want to say to her?"
"Of course I'll come. I'm so very sorry about his death."
"Yes." Said a bit too abruptly, as if that was all she had heard for a while. "Yes." A sigh.
"Unfortunately, we must discuss his death. I have some questions about the circumstances."
"But... why call me?"
"I will explain when we are face-to-face. I would much appreciate your coming without knowing more. It is a lot to ask of a stranger, but I am ... in a difficult position."
"Oh course." Sympathy was Temple's greatest motivation for complying with Michelle Bonard's strange request. Curiosity was a close runner-up.
Six o'clock at the Phoenix gave her just enough time to fork more treats over Louie's mound of Free-to-be-Feline and to dash into the bedroom to don something appropriately sober and sympathetic.
Unfortunately, Temple owned few clothes that could be described as sober. Even the black number from her outing with Matt to Gangster's was entirely too frivolous, with its ruffled sleeves. She came across a gray linen suit she seldom wore, teamed it with a yellow silk top and her yellow-and-black patent Charles Jourdan heels.
Feeling like Little Mary Sunshine on a very gray day, she grabbed her black patent tote bag and hit the road.
Pulling into the Phoenix driveway felt like home nowadays. She had unlimited valet-parking privileges now that she was working so much for the owners, so she waved at the parking girl --
a nice touch--in her neat peacock-blue uniform trimmed with silver, and left the Storm in her capable hands.
The lobby was the usual throng of people checking in and people heading for the adjacent casino area. Temple scooted straight ahead for the elevators.
"Hey, Miss Temple!" came a deep baritone voice.
Only ten people besides choreographer Danny Dove would dare to call her Miss Temple. She stopped, turned and faced one of them. But which one of the young, suave Fontana Brothers was she confronting? They looked so much alike they could pass for double quintuplets.
Whichever one he was, he was dressed for attending a funeral. Gone was the trademark pale Italian designer suit, replaced by a dark Italian designer suit. Pin-striped, navy and sober, lightened only by the flamingo-pink tie against a navy shirt.
"Who died?" Temple asked.
"Huh?" He followed her gaze to his jacket and tie, then grinned. "Ermenagildo Zegna."
"Never heard of him."
"You wouldn't have. He's a guy guy. The designer. Ermenagildo Zegna. I won't tell you what it cost, because then you would fall over and you might get stomped in this crowd."
"Thanks. But why the new look?"
"Don't you like it? Nicky says we should look like bankers. That it suits our new role."
"You and your brothers have a new role? I never knew your old one. So what's your new role?"
Aldo or Enrico or Emilio proudly smoothed his long lapels. "We are partners in a business enterprise."
"Not the Phoenix?"
"Naw, Nicky would never let us muscle in here. Might taint the Pieman-pure rep he's aiming at."
"I think you mean 'simon-pure.' "
"No, that's the guy that tells you what to do in that stupid game I wouldn't be caught dead playing."
"Simon Says," Temple said, "turn around so I can see your new suit in three-D, then tell me what new business you're involved in."
Enrico (she arbitrarily decided) obliged. Temple did have to admire the long, lean, somehow-foreign construction of the suit.
"Can't you guess? You been hopping in and out of our place all week."
"You're gonna build the megahotel on the old Sands site?"
"Aw, Miss Temple. I don't see how you solve so many murders and then make an outta-the-ballpark guess like that. It's Gangster's."
"The Fontana Brothers own Gangster's?"
"Well, part of it." Enrico held out his arms in turn and meticulously adjusted his cuff lengths.
"Anyway, we thought we should look the part too."
"You are gentlemen of many parts, certainly," Temple said with a dazed shake of her head.
"Whose idea was the limo service?"
"Uh, Nicky's. He thought it would add class to the concept."
"Nicky's the king of class, all right."
"You here to see him and Van?"
"No, I'm visiting a guest."
Enrico leaned his head close to Temple's, which was quite a feat, given the difference in their heights.
"Is it about a case?" he inquired in a whisper.
"Maybe," she whispered back.
"You going to see someone you think might be a murderer? I can escort you."
"No, I'm probably visiting someone who thinks I might be a murderer."
"No!" Enrico drew back and up to his full almost-six-feet. "Whoever it is does not know you."
"That's true. And now I must be running along."
"I'll watch."
Temple looked a little nonplussed.
"You are so cute when you burn rubber on those high heels of yours. Kinda reminds me of those little fluffy dogs they call a ... a Pompadour."
Temple was not going to tell him that the dog's breed was Pomeranian. She'd rather be compared to a French mistress anyday, than a lapdog on the hoof.
She resumed her course, striving for a sober, serious walk more reminiscent of a mastiff.
When she turned back at the elevators, Enrico, who was still watching, waved.
She waved too, and entered the elevator, pressing the seven button. As the doors met in the middle, she thanked her lucky stars that the Fontana Brothers had so little to do with the Crystal Phoenix's operation.
Temple knew right where to go when the elevator doors spit her out on the seventh floor.
As she passed number 713, the Ghost Suite, she knocked on woodwork. Nobody answered.
Not only was 711 next door, as she had anticipated, but this suite bore a number famous as a gambling password: seven come eleven. Temple thought that if she were a suicide's widow, she'd stay far away from the unlucky number thirteen and its cousin, seven-eleven.
She knocked, then waited nervously. Who was Michelle Bonard besides Cooke's widow, and what did she want with Temple?
A slight young woman answered the door. Her mousy brown hair was cut in t he messy shag au courant for Smart Young Things. Though she looked ultra-French in her faded tight jeans and her skinny black top, she couldn't have been more than twenty-three years old.
"Dana, is that Miss Barr?"
Dana cocked a cocky eyebrow at Temple, who nodded.
"If you'll take Cookie for a while--" Another woman appeared in the open doorway. As tall as Lieutenant Molina, but thin enough to read the classified ads through.
In her arms was a pretty brown-haired child, perhaps two or three, dressed in fragile embroidered cotton.
The mother transferred her to the girl's rangy arms, then smiled at Temple. "Her name is Padgett, but we call her Cookie for now. Say hello to the lady, Cookie."
"Hello," the child, at the Bambi-shy age, mimicked.
"Take her in the bedroom while I speak to Miss Barr. Ah!" Michelle Bonard craned her already-storklike neck as she looked beyond Temple down the hall. "I hear the room-service cart coming now. I ordered for you, if you don't mind."
A little late to mind, Temple thought, wondering if the oncoming clank was the cart... or the ghost of Jersey Joe Jackson in chains.
Ushered inside, Temple had a chance to eye the suite while Michelle directed the bellman in placing the cart.
Though the same venerable age as the adjacent Jersey Joe Jackson suite, this set of rooms, dating to the forties, had been stylishly redecorated. The look was highly Continentaclass="underline" spare, elegant furniture upholstered in cream and chamois colors, with the occasional touch of an English floral.
Michelle had directed the cart into a window niche, and had seen that two Hepplewhite desk chairs were placed beside it. With the cart's long white tablecloth and plethora of dishes under heat-retaining aluminum domes, the scene reminded Temple of dining on a train long ago. Not that she ever had, but she had seen photographs and wished she had.