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Monday morning, Betsy saw Marisa onto the school bus, but wasn’t sure whether she still had a job at Futurium. Frankie hadn’t called or texted her Sunday night, and that had left her uneasy. She was dressed, but it wasn’t as if she dressed for work: it was a warehouse and the dress code, if anyone at Futurium had ever thought of such a thing, was pretty casual. She was wearing jeans and a sleeveless top, planning to bring a sweater or upscale sweatshirt to pull on once she was ensconced in the Ice Cave. She could have gone to work or she could have gone grocery shopping. Hell, this was Las Vegas on a Monday morning. She could have gone to the Bellagio and dropped a hundred dollars into the slot machines.
But then her decision was made for her. Through her living room window, she saw Frankie sliding into the parking lot of her apartment complex in his Tesla and running up the exterior steps to her floor. She opened the door before he could knock and let him in.
“Good morning,” he began and he reached for her. He held her for a moment, and she didn’t stop him. But neither did she hug him back. She was a rag doll.
“Morning,” she said.
“Marisa’s at school, right?”
She nodded. “So, do I still have a job? I wasn’t sure whether to go to the warehouse or not. I honestly have no idea whether I’m still employed.”
“Yes, of course, you are. You still have a job.” He rolled his eyes playfully.
“And this look-like-my-sister stuff is done?”
“Almost.”
She shook her head because she knew what he meant. “I’m not going tonight.”
“It’s a cocktail party. A meet and greet. Then a meeting with someone important. Two hours, max. I promise, it will be the last thing you ever have to do as Diana.”
“As Crissy!”
“It’s harmless.”
“You said that the last time.”
“It really is. But there are a pair of bigwigs in the Mastaba family flying in from Grand Cayman, and it’s complicated. You need to be there.”
“Let me guess: one is Oliver Davies.”
He nodded and joked, “WAGMI.” We’re all gonna make it.
The meet and greet, as he called it, was a gathering that Futurium had put together for select tribute show performers. It was going to be at Fort Knocks, an over-the-hill casino now so squalid that people had told her you wanted to wear rubber gloves when touching the slots, and the bathrooms were putrescent. (The place was named for the original owner, Benjy Knock, a pal of Bugsy Siegel. Knock thought it clever to pair his name with the vault where the United States stored thousands of metric tons of gold bullion reserves.)
Betsy knew that no big names would be there and it was clear that they hadn’t invited her sister: after all, they wanted Betsy to be their Diana. But the biggest of the Michael Jacksons and Janis Joplins wouldn’t be caught dead at Fort Knocks, and so it was going to be an array of the also-rans: the Prince who was six and a half feet tall or the Dolly Parton who’d clearly never set foot in Tennessee or the Ella Fitzgerald who, pure and simple, just couldn’t sing.
And, in theory, Betsy Dowling as Diana Spencer.
“I told you: I’m out. Someone died Sunday afternoon.”
“I hear you. I do. We’re both caught in some shit I hadn’t expected. I never wanted to involve you.”
“Or Cleo Dionne, right?”
“That was different,” he said, but she could see the guilt in his eyes. He couldn’t save her any more than she could save him.
“I’m not doing this. I’m a mother. I want nothing to do with your crypto friends, other than my job at the warehouse. Shit: I’m not even sure I want that.”
“I wish they were friends,” he said, and he stepped away from her and gazed out the window. There was nothing to see. It’s not like she had a view. But with his back to her, she could spot his pistol in his waistband. She considered whether that was the point. He had to have slipped it there after getting out of thecar.
“See, after the meet and greet, you’re going to meet Senator Aldred,” he said.
“I told you, I’m not going.”
“It won’t take long. John Aldred just—”
“No!”
