"Except for Temple Barr and the Circle Ritz." She folded her arms. "I always suspected you'd come back."
"Good for you. Why shouldn't I? And what do I find when I do? Your baseless suspicions have put Temple in an ugly spotlight. Where's your sense of responsibility? Temple has nothing to do with anything you might suspect. Having the police interested in her might attract the wrong elements."
"Besides yourself, I suppose you mean?"
"You know what I mean. Pick on someone your own size, Lieutenant."
She stiffened at the implication. "I would if he would stay visible."
"Look." Kinsella spread his hands in a disingenuous gesture. "I presume there are no warrants out for me."
"Not. .. yet. But I do want to talk to you, and officially. What's wrong with that? What are you afraid of?"
"Not you," he said quickly. Too quickly. "Listen. I'll make you a deal."
"You'll offer a deal. I doubt I'll take it."
"Get me copies of the mug shots and rap sheets on the men who roughed up Temple, and I'll come in quietly for a talk, but not publicly. No downtown."
" 'Get you'? Get real! Why should I trade you police information for a few moments of your precious time, on your terms? Besides, Miss Barr only made tentative identifications. I can't unleash a rogue citizen on unsuspecting crooks."
"Since when are the police so solicitous of petty career criminals?"
"You seem to have those guys pegged without any documentation. I don't need your time or your insight so badly that I'm about to make any deals with a disappearing act."
"That's too bad. I might have something to show and tell, but first I need to check some things out."
"Who's the cop here?"
He smiled. "You are, Lieutenant, as close-minded a hard-nosed dick as I've ever seen in a velvet glove."
"Don't let this getup fool you."
"I won't, if you won't."
She was silent as she contemplated the conversation thus far. Elusive was his middle name, as if he didn't have enough of them already. She might have to deal for her long-wanted interrogation, but he was capable of taking the info and running. He was even capable, she suspected, of breaking into headquarters to get it.
"If I decide to let you take a look at these guys, it will have to be downtown. And I'll want some answers about the Goliath."
His mobile face soured with a doubt-curdled expression. "I don't want that high a profile. Much as I enjoy chatting with you, this clandestine tete-a-tete will have to do for now. You're right, Lieutenant; I do have a thing or two to tell you. Meanwhile, just remember that it's not Temple that you're after."
He was at the door so fast the fact seemed supernatural.
She nearly knocked over the light bench as she stood.
"I'm not through with you," she warned him in the dead serious tones she would use with any suspect.
Kinsella paused, his hand on the battered doorknob, looked over his shoulder, turned.
She knew enough to approach him deliberately, her face an authoritarian mask. Still, she felt she was wading through Jell-O, aware of the long, soft skirt brushing her calves, of the lightweight holster gartering her ankle. No cop was ever off duty.
He waited, wary but curious. "Do you think you can arrest me?" he asked when she reached him.
That issue had both legal and physical implications, especially in a confrontation that had become an exercise in domination. They faced off, not moving, neither giving an inch in determination. She was not a small woman; in her vintage shoes she surpassed six feet, so he had a scant two or three inches on her. And probably only thirty pounds, she estimated expertly.
She sensed imminent movement on his part--street sense-- and her right arm lifted to stop his escape.
He caught her wrist, a weak tactic, but a canny move. That token counterforce allowed her to test his mettle. His upper body strength was surprising for one so lean, and his expression was now amused, which angered her, as he meant it to. Resistance did not dismay her. She knew some moves, but better yet, she had spent four years as a patrol officer doing take-downs in South Central L.A.
For the moment they remained paralyzed, exerting equal counter-strength, balanced like arm wrestlers before they get serious. Her will was as adamant as his. Besides, the real battle wouldn't begin until she slipped his wrist-grip to work some surprises of her own.
The balance held for frozen seconds.
Suddenly, without relaxing his grip, he leaned close and spoke in a deep whisper. "Don't." His vibrant baritone at her ear almost made the silk dahlia at her temple tremble. "Don't ruin the start of a beautiful . . . pursuit."
Irony and intimacy were concealed weapons she hadn't expected. Her wrist was now free, but so was he, eeling through the barely open door like a second-story man.
For a split second she debated pulling out her own concealed weapon and chasing him through the Blue Dahlia. No. Not yet. She wanted publicity no more than he, because she had so damn little probable cause for pursuing him, just the terminal itch of instinct.
Furious, she turned and slammed the door shut with her back. The grand gesture forced her to face herself in the tacky mirror across the room. C. R. Molina shut her eyes. Whatever her professional annoyance at anyone's--any suspect's--manipulation, she had to analyze the personal flaw that had surprised and paralyzed her for the vital instant he had used to leave without resistance. It wasn't pretty, but it was pretty obvious.
She allowed herself to replay the bolt of sheer sexual heat lightning that had riveted her from head to toe. His swift, alarming closeness, the warm, ironic voice, the physical tension of resistance, his and hers, suddenly altered into something else.
She hadn't allowed herself, hadn't had a hope in hell of experiencing anything like it in . . . years. She had felt as if an elevator she rode daily and indifferently had suddenly plunged three stories, and would the elevator operator do it again, please.
Calculated, of course, down to the second. Manipulative. Cocky. Effective. Part of her despised any woman's vulnerability for that ancient sexual domination game, always stacked against women. Part of her wanted to play it again, Sam.
Carmen leaned against the closed door, bracing her hands on the cool, smooth wood. She felt as if Bacall had just met Bogart. And he was good.
He was very, very good.
Lieutenant C. R. Molina pushed herself away from the door's support, from the past, from dispensible trivialities like libido.
So was she.
Chapter 12
Hearse and Rehearsal
"Cheyenne invited us," Temple told the man in the knit shirt who paused beside the seats she, Kit and Electra occupied in the Peacock Theater the next morning.
The man glanced at his beeper, nodded and rushed on.
"Whew." Kit slid onto her tailbone until her head was barely above the seatback. "No New York theater would let onlookers camp out like this during rehearsal."
"This is Las Vegas," Temple explained. "Everybody knows or owes somebody. People are always dropping in. As long as you have the right name to drop--and apparently we do--no problem."
Electra had not bothered to shrink into her seat; with her hair moussed and sprayed papaya pink, what was the point? She gazed mistily toward the stage.
"Kind of brings back my uncovered, undercover assignment as Moll Philanders. Golly, that Hesketh Vampire made a dynamite stage prop, though."
"Huh?" The string of confusing allusions brought Kit upright gain. "I know what a vampire is, but what's a 'Hesketh' vampire? One with a lisp?"
"A big mean, screamin' machine," Electra intoned with fond and unfaded memory. "One thousand cee-cees of silver-streak 'cycle."
"I don't even know what a 'cee-cee' is. Max's vintage British motorcycle," Temple translated for Kit's benefit. "Electra got it as a downpayment on our condo. She used it in her gig as a senior citizen stripper when I was doing PR for the stripper contest."
Kit blinked. "Senior citi
zen strippers? I knew Las Vegas had a loyal elderly clientele, but--"
"It's a long story," Temple said, "and rather rowdy."
Kit gave up for the moment to look around. "Pretty ordinary theater and house, without the turquoise and violet velvet curtains. So, What if you hadn't had Cheyenne's name to drop? Would we still be persona grata?"
"Sure." Temple grinned. "I work for the Crystal Phoenix now, so I could always use my position here."
"Hey!" came a deep booming shout from the back of the house.
"Yeah!" came its cousin.
"Ta-rah-rah boom-de-ay," came a lusty male chorus of at least six.
Temple turned, looked, cringed and tried to shrink in her seat.
"Temple's back, and guess who's got her?"
The bearers of this untimely news came charging down the center aisle en masse, or so it sounded. Temple couldn't bear to look, but she could smell them at fifty paces: a phalanx of English and Russian Leather intermixed with a soupcon of Brut.
Temple peered between her fanned fingers, trying for a body count. To her best estimate, she was viewing the complete Fontana, Inc. All nine brothers--except Nicky, who didn't travel in packs--
at once. Nicky, owner of the Crystal Phoenix and husband to hotel manager Van von Rhine, was the White Sheep of a large family more noted for its wool of blacker hue. The other brothers were bachelors--attractive, genially oblivious to all but the finer vices in life (like gats, gambling and gams) and prone to preen. But now their image had taken a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn.
Gone were the Italian ice-cream suits; also gone was the discreet bulge of Beretta here and there. No, now it was skin-tight designer jeans and bulging muscle shirts. Ralph not only had a pony tail, but it wasn't one anymore. Instead, his unbound hair, moussed into a tangle from a figure on a Cretan frieze, dusted his shoulders. The presence of so many feral Mediterranean males made Temple feel like an extra on the set of "West Side Story."
"These guys look like they should be on Hesketh vampires," Kit commented, not without appreciation. "Friends of yours?"
"Business associates." Temple smiled gamely up at the assembly. "What are you fellows doing here?" she asked before they could ask her. "Security detail?"
"Naw," said one, "we're in the Hunky Hero contest."
"Is there a group category?"
"Nope," said another. "We compete separately, but we make our public appearances all together, if that makes sense."
"Yeah, if the six Goat Guys from Elbow Grease, Indiana, can rack up modeling contracts, we figure the nine Fontana Fellows from Las Vegas, Nevada, can do twice as good."
"Who are 'the Goat Guys'?" Electra asked.
"Sextuplet bodybuilders from Indiana," Aldo--or maybe Armando--said disdainfully. "Genuine hayseeds. They raise fainting goats; the kind that up and fall down when they hear a loud noise.
That's probably what makes them so good at holding up all those swooning women on romance bookcovers. Practice."
Rico frowned in disagreement. "The way I heard it, they raised pygmy and dwarf goats, for little people, I guess. You know, those hairy suckers with the pig's feet and devil horns."
"Forget the details," Julio--or maybe Giuseppe, sometimes known as Pepe--said. "The bottom line is that the Goat Guys made it into the big time at last year's Incredible Hunk competition. They went straight from the slop pail to the media trough. Big-time modeling, acting, even recording contracts."
"Do you do any of that?" Kit asked.
"Raise goats? Hell, no."
"Model, act and record," she specified.
"Oh, that." Ralph was blase as he gave his locks a finger-fluff. "Any fool can do that stuff. You just gotta have the look. We're not the bodybuilder type, but we have other advantages."
"Yes," Electra and Kit agreed a bit too quickly for credibility's sake.
"So is there a talent segment?" Temple wanted to know. She really wanted to know.
"Yeah."
"There is?"
Ernesto--or possibly Eduardo--nodded soberly. "Yeah. Wearing clothes."
"And not wearing clothes," Emilio put in.
"Actually, the pageant is mostly about changing clothes," Ralph said eagerly. "First we all come on in clothes. Next we don't wear much clothes; then more clothes; then less clothes; then we all come back out in clothes and wait to see who gets to wear no clothes on a book cover."
"It's a big strain, let me tell you," Julio complained, "keeping track of all those costumes and what to take off and put on. Plus, they give us no time flat."
"And less room."
"And no private dressing rooms. The smell is like the locker rooms of the Rams after a playoff."
"But we don't mind personal hardship if it pays off big," Rico added with a grin.
"Doesn't it bother you to parade around onstage undressed?" Temple wondered. "What happened to the totally tailored Fontana brothers?"
"Fame."
"Fortune."
"An audience of adoring babes."
"But I do kinda feel a little naked sometimes," Ralph said with a doubtful frown.
"You do?" the amazed other brothers asked as one.
"Yeah." Ralph looked down and seemed, for a moment, as sheepish as one would imagine a Goat Guy would look if his fainting goat refused to swoon. "I kinda miss my Beretta."
"Ahh!" His siblings pounded him consolingly on the back, in the time-honored gesture of male sympathy. "You can't pursue a career in the arts without some sacrifices," Armando consoled him grandly.
Ralph nodded, and then brightened. "On the other hand, I can add to my earring collection.
Earrings are really hot among the contestants."
"We gotta go," Aldo urged. "Hit the backstage before we miss our cueball."
"Cue," Temple and Kit corrected in tandem.
"Wait'll you see us in our competition getups," Pepe bragged. "This is even better than our surprise appearance in the Gridiron show."
"I'm sure," Temple said, not at all sure that the world was ready for an intentional Fontana Brothers stage appearance.
"Tally ho!" said one.
"One for the money," said another.
"Two for the show."
"Three to get Freddy--"
"And four to go!"
They were off like Italian greyhounds, sleek, single-minded and born to win.
"Whew." Kit was suitably dazed. "Who was the chorus line from 'Guys and Dolls'?"
"The hotel owner's brothers, all nine of them."
"For a girl with romantic troubles, you certainly know a lot of eligible males; most, unfortunately, are on the young side."
"The Fontana brothers are bachelors, all right, but they're about as eligible as gigolos."
"Such darling brothers," Electra put in. "Look at Ralph's charmingly boyish attachment to his Bearetta. I had no idea young men nowadays were into stuffed animals. I'm sure they'll grow up and settle down in time. Do you think these Goat Guys will show up this year? Swashbuckling sextuplets.
They sound absolutely fascinating."
Temple shook her head without comment. She knew she had risen too early this morning for a person in a fragile emotional state.
"There she is," sang out another male voice, a baritone mimicking the Miss America theme song.
Temple stiffened. Apparently the world had nothing better to do this morning than to draw attention to her.
"Our ideeeeeal," the singer finished in perfect pitch, arriving beside their row of seats with a flourish. "Show us the tootsies," he ordered Temple. "What are our little tiny toes wearing today?"
Temple surrendered and lifted a foot into the aisle.
"Fabulous," he pronounced. "Yellow is your color. Is the ankle stronger than sheet metal again?"
"It's the other ankle and, yes, at least as firm as tinfoil. How are you, Danny?"
"In my element, ducks." Danny Dove cast a theatrically languishing glance over his shoulder at the stage thronging with wandering, bare-muscled, baw
ling hunks in search of stardom, not Stella.
Danny wore vintage Gene Kelly today: tight black T-shirt, jeans and sockless loafers. Gene would have worn the socks--dorky white sweat-socks--but that had been forty years ago, before the birth of Contemporary Cool.
"Are you coordinating the pageant?" Temple asked hopefully.
" 'Coordinate' is more word than most of these guys can manage. Some have modeling and acting experience, if you count blue movies, but theatrically, the majority are barbarians. Three days to turn these sows' ears into silk tuxedos. Still, I do love a big, juicy challenge."
Danny stiffened his shoulders and marched up the aisle toward the milling contestants.
Temple glared at Kit before she could say anything. "He is not an eligible man."
"Not to us, perhaps. But everybody is eligible to somebody. Who is he?"
"Local choreographer. I would have introduced you, but his heart was in the Highlands." Temple jerked her head toward the stage, where a tow-headed giant wearing a red tartan kilt and little else was striding over the boards, broadsword in hand. "Danny Dove is a pretty big name in this town."
"Danny Dove? No kidding?" Kit leaned forward in her seat to watch the wiry director instantly whip milling hunks into something resembling a chorus line.
"You've heard of him?"
"He made his name on the Manhattan bathhouse circuit back when Bette Midler was making hers in the same venue. So he ended up in Vegas. I'd bet he makes bucks."
"You'd win."
Electra frowned. "Then why is he doing this little show?"
"Kid in a chocolate factory." Temple nodded at the stage. "Men in tights. Ambiance."
Electra was not assuaged. "Is it . . . safe for these young men--?"
Kit laughed. "Golly, Electra, guys who look like that have learned to encourage or fend off either sex since high school. They're the ones who take advantage of--they take advantage of their looks and other people's longing. Beautiful people learn the drill early, and if they choose to make a career of it, they're usually the least vulnerable of anyone in the dating game."
Midnight Louie 05-Cat in a Diamond Dazzle Page 11
