Not that Temple really wanted a handle on the dizzying array of activities erupting all over the ballroom. A rapid glance around showed a circus of firm flesh on the half shell, most wearing little more than a thong-style G-string... Samsons with bulging muscles and oiled tans and long hair tickling their shoulder blades... Delilahs with thin thighs and flat stomachs and breasts that were anything but flat. The current robust, hirsute view made the trendiest health-club exercise floor seem populated by dull and flaccid duds.
All of these beautiful people in motion were under-studying Narcissus, gazing raptly into perimeter mirrors as they stretched muscles and studied costumes under the overhead spotlights. Taken together, they seemed larger than life, not just because they all conveyed a kind of in-person, airbrushed comeliness, but because even most of the women were model-tall.
Temple felt like Pinocchio at the fair, an undersized stranger out of her depth and in danger of succumbing to something, even if it was only amazement. Her gaze inventoried the huge ballroom while she decided who to approach first: the Amazonian miss with Raggedy Ann red hair who was affixing helium-filled balloons to her skimpy bikini, or the apparently naked, tattooed muscleman emerging from the bottom half of a gorilla suit.
“Barr, is it?” a male voice behind her said, gruffly.
She turned, expecting Billy Goat himself in person. She was relieved to face one of the few fully clothed men in the room. However, a peach knit shirt under a Madras plaid sport jacket paired with black trousers was no advertisement for the post-Eden advantages of clothing. Once past the color clash, she saw a man in his thirties: good-looking in an aggressive, humorless blue-collar way.
“Ike Wetzel,” he introduced himself. “Lindy said you were good at your job, but I might as well tell you I woulda got along with Buchanan better. I see enough of broads all day in my work.”
“What is your work?” Temple asked, knowing that a self-directed question turneth away wrath, or at least sour preconceptions.
“I run Kitty City.”
She looked blank.
“On Paradise Road.”
“Oh, the topless place. You’ve got the sign showing cats in anatomically incorrect positions.”
“Right.” His muddy brown eyes flicked her up and down, an unconscious gesture designed either to take in what she was wearing, or to mentally take it off. “I’m cosponsoring this competition thing. A lot of my girls have their hopes pinned on it. I don’t want this murder messing up their chances.”
“It sounds to me like the only person this murder has messed up so far is the victim.”
“Let’s keep it that way,” Wetzel suggested. He frowned, an expression that came easy to the permanent furrow between his dark brows even when he was trying to look genial, which he wasn’t at the moment. “It’s bad enough that we got cops all over the premises. Your job is to get the attention off the corpse and back on the corpuscles—on what every red-blooded guy wants to know about the greatest strippers in the world.”
“I understand,” Temple said, “but aren’t men competing, too?”
“Yeah, a few.” Wetzel snorted his opinion of that trend. “Separately, though. Concentrate on the gals. They draw the real dough. Male strippers are a passing fancy, except in the gay clubs. And even in the straight clubs, broads don’t tip as good as guys do.”
“Maybe women don’t get the same service,” Temple answered coolly, recognizing a moment too late that she had let herself in for any number of double entendres.
Not to worry. Ike Wetzel wouldn’t recognize an opening for a double entendre if it parlay-vouzed Français with a Milwaukee accent and asked him to dance. Down-the-middle-of-the-bowling-lane kind of guys don’t notice linguistic detours.
“Women’s hearts just aren’t in it,” he commented disdainfully. “Watching guys strip is good for a giggle when they’re out in a gaggle, but they’re not connoisseurs of the art.” He pronounced it “con-no-sirs.”
“So lay off the guys and the old dames. Stick to the foxy chicks.”
“Any other advice?” Temple’s temper simmered behind her most professional facade. Ike Wetzel seemed as impervious to veiled indignation as he was to treading on professional toes.
“Well-—” He no doubt intended his knowing smirk to be a confidential grin. “Off the record, put your time in on my girls. They do real well at these things. If you’re nice to me, I might even be able to tip you off early who’s gonna win.”
“Mr. Wetzel, if my job included being nice to everybody, I wouldn’t get anything done.”
“Just letting you in on who’s who around here. Buchanan knew the score.”
“Exactly what did Buchanan know?” a new voice asked sharply. The voice was low, an excellent thing in a woman, but hardly soft and gentle, and that was an even more excellent thing in a Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department homicide lieutenant.
Wetzel turned, his eye whites widening as he found C. R. Molina regarding him with an expression even more perfectly deadpan than his own.
“Buchanan knew—knows—the clubs, the scene,” he sputtered. “You know what I mean, Lieutenant.”
“I hope so.” Lieutenant Molina turned deliberately to Temple, her blue eyes narrowing. “You homesick for the ABA, or what?”
“ ’Scuse me,” Wetzel said, eager to be off. “I gotta take care of some things.”
The women watched him leave in mutual silence, then returned to the business of fencing each other.
Molina hadn’t changed a bit, Temple saw. She was wearing one of her nondescript neutral-tone poplin suits, even in July—navy, this time. She hadn’t shrunk by so much as one of her imposing five-foot-ten inches. She hadn’t loosened her by-the-book manner one tiny turn of the screw. And she hadn’t plucked one forceful hair from her luxurious black eyebrows.
“I’m filling in for Crawford Buchanan on publicity,” Temple told the policewoman, finally answering her ABA jibe.
“Since when does Barr race to the rescue of Buchanan?”
Temple wished that high heels elevated her to more than a scant five-foot-four. “He's had a heart attack," she said with high dignity.
“I’m aware of that. It happened during my interrogation. I repeat: since when do you run to Buchanan's rescue?"
“I know he's a creep, but..."
Molina raised her formidable eyebrows, obviously not about to be convinced by the quality of mercy.
Temple shifted her weight to her other heel, and her defense to fiscal issues everybody understands, presumably even police personnel. “The job pays well," she said in steely tones.
“Make up your mind, are you here in the cause of guilt or greed?"
“Maybe I just know how it feels to stumble over a dead body when you're the one who's supposed to keep things running smoothly."
Molina abruptly changed the subject. “Buchanan was badly shaken, though he probably didn't admit it to you. Not a pretty murder."
“Not... a suicide?"
Molina's long, disconcerting silence forced Temple to fall into her trap and babble on, giving information instead of getting it. “Hanging seems a cumbersome way of killing someone, but I guess the victim had taken a blow to the head first, so it can't be suicide."
“Why not? The victim could have banged her head while mounting the dressing room chair to position herself by the hook. And how did you know about the head wound?"
“Someone told me."
“Who?"
Temple hated revealing a source, especially a ludicrous one. “Savannah Ashleigh."
“Savannah Ashleigh—? You do get around. How long have you been here?"
“About an... hour."
Molina sighed and reached into her side jacket pocket. Temple had never seen the lieutenant carry a purse. What little makeup she wore, and any necessities, must be crammed into her pockets along with a badge and a gun, presumably.