An Uplifting Escape
Temple wasn't sure how far she had walked.
In her high heels, it felt like blocks, but how could that be?
The Crystal Phoenix grounds weren't that extensive.
Farther into the tunnels the occasional bare light bulb provided periodic gobbets of light.
She guessed that they were on the same line as other lights at the Phoenix; the same circuit as the dressing rooms, say. Maybe this had once been storage space for casino and theatrical equipment.
Now the space was utterly empty, but not deteriorated. At least this was Las Vegas, and the walls weren't damp and discolored, or covered with lichen and slime, she thought as she skimmed along the tunnel wall with her hand as a guide.
She could still hear the faint sound of stage machinery. The tunnels were curved, not straight. She may have circled back behind the stage elevator for all she knew. Still, she hadn't found another exit yet, and she didn't even have a humble trail of bread crumbs to lead her back.
She knew she should have turned back long before, but Midnight Louie kept eager pace with her. Every time she stopped, she felt him brush against her calves. Occasionally his upright tail tickled her thighs, the naughty boy! He acted like a dog in a Disney movie; he had something to show her.
Besides, Temple's mind was spinning a public relations web from the network of tunnels she traveled. She could see it now: the Glory Hole Gang mine ride : rocket like Indiana Jones through the darkest bowels of a treasure-laden earth! The Jersey Joe Jackson desert diorama and treasure hunt, with a silver dollar at the end for every ticket holder.
Of course, this motherlode of invention would cost Nicky and Van a fortune, but, hey, half the groundwork had been clone. The Crystal Phoenix already had a pre-excavated, dark, dramatic underworld ripe for development, repositioning and exploitation. Plus, Temple thought happily, the mystique!
Jersey Joe Jackson--Action Jackson!--had hacked this secret network of tunnels from the desert in his heyday, perhaps for a dozen mysterious purposes. Pick your passion. Treasure-hoarding. Escape routes. Disposing of rivals. Oooh, creepy. Any minute Temple expected to stumble over a body, no ... a skeleton. Oh, holy fright night! They could offer a Halloween special with a holographic ''ghost'' of Jersey Joe haunting the rides and displays.
Temple was thinking so hard she stumbled over something, and hoped it wasn't Louie. The steel heels on her shoes were more than somewhat lethal.
She bent down to feel for the cat and found her hands shaping a long, lumpy hummock of burlap sacks.
Oh my gosh, maybe this was her dead body!
Temple crouched beside whatever it was in the dark, unwilling to probe further, yet unwilling to turn around and give up.
Midnight Louie began massaging her jackknifed legs, his enthusiasm threatening to topple her.
The sounds that Temple had thought were behind her increased. The stage machinery was running full tilt now--darn, she was missing the debut of her very own UFO. She could hear the subtle squeak of the pulley wheels turning and the grunts and gritted-teeth curses of the stage hands . . . getting forty people and a humongous prop positioned for an elevated entrance was not easy.
She must be very near the staging area, Temple thought, looking back over her left shoulder for the narrow, lighted crack of an exit.
Light came, but it fell on the right side of her face.
She looked ahead, hearing some machine grinding toward her, some truant deus ex machina wheeling down the abandoned tunnels curling length toward her like a runaway ore car in an Indiana Jones movie.
Temple stood, sensing that she needed to get out of the way. Watery light was leaking down the tunnel ahead of the noise, pale but indomitable. It fluttered like candle flames, jerked up and down.
"Damn!" a man protested.
"Shut up!" another whispered. "Sound carries down here. Just a bit to go and then we can dump this load."
But the unseen vehicle's wheels continued to protest in soprano squeaks while the men's guttural grunts provided a percussive base.
Temple now could distinguish Midnight Louie's outline against the dawn of light warming the tunnel sides. His halo of uplifted hair made him resemble a hedgehog. He was retreating on stiff legs, adding an intermittent hiss to the sound effects echoing off the concrete walls.
"You hear anything?" a desperate voice whispered hoarsely.
"Just us," came the answer. "Keep movin'."
Temple glanced to her feet. The soft light played over the shape of a sleeping transient at the tips of her black suede shoes. She jumped back, then saw that she viewed not a body, so much as . . . body parts. Bags of camouflage-colored canvas grouped into the accidental semblance of a human form.
She bent again, worked one stiff draw-cord open and felt inside. Her fingertips touched the damp, limp linen of well-used legal render. Paper money. A cache of cash.
At that moment a spear of light bounced off the opposite wall. A man was backing into her sight, a man in dark clothes, with something shiny, dark and bulky jammed into the back of his pants. He held flashlights in both hands, hoisting and waving them as an airport worker guides a grounded airplane into the gate.
After him came the grinding, squealing sound, swelling as a stainless steel cart nosed into view. It could have been a hospital cart, or a food cart or a dozen other carts, but it looked just like the carts casinos use to transfer slot machine and gaming table money to the collection center hidden at their cores.
Now Temple was backing up, and so was Midnight Louie. Her hands were behind her, on the smooth cool wall. She kept her feet shuffling along the hard-packed dirt floor so her steps wouldn't be apparent. Thank heaven the cart sounded like the Tin Woodman before he got a lube job! Its shrieks would surely drown out little her. Louie, of course, made no more noise than a quartet of Q-Tips on parade. ...
The tunnel was finally curving enough to begin concealing the oncoming men. Temple could only glimpse one bag of the pile that was their goal. She let her breath ease out while inching and shuffling backward.
The lead man twisted his head over his shoulder to gauge the distance to go.
She saw a bone-white face punctured by a machine-gun pattern, and gasped.
He didn't hear her over the din, but he saw her.
The twin flashlights swept her way like dueling lasers.
She turned and ran, the rat-a-tat pound of her heels a surprisingly heart-stopping burst of noise. No point tippy-toeing now. This dress was a sterling silver target.
"Stop her!" someone shouted.
The cart noise died in an instant, replaced by pounding soft-soled feet and huffing breaths.
Where was Louie?
Temple had no time to look. She had successfully plunged into the deeper darkness, her hand scraping along the sandpaper surface of the concrete blocks.
A feeble glow of light ahead signaled one of the overhead bulbs. She paused to snatch off her shoes and ran on, dreading the light. They wouldn't shoot her, no. They didn't want sound.
But they could catch her; their big feet pounded relentlessly behind her. She didn't know the way out, only that tunnel branches might lead to dead-ends.
And she knew that the occasional light bulbs would act as fingering spotlights. She was barreling into the wincing light of one now. Temple ran faster as she neared the light, holding one steel heel high. She imagined she must look like the Statue of Liberty bearing a rhinestone torch. As she streaked under the light, she leaped up and swatted up with the heel. The glass bulb shattered, then scattered to the floor, its filament winking out in an instant.