Read Richfield & Rivers Mystery Series 2 - Stellium in Scorpio for Free Online Page B

envelope.
    "As
long as we're downstairs, there's someone here I have to meet, a client's
daughter. Will you go with me?" Callie asked. "Her last show ended at
11:00 p.m. We might catch her at the theater."
    I
was miffed to say the least. I hadn't seen Callie in weeks, we were here to be
together, and our reunion was feeling like two sorority sisters away for a
weekend. Self-doubt was my psychological Samsonite. I tried not to take it on
every trip, but I had to admit to myself that it did appear that Callie Rivers
wasn't exactly unable to stand it until we made love. Here we are visiting
showgirls, for God's sake! I thought as I followed her along the trail of
posters and banners that heralded the Boy Review as the oldest, biggest,
and best nightclub act in Las Vegas!
    "You
look smashing, those strong legs, and your great ass," Callie said and
leaned in, kissing me on the lips before veering off toward the hotel theater.
I perked right up. I am so easy! I thought.
    The Review was a staple with visitors to the fabulous Strip because it had just the
right combination of exotic costumes, death-defying feats, and blatant
sexuality that appealed to everyone—a blend of male and female and a challenge
to determine which was which.
    "Why
do you have to go see a showgirl?" I asked.
    "My
client is worried about her. She's young. There are a lot of things you can get
into here."
    "Yeah."
I put my hand down the waistband of her pants. "Gotta watch yourself all
the time."
    She
jumped and batted my hand away as we walked hurriedly along the concourse
beneath the wide expanse of massive marble that reached to the sky, then arched
and crisscrossed the heavens in graceful arcs that ran as far as the eye could
see. The hotel was stunning.
    The
in-hotel theater was a city block's distance from the main lobby. In fact, no
two places were conveniently together. Just getting from the gift shop to the
front desk was a feat. People left the lobby for the elevators and while still
in sight shrank to half their size due to the distance between each
destination, and if you weren't tired when you checked in, you would be by the
time you walked to your room. Mo Black obviously loved Italian grandeur,
because the Desert Star was, sans gambling machinery, an architectural homage
to the spacious and dramatic cathedrals of Rome. I couldn't imagine what a
structure like this cost, or what people paid to sleep in this cathedral. I was
just glad our rooms were comped.
    A young
boy with a name tag that read Desert Greeter Joey opened the theater door for
us, revealing a tiered seating arrangement for at least a thousand people. It
was theater on a grand scale and completely unexpected. How could a theater
this large be inside a hotel?
    The
theater's interior was irretrievably overdone in that gay-man-gone-mad fashion
that characterized the entire city. One couldn't blame the theater for trying
to keep up.
    "I
love empty theaters. They seemed to capture the essence of what we do in life:
prepare, execute, take a final bow, and exit stage left," I said with a
bit of melancholy.
    "Too
confining," Callie said. "Life in a box."
    I
couldn't help but laugh. Callie was obviously not a person who indulged in
melancholia or sentimentality, while I partook of it routinely.
    Callie
asked Joey to let Rose Ross know that we were here. He radioed another man who
came over and escorted us up a staircase to a set of dressing rooms where the
cast got ready for their show every night. Beyond the dressing room was a
greenroom, the theatrical name for a private area where stars await their cues
and their family and friends are entertained.
    "So
is the theater owned by the hotel?" I asked the man, thinking that if they
filled all one thousand seats, six shows a week, at a hundred bucks a pop,
they'd gross thirty million annually. Even if they only netted a third of that,
it would be a nice payday for the hotel.
    "Uh,
I think it's leased out to the theater company that does the Boy