It is not so arduous as I supposed.
The man’s stride is about eighteen inches and the nail is snagging the carpet strands. In forty feet we have dodged around some deserted slot machines far from the central aisles where they are set “loose” to lure tourists.
A plain door in the wall is where they stop.
“What is this, a janitor’s closet?” I ask.
Topaz looks thoughtful, then solemn, which is not hard to do with those pieces-of-eight eyes.
“Better, Louie.”
I wait.
“It is an employee bathroom, opening only with a key, not usable by the public.”
The truth sinks in.
This was an inside job.
An Open and Shut Case
Somehow I did not expect my first date with Topaz to be staking out an employee rest room at the Oasis.
I was hoping for one of those storied Italian dinners behind the restaurant at the Venetian. Gondoliers poling tourists through the faux canals and singing “O Sole Mio,” which pays tribute to a variety of fish much prized in feline circles.
My green eyes meeting Topaz’s golden ones as we each chow down on the same long strand of angel-hair pasta until our vibrissae duel delightfully. . . .
Instead we are crouching under a pair of empty stools waiting for a croupier to need to take a leak.
Romantic, not!
Actually, it is a little waitress doll who unlocks the rest room door and allows us to shadow her inside. This is not good. She senses our soft furry sides on her hosed calves and looks down with a frown just as we dash out of sight into a cubicle. Euw. These floors are never cleaned to the demanding standards of those who have to put four unshod feet down on them.
Luckily, the waitress just wanted to repair her lipstick and quickly waltzes out again.
We return to the rest room’s main area and loft up on the countertop to wash our feet in moist sink bowls. I manage to put my weight on the flipper that lowers the paper towels and we soon are high, clean, and dry.
Topaz nods to a row of metal lockers on the entry wall. All boast combination locks. These must be assigned to key personnel. We sniff around the locked doors, but accomplish nothing but sneezes from all the scented products within.
“How are we going to get out?” Topaz asks.
I can tell she has never done a stakeout before. Before I can explain that we will get out as we got in, the key scrabbles in the door again. We whoosh back into the cubicle, undoing all our good footwork.
“Listen!” I hiss.
Our backs arch in unison as we hear the scrape of a shoe cleat on the plain tile floor. I duck my head under the door to peek. A pair of large, black, Cuban-heeled shoes stands before the locker. We hear the combination lock spinning and clicking, the door opened and shut.
Then the shoes and wide-bottomed black trousers head for the door.
I poke Topaz in the shoulder with a rude claw and whisk out to race through the door before it closes and locks automatically. The minute I am through, I throw all my weight against it to force it to a standstill.
Miss Topaz eases out at an unruffled pace while I huff and puff from my effort. “Quick!” she says, “he is wasting no time.”
All we have seen from our floor-bound rear viewpoint is that he is a tall white male with a loping stride. I was right! He is carrying a stolen guitar case, and his hands are gloved in black leather. The shirt, cape, and hat must be in the case.
We weave in and out of the forest of moving legs, leaving squeals and curses in our wake, rather like Moby Dick, only unlike the white whale, we are black. And not a marine mammal.
Black Legs leads us on a hard chase all through the casino and then the shops and then the meeting areas and then the service areas to the utter rear of the building. A last gray metal door opens at his push, a one-way exit. Before it shuts on his vanishing heels with the one bent nail we elect to eel through.
The heavy door slams shut, but we have split—literally—to either side and the shadows. He turns to check that no one is coming through the door behind him.
A Dumpster awaits; his goal all along. I hear the huge truck gears grinding a few blocks away. This one knows a fast trash pickup will swallow the evidence he deposits now in minutes.
He will leave his load and vanish. We need a way to ID him. My shivs are still throbbing from marking his rear pants. At least they were not denim, but something sleazier for dancing. I am betting he is not dumping those, because his blood is on the ass. Not enough to drip and leave evidence unfortunately.
“We must mark him,” Topaz’s hot breath wafts in my right ear. She has slipped into my shadow.
I explain I already have, and how.
“Something visible to humans,” she insists.
“I know. I suppose I could claw his face.”
“You are already bruised from fighting this man. He would smash you to the ground.”
I am not afraid of taking on this literal bruiser again, but claw marks would only mean something to someone who knew and believed in my crime-fighting nature, like Miss Temple.
The light from the dim security lamp in the distance catches on Topaz’s collar.
“Duck,” I tell her, nudging her behind me, with her amber crystal drops swinging like a lady’s earrings.
“How do these come off?” I ask. “When the tourists collect them for the prize?”
“Something called a ‘spring ring.’”
“Sit still. I am going to see if my front fang can spring one of those babies free.”
“Louie! This is no time to be collecting prizes. You are cheating.”
“No, but he will be. Now be patient and keep quiet.”
“Well!”
But she does. Of course I am forced into some very intimate quarters, mouth to mouth almost, as I struggle to work a topaz drop free without the aid of an opposable thumb.
Our hot breaths mingle. I growl a little. Topaz unintentionally purrs a little. I could get used to this, but—dang!—the glass jewel suddenly is in my mouth. I mean, good!
Our quarry is squatting by the open guitar case, drawing out the black accessories of villainy: the flat-brimmed hat and cloak. Which he folds back in the guitar case. He stands and strips off his long-sleeved black shirt, revealing pale white skin. He dons a short-sleeved shirt from the case and sits on the concrete to take off the flamenco boots and pulls out a pair of simple black slip-on shoes. His folded pants are beside him.
I slip up on them soft and silent as a shadow, and tuck the pendant in the left rear pocket. Just for a backup. And because I am enough of a street cat still to believe that tagging a perp should fit the crime, I use my strongest remaining front shiv to slash an initial into the back heel of one shoe: the letter L.
Fenced In
After a not-so-jolly room service breakfast at eight, Rafi sat on the suite’s sprawling main sofa manning his cell phone and jotting notes on the hotel stationery.
He was Mr. Action Center. Molina sat beside him, frowning and periodically checking her own cell phone. Forensics wouldn’t have much to report for hours. Rafi’s security staff was checking out the entire Dancing With the Celebs support staff and cast, but only after Molina had put Rafi through a catechism of where they were allowed to investigate and how they were to deal with any evidence they found. Dirty Larry was on another couch, far away, analyzing his informal footage for likely Zorro candidates.
Temple curled up on the couch opposite Rafi and Molina with Matt, who was soon to head for rehearsal with Tatyana. Mariah and EK were still sleeping in their bedroom, after the late hours and excitement of this day’s very wee hours.
Louie’s presence was MIA. He had exited with the waiter to go off on errands of a peculiarly mysterious nature.
Temple hoped he was getting the goods on someone.
Meanwhile, this was Rafi’s operation, his hotel, his expertise.
He flipped his cell phone shut and regarded his ex. Profession
ally. Like they were long-standing colleagues, which they had been, long ago.
“The fencer was found safe at home in his hotel room, pretty zonked.”
“That can be faked,” Molina noted.
“Not with hooker twins zonked out next to him on the bed. My people roused him enough to learn his Zorro and other costumes had always stayed in the wardrobe room.”
“They roused him?” Temple asked alertly. “The hooker twins?”
“No. My staff.”
He eyed Molina again.
Temple watched them both. Such an interesting situation. She had her cops, he had his hotel cops. Wow. Equal again, in a way, as when they’d been rookie uniformed officers together on the streets of L.A.
Temple was torn between feeling sorry for Molina and cheering on Rafi. She wondered where Mariah would fall on that continuum if and when she learned Rafi Nadir was her father.
At the moment, he looked like an okay candidate, and her mother, wearing vintage seventies garb and fighting whatever physical problem she had been, looked pretty lame and tame.
It was always a mistake to underestimate Molina. Rafi was feeling pretty cocky now, for all the right and wrong reasons.
Matt stirred, his head on Temple’s shoulder heavy but welcome.
She swallowed. Hard.
He’d been ambushed alone by a seasoned swordsman, Matt armed with nothing but his occasional martial arts workouts and his wits. He’d done a Max Kinsella job of coming out of that intact. Except for his left hand, which rested on her thigh, under the loose clasp of her contrite right hand.
Could one have a contrite right hand?
She did. She’d encouraged Matt to enter this orgy of dance, publicity, and public self-revelation. Temple Barr, fiancée, expert PR woman, and rotten advisor in all roles.
Rafi looked up at Temple. He then announced fresh info from his staff, probably just to frost Molina.
“Zorro costume’s missing, all right. I guess the sword was left in the attack area because it had no fingerprints, the usual quick ditch and run for it.”
He glanced at Molina, whose olive skin had flushed deeply red at that phrase, “a quick ditch.”
And hadn’t she done just that to Rafi, fourteen years ago in L.A.?
Temple shivered, partly from the idea of Matt’s bandaged hand and wrist on her thigh, partly from watching Molina come apart before her eyes. Max would enjoy this. Or . . . would he? She was petty enough to like it on his behalf, scared enough to dread it on Matt’s behalf. Someone had tried to kill him!
She needed Molina and all her homicide skills, as Molina needed Rafi and his hotel security history.
Shoot! She and Molina were twins right now, needing exactly the people they most despised and distrusted.
Temple eyed Rafi. His usual five o-clock shadow was now purely 3:00 A.M. satanic smudge and his Cheshire cat expression said that he was aware of every damn nuance Temple was.
He winked at her, then his glance moved to the sleeping Mariah and Ping-Ponged between anger and regret.
Yeah. He had daddy genes, probably to his own great surprise.
She wondered if Matt or Max did, and could think of half a dozen reasons why either might not . . . or did. A dozen reasons why she didn’t want to be her own mother, wobbling erratically between seasoned insight and neurotic overcontrol of her only daughter and youngest child.
And poor Mariah was both.
Terminal Tango
Temple had only one more night after this to don Zoe Chloe Ozone garb, the awards show on Friday.
She could hardly wait to dump the annoying little spotlight-grabber.
What had almost happened to Matt made this entire competition, for charity or not, seem trivial. She knew she should lighten up, and would later. People just want to have fun, and that’s very good for the human race.
Someone, or several someones on these premises, didn’t.
Temple glanced around. She saw Dirty Larry and his camcorder plying the aisles along with other pro and amateur videographers. Hank Buck stood at the far stage wing, arms folded, eyes scanning the audience. His gaze met hers and he gave a little nod. Other discreet, safari-uniformed hotel guards dotted the back of the house. One was seated almost invisibly behind the judges’ table.
Molina had insisted Leander Brock give her a list of the dancers in order.
When Temple saw it, she knew she was still enough of a competitor to rejoice that Matt had been paired with Olivia Phillips again. By the fifth show and final dance, repairings were inevitable.
Olivia was an ideal partner for Matt. Their heights were right for the cheek-to-cheek tango, and they liked and therefore enhanced each other. Olivia’s tall, slender frame was made for the tango, and Matt had proven he had Latin cojones in the pasodoble. (And even later in the Paso Duel with “Zorro.”)
Temple wasn’t sure that the dance partners were “drawn” for this final performance night. Glory B. was paired with Keith Salter, not the greatest dancer but a good height match. The tango was built on sharp head motions and close body contact by both dancers, facing each other, then apart. Matched heights made it work. So CC had “drawn” the statuesque Wandawoman and José was stuck with Motha Jonz. Giggle.
Temple eyed the “thermometer” graphics board. Despite no personal onstage mishaps and therefore no sympathy votes, Matt had edged out José. Temple would bet his working against type was winning over voters. Olivia and Glory B. were neck and neck on the women’s side.
The dance order would be Salter and Glory B., José and Motha Jonz, CC and Wandawoman, and Matt and Olivia last. Some thought last was the best position in a competition. You stay on the judges’ minds better. Yet mostly call-in and e-mail voters counted these days.
Zoe Chloe would only be onstage at the end, to award the junior dance studio scholarship. That vote board showed Patrisha and EK at the top.
Temple crossed her fingers for EK as she eyed “her girls.”
The four wore glittery tops and short skirts, less trashy but a mirror of what older teen celebrities wore. Molina had sprung a mint for Temple to take Mariah and EK to lunch at the Fashion Show Mall on the Strip and on a shopping spree that midday, so Mariah was looking successfully “teen queen” too.
Temple had welcomed the outing. It took her mind off Matt, his rehearsal demands and physical condition. Although by early this morning he had been remarkably ready to, ah, rise and shine.
“What are you grinning about, ZC?”
Crawford Buchanan had breezed close to whisper in her ear. He loved taking these hit-and-run liberties and could play his fingers across his victim’s neck if he didn’t think she’d call him on it. ZC would. She was wearing the radically high, platform wedge, black satin ballet-style shoes she’d splurged on at the mall for Zoe Chloe’s final appearances, so she could stomp him like a bug if she wanted to.
“Just thinking,” she said, “that my junior dance corps look darling but age-appropriate. Even the Los Hermanos Brothers are giving them a new look.”
“Eh. They’re okay. A little mousy, maybe. Never your problem,” he added with a patented leer at her black-and-white polka-dotted hose. She also wore a kilt-length fuchsia plaid taffeta balloon skirt and white, puffed-sleeved cropped jacket with a giant fuchsia silk peony on the shoulder that hosted a black rhinestone spider pin as big as a teacup.
On this last competition night (and because Molina and Rafi refused to watch from the greenroom), the ZCO party had seats along the front row on the judges’ side.
Sitting in the audience was so different from watching on a TV screen in the greenroom. They still had their little “family” row: Rafi, Temple, Molina, and Mariah.
The final introductions began as the band played the first couple on stage.
Tango music was sophisticated, like the dance, sometimes brighter and jazzy, sometimes darker.
Wisely, Glory and Keith had been given a quick, intense routine, with lots of dips, leg wraps, and intricate step
s for the agile and petite Glory. Keith wore men’s formal black and she sparkled in vibrant orange taffeta. Keith pretty much functioned as the pole in a stripper club. That quieter role enhanced his dignity, so the applause was warm when the couple finished with Glory doing the splits in front of his upright figure.
“Your best dance,” Danny could honestly tell Keith. “A subtle job of supporting your partner so she could perform some very demanding moves. Fabulous job, Miss B. You’ve come far. I expect to see you in a High School Musical touring company shortly.”
“Really?” Glory B. radiated new confidence even while panting hard.
“Nine,” said Danny, looking at Glory B. so she’d know the rating was hers, not theirs.
The audience went wild. Glory B. grinned and waved at them as she left the stage.
“There’s one contestant whose self-esteem has visibly soared during the competition,” Temple whispered to nobody in particular, her eyes glued on the stage.
“Actually,” said Molina, “you’re right.” She glanced at her rapt daughter, visibly reconsidering.
Audible breaths were drawn in when Crawford announced “José Juarez . . .”
“. . . and his partner, Motha Jonz.”
Their held breaths whooshed out like a disappointed tide at the news of his partner, a cumbersome dancer at best.
This was another dance opening that placed the partners at opposite ends of the stage.
Jose wore the tight, chest-baring black shirt and pants of male ballroom dancers in sexier routines. His rolled-up sleeves showcased forearms muscular from fencing. A tilted black fedora with a crimson band shadowed his chiseled features.
Motha Jonz glittered in basic black studded with bloodred rhinestones, but she still was shaped like a saguaro cactus, round and fully packed. They stalked each other around the dance floor, their steps measured between intricate twining moves and sudden hip-to-hip turns. They’d break apart to pose, then resume the tease.
Cat in a Topaz Tango Page 31
