She let the black knit clothes puddle on the white-tiled floor, inhaling a scent of soap she'd been too familiar with to notice before. Nice.
Temple only wore perfume for dressy occasions; strong scents turned elevators into torture chambers, and in her profession it was bad business to risk alienating people who might be allergic to Emeraude or Poison.
But she relished the subtler scents of soap and shampoo, and had forgotten that until she had left her bathroom long enough to sense it with refreshed eyes and nose.
She loved its wall-to-wall shiny fifties tiles, its small but elegant quality, the deep, deep porcelain tub. But she was too tired--suffered too much ennui, the heck with sadness, Franchise!--to brood in the bathtub. A fast, hot shower, and then to bed.
She opened the frosted glass door, with its silver stripes at top and bottom that were so very fifties ... and gasped as a wall of silk flowers drenched her bare body like a melting rainbow. The faint, pleasant scent enveloped her, and the jump-start shock it had given her heart soon softened into an edgy, expectant throb.
She wouldn't have been surprised to find the magician himself standing behind the cascade of his upscale paper flowers, but Max was never predictable.
Temple sighed, inhaling more of the fugitive scent, wondering what would contain so extravagant a shower of flowers.
One thing was decided. She took a bath after all.
Chapter 2
Bagged
Only one bag of groceries.
It sat sedately in the Storm's passenger seat, all but buckled in. Usually Temple loaded the trunk with enough bags to hold each other upright, so she could take corners at a slightly racy speed and not worry about making tossed salad.
But an only grocery bag demanded babying: a front-row seat and kinder, gentler right and left turns.
This had been a quick restocking trip, easy enough to accomplish her first afternoon back in town. Temple loved buying groceries, but she hated lugging them out of the car and into the apartment. She always enjoyed the end product of the food-getting process, but loathed the steps in between, including cooking. On the other hand, she loved the artful presentation of food. Tell Temple Barr that her culinary efforts looked much better than they tasted, and she would not be insulted.
This was one area where context pleased her more than content. Of course, she avoided cooking as much as possible, usually "concocting" instead. Whatever she prepared would be nicely arranged, attractive in color, decently calorie- and fat-conscious, and come in a can or a box or a plastic baggie from the fresh produce section.
At least at the butt-end of December she didn't have to worry about the low-fat yogurt melting.
She parked the Storm between an older custom van and Electra Lark's pink Probe. The van was one of those beige behemoths that are so impossible to see around--or through--on the road. And Temple firmly believed in driving while looking through other people's windshields.
She liked knowing what was coming up ahead.
So she was wondering which tenant the annoying van belonged to, and fretting about opening her passenger door wide enough to extract her fat grocery bag from the car without denting the neighboring van or smashing the French bread she had treated herself to. And, of course, she didn't want to scuff her Via Spiga heels on one of the van's nasty big wheels while she was wrestling with the grocery bag and her tote bag, key ring jangling from one hand.
Life was full of small struggles for a small woman.
She set the passenger door to lock and kneed it shut. Not quite hard enough. It had locked, all right, but in an ajar position. She would have to put everything down, unlock the jammed door and re-slam it, once more with more feeling.
Temple uttered one of her rare, unembroidered curses. No "Holy Shish kebob" this time, just the "shish." Besides, no witnesses.
"Can I help you out, little lady?"
Shish! No doubt this was the owner of the van that had hogged the parking spot. .. that had given her no room to maneuver .. . that had made her mis-slam the car door . . . that had forced her to stand here in the parking lot of the house that Electra had built, clutching a bag of groceries to her chest like Louie in his CatAboard Seat.
She turned as much as the space and her burdens permitted, tempted to answer, "Help?
Well, you could back your behemoth out of the way."
But even before she had visual contact with her would-be assistant, she smelled stale smoke and sour clothes. Turning further, juggling her old-fashioned brown paper bag, seeing mostly asphalt until she managed to look up, she glimpsed seedy Western wear: scuffed turned-up boot toes, jeans worn white along the wrinkles, some tin belt buckle and a straw cowboy hat.
Great, a parking lot cowboy.
"Excuse me," Temple gritted between her teeth, ready to shove past the stranger.
"Nope."
She was so busy doing her balancing act that she hardly could see his face under the shadowing brim, but she knew she was in trouble. Temple retreated, backing up between the two vehicles. All right. She would squeeze around the front of her car.
Or had the man's impinging presence backed her up? Because no matter how far she baby-stepped to the rear, he was still too up close and personal for her liking.
And she needed some distance to get a real look at him because she was beginning to think she'd seen that seamed and crooked face before, but where? In the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department mug-shot files? Those photos of the usual suspects she'd had the pleasure of perusing at her leisure the last time she'd been assaulted?
Last time? Yes. It was going to happen again. Her stomach tightened into hollow anticipation and her knees decided to turn in different directions. A sudden sweat felt like a July sun was beating her down instead of the tepid rays of midwinter. Her mind was racing, but getting nowhere, like a revving competition engine.
"Take the tote bag; that's where the money is," she suggested.
The man's unshadowed mouth grinned, revealing neglected teeth, and then she recognized him.
"You're--!"
"I'm flattered, little lady. I guess my reputation precedes me, huh? Let me help you with those big bags."
He followed her suggestion and jerked the tote bag straps off her shoulder. The motion pulled her right arm away from the grocery bag, the key ring in her hand flying. It chimed to a heap under the low-slung van. Temple watched, aghast. Her one weapon out of the picture quite literally.
The man tossed the tote bag to the asphalt behind him.
Clutching the grocery bag like a shield, Temple felt her retreating heels sink into the thick, yellowed St. Augustine sod between the asphalt lot and the wooden stockade fence. The Storm's nose almost touched cedar; no one was meant to walk between the parked cars and the fence, but Temple was ready to tread air if she had to, just to elude this instant dead end.
"You don't want to mess with me," she said, planning to heft the grocery bag at him, ditch the shoes and scramble over the Storm's shiny aqua hood in one graceful, balletic motion. . .
He grabbed the recyclable brown bag, which ripped from top to bottom, and jerked it away.
Groceries pelted Temple's feet and rolled under the vehicles, joining her keys.
Effinger's dingy boot crushed a loaf of fresh, warm French bread in a crackling waxed wrapper. The thick crust, pulverized, sounded like bone shattering.
Temple began scrambling as planned, but Effinger's lizard-skinned hand grabbed her wrist and slung her back against the warm metal side of the van.