Actually, they’d gotten a sensational story out of it. Temple’s stock would be high with them.
With the Las Vegas law … not.
“Don’t you have friends at the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department?” Van von Rhine asked, pacing her pristine office.
Nicky was still at Gangsters, waiting with his uncle and brothers during their separate interrogations by Detective Ferraro’s partner.
“Ah … acquaintances,” Temple told Van. “I can call … one … to check on the progress of the case. He’s a great guy, but when it comes to department policy, I can’t guarantee Detective Alch will tell me the weather.”
Van was not appeased. “I knew flaunting the family’s … Italian … connections would go terribly wrong. What was Nicky thinking?”
“How to cheaply enhance a venue during an economic meltdown by appealing to public curiosity. Gangsters eternally fascinate the public. Rap culture was built on reinventing it.”
“We don’t need our own Ocean’s Eleven through Thirteen happening right here beneath the Crystal Phoenix.”
“That is kinda cool,” Temple remarked. “It hadn’t occurred to any of us.”
“What?” Van paused. She moved like a harried executive, but her face and mind were cool and collected.
“The Ocean’s Eleven parallel. The ten brothers and their uncle. What happened to their father, by the way?”
Van’s delicately glossed lips vanished into a straight, stressed line. “Shot down when Nicky was still a preadolescent. The ‘last hit’ in Vegas. His grandmother had made a legitimate fortune on a pasta factory. She underwrote the Crystal Phoenix. Now all of it’s endangered, thanks to this angel-hair-pasta-brained publicity scheme of his.”
“Maybe not.”
“A body in a hidden vault beneath the juncture where the Crystal Phoenix and Gangsters property lines meet? An underhanded criminal alliance implied between the two hotels? A secret vault? Only a few silver dollars may have been found under the body, but they raise the shady ghost of Jersey Joe Jackson, a founding spirit of the Crystal Phoenix. We are ruined, Temple. It’s just a matter of time.”
“What if the body could be tied to another gang, something very far from gangsters?”
“What do you mean? How? You’re a wizard at manipulating events, but I don’t think a dead guy who could sing Italian opera can be wished away.”
“Something about the body, the way it was … arranged, rang a bell with me.”
“Publicity at any cost?”
“No, I’m thinking of a secret society.”
“Oh, great. Like the Mafia?”
“No, a mystical secret society called the Synth. I’m serious, Van. The way the body was laid out was ritualistic.”
“Well,” Van said bitterly, sitting on her immaculate white leather chair, “I guess you know more about crime and bodies than the average hotel executive does.”
Temple understood her frustration. She was worried sick about Nicky and his brothers and had no way to help them.
Temple sat and leaned forward over the glass-topped desk. “It was more the way the red lining of the cloak was arranged. You noticed that the body’s flung-out arms and legs made something of a star shape?”
“No. I wasn’t close enough to see, but now I will imagine that, which is worse.”
“The police are going to zero in on the contortions, but that wasn’t the bizarre part.”
“If you say so, Temple.”
“It was the cloak lining. I knew it reminded me of something, some weird shape I’d seen before. Then I realized I was remembering an outline, not a piece of flagrant cloth, and I’d seen it at the site of an unsolved murder, of a professor at the university campus.”
She quickly sketched the configuration of a forgotten constellation’s major stars on Van’s pristine notepad.
“Our dead body is part of a serial killing?” Van demanded.
“More like a sequential killing, I think. Anyway, once I get a chance to check my records, I can tell you whether the poor guy’s cloak is a dead match to Ophiuchus.”
“Off-ee-YOO-cuss? I have some background in the classics, but … is this name of a lost Greek play?Off-ee-YOO-cuss Rex?”
Van had wanted Temple to smile after all these grim events, so she did.
“No, Van. It’s the thirteenth sign of the zodiac.”
“I’m a little superstitious, so I know there are only twelve signs of the zodiac. I’m a Virgo.”
“And I’m a Gemini. Traditionally. Yet, in December, the sun passes through the constellation of a man twined by a serpent. But this interesting pairing doesn’t name a sun sign like the constellations of Libra and Virgo and Gemini do. As far as I and some interested parties were able to determine concerning the death of the professor, the star positions of Ophiuchus resemble a distorted pentagram and are a mystical symbol of the mysterious Synth.”
“That sounds … truly ominous, Temple.”
“Actually, it gives me a good angle on current events and a possibility of diverting police and media interest to individuals and enterprises far removed from Fontana family affairs.”
“That,” said Van, “would encourage me to regard this Ophiuchus entity as a friend of the family and make sure Nicky gives you a raise.”
When a Body Meets a Body
I have not had occasion to explore the bowels of the Crystal Phoenix since the Jersey Joe Jackson Action Attraction ceased to be attractive. My solo return to the scene of the crime puts me in a reminiscing mood.
It seems like only yesterday that the “new” Vegas promoting “family values and entertainment” fizzled like a glass of lukewarm iced tea at a stripper joint. Vegas hastily returned to soap-opera status: The Luxe and the Lustful.
I found it rather poignant when the underground mine-ride cars vanished, leaving only unused tracks in their wake. This area was now a dead-end destination, no longer a rowdy, raucous place a guy would expect to encounter fun and profit.
This subterranean sweatbox had a lot of history before it was resold as an entertainment venue. A gang of would-be heisters had used the tunnel for a robbery scheme but was undone by my able sleuthing work, thanks to aid from the world of Elvisimitators, now called “Elvis tribute performers.”
The actual King and I crossed paths here a few times, his path and presence being totally ectoplasmic. I find it interesting that the only individual in my circle of acquaintances, human and otherwise, who has also apparently had an encounter with the ghost of Elvis is Mr. Matt Devine, the former priest.
I believe my species has a special connection to the spiritual, hence our gift of nine lives. Or so. I am now working on the “or so” portion, which is why I sincerely hope my assumptions are true.
Mr. Matt never claimed to see Elvis’s ghost. There was merely an anonymous caller to his radio advice program who seemed to sound exactly like Elvis. This fact was vetted by Mr. Matt’s ex–seminary mentor now in the FBI, namely Mr. Frank Bucek. These “mentors” are apparently important folk in younger lives. (I would not know, given my mama was forced to train all of us kits on the street and move us on ASAP.)
Anyway, the world is full of would-be Elvii. Las Vegas particularly attracts the breed, and tourists have been married by “Elvis” almost since the King’s death more than thirty years ago.
Maybe that is what Elvis and Mr. Matt have common. They both performed marriage ceremonies, one more religiously than the other. Now Mr. Matt is eager to move on to taking vows instead of administering them. I must admit he and my Miss Temple make a photogenic couple, but I and my Miss Temple also look good in pictures, together or apart.
I have no intention of letting my significant other of the human sort leap into matrimony without me as a codicil.
As I understand it, a codicil is not anything fishy, but an add-on to legal matters, marriage being one of them. I plan to be the codicil on bedroom protocol. That is, I will retain my bed-snoozing rights so long as I can stand what else may go on there. I was not born yesterday or even a couple leap years ago.