Meet Magnolia

That the mayor of Las Vegas, Magnolia Conner, had once been a showgirl in Extravaganza! was not a secret. The newspaper had published pictures during her first campaign, showing a twenty-two year old Magnolia in feathers and rhinestones. Magnolia got a thousand copies of the photo and signed them for the press at her next rally.

That the mayor had, albeit briefly, been a stripper at a gentlemen’s club behind the Strip, and had taken home a thousand dollars a night for swinging on a pole in nothing but a white lace g-string, was also not a secret. Magnolia’s opposition in her second campaign had dug up that tidbit, but Magnolia went down to the club itself and held a press conference in the parking lot. She told how her worthless husband had abandoned her with five figures of debt and no job when she was halfway through her business degree. She got laughs and applause as she recounted how, with nowhere else to turn, she’d marched through the club’s doors, announced to the few bleary-eyed tourists and hooky-playing businessmen she found assembled there that she was the best dancer they’d ever seen, and then proved it by grabbing the pole and giving them a show that had them all squirming in their seats one minute later. She smiled when she said that, and winked as she declared how good the political contacts in that job had proved.

The reporters had laughed, and Vegas had breathed a sigh of relief, but the contacts in question, the men who ran the valley’s economy – and who had once stuck hundred dollar bills under her elastic waistband – got the point and started making anonymous donations within the hour.

That the mayor was, in fact, the unacknowledged, illegitimate, one and only child of the iron-fisted ruler of Extravaganza!, Miss Honoré Jerques – a former dancer, herself, never married, and a fixture in Strip showrooms since the days when the mob owned the place and Vegas barely rated a spot on the map – was whispered by some few backstage old-timers, but if the newspapers had heard that one, they didn’t care. For her part, Magnolia would have been glad to parade her mother for the press, seeing how valuable families were in politics. But Honoré refused, for reasons she would not divulge.

In any case, Magnolia’s parentage was not, strictly, a secret.

Secrets, Magnolia Conner told people, were what killed you in politics. Public people had to run from secrets, dash toward the ugly truth at every opportunity and make sure to publicize the proper version of it, loudly and often, before their adversaries got the chance. In any case, she felt no shame for the ways she’d made her living. She believed they gave her color. Would she, a barely-adequately-educated, middle-class, middle-aged white woman, have had any chance at such an elected office if her past hadn’t held some interest for the voters? She’d snagged their attention by way of shock and novelty, she knew, but why not? Shock and novelty had opened bigger doors, and she was an expert at wedging her foot inside to keep them from closing in her face again.

By the start of the 21st Century, Magnolia was in her mid-fifties and approaching the second year of her third mayoral term. Miss Honoré wouldn’t approve of how she looked, she knew. She’d gained weight, she no longer bothered to work out or run on a treadmill. Her face had begun to sag. Politics aged people more than sunburns and cigarette smoke and red meat combined. Magnolia looked at herself in the mirror and knew she would never be the fresh, young girl who’d danced at the Grand Hotel, or whose flesh had been stroked with cold, hard cash as she crawled along a bar. But she was willing to put up with what she saw, nonetheless. She’d made something of herself, and she was her own product, not owing anything to anybody.

Magnolia brushed a wisp of dark blond hair away from her cheek. She’d gone progressively less platinum over the last few years. Her old look, flashy and unmistakable, might have been useful when she was an unknown first-time candidate and needed every possible hook to make the public remember her, but now she was a serious politician, and she’d found that heavy blond shades worked against her. She’d begun a campaign of low-lights streaking through her hair little by little, and the payoff was unmistakable. The city’s officials, businessmen, and other leaders had always treated her cordially, but now they also paid attention.

What she told them was that they, like she, needed to take stock of their city’s ever-evolving place in the world. The 80s had marked a new boom, with world-class resorts springing up and more coming. The New Las Vegas, home to corporate-run hotels with global pedigrees, was on the world stage, and if the Family Friendly scheme of the last ten years wasn’t quite panning out, and more than one hotel had been forced to quietly take a loss and tear down its thrill rides, indoor carnival, or private zoo, it was just a matter of time before someone came up with the next new thing and all the city followed suit. Vegas was America, Magnolia said, and America was, increasingly, the world. Vegas was well on its way to becoming the capitol of the whole earth, Mayor Magnolia declared to all who would listen.

The mayor had grand, if not well-defined, visions for her future and her city’s. Something about world culture, something about all countries everywhere looking to Las Vegas for their cues in business, politics, and lifestyle. God knew, all the earlier leaders in those areas had fallen short. Washington, Moscow, Paris... all failed experiments in their various flavors of world leadership.

Magnolia wondered, idly and not for the first time, how difficult it might be to get embassies established in her city. Not many, just a couple from the more important nations. Countries with some money, some style, and some foresight.

Or maybe the whole idea of countries was too old-fashioned, and multi-national corporations were the way to go. Vegas had spawned more than its own share of exploding companies. She’d just had a meeting with an old friend, Fletch Harris. Fletch was a Vegas success story, a local boy who’d grown up on a sheep farm north of the city and now owned a dozen hotel/casinos spread around the edges of the valley. Neighborhood resorts, they were called, a new niche within the gaming industry that was already being copied by half a dozen larger, out-of-state companies.

Fletch wanted zoning concessions for his next construction. The mayor had made no promises, but extracted assurances from him that he’d underwrite three new high schools, which should muffle her critics who said that city hall cared nothing for public education. She and Fletch had parted friends and mutual supporters, as they had been ever since he’d been a regular during her days starring at Johnny Torio’s All-Star Gentlemen’s World.

And now the day was over, and a good part of the night, because being the mayor turned out to involve much longer and less predictable hours than any of Magnolia’s previous vocations. She re-stacked some papers on her desk, making sure that everything she needed for next Monday’s meetings was handy. Then she leaned down to pick up her purse, and when she straightened up again, a man stood on the other side of her desk smiling at her.

“What the–” Magnolia exclaimed and reached simultaneously for the pepper spray inside her purse and the alarm button under her desk.

“That won’t work,” Zem told her. “You can’t hurt me, and your security guards won’t be interrupting us. I need to talk to you alone, and it’ll take more than just a minute or two.”

Magnolia considered him. His showed no emotion, and she kept her face impassive, as well. “All right,” she said slowly. She’d always been cool under fire.

“Don’t worry,” Zem interrupted her. He smiled again. “I won’t hurt you. I won’t even threaten you. That’s not my style. Not these days. Threats never work. I’ve learned that.” He grinned. Out-and-out grinned, like an aw-shucks cowboy showing off his prize steer or belt buckle or something. Magnolia looked up at him and had absolutely no idea what to think.

“The thing is,” Zem continued conversationally, pulling up a chair to sit in, “You need me, and you’ll see, you’ll want me, too, when I tell you who I am and what I’m planning to do. You’ll have a choice, in a few minutes, and I think you’ll choose wisely, but we’ll see how that goes. Are you ready to listen?”

He paused, and it seemed as if the air all through Magnolia’s office held its breath, waiting. Magnolia hit the panic button once or twice more, just to make sure it really wasn’t working, and Zem waited for her to be finished. The air made less than no sound at all.

“Don’t worry,” Zem said again. He shifted forward, eager to get to the real subject.

“Okay,” she said. He hadn’t acted dangerous yet.

Zem laughed. “So you’ve decided that I can be trusted long enough for you to figure out how to get rid of me, at least? That’s fine, that’s fine. You’ll change your mind.”

Magnolia didn’t say a word.

“Here we go,” Zem said. “What you need is a Next New Thing. A new concept of Vegas that will cost less than all this toddler-friendly, theme park hoo-ha but draw even more tourists. And make them spend more, too, just maybe. And I’ve got it.”

Magnolia Conner, three-time mayor of Las Vegas (so far), looked interested in spite of herself.

“I thought you’d like that,” Zem said. “And by the way, if you’re still wondering whether you should trust me, I know your secret.”

Magnolia didn’t respond. She barely reacted. There was, perhaps, the merest flicker of an eyelid. The air in the room, a captive audience and definitely intrigued, stilled to utter entropy to listen.

“The big one,” Zem added. “But forget that. We have better things to talk about. Now listen closely, Magnolia. Here’s what’s going to happen in your city between tonight and New Year’s Eve. Ready?”

The mayor had only one secret she considered “big”. The only one that nobody, nobody on earth but her almost-never-seen mother had any hint of. That secret would surely have undone her life, toppled the tower she’d erected of ambition and talent and hard work and success.

When Honoré Jerques had held her baby for the one and only time just after she’d awakened from the anesthesia of the delivery and before handing it over to her roommate’s mother to take care of for the next two decades, she had looked it over, considered, and then handed it back with one statement, and her only decision regarding its future.

“Call him Frank,” she’d said.

Now that was a secret Magnolia kept.

NEXT POST: The Ghost of Vegas' Past (Friday 8/28)