Cat In A Crimson Haze

Chapter 17

The Fall Girl

"What are you doing here?"

Only someone with a stopwatch could have determined who had spoken these exact same words first: Temple or Lieutenant Molina.

It was no contest who was going to answer first. Molina stood like a cigar-store Indian, intimidatingly mum until she got her response.

Around them people streamed into the cool, elegantly lit lobby of the Crystal Phoenix, parting only to flow past the magnificent Lalique glass sculpture of a phoenix rising with frosted wings spread.

Temple and Molina had arrived at the Plexiglas plinth that housed the artwork as if by pre-arrangement, but the confluence was purely accidental,

"I work here," Temple said in a casually perky tone she knew would irk Molina. "Plus, I'm writing for the Gridiron, which is rehearsing here. And you, Lieutenant?"

"You know why," Molina answered in a deep-voiced mono-tone that Temple would describe as dark. ''I suppose it's the dead man."

"Why would I be interested in a live man?" Molina asked laconically. ''How did you happen to witness this latest murder?"

"I didn't. I witnessed the revelation of the murder." Molina's hand wave indicated that fine points were irrelevant. Temple had one she brought up anyway. ''Isn't Lieutenant Ferraro handling this case?" "He is. However, it can't have escaped your notice that the location of the body bears a certain resemblance to an unsolved case of mine."

"Temple nodded, then reversed course and shook her head. "Yes. That is . . . no, it didn't not occur to me. Oh, okay. So what does this mean?"

Molina shook her head, not at all confused. Her hair was pulled back as usual and her eyebrows were as untamed. Temple wondered if she left them natural because they suited the forties aura of her singing persona. Carmen.

"You tell me," the lieutenant said. "Did you know the victim?"

"I never saw him before in my life, or his," Temple answered honestly, mentally crossing her fingers to cancel her implicit lie. She knew someone who knew Cliff Effinger, but Molina had not asked her that yet. Hopefully, Molina never would. "Believe it or not, I don't know much about the man who died at the Goliath. Was the method similar?" "If you call the same caliber of bullet 'similar,' yes." Temple winced. "Does that mean the same gun?" "It could, if we found it. Same puzzle, though. Why would a man hide himself in a custom-tailored nook over the gaming tables? And who would wiggle in there to kill him? Then, too, both victims had taken a beating before they were shot. I doubt that occurred in a casino crawl space."

"Beating?" Temple recalled Matt's wrecked apartment and raw hands. Could he have lied?

Had he found Cliff Effinger before he died? Was he afraid to admit that he had assaulted a man who had so quickly become a corpse?

Molina nodded. ''I believe you have first-person experience with that kind of attack."

"You think that the men who accosted me--?"

''We never did find the hoods you fingered in the mug book. We don't even know if you identified the right ones.''

''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."