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Show 93 Jewel's hair, flowing down and across her shoulders, see her eyes flash, he will feel . . . maybe balance again. Perhaps. What can he lose? Hunt imagines Hall going to MacCaren Airport. He imagines Hall's excitement. Hall's been drinking. Hall's been drinking too much for the months he's been in Las Vegas; the top of his Sony is a shelf for glasses. She won't have done it, he's thinking; She won't have come! But then, on the Western Airlines screen, Hall sees Jewel's flight: DEPLANING, and he stands in the concourse corridor -- music, hotel-and-casino sign lights, the eternal tape, "Welcome to Las Vegas ..." dancing like a Bob Fosse movie, the carousel of slots performing behind him. When a knot of passengers round a corner, Hall turns to the wall, grabs an MGM courtesy phone and becomes a fixture. If Jewel is in the crowd, she walks right past him. Two hours later, working, Hall picks Jewel up on his screen. The lens zooms in on her eye shadow and Hall wonders whether he might not go crazy. Jewel has checked into the hotel at 3:42; Hall knows that. Charlie T. was her bellman. And Hall's champaign and orchids and five hundred in five dollar chips were stacked on her vanity. Hall has watched Jewel - showering first: touching herself with the Jacuzzi wand; and Hall, watching, has felt himself both partnered and sad. He has come close. And felt dizzy. He has brought his camera in: so close that he could see the erectile tissue. An hour before this moment watching Jewel sip a Marguirita and play blackjack, Time and the physical world, for Hall, have broken down and Hall has felt himself and Jewel, together: on a blanket by a stream; in a tiny room; joined and by a gasfire in a ski cabin; parked in a car. But, too, Hall has felt The World come back and has heard the muzak in the monitor room and has |
