Douglas, Nelson - Midnight Louie 05-Cat in a Diamond Dazzle

Temple held her arms up, wide, Fabrizio-style. Didn't anyone want to be swept off their feet anymore? Not even by a hot news flash?

"I'm going to jump in the shower with Fabrizio," Temple said, gathering her gear.

"That's nice, dear. Don't let the water get too hot."

"And with Norman Bates's mother!" Temple shouted from around the bathroom corner.

"Urn hmm. Say hello for me."

Chapter 19

Ship of Jewels

Entering the Treasure Island Hotel and Casino was like diving into the chill of a grotto formed from tarnished brass. Despite the elegantly orchestrated atmosphere, Temple heard the same old Musak playing the same old sweet song. This was a cabaret, my friend, and the theme song was "Money, Money, Money." Coins tumbled into slot machine tills like pieces of eight pouring out of bottomless, upended treasure chests.

Though the decor was dark and dignified, it had a macabre bent. Large antiqued brass skulls on the door handles split lengthwise as they opened, and the tastefully beige massive chandeliers, on second look, were composed entirely of human skulls and garlands of dangling bones.

Temple, however, was indifferent to the mock-morbid; she'd seen death's true, bare-faced presence close-up at the Crystal Phoenix all too recently. No, the boisterous slot machine area intrigued her, and not because of the sporadic, seductive clink of crashing quarters.

Like many blase Las Vegas residents, she had neglected to tour the new behemoths grazing along the Strip's Jurassic Park of hotel-casinos. She had read about them, but had not yet gone to see the architectural elephants in person. So she was only guessing when it came to what evil (or delights) might lurk inside the Treasure Island, but... yes!

Temple clasped hands to breastbone and went up on tippy-toes, despite the three-inch heels on her Evan Picone pumps, all the better to see her quarry.

She smiled sappily--not at the garish blinking and clinking slot machines--but at the ceiling above them. A pirate's ransom of brass, silver and real gilt paint, of pearls and cut-glass gemstones, tumbled from niches set under the ceiling. Enough treasure chests hung above the gamblers below to hide a hundred crystal shoes.

Temple cruised toward the glitzy black-and-gold island of a bar that was ringed with sky-high treasure troves. Of course the displays were temptingly out of reach--just. Certainly that seemed unjust. If she were just six feet tall. Or had Alice's little bottle that made her bigger. If she just had a stepping stool, or a pogo stick or stilts!

If hotel security personnel just weren't cruising these black-gold waters like uniformed barracudas, looking for people who were behaving oddly. People like Temple herself, who was watching the ceiling, which was probably watching her back. She snagged the nearest stool and sat before a machine decorated with a grinning buccaneer, dagger in teeth.

She dug into her tote bag for her wallet, then scraped some quarters out of the zippered compartment. While she idly consigned the coins to swift perdition inside Long John Silver's ravenous metal mouth, she eyed the surroundings.

Men in sharkskin suits, wires from discreet communication devices attached like some naturalist's tracking mechanism to their ears, floated through colorful schools of oblivious tourists nibbling at instant fortune. The uniformed guards were more obvious, for a reason, but their eyes constantly scanned for potential trouble.

The Midnight Louie shoes were not to be seized, like common pirate booty, but seen and reported, Temple reminded herself.

Nothing in the contest rules required her to take them into actual possession. The numerous treasure troves dangling from the casino ceiling like so many jewel-encrusted tongues made perfect hiding places. All she'd have to do was walk by and eyeball each one for signs of the elusive slippers.

Except, her height, or lack of it, was a disadvantage, which was no news to her. The hidden shoes might only be visible to a taller person. Nothing in the contest rules said that they would be placed in plain view of a shrimp, either. Children were obviously not competing for this particular prize. She could only make the rounds of the various troves at enough distance to get a panoramic view of the contents.

I am a camera for the vertically challenged, in Cinemascope.

So Temple sneaked up on her quarry, throwing away quarters like worthless coppers of old as she hopscotched from slot to slot, choosing positions that would allow a wide view of the nearest trove.

It was neck-spraining work. Her eyes could hardly focus on the assembled glitter as she squinted through her glasses. And she didn't dare look up for too long, or she might attract unwanted attention.

She had worked her way around the bar area and was scouting the area's fringes when someone tapped her on the shoulder just as she was sacrificing another quarter to the slot-machine gods.

"I see what you're doing," a voice behind her announced.

Luckily, it was not an authoritarian voice, nor male, so that eliminated the Iranian secret police in the somber suits as well as most of the security guards.

Temple turned to look, nearly giving herself whiplash.

"What's your game, honey?" a woman asked.

She was thinner than a wire clothes hanger. The clothes she so feebly supported were a peach polyester pantsuit over a violet floral polyester blouse. A thin fleece of taffy-blond ringlets surrounded her face like an elaborately decorated 1950s bathing cap. Time and desert sun had folded, spindled and mutilated her face into a brown frill of wrinkles, from which her pale eyes peered like water chestnuts.

Time had also embedded her in the amber of another era, encouraging her to draw harsh dark-brown eyebrows and a tangerine mouth on the well-tracked mask of her face.

Temple recognized her instantly, though they had never spoken before: legendary casino slot-shot Hester Polyester, who in another place and another time (and another outfit) might have been known by a more common surname like Brown. Or Smith.

A coral canvas fanny pack sat dead center of her flowered, concave middle. No watch circled her freckled wrist; dedicated slot players never sleep, or go anywhere else. Schools of wooden tropical fish dangled from Hester's overtaxed earlobes. Temple was so shocked to meet the Minnesota Fats of slot machines that she didn't check out Hester Polyester's footwear until last: gold metallic tennis shoes.

"What's your system?" Hester was asking with narrowed eyes. "I never seen a player run this kind of pattern before. Can't figure it out. You're not hitting the aisle machines that are supposedly looser, to attract the tourists. You're not moving on 'cuz a machine's gone cold. What the heck are you doing?"

"Losing," Temple said promptly.

Laughter made Hester's face wrinkle like a paper bag someone's fist had suddenly squeezed shut.

"Hell, girl! That's not a system. That's nuts." She sobered at once. "Unless you got some deeper strategy."

"None at all. I don't want to win."

"Don't want to win? That's not. . . legal in Las Vegas."

"It's the opposite of positive thinking, don't you see?"

"Opposite?"

"Yeah. Kind of like . . . zen and the art of slot machine selection. I don't want to win."

"And, by not wanting to win, the law of averages works in your favor and you do?"

"Nope. Not yet. But that's okay. I don't want to win. So I win when I don't, get it?"

"What happens if you actually do win?"

"I lose."

Hester shook her blowsy head.

"That's crazy. But I guess I said that." She hefted her cardboard bucket, so quarters chimed like a belly dancer in full shimmy. "Guess I won't wish you luck, dearie."

"Thank you. I appreciate that."