The woman showed Dionne through the ticket collection area, past the gift shop and out a back door into the museum proper. The place had the odd air of a really well-maintained scrap yard. Neon signs lay around like well-preserved corpses, stretching off into the distance. A winding path ran between them for the guided tours to follow.
It reminded her of the bird museum where she’d once had to kill an hour. Viewing stuffed bodies on plinths is not an ideal way to appreciate nature and she found this place eerily similar. These signs were designed to sparkle brightly in the sky, not lie here on the ground amid the dust. There was something unspeakably sad about them.
As she walked forward, she cast her eyes around – taking it all in and avoiding the man sitting at the table on the far side of the courtyard.
Down the aisle she noticed a sign for the Moulin Rouge. Her dad had told her the casino’s story for the first time when she’d been too young to understand. The thought made her heart ache. He would have loved this place. He was a flawed man but a good one, in his way. He loved this town, gave his life to it, and that was what it eventually took.
The Moulin Rouge had opened in 1955. It was Vegas’s first integrated casino. Up until that point, stars such as Sammy Davis Jr could thrill the crowds at the hotels up the strip, but they weren’t allowed to stay or gamble there. The story went that the Moulin Rouge became the place to be, with all of showbiz’s biggest names dropping in there when they were done for the night.
You could catch Sinatra hopping up to do a couple of numbers in the late show while Judy Garland sat in the back booth. So popular was it that they’d had to add a third show, starting at 2.30am, just to try to cope with the demand.
Its success was also its downfall. Rumour had it that the other casinos forced the banks to deny the Moulin Rouge credit facilities, leaving it no option but to close. In the 1960s Vegas eventually desegregated. You could call it a sign of progress in more enlightened times, but the reality was the Moulin Rouge had shown there was money to be made. As her dad had put it – Lady Luck didn’t see colour.
As Freddie stood up, Dionne realised that she’d been diverting her eyes, trying to put off this moment, and now she couldn’t avoid it any longer. He stood and spread his arms expansively.
“Dionne. Finally, we can get back to the wedding planning.”
She gave him a smile. “Funny as always, Freddie. You look good.”
He did. Age suited him. A little grey had snuck into his black hair around the temples, but it gave him a pinch of gravitas and took a little of the used-car salesman sheen off him. He’d always been a good-looking man, and vain about it. To be fair, it was a big part of the job. He wasn’t showing any signs of middle-age spread, and he could still wear the hell out of a suit. This one was chocolate brown and tailored to perfection. Suddenly, in her jeans and a light blouse to cope with the heat, Dionne felt underdressed.
“You look great too, D. Makes me think that all those rumours about you embracing clean living were true.”
He indicated the seat opposite, and she sat down.
He pulled a bottle from the ice-bucket that sat beside the table. “I got Veuve Clicquot. I know it’s a little early but, hey, we’re celebrating. It isn’t every day the love of your life, who disappeared without a trace twelve years ago, suddenly reappears.”
“I was in prison for some of those years,” answered Dionne. “I don’t recall getting any letters from you.”
Freddie shrugged. “You know I was never one for writing. You had my number, though. I didn’t get any calls.”
“They monitor the phones in prisons, but you know that.”
His smile slipped a little. “And when you got out?”
Dionne crossed her legs and rested her hands on her knee. “I decided I wanted to make some changes in my life. I needed a fresh start.”
“And not even a postcard.”
Dionne paused and let her focus drift to the sign sitting to Freddie’s left, showing the head of the extravagantly moustachioed cowboy that had represented Terrible’s Hotel & Casino. At some point, somebody had decided Terrible wasn’t the greatest brand name and the iconic cowboy had become another relic of a bygone era.
“I’m not going to apologise,” she replied. “It was always part of the life we led – at any point, one of us could disappear. I did what I had to do.”
“Sure,” said Freddie with forced joviality. “Still, I went looking. There were rumours … Let me see … Lesbian biker gang, dead or, worse still, that you’d turned government. So, which was it?”
Dionne shrugged. “A little of all three.”
Freddie laughed. “And not a word to the old crew. Damn, even I didn’t know you were that cold-hearted.”
“That was the life.”
“So it was,” said Freddie, wiping down the bottle. “Shall we?”
Dionne shook her head. “No, thank you.”
“Well, I’m going to.” He popped the cork expertly, catching most of the surging liquid deftly in a flute. He dropped the bottle into the bucket with a little more force than necessary and raised his glass. “Cheers.”
Dionne watched as he knocked it back in one. “So, are you done being pissed at me, or is there anything else you’d like to get off your chest?”
“Pissed? Who? Me?” Freddie laughed again. “Mickey is dead, by the way. Cancer.”
Dionne’s breath caught in her throat as memories of her friend’s warm smile and twinkling eyes came flooding back. “I’m … sorry to hear that.”
“Yeah. He asked about you on his death bed. Asked about a lot of stuff, to be fair. His mind
