“Let’s just say I can’t resist magnificent animals in the flesh.”
“Yeah, I’ve seen that magician-boyfriend of yours. Or is it ex-boyfriend? I never see you two around much anymore:’
“Max is … touring.” Temple shrugged. “Really, I’d love to see those cats close up, live, and in person. Okay?”
“Sure. Anything you want for getting those crazy decorator people off my case. Who do they think they are?”
“In tune with the universe. Only it’s theirs, not ours.”
“If they try to rearrange my cameramen, it’s all off.”
“And I’ll already be on the scene to baby-sit them when you bring them out from the other studio.”
“Deal.”
Temple nodded and peeled away from Lacey to follow a nondescript hall until she encountered a wall of black linen curtains. She peeked between the first opening.
The Las Vegas Now! set sat in a concrete-floored, high-ceilinged warehouse environment. It was surrounded by a web of thick black cables on the floor and three manned cameras.
The usual “living room” setup of sofa and chairs had been supplemented by banks of large potted palms. Imported pedestals on either side showed off the visiting big cats to advantage.
Yes, Temple had a big cat at home: a big alley cat named Midnight Louie. Yes, she liked to see the magnificent felines, who outweighed a baby grand piano, in person and performing, even though that was recognized for the risk it was since the tragic incident that had instantly closed Las Vegas’s biggest show not that long ago. Siegfried and Roy deserved a standing ovation for their work in preserving the white tigers and lions now lost to the wild.
But what Temple really, really wanted to see was the lesser act and the lesser cats, now on the set and being interviewed and admired. And she didn’t really want to see the Cloaked Conjuror, the masked magician who’d made a hot ticket out ofunmasking the illusions of other magicians. As the significant other of a “legitimate” magician, Temple wished him bad cess, as they used to say in antique plays.
No. She wanted to eyeball, up close and very personal, the woman who had tricked her out of Max’s friendshipcumengagement ring. A very decent little emerald from Max gleamed on her hand at this very moment, but it was a consolation prize, a mere crackerjack token compared to the opal and diamond ring he’d given her for Christmas in New York City almost six months ago.
Temple felt she still contained the heart of a wrathful tiger as she remembered her previous encounter with Shangri-La when the woman magician had played the Opium Den. How easily Temple had been lured onstage as the audience shill. How she had been magically stripped of her romantic ring and then kidnapped with intentions to cross state lines … not hard in Las Vegas, which was cheek-by-Hoover-Dam with Arizona. How weeks later that very ring had turned up on the fringe of a murder scene. Ultimately it had come into the custody of Max’s and her worst enemy, homicide lieutenant C. R. Molina, a seriously overgrown woman whose hands wore nothing more exciting than a big, clumsy class ring, and probably never would.
Temple had last glimpsed the delicate Tiffany construction of her ring in a plastic evidence baggie on Molina’s desk.
That was too detestable to take sitting or lying down, or even standing up, as she was now.
Shangri-La had wrested the ring away and vanished.
Now the Asian enigma had reappeared after several months, newly partnered with the Cloaked Conjuror. Both magicians performed in masks. CC-another target of death threats; was that this year’s trendy problem or what?-wore a striped full-head mask that included a device that garbled his vocal patterns, so he sounded like a secret witness on a TV tabloid show.
Shangri-La was more subtle. She was masked by makeup, painted like a figure from a Chinese opera. A dead white ricepowder face with flagrant red wings shadowing her eyes made her into an effective icon. She leaped about the stage in tattered robes, flaunting snaky tendrils of hair and long mandarin fingernails as curved and sharp as tiger claws.
She was long overdue for a comeuppance for the ring caper, but Temple had not seen hide nor hair nor unfiled fingernail of
her until now.
Now that the Wong party was safely sucking French bottled water and California broccoli florets in their studio-in-waiting, Temple was darned if she was just going to lurk in the wings and watch the thieving witch’s on-camera performance. It was time to confront Shangri-La coming off the set and demand to know how the ring charmed off Temple’s finger onstage had ended up weeks later on the fringes of a parking-lot crime scene.
Chapter 4
MADD TV
Before Temple could work herself up into attack mode, she watched in dismay as the two magicians and their big cats were suddenly signaled to hustle off-camera.
The Cloaked Conjuror and his animals exited left first. Then Shangri-La cartwheeled off to the right.
Paralyzed by the two sudden exits, Temple stood there like a dumbstruck person born in the year of the Ox.
Eve Castenada, the host/interviewer, faced the camera, her aspect disconcertingly sober.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I’m sorry to interrupt the live feature on the big cats and the valuable efforts to breed them for posterity. I’ve just been informed that the president of MADD, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, is attending a conference in Las Vegas and is here to comment on the rush-hour tragedy in Henderson.”
Temple’s mind immediately recalled the front-page story in that morning’s Las Vegas Review Journaclass="underline" three teens wiped out the previous evening by a drunk driver.
The president of MADD was probably the surviving parent of a similar tragedy. Temple watched the set literally darken as the heavyset, serious woman walked into camera range.
Temple’s own mood plummeted from high dudgeon to fellow feeling. When she’d been a TV reporter in Minnesota she’d most dreaded covering survivors. She hated the personal questions she’d had to ask on-camera so much that she’d eventually left the job.
Temple also empathized with the host’s switch from feel-good feature to hard-hitting news item. Pros made the transition look easy, but the people behind the smooth facades paid for their professionalism with nerves later.
Temple felt bodies crowding behind her at the curtain to watch. One of them whispered in her ear.
“What’s this?” A man’s voice.
“President of MADD commenting on that terrible wreck last night.”
“Someone came into the other studio and said we were scratched.”
Temple looked over her shoulder. Kenny Maylord stood there in his bland midwestern business suit and receding hairline, looking worried.
“News bulletins happen on TV,” she said. “Even on feature shows.”
From her left came another insistent push. The blond Baylee Harris.
“Ms. Wong is furious. She has friends among the network stockholders. She does their condos and vacation homes.”
“They’re too far away to make a difference now,” Temple whispered back. “And be quiet. This is a TV studio.”
“This is a disaster for us!” Baylee sounded more sad than angry.
“We’re losing our media momentum. What can we do?” Pritchard asked from behind her.
Temple pulled the curtain shut. “Follow me,” she ordered the Maylord and Wong contingent, retracing her steps as silently as possible.
At least they followed suit until they were out in the deserted hall.
“You don’t understand,” Kenny Maylord said. “Maylords hosts its grand opening only once and that’s tonight. A Friday
daytime slot is cruciaclass="underline" ’
“Ms. Wong seldom appears at small-time events like this,” Pritchard added. “It just happens that some of her biggest Asian clients keep pied-�-terres in Las Vegas. Her next gig is with the sultan of Dubai. She’ll never be available in Las Vegas again.”