"You haven't eaten too much tonight," Matt said.
Only then did she realize how closely he had been watching her.
"The dentist. Kind of yucky. But I've tasted everything, and loved every moment."
"Even the P.I. report."
"The best parts. I wish I knew what Molina was really going to do about Effinger, though."
"What can she do?"
"More than we might think."
"I wish you weren't so suspicious of her. She's really, well, I can't exactly say personable. She has integrity."
"Look what that got you."
He shrugged. "That's the past. I'm finally seeing beyond it. And what I see is--"
"Yes?"
"You."
Oh, my. For a moment Temple felt the room spin. She wasn't sure if she was drinking because she was happy, or because she was not happy. The line was very fine between sober and tipsy, between optimism and despair.
She checked her watch, then changed the subject, which was her.
"Eleven-thirty. Do we need to decamp back to the Times Square Bar?"
"Probably. This cigar smoke is going to get to me soon anyway."
They wandered out of Hamilton's trendy haze, overlooking the ersatz New York below.
Temple was suddenly tired, dispirited, guilty with the weight of too much not said.
Matt took her elbow to guide her through the frenetic casino, but her real escort was dread.
She pictured telling him the truth about Max and her in his apartment with the alien red sofa front and center. Would he go berserk, as he had once when he had less to lose, both in terms of furniture and expectations? How far had he come since Chicago? Enough to expect an intimate end to an extravagant evening?
When should she say it? What should she say?
The bright red apple hung poised over the New Year's revelers as the Big Band sound lured celebrants onto the dance floor. Matt and Temple were seated at a lilliputian excuse of a table for two, and champagne cocktails in narrow flutes were placed before them. The last libation on the evening's ticket.
They sat silent, not willing to compete with the swelling, seductive music, watching couples swing-dance.
The clock ticked toward midnight, and Temple's Midnight Louie glass slippers would not melt, nor would the Storm in the parking lot turn into a pumpkin, although its owner might be reenvisioned as a rat if the whole truth were known. . . .
"It's almost midnight," Matt said, standing and leaning over her.
He offered her a hand. "I think I can manage to shuffle through Auld Lang Syne.' "
It was an offer she couldn't refuse.
Temple stood, aware of a subtle tremor in her frame: fatigue and something else.
They went to the edge of the crowded floor, and then the artificial blue-black sky of New York-New York was the desert's impenetrable dome again, and the music came small and wee from a tape deck and their feet moved like scorpions slow-dancing on the sands of time.
The orchestra segued into "Auld Lang Syne," the boozy, maudlin rhythms whose words everybody knew, and everybody around them was singing and so were they, Temple just humming.
Midnight was announced with a dramatic gong sounding for twelve long drawn-out moments.
And Matt kissed her, a wonderful, searingly enthusiastic kiss on the mouth that hurt like hell, hurt almost as much as half-truths and lies. Bloody lies.
Temple broke away too late and headed for the table, blinded by her contact lenses.
Matt followed. Shocked. Concerned. Contrite. All the wrong, wrong things.
"Temple."
The bells still rang, and around them people celebrated with bad booze and good music as they always did.
He put a hand to his lips. "Did I do that?"
"No!" She scooped some ice out of the water goblet she'd ordered to dilute the effect of all those varied drinks, and wrapped the inexcusably tiny cocktail napkin around it, then pressed it to the inside of her cheek.
"The dentist?" He was using his own napkin to dab at the blood on his lips.
"Yes. The dentist." She moved the ice to the ache on her cheek, unsure what would stop the bleeding, once started.
Matt was watching her with the helpless inaction of the onlooker. "Do you want to visit the ladies room? Or ... I'm sure they have some sort of first-aid station here."
"I'm fine. Just give me a minute."
He frowned. "What have you got on your face?"
He was staring at her left cheekbone and eye. She knew instantly the soggy napkin had smeared the makeup.
She didn't know whether he read the answer to his question in her eyes, or in his own memories of the past, but his face hardened. She didn't know which devastated him more, the truth he finally saw for himself, or the liar he finally saw in her.
Chapter 7
A Cup of Kindness Yet
Temple waited alone under the merciless neon glare of New York- New York's glitzy urban porte cochere, longing for sunglasses. It felt every minute of almost one o'clock in the morning.
She thought people kept looking at her, but maybe the drawing card wasn't her slightly cracked facial facade. Maybe it was her festively glittering dress and shoes. Still, she wished for the concealing offices of her usual eyeglass frames. Wearing contact lenses made her feel exposed. It didn't help that the new contacts, not to mention the blinding illumination all around her, made her eyes tear. She might have matched the surrounding glitz, but she felt like a Black Hole sucking all that light and energy into some vast, hidden and concentrated emptiness.
Matt had insisted she wait for him to bring the car around. His grim fury may have been on her behalf, but it sheathed her in icy isolation. Around her, people came and went, deliriously tipsy or well en route.
Even the hotel's cheery stretch limousines rebuked her. She watched anxiously for the Storm's impudent aqua silhouette among the upscale flock of precious-metal-colored Infinitis and Lexi.
At last the Storm swooped to the curb, the passenger door popping open simultaneously.
Temple got in, grateful for the privacy if not the continuing conversation. Matt's last, ironic comment still echoed inside the Black Hole: "Maybe you'll finally figure out that he isn't worth protecting."
Neither spoke until the entrance glare of New York-New York was a comet trail behind them, quickly shrinking against the vast inkiness of nighttime Las Vegas.
"I wish you'd told me," Matt said.
"So do I, but, then again, maybe not."
"I don't get it. Why you keep shielding that guy? He's brought thugs down on you for the second time."
"How could I have stopped what happened to me?"
"You couldn't. It's not your fault. But I'm with Molina. Why do you keep denying that Max Kinsella is nothing but trouble? You're just like my mother."
"That's it, isn't it? I'm your mother and Max is another face of Cliff Effinger. Having enemies may not be Max's fault."
"Letting you play sitting duck for them is."
"What can he do? Kill them?"
"Maybe he did. Lieutenant Molina tells me the first two goons haven't been seen since the parking garage incident."
Temple was silent in the face of that fact, wondering why Matt didn't see the obvious, other than the fact that the obvious is always as mysterious as the hand in front of your face, a magnified surface of such familiarity that it becomes foreign when confronted too closely.
Matt sighed, automatically navigating the traffic stream of the Strip.
"I guess all the martial arts exercise was useless."
"Not useless. But I was trapped between a van and my car with an armload of groceries. All he got in was one good wallop, really, but it knocked my glasses off and I hit my head on the van. Then it was messy while I tried to scramble over the Storm's hood to get away. Electra came to my rescue with a brass knuckle of keys. End of story."
"One guy, huh? And it wasn't either of the missing thugs?"