Divas Las Vegas (33 page)

"Well, then, I say we go to the police right now in case he
tries again to get the two and two of us," Glenda suggested,
the anxiousness in her voice unmistakable.

"I'm for that," Earl offered.

"Normally, I'd agree with you, but I think they'd have an
easier time believing our story if I weren't still dressed like
Tabitha," Justin said. We reluctantly agreed with him.

"Okay, then," I offered, "how about we go back to
Caesar's, call Bradley, and tell him to gather up Ahmed
and meet us at the police station. Then we call Detective
Lombard and have him wait for us there as well, and then
we get changed and hightail it over there ourselves? I'm
ready to be through with all this stuff."

"Amen," Justin amened. "I'm through with being Tabitha
for a good long time."

"I meant the murders and the chase stuff," I said.

"Oh, that too," he concurred.

We arrived back at Caesar's several moments later. We
told Glenda and Earl to wait in the cab, and Justin and I
ran in to set the wheels of justice in motion. When we got
back to our room we found a note from Bradley saying he'd
taken Ahmed to a safer place, namely his house. Safer, obviously, being a relative word. So Justin called Bradley and
he agreed to get Ahmed to go down to the station. Then I
called our old friend Detective Lombard. He wasn't in, but
I left a message for him with another officer, telling him
briefly what had happened and that we'd be down there in
ten minutes. I was quickly getting undressed when I looked
up and noticed him Justin out the window. I asked him
what was up.

"Dude, we're in some shit now," he groaned, looking
worried for a change. (Justin rarely if ever appeared worried.
He was too concerned with frown lines and crow's-feet to
let that happen.)

"Wh-what's the matter now?" I stammered.

"Bart," he said, still staring out the window.

"We left Bart at the ranch with his totaled car," I said,
moving over to join him at the window.

"True, but there he is, limping out of that cab." Justin
pointed down to the parking lot. It didn't take long for me
to spot him. He was a wreck. His clothes were dirty and he
was walking with a heavy limp. My blood turned to ice at
the sight of him.

"Fuck," I said, slumping down on the bed.

"Ditto," Justin said, his body sliding down the wall until
his fine ass landed on the rug.

"What now? Do we sit here? He probably couldn't find
us. But what if Glenda and Earl come looking for us-then
what? What if he spots them and hurts them, or makes them
lead him here? And what if we leave and he spots us? Are we
dead meat?" I asked, trembling.

Justin sat there thinking about what I'd said. He didn't
say a word for several moments. His silence was driving me
up the wall. And then, just as I was about to shout several
profanities at him, he snapped his fingers and pointed to the
tiny armoire across the room.

"What?" I asked, looking over.

"I guess Tabitha and Marilyn ain't through just yet," he
said. And then it dawned on me what he had in mind.

"You don't think he'll recognize us if he spots us?" I
asked, getting up off the bed and walking over to the
armoire.

"Doubtful, and I don't think we have an alternative,
anyway," he said, joining me as I opened the door. Our
shiny showgirl outfits sparkled from within. Thank good ness we had brought them. Though, at the time, we thought
we'd be wearing them for fun. This was no fun.

"Ready?" he asked.

"As I'll ever be," I answered, pulling out my dress. Justin
retrieved his and we started to put them on. We certainly
weren't enjoying ourselves like last time, but last time we
weren't trying to escape from a homicidal maniac. Still,
once we had donned our showgirl headdresses-I don't
know, it's hard to explain, but with our towering messes of
wire and sequins and feathers on top of our heads, we felt, I
guess, invincible. Okay, fine, there was that, and Bart's gun.
We still had it from when I tackled him during the kidnapping. It fit snugly now just behind the feathered front of my
headdress.

"Well, how do I look?" I asked, teetering on my stilettos
in front of the bathroom mirror.

"Fabulous," Justin answered, now sharing the mirror
with me. And we did, really, once we'd put on a few coats
of shimmering red lipstick, plus several coats of base, rouge,
eye shadow, and, of course, the inch-long fake eyelashes.
(Yes, my friends, it does indeed pay to come prepared.)

"Okay, then, it's now or never," Justin said, turning the
lights off and heading for the door.

"How about a third choice. Like, maybe sometime
later," I offered, following close behind.

"Nah, this'll be easy. All we have to do is walk down the
hallway, go down the elevator, walk across the casino, and
back out to Earl's cab. A snap," he said to me as we turned
sideways so our headdresses could make it out of the room.
I said a silent prayer that he was correct.

The hallway was easy, especially since it was lined with
mirrors and we could practice our showgirl walks. Without
girlie hips, the saunter was quite difficult, and we tried to
make it look not so forced. The elevator was a piece of cake
as well. It too was all mirrors. The lights above made our outfits shine like two long, moving disco balls. The effect
was dazzling. And the casino was nothing; just a few snapshots with the tourists, and we were off. We sashayed our
way between the machines and the gamblers, smiling down
from our staggering heights, and slowly, without causing
too much attention to ourselves, despite the fact that we
were now seven feet of swaying, shimmering, drag fugitives,
made our way to the casino exit and to freedom.

We could actually see the light from outside, the cement
driveway, and just a hint of the front of Earl's cab when the
inevitable happened.

There was Bart roaming near the exit. He looked up
when he saw us approaching, but I didn't think he recognized us. Still, we thought it in our best interest to turn
around and go the other way. Why tempt fate yet again? So
we made our way back through the casino and toward the
exit on the other side. It was only a five-minute walk or so.
At least, that's what it should've been.

Halfway through the place, we were stopped by an iratelooking man who was screaming at us in some kind of
strange, guttural brogue. About all we could make out were
the words late and move it. We were too much in shock
from recent events to argue, and besides, he was already
aggressively pushing us away from our desired location and
toward a stage area within the casino. I shrugged at Justin
as we were forcefully shoved backstage. At least there was
no Bart. There was, however, a new problem to contend
with.

Our pushy friend had deposited us in a tiny backstage
area-and we weren't alone. There were a dozen other
showgirls, each with outfits remarkably similar to our own,
though in various different colors. They paid us little heed
as we roamed among them. Actually, they were running
around fixing their headdresses, their makeup, their shoes,
and their nails. And they were yapping up a storm. Picture, if you will, a flock of flamingos careening past each other,
and you might get the imagery I'm trying to convey. It was
terrifying to behold. And nothing in my gay past could
prepare me for this. So we stood in a corner and tried to
look inconspicuous. (I know, good luck, right?)

When we heard "Five minutes, girls," we looked at each
other in abject terror.

"Now what?" I asked. It seemed to be the question of
the week.

"Got me. Let's just stand here and hope they don't notice
us," he answered.

Five minutes went by like five seconds. And though we
stood in the back and to the side, it was a small, cramped
space and we had little choice but to line up with the other
girls. And sneaking out was not to be. We tried, but the
nasty little man who herded us in was standing just outside
the door. I suggested that we use the gun, shoot the guy,
and run for it, though we doubted we'd get very far in our
current disguises. So we surrendered to the inevitable and
took our places in line. Thank heavens we had our limited
stage experience or I think I might have dropped dead right
on the spot when the curtain opened and, one by one, we
glided out onto, gulp, a fully lit stage.

As I said, we were in a theater within the casino. This was
one of those freebie shows they put on for the beleaguered
gamblers. Luckily, it was still rather early and the crowd was
sparse. Besides, as we soon found out, the routine was easy.
(At first.) All we had to do was glide and stop, glide and
stop, glide and stop. All the while, one line of girls bisected
another. And finally, we were lined up, smiling from ear to
ear and showing off our glorious outfits, the lights making
us glow like fireflies.

That's when I noticed two things. Or people, I should say.
The first was Bart. He was, quite to our dismay, watching
the show. He was probably still in shock from his recent misfortune and didn't realize that he was a big old mess. (Or
just didn't care.) Plus, old habits die hard. He saw a bunch
of scantily dressed women and he stopped to ogle. Stupid
hetero! The other person I spotted was last week's catch,
Chris. Chris, apparently, worked at a bunch of casinos,
Caesar's being one of them. And while Bart may not have
realized who was on stage, Chris spotted us in a jiff. I could
tell because he looked shocked and followed our every move
on stage with his eyes.

Noticing him, however, made me neglect my performance. Each girl, one after the next, was leaping up in the
air and landing in a split. I heard the strange splat noises to
my right, but was too rattled by Chris and Bart's presence
to realize what was happening. It didn't dawn on me until
Justin took off for his leap and tried his best to manage a
split. Of course, Justin being Justin, it wasn't out of his field
of expertise. He could maneuver his legs in just about any
position he wanted. He was no ballerina, but he was, at
least, on the floor with the other showgirls, who were rather
quickly noticing that one of their own was left standing.
Guess who?

There was no way that Em in a showgirl outfit was about
to even attempt a jump followed by a split. Em in shorts and
a T-shirt wouldn't even take a shot at such a thing. So I just
stood there, with my hands flung up in the air, in a Ta-da!
kind of stance, and smiled radiantly. There was a hush over
the crowd as they stood and watched the renegade showgirl.
Even the other showgirls were looking up at me. And that's
when Bart-o snapped his fingers and pointed to the stage.

"Uh-oh," I mumbled.

"Uh-oh is right," Justin whispered back. "I'm stuck."

"Fuck, here he comes," I said, louder. And now Bart was
pointing a gun right at the stage-which, of course, had the
expected results. First, our sister showgirls started to notice
and began to scamper away. It wasn't very glamorous, getting up from their splits and all, but it was a reasonable reaction. Justin, in the meantime, was indeed stuck in
his split and I was frozen on the spot, what with the gun
pointed at me and everything. The next thing to happen
was that the audience responded with that whole crowd
mentality, shriek in panic, and rush far away thing. What
was left was two immobilized drag queens and one homicidal maniac with a gun. Not a winning combination in
anybody's book.

That's when I heard Justin's little voice coming from the
stage. "Get your gun."

"What?" I used the corner of my mouth to whisper.

Bart was rapidly approaching and was repeating over
and over again, "You bitches wrecked my car."

"The gun," Justin repeated, from his odd position.

"What gu- Oh, the gun," I said, remembering Bart's
other gun. The one neatly tucked into my headdress.

"Don't move," Bart said, inching closer. He looked really
pissed and completely crazed, so I did as he said. The weird
thing was that he kept alternating between pointing the gun
at us and scratching his crotch with it. Not exactly a smart
thing to do, I thought. In fact, it made me cringe every time
he did it.

The good thing-and yes, believe it or not there was a good
thing-was that between concentrating on us and scratching
his crotch, Bart didn't realize that Chris was also inching
closer and was nearly right behind him. It was hell waiting
for Bart to shoot us (and I was hoping that at least he'd shoot
Justin first), or for Chris to reach him before he could shoot
either of us. I decided on a diversion just in case.

"You know, Zahir told us that you shot Mr. Hartwell
and stabbed to death those two guys at the Atlantis, and
that he was going to tell the cops if he ever got caught," I
said quickly, grasping at straws. It worked. Bart stopped
dead in his tracks.

"That fucking liar," he shouted, clawing at his groin
again with the gun. "The first one was an accident and the
other two I thought were some other guys with a load of
cash." Little did he know that the other guys were the two
of us girls.

Not what I wanted to hear, but really, what was I
expecting, anyway? So it was Bart who had killed everyone.
But why? Better question, were we next? Luckily, however,
the question slowed him down enough for Chris to get right
behind him. Unluckily, just as Chris went to slug him in
the back of the head, Bart bent down again to work on
his crotch. Chris swung and just barely caught Bart's hair.
Well, naturally, Bart turned to face his new opponent. And
though we felt awfully bad, at the moment, that Chris had
come to our aid only to be whaled on by Bart, it at least
allowed us some time to react.

I hunched over and the gun fell to the ground near Justin,
who scooped it up and pointed it at our enemy. Bart, however,
was now entwined with Chris; firing the gun was out of the
question. Oh, woe was me, what was a showgirl to do in
such a situation? For a change, I had come prepared.