Douglas, Nelson - Cat in a Flamingo Fedora

"You have so many helpers," Temple marveled, watching college students move among the flamingos like body servants, adjusting angles, tilts, postures.

"I rely upon the passions of others to complete my own, whether professionally or personally." Espresso-dark eyes seared her face. "It is a terrible, heartless lifestyle , art. It attracts terrible, heartless people, who in turn draw terrible, heartless hangers-on." He stopped and turned to Temple. "You are refreshing. I am glad to have met you. Now I do not need only plastic flamingos to restore my faith in life and the living. We will celebrate the return of your hat and my optimism. With a late lunch at my hotel this afternoon. And without Verina."

Temple may have been in a flamingo-daze, but she was not oblivious to the obvious.

"Domingo, if you're hitting on me because your girlfriend skipped town--"

"So refreshing." Domingo took her arm to lean companionably closer. "I wish to find out how you have kept your charming optimism, and your charming skepticism, in such a place as Las Vegas. I am sorry, Miss Temple, but you are my flamingo of the moment. I like your ideas. I like your honesty. I cannot afford to ignore reality when I encounter it. To me, at this moment, you are as real as they are."

This was the most dubious compliment Temple had ever heard, so of course she was flattered by it. Besides, she had a rather wild idea about where Darren Cooke's bad seed might be lurking. After her experience with Cooke, she would have to be demented to go off alone with another known ladies' man. But just saying no did work in certain areas, if not with addictions. And if she couldn't decide to say yes to two perfectly attractive men her own age, she didn't see herself succumbing to another midlife charmer.

Domingo swept a hand, finally, in a grandiose gesture, toward the wonderful parliament of birds.

"Your suggestion. And it looks marvelous. Several major hotels that had already rejected me out of hand are reopening negotiations. You will have to help me nurse along their revived interest, otherwise my project will make a fool and a failure out of me. You do wish to contribute to great art, don't you?"

"That, Domingo, is a loaded question, and I never answer those. But I will join you for lunch, mainly because I'm curious to hear about Verina's downfall."

He laughed, facing the sky as if it would laugh with him if it could. "Women! Revenge is always more interesting to them than love."

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."