Danny was straddling the bottom horizontal bar—ouch!—jiggling the joint where the top bar met the upright supports, using Glory B.’s fallen warm-up jacket as a latex glove.
“Yup. Here it is. Wiggles. Probably sound until the unit was used. I don’t know who’s going to investigate this equipment, but I bet if you pull the pipes apart, one of them has been cracked mostly through. These things are houses of cards.”
Danny thumped down to the floor, eyeing Matt. “I’ll have hotel security witness me taking it apart.”
“Photograph and save the pieces,” Matt suggested. “Are you sure we shouldn’t call the police?” he asked doubtfully.
“Overkill. There’s no concrete evidence here. It could be metal fatigue. Setting up equipment in non-normal dance venues makes for shoddy assembly. Accidents happen in rehearsal. And . . . these amateur dance contests get heated. Might be some overeager fans around. I’m thinking I need to keep an eye out for sabotage as much as good form and talent. So, just in case . . . watch yourself.”
Matt nodded. Who would have thought ballroom dancing could be so dangerous?
En Sweet
An Oasis hotel flunky met our party at the double doors opening onto the “Mata Hari Suite,” aka the Zoe Chloe Ozone suite for the duration. All right. A high-roller suite, free! Obviously, Midnight Louie has finally arrived! Sweet.
As soon as our party enters, I am decanted like a fine bottle of French wine from Miss Temple’s tote bag onto the plush carpet of the suite that will be our joint base of operations.
Both my Miss Temple and Miss Lieutenant C. R. Molina immediately massage their ears with cell phones, checking with their outside connections.
I rub on Mr. Rafi Nadir’s black denim calves just to let him know who has more hair to lose and who is boss in other departments too.
He is watching Miss LCRM with a frown I recognize. He does not like being outside the loop, or the phone link, in this case. His hands are pushed into his jean pockets as if he is keeping them from grabbing the cell phone away from his former lady friend.
She takes the cell phone from her ear and clicks it off. “Mariah says Ekaterina has connected with her cocontestants. Mariah will be allowed to bunk with the whole crew, contestants and moms, since EK has no adult chaperone. I think—”
Then Miss Temple shrieks from the adjoining room.
Rafi and Carmen dig in heels to wheel like paired Dobermans, charging across the expansive living room and past its six-foot plasma TV screen.
My Miss Temple is standing in the center of a huge bedroom looking ultra Zoe Chloe and teensy teen, her hands splayed out. “I cannot believe it! All the M&Ms have my name on them! How cool is that?”
I leap atop the console table to inspect the huge Easter basket of goodies. I know that it is past Easter, but the bunny appears to have passed through here on its way out of town and laid a whole lotta sweets and treats down in farewell.
“Look!” she is crooning, holding up one colored candy shell after another. “Zoe. Chloe. Ozone. Is not that sweet?”
Only I notice that both Rafi and Carmen are pushing discreet semiautomatics into paddle holsters concealed by their denim jackets. One wears black and one wears blue. Naturally, Miss Carmen’s is law-enforcement blue. Naturally, when one thinks of this long-estranged couple, it is in terms of black and blue, not that I am saying anyone whomped on anyone other than emotionally.
“Get a grip,” Carmen spits at my roommate.
I am forced to growl, low and long like a dog. I hate resorting to shallow canine tricks, but sometimes humans only heed the overobvious.
“And you shut up, you mobile dust bunny!” Molina rants on. “I am about to call off this whole silly charade. I am out of here if nothing breaks in the next couple of hours.”
Nobody says anything, including me. Without the lieutenant’s cooperation, we are all off duty faster than a dropped and smashed M&M.
Where would the Miss Lieutenant go? we are all thinking. Mariah will not forsake her little friend who is in the finals of this contest. EK is her new “cause.” And the contest itself helps seriously ill kids. Even a hard-nosed police lieutenant cannot bow out of that, despite having to play a personally repugnant undercover role with her ex-boyfriend, least favorite female amateur detective, and her own kid, who has gone star-mad.
I count myself blessed to have evaded this horrible, hormone-hyped state called teenagery. My kind goes from litter to littering in a heartbeat, with no awkward in-between stages but hunting homes or eking out sheer survival.
Maybe human kits would be better off if they did not believe that life offers more than constant struggle, danger, deception, and death, as those of my ilk have long known.
I have just returned from a leisurely inspection of the suite’s three bedrooms, deciding on my lodging for the night, to find that my Miss Temple has claimed the big central chamber with the black marble bathroom.
She says it will “look odd” if the celebrity did not take the biggest bedroom. Not that anybody is going to come in here and ruminate on who is in what bedroom. Still, right on! So Baby Bear gets the biggest bed. I do find the black-and-gold brocade coverlet a bit overdone, but a suitably splendid backdrop for one of my coloring.
Miss Carmina Carmen strides into the bedroom to my Miss Temple’s left without inspecting it first. “The usual tawdry high-roller taste,” she declares.
That leaves Mr. Rafi Raphael to shrug and take the bedroom on Miss Temple’s other side.
“Ah,” I hear him say, “a really big plasma screen.”
I pad in after him. The décor here is royal blue and gold, a bit downscale from the central bed-and-bath combo, but cushy nevertheless. I frown at the wall-mounted screen, already on some sports channel. I prefer House and Garden, being the domestic sort when I am not trodding mean streets. Bye, bye, Papa Bear. I whisk around the corner and sneak up on Miss Carmina Carmen.
She has slung her hobo bag atop the black-glass-topped dresser and is examining the assorted luxuries with hands on hips. She is still frowning. The mounted plasma TV screen is black and shiny like my coat. It will be quiet in Mama Bear’s retreat tonight. The coverlet is ruby velvet. In fact, this is the royal red room.
She spots me and holds out a pointing finger. It is not tilted upwards at least. I take the hint and leave. Despite the striped pair among her household, I can see that Mama Bear is no mammal to cuddle up to.
It looks like I will have to fight my Miss Temple tonight for the primo square footage of bedspread, as usual.
Rafi is in the living room, roaming the vast space as he talks on his cell phone.
“Mariah is safely settled in,” he announces loudly, nodding at whoever is talking to him.
The two women hustle out from their respective retreats.
Rafi-Raphael gives them the “okay” sign of circled thumb and forefinger.
Manx, once again I wish for an opposable thumb! There is not much I can signal with a dewclaw and four shivs except a desire to rip and roll.
He clicks the cell phone dark. “That was my head of operations, Hank Buck. He reports that Mariah has been registered as EK’s roommate, but all four competing girls and their mothers—or mini-manager in EK’s case—are sharing a suite with multiple bedrooms, like this one.”
“Why did you hang up?” Miss Carmina Carmen demands. “I want a full report on Mariah’s setup in the contest. Where she will be when.”
“I will get you a schedule, but she is completely safe with the teen contenders, Carmen,” Rafi, aka Raphael, says. “The hotel has provided high security for all of the girls. Trust me.”
Miss Lieutenant C. R. Molina, now back in action, does not think so, and says exactly what she does think, which resembles the third degree.