Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In A Crimson Haze

"You can't believe that these backstage mishaps were meant to harm me?" Temple was incredulous. "How could anyone determine when I would go up those steps, or that I'd use the handrail?"

Molina's eyes dropped to the site of Crawford's continuing inspection, for a quite different reason. "Anybody familiar with your footwear could figure that you would hang onto something when climbing those steep, concrete stairs in high heels."

'*What about the footloose UFO?" Temple asked. 'That thing could have smashed half the chorus, too. Isn't that overkill, even for Las Vegas? And who was to know that Crawford would be up on stage, and make me play bell ringer, the jerk?"

"There could be two scenarios," Ferraro suggested from his corner. ''One to take you out, and one to disrupt the production itself. Maybe they coincided. Either way, someone besides us doesn't much care for your script-writing."

"I invoke my freedom of speech." Temple folded her arms. "Besides, I think you're paranoid, which was part of my point in the skit. Pretty soon you'll hatch some notion that Elvis was secretly freeze-fried at death and is being brought back as an assassin for Castro."

Nobody smiled. That was the trouble with pursuing a career in law enforcement, Temple decided right then; all that martial arts practice destroyed the funny bone. She'd better cut back, fast.

They could do nothing, of course, even with the mighty FBI on the case, except interrogate, suggest and warn.

By the time Temple limped out of the barren office, a crowd of worried supporters had mustered in the narrow hallway. Actually, it was composed mainly of Fontana brothers, but they added up to a crowd all by themselves.

Danny Dove was eyeing Temple's limp. "More ice, more rest," he decreed.

Temple nodded meekly. Her ankle was throbbing almost as much as her head.

"We'll see her home," Ralph declared, promptly bending to hoist her like a Barbie doll.

Van von Rhine stood next to her husband, her arm threaded through his, her porcelain brow ruffled with worry. She walked out with the airborne Temple and her flock of Fontanas.

"Temple, that woman lieutenant had some rather worrying words with me. I told her that the hotel had been the victim of malicious pranks before, but she thinks this outbreak could be much more lethal. She pointed out that it already has been, in fact.''

Temple could only agree. "Do they know anything more about the man who was killed?"

Nicky broke his polite silence. "Some small-time low-roller. A drunk and a woman-beater. In other words, a loser hardly worth killing, unless he knew something uncomfortable to somebody. I'm thinking the cops are right about a possible takeover scheme."

"Oh, Nicky, no!" In her distress. Van stopped walking.

Fontana, Inc., too, stopped on a dime, which meant Temple was jerked to a halt that was rather hard on her ankle. Though elevated, it was not stable enough to withstand sudden changes in direction.

"Ow!" she complained without thinking.

Everybody tsked in concert. Danny would have been proud of them.

''It's not for us to do the police's work." Van patted Temple's shoulder. ''You go home and get a good rest."

Temple nodded, unwilling to debate everybody. She had some heavy thinking to do, anyway.

Nicky and Van peeled off. Temple was left wafting along in her flock of Fontanas. They cut such an impressive swath through the casino that slot junkies actually stopped their button-pushing long enough to look up.

Temple felt like Snow White among an unnaturally elongated squad of dwarves. Yet she liked the new vistas afforded by being carried along at a tall man's chest height, a mobile and human Eye in the Sky.

My, she could look down rows of slot machines, spot Hester Polyester and the Leopard Lady working the few one-armed bandits left, like laundresses chained to shiny chrome wringer-washers.

She could literally oversee the craps tables, and eyeball the balding heads of the ardent worshipers at the temple of snake-eyes and naturals. Had anyone ever done a study: craps and male-pattern baldness?

She could gaze into the hotel's lobby area, to view hordes of tourists lined up to check in and then check out the tables, the shows, the what-have you, and in Las Vegas, you could have almost anything . . . legal or ought-not-to-be.

She could even overlook the lobby bar's indoor greenery, laced with garlands of twinkling fairy lights, and glimpse a dark head weaving among the towering ficus trees with a certain, unmistakable liquidity of motion, like a tiger through the jungle . . . no, more like a panther, black and stalking, with unearthly green eyes--

''Hey!" Temple tried to climb the current Fontana brother's broad, broadcloth shoulder.

''Hey, you there!"

You there, you with the stars in your eyes.

That was her. Blinking. Seeing fairy lights. Thinking. Thinking that she had seen . . . no . . .

glimpsed--Max. Max Kinsella, don't you know? Alive and moving, bold as brass and as big as a Broadway opening when there's standing room only.

Temple discovered that she couldn't stand on a Fontana brother's shoulder, despite the awesome padding, not with her weak ankle and deluded eyesight.

"Miss Barr?" Her custodian was confused, and his suit was getting wrinkled. "You don't want to scramble around like that. You could aggravate your foot."

She could aggravate her entire life. Temple settled down and smiled apologetically at her forehead-puckering escort squadron.

"Sorry. Thought I saw someone . . . suspicious."

"Where?" they demanded en masse, noses lifting like bloodhound muzzles.

Fee, fie, fo, fum, I smell the blood of an Irishman, Be he live or be he dead, I'll follow his trail from A to Zed,

"I was wrong," she apologized hastily, though she was not sure that she was. Even Max Kinsella deserved a less public unmasking than by a baying flotilla of Fontanas on his heels.

"I suppose," she said with maudlin determination, "I need to go home, to Tara, and rest until tomorrow, which, we all know, is another day.

And frankly, my dear, she added internally to the fleeting image she had perhaps seen, I don't give a damn.

The Fontana brothers, with the exception of the one toting her, clapped politely.

Temples Vivien Leigh imitation had been spot on.

Chapter 23

Louie of the Lake

What could a woman with a weak ankle, frazzled from an interrogation by two homicide detectives and an FBI agent, better wish to carry her home than a silent, gentle glide on a magic carpet? Swing low, sweet chariot.

But this was Las Vegas and Temple was in the custodial care of Fontana, Inc.

Once Ralph had stopped the black, low-slung and decidedly unsweet Dodge Viper in front of the Circle Ritz--no one was present today to witness this exotic landing--Temple remained seated and experimentally tugged a tooth to see if they were still anchored.

The teeth were secure, which was more than could be said for the alignment of her vertebrae.

When Ralph came around the car to carry her in, she made no objection. Besides, her voice had probably developed a stutter in the forty seconds flat the Viper had permitted to elapse between the Crystal Phoenix, a mile away, and the Circle Ritz.

"Cool digs." Ralph grinned at the lavish neon of the Lover's Knot Wedding Chapel beaming purple and pink good cheer down on the Strip.

He turned to cast a last possessive glance upon the lethally spotless Viper, shining like fresh hot tar in the sunlight. He aimed a small remote device, at its darkly mirrored surface, then blipped on the security system. Apparently the car was community property of the bachelor Fontana brothers, allotted where needed. Apparently, Temple's welfare and whereabouts was a matter of swift concern for them all.