''I thought the mob was dead in this town."
"That doesn't stop wannabes and cheap imitations. The death of Elvis didn't."
Temple had no snappy retort for that grisly comparison, except that the hoods who attacked her certainly hadn't looked as if they could sing.
She didn't want to remind Molina of where they had last met, and of who had accompanied Temple. She had to keep Matt out of this as long as possible while he repaired his shocked psyche. Listen to her! She admonished herself. Now she was protecting Matt. Who would protect her? Not Molina.
"You still haven't heard from your ex?" the lieutenant was asking, eyes narrow to trap any obvious lies.
Temple shook her head. ''About the Goliath. Other than the fact that Max had been appearing there, and vanished just as the body in the ceiling was found, what indicates that he had anything to do with it? The only criminal record you can find on him is that ancient IRA thing from Interpol. Even you admit it was for suspected association, and not proven. So why would Max be murdering men in Las Vegas fifteen years later?"
"Las Vegas is always a target for ambitious and clever thieves, and the IRA always needs money."
'"I'd be willing to bet that Max's IRA involvement was a youthful extreme. He just wasn't that political when I knew him, nor willing to be that ruthless. If he ever was, he outgrew it."
"Maybe he never outgrew the high of doing something illegal, of tricking the system, whatever it is. A magician is-perfectly placed to do a lot of damage of that sort. He travels everywhere. He's uniquely skilled in the right areas. He knows how to divert attention and how to vanish."
"Max wasn't that money-hungry. He made plenty the old-fashioned way."
"But he was that attention-hungry, wasn't he?"
Temple couldn't answer that as fast as she would have liked. Molina had touched on an aspect of Max that had always troubled her: his constant need to mystify, to astound, to manipulate. If magic had become too routine. . . .
''Maybe," Temple said finally, "but he liked to hang around and take the bow afterwards."
"That's why I'm still looking, and watching."
"Watching me?"
"How could I avoid it? You turn up like the plague. I suppose I can expect to see you underfoot around here for some time."
"Don't worry. Lieutenant. I'm not leaving town until I can take my bow for the Gridiron."
Molina nodded her dark head and looked satisfied. She moved on without a farewell word.
Temple watched her head bob above the milling crowds in the casino until it vanished.
Hard to imagine the same woman drawing out smoky syllables in the spotlight of an intimate nightclub. Carmen. She had to hate that name as much as Matt hated the longer version of his own. Mart's loathing was understandable. His name had been a warning and a weapon in the arsenal of his vicious stepfather, until he came to hate the sound of it almost as much as the man who used and abused it.
The name "Carmen" had been a verbal weapon for peers, Temple guessed, with its echoes of grand opera and sultry cigarette girls, of Hispanic songstresses with fruit-basket heads. That would all hit too close to home to a tall, awkward, maybe chubby teenager, and Temple suspected that Mariah Molina was a pretty accurate duplicate of her mother at that age.
So had Molina finally lived up to her given name and become a saloon singer? Or was she living down her past by creating an alter ego who was quite successfully Carmen in the arena made for her, on stage?
Temple eyed the gorgeous but mythical Lalique bird one last time, then plunged into the ever-moving mob herself. Living in Las Vegas accustomed a person to crowds and a certain restless energy that became addictive.
The background chime of slot machines produced its own heavy metal music. Temple welcomed seeing characters about town, like the Leopard Lady, who only wore clothes in that pattern, or Eightball's friend, Hester Polyester, or Nostradamus. They all recalled bit players in some elderly Broadway musical comedy. Even the occasional murder seemed a dramatic touch designed to bring down the first-act curtain. That is, it all seemed slightly unreal until you knew the victim, whether that was a stripper acquaintance or your neighbor's never-met stepfather.
Temple wondered, given the second casino killing, if she might not unknowingly know another, as-yet-undiscovered victim: Max Kinsella. Molina would be sorry about pursuing Max so heatedly if he were actually dead. . . . No, Molina would not be sorry, but Temple would.
***************
"Wait'll you see the set.''
Danny Dove sat cross-legged on the floor like an elderly but double-jointed elf as he rustled through a pile of sheets the size of house plans.
"Your skit inspired it," he added impishly.
Temple cast dignity aside to join Danny on the cold concrete floor of the rehearsal room.
Crawford had been such a stick-in-the-crud about her skit that Danny's enthusiasm was exciting.
Dove brandished a crackling paper covered with scrawls. "Here's the backdrop for the whole show--a velvet painting with all these lurid outlines of existing Las Vegas landmarks mixed in with your fictional ones. Tiny colored fairy lights will twinkle like toe-dancers all over the skyline and sky. Isn't it too, too divinely tacky? And for the finale at the end of your skit, the sky explodes with stars--forming a constellation of a Technicolor Elvis down to his blue suede shoes!"
"Dazzling," Temple agreed.
"For the final medley, I use the stage trap door to bring up the entire cast, like miners from below the earth, the government secret agents, the Cosa Nostradamus muscle, the concealed aliens and their spaceship, which will fly into orbit around Elvis's enormous paunch, which has toy cars racing around it. . . ."
"Gross," Temple said with admiration.
Danny looked over the tops of his clear plastic half-glasses. ''It's not easy to outdo Vegas Garish at its own game, but I believe I have created the backdrop for a truly tasteless Tinsel-town east."
"Everything looks fabulous," Temple said. "I suppose Crawford is in clover."
"Crawford," Danny Dove enunciated in tones of deep disdain, "would be pushing up clover, if I had anything to do with it. What an ugly little man. However did the show committee decide to let that cross between Pee Wee Herman and General Sherman run things?"
"I think Crawford marched through a committee meeting in a sharkskin suit. He's awfully overbearing to direct a cooperative effort."
"Listen, young lady. Nobody directs anything on this Gridiron but yours truly." Danny Dove leapt to his threadbare-tennis-shod feet in a single, gravity-defying spring.
Temple struggled upright, trying not to twist a tall J. Renee heel.
"We start rehearsals tomorrow at two p.m. Do drop by. You might offer some little suggestion that would be amusing. You are such a clever girl."
"Thanks, but won't it irritate Crawford if a mere writer shows up to consult?"
Danny crossed his hands on his chest and tilted his head like a good child. "Yeth," he mock-lisped with an angelic grin. "It will annoy our little man no end. So don't be late."
Even Temple heard the happy spring in her step as she left the empty rehearsal area.
Her fictional remake of Las Vegas was getting a first-class production, despite Crawford Buchanan's sneering acceptance of what he treated like a second-class script. Her actual and ambitious remake of the Crystal Phoenix's image was beingembraced by the hotel's enlightened managers. That was putting pence into Temple's pocketbook as well as elevating her ego.
She tripped up the stairs to the hotel's main floor, her hand on the wooden railing as light as her heart. . . and then she just tripped.
The railing had become a long, bouncing baton as it pulled off the wall and caromed toward her legs like a log.
She lost her footing and her ankles took two terrific bangs. The high heels collapsed like a tower of poker chips. Temple was falling down the long flight of stairs, their sharp concrete lips digging into her tumbling body. The railing clattered
down ahead of her like a giant's berserk drumstick.
Everything happened too fast for her to scream, and there was nothing to catch onto. She tried to roll with the fall, martial arts style, even while trying to grasp with her hands and her mind at something that would stop her before she got-- ow!--seriously hurt.
The noise echoed down the long, empty basement spaces. Immobile at last, she lay sprawled over several steps. Her tote bag sagged open three risers down, its contents trailing in forlorn clumps all the way to the bottom step.
An oncoming slap of running footsteps mimicked the pace of her runaway heart. She clasped her arms over her hollow stomach, happy to find it in the proper position.
"Oh, Miss Temple--!"
Danny Dove vaulted the railing lying askew on the bottom steps and deftly avoided her strewn belongings to race up to her two steps at a time.
While he asked her if she were all right, he expertly tested the mobility of her joints: her neck, her wrists, her... ow! . . . ankles.
"What happened?" he demanded.
"The railing just pulled off the wall. Then it knocked my feet out from under me like a bowling ball--or like a bowling baseball bat." Down the frighteningly long ripple of step rims she could have rolled over, she spied her empty shoes, both standing perfectly upright on their sleek heels.
"I don't remember my shoes coming off--"
"Of course not," Danny said, "a bad fall is like being in the funnel of a tornado, dear girl.
Well, nothing about Our Little Dorothy seems particularly damaged but That Ankle." He frowned at the offending joint. **You must sit right here and collect your crumpets whilst I rush below for some cold water. The minute you get home you must elevate and ice-pack it. Now, don't move!"
Off he went, leaping airily down the treacherous steps.
Why would she move? Temple felt several dozen numb tinglings that were trying to be bruises, and worse, she was breathless and shaky. But she didn't feel like bawling, a distinct improvement over her behavior after her last physical disaster. Perhaps Matt's martial arts training was making her into a big, brave girl.
From above her came slow, ponderous steps. A security guard was lumbering down toward her, angling over to the wall she huddled against to take hold of the remaining section of safety rail.
While she watched, he clasped it, stepped down, grabbed on, and gazed in horror when it came away in his hand. Temple, looking up, saw another runaway log en route toward her stranded body at a bouncing, unpredictable clip.
She curled into a ball protecting her head, expecting imminent collision.
Instead she was showered with a dash of cold water and surfaced sputtering.
The runaway railing was bouncing to the bottom, knocking over her upright shoes on the way down.
The guard, still vertical, made his huffing way down to her and her baptizer, Danny Dove.
Danny shrugged at her damp condition and lifted a half empty pail.
"Sorry, kiddo. It was either a bath or another beating."
"I never seen the like." The elderly guard sat on the steps above Temple to collect his breath and himself. "That there railing would have whomped you good, but this fellow just hoppity-skipped up the stairs like lightning and clipped the thing in mid-air so it bounced off the other wall. You do Kung Fu or something, mister?"
''Ballet," Danny Dove answered promptly, kneeling to plunge Temple's right ankle into the icy water. " 'Swan Lake' could train pole vaulters."
The guard twisted to regard the bare walls. Empty wrought-iron railing brackets clung to them like large, predatory flies. "What's going on here?"
"Criminal negligence," Danny Dove snapped. "Obviously the screws were loose, not only on the railing brackets, but in the head of whoever is responsible for maintaining the basement area. If this had happened a few hours later, when those stairs are used by dozens of dancers, it could have been a mass tragedy."
Temple squeaked politely. Danny looked down at her water-logged ankle again.
"Sorry, dear thing. Am I winding this too tightly? It's only some sheeting strips left over from a set-flat dutchman job, but the best bandage available.
"If you," he told the guard severely, surveying the man's Elvis-paunch middle, "can manage to crawl up and get the maintenance staff, and Miss von Rhine, we can clean up this mess and get Miss Temple on her way to some real treatment."
The burly guard nodded and worked his way upward, grabbing the occasional bracket like a mountain climber clinging to pitons.
"There, there," Danny Dove crooned as he lifted Temple's sopping foot from the bucket.
"You'll be dancing the marimba again in a day or two."
"That's funny," she said, "I sure couldn't dance it before.*'
When he laughed at her apt paraphrase of the ancient surgeon/violin joke, she added, "I don't think I could even cook it."
Chapter 18
Devine Revelations
When Nicky Fontana's silver Corvette convertible pulled up in front of the Circle Ritz, Electra and Matt were waiting by the curb that the Vette's tires came close enough to kiss.
Their identical expressions of concern took a comical turn toward other emotions as they eyed Temple's mode of transportation- Dark, dashing Nicky Fontana did not make a low profile chauffeur, either. Electra's gray eyes glimmered with speculation; Matt's looked wary.
Had Matt's troubles not been so much more serious than hers. Temple might have enjoyed his shock.
Nicky vaulted over the driver's side door without opening it--apparently he was as light on his feet as Danny Dove--and came around to release Temple via the passenger door.
Electra was poised on the curb, tsking constantly in manic Mother Hen style, to take Temple's tote bag. Nicky helped Temple exit the low-slung car, but Matt was quick to support her once she was on her stocking feet.
Being the centerpiece of such intense concern might comfort some; it might even flatter some women, since two of the solacing trio were attractive men.
To Temple it was sheer hell. She wished she could shake off their quite literal support, but her shoes were in her tote bag and her aching ankle was too quirky to rely on.
Had her current state resulted from an outright assault, it might hold a certain tawdry glamour, as it had the last time. But, no. This time she was just someone who had creamed herself while walking up the stairs--badly. A clumsy klutz. The self-description particularly stung: trotting about on her trademark three-inch-high heels had been Temple's personal declaration of independence since she was fifteen.
"Really, I'm fine," Temple insisted gamely through the throb, as she had been doing since succored by the amazingly adept Danny Dove.
As everyone had been doing since her fall, they turned a deaf ear.
She glanced at the nearest unheeding orifice, Nicky Fontana's, as it happened. Temple decided that the social necessities would remove the focus from her unreliable foot.
Introductions were in order.
"This is my landlady, Electra Lark," she said with a wave of her only free hand. **Matt Devine is a neighbor and . . . my martial arts instructor."
"And I know that ole boy from way back." Nicky nodded toward the Circle Ritz entrance. A black cat sat in the shade.
"Louie!" Temple was touched. Even the cat, watching them, looked almost solicitous.
''How do you know Temple's cat?" Matt asked.
She hastened to finish the introductions before Matt reached erroneous conclusions of his own. "Nicky Fontana owns the Crystal Phoenix, where I had my . . . mishap. That's where Midnight Louie used to hang his collar, if he ever had one. Then one day he moseyed up to the Convention Center and found a dead body and caught my eye. He's been with me ever since.
Now I'm working at the Phoenix, when I'm not falling flat on my face, and Nicky was kind enough to insist on driving me home."
Nicky nodded at Temple's friends, unintimidated by Electra's punkish hairdo or Matt's martial arts expertise. He was also unaffected by
Temple's tendency to pooh-pooh her injury.
''You didn't fall on your face; you fell on your foot. A bad ankle sprain," he announced in the tone of a doctor transferring a patient's care to a new team. ''Our choreographer, Danny Dove, has seen dozens of dance injuries. He prescribed elevation and ice packs. And"--Nicky smiled at Temple with stern charm--"it was no trouble bringing Temple home. She's doing a lot for the Phoenix. Plus, I don't want any personal injury suits."
"I'd never--"
Nicky's smile had faded into a frown. "Van would have my head on a shish-kebab stick for saying this, but I doubt that your 'accident' was one. Those screws were deliberately loosened."
"How would anyone know when I would walk up those particular stairs--or that I'd take them instead of the elevator?"
"They wouldn't. I don't mean that someone meant to injure you, only that you happened into a trap planned to injure a cast of thousands . . . well, dozens anyway--and the Crystal Phoenix Hotel and Casino itself."
"What exactly do you mean?" Matt asked.
Nicky nonchalantly twirled his key chain around his forefinger. "People have tried to put the Crystal Phoenix out of business even before we reopened. They attempted this sort of sabotage before they came right out in the open and tried to trash Van's remodeling." He glanced at Temple. "If you weren't so busy feeling foolish about something that wasn't your fault, you'd realize that those rail brackets were loosened with intent to cause bodily harm. Your body was moot."
"But why?" Temple wondered. "Why then, and why now?"
"I don't know. We never pinned the last round on anybody specific. But this time the stakes have escalated: we ended up with a dead body on the premises." He pointed at Temple, keys jangling. "So get plenty of rest before you come back, and be ready for more fires to put out.
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