Inside the restaurant, I stroll past a small queue formed at the bathroom door, catching several women’s frowns. “I’m looking for a friend, not jumping the line.”
Inside the Victorian-style room, I call “Stacy? Bleu?” twice. A woman behind the stall responds, “No Stacy or Bleu here.”
Heading toward one of the waiters clad in black, I ask if she’s seen a five-foot-ten-inch-slender woman in a Mardi Gras wig with bangs. She points toward the Séance room where she’d seen her a few minutes ago.
I stumble inside, interrupting an intimate tarot card reading. On a red velveteen sofa around a table, five patrons and an Indian tarot reader dressed in a red and gold sari gape at Bleu, condemning the decor and Egyptian sculptures.
“Ki jan fo, kolan, how fake. Tacky. Nothing like palaces on Basin S
