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

"You think that was the motive? Not jealousy?"

"What kind of jealousy, that's the question."

"And a good question. Was it a maddened contestant, afraid he'd lose the crown to a hot contender?" Jake donned a guilty, hang-dog look. "Or was it some red-hot lover afraid of losing Cheyenne, period?" Jake twirled an imaginary mustache.

"Did you glimpse any romantic hunky-panky around here?"

"In less than two days? Hardly likely." His face flickered with sudden remembrance. "Say, I did see Cheyenne holding cocktail glasses with an author in the hotel bar, pretty late the first night we got in."

"Who?"

He shrugged. "Haven't seen her again. Not one of the pageant participants, for sure. Classy lady. I was gonna say 'older,' but I bet she's only a few years older than me, so I better watch it. Still a looker. Your size. Red hair, too, but hers isn't as bright."

Temple's blood froze. She recognized a spot-on description of her aunt Kit when she heard it.

"What time Wednesday night?"

"Time I saw them? Oh, say around eleven. She was old enough to be his mother, but Cheyenne seemed like a cosmic kind of guy. I bet details like age, gender and national origin didn't faze him one bit."

Temple, though still in shock about Kit, was not surprised to have her bisexual suspicions confirmed by an impartial source.

"Don't look so shocked, sweet thing." Jake sounded like a counseling older brother, but he misread what had really shocked her. "Consenting adults try all sorts of combinations nowadays. But I doubt anything is going on at this convention. Too much performance pressure for the boys. Everybody's way too stressed out by the pageant to have time for romancel"

Jake, sprawled against the dressing table, then assumed a maniacally suave expression that ludicrously altered his homely face, and not for the better. "Unless you aren't doing anything tonight, ba-bee?"

"Sorry, Fabrizio Junior." Temple stood, patience and interview ended. "All booked up."

Chapter 25

True Confessions

C. R. Molina cruised the Crystal Phoenix hotel lobby, cursing casino floor plans that always forced people to pass gaming attractions on the way in or out.

She disliked the constant clatter of slot machines, especially when she was trying to think. Not that she had much to think about: only the inevitable end of the romance convention, and with it the exit of all likely suspects in the Charlie Moon murder.

She knew that the odds on solving the case by Monday were longer than the odds on a nickel slot machine payoff. So the chugchug-chug of doomed coins down mechanical gullets sounded like the Failure Machine engine revving up before running her over.

This annoying convention murder case particularly rankled, coming, as it did, on the heels of her unexpected and spectacularly unproductive encounter at the Blue Dahlia the very night before the morning of Charlie Moon's demise.

Recalling the frustrating skirmish with Max Kinsella brought to mind her always-annoying head-to-heads with a known associate of the elusive magician: Temple Barr. Molina could not believe she had encouraged the woman's nosiness on this case. But in some instances, any sort of information was worth the effort. Even as she mentally stalked the thin grungy line of her remaining options during a swift passage through the gaming area, Molina's professional eye was on automatic record. One anomaly pricked her consciousness: a pit boss engaged in deep discussion. Pit bosses watched, they did not talk. Especially not to rank casino amateurs like ...

Molina stopped in her tracks, letting tourists jostle her as they scurried for their slot machines of choice. The stance of the person with the pit boss was even more naggingly out of place than the becalmed supervisor.

She spun into a different direction and quietly circled the pair beside the inactive craps table, approaching so she faced the pit boss.

Spike Saltzer was a casino veteran, a seventyish man with supernaturally shiny, full black hair and a perpetual tan. The tan was his only Las Vegas vice; Spike didn't smoke, drink or do drugs. Sometimes she even wondered if he slept. He had been married since Bugsy Siegel had died, to the same woman, and attended the Golden Light Church. Despite all that, or perhaps because of it, he missed no abnormal action on a gaming floor, so he had spotted Molina almost as soon as she had him. He didn't show it, except to back off from his conversation partner.

Pit bosses were the casino ringmasters, captains of the Good Ship Fun (yours) and Fortune (theirs).

They kept the action constant and clean, weather eye always alert for fraudulent patrons-- or employees, which was more often the case. That's why pit bosses seldom stood around to chitchat with--Molina was close enough to the blond man to confirm her first impression--Matt Devine. Well, well.

She managed to materialize beside both men before Devine, at least, knew what was happening.

So how long could--" He glanced at the nearing motion and saw her. Conversation stopped.

She enjoyed the confused, possibly guilty, expression on his striking face.

"I got no more time," Spike announced in a voice fogged by decades of second-hand smoke. His hooded eyes paused on Molina for a split second, then he was back cruising the tables like the seasoned land-shark he was.

"Lieutenant," Devine greeted her, his face still slack with surprise.

"Too bad I can't return a title," she said, smiling as his confusion deepened into wariness, if not resentment. "So. What were you and Spike talking about?"

"Nothing . . . important. Nothing of interest. To you."

"Everything is of interest to me, especially when it's adjacent to a murder scene."

If anything, Devine looked even more guilty. It was almost mean of her to prolong his misery and confusion, but her current need for the upper hand was probably a reaction to her split decision set-to with Max Kinsella the other night. Yes, it was mean of her, she decided, to transfer her rage toward a more expert opponent to a lesser quarry.

"Miss Barr is backstage or downstairs, I believe," she said brusquely, assuming Temple was the reason he had come to the Crystal Phoenix. "Why did you stop to pester Saltzer?"

"I was curious about how this place is run, that's all. Temple is here? Alone?"

Devine looked even more puzzled, and more worried, if possible.

"Alone? Not if she can help it. I believe about thirty paperback heroes are flitting about her general vicinity."

"Paperback heroes?"

"Cover hunks. Models. Male models. Romance-novel cover hunks. You do know about the romance conference?"

Devine shook his head.

"Isn't that why you're here? Because she is, yes, once more dead center of a murder investigation. Or are you here to protect the officers of the law from the patented brand of Barr interference, dare I hope?"

"The murder is . . . old news," he said cautiously.

"How blase you amateurs become. Yeah, the guy died a whole thirty hours ago, but the case file has hardly grown cobwebs." Molina studied his still-blank face and took mercy, in her own way.

"Did you know that a certain someone is back in town, by the way?"

"Did you?" he replied warily.

"Would I ask otherwise?"

"How did you--?"

"The power of the police," she answered, her tone self-mocking. "I suppose that this bodes quite a change of weather for you."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you were the escort of record, and now 'Max is back.' " She was paraphrasing a line from "Mac the Knife," but it was lost on Devine.

"That's between Temple and . . . him."

"Is it? I think not. It's between him and the law."

"Have you arrested him?"

"Don't get your hopes up."

Devine flushed slightly. She really was vile to pick on someone so ill-suited for performing the courtship gavotte. She smiled again, this time nicely.