The Star of the Show

Miss Honoré Jerques knew a thing or two about showgirls. She’d been one, herself, long, long ago when the business was different and a pretty girl could still get somewhere in this town. Now it was all so shallow, all so sleazy. Vegas had been going downhill ever since the last Mob family had been run out in the Seventies, as far as she was concerned.

Miss Honoré had known the Mob. She’d liked them. And she was just the kind of girl they liked. She’d started as a dancer in the line at the old Thunderbird, then moved on to the Gold Rush and the Flamingo hotels. The girls shared the stages with big name stars, in those days, doing a number or two before Tommy Dorsey, or Rosemary Clooney, or Edgar Bergen came out to do their bit. Honoré Jerques had worked behind the best. And she’d shone just as brightly as they did. She remembered it as if it were yesterday.

But then, just when the hotels started building bigger showrooms, and the Stardust took the radical step of staging a full-time production show, an American version of the fabled Lido de Paris, instead of star acts, she’d retired. She stepped off stage for the last time and moved into management. The Golden Era of Vegas’ stage shows, the days of Lido and Casino de Paris and Folies Bergere’s Las Vegas outposts passed her by– Honoré spent the Fifties and Sixties hiring other girls for smaller shows and teaching them how to strut their stuff. She bided her time and she proved her mettle.

And when ground was broken for the Grand Hotel, and rumors were swirling about its showroom, the largest and most grandiose ever, anywhere, Honoré was first in line to take the reins. She signed on a whole year before the first audition. And she sat through every meeting, every rehearsal, till Extravaganza! debuted in May, 1969. It was the biggest hit Vegas had ever seen, and ran for six years. Its successor, Extravaganza! 2 opened in ‘75, with a pre-Bicentennial, red, white, and blue finale that was still legendary among those who remembered. And by the time that show closed and Extrav! 3 replaced it in ‘82, Miss Honoré was an institution and had never thought of leaving.

Now, three decades later, she reigned from her smoke-yellowed desk in the bowels of the Grand, and hired and fired and shuffled contracts, and effortlessly terrorized one hundred twenty children with flawless bodies and bright smiles and, when she was lucky, perfectly empty minds.

And most recently, just three weeks ago, in fact, when her show had outlived all its competition, when the hotel no longer wanted to spend any money on entertainment, when production shows were said to be out-of-date and passé and no longer worth their cost, Miss Honoré had found a girl who might just perpetuate the run of Extravaganza! and the popularity of tits and feathers and the mystique of Vegas itself for another lifetime or two. Venus was the stuff of legend, a bombshell like the nostalgic memories of bombshells. As Honoré stood at the back of the theater and watched her, the showroom was fuller than it had ever been. Word had spread. They’d had to move in chairs, make space for more tables. Extravaganza! was the hot ticket on the Strip again. Venus was indescribable, she was a sensation.

Miss Honoré smiled to herself like a cat that had just swallowed something chirping and fluffy. She leaned against the back wall of the theater, just to one side of the huge gilt doors that opened out into the Grand Hotel casino, her arms folded across her ample chest. She spared a moment to curse the day smoking had been outlawed in the audience. She wanted a cigarette, she thought, just like the good old days when she used to sit in a King’s Row booth and watch the whole show, beginning to end, with a fag in one hand and a whiskey in the other. Those were the days. Now everything was so god-damned clean and sober and healthy and respectable, you’d think Vegas had been bought by Disney. Which maybe it had. Who could keep track of the corporations, or who owned whom and had a finger in which pie? When the Mob was here, you knew who was who and who owed whom and whom to ask for what you wanted. In those days everybody had a name, and the important guys had only one– Tony, or Gino, or Stu– easy names you could keep straight. And if you were a pretty girl, or even if you were a handsome woman who had once been a pretty girl, your path was pretty much assured.

Now she couldn’t smoke and couldn’t drink, and she had to treat her dancers with respect, for god’s sake, as if they were little princesses and corporate heirs. It was like a nursery school back there, she thought, full of spoiled children who didn’t know the first thing about Vegas or what they were doing or all the girls who’d gone before. They thought they were something special, but she could tell ‘em they didn’t know special, they hadn’t even seen special–

Except for Venus. Miss Honoré looked up at her new star, and Venus didn’t disappoint. She stood there, barely moving, certainly not doing anything you’d call dancing, because why should she? Why waste the effort? Nobody would notice. Venus was just standing and walking and looking here and there, and she was perfect, she commanded the whole stage around her, she was the sum total of everything that Miss Honoré had ever believed Las Vegas had to offer, the pinnacle, the height, the ultimate, exemplary, point-for-point perfect fulfillment of a showgirl. She was Vegas Glamour, in one tall, blond package. She was Pussy Galore squared and cubed, what Pussy only dreamt of being, and Miss Honoré stared at her, and she thought that if she had ever liked girls, if she had ever once in her long life felt any inkling whatsoever to go dabbling in a bit of slit, Venus would have been the one. She found herself licking her lips without even thinking about it, and she didn’t care if her packed-on lipstick got smeared. The room all around her was dead-silent, there were 1376 pairs of eyes riveted to the stage, and if there had been an earthquake at that moment, no one in the room would have moved a muscle till Venus completed her slow walk. Then they would have panicked.

Miss Honoré, herself, had come out to watch every number Venus did in every show since she had opened. The hapless Gina would ask every time if she didn’t want to skip one. Surely the stairs were too hard for her over and over. Surely the show was fine, would take care of itself, surely Miss Honoré didn’t need to be out there each time anymore.

But Miss Honoré brushed her aside and climbed the stairs and made her way out here again and again, without fail. She was sure she would be doing it for months and months, for as long as she could keep that girl in the show, for the rest of her life, if she could manage that, somehow. Now, she watched Venus pout, and pounce on a boy no one had noticed coming up to her. They danced a little, which mostly meant Venus stood and scowled at him while he approached and retreated, dancing near her in what used to be a pas de deux. Miss Honoré had had it re-staged for Venus, of course.

She took a sudden breath, realizing that she hadn’t breathed in longer than she could remember. You forgot mundane things like breathing when you were watching Venus. She found herself trying not to blink for fear she’d miss something. Some move, some gesture. Some hint of something. Something vital. Venus doing anything. Venus being– that was vital.

Miss Honoré leaned back again, relaxed as the crowd exploded into applause. Venus had left the stage, but they didn’t care what came next. All they wanted was to worship her, see her, and then wait eagerly for her next number. Miss Honoré smiled to herself, her arms folded, her fingers tapping quietly against her arm.

There was a photo shoot tomorrow. All new pictures were planned for the showroom’s entrance– all of Venus, naturally. Miss Honoré had organized the shoot, made plans to have it downstairs where they’d use all the costumes and any set that girl could curl herself onto. She’d make this goddam show look good no matter how tired and tatty it had gotten, no matter how badly it needed new costumes, refurbished sets, an overhauled sound system, better lights. Miss Honoré had struggled for seventeen years to get the show maintained, to get the pinheads who ran Vegas now to see the value of throwing a little money her way now and then, but her message was lost, ignored.

Now, the money was suddenly coming. The executive boys in their suits were tripping over each other to pour new cash into old Extravaganza! They did it just to have the chance to come “check in” on their investment. They did it for Venus, so that she might smile at them when she tried on the new costume they’d bought for her.

The irony was, of course... who cared? After seventeen years, Extravaganza! desperately needed to be cleaned up, but with Venus in it, no one noticed, anyway. No one would notice if the roof fell down on top of half the cast. As long as Venus stood there in her g-string and her heels, the world could go to hell for all this audience cared. But still, it was a little vindication for Miss Honoré. Miss Honoré would make the most of things, as only she knew how to do.

She and Venus. They would be a team. Whether that girl even realized it or not.

Miss Honoré watched Venus enter for Big Bows and stand there in the hugest costume that had been available, one enormous gingham bow that sat squarely on her perfect ass, the largest bustle ever seen, a wrapping for a present every man here, and every woman, too, would give his eye teeth, his life savings, his life and the life of everyone he loved to unwrap.

Venus minced and pouted her way down to the very apron of the stage and stood looming above the front row. All the men down there, and what few women had fought to get one of those seats, leaned forward, staring with their mouths open.

Miss Honoré leaned forward too, and she watched Venus and she watched the audience. The number was almost over. Venus turned and swung the bow, and then she paused to face the crowd one more time– in times past, Before Venus, there had been a line of girls who did that, but now there was only her, only the goddess, and who needed any others? They could fire the whole cast, probably, and no one would notice. Miss Honoré watched and smiled like a big and cunning cat, and the audience held its collective breath and stopped blinking to capture every single nuance of every single move that Venus made. Miss Honoré’s fingers twitched as if they held the cigarette she’d be longing for in precisely thirty seconds, and she held her breath, too, until the explosion came and all around her there was wild cheering.

NEXT POST: LOVE, INC (Monday 11/30)