Successful middle-aged men tended toward two prime hobbies: golf and girls. Was Domingo just an artistic CEO on the rampage? Did being an artist instill no respect for other persons, for the human soul, for restraint from sexual games?
Apparently not. Remember Picasso. Temple jumped down, automatically flexing her knees to disperse the shock. Every small hop down was a giant step for one of her height, or lack of it, rather.
She dusted her palms off as she considered who looked like the biggest gambler in the group. No contest: the shrimpy chain-smoking guy who had boldly accessorized his baggy gray shorts with a Hawaiian shirt. Shades of Max, quite literally.
"Hi."
He looked up from planting a spike-footed flamingo in the sand. A soggy unfiltered cigarette clung to the saliva slick on his bottom lip.
"Yeah?"
"Say I want to join the project-girl pool?"
"Can't. You're in the running."
"Suppose I told you that the girl in glasses running around to everybody is telling them that she found out I'm thirty."
He glanced around. "Amanda." Sweat trickled past the rolled bandanna on his forehead.
"Hey, babe, you don't look that bad to me."
"I'm too tall for you," Temple said, her voice even steelier than her eyes, which no one could see because of the dark glasses. Pity. This was a Molina-class look.
"Yeah?" He glanced up, then thrust another flamingo into the ground. "I guess you're right."
"So . . . uh--"
"Jeff."
"So, Jeff, who are the leading contenders?"
"Amanda for one."
"But didn't she--?"
"Don't let her disgusted act fool you. She's disgusted that she might not make it. This is her third year on safari with the Great White Hunter. She's out of grad school next spring and out of the running."
"And?"
He nodded to the blonde, naturally. "Steph would be the guys' lead choice, but Domingo doesn't like blondes."
"Doesn't like blondes? What kind of kinky cradle-robber is he?"
"Doesn't like blondes, and hasn't had a redhead for a while. That's why we put an outsider into our pool. Then there's that Ice Age ice-chick, Verina. Who would have thought he'd show up with that Vampira babe?"
"Maybe he's outgrowing the Lost Boys and Girls."
"Naw." Another flamingo bit the dust. "So you wanna toss five bucks in the pot? Pick your front-runner. You could even bet on yourself. The competition does get, shall I say, hot?" He eyed her as if having produced a terribly suave come-on.
"I'd have to know more about the full field of candidates. Maybe later."
"Later it'll all be over but the celebrating. Domingo doesn't usually wait this long." Jeff looked up at her again. "Speaking of long, I kinda go for tall women."
"Do I know a great one, and I bet she'd really go for you!" With handcuffs and an unlawful-gaming charge, Temple added to herself.
Temple departed with a friendly, but not too friendly, wave.
So Domingo was a Dirty Old Ma n. She felt vaguely disappointed, but didn't let that stop her active mind from churning.
Why, then, was Domingo breaking tradition? Why was he snubbing the panting project girls, making the jealous project boys nervous, putting Temple in the running for a race she didn't want to enter? Temple had assumed that a woman like Verina was the typical Famous Artist's accessory, but she was decidedly past forty. Poor thing! Why was she here, and why had Domingo broken a long, proud tradition of girl-chasing? Didn't he know his natives would be getting restless at his uncharacteristic hesitation?
Didn't he care?
And, if so, why not?
The man himself was currently the center of a squall of flamingos on the move, so Temple went over to rubberneck.
Some local-news cameras also homed in on the flutter. Temple saw why Domingo was always making like a traffic cop with his arms. He was always being photographed on-site, by still and motion cameras.
Either way, he came off as a central figure in his white hero's shirt, full of energy and command.
She seemed to be his designated right-hand woman today. Perhaps it was only because he approved of the safari outfit, or because she made him look bigger since she was so (sigh) small, or... Temple didn't want to think about the deep discussions of Sunday afternoon, but it was all too clear that, like many powerful men, Domingo had eyes for any available female, including her, as the crew had speculated.
She was not the only one ruminating in that direction it turned out. As the day wore on, the flamingos propagated like a rash and even the young gung ho groupies wore out.
A shadow fell over Temple. She looked up to see Verina, bearing bottles of Evian water from the refreshment van. (Domingo's operation was used to on-site hardship in the middle of nowhere. Obviously, Las Vegas was considered to be equally absent of civilities like bottled water.)
"Wonderful!" Domingo wiped his fevered brow with a shirtsleeve and accepted a bottle.
The cameras zoomed in. Action that wasn't a pink blur.
"It's so hot," Verina complained. "And in November."
"Las Vegas cools down at night," Temple pointed out, "but by day the temperature can reach the eighties, even in the winter months. Besides, black attracts heat." She eyed Verina's twill designer bell-bottom pants and belly button-showing top, a long-sleeved, shrunken-midriff jacket. Socko in Elle, but a heat sink on the Strip.
Verina glanced at Domingo, handing Temple an Evian bottle, then patted delicately at her forehead. "The sun is so hot on my hair, I'm burning up. I had no idea." She lowered her voice, so only Temple could hear her. "And skin cancer runs in my family."
"Oh, gosh. You really shouldn't be out here, then."
Verina again eyed Domingo, who was flapping his wings like a living model for one of his flamingos. "He expects me to be here."
"Maybe you could wait in the refreshment van."
"It's so hot." Verina's husky voice was almost a child's whine.
Her dark eyes fastened on Temple as if suddenly seeing a savior. "But your hat would shelter me from the rays."
"Well, ah ..." Redheads weren't exactly made for overexposure to the sun, which is why Temple had worn the hat, knowing there would be no shade. She was more worried about contracting freckles than skin cancer, but she supposed she should be more worried about the latter than the former.
"If you could lend it to me, just for the afternoon--"
"Sure." Temple wasn't about to argue with a family history of skin cancer.
She handed over the hat and watched it waft to the top of Verina's elegant form, where it sat quite handsomely, being a charming if casual hat, after all.
Verina sidled off, following Domingo, cameras en train.
"Jeesh!" came a male explosion from behind Temple. "What an operator."
"Huh?" Temple turned to face a freckle-faced cameraman from a local TV channel. She thought that his name was Sean.
"You and that hat were getting too much attention for her taste, from her boss and from the cameramen. Why'd you hand it over?"
"Who can argue with skin cancer?"
"Say, you and I are bigger candidates for that than that spoiled broad. Just make sure you get it back."
Temple frowned through her sunglasses. Cameramen and photographers always saw the bigger picture, quite literally.
"Thanks for pointing it out. I guess I missed the obvious."
"She's gonna be on the cutting-room floor in my footage, after that ploy." Sean winked and moved on, focusing on flamingos.
The sun beat down on Temple's red-hot head while she considered kicking herself with a rubber-soled wedgie toe. Once again some slick out-of-towner had suckered her, this time a femme fatale. Why should a Woman Who Has Everything--a towering, thin, fashion-magazine body with the properly sexy androgynous look, a famous boyfriend, the latest designer wardrobe--have to scam a twelve-dollar hat off a working woman who has more to worry about than being the center of attention?