Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In An Alphabet Endgame

“Exactly heel height, I believe, Madam.”

Temple pushed her feet into the only kind of height she craved, her high-heeled shoes.

Stable again, she released her death grip on Max’s arms. “Anyone who ever offers me a ride on the Rio’s zip line is going to die the death of a thousand nail file jabs,” she told him.

Turning and looking up to the dizzying apex, she saw Midnight Louie flitting down the scaffolding to the stairs with fluid skill.

She turned back to Max. “And what are you going to do with the jewels?”

He hefted the black silk scarf, now knotted into a jewelry bag. “Return it to those who suffered from not having it.”

“The IRA widows and orphans fund.”

Max’s smile was somehow secret. “Yes, and for other devastated Irish lives.”

“So it’s Ireland again for you. And what will you do with this place afterward?”

He looked up. “The technical apex would make a fine penthouse. I could live here. Redeem the place. Redeem myself. Or—”

“Or?”

“Find another place, over the rainbow.”

“You’re holding a rainbow in your hands,” she pointed out, “only you know you can’t live there.”

“And don’t we all do that sometimes?” He bowed. To her and to the cat sitting beside her. “I give you the Irish wish that you live for your rainbows, not for the rain.”

She did tear up a bit, for all the people she’d met who couldn’t do that, and Irish wishes were always so…infectious.

Louie rubbed on her ankles and she looked down, imagining she was wearing the ruby-red slippers and she’d instantly be back at the Circle Ritz with Matt.

Of course Max was gone. She didn’t have to look up and around to know that, and hoped he got to live his own wish. A trio of jewels—ruby, emerald and sapphire—remained on the black glass. A wedding present, she guessed.

She wondered if the Midnight Louie shoes would do anything other than shed Austrian crystals if she tried to knock the heels together three times.

She looked down at Louie and to the door.

On the dark floor on which they stood, the stilled, naked, no longer jewel-toned lights cast a path like a yellow brick road.

36

Command Performance

Molina felt like a green rookie on a stakeout.

She had plenty of reasons to be nervous.

She’d agreed to this “meet” without knowing the purpose.

She’d known the venue was fairly formal, so she’d worn the long black microfiber skirt with a discreet knee-length slit Mariah had whined for her to get for the Barr-Devine wedding reception.

In an act of rebellion against her fashion-obsessed daughter, she wore a bronze forties jacket with padded shoulders and black sequin cuffs and pointed collar. And her magenta suede platform forties shoes for when she moonlighted as the torch singer “Carmen”.

Mariah had tagged it a “Goddess” look and approved, although disappointed that it wasn’t Rafi she was dining with at the Paris Hotel Eiffel Tower restaurant. When she’d lied and said it was FBI agent Frank Bucek, Mariah made her “Oh, Mother” face. Frank was married. The man she was meeting was not.

Now Molina was shuffling forward toward the closed elevator door, as obviously unescorted as an inchworm on a maple leaf.

He appeared beside her just as she reached the brass pole end of the velvet rope and no one remained between her and the closed elevator door to the Paris Eiffel Tower restaurant and the valet who would usher her in. Her turn.

Suddenly “their” turn.

“Timing is everything,” Max Kinsella commented.

Sure was. He’d let her feel the embarrassment of an imminent “left at the altar” position. What a manipulator.

No one behind them grumbled about the last minute line-hopper. It was as if Kinsella had been invisible. Hardly. She flashed on his black shirt, black tuxedo jacket. More Oscar Red Carpet than stage magician garb.

“You look very ‘Midnight Louie’,” she said, as they turned together in the elevator to face the doors for an eleven-story ride to the elegant French restaurant.

“The highest of praise. I even filed my nails and washed behind my ears.”

“I’m not checking,” she said.

“Looks like you’ve done me one better; I’ve not glossed my lips. You’ve not been here before?”

“No. Tourist attraction. High-priced tourist attraction. Over high-priced tourist attraction.”

Max shrugged. “And on me tonight. I can understand your viewpoint. It’s hardly worth the cost unless you snag the one table at the very—point—the prow where the glass walls meet in a Vee.” His long tented fingers demonstrated. “Each person at that table for two gets an exclusive view of the Bellagio Fountains when they come on at eight and nine p.m. Sad. The fountain show and music used to play every half hour from dusk until midnight.”

“I wouldn’t know,” she said, “cost and conservation, I assume.” Someone had indeed buffed his nails, even more discreetly than Julio’s. To outdo a Fontana brother at being a Fontana brother was no small achievement.

He, meanwhile, was running his glance up from her shoes to her shoulders, where a large brandy-colored rhinestone pin perched on the shoulder pad of her vintage “Joan Crawford-style” power suit-jacket. It was the antithesis of anything Temple Barr could ever wear. Or maybe anyone other than Anjelica Huston or a cross-dressing football linebacker.

“Really high heels,” he said, looking her straight in the eyes. “I like.”

“I don’t need to be unintimidating to you. You’re already cowed.”

He laughed, and she heard a new freedom in it. “Is that what they call it? I know a leader of men can’t ever be too much of an Amazon.”

“Not with some of the Neanderthals still on the force. The meteor has struck and they’re fading away, and still don’t know it. But let’s not talk work.”

“What else would we talk about, Lieutenant?”

“What you really want tonight.”

“I’m not that kind, I assure you,” he answered.

She laughed, skeptically. The hostess was heading their way. Molina had been scanning the room while they waited and chatted. “The corner table is taken,” she noted, raising an eyebrow. “I thought for sure you’d swing it.”

“Look again.”

She jerked her head around so fast her short bob whipped cheekbone on one side.

Empty. Reset. The previous couple abducted into the Twilight Zone somewhere. He’d invited her to look without doing that himself, as if prescient. The magician always had to surprise, not that she showed she knew it. Molina had needed to develop a shell beyond showing surprise, facing the dirty, tragic details of an endless parade of crime scenes.

The hostess waited before them, large menus cradled on one arm like a baby, to lead them to the desired corner table.

Seated, facing a view of the fountains that intersected with his somewhere in the black overlit Vegas Strip night, she wondered what she really wanted from Max Kinsella.

“Relax,” he said. “I can at last. You should try it.”

“Really?” She shook out the large white napkin to cover her black lap, to avoid looking him in the eye. They’d been…antagonists for so long. She hated the artificial, the imitation, the slippery.

She was armed. The dainty pistol at the small of her back. You never knew. Somehow, she still felt naked. Was that “relaxation”?

“Let’s just have dinner,” he said. “I feel I owe you a grand one, for the headache I’ve been.”

“I feel you’re right.”

She decided to go berserk. Appetizer for $28 Warm Lobster, Spring Onion Soubise, Basil Infused Peas.