She dug into her tote bag for her wallet, then scraped some quarters out of the zippered compartment. While she idly consigned the coins to swift perdition inside Long John Silver's ravenous metal mouth, she eyed the surroundings.
Men in sharkskin suits, wires from discreet communication devices attached like some naturalist's tracking mechanism to their ears, floated through colorful schools of oblivious tourists nibbling at instant fortune. The uniformed guards were more obvious, for a reason, but their eyes constantly scanned for potential trouble.
The Midnight Louie shoes were not to be seized, like common pirate booty, but seen and reported, Temple reminded herself.
Nothing in the contest rules required her to take them into actual possession. The numerous treasure troves dangling from the casino ceiling like so many jewel-encrusted tongues made perfect hiding places. All she'd have to do was walk by and eyeball each one for signs of the elusive slippers.
Except, her height, or lack of it, was a disadvantage, which was no news to her. The hidden shoes might only be visible to a taller person. Nothing in the contest rules said that they would be placed in plain view of a shrimp, either. Children were obviously not competing for this particular prize. She could only make the rounds of the various troves at enough distance to get a panoramic view of the contents.
I am a camera for the vertically challenged, in Cinemascope.
So Temple sneaked up on her quarry, throwing away quarters like worthless coppers of old as she hopscotched from slot to slot, choosing positions that would allow a wide view of the nearest trove.
It was neck-spraining work. Her eyes could hardly focus on the assembled glitter as she squinted through her glasses. And she didn't dare look up for too long, or she might attract unwanted attention.
She had worked her way around the bar area and was scouting the area's fringes when someone tapped her on the shoulder just as she was sacrificing another quarter to the slot-machine gods.
"I see what you're doing," a voice behind her announced.
Luckily, it was not an authoritarian voice, nor male, so that eliminated the Iranian secret police in the somber suits as well as most of the security guards.
Temple turned to look, nearly giving herself whiplash.
"What's your game, honey?" a woman asked.
She was thinner than a wire clothes hanger. The clothes she so feebly supported were a peach polyester pantsuit over a violet floral polyester blouse. A thin fleece of taffy-blond ringlets surrounded her face like an elaborately decorated 1950s bathing cap. Time and desert sun had folded, spindled and mutilated her face into a brown frill of wrinkles, from which her pale eyes peered like water chestnuts.
Time had also embedded her in the amber of another era, encouraging her to draw harsh dark-brown eyebrows and a tangerine mouth on the well-tracked mask of her face.
Temple recognized her instantly, though they had never spoken before: legendary casino slot-shot Hester Polyester, who in another place and another time (and another outfit) might have been known by a more common surname like Brown. Or Smith.
A coral canvas fanny pack sat dead center of her flowered, concave middle. No watch circled her freckled wrist; dedicated slot players never sleep, or go anywhere else. Schools of wooden tropical fish dangled from Hester's overtaxed earlobes. Temple was so shocked to meet the Minnesota Fats of slot machines that she didn't check out Hester Polyester's footwear until last: gold metallic tennis shoes.
"What's your system?" Hester was asking with narrowed eyes. "I never seen a player run this kind of pattern before. Can't figure it out. You're not hitting the aisle machines that are supposedly looser, to attract the tourists. You're not moving on 'cuz a machine's gone cold. What the heck are you doing?"
"Losing," Temple said promptly.
Laughter made Hester's face wrinkle like a paper bag someone's fist had suddenly squeezed shut.
"Hell, girl! That's not a system. That's nuts." She sobered at once. "Unless you got some deeper strategy."
"None at all. I don't want to win."
"Don't want to win? That's not. . . legal in Las Vegas."
"It's the opposite of positive thinking, don't you see?"
"Opposite?"
"Yeah. Kind of like . . . zen and the art of slot machine selection. I don't want to win."
"And, by not wanting to win, the law of averages works in your favor and you do?"
"Nope. Not yet. But that's okay. I don't want to win. So I win when I don't, get it?"
"What happens if you actually do win?"
"I lose."
Hester shook her blowsy head.
"That's crazy. But I guess I said that." She hefted her cardboard bucket, so quarters chimed like a belly dancer in full shimmy. "Guess I won't wish you luck, dearie."
"Thank you. I appreciate that."
Shaking her head and her bucket, Hester Polyester resumed her pursuit of the elusive jackpot.
Temple's sigh was loud enough to make several nearby heads turn, and it was hard to interrupt a slot player. She was tired of inspecting the usual bulbous brass lamps, the predictable swags of pearls, the gleaming Aladdin's lamps and seeing nothing but flashy trash. She prowled the slot machine aisles, eyeing the row of treasure chests along the casino's far wall.
What she had told Hester Polyester wasn't so wrong. She must not really want to find the shoes for some deep psychological reason. Maybe she felt she didn't deserve the shoes, or good luck. Maybe she was hooked on heels. (That last word could cut two ways, given at least one man in her life.) Maybe she was co-dependent on cool shoes and in denial about even cooler dudes. Maybe she was just a lousy treasure hunter. .. .
As she passed the second-to-the-last niche, something glittered white and bright, like a snowflake in sunlight. Temple paused. She craned her neck and went up on her toes like a vigilant meerkat again.
Silver lame fabric bunched into the corners of this display, and something in it sparkled. Star stuff.
Maybe ... a glitter that went yesteryear's rhinestones one better. Rhinestones had been named for Germany's river Rhine because they were first made there, but today's upscale Austrian crystals--made from real lead crystal rather than mere glass--had fiercer fire.
Before she thought about it, Temple had dragged a stool from a vacant slot machine and had hopped atop it. Now she was teetering on it. Now she was just high enough to lose sight of the trove's big picture, like a kid climbing for the cookie jar on the top shelf. Her nose nudged the shelf-lip. Drat, she could see the tops of everything, but nothing more.
Oops. Now her balance was going. Her fingertips curled over the ledge as she felt the stool wobble.
Temple grabbed for some of the star stuff, which was like catching at clouds. The fabric was airy, fragile, it was barely there ... it was pulling toward her as she wavered on the stool, and all the pirate plunder that rested atop it was oozing like gravid, luxurious lava to the shelf-rim above her head.
Temple's eyes winced shut, her shoulders hunched, anticipating the forthcoming downpour.
"Let go!" someone ordered her, and she did. Any port in a storm.
She felt herself tip off the stool, but someone caught her. After a little kicking and striving, she was standing on her own two Evan Picones on the floor. Her rescuer was no hoop-earred pirate bold. If she were a collector of salt and pepper shakers, she'd pair him with Hester Polyester, but she knew better.
"Eightball O'Rourke! What are you doing here?"
"I'm not doing nothing. You're the one who was assaulting the Treasure Island's ceiling. What's up?"
"That's right! I must have shifted the contents." Temple scrambled backwards, gazing up, until she could see the entire vignette again.