The area between the slots and the Doge’s Palace is swarmed by packs of middle-aged white guys wearing golf shirts and identical red-and-white Ace Hardware caps. Some are wheeling luggage, some have the blush of afternoon drunkenness on their cheeks, and all shout back and forth in thick-necked last-day-of-school bonhomie. Curtis and Veronica weave between them, Veronica walking a little in front, alert and unhurried, head sweeping from side to side like a prowling lion’s. Curtis notes the efficient shuttle of her calves and shoulders, and he thinks back to Friday night, watching her at the blackjack table. Her spine tilted like an antenna toward the cards.
They step onto the escalator. Veronica leans on the rubber handrail, looking up at the vast oval canvas on the ceiling: a sturdy blond queen enthroned on a cloud, a levitating angel crowning her from above. Two steps down, his head level with her ribs, Curtis sees that Veronica’s vinyl handbag is two-thirds unzipped, and he remembers the little SIG that she pulled on him last night. It should make him nervous, the fact that she’s carrying, and he wonders why it doesn’t, why he feels relieved. Then, for a sudden sick instant, he’s sure he’s never going to see Stanley Glass alive in this world again. The feeling thins out like smoke, and he follows Veronica into the Great Hall.
On their way toward the fake sky they pass another living statue, or maybe it’s the one Curtis saw last night; he can’t tell. Same whiteface, same robes, same roundlet cap. Ringed by a marble railing topped with crumpled dollar bills. Veronica doesn’t give it a second glance.
At the Krispy Kreme in the Food Court she swaps a voucher for a half-dozen glazed, and they carry them back to the Grand Canal to walk along the railing and listen to the shouts and songs of gondoliers plying the chlorinated water below. How much to ride the boats? Curtis asks.
Like fifteen bucks, I think. In Italy, the real thing would set you back a C-note.
A commedia dell’arte troupe is headed their way—a courtesan and a masked scaramouche harassing what looks like Napoleon—and Veronica makes a swift evasive left onto a bridge, surprising an older couple cuddling over the canal. The permed-and-dyed wife looks at Curtis, then at Veronica, then back at Curtis. Her eyes narrow. The husband—tan, silverhaired, crew sweater around his neck—puts a hand on her back and steers her away.
Whoops, Veronica says. Did we just walk into a Viagra ad?
She takes a doughnut from the box and leans to eat it, her elbows propped on the marble rail. Sugar flakes fall from her fingers, vanishing as they hit the water. There’s a tattoo, a big one, across the base of her spine; Curtis looks at it for a second, looks away, looks back. It’s a tree with seven branches, each labeled with a symbol: sun and moon, male and female, something that looks like a four, or maybe a two, and something that looks like a flat, or a lower-case b. They’re familiar, but Curtis can’t place them. The highest branch, the seventh, is hidden by Veronica’s top. Two figures are under the tree; Curtis can just see their heads over her waistband. The design is inked in black, like an old woodcut. Thinking of his own tats—bird-ball-and-chain on his right deltoid, devil dog on his left pec—and the way they’ve softened over time, he figures hers as eight or nine years old, minimum.
Look at that shit, Veronica says. She’s nodding at the old couple, now strolling the arcade hand in hand. It’s so middlebrow I could shoot somebody. Come to the themed city! Experience the themed culture! Purchase and consume your own reified emotions! Huzzah! Another loveless marriage preserved! I guaran-goddamn-tee you when that guy comes back for COMDEX in November the first thing he’ll do is put on his fuzzy white robe and order himself a nineteen-year-old callgirl for a leisurely half-and-half. He’ll come back to this hotel because he had such a great time here with the wife. He won’t see any contradiction in what he’s doing. And he’ll be right.
She finishes her doughnut, sucks the tips of her fingers. I hate this place, Curtis, she says. I hate the good things about it most of all. I hate that I like it sometimes. It’s such a relief to outsource your thoughts and feelings. You don’t have to worry about making an original gesture because original gestures are impossible. You just stick to the script. It’s like senior prom with gambling and shopping.
Hey, Curtis says. Can I ask you a question?
Sure.
Did you ask to meet for a specific reason, or did you just want to talk? Either’s fine with me. But if we need to do some business, I’d just as soon get it out of the way.
She laughs silently, straightens up. The tattoo disappears. I did invite you for a specific reason, she says. Which was, in fact, to talk. This morning I made a few calls to people in Philly and D.C., and I checked you out. Everybody told me basically the same shit. Stand-up guy. A little square. Not mixed up in anything heavy. Nobody in Atlantic City seemed to know you at all, which I took to be a good sign. But I wanted to feel you out myself. Without pulling a gun on you first.
I appreciate that. How am I doing?
Not bad. You’re a good listener. If we can improve on great sense of humor, I think you’ll be all squared away. You’re gonna make some young lady very happy.
Thanks. You mind if I ask who you talked to in Philly and D.C.?