Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In A Crimson Haze

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!"