For Temple owned a pair of Choo shoes herself. They had been acquired at a resale shop, were only three inches high and four years old. Ms. Wong’s model, however, had graced the feet of Lucy Liu in the most recent issue of InStyle magazine.
Temple wondered briefly if there was an offshoot of feng shui called Feng Choo. Either way, Temple could sympathize with pint-size women seeking a leg up on the competition in the business world.
Amelia Wong moved the length of horseshoe-shaped table, switching the placement of plum and mustard sauce bowls according to some universal order known only to a domestic arts master.
Chef Song shook his head and muttered words Temple could not translate, fortunately.
Beyond them both loomed an overpoweringly orange backdrop: the spotlit gleaming bulk of the Nissan Murano. This was one of those crossover vehicles: a kinder, gentler SUV doing all it could to avoid any stylistic hint of an old-fashioned station wagon. A local dealer had provided the new model as the door prize for the Maylords end-of-the-week raffle. Amelia Wong’s last act would be selecting the winner.
Kenny Maylord and his wife edged over to Temple now that the former celebrity combatants were contentedly plying the buffet table and switching each other’s arrangements around. Flowers, food … it was all musical chairs.
“I’m used to temperamental interior designers,” Kenny said, “but this takes the cake. Honey, this is Temple Barr, the local PR hiree.” As Temple acknowledged the introduction to Kenny’s thirty-something wife, he told her, “I understand from Ms. Wong’s PR gal that your work at Las Vegas Now! saved our skin as far as TV coverage goes. I guess I didn’t get it at the time.”
Temple accepted his sheepish smile as an apology. “The situation was out of our control. We needed to spin the dial back our way again. Sometimes it takes extreme measures.”
Mrs. Maylord, a bland-brown-hair clone of her husband, stepped closer to speak under her breath. “Things are so … dramatic in Las Vegas. We never would have had that kind of problem back home in Indianapolis.”
Such a Ken and Barbie couple: same height, same coloring, same plastic Stepford-spouse look, with more than a touch of
American Gothic behind it. No way would they understand Las Vegas and its high-rolling ways without spending some time here. It was a far cry from Indianapolis.
Temple, herself an escapee from the sound-alike city of Minneapolis, felt sorry for this poster couple for stable midwestern values. Las Vegas lived and died on a fault line of change and hype. There was nothing stable or midwestern about it, but, on the other hand, it was fun.
“I think the chop shui crisis has been handled,” she said.
She eyed the two artistes, who were each rapidly undoing each others’ adjustments. It was like watching two neighboring nations moving guard stations on the border.
Amazing how unnecessary busywork defused tensions.
“I’ll just be happy when the opening huzzahs are over,” Mrs. Maylord said, with feeling. She extended a hand. “I’m Barbara, by the way.”
Temple, shocked by the name, shook a palm that was as dry as white cotton gloves, amazed at her own prescience. Ken and Barbie.
“Temple Barr.”
“What an interesting first name.”
“I don’t know how I got it, and I used to hate it. Wanted to be an Ashley in the worst way, but now I kind of like it.”
Mrs. Maylord leaned inward. “You don’t know what I’d give not to be a Barb. I always feel like a fishing lure.”
Temple laughed out loud. Maybe bland hid unsuspected spice.
“That’s why our kids are named Kelly and Madison. Guess which one is the girl.”
“Wouldn’t even try. I think that’ll be a big step forward in the future, gender-neutral names, I mean.”
“Don’t tell Kenny,” she confided. “He thinks we’re being Eastern and trendy.”
Temple nodded, finger to lips, and turned to check on Song and Wong. Oh, no! Asian surnames had a monosyllablic simplicity her own echoed, but lent themselves to the most outrageous English wordplay.
She thought of Merry Su, the small but assertive detective who worked for Molina. A good role model. Temple considered herself small but assertive.
Speaking of assertive, where had the newly protective Matt got himself to?
She turned, satisfied to leave Wong and Song at opposite ends of the buffet table, still moving dishes like chess pieces in an elaborate game.
While she watched, the central display of queen shrimp on beds of crushed ice exploded into a salmon-white fireworks of
flying chips and flesh.
Her ears thundered with a dull knock-knock-knock sound. Who’s there?
Flying shards of plate glass joined the ice chips exploding in air.
“Hit the ground!” a male voice shouted.
Temple did a four-point landing on her knees and the heels of her hands without thinking. Both stung, maybe bled.
Above her foodstuffs spattered in time with a staccato whomp-whomp-whomp sound, almost like a hovering helicopter.
“Hit the lights!” another male voice bellowed.
Temple recognized Danny Dove’s commanding choreographer’s bark.
Temple glanced around. Wong and Song had vanished behind their buffet table. The Maylords lay belly down beside her. Nothing much was moving but the sudden sleet of glass and ice and food from the buffet.
She had toured the store before opening, from stem to stern. She’d seen a big light-control panel on some wall … but where?
No one seemed to be moving.
The sounds continued, relentless, obviously from a distance, obviously from a high-powered weapon aimed at the bright
store interior surrounded by windows, spitting like an Uzi into a giant fishbowl.
Wait. The light panel was near the employee lounge, toward the back of the store and the loading dock.
Temple pressed her burning palms into the stone floor and put the soles of her shoes in motion.
Chapter 9
Power Play
Matt hit the deck on instinct.
Cries and muffled sobs echoed all around him, where only moments before conversations and laughter had provided a counter to the Musak pouring over the loudspeaker.
That soft, jazzy beat made a bizarre counterpoint to the punctuation of repeated gunfire now.
Maylords was under siege.
His not to wonder why. His but to do or die … and people could have died already.
He’d been visiting the vignettes, looking for Janice, working his way back to the central entrance.
His cheek rested on salmon-colored plush carpeting. A testered Colonial-style bed loomed above him.
So did the darkness of a Las Vegas night outside the showroom window.
As he watched, the glass shattered like spun sugar. A celadon vase on the nearby dresser blossomed into flying pieces.
One grazed his temple.
Temple. Where was she?
Matt elbow-crawled onto the central path of cool stone and lay there for a moment to listen.
Danny Dove’s commanding cry, “Hit the lights,” struck him with relief. That was the first line of defense. He bet cell phones were hitting 911 all over the store.
He didn’t carry one. Mr. Behind-the-Times. From now on he would, an urban guerrilla armed with technology instead of a personal firearm.
But … where was Temple?
He crawled over the glass-gritty floor, aware that she had last been called to the reception area.
“Stay down, people!” another voice ordered. Deeper and darker than Danny Dove’s, but no less commanding.
Temple took her role as public relations rep responsible for everything running smoothly like some updated quest in the Philip Marlowe school. Matt knew she wouldn’t be taking this attack lying down.
She’d respond to Danny Dove’s call with every theatrical instinct in her soul. She’d be trying to get to the lights, to shut them down, to end this ugly act and make the store into a dark enigma instead of an overlit shooting gallery.
He put his forearm over his eyes, both to see better against the glaring lighting system above the scene and to defray the bits of glass and food that were raining down in an unholy hail on them all.