It reminded him of the illuminated red, purple, and blue neon-lit fifty-story “winged” shapes on the side or the Rio Hotel, which in turn echoed the immense concrete-and-stone statue of the white-robed Christ of the Andes near Rio de Janeiro, with arms and sleeves stretched as wide as the crossbar on the Cross.
Three similar images and architectural mimics, he mused, one holy, one secular and one legal. The Brazilian landmark represented God, the Vegas Rio represented Mammon and here, the sweep of a robe represented judges and justice.
Matt turned away to see Electra waiting by the parked cars, looking like a tourist in her brightly colored muumuu and flip-flop slippers. Two pink foam curlers still clung to her snow-white hair and the tall Fontana brother standing beside her for once wore an expensive suit coat that looked wrinkled and hung slightly askew.
It was a shock to see a Fontana either disheveled or less than smiling and gracious. Then he wondered what he looked like after sweating through his interrogation with Molina.
“Is it, um—” Matt said as he held his hand out.
“Armando.” The man offered a firm, fast handshake. “We were told you had an appointment, so waited around.”
Matt looked around for what fantastic custom limo Armando had found appropriate for a drive to the clinker. He knew he visibly started to spot Electra’s blue Elvis-edition VW Beetle, a car Matt had won and given to Electra to replace her old Probe, the car he had recently wrecked beyond repair driving up two sets of stairs and through strong double doors to save Electra and her kidnapped cat, Karma, from imminent harm. Score: Probe Dead. Elvis Undead, and back in vocal and automotive forms.
“Matt!” She rushed to hug him. “You came to my rescue again.”
“Temple sent me, but they released you before I could plead your case. In fact, I got a grilling of my own.”
They began walking toward the Beetle, which had good headroom for two tall men with Electra in the back.
Bending considerably to assist Electra inside, Armando explained over his shoulder to Matt. “Ernesto thought seeing her own vehicle here would cheer up Mrs. Lark.”
“Oh,” she said, “I always smile when I drive this car, especially if I have to park it. So easy. Matt, dear, I meant to tell you. It was so nice of dear, sweet Elvis to give your radio show ratings a boost last night, now that he maintains a permanent residence in Vegas.”
Oh, no, Matt thought. That was right. The new Elvis Experience made The King a permanent near neighbor.
He’d found Frank Bucek vague about why he’d been stationed in Vegas for now. Surely it couldn’t be in hopes of hearing a new “Elvis tape”.
Maybe it was time for a friendly chat.
6
Midnight Prowler
Temple almost felt the low growl of an expensive, powerful idling car before she heard it.
She sat up in bed, checking the red LED clock numbers. 1:00 a.m.
Her condo was two floors above the parking lot. The car was either right under her balcony, or a figment of an interrupted dream.
Couldn’t be Matt’s Jaguar, because he was still live on the air. She sincerely hoped.
Since an intruder had breeched the locked French doors off her bedroom only a couple weeks before that, she reached for the bedside table and her cell phone.
Temple had investigated self-defense two years ago when she’d been beaten up by two honest-to-God thugs in the Goliath hotel’s guest parking ramp. Since she needed a pulley to reach five-foot-one barefoot, she’d invested in some shooting gallery training.
One of the instructors said a gun would look huge in her tiny hands and psych out a male intruder.
The plug-in night-light in the form of an acrylic crystal cat cast enough illumination to show that the plus-size cell phone also looked, and felt, huge in her tiny hand. But, she couldn’t wield a cell phone and pistol simultaneously. Besides, she’d lost interest and the unloaded gun was languishing in her scarf drawer. She wasn’t any good at wearing scarves either.
Midnight Louie was a shadowy presence pacing in front of the French doors to the balcony patio, answering with soft growls.
The low vibrating growling sound moved slowly along the exterior bedroom wall. Golly, the “live two stories up” advice to single women, even a soon-not-to-be-single girl, was not high enough. And something like the landlady’s fifth floor penthouse was no better, except that intruder had not survived, unlike Temple’s previous one.
Who had made the Circle Ritz Break-in Site of the Month? She was afraid she knew the Why. Somehow someone bad knew what she and Matt and Max had been hunting for.
Her eyes were adapting to the low light and focused on the repaired French doors. Fate wouldn’t be so unkind as to break them again… Almost five hundred dollars gone.
The growl went more basso, on the move. Black smoke seemed to be eeling under the faintly illuminated balcony doors.
Then the automotive growl stopped. Louie’s growls paused, then escalated into a shrill battle cry. Three feet of outstretched twenty-pound black feline fury hurled itself at the doors’ matched levered handles.
The doors sprang outward to reveal the dead-solid black of night.
Midnight Louie overshot something dark that leaped aside. His forepaws ricocheted off the railing. Caught in the parking lot lights’ green-tinged security beams with his green eyes blazing, he executed a four-point landing back on the patio.
Both hunks of blackness entered the room, but only one turned to shut the doors after them.
Temple lowered the cell phone. Her voice sounded as metallic and cool as the device in her hands. “The repair to the locks will run four-hundred and seventy dollars.”
“No repairs,” the intruder said. “I undid the lock a second before your resident black panther made his move.”
“Too bad.” Temple lowered her defensive mechanisms quite literally as Midnight Louie bounded onto the foot of the California King-size bed bought for Max Kinsella’s six-foot-four frame. “I would have enjoyed taking you to the people’s court. So, Max. You’re back from Ireland. Kathleen O’Connor didn’t kill you.”
“And I didn’t have to kill her,” he said.
“Mission accomplished, and your cue to disappear from my life again, maybe wondering what happened to you forever. So why the midnight break-in? Drama? You’re wearing cat burglar-black again from head to foot.”
“Why the cell phone-fisted greeting? You weren’t supposed to wake up.”
“Midnight Louie has the hearing of an attack dog and he’s on alert since the first break-in. And you’re driving serious, obvious horsepower again.” Temple put the phone on the bedside table as Max went to sit on the delicate chair Temple used to put her shoes on. He’d always looked ridiculous sitting there.
“I’d rather if nobody knew I’m back in town,” he said.
“So I’m not anybody?”
He smiled. “You’re somebody to a lot of people. That’s your gift.” His expression hardened. “What’s this about a break-in?”
“Some fool burglar who tripped on the extra-long foot of the bed, thanks to your former occupancy. We figure the visible bathroom light on the other side of the unit I keep on for Louie convinced the intruder the occupants were awake over there. He hoped he could loot this side with no fuss. Instead he tripped, I yelled, ‘Fire!’, and Electra came pounding at the door with gun and passkey in hand.”
“Fast thinking. Don’t you have a firearm? If you weren’t a pistol-packing mama, how’d the idiot exit?”
“Matt jumped down from his balcony above and threw him over the railing.”
Max’s eyebrows raised. Temple didn’t know whether he was more surprised by the elderly landlady dressed in full living color bearing a weapon…or Matt handily bouncing the intruder.