"Who is your aunt? The Mayflower Madam? Do you know what the pose-down is?"
"It sounds like something in wrestling."
His laugh was loud, long and delighted. "So it is, in a way." He pulled her deeper into the shadows and lowered his voice. "Dear girl, do you have any idea of what you're putting yourself in for? No, of course not. The pose-down is the pageant's third and final tier. First the boys come out in evening clothes with authoresses and other interesting and interested females on their arms. Piece of cake. Then they come out solo and introduce themselves. Then they come out bareback."
"Everybody rides a horse?"
"I was speaking literally. It's the equivalent of the swimsuit competitions in women's beauty pageants, except that too many hairy legs might offend the refined sensibilities of this particular audience, so our boys wear tight jeans, or less, and a broad smile."
Temple nodded. She was not surprised that, with the amount of upper body development on some of these guys, inspecting their progress would serve everybody's mutual interest.
"The third, and final, heat--if you'll excuse the expression under these circumstances--is the pose-down."
Temple nodded seriously.
"That's when the men come out in costumes fit for a historical romance cover and assume cover poses with young lady models."
"That doesn't sound too hard."
"Oh, my dear. I have tossed a ballerina or two around a stage in my time, but that is nothing compared to this. You must be prepared to be nuzzled, nibbled, smooched and pawed by almost-nude savages who are seeking a like degree of dishabille from you. You must expect to have your skirt pushed up and your bodice pushed down. You will suffer from tickling hairs, particularly from these pre-Delilah Samson types. You will be bent backward like a bow. You may be thrown belly-down over a shoulder like a feed sack. You may even be, horror of horrors, 'dipped.' "
"What is ... dipped?"
"You have done the tango?"
"Not in this lifetime."
" 'Dipping' is similar, but much deeper and it should be performed by an expert, 'else the dippee, that is to say the lady, could suffer permanent back injury."
As he spoke, Danny took Temple's hand, then whirled and tilted her until her torso was horizontal to the floor. She had a swirling impression of the wires and flats in the flies above. She had a sense of bending over backward until she broke. She had a tummy-churning fear that she would fall or be dropped much farther than the distance to the wooden backstage floor.
"You see?" Danny brought her up slowly, with perfect control, but she could feel his arm muscles trembling with strain. "And I am a professional. I have done this for a living. These guys are, on the whole, untrained amateurs."
"Do I have to get dipped?" Temple inquired in a small voice.
"It won't be your choice, believe me." Danny threw his hands up. "That's all these unoriginal bozos know to do with a woman. They want to come out, show their muscles and dip the nearest female.
When you are dipped, you must not try to hold your head up. It creates too much strain, and besides you want a long, vulnerable throat line so the gentleman can go for your jugular like Dracula, and then you will have to try not to sneeze when his languishing locks tickle your nose."
Temple blinked.
"In addition," said Danny, "you must keep on your face at all times a vacant, simpering expression that says you find the proceedings so impossibly exciting that you can hardly wait for the next gentleman caller and the next nauseating dip."
"That really doesn't sound too much different than the high school prom," Temple said. Still, she knew the secret terror of someone who announces that she will go on a really big roller-coaster ride and then wishes she hadn't. "I've had some acting experience. And in high school, I even played the shrew in Shakespeare's, The Taming of."
"Hah! In that play Katarina gets to knock the men around. In these vignettes, they will be pouncing on you. And imagine how two-hundred-and-twenty pounds of unfeeling muscle feels when it pounces in its own clumsy, oafish way."
Temple didn't have to imagine. She recalled the dubious benefits of having been uplifted by the adorable Fabrizio. For one of her petite size, these muscle men seemed abnormally huge and hazardous to her health. Still, a pose-down model would have a golden opportunity to get to know the contestants, and to find out what the contestants knew about Cheyenne's death.
"I appreciate the warning, Danny, but I'm afraid I have to do it."
"You are inserting yourself into another life-and-death situation." He was speaking of more than the pose-down. "Why?"
"Lieutenant Molina asked me to tell her the lay of the land."
"Lieutenant Molina did not mean undercover investigation."
Temple sighed. "Cheyenne wanted to talk to me the night before he died. I didn't take him seriously, but I think he had suspicions."
"Why would he come to you?"
"I'm good at figuring things out. Except I didn't figure out that he wanted to speak to me about something important. He never got another chance.
Danny shook his head. "I'll try to assign you the contestants with the least resemblance to King Kong, but I can't control everything." He thought. "And I don't want another murder. Especially yours."
"You think that there might be one?"
"Don't you?"
"I don't even have a full suspect list for this one yet." That reminded her that Danny was the perfect person to ask about something that had been bothering her, if only she had the nerve.
"Was Cheyenne bisexual?" Temple asked bluntly.
Danny hesitated for a long time. "Sexual preferences aside, I'd say he had a universal soul. He was soft inside, if you know what
I mean, with a very thin protective shell. He meant well. He had charisma, but it was built on deference. He wanted to be . . . useful to people. Maybe that was all kinds of people in all kinds of ways.
Maybe that meant being used at times. He wasn't a user, though."
"You liked him."
Danny nodded. "I thought he was too nice for this game. I guess I was right." He glanced at Temple.
"What do you think of these Incredible Hunks? As a woman, I mean."
"Me? I'm the undercover investigator. I don't have an opinion."
Sure you do." Danny crossed his arms and grinned.
"I don't even read romance novels. Well, I didn't until I got here and had a few thrust upon me.
There's such a range in the books, from embarrassing adolescent drivel to extremely sophisticated literary sagas. I notice the same range in the cover models. Some seem all muscle on the outside, the equivalent of the ever-popular female bimbo, with hair mousse for brains and the sensitivity of a moose--north woods variety. Others are accomplished, attractive, well-rounded performers. They all have a public persona, though, that one would do well not to take too seriously."
She sighed and joined Danny in leaning against the wall. "I did that with Cheyenne. He approached me for a drink the night before he died, and I brushed him off. My friends were teasing me, and I didn't want to be taken for a vain, silly woman with a flattery threshold of zero. I think he wanted to talk to me because he was worried about something. He was on the scene when I meddled in the stripper killings.
You know, I underestimated him because he looked too good to be true. And now he's dead."
"Hey!" Danny shook her arm. "You're not superwoman. One chat wouldn't have stopped a murderer." He looked amused suddenly. "Are you always so contrary with the opposite sex?"
"You mean Matt. That's right, you met him. He's too good looking to be true, too, but he is. It's me I distrust, not them. I don't want to be hooked by the shallow."
"Then move out of Las Vegas, honey! Nothing on the Strip is more than skin deep, not even the skin."
"You didn't answer my original question. Was Cheyenne bi- sexual? I'm not just being nosy. If true, it would enlarge the cast of suspects, and the range of motives. Lieutenant Molina asked me to background her."