I left the valet to park the Jaguar, and to tell Hertz they could come and collect it, then I allowed a porter to wheel our luggage inside. The Bellagio’s reception area turned out to be around the same size as the whole of the Century Wilshire, if not slightly larger; at least, that was how it seemed.
There wasn’t just one clerk at Reception, there was a team, and they all knew who I was. They gave us the royal treatment, and within a minute we were being escorted to the lift. The suite that awaited us was bloody enormous. It was on the top floor with a view up and down the Strip. There were two bedrooms, each with his and hers bathrooms, and a living area the size of a driving range. I looked at Prim. She looked at me. I was used to luxury accommodation when I was working, but this left me as gob-smacked as she was.
There was a bottle of champagne in an ice-bucket on the dining-table with a note attached. It was from Everett and it read, Welcome to the City of Dreams, Daze. I’m in suite eleven. I called him straight away to tell him I’d arrived, but Reception had already done that.
‘Hi, buddy,’ he greeted me. ‘When did your flight get in?’
‘I drove.’
He gave a great booming laugh. ‘From San Francisco?’ He had seen the telly news as well.
‘From the City of the Angels.’
‘Why the hell were you there? Are your wife and kids with you?’
‘One of my wives is, no kids; the extra room will be used, don’t worry. It’s a long story; I’ll explain when I see you.’
‘I can’t wait. Get yourselves settled in, then come along to my suite for lunch. Say around two.’
‘Okay,’ I said, ‘but I’ll be on my own. Primavera’s expecting a phone call.’
‘Primavera? The lady we met in Barcelona? I thought you got divorced a few years back.’
‘We did, and we still are. That’s part of the long story.’
I left him wondering and picked up Prim’s case from the foyer. . the suite actually had a foyer. . where the bellboy had left it. I carried it through to the bedroom to the left of the living area. ‘This is yours,’ I told her. ‘I’ll be away over there.’
She grinned at me. ‘We might as well be in separate hotels,’ she said.
‘Maybe we should have been all along,’ I muttered. I took my suitcase to the other bedroom and unpacked it. I found a laundry bag and crammed all my used stuff into it, then called Housekeeping and asked them to pick it up straight way. I went to tell Prim she should do the same, to find her opening the champagne.
She shrugged her shoulders. ‘The ice is melting.’
‘Can’t let that happen,’ I agreed. ‘I’ll do that; you go and bag up your noxious knickers and all your other stuff. The Seventh Cavalry laundry service is on its way to the rescue.’
‘Thank Christ for that.’
When she returned I handed her a glass; we walked across to the window and looked out, taking in the amazing view. They say that all great cities are a collection of villages that have gradually evolved into a single mass, while retaining some of their own distinctive colour and characteristics. Las Vegas isn’t like that, not one bit, although for my money it’s a great city too. It’s a collection of extraordinary visions and follies, all of which have swum together to create a fairyland nobody could ever have imagined had they looked out across what was then desert, sixty years ago. It’s said that the place in which we stood cost a billion dollars, and it’s just one among many, and not even the biggest. God knows how much dough’s been sunk into the Strip, all of it dedicated to separating Mr and Mrs America from theirs.
Susie doesn’t know what she’s missed, I thought to myself.
That thought extended to the message left on my cell-phone, and to my e-mail. Whatever was on it, I knew it would be grief of some sort; I really didn’t need any more at that point, but I knew that I had to get it over with. So I fetched my laptop, booted it up and plugged the modem lead into the dedicated jack-point in the suite’s office area.
I went straight to my AOL box; it had been a couple of days since I checked it, so there were quite a few messages waiting, including one from Ellie and one from Jonny. They were in touch all the time, and I was pretty sure they would be routine, so I left them unopened and concentrated on the two that were of interest, new mails from Paul Wallinger and from Susie, hers despatched more recently, judging by its place in the queue.
I went to Wallinger’s first; as soon as it appeared on screen I saw that it was addressed to both Susie and me. There was no heading and no message, just an attachment labelled ‘Untitled 2.1 zip’. I hit the download button and watched as a series of images was displayed in a strip at the foot of the screen. After the week I’d just had, nothing should have shocked me, but these did.
‘Come here and see this,’ I called out to Prim, with an edge to my voice that brought her running to stand behind me, her hands on my shoulders, as she looked at the laptop. I hit the command that says ‘view as a slideshow’, and watched as each picture was displayed, full screen size.
There were five of them and they had all been taken in our hotel in Minneapolis, from a point high on one wall, on our first night there, when we’d got back to our room after dinner and a few beers in Gluek’s. They showed the living area and a part of one of the beds, beside the screen. All but one of the images featured Prim, almost facing the hidden camera. In the first, she was unbuttoning her shirt, in the second she was stepping out of her jeans, in the third she was letting her bra fall on to the floor, and in the fourth she was naked, back to the camera and heading towards the bedroom. The last of the images showed me; I was in my boxers, thank God, and I’d been going from the bathroom to my bed, but anyone looking at the shot would have thought I was about to get into the one in which Prim could be seen lying.
We stared at the incriminating photographs, as they ran over and over again before us. Prim’s fingers were digging into my shoulder, harder and harder with each frame. ‘He bugged our room, Oz,’ she gasped. ‘The dirty bastard bugged our room. How could he have done that?’
‘Probably quite easily if he was in the room next door,’ I told her.
‘But why’s he sent these to you now?’
‘For information, you might say. He’s also sent them to Susie.’
‘Oh, no!’ Her hands left my shoulders; as I killed the slideshow and turned round to face her, I saw that they were pressed to her cheeks. ‘God,’ she gasped, ‘what’s she going to think?’
‘What she was meant to think, when he cancelled our second room and set this up.’
‘Paul did that?’
‘The very boy.’
‘But why?’
‘I have no idea.’ I looked up at her. ‘Leave me alone for a bit, will you? There’s a message from Susie; I’d better read it.’
She went back to the window, and I opened Susie’s mail. I winced as I read it.
So this is the bloody great suite you told me you had. It looks like an ordinary hotel room to me. You lied to me, Oz, and I don’t think I’ll ever believe you again. If you want her, fucking stay with her, but don’t think you’re getting anywhere near the kids.
I tried to make myself angry with her, but I couldn’t. If that had been her in those photos, with someone else, someone would have had to scrape me off the ceiling. I thought about picking up the phone there and then, but could see only a yelling contest in prospect, so instead I replied to her mail.
My darling [I wrote], you must believe me when I tell you that nothing’s happened between Prim and me, in Minneapolis or anywhere else. We were set up there by Paul Wallinger; he cancelled our second room by pretending to be on my staff, and he occupied it himself. He bugged our room and took those pictures. We had had a couple of drinks and maybe we were not as decorous as we should have been, but I promise you that it was no more than that. I don’t know why the guy did it, but I expect to catch up with him pretty soon, and when I do, and when Prim has got Tom back, I promise you I will get the truth out of him.