Every single thing that had happened in the last two days felt so unreal right then that I thought I might levitate off the bed and find myself stuck to the ceiling come the dawn.
CHAPTER TWELVE
WHEN I SAT up in bed the next morning, Lucy was in pale green bikini panties, standing in the middle of the room, bent forward at the waist with her forehead touching one knee, the other leg up over her body, toes pointed at the ceiling. Both legs were as straight as rulers.
She turned her head and looked at me. “Morning.” She held her position.
“Christ, you can do that before coffee?” I asked.
“You’ve been totally conked. How do you know I haven’t had coffee already?”
“Well, okay. How about bringing me a cup?”
“Haven’t made any. I don’t drink coffee.”
I stared at her. It was too early to process all that.
She said, “If you need caffeine on board before you do this, there’s a Mr. Coffee or something in the kitchen.”
“I would, but I prefer not to show off. What is that exactly? What you’re doing? It sure looks like fun.”
“Stretchies. I’ve got this routine I do every morning. Most evenings, too. Have to, if I don’t want to lose it. I want to be able to do this when I’m fifty.” She switched legs and went into her stance again.
“If I end up in hell, that looks like one of the exercises they’ll make me do.”
She laughed. Held the stance for thirty seconds, then stood up, squared her shoulders, and bent over backward, arms straight, farther and farther, until her hands touched the floor behind her feet, breasts stretched tight as drums, pointed first at the ceiling then behind her, which looked impossible. Her spine was doubled into a U shape. Then one leg came up, then the other, and she was in a handstand. Held that for a few seconds, then one leg continued on over and touched the floor, then the other, and she stood up, all of it done slowly and in perfect control. She did that nine more times, traveling backward half a foot at a time.
I said, “Deer can reach back and lick the middle of their own backs.”
“It helps that they have three-foot necks.” She sank to the floor, down into fore-and-aft splits. Lifted her back calf, arched her back, and put the sole of her foot on top of her head.
“You don’t have a backbone, do you? You’re a jellyfish, or an eel.”
“Eels have backbones. I might be a shark, though.”
“Whatever. The point is, God didn’t give you a bunch of rock-hard inflexible concrete cast-iron splintery vertebrae like the rest of us, did He?”
“Rhetorical question. And He’s a She.”
“Do you own a bra?”
“Another rhetorical question.”
“Not that one.”
“Jog bra, yeah. Don’t wear one if I’m not jogging, so, no, I sorta don’t own what you’d call a real bra. Never really needed one, either.” She twisted on the floor and the fore-and-aft splits became side splits. I winced.
“How ’bout I buy you one?”
“Naked breasts disturb you all of a sudden?”
“Not at all. It’s just that . . . aw, the hell with it.”
“Not getting a little worked up, are you?”
“Who? Me?”
“Sounds like a yes. Do you think my wearing a bra would help with that?”
“I don’t know. It might.”
“I could go do this in the other room.”
“Not sure I want that, either.”
She stood up and faced me, hands on her hips. “Well, what do you want?”
I put my feet on the floor. “Right now, breakfast.” Buck naked, I headed for the bathroom.
Behind me, Lucy whistled, then said, “Hey, wait a minute, you. That was definitely a yes.”
“Fair’s fair, Sugar Plum. Cool your jets.”
We ate at the Pyramid Café, then went “outside,” into the rest of the building. If it were raining in Vegas, we would never know it. Measured by the amount of empty space it contains, the Luxor is in a class of its own. Its scale is lost from outside, but inside you see how vast the place really is. Its interior was a huge hollow pyramid, big enough to launch a dozen hot-air balloons.
The bigger Vegas casinos are like little cities. Management doesn’t want you to leave, at least not with your wallet—unless your wallet has been gutted like a fish—so they do their best to provide everything under one roof: shopping, gambling, dinner, breakfast, bar, hotel, ATMs, banking, floor shows, video arcade, childcare, the works. The only two things you can’t get are river rafting and open-heart surgery.
Okay, I’m not sure about the surgery.
Lucy and I had been inside for sixteen continuous hours. I was starting to miss the only things missing: real sky, clouds, wind. But there was something I had to do first, no choice.
At the main cashier cage I got twenty chips out of my Luxor account and handed them to Lucy.
She drilled me with her eyes. “What’s this for?”
“Fun. Gambling. Whatever. I’ve got to go out, Lucy. Alone.”
“Where to?”
“Just . . . out. There’s a certain kind of confidentiality private investigators are supposed to honor. I’ve got something I need to do.” I brushed her cheek with a finger. “I’ll be back in, say, three hours. If you want, you could get some more sun. Morning sun’s good. Meet me at the pool in back?”
She looked unhappy. “I don’t have a bathing suit.”
“Cash in a chip, buy yourself one.” I left her there, walked away a few steps, turned back. “Three hours,” I said, then I left.
Twenty thousand dollars. I didn’t care about the money. As far as I was concerned it was hers, but I had to know what she’d do. I felt crummy about that, but didn’t feel I had a choice. I couldn’t tell her about Celine possibly being Shanna, not without getting the okay from Fairchild. For all I knew, Danya was Celine, though that was looking less likely now. My certainty level, having watched the video
