Van nodded, still admiring the colorful model. "I don't know who Brother John is, but I'll put his name up in neon if it's adequate thanks for getting a children's park designed by an internationally renowned artist."
"Brother John," Nicky ruminated. "It must mean something. I don't have a brother Gianni, hard as that may be to believe, but I'll adopt this one gladly."
"A simple flamingo-pink plaque somewhere should be all that's needed," Temple said demurely.
"I suppose it could be a Brother, as in order of brothers," Nicky speculated. "Domingo could be Spanish."
"Or Italian," Van put in.
"Or Incan," Temple added.
"He is . . . international, isn't he?" Van asked, looking dazed. "But study this layout. It's an Alice -in-Wonderland sort of maze, a children's sculpture garden. And the animals will be displayed in this most unnatural environment quite naturally. He's even specified a Wonderland croquet vignette with the plastic flamingos as mallets."
"And the Mushroom Maze is a prairie dog town," Nicky added.
"Amazing," Temple agreed. What wonders, she wondered, would Max produce this evening to compete with a Domingo Original. "It lends itself to all sorts of tie-in products."
"Wonderful idea, Temple." Van's tranquil face glowed. "I've been so stupefied by Domingo's offer that I hadn't considered the spin-off possibilities."
"We'd have to cut Domingo in on the product profits," Temple added, "but it would be well worth it."
"Absolutely," Nicky agreed. "I'm sure we can work out a good deal. The guy was like Santa Claus with an American Express platinum card. He brought his wife and kid with him, and of course Van had to bring them up to the penthouse to see Cinnamon."
"How is the baby?"
"China's just terrific, Temple."
"She has actual hair now," Nicky put in.
"She always had hair," Van retorted. "It was just... baby-fine."
"Louie will like her a lot better with more fur," Temple said. "I can sympathize with the state of parenthood now that I've lugged him all over Manhattan in a cat knapsack."
"So how did everything go?" Van sat down behind her desk.
Temple gratefully collapsed into one of the upholstered Parsons chairs paired before it, while Nicky played on the sidelines with the moving parts of Domingo's model.
"How did it go? You could consider it an existential Christmas, I guess. Santa was dead."
"Santa .. . died?"
"At the advertising agency Christmas party, no less. Louie tried to warn us something was up, but they wouldn't listen to Lassie either."
"You're kidding!" Nicky said hopefully, from the sidelines.
"No, I'm not. Put quite a crimp into the selection process for the Allpetco spokescats and spokesperson. I don't know who will get the nod, and, right now, I don't care. I'm eager to get going again on the Phoenix project, especially now that this bonus has dropped into our laps. I think I'll go gaze on the real estate out back, try to envision Domingo's park as a part of it."
"Go. Gaze. Graze a little in the restaurants, if you like." Nicky waved her away like an Italian mama shooing schmoozers out of her kitchen. "You're always on the house at the Crystal Phoenix."
"Not a bad advertising slogan," said Temple, only recalling a moment later why the phrase sounded familiar: It's always midnight at Hamilton's.
Midnight at New York-New York on New Year's Eve would always be a miserable memory.
Trying to carry on as normal had been the worst possible move for everyone.
Temple smiled a wan good-bye to Van and Nicky and made her long, solo way to the hotel's rear courtyard, which housed the pool, some tennis courts and a lot of undeveloped Las Vegas scrub that was worth its weight in sand.
Visions of sugar plums and plum advertising contracts vanished before the bright, palm-decorated vista. Not only was the surface land waiting to be morphed into a new fantasy recreational area, but the Crystal Phoenix lay above a network of underground tunnels that could be exploited for a delightfully dark Disneylandish Jersey Joe Jackson mine ride, complete with the old coot's holographic ghost. Temple thought about Jersey Joe building the Joshua Tree Hotel here in the forties, then squirreling caches of his ill-gotten goods all over the wastes of Las Vegas and the surrounding desert. Maybe excavation would unearth more treasure, like the highjacked silver dollars discovered a few years ago. And maybe not. Today's coveted treasures were multimillion-dollar state lotteries.
She glanced up at the hotel, now transformed into the elegant Crystal Phoenix, trying to pinpoint Jersey Joe Jackson's seventh-floor ghost suite. Even if his shade didn't actually haunt the suite that had been his home in good times and bad, it would holographically prowl the underground mine ride. That was more than Howard Hughes's ghost could claim, for all that his estate still owned most of Las Vegas.
So it wasn't just expensive mania, which seemed to drive New Las Vegas these days, it was history!
Temple actually felt one warm brown bubble of optimism explode on the top of her brain.
She was perking up, quite literally. She thrived on ideas, on linking strange odds and ends, and on getting her brain bubbling until it overflowed into her demeanor and that flooded into the enthusiastic public relations pro personality.
That side of her had been dormant of late, she realized, dragged down by personal conundrums like Bachelor Number One or Bachelor Number Two. God forbid a Number Three should show up on the scene. She'd lose all momentum then.
Some of the palms would have to go. But they wouldn't be replaced with the ersatz reconstituted palms that lined the entry to the Mirage. Domingo was right: better the genuine fake than the trumped-up substitute. Neon palm trees painted metal-sculpture pink, and green-and-blue palm fountains. But not instant freeze-dried palms.
And the carp pond. Louie's beloved former hangout. That might have to be relocated....
Temple wandered in its direction, toward the thicket of canna lilies not now in bloom.
She stopped, surprised. A black cat sat in elegant relief against the broad canna lily leaves.
Of course. Midnight Louise, aka Caviar. She was the Crystal Phoenix mascot now that Midnight Louie had moved in with Temple at the Circle Ritz.
Louise sat statue-still, perhaps staring at an exotic goldfish doing a pas de deux, fins in the water. Koi in kinetic motion. Even the cat's shadow didn't stir.
And then Temple blinked the mushy contact lenses into better focus.
The cat's "shadow" wasn't a shadow, but another black cat, this one hunched on all fours, gazing fixedly into the pond.
Temple edged nearer on her dainty red-and-purple-and-pewter Manolo Blahnik snakeskin pumps.
Neither cat stirred, but they simultaneously turned their faces toward her, one gold-eyed, one green.
"Louie! Is this where you've been? I missed you last night. Well. . . this morning, really."
He blinked, as if clearing his new contact lenses. Then he stared down into the water again.
Temple felt distinctly snubbed, but she supposed that returning from New York to become, in short order (a) an assault victim, (b) an invalid and (c) a New Year's Eve gadabout did not endear her to her loyal feline friend.
Besides, she had thought that he and Midnight Louise did not get along.
Temple approached the cats until she too could see into the water.
But no fish schooled there. The pond was empty, perhaps vacated for the coldest part of the winter. Maybe the koi had gone south to winter at Phoenix, Arizona. What were the great feline hunters watching, then, water bugs?
Temple could have sworn they were brooding.
Was she in a funk! Attributing her own downcast emotions to a pair of sunning pussycats.
"Well, feel free to come home whenever you feel like it, Louie."
A party of passing tourists stared at her.
Temple talked back in her mind: Hey, some of you people talk to dice! At least cats are sentient, and sometimes a whole lot more.
These cats were mostly indifferent to her. Temple left them, feeling deserted by Louie's return to the Crystal Phoenix.
********************
She got over the perfidy of cats by the time she stopped at the optometrist's, who had opened up briefly despite the holiday just so her "emergency" client could literally "see" New Year's Day in.
"The black eye's so much better now," noted the young woman sympathetically. "With these new lenses you won't be walking into open doors anymore because your glasses slipped down your nose and you nearly dropped your groceries. You'll see so much better with the exact prescription."
Temple underwent the icky process of peeling out the old lenses and putting in the new.
"Out with the old, in with the new" reminded her of the recent disastrous holiday celebration, only her personal motto could be: "in with the old, out with the new."
But... the optometrist was right. The glittering environment of the shop, including ranks of traditional glass frames, was in much sharper focus now.
Temple fingered the narrow brochure she had picked up on her first visit. "About these colored lenses."
"Ideal for someone with your mid-range correction."
"Yes, but . . . color." She would never have speculated on rotating eye color with a male optometrist.
"Green would be the obvious choice. Or a deeper blue."
"Not. . . violet."
"Well--"
"I've always thought violet eyes would be . . . electric."
"Whatever you like. The whole idea is to play with your image, right?"
Or maybe play with your identity, maybe fool someone hunting a redhead with light blue-grey eyes.
But Temple could tell that her favorite color, violet, didn't strike the optometrist as the most flattering disguise for her rampant coloring.
Max would tell her to do what she liked. Do what thou wilt. That was the motto of some long-dead magician, she remembered from her exploration of the profession during Halloween week. Alistair Crowley, that was his name. Only he had been more than a magician, more like the leader of some decadent cult. Something metaphysical and creepy and a little silly.
She thrust the brochure back into her tote bag.
Violet eyes.
Maybe another day.
Chapter 10
The Mysteries of Gandolpho
Louie was still boycotting the Circle Ritz when Temple greeted Max at the patio door at seven that evening. She had tried calling Matt earlier before he left for work at the hotline, but got no answer. She had an edgy feeling that he was taking Effinger's attack far harder than he had let her see the previous evening.
But tonight was Max's and she'd get really schizophrenic if she kept mentally bouncing between the two of them.
In honor of her New Year's Day's night with Max, she had donned loose knit pants and top, in burglar black, and tennis shoes.
Max seemed please to find her waiting, but glanced at her feet. "What are those?"
She looked down at her $7.88 discount- store black velvet tennies. "Stealth tennis shoes. I assume we'll need to slink into your house, as usual. Things are rough, Kinsella, when you have to break into your own place."
He looked around the condominium. "Yeah. I know."
An awkward caesura killed the chitchat. Midnight Louie wasn't even around to serve as a conversation piece.
Temple joined Max on the uncontested couch, offering him a mug of coffee. She expected this to be a long evening, one way or another. "So, seriously, what's at your place that's so fascinating, besides you?"
He lifted an eyebrow at her concession of interest. "I've been poking around Gandolph's computer files and his inventory of magical appliances."
" 'Magical appliances'? Sounds kinky."
"Magic has always had a kinky undercurrent, and a metaphysical one. Confinement, release.
Death, rebirth. But I'm running into traces of more than the usual baggage. Something . . .
sinister."
"Does it have anything to do with Gandolph's death?"
Max hesitated. "It could."
"Well, now that we're hyped up on caffeine, I suppose we're ready to face anything. As least I won't crash at ten p.m."
Max put her half-drunk coffee mug on the glass-topped table. His long fingers suddenly framed her naked face. The expression in his eyes was so intense she felt she was listening to the profession of a vow.
"No more 'crashes' for you. Not from that quarter. I doubt that Effinger will be anyone's problem very much longer."
She was afraid to ask him what he meant, just as she had been afraid to tell Matt what she meant to do with her personal life. It wasn't lost on her that Max would escort her to and from his house; she was not to be on the streets alone.
*******************
Max's house, previously occupied by the late Gary Randolph-- Max's magician mentor known professionally as Gandolph--and before that by the late Orson Welles, gave Temple the creeps. And it wasn't just the ghosts of the two dead men.
Maybe the house felt eerie because they were always having to creep up on it. Max wanted--needed--to conceal his residence there, so every entry was clandestine.
Temple was also intimidated by the house's heavy oriental furniture, especially Max's opium bed, a sort of fretwork pagoda, inlaid with cinnabar and mother-of-pearl. It exhaled the scents of exotic perfumes, forbidden substances and irresistibly unnatural acts.
Add to the house's outre appeal a spare bedroom crammed with Gandolph's and Max's magical paraphernalia, and now his computer cockpit, and you had a juxtaposition of the mystical and the technological that was positively bizarre.
Sneaking into the place was the usual blast.
Once inside, Max led her to the world-class kitchen.
Even here she was uneasy. It was so clinical--so stainless steel/wine cellar/walk-in freezer perfect--that it unnerved her. You could hide a body in that freezer, in that climatically controlled walk-in wine cellar. Maybe even in that microwave.
"You look better." Max brushed a thumb over her bruised cheek. "Or is it makeup again?"
"Light foundation. Cover Girl if you're interested in the brand."
"Don't talk so tough in your Material Girl way. None of it's real but the act."
"True. How real is your act?"
He leaned against the stainless-steel-fronted refrigerator to consider it. Temple remembered the poster that Lieutenant Molina had commandeered from the inside of her bedroom closet wall so many months ago. That preserved the Max of two years ago: big hair, laser/razor cut. All eyes, like a cat. Mystery his middle name. Sex appeal his secret code.
Today he was otter-sleek, simpler. Dark hair pulled back into the low-profile pony tail made his face all elegant bone and nerve. Lots of nerve, but not nervy, like a spooked horse.
He was stripped down, bereft of stage props, boiled down to muscle and bone and a hank of hair.
"Where were you when you were gone?" she asked.
He smiled. "Where do the politically awkward always go? Canada. I worked as a corporate magician."
"You? A company man?"
"My role was subversive. I was supposed to make people laugh, relax, screw the boss. It worked. Actually, I liked it a lot. Even Canadian companies are so structured ... I was a deconstructivist, and well paid for it, which is more than most real artists can say."
"You should have met Domingo."
"The Flamingo Man?"
She nodded. "I think his secret sin is that he really is a rather good artist. Don't you miss being a magician?"
He wrapped his arms around himself, made himself into a matte-black mummy against the steel-colored sarcophagus of the freezer.
"Did I ever leave it?"
"Your performance dates. Your venues. Your agent."
His hands mimed emptiness. "Magic is smaller than that. Much smaller. Thumbelina. In your hand." His empty palm opened to her in the mime's classic gesture.
"Is that w
hy you like little women?"
"You're wrong. I love little women."
Temple blinked. Contact lens trouble again. Or something.
"What about your family?"
"What about them?"
"What did they do for Christmas?"
Max pushed off the refrigerator, moved to the huge stainless-steel-sheathed island unit.
Once, under his spell, she had envisioned that kitchen accessory as a stage prop, and herself as an accessory to magic upon it. The little lady who may be sawed in half, or who may just be feigning truncation. Now it looked like an altar.
The magician was part actor, part policeman, part priest. She remembered Professor Mangel quoting Edmund Wilson on the subject. Part deceiver, part detective.
"My family." Max declaimed the words like the title of an essay; an exercise in school.
Something distant. Academic.
"I went back for Sean's funeral. Have your ever been the One Alive when you should have been the One Dead? We went as two on our teenage jaunt to the Old Country. One came back dead, one came back alive. Or did he? Everything that appalled me, that killed Sean in the Old Country became instantly real in the New Country. Why him? Why not me? His family never said it, my family never said it. But they both felt it. I felt it. I saw then there was no place for me here."
" 'Here?' The U.S.? With your family?"
"Both."
"But you were barely seventeen years old."
"I was a hundred years old. I'd survived, and he hadn't. And there was no way to explain it."
"So you've never gone home for Christmas since then?"
He shook his sleek head as if tossing off invisible droplets. Of water. Of blood. "It would have stirred up the blame."
"Do you blame yourself?"
"For surviving when he didn't, yes. For doing what I did at the time, no. We were ignorant boys. But we died as men. That's what Ireland, north and south, does to you."
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