Unknown - 23_Cat_In_A_Vegas_Gold_Vendetta

What a diplomat Kit would have made. Actually, as the latest famous bachelor-brother Fontana bride, Kit already had to be one. Temple pictured Kit Ursula Carlson Fontana and Vanilla von Rhine Fontana, wife of Nicky, the youngest Fontana brother, at odds.

It was not a pretty sight.

Good thing they were all “Family.”

Meanwhile, Temple waited, mystified, on the corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Flamingo in front of the neon row of dancing flamingos at 7:40 P.M., as ordered by her aunt.

The sunlight sinking behind the western mountains faded as the facing chorus lines of Strip light works intensified. Temple loved these magical minutes when natural and artificial light duked it out for mastery of the night.

She stood there like a schoolgirl in her demure navy fifties suit and vintage clear-Lucite-heeled red pumps, a modern version of the Ruby Slippers, with her large red patent-leather tote bag—or should she think “Toto” bag?—clasped in front of her.

The last time she’d met with both Matt and Max, she’d still been Max’s girl.

She bit her lower lip but forbore to chew, and vowed not to pick at her cuticles. This was crime-and-punishment business, mutual self-protection stuff, deadly serious business they all could handle like the civilized adults they were.

So why did she also feel like Alice about to attend a Very Mad Tea Party?

While she was putting herself into every girl-empowering scenario she could muster, she realized something was blocking her view of the iconic hotels across the Strip and even of the mountains’ gentle sawtooth peaks.

Oh.

Something long and pale and metallic and, well, slithering had obliterated everything but her gliding close-up view. Its arrival so much resembled a movie-camera pan that her mind went into slo-mo and she only tardily ID’d the apparition as a Rolls Royce stretch Silver Cloud limo to die for. Or to ride in as one wheeled directly into automotive and vintage heaven.

Temple had been woolgathering so hard in the children’s literature of an earlier day that the driver had already stopped, deplaned, and come around to open the very, very distant back door for her.

Even the driver’s shiny-billed black cap couldn’t disguise a glossy full head of Fontana-brother razor-cut hair. As he bowed to open the door, Temple wracked and rolled her brain cells. Obviously not Nicky. No solo earring, therefore not Ralph nor Emilio. No discreet thread of silver in that coif, therefore not Aunt Kit’s new consort, Aldo. That left Rico, Ernesto, Eduardo, Julio, Emilio, and Giuseppe.

Temple realized the Fontana brothers had individual differences. They just so often appeared in well-tailored, Italian gelato smoothie, six-plus-pack that they overwhelmed the female ability to discriminate, and a woman usually fell head over heels “in like” with all of them.

“Miss Temple,” the chauffeur said.

“Gracious Gertie. I didn’t expect Gangsters to provide the ride tonight, and even to have the honor of one of the owners at the wheel…”

“Emilio, Ernesto, Giuseppe, Eduardo, Julio, and I did resort to gambling to earn this honor.”

Aaah. He’d cued her, just like a Fontana brother would. Always in command, even when you, the mere mortal, were not.

“Thank you, Rico,” Temple said, taking the long lunge she needed to get inside the huge passenger compartment. She was short and the Silver Cloud was soooo looong.

A bit of warm Vegas sidewalk heat entered with her, at calf level.

It was not only a sensual waft on her bare leg, it was butch-cut black fur on the clawed hoof.

“Louie,” she hissed in a whisper. “You were not invited. You must have tailed me here, you … sneak.”

Fortunately, he blended so well with the black carpeting underlining the Silver Cloud’s ivory leather upholstery and fancy wood interior that Rico stared in vain past her ankles for the object of her surprise.

He did look in the right direction. Down.

“Nice Gianmarco Lorenzis.” His voice dripped approval of all things Italian. For a moment, Temple thought he was naming three cousins. Oh, her designer shoes.

So that’s what they were. Like the Rolls Royce, they’d been “previously owned,” by a resale shop in her case.

Then Rico stood up straight as a staff sergeant and got all serious and squinty-eyed before he shut the door on her.

“This vehicle is a nineteen-sixty-one Rolls Royce Silver Cloud One. That ‘One’ is written as a capital I, to indicate the Roman numeral one, because it is fit for an emperor. There are very few stretch Rolls Royce Silver Clouds in the world, Miss Temple, because the model is so revered that only the most profligate and fashion-conscious purveyor of rides would dare to stretch one. Gangsters are some of the ballsy few, so only a handful of people have been so conveyed. You have to ask yourself, do you have the chutzpah to deserve such a world-class ride, Miss Temple? Well, do you?”

“Absolutely,” she said, “and I feel very lucky to have one, too.”

At that the door shut with a soft but firm whoosh of hot night air and absolute cool.

Louie had come out of flattened, belly-down-to-the-black-carpeting camouflage mode and was sniffing around the handsome curly-maple bar with its dazzling armada of cut-glass decanters and Baccarat glasses.

Temple recalled the recipe for détente she had recited to Kit. Absolute privacy. A controlled environment that called for self-control. A certain amount of high-proof liquidity to file off any raw edges. Presto!

Rico lowered the tinted window between her and his capped self, fourteen feet away.

“Ready for the next stop, Miss Temple?”

Was it Matt or was it Max?

The story of her life.

No. The order had been dictated beforehand. Her aunt Kit was fiendishly efficient.

“Drive on, Rico,” Temple said, settling into the channeled ivory leather upholstery that flattered the hair colors of blonds, brunettes, and redheads alike. She fixed her gaze on the reflective green eyes blinking from the black carpet. “Louie, you’ve already chosen sides. Watch yourself, Blackie, and stay discreet, or you’ll be walking home from … wherever.”

*

“Temple,” Matt said in surprise as he bent to enter the low-rise living room of the Silver Cloud. “This limo is amazing. It sure has my new Jag beat.”

“The Silver Cloud is not entering a contest,” she said. “It’s acting as a rolling conference room.”

“Then there’s at least a third coming,” Matt said, eyeing the vast seating arrangement.

“I’m in the center-back spot,” Temple said. “You take the left bench. Max can sit on the right.”

“‘Sit down, sit down, you’re rockin’ the boat,’” Matt muttered as he bent to take the long bench seat. “Max, being the third pickup, won’t have to do the Marx Brothers walk across the limo.”

“He’s taller,” Temple said. “Also, more to the point, injured.”

“Mea culpa,” Matt said. “I forgot. He’s a handicapped person.”

“This is nothing new.” Temple leaned forward with a piercing look. “You guys talked just yesterday. Wasn’t a dry run useful?”

“Yeah, but having you here ups the ante. At least for me. Why couldn’t you board with me at the Circle Ritz?”

“I’m worried Max will assume we’re ganging up on him.”

“I’ll tell him we’re not, Temple. He’s already a bit paranoid, right now. Rightfully so.”

“Very thoughtful, Mister Midnight. Did I tell you that you look to-the-manor-born in a Rolls as well as a Jag? Is this a taste of the Chicago life, or what?” Her voice had sunken to a sexy rasp. She couldn’t help remembering their recent roll on the Vladimir Kagan. Next, a Rolls. Why not?