She was hardly persona plus grata at the Bellagio, but now she strode into the elegant arena, a girl gladiator to the marbleentry-hall-manner born.
The lavish Chihuly ceiling sculpture unfolded above her like the gigantic umbrella of blown glass craftsmanship it was, a great gleaming garden of exotic blooms never seen anywhere but in Alice’s Wonderland. Here in Las Vegas it was a true Hanging Garden of Hollywood Babylon.
The Bellagio had been the first Las Vegas hotel-casino to put Art with a capital Ah on the Las Vegas menu. Now newer megahotels like the Venice and the Paris rushed to mix high art with middlebrow tourism. It worked like Gangsters funky upscale limos … available on the cheap.
Much as Temple knew Las Vegas lows and highs in any area, she was eager to see a Bellagio celebrity-level suite, in which Amelia Wong and her Jimmy Choo shoes were sure to be ensconced.
The elevator whisked Temple higher than an elephant’s eye in no time. It disgorged her on plush eggplant carpeting so deep purple and thick that it consumed her vintage Lucite heels like a Midway sword swallower.
This was “puttin’ on the Ritz” … literally!
Temple slogged through the pure-wool loop jungle to a door whose Arabic numeral had been replaced by a Chinese character in brass. Or twentyfour-karat gold. Who knew?
Temple lifted the character-cum-knocker and let trendy greedom ring.
After a full minute, the door opened. Temple was admitted to the inner sanctum.
The doorman was the tall Swedish personal trainer, today a symphony in sweat-soaked gray warm-up suit with spaghetti—
string flaxen hair dripping onto his broad shoulders.
On either side of the door stood the suit-clad bodyguards. They still wore mirror shades. Temple had the antsy feeling of
getting the once-over … at least twice.
Beyond her stretched an expansive living room with furniture Maylords had never dreamed of. The odd Renoir or Degas highlighted a distant wall. The carpeting here was ankle-deep compared to the hall.
Temple prepared to mush forward into the lap of luxury. But first a bodyguard opted to detain her signature tote bag. It wasn’t that the tote bag was designer issue. It was just that she always carried one. If a life could be portable, Temple’s resided inside that tote bag.
So when an alien hand snagged it off her shoulder as she stepped into the suite, that was a moving violation in her book.
“He!” y
“Just checking the bag. Ma’am.”
Suit-‘n’-Sunglasses Man’s voice broadcast all the warmth and mechanical monotone personality of Hal, the 2001: A Space
Odyssey computer.
Ma’am! What a fighting word! Did this clone think she was over the hill or what?
Temple tugged back.
“‘Scuse,” came a gelato-smooth voice at ten o’clock high over her struggling shoulder.
Gelato was the Italian word for “ice cream,” and the dude who intervened wore the signature ice-cream suit of a Fontana brother. Also, his mirror shades were twenty degrees more wraparound than the bodyguard’s and bore the magic insignia
“Bulgari.”
Temple and the Fontana boys went way back. Temple’s mainstay client was the Crystal Phoenix Hotel, owned by Nicky Fontana, the white sheep son of a mob family. His nine twenty-something-and-beyond brothers were an astounding look-alike litter of looks to die for, old-country first names like Aldo and Emilio, jet-set tailoring, and vague occupations. They treated her with the elaborate and fond courtesy of a pack of Italian greyhounds riding shotgun for a Yorkshire terrier.
“Fontana Inc. will examine Miss Barr’s bag,” the unidentified Fontana told the anonymous guard. “Step this way, miss.
Just pretend this is an airport security station.”
Temple couldn’t believe it. A long gilt-slathered Renaissance table sat to the right of the door, and on it she was expected
to deposit her bag for inspection.
“Fontana Inc.? Come on!” she whispered to the anonymous Fontana brother, desperately seeking his name in her memory bank.
“So sorry, dear lady. We have been hired by Wong Inc. to assist her usual muscle … I mean, security forces, of course.”
“Of course, of course, unless it’s Mr. Eduardo! What are you guys doing here? Why are you searching me?”
“We are assisting. I will delicately paw through your tote bag enough to satisfy the brutes at the door. Also to protect any highly personal items you may carry from the glare of public revelation.”
Whichever Fontana brother it was, and Temple couldn’t ID him through the wine-dark Aegean shades, he did indeed tiptoe his fingertips through the contents of her bag. “Hmmm.”
The Reese’s peanut butter cup wrapper. Ooops! Two of them. Temple cringed.
“Aha.”
A bar stub from Les Girls strip joint on Paradise. She knew the all-female management, for Pete’s sake. For Patty’s sake, actually. It was a feminist strip club. Sort of. Honest. You had to have been there.
An item dangled from a small, steel-ball chain. Pepper spray. “I’ll have to confiscate this for the duration of your visit,” he
said. Sternly.
“Gee, I thought the Asian community liked hot peppers.” “Cooked, not carried,” was the terse reply.
Her defensive canister disappeared into a supernaturally flat Fontana brother suitcoat pocket. Amazing how many loaded Berettas the same pockets could conceal!
“Listen,” she whispered. “We are sympatico here.”
“Exactly. That is why I do not brandish … this.”
He flashed her computerized calorie counter before palming it politely and adding it to the pocket that held her pepper spray. “Discretion is a Fontana brother’s middle name.”
“Really, I thought it was Turncoat.”
“I will turn out my coat pockets and return your … goods, intact, when you leave.”
Temple shook her head. Amelia Wong must be superparanoid if she had beefed up her security forces with locals. It was high time she herself had an actual conversation with the feng shui Wonder Woman. Temple wondered how many layers it would take to peel this onion.
She quickly found out. Baylee, looking haggard for a blonde, passed Temple to her brunette coworker, Pritchard Merriweather, whose fatigue simply made her look hard-nosed, like Molina.
“Asking you to this strategy session was a mere courtesy,” Pritchard said. “You might have some slight insight on the local situation. Seeing Ms. Wong personally is impossible.”
“Nevertheless.” Temple paused after delivering a word that was almost longer than she was. At least she had fixed Pritchard’s attention. “I’m the only one here with local policeconnections. Positive police connections,” she added, glancing to the uncooperative Fontana brother who shall remain nameless simply because she couldn’t ID him.
“You have positive police connections?”
“Positively. Perhaps ‘Homicide’ strikes a chord with you?” “You know powers that be in Homicide?”
It was really called the Crimes Against Persons Unit now, but “Homicide” had such a more lethal ring to the uninitiated.
“Merely the lieutenant overseeing the case, Molina by name. You did hear that name mentioned? And Alch and Su, the investigating detectives … old acquaintances. Need I say more?”
Temple certainly hoped not, because this story of hers was like unblenderized California orange juice made from
tangerines: pulp fiction.
The word “Homicide” had come in handy. Pritchard shattered along the nerve lines.
“Ms. Wong has just finished her Zen Pilates routine. She may be mellow enough … now … to speak with an outsider. I’ll knock, but I don’t guarantee an answer.”
Temple nodded, following Pritchard through an enormous dining room and down an endless hall lined with Great Masters to a set of double doors wide enough to admit Jonah’s whale. Pritchard’s bony knuckles rapped. Once. Twice. Thrice. Thrice always worked in fairy tales and it did here. “Yes?” came a high, imperious voice.