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“The other fellow is Neri Lombardo. He’s one of Tony’s cousins.”
“Okay.”
“Don’t you want to ask why you’re doing this?”
“I’m guessing there’s something hidden in the stones or the band. Maybe some crypto keys,” she said. “Or maybe this tiara has real diamonds and rubies.”
“Or it’s poison and you’re going to kill him, and that’s why I’ve insisted you wear gloves. Maybe he’s not a real friend, after all.” Was this the truth? Anything was possible with these people. Lara’s grin was enigmatic.
“No,” Betsy said. “I’m not going to be an accessory to murder.” Or, she thought, recalling Crissy’s dead friend out at Red Rocks, another murder.
“Even for your daughter?”
She said nothing, but Lara rolled her eyes. “God, you’re humorless.” She peeled away the bubble wrap and rubbed the tips along the pinnacle of the crown on her own bare forearm. “There. See? No poison. Oliver is a friend—and very supportive of Erika Schweiker. Neri is, too. Satisfied I was only pulling your leg?”
She wasn’t sure, but she took the tiara when Lara handed it to her. “Let’s get back,” Lara said. “And, please, try to have fun. This is a party.”
* * *
Betsy joined Michael Jackson, Frank Sinatra, and one of the members of Herman’s Hermits at the cash bar because the three of them were laughing. Sinatra was paying for their drinks with a handful of quarters and some deeply crinkled dollar bills he had in his jacket pocket. Michael looked less like Michael than Frank looked like Frank, but at least he had the sequined glove and fedora. His jacket had epaulettes. Frank was in a black suit, white shirt, and thin tie straight from the 1950s. The Herman’s Hermit bloke—his word for himself, a word that conjured Crissy with all her fastidiousness about accent and attention to detail—said his name was actually Danny. She introduced herself as Crissy Dowling, and the three of them said they had heard incredible things about her show, and expressed their condolences over the recent death of the woman who, for a time, had been Diana’s mother-in-law. Michael found two fives in the pocket of his military jacket and bought her a six-dollar glass of Chablis that even Betsy—with absolutely no taste for wine—knew was undrinkable. He wanted to know how she had finagled a residency at the Buckingham Palace, and she answered vaguely, babbling that the show fit the casino’s theme, but still it was mostly good luck and timing. Rory was watching her, ready to hop over if he saw or heard something he didn’t like.
Soon they were joined by Jim Morrison, Liberace, and a woman who said she was Julia Canter by day and Christina Aguilera by night. They all knew each other, and it was evident from their conversation that the idea that Futurium or Fort Knocks or whoever they thought was hosting this shindig had a cash bar didn’t strike them as unusual: they were used to being invited to places to network and then expected to pay for their own booze. So far, none of them had ever met Crissy, who, Betsy was beginning to realize, really was a bit of a legend. Maybe she was considered standoffish, but no one—now that “Crissy” was in the house—was going to jeopardize losing her connections and clout by saying anything snarky. People were full of compliments about the outfit that she was wearing, curious about the tiara she was holding, and generally very kind. The magnitude of her sister’s accomplishment, weird as it was, became more real. Even though the BP was a second-rate casino, there wasn’t a performer in the room who wouldn’t have switched places with Crissy in a heartbeat, and lived their lives in a diazepam haze in her cabana and an Adderall buzz on her stage. They were all struggling, trying desperately to stay afloat in a business where most people drowned. She was digesting this notion, when Sinatra said something about the suicide out at Red Rocks a few weeks back.
“Red Rocks?” she said, the two words triggering a quaver of unease in her voice. “Don’t the police think it might have been an accident? And wasn’t it yesterday?”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean that one,” Sinatra clarified, and the entertainers laughed darkly at his words, that one. “I meant Richie Morley.”
“Oh, of course,” she said. Lord, it was only yesterday that Damon and Rory had told her that Yevgeny Orlov was behind the deaths of both brothers. “But I didn’t realize Richie had killed himself out at Red Rocks. I knew he did it in his car, but not much else.”
“Wow. You really do live in your castle. Yup, Richie and Artie Morley. Richie blew his brains out in a spot with a beautiful view. Artie didn’t care what he saw at the end. Pulled the shades before, as they say, turning out the lights.” He said it as if he really were the Chairman of the Board—ol’ Blue Eyes—in a fifties pic about the mob.
“And the police are sure both brothers were suicides?” Betsy pressed.
Michael Jackson nodded. “I mean, that’s what they’re saying in the news. It’s still being investigated. Supposedly, the BP is bleeding money. You must hear the rumors. It’s hard to lose money in a casino, but maybe that pair found a way, and that’s why they did it: killed themselves.”
“Instead of just declaring bankruptcy? Isn’t that what Trump did when he managed to lose money in casinos? Wouldn’t that—”
“People tend to lose their minds out here,” Sinatra said. “Despite all the lights we have on the strip, things out here get dark fast. And I guess they did for Richie and Artie.”
She was nodding, taking this in because already she knew how fast the walls could close in, when she felt Rory taking her by the elbow and telling her there were two men he wanted her to meet. She nodded at the entertainers and allowed him to pull her away from them.
“What have you got there?” Rory asked.
“Lara gave it to me. A tiara.”
“God, that woman is smart. Someday, I’d love to poach her from politics,” he said. “Now don’t forget: you’re already on thin ice. You understand that you need to be polite to our two special guests, right? No bullshit: you are Princess Diana at her most charming.”
“Okay.”
The men were wearing stylish suits, one that was charcoal with white pinstripes and one that was black, white shirts, and no neckties. They both had closely cropped beards. She pegged them for early to midsixties. Hovering a half dozen yards away, his hands behind his back, was a young guy so buffed that his own black suit fit like a superhero’s spandex or leather. He was model handsome, with blond hair and ice for eyes. He was watching the two men intently: he was their body man or bodyguard.
“Princess, it is my deepest honor to meet you,” said Oliver Davies politely, his accent a very posh British, and bowed. Up close, his nose was spider-webbed with thin red lines. He raised his glass to her: “To the black widow.” Neri Lombardo chuckled at this and raised his, too.
She had no idea what Oliver was talking about and looked at Rory, hoping for a cue how to respond. But he gave her nothing, and so she said, “It’s a pleasure to meet you as well.”
“Thank you for solving our problems in the desert,” added Neri.
Now she understood: black widow was a reference to the way that she—Crissy Dowling—had helped kill Yevgeny Orlov.
