"What about the mob influence?"
"Virtually dead, from what everybody says."
"So you believe everybody?"
''Never. But in this case I believe the mob's been bought out by the corporate mafia of international consortiums. Listen to us: ethics and the mob and rogue ballet directors. So you have to lie a little--play dumb--to learn what you need to know. What's it about?" '
Matt took Louie's carton from her, and smiled. 'I'm still working on my right to find out. Let's say I'm just looking for the man behind the curtain. And I haven't the foggiest idea what he's doing yet. Shall I drive, or you?"
''Me." Temple fished out her keys and jingled them like spurs for a mechanical steed. "I like to know where I'm going."
Chapter 13
Veni, Vidi, Veto
I am generally suspicious of ugly customers, and this Vito character I first spot by the carp pond is one of the ugliest I have ever seen.
But one should not judge on external appearances. These Siamese fighting fish, for instance, would give Godzilla a good name in the beauty department, yet they are highly regarded and expensive. Not to mention tasty.
Still, I am most suspicious of ugly customers when they spend all their time in a gambling casino and are not paying clients. At this odd occupation, this Vito-person is a master.
I spend many hours tracking him around the Crystal Phoenix, which keeps me well out of the baleful purview of the captivating Caviar. Vito displays an admirable tendency for dim corners, out-of-the-way places and a profile so low he is as invisible as an earthworm to those engaged in the hustle and bustle of a gambling establishment.
Luckily, Vito is so busy looking over the Crystal Phoenix that he completely overlooks my presence. If he does spot me, his sneaky gaze rakes right past me, as if I were a piece of furniture. I like to maintain a well-upholstered condition, but jet-black mohair I am not.
Vito is most fond of the basement, and there I cannot fault him.
While all of the Phoenix is kept frigid to prevent customers from feeling the heat or letting the dealers see them sweat, the basement is not only as cool as a sea cucumber, but it is blessedly quiet during the days. I myself like to ramble among the empty dressing rooms, watching the showgirls' ostrich-feather headdresses tremble seductively on their high shelves in the icy stream of an air-conditioning vent.
The slight shimmying motion of hot-pink curling plumes is a sensory delight second only to the silver hairs of the Divine Yvette shivering with the faint pulse of her throaty purr.
Vito also seems most Interested In these dainty feathered artifacts, for he climbs upon a chair to peer over and around them until strings of his greasy black hair steal across his pock-marked, sweaty face like Michael Jackson tendrils that are slumming in a Bad neighborhood.
In fact, I begin to suspect that Vito is something of a pervert, for I also find him poking among the racks of costumes set along the hallway walls. He will even go down upon his knees to burrow into the foaming masses of sequined silks and garish feathers.
Disgusting! I am quite attracted by feathers myself, but this is a natural affinity, as Is my passion for the smell and taste of leather. You could hardly call it a fetish, any more than you could label Miss Temple Barr's innocent fondness for high fashion high heels a fixation. There is high-camp taste and then there is outright kink.
With a creature like Vito, however, any tastes are likely to be debased to their lowest common denominator, and I say that with confidence even though I have no head for numbers at all.
Neither does the unfortunate Vito, apparently.
When he is not delving below in the lonely dustbins and among the leftover sweat-stained costumes, he lurks around the Phoenix casino areas. I watch Vito watch the blackjack and craps tables. I see him prowl the slot machine aisles, staring with hungry eyes the size of midget currants at the happily oblivious gamblers and house employees. Yet never once does he commit so much as a nickel to a slot machine, or slide a ten-spot across the cashier's hard marble sill or place a chip on a taut, cushioned surface of Ultrasuede.
What a cheapskate! Obviously, Vito is Up To No Good, but what kind of No Good is he up to?
This I cannot figure, and it is driving me catnip-crazy.
So is the smell of old bananas and cigars about his person. Perhaps he smokes old banana skins as a cigar. I would not put it past him.
After a few days of surveillance I am so intrigued that one morning when I see him waddling out of the Crystal Phoenix at three a.m. when all the action is just getting going, I decide to tail him.
Luckily, he walks wherever he is going. I do not think that Vito is the kind of a dude that would care to be linked to a specific license plate at this time and place.
Anywhere Vito can walk without scaring the horses, I can. I am a stalking shadow that blends into night whenever I ^ wish to. And I do wish to, for Vito stops and turns to scan for suspicious sorts every so often.
I am as suspicious as they come, but he never sees me. Even if he did spot me, he would dismiss me as some mute, homeless dude of no danger to him. That Is the beauty of my cover: everybody underestimates me. And I am known for keeping my mouth shut.
Anyway, we stroll the cooling streets toward the south side of town where the rents get lower and the clientele descends to their level. Soon we have hit bottom: the parking lot of the Araby Motel.
What can I say about the Araby Motel? Forty years ago, it was a chi-chi little motor lodge, the latest thing in Western accommodations for the travelers wishing to see the U.S.A. in their Chevrolets.
Today it is someplace only Bette Davis could love. What a dump. Even the stray dogs in this town avoid the Dumpster behind the Araby Motel, for fear of finding an unappetizing dead body or two. Sometimes they are even human.
Not many cars litter the asphalt, but those present are missing mufflers, paint, various windows, brake lights, door handles and other accoutrements of safe motoring. Many are also missing valid Nevada license plates.
The Araby Motel is laid out like an exclamation point: a long, low one-story string of rooms stretching out from a registration office that sits under a tower of tired neon. Earthworm-pink cursives spell out "Araby Motel" above a sputtering green minaret. These are "Miami Vice"
colors with an emphasis on the "vice."
My quarry does not stop at the so-called office to collect a key, but heads for the littered sidewalk in front of the string of rooms. Each room has a door and a big rectangular window that is more or less covered by a sagging drape in varying patterns of Filth, Dust or Disease.
At number four, our feather-sniffer stops to knock.
It opens enough to showcase another appetizing sort, a tall, blowzy man whose face and form seem to have sunk into a permanent state of walking decay. The two talk for a moment.
The tone does not seem particularly friendly from my vantage point under a permanently parked seventies-something Opal with an oil leak that would do credit to the Exxon Valdez. I wheeze, trying to breathe over the chemical fumes, and miss the dialogue.
Then Vito is reluctantly admitted to the other man's castle. Through the sagging arras at the window-slit I can glimpse a homely glow of candelabra and no doubt hear the pluckings of the village troubadour upon a lute if I perk my ears In the proper direction. Certainly my imaginary view of the room's interior Is more pleasing than the likely landscape, which I have no desire to see in person, or imagine in reality.