I've been kind of quiet on this blog for a while. That's mainly because I've been out of internet range for most of last year and this until a couple of weeks ago, in the Chiapas region of Mexico with the Zapatista rebels, staying as their 'guest.'
I'll tell you that story another time - still working it through. It did make me think though about another time I disappeared off the radar completely, in the late Eighties. Here's that tale...
Las
Vegas
I’d pretty much given up on my agent when I called in that
time. To be fair, I suppose, it’s hard to arrange much for a travelling
musician who lives in a Dormobile and leaves no forwarding address.
‘I’m glad you got in touch,’ Fran said. I pictured her in
that office of hers in L.A., in back of the mall where the rental stays low.
‘Have you ever been to Las Vegas?’
The gig was a three month residency: after that, she said,
‘we’ll see how we go.’ I should have smelled a rat from the start, but hey,
money wasn’t exactly flowing into the coffers, and, this being late November,
the cold was starting to bite my toes in Minnesota, where I’d fetched up at
that point.
So I said, ‘sure, why not?’
It was a long drive to Nevada, but I made it in a couple of
days, keen to impress my new employers. I didn’t have much in the way of
details, so when I first got into town I drove up and down the Strip, dodging
fifty foot neon signs and guys in Cadillacs, looking for the Hotel Murillo as
if it would be tucked away next to Caesar’s Palace and the Flamingo.
It wasn’t, of course. It was downtown: a shabby four-storey
square of concrete that had long been overtaken by the big money places on the
long road heading into the desert. I heard later it was built as a reward for a
minor player in one of the Mob deals that made the Strip what it was: the guy
was big enough to need a pay off, but not to get a hotel on the main drag
itself.
The first thing I noticed when I walked into the lobby was
the noise of the slot machines, and then the smell: a combination of floor
polish, hamburgers and hairspray. The last of these came from the tribe of
middle-aged women in velour pants at the machines, Dixie Cup full of small
change in one hand, work glove on the other, hauling on those handles like
their lives depended on it.
The owner came to welcome me himself, something I was made
to understand was a great honour. ‘I’m such a massive fan,’ he said. ‘I’ve got
all your albums, even the one you did in England.’
Like so many things about Jake White, there was something
that didn’t quite ring true. He wore an expensive-looking suit, and a shirt
fashionably open to the chest hair; there was gold on his fingers and in his
teeth.
‘I’ve given you the Opal Lounge,’ he said. ‘Think it’ll
suit your style.’
Whatever he thought my style was, the Opal Lounge was the
smallest of the three ‘entertainment lounges’ in the hotel, but it still wasn’t
small enough to look busy when the audience, most nights, was a couple of slot
machine queens on their cigarette breaks, and a couple more conventioneers too
dim witted or too drunk to find the bigger lounges on the first floor.
But hey, I was getting paid, wasn’t I? And it wasn’t so
hard to sneak food from the gambling tables’ buffet trolley, so I got one square
meal a day at least.
Most days I lay by the pool, sunbathing; unless Jake wanted
me on ‘promotional activities,’ chatting to bored gambling or golf course
widows, trying to convince them my show was the thing they wanted to see in
Vegas.
Quite a lot of women had come to Vegas looking for a
divorce, whether their husbands knew it or not; so gradually, by word of mouth,
my audiences grew. All those break up songs began to come in handy.
There were a lot of stories to be had by the poolside, too.
That’s where I learned that Jake White’s real name was Jacob Weiss, and that he
and the rest of the Hotel Murillo’s management were connected. Sure, by then, the big palaces on the Strip had been
taken over by the corporates, but down town it was a different picture. I filed
the information away, for another day.
Then there were the gamblers, recovering from an all-night
session by frying in the sun, who liked to tell their tales and those of
others. It’s where I was taught how to play Kansas City Lowball. It’s also where
I got the story of Johnny Moss and Nick the Greek, and their epic five month
struggle at the poker table in 1949.
And that’s why, when a high-roller from out of town came
and sat at the pool on the next sunbed, and Jake White introduced us
personally, I didn’t run a mile. Even though I should have.
He really was called Vito Abruzzo, and he really was on a
vacation from his trial in Atlanta on racketeering charges.
‘I think this calls for a cocktail,’ he said, settling
himself down on the next sunbed. He was wearing a polo shirt and shorts, and
somehow made it look as if he had stepped off a catwalk in them. Or, even, onto
a yacht. ‘It’s not every day I share a sunbed with a beautiful lady who can
sing and play guitar.’
‘You forgot the songwriting bit,’ I said. ‘Besides, we’re
not sharing a sunbed. This is my one here, and you’re over there on yours.’
‘Give it time,’ he said, attracting a waitress’s attention
with no effort whatsoever.
What can I say? He was very charming, and very good-looking, and the cocktails
were pretty damn strong on an empty stomach. One thing, as they say, led to
another.
We went to his room, which was a little grander than mine.
I woke first, decided to have a shower, and took my bikini in with me. That
probably saved my life.
The thing about guns with silencers is, they’re silent, but
you still hear them: it’s like the air they displace moves the rest of the air
in a room, even when the bullet’s gone home.
I was drying myself when I heard the room door open, and
wondered why he was going out. Then I heard the sound of feet on the thick
carpet, and I froze.
There were quite a lot of paces between the door and the
bed. Vito stirred enough to say, sleepily, ‘Hey…’ Then that sound, that awful
sound, of air moving super fast in the chamber of a gun, and a bullet blasting
through bone and brain.
The owner of the footsteps retraced them, back towards the
room door; one, two, three, then stopped. Keep
going! I was screaming inside. I was stood behind the half-open bathroom
door, a towel clasped to me: that was when the shower dripped.
I could hear the guy’s breathing as he took a pace onto the
tiling of the bathroom door. Then the muzzle of a gun started to appear,
slowly.
I froze solid. If this had been a movie, I would’ve grabbed
the gun, karate-chopped the guy’s wrist, and plugged him, all while still
wearing the towel; but this wasn’t the movies, so I just stood there, willing myself
invisible.
Inch by inch, the gun appeared, then the hand holding it
nudged the door wider. I was right behind it, so it bumped into my hands
holding the towel. The gun stopped; and then, just as the assassin was ready to
make his move, there was a sound from the room.
I still don’t know what it was. Maybe it was Vito, making
some movement with his dying breath. If it was, he saved my life, because the
gunman got spooked.
‘What the – ‘ his shoes squeaked on the bathroom floor as
he turned. Then he crossed the room – I had the slightest view through the
crack at the door jamb of a sharp suited figure, bending over the bed – and
then he crossed the room again.
‘Lady,’ said a rasping voice, ‘If you’re in there, you
ain’t seen me, and we’re going to keep it that way, capisce?’
And then he was gone, out the door and away. I sank to my
knees, and the uncontrollable shivering started. It took ten minutes for me to
get out of the bathroom and phone down for Jake, who, somewhat to my surprise,
phoned the cops. I guess lines in Las Vegas were pretty blurred back then.
And that’s how my years in witness protection began, and
the last remnants of a career slipped away. It was only when the Berlin Wall
came down that I resurfaced at all, and that was in another continent, just to
be on the safe side. By then, Jake White was in retirement, permanently, and so
was the shooter. Or so they told me. I’ve never been back to Vegas to check
with anyone.
