Douglas, Nelson - Cat in a Flamingo Fedora

"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.