AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Liberace leaned over to her and whispered into her ear, “God, who in this room can afford a piece of Futurium?”
She nodded politely.
“And have we got news. Big news,” Damon went on. “Are you ready? We are also going to be the owners of your new favorite casino, the Buckingham Palace.”
There was a momentary pause as the cover bands and entertainers all looked at one another and then, some unsure what this meant for them but knowing that their enthusiasm was expected, started whooping and clapping as if they’d just won the lottery. The applause dwarfed the clapping from a moment ago.
“Still think Richie and Artie Morley were suicides?” Liberace asked Frank Sinatra.
Sinatra smiled and said, “That’s life. Riding high in April, shot down in May.”
“Or August, in this case.”
“Yup. I’m guessing Richie and Artie’s corpses weren’t even cold when Futurium made their offer on the BP.”
She looked back at Oliver and Neri, and while Neri’s face was utterly opaque, Oliver locked eyes with her and winked.
The applause subsided, because Damon started pressing down the air around him with his hands open, the universal signal to simmer down. Then he continued, “We might have our money in the ether, but we have our feet firmly on the ground. On the bricks and mortar of Las Vegas. We won’t just house our computers here. No, no, and no. We want to be part of the community. We want to be one with the city. Now, some of you know why you’ve been invited tonight and some of you have your…suspicions. So, let’s begin with the basics. Crypto is, before you know it, going to be the go-to currency here in Vegas. We’re confident. And not just the Bitcoin ATMs. It’s coming to all the casinos. To the slot machines and gaming tables. And Futurium is working with the gaming commission right now, and we’re working on our casino licenses right now and we’re even working with your representatives in Washington, D.C.—including the always-ahead-of-the-curve Erika Schweiker. Why? Because we are going to be the boldest crypto casino—today it may be the Buckingham Palace, but tomorrow it will become the Futurium BP—in this very, very exciting and very, very brash metropolis. And while the new Futurium casino will be known in part for cryptocurrency, it will also be known for great food and great entertainment. And I mean really special food and really special entertainment. So, without wanting to draw out the drama any longer, I want to invite to the mic Shelley Tutova. Shelley, some of you know, is one of the Vegas burlesque scene’s most creative choreographers.”
If Ayobami had been with her, Betsy thought, they both would have been smirking. This was going to be a shit show—the whole Futurium casino. The crypto casinos that really wanted to cater to the crypto geeks with serious money? They were boasting that they’d have heliports for flying cars, e-sports arenas, and cryptocurrency trading floors—not second-rate entertainers swaying to the dance moves of a stripper. As even Nigel had observed at the water park, this was something else: combining crypto with a casino to launder for the Mastaba or the Russians or whoever wanted to make illicit money look legit.
Shelley Tutova was in her late forties, Betsy guessed, with raven hair. She was wearing a slinky beige dress that fell to her shins and showed plenty of cleavage. She was pretty in a way that was prurient and just a little bit dirty. In her heels, she was almost Damon’s height. When she was beside him, he put an arm around her waist in a fashion that wouldn’t have flown in a lot of places—his fingers were on her hip bone and his pinky even a little below it—but seemed just another part of the cultural praxis that was Las Vegas. Shelley pressed her lips against his cheek, and then made a big production of wiping the scarlet from his face, licking her fingers lasciviously and using them like a sponge on his skin.
“So, my next announcement is this. And let’s make it official. By Christmas, you will see at the Futurium showroom the biggest all-star tribute show in town. We are going to crush Legends in Concert or the Sydney Bee-Gees or the Rat Pack, and many of you in this room will be the reasons why. Yes, it may have a British vibe, but I promise you, Elvis and Michael and Cher”—and here he smiled at the three singers in the room who brought those iconic American entertainers to life—“there will be plenty of room for you, too. And wait, there’s more. Shelley has agreed to be not merely the show’s choreographer, but also our artistic director! So, let’s give Shelley a hand and hear about her vision.”
It was bedlam. Euphoric bedlam. People were applauding as if their gusto or fervor was their audition. Everyone in the room saw the possibility of work, and everyone saw Shelley Tutova, burlesque queen, as their ticket. Betsy clapped, too, but she was looking back and forth at Rory, Oliver, and Neri. She began to outline in her mind all the reasons why it was so important to them that she was here. It wasn’t just Oliver Davies. It wasn’t just that they hoped to tease the man by dangling before him the confection that someday would await him at the Maenads. It wasn’t even that they wanted this crowd to believe that Crissy Dowling was supportive of Futurium’s plans to transform the BP into a crypto casino with a different act in the showroom.
It was that they wanted people, including the police, to conclude that Crissy Dowling was at Fort Knocks this Monday night. Right now. That’s what that photograph was about: Crissy Dowling with Oliver and Neri.
This party, as bad as it was, was just the tip of the iceberg.
* * *
Damon and Shelley Tutova continued to work the room, thanking the entertainers for coming, while Rory escorted her from the shindig.
“I’m done?” she asked him.
“Nope. But you were very good in there.”
“Then what?”
He didn’t answer and brought her to the elevator banks, and she realized he was taking her upstairs. Fort Knocks had four floors, and when the door opened, he ushered her inside and pressed the top one, and she felt fear rising in her throat. When they left the lift, the corridor was empty, and the air was stale and she smelled disinfectant. The carpet was ratty and worn. She doubted he was going to attack her, but speculated instead he was pimping her out: there was a creep she was supposed to have sex with. They weren’t going to wait until she was in Grand Cayman, they were going to indulge Oliver Davies’s fantasies right here and now. Perhaps he was waiting for her behind the hotel room with the double doors at the end of the corridor. She could tell that was their destination.
“You are never going to get me to bed down some pervert with a Diana fixation or—”
He grabbed her elbow so hard she flinched and stopped speaking, and he held her in place. “You will do whatever we ask, because we have that kid you call your own. And, as you’ve probably noticed, we get what we want. Because if we don’t, people die.” He looked deep into her eyes and added, his tone softening, “You’re not going to bed down anyone. That’s already been taken care of.”
She nodded, unsure what that meant.
“So, we’re good? You understand the stakes?”
“Yes.”
He let her go, and they walked down the hallway to the double doors, where he rapped hard above the handle. She could sense someone peering through the peephole, and then the door opened, and there was Mitzi, looking even more uncomfortable here than she’d been at Betsy’s apartment. Rory prodded Betsy before him into the room, and there was Senator John Aldred—she recognized him instantly—seated on the couch in the small living room section of the hotel suite. He was wearing suit pants and a robin’s-egg blue button-down shirt, but she didn’t see his jacket or tie. His hair, though as thick and lustrous as ever, was tousled and unkempt, as if he’d just awoken from a deep sleep. On the table beside him was a wine bottle, empty, the glass the color of claret. She recalled now that Frankie had said she was going to see the senator after the meet and greet—but she’d never expected it would be like this. Weeks earlier, the Futurium execs had complained over lunch at Versailles that he disapproved of cryptocurrency.
When he saw her, his eyes, which had been half closed, perked up. He did a double take and started to stand, but his knees buckled and he fell onto the carpet. He managed to press himself back to a wobbly kneel, but it took Mitzi and a fellow she didn’t recognize, a young guy in a suit and an earpiece who was another body man, to get him back in his chair.
“Crissy,” he mumbled, and he was so drunk or drugged that his tongue lolled from his mouth on the second syllable. He smiled, but it was lopsided and sad, as if he’d had a stroke. She was struck by the familiarity. Did the senator know her sister personally? It seemed as if he did.
