The first and foremost temporary environmental art creator, internationally famous Christo of the wrapped South Pacific island and planted umbrella park in Japan, had a lot of cheap imitators to answer for. But, frankly, many of Las Vegas’s “new” hotel upgrades and attractions turned out to be temporary, just like the dismantled Jackson Action Attraction several floors below.
Van held up the one slender sheet of paper encased by the luxury portfolio.
“Web site addresses,” Santiago declaimed. He didn’t seem to speak, but to pronounce. “All relevant information today must be seen, not read. Print is kaput.”
“You had to print out this page,” Van pointed out.
“Only to show you, madam, what you have at your fingertips, downloaded to your computer screen.”
Van turned to view her twenty-four-inch flat screen, blossoming with lavish architectural images of futuristic Brasilia, the first Third World city of the future, dwarfed nowadays by the wonders of Dubai and the Far East.
“You’re an architect,” Van said, still trying to file her visitor in a logical category.
“I? Santiago? No! Not simply. Architecture is a plebeian art, easily outmoded, hopelessly physical. I created the image collage in three-D, had you the means to view it.”
Nicky finally contributed an explanation. “Santiago is a multimedia entrepreneur. What he creates is light years beyond even the two-thousand-four-upgraded Freemont Street Experience downtown in Glitter Gulch.”
Van was still clutching the bottom line. “That was a seventeen-million-dollar upgrade, Nicky. We can’t begin to compete with that, and especially not during this economic downturn.”
“That’s just it,” he answered. “We need to create only a limited chunk of light and animation for this hotel. It’ll be perfect for the Chunnel of Crime underground link I’m planning between the spiffed-up Gangsters and the CP.”
“CP?” Santiago inquired politely.
“Where we are now,” Temple put in. “The Crystal Phoenix Hotel and Casino.”
“Ah. This is reason for the neon Big Bird on the roof,” said Santiago. “I can redesign that funky chicken into a swan, a bird of paradise to outdazzle the huge neighboring hotels, and I do mean neighborrring. Santiago and the Santiago Consortium have come to this amusing oasis of entertainment to make fireworks out of these dated light and liquid-animation shows.”
“Do you do flamingos?”
Temple asked sweetly. “And you are … ?” Santiago asked.
Santiago had not allowed time for introductions, but Nicky recognized sarcasm when he heard it, so he swiftly stepped in as Temple stood to shake hands.
“This is our public-relations whiz, Miss Temple Barr.”
“Miss Barr,” Santiago repeated, with a bow of his zebra-striped mane. He turned to Van, who was no longer stupefied and who had stood to exchange the omitted courtesies. “Señora Fontana.”
“I am Van von Rhine,” Van responded, retrieving her hand.
“Von Rhine. A German name, surely. Spelled as in … rhinestone?” he inquired.
Nicky answered. “Spelled as in b-o-s-s. Jefe in your native tongue.”
“Chieftain,” Santiago said, with a sage nod.
Van just lifted her eyebrows, which were a flaxen blonde, so it was a subtle gesture of polite interest. Boyz might fret about titles; she was interested in authority.
“How did Nicky find you, Mr. Santiago?”
“No, no. Simply Santiago. I am accessible to all at the same level. And so is my work.”
“He found me,” Nicky said bluntly.
“Indeed?”
Van did not like that, Temple knew, even before she saw the faint parallel lines between those almost-as-faint brows. It underlined the perfumed air of “huckster” that oozed from Simply Santiago like … really high-grade motor oil.
“You seem,” Van told Santiago, “to have more of an inside track with my husband than I do.”
“It’s not like that, Van,” Nicky said. “I was kicking the idea around with just family. Um, my family, and Santiago had already contacted Gangsters with some redo ideas.”
“The Gangsters’ contact being … ?” Van asked.
“Not me. Aldo and the boys. Gangsters Limo Service has been doing gangbuster business despite the recession. They were wondering how to let that cachet spill over to the boutique hotel. And maybe even the Phoenix, in the most, ah, delicate of ways. Santiago has some killer concepts and execution.”
“ ‘Killer concepts. Execution.’ ” Van’s tone had gone scorchingly serene. “So appropriate to a mobster-themed limo service, hotel, and now our heretofore ‘classy’ enterprise.”
Nicky was a born enthusiast, shrewd but hooked on new ideas, new plans, new people. Also on selling them all to other people, especially his wife. He was not about to be singed by a dose of in-house skepticism.
“Van, baby, this’ll be great. Santiago has set up an audiovisual display in his suite that will knock your socks off.”
“His suite?”
“In our hotel,” Nicky explained. “You don’t even have to walk outside to get the full picture.”
“The Fontana Suite, I presume,” Van said, naming the hotel’s prime quarters as she stood. She nodded at Temple. “Come along after you finish that proposal.”
Temple watched the trio leave, Nicky holding the door so he could exit last and favor her with a knowing wink.
As soon as the door shut, Temple perched on Van’s yummy white leather executive chair she’d spotted Santiago eyeing, and started a Web search, as Van had meant her to stay and do. There was no “proposal” to finish. The subject of the search, of course, was Santiago.
Temple was surprised to find that he was not a flake at first sight.
Simply Santiago was a larger-than-life self-made South American entrepreneur and inventor, the Richard Branson of the southern hemisphere. Born Tomás Santiago in modest lower-middle-class circumstances in São Paolo, by age twenty he’d founded a Web-design business. Now a youthful-looking fifty, he supported projects from slum clearance to advanced communications and the more spectacular art forms, like emo music, futuristic media, and the flashiness of Rio’s famous Carnavals.
His trademark white suit, his dramatic face and figure were prominent where big money gathered, at yacht and horse races, international soccer matches, and in Brasilia, the country’s ultramodern and also dazzlingly white city. He made the Fontana brothers pale by comparison, and that was going some.
Temple couldn’t imagine a more likely candidate to build on Gangsters Limo Service’s hip and successful reputation, and upgrade that stylish mob pizzazz to the attached hotel and Las Vegas. In fact, her only question was why such an international bigwig would want to work for a modest boutique hotel.
The answer came as she darkened the screen and rose from Van’s desk. Follow the money. That was always the key to motivations everywhere. Vegas’s big spenders were strapped for tourists and cash, sitting atop billions of dollars of idled projects. Santiago could make a splash at Gangsters and remake it as a showroom for his gaudy media expertise as well as a more focused and successful enterprise.
Van had wanted Temple’s assessment of this guy, his flashy ego, and, most important, his business and personal history. Temple would have to dig far deeper, but on first glance he was the Prince Charming of Chutzpah for good reason.
She headed down a floor to the Fontana Suite, happy she could endorse Nicky’s instincts and eager to see what Simply Santiago had to show them.
Temptations of Temple Bar
Max had set the Mondeo’s driver’s seat in a position of slight recline to accommodate his six-foot-four frame … if he hadn’t lost an inch or two in height with his leg injuries. Taking physical stock and measurements could wait until later.
At the moment, he felt invigorated, happy he could stretch his spine and legs and be driving … in control and reasonably secure for the first time since he’d awakened in the Swiss clinic a week ago, not knowing who he was.