If she ever had time to write a blockbuster novel, the lives, loves, and deeds of Clan Fontana was a natural subject.
Identifying individual Fontana brothers was an art form, even for Temple, who worked for the white sheep of the family. Married Nicky Fontana owned the Crystal Phoenix Hotel and Casino and carried an impeccably honest reputation. Of the current bachelor Fontana crew, one wore a Roman glass ring. One an earring.
“Officer,” probably Ernesto was saying, “it is obviously an instance of self-defense.”
“Well, Mr. Fontana, then you can obviously hire a lawyer to prove that.”
Ernesto was under arrest? Perish the thought that the gelato-pale, Italian summer-weight wool suit should pass a night in the slammer.
“Maybe, Officer…” Temple butted in. Being young and petite, no one listened to her unless she took action. “You might want to notify Lieutenant Molina about this incident.”
The uniformed policeman wasn’t Fontana-tall, but he could certainly look down on her. “Who voted you old enough to vote?”
“My driver’s license.” She was going to tell him right out that homicide Lt. C.R. Molina was currently seeing Julio Fontana. Or so it seemed. It was hard to tell what was what with the deadpan lady lieutenant.
“The lieutenant is off this shift,” the officer said. “Besides, it’s all over. The vic is in an ambulance heading to the ER and the shooter is going in for questioning.” He nodded to the squad car and someone with red-white-and-blue hair in rollers was peering out the backseat window.
“That’s our landlady!” Temple said. “Our elderly landlady.”
“So they tell me.” The officer nodded at the crowd of tenants who’d followed her to the scene.
“What is she charged with?”
“None of your business, Miss. Read about it in the paper tomorrow. Or you can inquire at headquarters in the morning. Or wake up Lieutenant Molina if you want to risk losing an inch or two of height, which it doesn’t look like you can spare. Hey, Dan, let’s get rolling.”
As he hopped into the squad car’s passenger seat the headache band lights went off. Electra Lark was a passing flash of plain white hair and a paper-white face in the back window as the vehicle slowly pulled away from the frowning crowd. Murmurs of dismay ebbed into departing shuffles.
“Don’t worry,” Ernesto told Temple. “I passed her some legal advice before they swept her away.”
“Legal advice?”
“Say nothing until the Fontana Family lawyer gets her out in the morning. She’s only being held for questioning. So far.”
“Questioning for what?”
Ernesto shrugged a well-padded shoulder. Whether it was the fine tailoring or a gun holster or just awesome muscle, Temple didn’t know. Now that she was an official fiancée she chose not to speculate further.
“My dear lady,” Ernesto said. “The dude trundled away in the ambulance was a common burglar. Miss Electra found him in her penthouse quarters. What would you do? She approached the alarming sounds with her trusty semiautomatic and took a shot in the dark. Well, several. He fell out of the French doors to the balcony and had the ill luck to fall even farther over the railing to the ground.”
Ernesto led her to a crushed landscape of Hedgehog, Prickly Pear and hooked spine Cat Claw cactus.
“Ouch. No bed of roses. Five stories, and he’s alive?”
“So far.”
“I can’t believe Electra shot at him more than once,” Temple said.
“You are not an older lady who lives alone.”
“I’m thinking any jury, including grand ones, would be sympathetic to that factor.”
“Sympathetic, yes indeed. However.” Ernesto folded his slender hands prayerfully. “In Miss Electra’s case she has already been that targeted ‘person of interest’ in a previous death. A very recent and intimate previous death. Police procedure is not always precise, but they can hardly fail to notice that. Once may be understandable. Twice might look excessive.”
“So, what really happened here?”
“I’m inclined to believe that even the police don’t know yet. That’s when they get their most official and clam up.”
Temple nodded glumly.
“I’m also inclined to believe that this was no ordinary second-story man, given your own recent home invasion also. If you want my opinion, you had better assemble what allies of whatever ilk you have to stop more ‘senseless’ assaults that may in reality be quite specific.”
Temple narrowed her eyes. How much did Fontana, Inc. know about the amassed IRA donations gathered for years internationally, that were rumored to be so valuable and hidden somewhere in Vegas?
“Rest assured, Miss Temple,” Ernesto said. “We at Gangsters hotel-casino and vehicle rental service will always be available to help in any small, or large, amusing way.”
“Thank you, Ernesto,” she answered as formally. “Rest assured, we appreciate your skill and finesse in certain areas and will always be grateful.”
A rustle in the palm fronds high above shook the papery spikes like a small tornado.
Ernesto looked up. “All your allies of whatever ilk.”
“I totally agree.”
2
Three-Cat Night
From the faint, first siren call of the police cruisers, I knew that my role was not to remain on the ground among the powerless gawkers. I eyed the limp victim being lifted onto a gurney for a rough ride in an ambulance that may finish him off for good and immediately hit the Palm Tree Trail up to the penthouse balcony from whence he had come.
I regret to say my Miss Temple is as bloodthirsty as any one of these eight-to-eighty-year-old onlookers treated to a crime scene in their midst. Besides, she has the able support of a Fontana brother who is far too fastidious to allow any random blood drop to decorate his lapel. He will restrain her from giving too many pieces of her mind to the local police, given her worry about Miss Electra Lark’s brush with a soon-to-be-dead guy.
I am not a sentimentalist, though, and wonder if our free-spirited landlady has flipped her lid. Not that she wears hats. She prefers to use her snow-white hair as a canvas for bright temporary colors. I fear that I have seen a few white Persian cats and poodle dogs so styled, and it is the height of silliness, but at least Miss Electra has free will in the matter.
Now she has no freedom at all. I did not exert all my efforts to save her so recently to give up now. Even if I must encounter her “psychic” Birman cat, Karma, here in the penthouse. Karma is by nature reclusive and I expect she is hiding by the back wall under the couch after the hullabaloo of a burglar turned falling missive.
I complete a leap from a limber palm frond onto the balcony without the sound of even a pad landing. (I am the strong, silent type.)
A flurry of feline boxing punches, shivs out, and a panther-level battle cry from another cat greet my subtle approach.
Meeowwwgrlllphtttt!
Could my would-be daughter, Miss Midnight Louise, be up here, cussing me out? She can be snarky, and considers me a deadbeat dad, but I have allowed her to help out in my Midnight Investigations, Inc. business. Also, I outweigh her by twelve pounds so it is impossible that she could give me a shellacking.
Backackackdowwwn-invading-vermin is spat at me in fluent alley cat. Louise may be a lot of things, but she rarely swears.
“Karma,” I plead, while blocking a continuous sharp-clawed pummeling with my front mitts. “Tell me you are not channeling a performing Big Cat black leopard from a Strip magic show.”
I am convinced my foe cannot be the wimpy Karma, a fluffy buff-colored lady with pretensions to calm Eastern mysticism, unless she has shape-shifted. We contenders here are both a part of the night’s darkness, black of coat and born to be bad to the bone if we have to.