"I'd never--"
Nicky's smile had faded into a frown. "Van would have my head on a shish-kebab stick for saying this, but I doubt that your 'accident' was one. Those screws were deliberately loosened."
"How would anyone know when I would walk up those particular stairs--or that I'd take them instead of the elevator?"
"They wouldn't. I don't mean that someone meant to injure you, only that you happened into a trap planned to injure a cast of thousands . . . well, dozens anyway--and the Crystal Phoenix Hotel and Casino itself."
"What exactly do you mean?" Matt asked.
Nicky nonchalantly twirled his key chain around his forefinger. "People have tried to put the Crystal Phoenix out of business even before we reopened. They attempted this sort of sabotage before they came right out in the open and tried to trash Van's remodeling." He glanced at Temple. "If you weren't so busy feeling foolish about something that wasn't your fault, you'd realize that those rail brackets were loosened with intent to cause bodily harm. Your body was moot."
"But why?" Temple wondered. "Why then, and why now?"
"I don't know. We never pinned the last round on anybody specific. But this time the stakes have escalated: we ended up with a dead body on the premises." He pointed at Temple, keys jangling. "So get plenty of rest before you come back, and be ready for more fires to put out.
Obviously, just the whisper of trouble at the Phoenix is enough to eat into our operation. In the meantime, I'll have my brothers look into it."
Temple must have looked less than impressed. Nicky abruptly ran a hand through his dark hair, then cleared his throat. ''And ... I, uh, might lean on my Uncle Mario for some backup too.
So not to worry."
''Don't you worry, either," Matt said pointedly to Nicky, sounding flatteringly possessive.
"We've got her now."
Nicky's seasoned glance dropped from Matt's face to his arm at Temple's waist, holding her weight off her feet.
"So you have," Nicky agreed. He nodded at Electra. "My big brother would kill for that earring. Really radical."
Then he was again vaulting into the low car without benefit of door. The engine thrummed as if uttering a challenge to the bridled Hesketh Vampire motorcycle shut up in its storage shed.
The next instant the Corvette was a smooth silver streak peeling around the corner without so much as a squeal.
"What a nice young man," Electra observed in tones that were hardly maternal, her forefinger giving the Harley Hog earring in her right ear a swing.
"He's married," Temple said, as much for Matt's benefit as Electra's. "Ouch."
Apparently that was Matt's cue to scoop up Temple and head for the bunker like bulk of the Circle Ritz. She was always getting into these post-bridal positions with Matt, Temple reflected, at least as far as crossing thresholds went, without benefit of any engagement, not to mention foreplay.
In the sleekly bare lobby, Electra deposited the tote bag on Temple's elevated lap with an apologetic smile. Louie twined himself among the legs still touching the floor, which did not include Temple's.
"I've got a wedding at three---two soap opera stars," Electra said with zest. "Guess who?
Lorelei from 'Heaven's Heights' and Brando, the hunk from 'All My Sins,' are getting married! I mean, the actors who play them, whoever they are, are getting married, not the characters. I don't want to start any irresponsible rumors. I'm going to surround the bridal arch with
'champagne bubbles' of clear balloons. It will be soooo cute, I'll check on you later, dear." She glanced at Matt. ''Much later, of course."
Temple shook her head as she watched Electra glide away in the usual eye-dazzling muumuu. ''Aren't you playing the organ for the ceremony?" she asked Matt.
His answer came disconcertingly close to her ear, which was unblessed by any radical earrings.
"Soap opera isn't in my musical repertoire." He paused by the elevators while Temple did her part and pressed the call button. " 'I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles' doesn't lend itself to a wedding march, not even on an instrument as ponderous as an organ, I suppose I could play
'Whispering Hope.' "
" 'Whispering Hope,' " Temple repeated nostalgically. "I didn't know people even remembered those old songs, like 'Silver Threads Among the Gold' and 'Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair.' They were rather obsessive about hair color then, weren't they?"
"There wasn't much of a music selection in seminary," Matt said dryly, stepping into the elevator with Temple, tote bag and all.
Not until she had produced her keys and was borne to her living-room sofa did Temple feel like someone who could stand on her own two feet again, even though she sat.
Something had changed in the weeks since she was attacked by thugs desperately seeking information about Max. Maybe the change had come since she had arranged her ersatz prom night with Matt. The remote hope of intimacy between them had become less remote and less of a hope than a . . . threat. They had a fledgling relationship now: anything that pushed it into a new configuration could be as much loss as gain.
She felt clumsy again, and awkward, and as if even that were her fault.
"Guilt," Matt said, taking the word out of her mind if not her mouth.
"What?"
"Guilt makes people apologize for something negative happening to them. It's a bad habit." He vanished into the kitchen. Temple heard him wrestling ice cubes from the dang plastic twist-trays that she could do nothing with . . . except break fingernails on them. She winced at the wrenching squeak when the cold little devils popped from their plastic condominiums into the warm, cruel world where they would shortly melt into oblivion.
Matt had no such problems over empathizing with ice cubes. Her ankle was soon collared in a damp towel lumpy with ice.
Matt moved a pile of newspapers on the oversized ottoman and sat in the vacancy.
''How are you feeling, really?" he asked.
Temple's head wagged from side to side in the gesture that meant "so-so." She suspected that her congealing bruises were beyond counting, but she had sustained no major hurt. Her ankle's aching and burning had eased already. Her pride was still in a touchy, tender state, though.
"Electra will spend the evening with you," Matt said. "This is my shift. What can I do?"
"Nothing for a while. I just want to sit and think about it."
"The accident?"
"The maybe-accident. Nicky seemed pretty serious."
"Who's his Uncle Mario?"
"I was afraid you'd ask. I'm afraid that I know: 'Macho Mario' Fontana. Once upon a time, when the mob still ran this town, Macho Mario was a big wheel over all the little crime cogs in this town."
"And you work for his nephew?"
"Nicky's the white sheep of the family, honest. With the Gaming Commission eyeing every transaction, nobody in Las Vegas could get away with crime connections now."
"I see. So elves murdered my stepfather."
"I'm talking about organized crime, not the usual freelance round of lust, larceny and murder. Las Vegas's dicey reputation gave it a kind of hard-edged glamour in the old days.
Poking fun at it is like teasing a paper tiger nowadays. Heck, even my Gridiron skit plays on all the paranoid conspiracy theories that grew up around this town. I created a secret stash of mob money under the new Scarab theme hotel, affectionately known as 'the Scab' only the underground area is also a clandestine government nuclear testing site, where they've hidden all the aliens that landed at Nellis Air Force Base, and there are thousands of those. It's a send-up of the excessive, spooky stuff that gets said about this city."