At the door of a room in the Stannis Grand Hotel, not far from the Wayne Hotel, a burly black man stared at the invitation in his hand in surprise. He looked the waiter who had delivered it up and down, then said in a distinctly West Coast accent, "Are you sure this is for me? There hasn't been some mistake?"
"Your name is on the invitation, sir." The waiter was exceedingly polite, smiling broadly as he gestured with one hand.
The burly black man turned the invitation over, but what first caught his eye was not the elaborate cursive English. On the front of the black invitation was a gleaming gold design combining a wave and a ship. He rubbed it with his finger and found that it was genuine gold foil stamping.
Then, below it, he found his name: The Notorious B.I.G. Beneath the nickname was his equally lengthy real name, Christopher Wallace.
Biggie had been separated from that name for a long time. Aside from his mother, no one called him Christopher anymore. Since his last album had made him famous, the world had forgotten the black boy who had gone to prison several times and instead idolized a true hard man of East Coast rap.
Turning the invitation over, Christopher found a line of small print in the lower-left corner of the back: Great West Continent welcomes your honored presence.
Only then did Christopher snort. He knew it. How could those rednecks from high society possibly invite a black rapper to perform? So it was a casino ship.
This ship was quite famous on the East Coast for one reason alone: it was the only casino ship that had evaded inspections by every Coast Guard unit and the National Guard on the East Coast. It was