Wesley arrived in Las Vegas late Friday night and too tired after working eight hours and then driving more than six hours straight to Las Vegas didn't want to try to find Lorne, who was probably working. Did casinos ever close? So he found a motel and checked in and crashed for the night. After sleeping late and getting something to eat, he headed over to the casino Lorne worked at. All around him were colorfully dressed people and he identified some demons as well. None that seemed concerning if he remembered correctly. Like the Blue Man group, two of which were actually demons as Angel had told Fred's father when they were visiting, demons could easily fit in, in both Las Vegas and Los Angeles because humans just assumed they were part of a show. Lorne's green skin and red eyes were offset by his extravagant clothing choices and flamboyant nature. Even if he didn't work in show business, humans would assume he did by the way he looked, dressed and acted.
Wesley found the casino Lorne worked at and made his way inside, looking for the auditorium and found a schedule of acts posted outside it. Wesley was disappointed to see nothing starting until later that afternoon, he had hours to kill, so he headed to the bar and got a booth and nursed a drink, hoping he'd see Lorne, a demon who could never pass up a Sea Breeze. Unfortunately, there were no sightings of Lorne in the bar as a bored Wesley whiled away the hours waiting for the auditorium to open and the first show to start. Wesley's plan was to plant himself in the middle of the first row and see if he could get Lorne's attention some how, he was pretty sure trying to sneak into the back, where the dressing rooms were, would only invite Security to haul him out and dump him in the alleyway.
Finally about thirty minutes before the first show was scheduled to start, Wesley made his way to the auditorium and waited in line to buy a pass to the show. Once inside he made his way to the front row and waited for Lorne to appear on stage and introduce the first act. It was a major step down for Lorne, where once he'd owned and run his own Karaoke bar, now he worked for someone else and introduced their acts. And then, like the rest of them he'd worked for Wolfram and Hart, running their entertainment division and earning more in a month than he'd probably made in the whole last year. Things had gone very badly for both of them, it seemed. And then Wesley straightened up because Lorne was striding onto the stage, oozing confidence and charm, cracking jokes, making a few announcements and then presenting the first act.
Lorne swept his eyes over the partly filled auditorium, the first couple of shows didn't attract much attention, the real acts were later in the evening. Lorne's eyes swept passed one man and than back, the man was waving at him. It took a moment for Lorne to realize who he was and instantly he felt dread. Oh no, he was out of it. Lorne had never wanted to be part of their demon hunting group in the first place. He was fine with being friends with them, having them as customers, even helping them out occasionally. But Lorne's dream was music and a sanctuary from violence and he'd been dragged into Angel's world with violence and ended up at that thrice damned Wolfram and Hart. He prayed Wesley wasn't here to drag him back into it again.
'On the other hand, maybe he just missed being friends.' Lorne thought optimistically. After announcing the act he made his way off the stage and found the nearest Security person and pointed out Wesley to him and told him Wesley was an old friend and asked the Security guy to invite him backstage and headed to his dressing room to wait for Wesley to be brought to him.
A knock on the door had him calling out permission to enter. Lorne didn't waste any time. "Please tell me you're not here about demons or the end of the world."
"I'm here because we may have been lied to."
"By who? And why?"
"Possibly Eve since she's the one who told us."
"Told us what?"
"Told us Cordelia is dead."
"You don't think she is?!" Lorne exclaimed, shocked.
"A couple of days ago I saw a woman, an actress, on a soap opera that looked just like her, the credits listed her name as Cordelia Chase-Harris. How much of a coincidence do you think that could be?"
Lorne wanted to insist it had to be a coincidence, but Cordelia had originally come to Los Angeles to be an actress. The name, the job, it was too much to be a coincidence. "Where is she?"
"The show she works on is shot in New York, I've tried finding information about her online, but being an actress, I understand her agent work's to restrict personal information to avoid potentially crazy fans trying to find her."
"Yeah, I know the routine, what do you want me to do, use my contacts in entertainment to try to find her?"
"Maybe, but I thought we could start with something possibly a little faster. I sing, you get a vision."
Lorne nodded, he too wanted to know why someone he'd been told was dead, was actually alive. "Go ahead." He invited.
Wesley opened his mouth and began to sing. After a couple of minutes Lorne stopped him. "I'm getting absolutely nothing, if it's her, she's got some major league protections on her."
"Which suggests it is her, why hide her magically if it isn't?"
Lorne nodded. "Tell me what you do know and I'll see what I can find out."
So Wesley told him the name of the show and the name of the character she played and Lorne started making phone calls. In-between, Lorne made announcements and the two old friends caught up and speculated about why they may have been lied to about Cordelia being dead..