“How is everything going?” the boss lady inquired, sticking a Montblanc pen into her blonde French twist.
The effect reminded Temple of a geisha girl, although Van was anything but.
“Frankly,” she answered, “we’ve got a bit of a mess. The police are pretty annoyed by the drama of a mysterious, anonymous man in formal dress dying in a hidden vault in an uncharted tunnel beneath major Vegas Strip attractions. The civic mob-museum committee has been threatening to ‘commandeer’ the entire vault for the city’s ‘vintage law-enforcement’ exhibition.”
“Amusing,” Van said, sounding anything but amused. “Obviously, that death scene is the last thing the police want. They’re clearly out of their depth, excuse the expression. Everything the Phoenix had planned has ground to a costly halt. We need that murder solved.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Temple said.
Van sighed and retrieved the pen from her coiffure.
At that geisha moment, her Asian personal assistant knocked on the door, then entered.
Tommy Foy had seen Temple in. He knew the women were simply noodling around on Crystal Phoenix matters and therefore interruptible.
“Miss von Rhine,” he said, “you wanted to know the moment your foreign visitor checked in. Her luggage has been taken to the Crystal Cascade Suite, and she is here.”
“Wonderful,” Van said, standing. “Show her in.” She smiled at Temple. “This is a friend from my European upbringing, visiting Vegas out of the blue. I’d love you to meet her.”
Van was literally bubbling over. It reminded Temple that career women like them didn’t have much time to nourish female friendships. Associations, yes. Temple, the only girl in a family of boys, felt a pang that she had no best gal friend in Vegas. Van was an employer, after all, and Electra Lark, a landlady. And, gosh, who next came to mind? Her nemesis, homicide lieutenant C. R., aka Carmen, Molina. Was that pathetic!
Temple turned to greet the newcomer with a warm smile.
Oh, wow. Supermodel tall, slim and sleek. Blonde like Van, only not like Van. Zorchy, used to be the word. Cool, blonde, and hot, the type that always made Temple feel like she was on loan from the Girl Scouts to the local high school. Or college. Or TV station job.
“Revi!” Van exclaimed, coming around her desk to grasp expensively suited arms and to brush cheeks. “So amazing to see you again.”
“And I, you. I see so few from Saint Moritz these days.”
“A girls academy in Switzerland we both attended,” Van, always the perfect hostess, explained to Temple. “And, Revi, this is the hotel’s ace public-relations expert, Temple Barr. My school friend, Revienne … Schneider, is it still?”
“Yes, of course,” the blonde said, with the faintest of accents. “You also work under your maiden name?”
“Of course,” Van said.
Well, Temple thought, ‘Revi’ had neatly dodged the issue of her marital status. Bet she knows Van’s married surname to an F, as in “Fontana family.”
“Revienne is such a lovely name,” Temple noted. “I’ve never heard it before.”
“Yes,” Van agreed. “It’s French, but totally unique. It comes from the word return, and here she’s returned to my life. I wish I had such an evocative name.”
“Now, Van,” Revienne said, “I’ve always found your full name enchanting. I do understand why you dislike it, though.” The woman sat in the chair next to Temple and arranged her long legs into a paired, high-fashion-model side slant. “I use mine in full form now.”
No more girlish “Revi,” she was saying.
In fact, Temple had a rough time envisioning the newcomer as ever having been an awkward adolescent. Revienne wore a mossy green silk suit that had to have been purchased in a major Europe an capital and which fell into expensive, unwrinkled folds fresh from the transatlantic flight.
“No time to psychoanalyze me at the office, Revienne,” Van said, donning her impassive executive mask for a moment, in fun. “We’ll dine after you’ve rested. What brought you to Las Vegas so suddenly?”
“I’d been promising to do some lectures for a friend from Lyon. He’s had a visiting professorship at your branch of the University of Nevada here. Hugo Gruetzmeyer. He thought a local case might intrigue me. But, Van, I caught some disturbing buzz on the Internet after the flight.”
“You’re talking about the Crystal Phoenix,” Van said, her blue eyes sharpening. “So, this is a business, not a pleasure trip. What is your business then?”
Temple would not have wanted to be under Van’s suddenly suspicious gaze. Her hotel and her husband’s family were the center of a sensational murder case. Even old school friends needed to prove themselves for suddenly showing up.
Revienne shrugged her wide, expensively clad shoulders. Her quick gray-eyed glance summed up Temple’s position and temperament as if taking a psychic temperature.
Temple felt as cautious as Van did. This woman was as quick and subtle as she was smart, in both meanings of the word.
Revienne spread her long, graceful fingers palms up, in a gesture of charming surrender. Temple noticed she wore no rings, not from a man and not from Revienne to Revienne. Temple instantly remembered Matt’s glamorous engagement ring on her third finger. She’d certainly come to take it for granted and sometimes wondered if it was too much bling for a petite woman. Now it felt like a glitzy weapon blinking out a Morse-code message: Don’t tread on me. I have backup, lady.
It was weird this woman got her and Van’s hackles up so fast. They were equally protective of the Crystal Phoenix, perhaps, and even more protective of the Fontana family males, as well. Temple did have some best pals in Vegas, she realized. They just weren’t girls, but an updated rat pack of cool guys and one big beautiful black cat named Midnight Louie.
Revienne gave a single breathy laugh, part apology, part peace gesture. “I realize, Van, and Miss Barr, you need to be sensitive about negative publicity right now. That’s why I’m here. To help. Professor Gruetzmeyer called on me because certain aspects of the tunnel vault death might relate to my experience. I know you have the legendary CSI filmed here in Las Vegas, but that is television-show razzle-dazzle, as you say in this country. I am a respected psychologist on the Continent, and beyond—England, the Mideast …”
“Not in the U.S.?” Temple asked.
“Not … yet. Though I very recently worked with a most challenging and unforthcoming American. You are a wary people, I must say.”
“These are wary times,” Van said.
“Exactly. I do have experience in cases involving terrorism.”
“Perpetrators or victims?” Temple asked.
“Both,” Revienne said.
“This has nothing to do with terrorism,” Van said. “We have one unidentified man, in formal costume yet, dead and likely murdered in an abandoned part of the hotel property. If we hadn’t been, er, excavating for a new attraction, no one would have known.”
Revienne gave Temple an amused (possibly condescending) glance. “I take it your publicity efforts devised the live taping of the old vault being opened. I never heard on any news source that anything besides the dead man was found inside.”
Temple tapped the sole of her high-heeled Nina sandal on Van’s cushy carpeting. “No news is bad news when it comes to publicity. The Crystal Phoenix is getting as much buzz as the Wynn or the Venetian now. If you manage to solve the death, it’ll make a super exhibit in the new Mob Museum at our affiliated facility, Gangsters.”
“Spin,” Revienne mocked. “You Americans are experts at it until you become entangled in unexpected outcomes.”
“You French, on the other hand, are experts at food, wine, and tomfoolery.”
“Tom whom?”
Van laughed. “L’amour, illicit love affairs, Temple means.”
“Ah,” Revienne said, nodding her perfectly windblown, shoulder-length Bed Head. “Is love ever truly illicit?” She nodded at Temple’s ring finger. “You are tying yourself to one man—always risky. An impossible dream, perhaps?”