“All that and getting married too?”
“Matt’s quest is ended.”
Max’s laugh was rich. “He’s the accidental hero, isn’t he? Uncovering a treasure hunt far more sinister than the mystery we’ve all been following. My God, he’s got the angels on his side for having the guts to go up against the nastiest secret killer in Vegas. You do know he was on top of it at the end like mob-buster Elliott Ness, and isn’t ’fessing up to that because it would be awkward for you and Molina?”
“Yes, all that. And I’m very proud. But my latest insight can’t wait. I’ve moved the crude Cliff Effinger drawing of the hero fighting a giant serpent that supposedly represents the thirteenth Zodiac sign of Ophiuchus, and the “house” shape of the major stars in the Ophiuchus constellation over each other on tracing paper and have had a breakthrough.”
“Can’t this wait until we can summon our Round Table to discuss our Table of Crime Elements like we used to? Matt deserves to be in on the end of the puzzle if you’ve found it. As you say, he’s way too secure to resent me anymore. Especially since I was diplomatically absent at your wedding.”
“And you could spot any brewing trouble better from up there. Did Molina know she had hidden backup?”
“You must stop thinking she knows everything.”
“She knows Kathleen burned your house down, and I didn’t know about that.” Temple frowned a little frown. “Have you been consorting with the enemy?”
“I wouldn’t call it consorting.” Max looked uneasy, not a Max Look Temple had seen before.
“Well, well, well,” Temple said. “Did Kathleen pay dearly for erasing your history like you were ancient ruins and she was ISIS when you tracked her down in Ireland?”
“Ruins! I’m not so newly humble to admit to that. All I can say is that Kathleen is not to be found in Ireland anymore.”
“You didn’t find her? I don’t believe that.”
Max shrugged. “I couldn’t say I found her peace of mind, but I found the daughter she gave up shortly after birth.”
“Daughter? Born in the Magdalene institution? Taken away from her? Oh, Hoover Dam and double damn! The poor woman. No wonder she was a crazy witch.”
“Poor girl. She escaped with her infant daughter while yet a girl herself and found a nice agnostic family to rear her. Not an easy thing to do in Ireland, believe me, to find people who are not undiluted true believers.”
“She found a UU family!”
“What passes for that over there, yes.”
“Maybe I’ll have to reevaluate her.”
“And that would be your reconciliation moment.”
Temple nodded. “Don’t judge until you walk in another woman’s…Stuart Weitzman’s.”
“For you. For her, the way Kathleen walked was thorny beyond shoes.”
“Darn it, Max. You’re making me cry for Kathleen. She stole one shoe of my best pair of heels, yet she returned it. Everything was a taunt for her.”
“Don’t cry for Kathleen. She’d hate that, and you won’t be able to show me what you found.”
All right. I want to demonstrate another radically different imposition of the Ophiuchus stars on the Las Vegas map.”
“And why not wait for your devoted spouse?”
“Because true inspiration strikes rarely and soon fades. I thought of you for that 3-D visualization a magician has. And for what I realized I saw on the marvelous altar front, and saw echoed in the nave of Our Lady of Guadalupe church.”
“So your getting married got you a glimpse of a treasure buried for three generations and clued you in on the equally long-missing IRA funds? Ironic, but the loot in the church was Ted Binions’, not IRA connected.”
“I do realize that. And Matt will be happy to come home and collect his Giacco Petrocelli memorial jackhammer and come along with me to find out, if you don’t want to.”
“Actually,” he admitted, “Binion’s stash being unearthed gave me another idea on the IRA puzzle.”
“That settles it. Max. We need one last rendezvous at the Neon Nightmare.” She stood up. “I’m wearing my capris and deck shoes, and carrying my tote for the papers. So I’m ready for a treasure hunt in a pyramid.”
His expression turned cautious, closed again. He obviously didn’t want to go there. “That place is out of business.”
“But I’m not.”
“That’s comforting, but it’s a deserted venue.”
“The best kind for kinky criminal doings. To be discreet, you can drive and meet me there.”
“Is this town still big enough for the two of us?”
“The three of us. Don’t forget Midnight Louie.”
“The three of us.”
“It’s Vegas, baby.”
34
Midnight Magic
Things have changed, changed utterly.
Along the Las Vegas Strip. Among my favorite people and places.
Yet some things will never change.
My Miss Temple—(forget Missus, an ugly word, totally not French, and Madam has connotations. In my book, ladies are always Miss, but I will grudgingly use Mrs. on occasion)—is a known vintage clothing lover.
I have long realized the addiction went beyond suits and shoes to such finds as the snazzy chrome nineteen-twenties toaster that holds any snail mail she still gets. Sadly, she buys cat carriers new; at least until I get my paws and claws to work on them.
The biggest objects of her vintage obsession are the cluster of modest motel-casinos in the nineteen-forties that grew into the dazzling skyline of higher and higher hotel-casinos…whose grandeur faded one by one as they became “gut jobs” and fell to make way for ever grander and higher replacements.
I find myself musing on how the Strip itself mirrors more than half the twentieth century and a bit of the twenty-first. And how change and rebirth is impossible without death, whether it is the death of the body or an idea or a vision.
That is why I retreat nowadays (when ripping and pounding at the Circle Ritz make even the zebra-print carrier no retreat), to the abandoned Neon Nightmare building to meditate, as my breed is wont. It seems a perfect metaphor for Vegas dreams and melodramas.
Las Vegas has so much flash and cash floating around in its neon stew that when a venue is slowly dying, it is an instantly detectable Black Hole amid the wheeling, glitzy galaxies of the Strip and even the night sky so often overpowered by the wattage below.
It had been that way for the Dunes and the Aladdin in the eighties as “new ownerships” appeared on the desert sands in the east horizon and quickly sank into the mountains in the west. Including The Sands itself. Such names, from the Stardust to the long-lasting Riviera, only recently imploded with pomp and ceremony.
We hip cats about Vegas mourn these losses, every one a prime Dumpster-diving location in its heyday, as well as the epitome of class and creativity for its time.
The implosion of the Grand Old Dames of the Strip kicked into high gear during the nineties, destruction becoming a massive stage show itself. First, the impeccably placed charges. The filmed countdown. The wide media coverage of a once-fabled building holding memories of once-fabled entertainment acts collapsing in seconds into itself, into nothing, melting like the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz. And all death throes available on YouTube now. Watch them and weep for the bygone glamour.
Only the dead neon remains, stocked in the Neon Graveyard museum, a past art fondly remembered, but too passé to revive on a large scale. I and my compadres often stroll there, and I nap under the giant Silver Slipper shoe in honor of Miss Temple. Passed down from generation to generation of my lineage have been the sumptuous seafood entrees at, say, the Dunes amid Art Deco grandeur. All gone, gone utterly, along with plenteous inexpensive buffets. Now tourists desiring seafood at a hotel buffet must have the tops of their hands stamped like at a cheap nightclub to be scanned to give them entry if they have paid for that option.