. The slots had a more alert crowd. Early risers, getting a jump on the day. I wasn't much of a gambler. But I liked the flash and color of the casino. I liked the neon lights, the bells and whistles, and the ka-?ching of money being won and lost.
“Las Vegas never closes,” Lula said. “Can you believe it? And I haven't been out of the hotel yet, but there's supposed to be an Eiffel Tower out there and the Brooklyn Bridge and all kinds of shit.”
“What did you do all night?”
“I started with the slots,” Lula said, “but I wasn't having any luck there, so I went over to the blackjack tables. I did pretty good and then I did really bad. And here I am . . . broke. Good thing Vinnie's buying me breakfast.”
Connie had her head down on the table. “I lost all my money. I drank too much. And I lost my shoes.”
We all looked under the table. Sure enough, Connie didn't have any shoes.
“I left them someplace,” Connie said. “I don't know where.”
“That's not even the best part,” Lula said to me. “Ask Connie about the photograph.”
Connie pulled a cardboard framed photo out of her big leather shoulder bag. It was a picture of Connie and a short guy in a powder blue tuxedo. The short guy had sideburns and an Elvis hairdo. Connie was holding a bouquet of flowers. “I think I might have gotten married to an Elvis impersonator,” Connie said, dragging herself to her feet. “I'm going to bed. Wake me up when you get Singh and I'll do the paperwork for the locals.”
Lula watched Connie stagger away. “I wouldn't hardly recognize her without lipstick,” Lula said. “She sat down and I didn't know who she was at first.”