“Not quite. There’s another, much more serious kind of pop-up casino because of a quirk in Vegas gaming laws.” She challenged Temple with another question. “Have you ever heard of a nightclub called the Zoot Suit Choo-Choo Club?”
Temple and Electra exchanged guilty looks.
“Um, yeah,” Temple said. “Kinda.”
Molina’s foot stamped the floor. “Right here in this building, under us. That’s where it was until it became the other murder site in this place, only it happened decades ago. Another outre hanging, this one by a zoot suit cat chain.”
“The history of that time period,” Temple said, her eyes narrowed, “has been quashed and forgotten. Past racist issues are unflattering to what the Strip was before it integrated for its own commercial good.”
Molina looked contemplative. “The mob remembers.” She took another turn around the huge area and looked up to where the ceiling was empty.
Every one of them pictured the murderous chandelier.
“Someone in the mob remembers,” Molina said. “Remembers both the earlier murder by chandelier and the fact that the Zoot Suit Choo-Choo Club had a golden asset, a gambling license. A license that lasts forever, if every two years the site is used as a live gambling establishment.”
“Is that’s how the Moulin Rouge kept going for all the decades when it closed after eight months in nineteen fifty-five?” Temple asked.
Molina nodded. “So you are clued in. It changed hands, and the license with it. Nobody could make a go of the site because it was so far from the Strip. In order to keep its gaming license, the casino ‘opens’ once every two years with a temporary on-site trailer, like the one you’ve got parked outside.” She glanced at Electra.
“I may not own that RV,” Electra said.
“Nemo and company can reclaim it. They and others before them have kept that Zebra Zoot Suit Choo-Choo Club pop-up casino schedule going with the aid of ‘unnamed’ financial backers,” Molina said. “They have photographic proof. If you could find the actual paper license in the next two years, Ms. Lark, you would own a prize the Strip conglomerates would love to snap up.”
“And Nemo and company won’t do jail time?” Temple asked. She wondered if the “others before them” had killed Jumping Jack Robinson over the gaming license too.
“Not much, unless I get more evidence in Dyson’s death.” Molina turned and walked out the new sturdy double doors. “New security doors installed in the back too?”
Electra nodded.
“Good.” Molina grinned. “That ought to keep out ‘the vagrants and feral cats’ for a while. Ms. Barr sure knows how to spin a press release.”
Temple managed to smile as sweetly as a good hostess escorting a guest to the door.
“By the way,” Molina said before walking over to Detective Alch leaning against a white Crown Victoria in the parking lot. “You and Mr. Devine seem to have forged a more perfect partnership. You’ve even lured him into investigative action as well as an impressive martial arts display.”
Temple wasn’t sure what Molina meant, but there was some snark in there somewhere.
“Should I be looking for a wedding invitation?” the lieutenant inquired.
Temple snorted.
“Out-of-state trip to see the family, huh?” Molina said. “Speaking of which, it seems Mr. Kinsella has folded his tent and moved on.”
Temple shrugged. “I really don’t know where he is.”
“I do know,” Molina said, coming Great White Shark closer with her electric-blue eyes and white-toothed smile. “I know that the first time I interviewed you after you came to Vegas and Kinsella had gone missing at the same time a body turned up and fell down onto a craps table at the Goliath Hotel…I know you gave me that very same answer to the very same question.
“And look how that turned out.”
44
Instant Redial
That night Temple hesitated over answering her bedside cell phone. She was wide awake at nearly midnight and thinking of tuning in to the first part of Matt’s show. Maybe he’d give her a quick “good night” call before going on the air.
She glanced at the lit screen. No, not Matt calling. Not a familiar number. Foreign.
Her knuckles tightened on the nubbly crystal surface of the cell holder. “Yes?”
“I hope so.” Max’s voice.
Firm. Sardonic. More welcome than she wanted to admit.
“How did things go in Ireland? Are you all right? Is Sean really alive?”
“Yes.”
“Yes, you’re all right or yes, Sean’s alive?”
“Both. Sort of.”
“Oh, God, Max. I don’t like ‘sort ofs’.”
“He’s a bit the worse for wear, but the most contented man I’ve ever met. He survived the pub bombing with visible wounds, and the invisible one my generation of family is becoming known for.”
Temple was confused. Then Max said, “Bomb explosion. Impact. Head wound. His memory is faulty.”
“So, like you, Sean has been blessed with the multiple lives of a cat to have survived.”
“Yeah. The IRA’s call to clear the pub before the bomb blast went awry. An IRA sympathizer on site knew about the bomb, and was finally able to get him out of there, not quite soon enough. She was injured too, but he wouldn’t leave because he was waiting for me to come back.”
“Oh, Max!”
“A kick in the gut, yes. Sean was messed up on his left side, and was foggy about who he was and where he belonged for some time, so the IRA took him in as one of theirs until he healed. When Sean did remember his home and family, he learned I’d disappeared after getting the bombers IDed and arrested. He didn’t want to go limping home after the dumbass moves we made on our own in Ireland, and by then he had an Irish wife. So he ended up working for the IRA, the peace not the terrorism. He and his wife run a bed and breakfast in County Tyrone.”
“That’s amazing. Even more amazing is the fact that Kitty the Cutter delivered. She didn’t lie this time.”
“She also didn’t expect Sean and me to let bygones be bygones. She thought we’d spout recriminations and go for each other’s throats.”
“She found you once you went to Ireland?”
“Hell, Temple, I flew her over there. I wasn’t trusting to luck with getting the likes of her out of all our lives in Vegas.”
“You were traveling with her? How did you sleep?” Temple felt a blush teasing the edges of her cheeks. She’d hadn’t meant “sleep”, but just sleep.
“Not often. I’m exhausted. Look, I’m bringing Sean back with me.”
“To Vegas?”
“Maybe, but principally to Racine, to reunite the family.”
“Oh, my God. That’ll be a three-act wrenching drama Eugene O’Neill couldn’t live up to writing even if he were still alive. I can’t imagine how shocked they’ll be, and then angry at the two of you for cutting and running into new lives without them.”
“You don’t have to imagine,” he said, “I’m hoping you’ll round up your immense people skills and come along as a referee.”
“What? No. I can’t leave Vegas now.”
“Last time I called from Ireland, you told me to come home.”
“And I am telling you to ‘go home’ to Racine now. Everything is different. Matt and I are seriously committed. I can’t leave my fiancé behind and go waltzing off to intercede between my ex and his cousin and their parents. I don’t know these people, and I’m sure they don’t want to know me.”
“It’s about what you know, not who you know.”
“What do you mean?”
Max sighed. “There are holes in my recent memories. Holes in Sean’s memory of the attack and why he decided to rebuild a life in Ireland, leaving everyone mourning when they didn’t need to be. Including me. We need an outside negotiator, and I, I need the help only you can give, Temple. I need an ombudsman. I chose to be absent too. There are a lot of robbed lives in Racine.”