She could gaze into the hotel's lobby area, to view hordes of tourists lined up to check in and then check out the tables, the shows, the what-have you, and in Las Vegas, you could have almost anything . . . legal or ought-not-to-be.
She could even overlook the lobby bar's indoor greenery, laced with garlands of twinkling fairy lights, and glimpse a dark head weaving among the towering ficus trees with a certain, unmistakable liquidity of motion, like a tiger through the jungle . . . no, more like a panther, black and stalking, with unearthly green eyes--
''Hey!" Temple tried to climb the current Fontana brother's broad, broadcloth shoulder.
''Hey, you there!"
You there, you with the stars in your eyes.
That was her. Blinking. Seeing fairy lights. Thinking. Thinking that she had seen . . . no . . .
glimpsed--Max. Max Kinsella, don't you know? Alive and moving, bold as brass and as big as a Broadway opening when there's standing room only.
Temple discovered that she couldn't stand on a Fontana brother's shoulder, despite the awesome padding, not with her weak ankle and deluded eyesight.
"Miss Barr?" Her custodian was confused, and his suit was getting wrinkled. "You don't want to scramble around like that. You could aggravate your foot."
She could aggravate her entire life. Temple settled down and smiled apologetically at her forehead-puckering escort squadron.
"Sorry. Thought I saw someone . . . suspicious."
"Where?" they demanded en masse, noses lifting like bloodhound muzzles.
Fee, fie, fo, fum, I smell the blood of an Irishman, Be he live or be he dead, I'll follow his trail from A to Zed,
"I was wrong," she apologized hastily, though she was not sure that she was. Even Max Kinsella deserved a less public unmasking than by a baying flotilla of Fontanas on his heels.
"I suppose," she said with maudlin determination, "I need to go home, to Tara, and rest until tomorrow, which, we all know, is another day.
And frankly, my dear, she added internally to the fleeting image she had perhaps seen, I don't give a damn.
The Fontana brothers, with the exception of the one toting her, clapped politely.
Temples Vivien Leigh imitation had been spot on.
Chapter 23
Louie of the Lake
What could a woman with a weak ankle, frazzled from an interrogation by two homicide detectives and an FBI agent, better wish to carry her home than a silent, gentle glide on a magic carpet? Swing low, sweet chariot.
But this was Las Vegas and Temple was in the custodial care of Fontana, Inc.
Once Ralph had stopped the black, low-slung and decidedly unsweet Dodge Viper in front of the Circle Ritz--no one was present today to witness this exotic landing--Temple remained seated and experimentally tugged a tooth to see if they were still anchored.
The teeth were secure, which was more than could be said for the alignment of her vertebrae.
When Ralph came around the car to carry her in, she made no objection. Besides, her voice had probably developed a stutter in the forty seconds flat the Viper had permitted to elapse between the Crystal Phoenix, a mile away, and the Circle Ritz.
"Cool digs." Ralph grinned at the lavish neon of the Lover's Knot Wedding Chapel beaming purple and pink good cheer down on the Strip.
He turned to cast a last possessive glance upon the lethally spotless Viper, shining like fresh hot tar in the sunlight. He aimed a small remote device, at its darkly mirrored surface, then blipped on the security system. Apparently the car was community property of the bachelor Fontana brothers, allotted where needed. Apparently, Temple's welfare and whereabouts was a matter of swift concern for them all.
Somehow she was not comforted, being in the mood to brood about her assailed skit; her assailed self, her perhaps-glimpse of a Max clone, and her current, ignominious state of physical dependency.
Ralph shouldered the lobby door open and braced it with one Italian loafer toe as he turned to edge Temple through without any rude brushes with the doorjamb.
The Circle Ritz's always tepid air-conditioning greeted them like a tropical zephyr, humid, and half-hearted. The door hushed shut to banish the traffic hiss-and-squeak reverberating from the ever-busy Strip.
Temple sighed.
Ralph smiled with the knowledge of a job well done.
In the dim, black-marble paved and lined lobby, someone cleared his throat.
A figure stepped from the interior shadow before either one could react.
''Sorry to intrude on such utter solitude, but I have come, I fear, to beg a most receptive ear."
Ralph was not amused. 'This bum must have a speech impediment. He doesn't make sense.
Is he trying to rip off my earring?"
"He makes perfect sense," Temple dared to disagree. "Nostradamus is no robber, he's a bookie."
"Same difference," Ralph growled, lowering Temple to the floor in preparation for battle.
She braced a hand on the cool marble facing the elevator and attempted to put weight on her bad ankle. It declined to buckle, so she stepped slightly ahead of Ralph to keep him from charging Nostradamus in defense of his treasured earbob.
"I take it that you came to see me, not Ralph Fontana."
The bookie doffed his hat, a sweat-stained straw number pungent with nostalgia, especially in its pleated paisley band.
"Sure fine to see you on your feet again," he said. "It's glad I am that we could meet again. I hope to lure you to Temple Bar, to see a friend who's under par. Spuds Lonnigan has opened a new bar, and he could use some clever PR."
"Spuds" Temple tasted the name, which was familiar in a warped sort of way. Time-warped, probably. ''You mean one of the geezers in the Glory Hole Gang?"
Nostradamus's face screwed up in disapproval despite the lurking presence of Ralph Fontana. ''Geezerdom, like beauty, lies in the eye of the beholder. Someday even youngsters like you will find themselves . . . older."
"True. I feel it already. I just meant ... well, what does Spuds want? To talk to me?"
"If you could repair to where his place is, you two could discuss some nice biz."
Ralph, still playing bodyguard, toyed with the pewter hacksaw dangling from his left lobe.
"Sounds fishy to me," he told Temple.
Nostradamus turned to him with ready politeness. "Indeed, young sir, you have hit it on the nose. The landing at Temple Bar teems with those."
"Fish," Temple translated promptly for Ralph's benefit. "I've heard about this new . . .
restaurant. Jill Diamond's grandfather Eightball O'Rourke is an associate of this Spuds Lonnigan."
"That don't cut any gray poupon with me," Ralph insisted.
"Carp," Nostradamus explained. "Carp swimming ashore in a golden greeting." He turned to Temple with a bow. "Shall we say two tomorrow for this meeting?"
"I may not yet be able to drive--"
"A car will conduct you to this dive."
"Dive?" Ralph frowned, then turned to Temple and laid down the law like an overprotective husband. ''You're not going who knows-where to God-knows-what alone, today or tomorrow."
'' 'Dive' is just an expression," Temple said hastily, "and it rhymed."
Nostradamus shrugged apologetically, but said nothing.
Temple mused on the mental effort it must take to improvise rhymes day in and day out.
One would think figuring odds for bettors would be taxing enough. A master of both math and meter; Nostradamus was indeed a Renaissance bookie.
Ralph might have made more objections, having settled as deeply as a Method actor into the role of grim guardian, but just then the Viper shrieked from the street outside.
Ralph was barreling across the lobby and through the door, reaching into his flapping suitcoat, before Nostradamus could come up with a rhyming couplet.