Jim had looked down at his tattered shirt and general filth and then at Doc’s equally disheveled appearance. Although Doc had left his filthy duster coat in the launch, his boots were scuffed, his frock coat was dusty and stained, and neither of them had shaved in days. “They’re not going to let us in there like this, are they? We look like a couple of bums.”
Doc stared at Jim disappointedly. “Oh, ye of little faith, do you think there’s a gaming room anywhere that’s going to refuse admission to Doc Holliday?”
Jim shrugged. “Sure, they might let you in, but what about me? I don’t have any gambler’s rep.”
Doc sighed. “Have some trust, will you? You’re with me.”
And, as it turned out, being with Doc was all that it needed. Two of the Napoleonic lancers looked stonily askance at Doc and Jim as they first approached, but then Doc gave then a strange high sign with his index and pinky fingers raised and they seem perfectly content with that. The maitre d’ had raced up to the pair the very moment they set foot inside the door, and for an instant Jim had thought that they were going to be thrown out after all; but the maitre d’s only concern was to rectify their condition of grime and travel stain without delay. After receiving tips from both Doc and Jim, the Virgil had taken his leave of them, telling them he would be in the Virgil’s lounge if they needed him to go elsewhere. With that business attended to, the two travelers had been whisked into an elevator and taken to a lavishly appointed basement locker room with mirrors, marble showers, a half dozen highly attentive valets, and three barbers’ chairs with no waiting. Clean shirts had to be purchased, but a black satin frock coat for Doc and white tux for Jim came with the compliments of the house, as did cocktails on demand. At the end of the process, Jim had regarded himself in multiple mirrors and been highly satisfied with the result. As a final touch, he’d bought himself a pair of Ray•Ban Wayfarers at the casino gift shop. Prices in Hell seemed to be extraordinarily cheap.
They had been left to make their own entrance into the casino. Jim had been all ready to follow the curving, velvet-carpeted stairs down to the main room, where a guitar player who looked a lot like Long Time Robert Moore, only in a white suit and now supposedly blind, was playing blues with a trio whose sound was far too casino-genteel for Jim’s more raucous taste. Once again, though, Doc had steered him in a different direction. “Stick with me, my boy. The main room’s strictly for amateurs.”
Jim was tempted to remind Doc that he was an amateur, but decided to follow the flow. How many times did a man penetrate the salon privee of the best casino in Hell? The initial impression had been luxuriously pleasing. The cigar smoke was exclusive and harmonized with the most expensive of perfumes and that indefinable bouquet of seasoned money. Players sat with piles of plaques in front of them, some almost as large as dinner slates and plainly worth a fortune, while Van Goghs, Toulouse-Lautrecs, and Picassos looked down from the walls. On the lifeside it would have been called old money; here Jim thought of it as dead money. In his rock star days Jim had now and then found himself in similar places but always as an interloper or a sideshow. To enter as the companion of Doc Holliday, on the other hand, seemed to guarantee him instant acceptance.
Doc immediately handed over the bag containing the entire take from the sale of his soul for a croupier to convert into plaques and chips. Doc, it seemed, was going for broke. For the moment, meanwhile, Jim was left with precious little to do. In the salon privee, if you didn’t play, you could be little else but a silent spectator, and Jim had never found card games a spectator sport. The bar, whose booze certainly tasted top-shelf, filled his time for a while, and when its novelty wore off there were always the women to observe. One could never divorce money and sexual tension, and the women in the salon privee were of a unique standard of predatory beauty. Unfortunately, their attention was on the players, not any kibitzer in the twilight, no matter how romantically he might sip his scotch. One, however, did seem to be paying Jim a certain amount of attention. She had jet-black hair, cut in a severe geometric fringe low across her eyebrows, and was wearing a 1950s-style sheath dress in dark aquamarine. Jim didn’t recognize her, although she did in many ways remind him of . . . what was her name? The great underground lingerie and bondage model? Jim was certain he’d never seen the woman before, but the covert glances she kept slipping in his direction, which seemed to be a combination of desire and anxiety, were hardly the kind to be directed at a perfect stranger, no matter how perfect that stranger might be.
The reason the woman’s glances were so covert was immediately apparent. She was with a tall, narrow-shouldered, impeccably correct character in full white tie and tails, who went all the way to the wearing of white kid gloves to handle his cards. It took Jim no time at all to peg him as an aristocratic sadist from the old Heidelberg school, right down to the dueling scars on his cheek, the monocle screwed into his left eye, and the way his hair was shaved high above his ears. Heidelberg was losing badly at twenty-one and when he rose to resupply himself with chips, the woman quickly scribbled a note on a drink napkin with a slim silver pencil. She handed the napkin to a waiter and nodded in Jim’s direction. Sure enough, the waiter, without being too obvious about it, brought the note quickly to Jim. The handwriting was flamboyant and urgent, with the characters formed large and with decorative curves. The content, on the other hand, hardly made any sense at all, unless Jim’s memory was even more damaged than he had so far assumed.
My darling,
I beg you, for tonight, pretend that you don’t know me. The man that I am with would do terrible things to me if he discovered that we knew each other. It would be ten times worse if he should ever see that film! Even though, for my safety, we must act as strangers, don’t think I have forgotten that earthshaking night and all the awful and wonderful things you did with the DSVICE.!
Forever your slave and admirer,
Amber.
Jim read the note twice and then looked in this Amber’s direction. Heidelberg had now returned, and she studiously avoided his eyes. Either another time-shift was going down, or he was in a lot of trouble. How the fuck could he forget a night with that woman? and what the hell was the device? Since he obviously wasn’t about to go and risk Heidelberg’s wrath by speaking to her, he folded the note carefully in half and slipped it into the pocket of his tuxedo.
It was only moments after doing this that he saw someone he actually did know and recognize. Through the door, maple-syrup shoulders above a second skin of emerald sequins, had come Donna Anna Maria Isabella Conchita Theresa Garcia (but you can call me Lola). She noted the presence of Doc, who was warming his poker skills before he went to the big show with four black-tie rubes, one of whom resembled the Duke of Windsor, the abdicated English king, and another the perfect likeness of Nazi foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop. Having checked out Doc, Lola turned and headed straight to the bar. Although she was diametrically different from the Viva Zapata! bandita Jim had encountered in Doc’s forgotten town, it was definitely her.
Unfortunately, she didn’t seem to know or recognize him. He smiled a friendly greeting, but was met by a blank stare as she passed him to take the tequila sunrise that the bartender had started mixing the moment she’d walked into the room. Surprised, but putting it down to the same time problem that seemed to be affecting Doc, Jim broadened his smile. “We have met, but perhaps you don’t remember.”