“You’re Nate Heller, aren’t you?”
This fucking Private Eye to the Stars thing was getting to be a pain in the ass.
I said, “Yeah. Twenty not enough?”
He waved that off. “Don’t want your money. You’re a friend of Hef’s, right?”
I blinked. “I am.”
“Hefner’s a friend of mine, too. I built this place as a hotel to go along with the Playboy Club on Sunset. His out-of-town talent stays here. Listen, I’ll let you look around in Miss Nye’s digs, but you can’t take anything.”
He fetched a young woman in the office behind him to take over and walked us out and across the Astroturf that edged the pool, past assorted pale druggies, to Marguerite’s room. Elaine’s room. He unlocked the door with a master key and gestured for us to go on in.
The only thing that had changed was the grass on the coffee table, absent now; even the Herb Alpert LP was still on the record player, silent now. Nita watched, arms folded, exchanging a nervous smile with the manager/owner, and I checked around. The clothing in the closets and chests of drawers was a little light; the owner was right — she’d taken a lot with her. How many tops did a topless dancer need? The refrigerator had been divested of anything that might spoil. Three weeks had probably been a decent guess.
My search came up with nothing.
The only thing I found was a matchbook in the ashtray on the coffee table. It said:
Different Strip.
That I took, with the manager/owner’s permission.
Our next stop was close by: the American Institute of Hypnosis. Nita went in with me and I approached the desk, where Alice the redheaded receptionist in the black-rimmed, probably window-glass glasses beamed at me like the old friend I was. This time about half of her bosom was on display in a green and pink geometric dress. The upper half! Get your mind out of the gutter...
“Oh, I’m sorry, Mr. Heller.” I never saw so many goddamn teeth. “Dr. Bryant is attending a seminar and then a retreat. He won’t be back until next week.”
“A seminar where, if I might ask.”
“Sure. Ask away!”
“Where is the seminar?”
“Didn’t I say? Vegas.”
“Know where he’s staying or anything?”
A shrug. “Just Vegas.”
Back out on the street, Nita said, “Did you see the rack on that girl?”
“I missed it,” I said. “I was too wrapped up in the teeth. You don’t do auditions on the weekend, do you?”
“No.”
“Good. Then I have a sudden urge for a Las Vegas getaway.”
She took my arm and cuddled up right there on Sunset in front of God, the hippies, the winos and everybody. “Aren’t you afraid of taking me with you into the lion’s den?”
“I’m afraid not to take you. The lions might come looking.”
We packed quickly, didn’t even change our clothes. By one P.M. we were on our way via Route 66, with a stop for gas and burgers at Roy’s Café & Motel at Amboy, and on to Highway 91, mountains and occasional little towns breaking up the desert monotony. The Jag was air-conditioned but we barely needed it, the weather in the low eighties. We played cassette tapes of Frank Sinatra by way of preparation for my return to a town I’d known since it was a bump in the road before Ben Siegel transformed it into modern Las Vegas, getting killed for his trouble.
Nita slept the last hour or so, waking up in time to see the sign announcing
just as desert desolation was getting muted by dusk and a flowering of neon began. Initially it was gas stations and mom-and-pop hotels, like the Galaxy and Desert Rose and Lone Palm; but then came the spread-out casinos with their elaborate signs and black-letters-on-white marquee attractions: HACIENDA (Comedy Riot 1969, Hank Henry and Topless Models); TROPICANA (Folies Bergère, Julie London); ALADDIN (Minsky’s Burlesque ’69, Ink Spots); DUNES (Casino de Paris, Mills Brothers); FLAMINGO (Paul Anka, Myron Cohen); and at left, where we turned in, CAESARS PALACE (Anthony Newley, David Frye).
Set back from the Strip, Caesars’ crescent-shaped central tower was fronted by a curved casino with symmetrical wings that swung outward, vaguely suggesting a Roman forum. A vertical plaza of Italian cypress trees and towering fountains bathed in turquoise light sprayed columns of water. At the passenger drop-off larger-than-life statues — Greek, Roman, and Renaissance figures mixed with shameless abandon — guarded enormous front doors.
Inside, body builders in Roman soldier garb and curvy ersatz Liz Taylor-style Cleopatras greeted us. To the left an underlit, stingily ventilated reception area encouraged guests not to wait for their rooms to be readied but rather to enter the cool bright sunken casino where slot machines and gambling tables sang their tuneless percussive song. Sexy waitresses in toga dresses were delivering guests gratis cocktails beneath a domed ceiling and a massive crystal chandelier in the shape of a Roman medallion.
Our room, however, was ready and turned out to be a modest example of the fourteen-story tower’s 680 rooms: decorated in a style that might best be characterized as Spartacus Meets the Jetsons, the blue shag-carpeted (with matching furnishings) split-level suite had a dining area, grand piano, crystal chandelier, assorted statuary, and spiral staircase that led to a balcony encircling the living room. The sleeping quarters included a round bed, a mirrored wall and a Jacuzzi. The walls were mostly patterned gold, though at one point were interrupted by a red wall any San Francisco whorehouse would be proud of.
We stood in the living room hand in hand, like two pimply teenagers trying to get up the nerve to go into the homecoming dance.
I asked, “Decadent enough for you?”
“Nearly,” she said.
We got into swimwear, robes and sandals and went down to the Garden of the Gods, a vast swimming pool designed in the shape of a Roman shield. The pool was lined with towering white columns, lights at the base of which made nighttime swimming a dreamy, romantic affair. We were not the only couple down here but crowded it wasn’t. The most impressive effect, however, came from a full moon, lording over it all like a massive glowing poker chip.
Nita’s long dark hair was pinned up, her curvaceous figure nicely displayed in a hot pink Peter Max-type print one-piece. My trunks were green and black Tiki-style. Together we were stylishly headache inducing.
We leaned against the side of the immense pool and kicked gently at the nearly bath-warm water and tried not to feel like we were on vacation. Wasn’t easy, with that full moon reflecting off the rippling water’s surface.
“So what’s the plan?” she asked.
“Try to get a line on this supposed seminar of Bryant’s. And we should be able to catch up with Marguerite or Elaine or whatever she’s calling herself at the Pussycat A Go-Go.”
Her dark eyes widened. “You, uh, want me to stay behind for that? Might be hard to work your charms on a ‘dame’ with a date along.”
I batted that away. “I’ve charmed that girl all she’s going to get. I might get rough with her, and if that would give you a bad opinion of me, then maybe you should go up and laze around our debauched suite till I get back.”
Her eyes narrowed and so did her smile. “No, I think I’d like to see you at work. Might give me a better sense of just what I’m getting into.”
“Not a bad idea at that.”
“...is that guy looking at us?”