With her suitcase stashed in a bus-station locker, Gemma shouldered a tote bag and took a taxi to the Las Vegas strip. She was tired—she hadn't been able to sleep on the bus ride, and she was on London time.
The casino was lit up with neon, chandeliers, and the sparkle of the slot machines. Gemma walked past men in sports jerseys, pensioners, party girls, and a large group of librarians wearing conference badges. It took two hours, walking from place to place, but eventually she found what she was looking for.
There was a cluster of women around a bank of Batman slots having what seemed to be a ridiculously good time. They had frozen drinks, purple and slushy. A couple looked Asian American, a couple white. It was a bachelorette party, and the bride was perfect, just what Gemma needed. She was pale and petite, with strong-looking shoulders and gentle freckles—couldn't have been more than twenty-three. Her light brown hair was up in a ponytail, and she wore a hot-pink minidress and a white sash with rhinestones on it: BRIDE TO BE. Dangling from her left shoulder was a small turquoise bag with multiple zippers. She leaned over as her friends played the machines, cheering, comfortable being adored by everyone around her.
Gemma walked over to the group and used a lowland Southern accent, like in Alabama. " 'Scuse me, do any of y'all—well, my phone's out of charge and I gotta text my friend. I last saw her over by the sushi bar, but then I started playing, and now, whoop! It's three hours later and she's MIA."
The bachelorettes turned around.
Gemma smiled. "Oh, are y'all a bridal party?"
"She's getting married on Saturday!" cried one of the women, clutching the bride.
"Hooray!" said Gemma. "What's your name?"
"Anna," said the bride. They were the same height, but Anna wore flats, so Gemma stood over her a little.
"Anna Dixie, soon to be Anna McFetridge!" cried a bachelorette.
"Dang," said Gemma. "Do you have a dress?"
"Of course I do," said Anna.
"It's not a Vegas wedding," said a bachelorette. "It's a church wedding."
"Where are y'all from?" asked Gemma.
"Tacoma. It's in Washington. You know it? We're just in Vegas for—"
"They planned the whole weekend for me," said Anna. "We flew in this morning and went to the spa and the nail salon. See? I got the gel. Then we hit the casino, and tomorrow we're gonna see the white tigers."
"And what's your dress? For the wedding, I mean."
Anna clutched Gemma's arm. "It's to die for. I feel like a princess, it's so good."
"Can I see it? On your phone? You must have a picture." Gemma put her hand over her mouth and ducked her head a little. "I have a thing about wedding dresses, you know? Ever since I was a bitty girl."
"Hell yes, I have a picture," said Anna. She unzipped her bag and pulled out a phone in a gold case. The lining of the bag was pink. Inside were a wallet of dark brown leather, two tampons wrapped in plastic, a pack of gum, and a lipstick.
"Lemme see," said Gemma. She stepped around to look at Anna's phone.
Anna swiped through the pictures. A dog. The rusty underside of a sink. A baby. The same baby again. "That's my boy, Declan. He's eighteen months." Some trees by a lake. "There it is."
The dress was strapless and long, with folds of fabric around the hips. In the picture, Anna modeled it in a bridal store filled with other white gowns.
Gemma oohed and aahed. "Can I see your fiancé?"
"Hell yes. He, like, killed the proposal," said Anna. "He put the ring in a doughnut. He's in law school. I won't have to work unless I want to." She went on. Talking, talking. She held up the phone to show the lucky guy grinning on the slopes.
"Crazy cute," said Gemma. Her hand went into Anna's bag. She lifted the wallet and slid it into her tote. "My boyfriend, Paolo, is backpacking around the world," she continued. "He's in the Philippines right now. Can you believe it? So I'm in Vegas with my girlfriend. I should get a guy who wants to settle down, not backpack the world, right? If I want a wedding."
"If that's what you want," said Anna, "you can definitely have it. You can have anything if you set your mind to it. You pray and you, like, visualize."
"Visualization," said one of the bridesmaids. "We went to this workshop. It really works."
"Listen," Gemma said. "The reason I came up to talk to y'all was, could I use your phone? Mine's dead. Would that be okay?"
Anna handed over her phone and Gemma texted a random number. "Meet at 10:15 at the Cheesecake Factory." She handed the phone back to Anna. "Thanks. You're gonna be the most beautiful bride."
"Same to you, sweetie," said Anna. "Someday soon."
The bachelorettes waved. Gemma waved back and booked it through the lines of slot machines to a bank of elevators.
As soon as the elevator door closed and she was alone, Gemma pulled off the wig. She kicked off the heels and pulled joggers and Vans from the tote, yanked the pants on over the short black dress, and slipped the Vans on her feet. The wig and the heels went into the bag. She put on a zip-up hoodie and the doors opened on the tenth floor of the hotel.
Gemma didn't get off. As the elevator went back down, she pulled out a makeup wipe and peeled off her false eyelashes. She wiped off her lip gloss. Then she opened Anna's wallet, snagged the driver's license, and dropped the wallet itself on the floor.
She was another person by the time the doors opened
---------------------------------------------------
Four casinos down on the strip, Gemma surveyed six restaurants until she found a place to order a coffee and chat up a lonely college student who was just starting work on the night shift. The place was a 1950s diner replica. The waitress was a tiny woman with freckles and soft brown curls. She wore a polka-dot dress and a frilly housewife's apron. When a crowd of drunk guys barged in talking about beer and burgers, Gemma put some cash on the counter to pay for her food and then slid into the kitchen. She snagged the most feminine backpack off a line of hooks and left through a back exit into the casino's service hallway. Running down a flight of stairs and then out into the alley, she shouldered the pack and pushed her way through a group of people lined up for a magic show.
A ways down she rummaged through the bag. In the zipper pocket was a passport. The name on it was Laide Bell Perry, age twenty-one.
It was a lucky take. Gemma had figured she might have to work a long time before she got a passport. She felt sorry for Laide, though, and after taking the passport, she turned the backpack in to a lost properties office.
Back on the strip, she found a wig store and two clothing shops. She stocked up, and by morning, she had moved casinos twice more. Wearing a wavy blond wig and orange lipstick, she lifted the license of one Dakota Pleasance, five foot two. In a black wig and a silver jacket she snagged the passport of Dorothea von Schnell of Germany, five foot three.
By eight a.m., Gemma was back in the joggers and Vans, her face wiped clean. She got a cab to the Rio hotel and took the elevator to the roof. She had read about the VooDoo Lounge, fifty-one stories up.
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When a battle is over, when he has lived to fight again another day, the great white hetero action hero goes somewhere high above the city, somewhere with a view. Iron Man, Spider-Man, Batman, Wolverine, Jason Bourne, James Bond—they all do it. The hero gazes out at the pain and beauty contained in the twinkling lights of the metropolis. He thinks about his special mission, his unique talents, his strength, his strange, violent life and all the sacrifices he makes to live it.
The VooDoo Lounge early in the morning was little more than a concrete expanse of roof dotted with red and black couches. The chairs were shaped like enormous hands. A staircase curved above the roof. Patrons could climb it for a better view of the Vegas strip below. There were a couple of cages for showgirls to dance in, but no one was in the lounge now except a janitor. He raised his eyebrows as Gemmma came in. "I just want to have a look," Gemma told him. "I'm harmless, I swear."
"Of course you are," he said. "Go ahead. I'm mopping up."
Gemma went to the top of the staircase and gazed at the city. She thought of all the lives being led down there. People were buying toothpaste, having arguments, picking up eggs on the way home from work. They lived their lives surrounded by all that glitter and neon, happily assuming that small, cute women were harmless.