Matt emerged from his menu only when the waitress had sashayed away. He leaned across the snowy linen to Temple. He spoke sotto voice, despite the growing buzz of other diners.
"This place was supposed to be quiet and have some good food." Matt frowned. "I didn't know about the, er, ambiance."
''I suppose all this black-and-white is a rather perverse reminder of your past," Temple couldn't resist commenting.
Matt remained unruffled, despite the environment and despite suffering from the recent embarrassment of revealing a past. ''Most of the religious I knew were post-habit days," he said to quash her sense of mischief. ''I was referring to the noise level."
Temple noticed only then that a trio had appeared in a dim corner lanced by needles of spotlight. A tenor saxophone was running up and down its liquid metal trills, while a snare drum in the background emulated a soft, rhythmic rattlesnake. A piano's bluesy, throaty tinkle underlay it all like a smoker's cough.
''Isn't it odd," she said, "that they're making all these nun movies--like Sister Act and Nunsense --only now that nuns wear civilian dress?"
"Now it's safe. Less chance of offending a habit-wearing hardliner these days."
"I guess people have always been fascinated by priests and nuns," Temple mused. "First there's the distinctive uniform; then there's the celibacy mystique."
"I've never heard celibacy called a 'mystique' before," Matt said dryly, leaning back to make room for the waitress and her lethal ruffled hem. She deposited a lowball glass and a long-stemmed, slow sip of leg before him at one and the same instant.
"What's that?" Temple stared at the dark, murky drink in front of Matt, not having noticed his order.
"A Black Russian. What's yours?" He nodded at her long-stemmed glass.
"A White Lady. I felt like something . . . elegant. At least we're in tune with the color scheme."
They laughed and lifted their glasses. Then they sipped their drinks and began to talk of more important things, like themselves.
Matt had another confession to make. "I'm glad that you like the place, and that you could come tonight. I was worried that you might think I was avoiding you."
"I know you've got commitments. Matt. Besides, I've been busy too."
"So I noticed. With what?"
"Oh, it's fabulous." Temple's natural optimism loved an audience to bubble over on. 'The Crystal Phoenix has hired me to reposition the hotel for the new family market. That's like playing Tinkerbell with a whole, real little world, a magic kingdom without Disney's capital letters, or capital investment. And then I was roped into working on a Gridiron skit-- you know; the annual political satire show like in Washington. Awful Crawford is show chairman this year and got writer's block on a production number, so I've invented the most outrageous, unbelievable Theme-Hotel-from-Hell. Trying to out Vegas is a real challenge."
"I bet, but why bail out Buchanan? Isn't he your bete noir?"
"Black beast' is too good a phrase for the lowlife! Bargain-basement bastard is more like it."
Temple settled down, not wanting to ruin a lovely evening. '*But my skit is lots of fun. Maybe you, uh, might want to go to the Gridiron. With me. To see it performed, I mean."
''Sounds great. If . . . my exploits as an amateur P.I. don't require me to be elsewhere."
Temple nodded her understanding, already planning what she would wear to the Big Event.
She'd never had a date for a Gridiron before. Not in Minneapolis, and not even here. Last year, Max had a conflicting show at the other end of the Strip; even a professional magician couldn't be in two places at once. Temple winced to recall that less than a year ago, she and Max had still been together.
In the background, a torch singer was tuning up the vocal chords. Temple let a few seductive riffs of sound coil around her blue mood like the cigarette smoke nicely absent from the restaurant. In seconds, she was back in the present, and pleased to be there. Umm, this place was a genuine find. So romantic. Matt was looking soulful, thanking her again for being understanding.
"I'm so lucky that you live at the Circle Ritz, too," he was saying. "It's like I was . . . guided . . .
there. Mrs. Lark, Electra, has been so supportive, and you, you're my 'open sesame'--"
Temple's tootsies curled again, sans shoes but with pleasure, as if they were the turned-up toes on an Arabian Nights slipper.
''It's amazing,'' Matt went on, ''how many doors you've opened for me. To the past, and to the future."
The music had assumed a familiar rhythm. You must remember this. Temple told herself. A kiss is just a kiss. A new day is just another sunrise. Don't blow it. Don't fixate on old news.
A woman's low, dusky voice had joined the sax's soulful whine. Burgundy dark and deep, it moved from times gone by to singing of the man that got away. Then came the drums'
relentless, coital beat, like the rain and the rocking chair and the train pumping its iron-hearted way out of town.
And after that, the beat/beat/beat of the tom-toms, night and day. And the man that got away. And the frail that wails near the jail. House. Jailhouse rock. No, wrong song. Wrong era.
Wrong time. A kiss is just a kiss, and fundamental rules apply. Always. No matter how many kisses, how many near-misses. As time goes by. As time goes bye-bye.
"Temple." Matt leaned nearer, looking concerned.
She saw him through a musical mirage of stained glass, as if through a rain-rippled train window and he was leaving town, or she was, and nobody could run fast enough to reach the fleeing coach, to hear the rhythm, catch the beat, listen to the song.
Two and woo, love and you, missing and kissing and such a familiar song, a familiar voice ...
Matt's hand covered Temple's on the table. He still looked concerned. Concerned is nice, but
. . . dammit!
Temple twisted away from Matt, leaving her hand in his custody, like a living creature coiled in the safety of its shell. She turned to the murky stage, to the sleet of bright, piercing spotlights and the melody so familiar, in reprise.
The singer sat sharp as a silhouette in a pinspot, a brunette butterfly pinned on white damask . . . her skin tapioca satin, the flower in her hair a dark, velvet growth. Her figure was as murky as an El Greco portrait, her features carved from backlit salt.
She sang.
The old, slow-train blues classics.
In a deep, true alto that made Temple's bones vibrate like the strings of an abandoned cello in a warehouse.
She made everything moot. The past. The present. The man in black. The man in blond. She was ... so familiar, like the song and the ache.
"Matt--!" Temple managed to warn him with the last, surprised breath that was in her.
At last he turned away from her toward the shadowed, tiny stage that had caught Temple like a light-jeweled net in a silver sea.
The announcer, wherever he was, took this opportunity to add a slick, baritone coda to the night's first set,
"And now, ladies and gentlemen, an appreciative round of applause for our own 'Blue Dahlia'--our mistress of moody blue mystification, the incomparable Carmen."
"Of course. Carmen," Temple breathed, not surprised so much by the name, but by its presence here. "Makes you wonder what the bloody hell the 'R.' stands for!"
"Carmen?" Matt repeated with maddening confusion. "Isn't that--is it possible? Lieutenant Molina?"
Chapter 12
... Equals Molina in Hand