Chapter Four

t nine o'clock in the evening I meet Morrie, Diana, and the others in the lobby of Caesar's Palace at the base of an ornate and thickly carpeted stairway leading up to the grand ballroom where Wayne Newton "and company" are appearing in an "all-star revue."

The lobby is jam-packed with hotel guest gawkers jostling against slot machine players and gamblers and cocktail waitresses in off-the-shoulder miniskirt togas, the latter weaving in amongst us with trays of free drinks. In the background, seemingly penned against the wall by a velvet rope, is a restless raggedy line of people extending all the way up the staircase and back down into the lobby and out of sight around a corner, as far back, it would seem, as Omaha.

Diana is wearing an off-the-shoulder toga gown herself, except hers reaches to the floor, and I must say, until I catch a glimpse of the feral expression on her face, for a moment I can see why Morrie is crazy about her.

Morrie, in keeping with the festiveness of the occasion, has exchanged his gray flannels for white flannels and is wearing an open collar pink silk shirt with a gold chain around his neck. Morrie is not tall, but stands a bit higher in high gloss black plastic elevator shoes. The pink shirt, which is beautiful, does clash, however, with the orange tint of his hair which he grows long near his left ear and layers in strands over his bald spot. Tony Passanante wears an Izod Kelly green polo shirt, and carries a double knit jacket over one arm, in case it is required that it be worn to hear Wayne Newton.

Dr. Feigenweiser and I are the only ones dressed inappropriately for the occasion, he in the same tired business suit he was wearing during the afternoon, and I, like the ten Kraut terrorists who are huddled nearby with Shatsie, in the same soccer team flannel and blazer regalia.

Shatsie has changed from the pants suit in black gabardine she was wearing this afternoon to an identically tailored pants suit, in sado-masochist black silk. She has put a touch of red to her lips, and applied deep purple makeup into the sockets of her eyes so that she looks at the very least as interesting as any of the hookers seated on stools at the bar only a short distance away. She is smoking one of her cigars.

Although Diana is furnishing the tickets, Morrie has taken over the leadership of our group, and with perhaps a bit of extra unnecessary flamboyance, with one eye rarely straying from a somewhat bewildered looking Dr. Feigenweiser, he leads us up the staircase alongside the roped-in hordes of tourists waiting in line.

"That fuckin' Glick," Tony growls in my ear. "He prob'ly paid some asshole a couple hunnerd bucks to get us at the head of the line."

"And thank God, too, " I say. Actually, I envy Morrie his ability to take charge in situations like this. He is a much better advance public relations man than I am, at least as far as handling social arrangements is concerned. I am pretty good with my press contacts, but when it comes to spending company money to pay off headwaiters, order gourmet dinners, and select expensive wines (usually entailing some embarrassing moments while he grills the wine steward), no one can touch Morrie.

We are, in fact, escorted to the head of the line, the roped-in multitudes eyeing us with hatred. We are ushered in two groups into a vast auditorium tiered in scallops of loge seats rising up from the festooned stage curtain at what seems like about a forty-degree incline. The Krauts are in a shelf directly below us with Shatsie, who presumably will translate the words of Wayne Newton's songs to them. "Jeder zeit es regnet, es regnet pfennigs von himmel," Morrie has seen to it that Dr. Feigenweiser is with us in our pod.

Immediately Morrie is conferring with the waiter, a man who does not inspire confidence as a wine steward, but impresses rather as one of long experience in hard circumstances and somewhat in need of a shave. In his white jacket he looks like one of the hawkers who sell beer and hot dogs at Yankee stadium.

"Watch this," Tony rasps into my ear. "Don Perinyong, you wait. "

Tony is wrong. The waiter reappears, accompanied by a second who could be his brother, each of them bearing standing ice buckets, glasses, and two bottles of Mumm's Cordon Rouge.

"Same price as the other," Tony says to me. It is the conflict between man-on-the- road salesman versus what Tony perceives as the home office freeloader that so rankles and drives Tony to ruffle Morrie, if he can. To Morrie, he says, "What's the difference between Mumm's and Taylor's sparkling white, Glick?"

Morrie simply smiles at Tony condescendingly, and continues to focus his attention on Dr. Feigenweiser. "Do you like champagne, Doctor?"

Morrie is in his element now, and he watches every movement of the hot dog vendors to catch any dereliction of duty. Diana cannot keep her eyes off Morrie. It is his knowledge of the world and his dignified air of authority that have won her admiration and romantic favors.

Our waiter pours, strictly heeding Morrie's admonishment not to fill the glasses too high, then collects the company's gold American Express card which Morrie never leaves home without.

The bubbly is good, and we find ourselves looking at one another and grinning companionably as we take our first sips, just at the moment when the lights suddenly go down, the stage curtains are drawn up majestically, and a full orchestra rises from a pit in the middle of the stage, blasting forth with music so loud you can't make out the melody, and the darkness of the auditorium is splintered by a hundred vari-colored laser flashes streaking across the void from locations behind and to the sides of us. The effect is magnificent, irresistible, causing the skin to prickle, and each of us to stir about in our chairs as we experience a moment of magic and wonderment.

The audience, as a whole, leans perceptibly forward in anticipation of the star's entrance, as an offstage announcer, his voice rising above the blare of the music, a feat one would not have thought possible, booms out an introduction of:

"Mis-ter

Way-y-y-y-y-ne

New-tu-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-nnnnnnn."

And out he comes, Mis-ter Way-y-y-y-y-ne New-tu-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-nnnnn, in high-heeled snakeskin cowboy boots, purple velvet pants and a patterned shirt that looks like flocked wallpaper, loops of bracelets and bangles dangling and jangling from wrists and neck. His hair is greased back and looks like the black shiny stuff Morrie presumably puts on his shoes, and the little upswept black moustache can only be something pasted on at the last minute as some kind of joke aimed at hen-pecked husbands.

I immediately fear the worst, but having learned from experience that first impressions are not always right (though usually they are), settle back in my chair, applauding with the others, and wait for the show to proceed.

"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen," Wayne Newton chortles, as though this is the funniest gag of the evening (which I have the feeling it may very well be). The greeting is followed up by a couple of unfunny jokes about husbands not being with their wives, but the wives not being with their husbands, either. Which sends the audience into paroxyms of laughter, and me to a healthy quaff of my champagne. Morrie is grinning at the stage, and so is Diana. Dr. Feigenweiser looks like someone has just told him he has been cuckolded, and Tony is nudging Morrie and ostentatiously holding his nose.

We are then treated to a medley of 1940s swing band standards, designed to send chills up and down the spines of those in the audience over 60. Dr. Feigenwelser is looking very uncomfortable, and I notice that Tony now is chuckling and whispering in Morrie's ear. Morrie, stiffening, there is no doubt of it, keeps his eyes aimed at the stage, a determined grin frozen on his face.

"Ra-cing witha moo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-n

High abova silver —"

"You fucking son of a bitch!" Wayne's chorus is suddenly interrupted by Morrie screaming at Tony, at the same time leaping up abruptly from his chair, causing it to be knocked over, and toppling the champagne bucket, which, however, by moving quickly and adroitly I am able to catch before it crashes to the floor.

"Whatsa matter?" Tony says, the facsimile of a grin on his face.

"Vas is los?" Dr. Feigenweiser is saying beside me.

"Cut it out, you guys!" I'm on my feet now, in between Morrie and Tony, facing Morrie. "Morrie! Cut it out!"

"Racing witha moo-oo-oo-oo-oo-n-"

"I'll kill the sonofabitch!" Morrie cries. And before the two Yankee stadium wine stewards who are rushing to our pod can get to us, Morrie has hauled back and thrown a haymaker which misses Tony but catches me on the left ear, hard enough so that more lasers go off, and instead of Wayne Newton, I hear a sudden loud ringing in the ears, which it occurs to me also could be the sound of Diana screaming at Tony, who ducks and steps back from her—all of this happening in an instant—and in doing so, suddenly tumbles backward over the balustrade of the loge into the arms of the waiting and grinning Krauts in the loge below, just as the wine stewards do finally reach us and roughly collar Morrie and me, one on each of us.

"Outside, you guys! Come on!" And there certainly is no arguing about it with them, as it turns out, I was right, they are basically not wine stewards, but bouncers. As we are bum rushed by some kind of jiujitsu hold around the neck, I catch a glimpse of Tony resting on his backside in the laps of the Krauts, grinning at us, and waving cheerily.

"You bastard!" Diana shouts at him, as Wayne Newton finally gives up, fearing perhaps that a riot is breaking out.

"Somebody's husband must have found somebody's wife!" he calls out. The audience roars with laughter, and Morrie and I are rushed up the steps, with Diana pulling at the bouncers and shouting at them that it isn't our fault, and Dr. Feigenweiser trying to keep up, puffing and wheezing and muttering, "Nicht gut, nicht gut."

Just before we reach the exit a hand reaches out of one of the topmost loges, and briefly I catch a glimpse in the dark of Loretta and Aldo Bellagamba, Loretta managing to touch me on the arm and saying, "Hey, lover, let's get together after for a nightcap!"

"All right, you guys, you feel better?" The bouncers have Morrie and me up against a wall, about three feet apart from each other now, one each holding us by the neck, looking more than ever as though they wouldn't mind throwing some kind of crippling punch now that we are out of sight of witnesses.

"We're not fighting," I say to the guy holding me.

"I'll say you're not."

"He was trying to separate them!" Diana puts in, to my everlasting gratitude.

"This guy?" says my bouncer. There is definitely a twinge of disapointment in his voice.

"Ja, iz all right now, chentlemens," says Dr. Feigenweiser.

"Who're you?" says my bouncer.

"A very highly placed scientist in our nation's defense effort," I manage to croak out at him. "Will you let go of my neck?"

The goon decides maybe he better let up. "No more funny stuff "

"Zere vill be no more vunny shtuvh," says Feigenweiser. "Zankyou, chentlemens. "

Reluctantly, the bouncers withdraw back inside the auditorium, casting surly glances at us over their shoulders, and brushing their hands, as I would expect, in cliche fashion over their sleeves.

I look at Morrie. Suddenly he is crying, His head is in his hands, and his body is wracked with choking sobs.

"I'm sorry," he says. He looks at me with an expression of such grief and misery that I feel momentarily like embracing him. But Diana takes care of it, slipping one arm around his waist now, and talking soothingly to him. "It's all right, Morrie. It's all right."

"Vut got into you, Mowwie?" Feigenweiser asks him.

"Nothing, it's nothing I can talk about," Morrie says.

"Iss tewwible image to pwoject of company," Feigenweiser says.

"Oh, fuck the company," Morrie says. And, it seems to me, it is his finest moment.

"Language, Morrie," Diana says.

"I'm sorry, Diana," Morrie says. And he really is. He looks at her with such sorrow and concern for her feelings that I am afraid he will burst into tears again.

"Don't worry about it, Morrie," I say.

"Ja," says Feigenweiser somewhat stiffly. "I zink I go to my womb now."

"It's been a long day," I find myself saying, and feeling foolish for doing so.

Feigenweiser clicks his heels, nods curtly, and departs to his womb, while Morrie, Diana and I stand awkwardly outside the arena, looking sheepishly at one another, as the crooning voice of Wayne Newton wafts thinly through the door.

"What happened, Morrie?" I ask him at last.

"That son of a bitch, Passanante," Morrie says, his face contorting into rage again. "He's running a—a—raffle. He wanted me to ask Diana to volunteer as the prize."

"Oh, my God!"

"Oh, Morrie," Diana says, "so did you have to get all that excited?"

"You don't understand!" Morrie exclaims. "It—it—was an insult!"

"We're all here to help out," Diana says soothingly. "What'd he want, me to go out on a dinner date, or something?"

"Eating was definitely a part of it," I toss in.

"Yeah," says Morrie bitterly. He looks at me sorrowfully. "Did I hit you, Brock?"

"Just sort of." My ear at the moment feels to be about as big as my head.

"Oh, Morrie, Morrie," Diana says. "Look at all the trouble, and just over a little jealousy."

"It wasn't jealousy!" Morrie shouts at her.

"Sh-sh-sh. Shush," she says, fingers to her lips. "You've got some explaining to do to Dr. Feigenweiser, too."

"Nazi prick," Morrie says.

"Language! Morrie!" She stomps her foot on the thick carpet. She must be some wonderful piece in bed, because the price for anything less is more than anyone could possibly stand. There is no point in my hanging around any more. I figure the two of them will spend all night talking about it, without Diana ever having the slightest inkling of what Tony had proposed to Morrie, and, therefore, not the slightest inkling of what she is talking about, but she'll go on about it all night anyway, alternately consoling Morrie with a grind, then making him feel guilty by rolling her backside toward him.

"Good night, all," I say. I look at Morrie. The tuft of graying red hair that he grows on his left side is standing straight up in the air at the moment, giving him the wild took of a Samurai warrior in some old Japanese print. Actually, I can't help but feel that with it going straight up like that it gives him a look of dignity he ordinarily doesn't have.

"You did right, Morrie," I say to him. And even though I am just enough of a shit to find Tony Passanante's diabolical insult and assault on Diana's absurd notions of herself the most delicious part of the day, as a civilized human being I am obliged to add, "Tony's a prick, Morrie."

"Language!" Diana says.

© Robert Riche