I belly-crawl past a flattened tire, avoiding the oily mess, when I spot another stalker in the shadow of a Woodstock-vintage psychedelic-painted Volkswagen van.
On soft-soled feet I pussyfoot closer for a look.
I am not reassured to recognize the dude who is unknowingly sharing stakeout duty with yours truly. I know what has brought me to this unlikely site: the suspicious behavior of the unlovely Vito, who likely has mob connections.
But what even more unlikely circumstance has brought the darling of Our Lady of Guadalupe and the ladies of the Circle Ritz to this debased joint in the surreptitious flesh at half-past three a.m.?
Mr. Matt Devine is not about to answer my humble question, and the situation promises to remain an impasse, so I slink away.
Chapter 14
Game for Murder
Temple was beginning to know the Crystal Phoenix almost as well as she had known the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis, from front to back and top to bottom.
She loved being house-mouse familiar with the ins and outs of a major public building possessed of a certain aloof glamour.
Everybody likes to be an insider, but nobody demands the inner circle view more than a reporter turned public relations specialist.
Despite the Crystal Phoenixes low-brow, high-profile image compared to an understated arts institution like the Guthrie, theater and hotel weren't that unlike beneath their dramatically different skins: each had lobby, bar, stage and a paying audience.
And the belly of each beast was a fascinating below-stage labyrinth of storage and dressing rooms, props and costumes, and elevators that whisked the initiated to the performance areas above.
These vast, semi-deserted spaces seemed mysterious, especially in daylight hours. They whispered and rustled with the ghosts of a full house of impending noise and activity after dark.
Temple's high heels challenged the echoing silence as she trudged alone through the area, her tote bag swinging against her hip like a metronome keeping time to an unheard rhythm. She peered into empty dressing rooms; how could anyone ever resist the drama of such places between shows? Maybe she was superstitious enough to wonder if some of the whispering ghosts might be the shades of Kitty or Glenda. Or did she expect to encounter one of their legion of sad, still-living sisters? They all were glamorous but victimized women that men liked to look at . . . and often used and abused 'til death did them part. Stripper or showgirl, they all claimed they made a good living off the men in the darkened houses, no matter how many of them came to a bad dying.
No one was down here now. Temple told herself: not at the Crystal Phoenix, where not even the ghost of Max Kinsella prowled. Not some creepy stalker, and not some unsuspecting victim, especially not her. Now.
Then she heard voices, echoing and arguing. Her pace quickened. There was a creep down here, after all, but not an unexpected one. Unfortunately, she had an appointment with him.
The ajar doors to the unused set-construction area were tall enough to admit King Kong.
Temple scuttled through, following the trail of the voices around an impromptu screen of vertically stored flats. About fifteen people milled near some empty metal folding chairs strewn across the paint-splotched concrete floor.
On its Jackson Pollack surface, masking tape outlined a rough quadrangle shape that duplicated the dimensions of the hotel's secondary stage upstairs. An upright piano, once painted shiny white but aged to crack-checkered ivory, sat solo where the orchestra would be.
A small man in a tangerine knit shirt leaned an elbow on the music rest, picking out loud, familiar notes with one lollygagging hand.
O-kla-hom-a, the syllables rang in Temple's head, only she had recently rewritten them: Oh, Las Ve-gas . . .
Crawford Buchanan hadn't lied, then. This wasn't some sleazy ruse to get her alone in the hotel basement, but a legitimate Gridiron rehearsal of her skit.
Temple, suspicions lulled, finally allowed herself to feel pleased. Writers for the Gridiron were traditionally forbidden any role in rehearsals. They would see their work onstage only for the one-time performance, like the rest of the paying customers. They wouldn't even know which--if any--of their submissions had been accepted.
In fact, twenty-five years before. Temple had heard, women writers couldn't even attend Gridiron shows. They had been forced to write their skits blind, ignorant of audience and ambiance, which was just as well. She had also heard about earlier Gridirons: raunchy, foul-mouthed, sexist, racist exercises that committed an almost as bad crime against humanity by not being remotely funny. No wonder so few women wrote for them in the bad old days, or had wanted to.
That was then. Now Gridirons across the country had died of disinterest, hopefully due to low-grade content. The Mother of all Gridirons in Washington had always been a bigger, tonier affair. Las Vegas also mounted a major show each year. After all, the city was choking with performing spaces and talent that included top acts from Hollywood and Nashville.
One of them was walking toward Temple right now.
She'd only seen Gentleman Johnny Diamond in bigger-than-life photos on hotel placards; in the flesh he was almost as imposing as the Colossus of Rhodes figure straddling the entrance to the Goliath Hotel. He was big, broad without being burly, and blond in a robust way reminiscent of frontiersmen. The shoulder-length hair he swept back into a trendy ponytail furthered the Old West impression, as did his no-holds-barred handshake with Temple.
She liked that. Nothing made her feel worse than being treated like a porcelain princess.
Johnny Diamond's voice was as big as his body. ''You're the PR whiz who's going to turn Nicky and Van's magic kingdom here into the family farm," he boomed into the giant echo chamber of the hotel basement. "You also sling a mean satirical line. I'm gonna have fun doin'
this gig. Nice to meet you."
Since Gridiron roles were unpaid, Temple practically did a somersault to hear that her suggestion for the lead singer of "Las Vegas Medley of 1994" had gotten past Crawford. Having its headline singer in the show's big production number wouldn't hurt the host hotel--Temple's current client--either.
She actually turned to an advancing Buchanan with a left-over smile on her face, which faded quickly. He had traded his around-town suit for his idea of informal rehearsal attire: blue jeans about six shades too new (even for Beaver Cleaver) and a golf shirt in an obnoxious shade of lime. (Were there any other shades of lime clothing? she wondered. She would have to look into that later.)
''How's it going?" she forced herself to ask.
"Fine." Crawford seemed distracted. He barely glanced at his guest star, as hard as Johnny Diamond was to miss. "The director's over here. He wants to see you."
The director was a guest star too: the Phoenix house choreographer named (honest-to-plain-Pete), Danny Dove. His crimped dark-blond hair was as woolly as an English barrister's wig and framed a genial, slightly homely face. Temple was surprised that Dove was so slight-looking; most male dancers had to be strongmen to partner and sling about the females of the Terpsichorean species, who were often tall. Temple pictured Danny Dove piloting Carmen Molina through Swan Lake and fought back giggles.
"Cute skit shtick," Dove pronounced after Crawford had introduced Temple, pushing up the sleeves of his black. Gene Kelly turtleneck to his bony elbows.
Danny Dove's jeans were black, too, and so well-used that they looked chalk-dusted in places, though they fit tighter than the skin of your chinny-chin-chin after a ten-thousand-dollar facelift. They sported a completely sincere frayed horizontal slit in one knee, also bony.