“I smell the track of the cat, of course. He is much too big and earthy to miss. His trail goes that way.” She jerks her bow to the left. “I smell many, many man feet. They have walked in enough excrement of all kinds to make the cage floor into a litter box of sorts.”
“Then it is hopeless,” I cannot resist predicting. I have never been one to put all my faith in dog noses anyway.
Golda sits on what would be her tail, were one discernible under that fountain of hair. “Perhaps not. I detect a random pattern to all the manfeet scents but two,”
Groucho leans forward, interested. “And how do these trails differ?”
“They go in opposite directions,” she says promptly, “the only two trails that do but one thing: enter the cage area, and leave.”
“Which directions?” I ask.
She jerks her bow left again.
“Ah, with Osiris. This must be the person that removed him from his cage to the scene of the crime. And the other direction?”
She jerks her head in the opposite direction.
Groucho stares into the darkness, sniffing. “But there is nothing that way but empty desert for miles and miles.”
You can guess which trail we end up following.
Chapter 34
Calling on Agatha
“What we need,” Temple said, “is an Agatha Christie moment.”
“You mean,” Max said, “an Agatha Christie climax.”
“Really, Max! Agatha Christie didn’t put those sorts of things in her books. Although…”
“What?”
“Her husband’s first name was Max. One of them, anyway.”
“How did you learn so much about Agatha Christie?”
“Read a few of her books, ages ago.” Temple eyed him seriously. “Do you know what I mean by an Agatha Christie moment?”
“You want to call all the suspects together.”
“I dream big.”
“And then finger a murderer.”
“No, I’d be happy with just a little more insight.”
“That’s dreaming big?”
“A little insight that would point toward a murderer.”
“Let me think.” Max thought, rather as theatrically as Hamlet did.
He finally glanced at Temple with an expression both amused and promising a dramatic solution. “Do I look like someone who needs to shoot animals to you? A weekend game hunter?” Max’s expression grew craven. “Moneyed, maybe.”
“‘Moneyed’ may be all we need to ‘open sesame’ at the Rancho Exotica,” Temple agreed. “Okay. Here’s the setup. You’re a client. A Phoenix high roller. I want to impress you with the very special services the Phoenix has to offer.” Temple made a face at the iffy ethics of her own scenario, nothing she’d do in a million years for real. “But why would I be there with Mr. High Roller?”
“Maybe you put a lot of yourself into your job.”
“Hey! I’m no floozie. I’m a PR professional.”
“You haven’t had me for a client yet.”
“Well, I guess if I can covet chain-mail bikinis from Macedonia Jones, I could pretend to be impressed with a client’s special customer.”
“Especially if he bought you a bauble from Fred Leighton’s at the Bellagio.”
She made another face, this one stronger. “I’ve heard PR people called corporate prostitutes before. I just never thought I’d be living up to the lowest level of the profession so soon. I don’t think I need a bauble as a cover.”
“No, but you’re missing a ring.” Max’s expression was even more masked than usual. Temple couldn’t tell if the emotion behind the mask was anger or sorrow, but it was something much darker than his deliberately whimsical tone. She wished he and Louie didn’t share a certain catlike inscrutability. “I can provide another,” Max said a trifle wistfully.
“You’ve given up on getting the other one back?” She found herself talking around a sudden lump in her throat, as if they were discussing replacing a dead pet.
“I never give up on getting anything back.”
“Are you just talking about the opal ring? Or about me, or even your preundercover, fancy-free lifestyle?”
“How about all of the above?”
“You dream big.”
He took her hand, her bare left hand. “I know nothing will replace the ring Shangri-La stole onstage at the Opium Den in front of God, Lieutenant Molina, and everybody. I promise you, I’ll find her and I’ll get it back.”
“It’s all right, Max. Really. Rings like that are only worth what they mean. You’ve got more important things to worry about.”
His grip tightened. If she’d been wearing a ring, it would have pinched her finger. “No. I don’t.”
Who could look away from the Mystifying Max when he was being this intense, and this truthful? Not Temple.
She smiled around the lump that still hadn’t gone away. “I know you don’t, and I know you will. Get it all back.” His grip eased as he smiled and gave her hand a small shake. “So, about the stage prop. From Fred Leighton’s? Really?”
“Just as a cover, of course,” Max amended, careful not to crowd her. But was it a cover for something more than the current charade? Was Max still insecure about her?
“I’d need a pretty convincing cover,” Temple said airily, moving onto less serious ground. “And you’d have to look like a pretty convincing high roller.”
“Absolutely.”
“It’s returnable, of course.”
“Absolutely.”
That was how Temple reentered the Van Burkleo household wearing a ten-carat vintage emerald ring surrounded by diamond baguettes. Temple always found it intriguing that bread—a slang term for money, like dough—also came in baguettes. French bread, of course. From Paris.
Even Leonora Van Burkleo’s mascara-smudged, mourning eyes widened to do a quick mental computation.
“I’m so terribly sorry,” Temple began.
It wasn’t clear if she was apologizing for the ostentation of her ring or for an intrusion on a house of mourning.
Leonora Van Burkleo spread beringed, inarticulate hands.
It wasn’t clear if she was acceding to or expressing the callous fact that the universe must go on. As the heart must go on. Après le Titanic, le déluge, c’est commerce.
“Mr. Maximilian”—Temple gazed moistly at her escort—“has most-favored-nation status at the Crystal Phoenix. Perhaps you can guess why.”
“I can indeed.” Leonora prowled within scratching distance of Max, who was dressed more expensively, and thus more quietly, than ever. “I am sure we can offer him something worth…bagging.”
“Actually,” Max said, taking a hasty spin around the two-story hall with the long-horned antelope heads mounted high like once-living chandeliers, resembling a man casket hunting at a cut-rate funeral parlor, “I’m interested in buying the total operation.”
“Really?” Leonora’s lean, mean eyes paid tribute in exact turn to the Patek Philippe watch (no mere Rolex for Daddy Maxbucks), the Roman ring, the Zegna suit worn with…gasp!…a Gap turtleneck.
Where did he dig up these things? Temple wondered. Was there a Wardrobe Anonymous Warehouse somewhere for undercover operatives? The same place where rotating cars were stored? Someplace where it can be easily done. Perhaps out on Highway 375 near Area 51.
“My condolences,” Max said with scintillating sincerity, taking Leonora’s paw. Hand. The golden menagerie of charms on her wrist jingled like spurs. “Perhaps it’s too soon to discuss business.”
Leonora’s long, lacquered nails curved possessively around his fingers. “Business?” she purred. And she did purr. Temple wondered if all her plastic surgeries had damaged her vocal cords somehow, had given her that contralto rumble. Or was it another affectation, like her new face?