Cat In A Flamingo Fedora

Chapter 23

The Wronged Woman

Temple came home tuckered out, and a bit confused. Domingo had played the perfect gentleman at lunch, more sheepish than wolfish.

She became even more stupefied when she listened to the message on her answering machine.

"Miss Barr, this is Michelle Bonard," said a soft, slightly French voice. "I wish to speak to you most urgently. I am at the Crystal Phoenix, room seven-eleven. Could you please call as soon as possible?"

Temple absently reset her machine to receive.

Michelle Bonard. The name was vaguely familiar, but she couldn't imagine why. Perhaps she'd been working too hard lately and every name was starting to sound familiar. There was no arguing with the fact that while the voice was polite and businesslike, an underlying strain invested the request to call immediately with a sense of urgency.

Temple dialed the Phoenix, whose number she knew, and asked for room 711. Next to the Ghost Suite, which was 713. Was Jersey Joe Jackson playing a trick on her?

" 'Alio?" answered the same voice that had left the message, so quickly that she must have been sitting by the telephone.

"Temple Barr. You needed to speak to me?"

"Oh, yes! Have you eaten? We could dine in my rooms at six."

Everybody on earth wanted Temple to eat with them, except Max Kinsella and Matt Devine.

"May I ask what this is about?"

"It is about my husband. My late husband, Darren Cooke."

Temple's heart almost stopped and began running backward. What could his wife--widow--

want to say to her?"

"Of course I'll come. I'm so very sorry about his death."

"Yes." Said a bit too abruptly, as if that was all she had heard for a while. "Yes." A sigh.

"Unfortunately, we must discuss his death. I have some questions about the circumstances."

"But... why call me?"

"I will explain when we are face-to-face. I would much appreciate your coming without knowing more. It is a lot to ask of a stranger, but I am ... in a difficult position."

"Oh course." Sympathy was Temple's greatest motivation for complying with Michelle Bonard's strange request. Curiosity was a close runner-up.

Six o'clock at the Phoenix gave her just enough time to fork more treats over Louie's mound of Free-to-be-Feline and to dash into the bedroom to don something appropriately sober and sympathetic.

Unfortunately, Temple owned few clothes that could be described as sober. Even the black number from her outing with Matt to Gangster's was entirely too frivolous, with its ruffled sleeves. She came across a gray linen suit she seldom wore, teamed it with a yellow silk top and her yellow-and-black patent Charles Jourdan heels.

Feeling like Little Mary Sunshine on a very gray day, she grabbed her black patent tote bag and hit the road.

Pulling into the Phoenix driveway felt like home nowadays. She had unlimited valet-parking privileges now that she was working so much for the owners, so she waved at the parking girl --

a nice touch--in her neat peacock-blue uniform trimmed with silver, and left the Storm in her capable hands.

The lobby was the usual throng of people checking in and people heading for the adjacent casino area. Temple scooted straight ahead for the elevators.

"Hey, Miss Temple!" came a deep baritone voice.

Only ten people besides choreographer Danny Dove would dare to call her Miss Temple. She stopped, turned and faced one of them. But which one of the young, suave Fontana Brothers was she confronting? They looked so much alike they could pass for double quintuplets.

Whichever one he was, he was dressed for attending a funeral. Gone was the trademark pale Italian designer suit, replaced by a dark Italian designer suit. Pin-striped, navy and sober, lightened only by the flamingo-pink tie against a navy shirt.

"Who died?" Temple asked.

"Huh?" He followed her gaze to his jacket and tie, then grinned. "Ermenagildo Zegna."

"Never heard of him."

"You wouldn't have. He's a guy guy. The designer. Ermenagildo Zegna. I won't tell you what it cost, because then you would fall over and you might get stomped in this crowd."

"Thanks. But why the new look?"

"Don't you like it? Nicky says we should look like bankers. That it suits our new role."

"You and your brothers have a new role? I never knew your old one. So what's your new role?"

Aldo or Enrico or Emilio proudly smoothed his long lapels. "We are partners in a business enterprise."

"Not the Phoenix?"

"Naw, Nicky would never let us muscle in here. Might taint the Pieman-pure rep he's aiming at."

"I think you mean 'simon-pure.' "

"No, that's the guy that tells you what to do in that stupid game I wouldn't be caught dead playing."

"Simon Says," Temple said, "turn around so I can see your new suit in three-D, then tell me what new business you're involved in."

Enrico (she arbitrarily decided) obliged. Temple did have to admire the long, lean, somehow-foreign construction of the suit.

"Can't you guess? You been hopping in and out of our place all week."

"You're gonna build the megahotel on the old Sands site?"

"Aw, Miss Temple. I don't see how you solve so many murders and then make an outta-the-ballpark guess like that. It's Gangster's."

"The Fontana Brothers own Gangster's?"

"Well, part of it." Enrico held out his arms in turn and meticulously adjusted his cuff lengths.

"Anyway, we thought we should look the part too."

"You are gentlemen of many parts, certainly," Temple said with a dazed shake of her head.

"Whose idea was the limo service?"

"Uh, Nicky's. He thought it would add class to the concept."

"Nicky's the king of class, all right."

"You here to see him and Van?"

"No, I'm visiting a guest."

Enrico leaned his head close to Temple's, which was quite a feat, given the difference in their heights.

"Is it about a case?" he inquired in a whisper.

"Maybe," she whispered back.

"You going to see someone you think might be a murderer? I can escort you."

"No, I'm probably visiting someone who thinks I might be a murderer."

"No!" Enrico drew back and up to his full almost-six-feet. "Whoever it is does not know you."

"That's true. And now I must be running along."

"I'll watch."

Temple looked a little nonplussed.

"You are so cute when you burn rubber on those high heels of yours. Kinda reminds me of those little fluffy dogs they call a ... a Pompadour."

Temple was not going to tell him that the dog's breed was Pomeranian. She'd rather be compared to a French mistress anyday, than a lapdog on the hoof.

She resumed her course, striving for a sober, serious walk more reminiscent of a mastiff.

When she turned back at the elevators, Enrico, who was still watching, waved.

She waved too, and entered the elevator, pressing the seven button. As the doors met in the middle, she thanked her lucky stars that the Fontana Brothers had so little to do with the Crystal Phoenix's operation.

Temple knew right where to go when the elevator doors spit her out on the seventh floor.

As she passed number 713, the Ghost Suite, she knocked on woodwork. Nobody answered.

Not only was 711 next door, as she had anticipated, but this suite bore a number famous as a gambling password: seven come eleven. Temple thought that if she were a suicide's widow, she'd stay far away from the unlucky number thirteen and its cousin, seven-eleven.

She knocked, then waited nervously. Who was Michelle Bonard besides Cooke's widow, and what did she want with Temple?

A slight young woman answered the door. Her mousy brown hair was cut in t he messy shag au courant for Smart Young Things. Though she looked ultra-French in her faded tight jeans and her skinny black top, she couldn't have been more than twenty-three years old.

"Dana, is that Miss Barr?"

Dana cocked a cocky eyebrow at Temple, who nodded.

"If you'll take Cookie for a while--" Another woman appeared in the open doorway. As tall as Lieutenant Molina, but thin enough to read the classified ads through.

In her arms was a pretty brown-haired child, perhaps two or three, dressed in fragile embroidered cotton.

The mother transferred her to the girl's rangy arms, then smiled at Temple. "Her name is Padgett, but we call her Cookie for now. Say hello to the lady, Cookie."

"Hello," the child, at the Bambi-shy age, mimicked.

"Take her in the bedroom while I speak to Miss Barr. Ah!" Michelle Bonard craned her already-storklike neck as she looked beyond Temple down the hall. "I hear the room-service cart coming now. I ordered for you, if you don't mind."

A little late to mind, Temple thought, wondering if the oncoming clank was the cart... or the ghost of Jersey Joe Jackson in chains.

Ushered inside, Temple had a chance to eye the suite while Michelle directed the bellman in placing the cart.

Though the same venerable age as the adjacent Jersey Joe Jackson suite, this set of rooms, dating to the forties, had been stylishly redecorated. The look was highly Continental: spare, elegant furniture upholstered in cream and chamois colors, with the occasional touch of an English floral.

Michelle had directed the cart into a window niche, and had seen that two Hepplewhite desk chairs were placed beside it. With the cart's long white tablecloth and plethora of dishes under heat-retaining aluminum domes, the scene reminded Temple of dining on a train long ago. Not that she ever had, but she had seen photographs and wished she had.

Her hostess was wearing orchid silk slacks with a pale blue stretch-satin sleeveless top reminiscent of the fifties, even though it was hot stuff in the designer nineties.

Temple was fascinated by the hostess's angularity. When she sat she folded herself like a flamingo; she seemed all acute angles, knees and elbows. Yet she moved with an almost supernaturally fluid grace.

Michelle Bonard.

"Your name is so familiar," Temple said, shaking out the heavy white linen napkin. "I'm embarrassed to say I don't know why."

Michelle laughed lightly. "It's because my face and body are more important than my name."

"You're a model! You do the series of ads for . .. for--"

" 'Secret, the scent that lulls your senses. You can't keep a man if you don't have a Secret.' "

Now the breathy, slightly accented voice raised an image of magazine ads and television commercials.

"And you were married to Darren Cooke; you were the woman who made a mate out of the world's most. .. famous bachelor."

"You were going to say notorious."

"No, I was thinking notorious."

Michelle's weary smile grew a little warmer. Despite her outward calm, she was taking Darren's death poorly. Her skin, pale and perfect, looked almost transparent. Like many very thin women, her face quickly reflected her emotional state. The prominent cheekbones stood out starkly and the hollows beneath them were unhealthy-looking. The thin skin beneath her famous pale blue eyes looked sooty with fatigue.

"It's pasta and vegetables, is that all right?"

Temple started at the question. She had been thinking pasty complexion and rutabaga eye-circles.

"Sure," she answered, taking a serving of the dish Michelle uncovered.

Michelle transferred a half cup of spiral noodles and perhaps three small clumps of broccoli and two of cauliflower to her own plate. Temple wondered if this were the successful model's diet, or the model-in-mourning diet.

"You've done PR in Las Vegas for some time, Miss Barr?"

Temple nodded while the forkful of deliciously seasoned pasta clogged her mouth.

"Almost two years, which is a long time to stay in Las Vegas."

"Darren and I were married three years ago, in December, in Paris."

Temple nodded politely. The waiter had poured them each a glass of wine so red it was almost bloody. Michelle sipped hers.

"No one dreamed he would ever marry, least of all him. No one believed that it would last, though it did, to his death. We spent time apart, given our various commitments on two continents, but... the marriage seemed good. He adored his little Cookie-snookie." Michelle's hands covered her face.

Temple went silent, afraid Michelle was crying.

But she was smiling, and the smile lingered when she lifted her head again. "I'm glad he had that opportunity, to know the joy of a child, and that Padgett had an opportunity to know her father. She'll remember him. She's young, but she'll remember him, even if only vaguely."

Temple did not openly disagree, though she wasn't so sure. What did she remember back to the age of two or three? Darn little. She still didn't know why she was here, but figured that Michelle would let her eat most of the meal before she brought up rhymes and reasons, and maybe recriminations. She was a classy lady, and Darren Cooke hadn't deserved her. Maybe that's why he'd killed himself: his insatiable urge to cheat on even the world's nicest, most photogenic bride.

Temple gummed down the main dish as best she could, and picked at the salad. Eating hearty in front of a skeletal widow seemed as bad as giggling at a funeral. Besides, anxiety was turning her stomach into an acid chamber.

"All done?" Michelle observed sadly. Perhaps she felt their somber moods had slighted the food.

Temple nodded and sipped the velvet-soft warm wine. Perfect. "Why did you call me here?"

she finally asked.

"You knew my husband."

"Very slightly. 'Knew' is too strong a word. Talked to him briefly on a couple occasions."

"And one of them was the day of his death." The faintly blue eyes rested unblinkingly on Temple's face.

"Yes. But how do you know about me?"

Michelle Bonard bit her bloodless lip, then reached into a side pocket of her lilac pants, which were so tight that Temple was amazed she would store anything there, or attempt to extract it. Ruins the designer lines, you know, like (shudder) cellulite.

What she withdrew was a business card. Temple's card.

Temple studied it, perplexed. "How did you get that?"

"I did not. Darren had it. And, see, he marked the date down himself."

Temple saw the scrawled numbers: eleven seventeen ninety-six. "I don't understand, I gave him this card on ... Saturday at Gangster's. So why did he write Sunday's date down?"

"Because Darren had a ... what you call a system. He always took a trophy from his conquests, then marked it with the date of their ... encounter. He couldn't stop using the system any more than he could help having these encounters. I knew where he concealed his

'evidence.' Not even the police have seen this."

"Wait a minute! I did give him my card, I did attend his Sunday brunch on his invitation, but I never was one of his 'conquests.' "

"You needn't spare my feelings, Miss Barr. I knew all about his past, and his present obsession. I simply want to know his mood on that last day, that last night. Find some reason why he would do it, throw his life away after all these years of struggling with his obsession. As long as the sex was safe, and he assured me it was, I understood that he couldn't stop, and I couldn't let jealousy destroy Cookie's life, and ours."

"I'm not 'sparing' you. I was not Darren Cooke's last lay, that's all. I spoke to him at the brunch, and I do have a clue to why he might have despaired that night. But it doesn't have anything to do with sex, believe me."

Michelle frowned. "He only marked the belongings of women with whom he had sex."

"Well, maybe it was wishful thinking in my case, because it sure didn't happen. Listen, I am currently caught between two men. I do not need any other liaisons cluttering up my already-subdivided heart, mind and body."

She leaned back in her chair, as if to reassess Temple, then sipped her silken wine. "For some reason, I believe you. He never much cared for petite women, or redheads. Then why were you at his brunch?"

"He'd heard Savannah Ashleigh"--Michelle rolled her eyes; that one she would never believe innocent of anything--"call me Nancy Drew."

"Nancy Drew?"

"All-American girl detective from the century's earlier decades. I've . . . stumbled into cases of wrongdoing and have a bit of a reputation as a crime-meddler, if not a crime-solver, around town."

"Crime?" Michelle's back straightened into a ramrod.

"Your husband thought I could help him; I said I'd try, but I warned him I was an amateur. He took me into the bedroom"--Michelle's back stiffened even further--"to show me some letters he kept in a manila envelope."

"Blackmail."

"In a sense. Maybe just vitriol. The writer claimed to be an adult daughter of one of his earliest liaisons. She was bitter, of course, and taunting. Sounded quite obsessed, and was certainly hounding him from city to city. I told him he needed the police to handle this, or a very expensive and discreet detective agency. He was... quite broken up about it, that he hadn't known about her and that now she hated him. I told him she could be a twisted fan who only imagined she's his daughter, but I agreed she might be dangerous, and must be found and charged with harassment."

Michelle had clapped her corded hand over her mouth early in Temple's recital, her eyes darkening with deep emotions, disbelief, regret, fear and sorrow.

"I don't know why he marked me a conquest," Temple said softly. "Oh, as I left, he made some sort of veiled suggestion, which I rather huffily rebuffed. But it was half-hearted, and nothing more than that ever happened between us. I maybe spent forty minutes with him, between some chitchat at Gangster's and the tete-a-tete at the Goliath."

"I disagree with your self-assessment, Miss Barr; you seem to be quite sensible on matters criminal. As for the date on your card, perhaps, I now think, it was wishful thinking. If he would do it once, I must wonder how many times since we have been married it was wishful thinking too. He was no longer young and perhaps other young women turned him down. How tragic, that he would keep up the lie of betrayal to me! But then, I always knew his obsession was more pride than need."

"Why would you take on a man with such a handicap?"

She shrugged in a graceful Gallic manner that said more than any number of sentences. He was as he was, it said, and I loved most of that.

"I know," Michelle added, "that he was an excellent father. Of course, having nannies takes much of the burden of parenthood away. But he loved our Padgett Cookie like no one on earth, not even me. She was so innocent, so trusting. She gave him what you call 'unconditional love.'

It made him feel secure, and I sense that he was making a genuine attempt to change his ways.

"Then, to hear of this unknown daughter who so reviled him! It would have hurt him very much, because he didn't know. He perhaps began to feel that Padgett would turn on him someday, no matter what he did. Yes, you did have a clue to his state of mind. It must have been very tortured." She turned her bland glance on Temple. "And so have I been, since learning of his death. Suicide. I would never have suspected it of him."

"I don't think that my turning him down was enough--"

"Of course not, Temple." She laid a cold, bony hand on Temple's forearm. "He had ego enough to bounce back from such a shock, and I suspect he'd had more than one such shock of that nature in recent years. As you said, he was automatically reverting to his seducer self. But these letters--have the police got them?"

"I don't know. They don't confide in me. I assumed they'd be found in his room."

She shook her head. "Darren was very clever at hiding things, from everyone. He had to be.

These he would have safeguarded more than anything. But I will ask the police. I will at least have them look for this . . . pathetic daughter."

"And how will you say that you knew about them?"

"Do not worry, my dear. I will not implicate you, not after you tried to help Darren with his problem. I will say he mentioned a letter once, casually, and that now I wonder."

"You're pretty clever yourself."

She nodded. "One had to be to marry Darren. Now--" She settled low in her chair and brought the mostly full wine goblet to her bloodless lips. "Tell me about these two men who divide your loyalties. Oh-la-la! What a love life. It sounds fascinating. Perhaps I can be of help."