"Exactly. But you knew that."
"Yes."
Silence. Necessity was over; the gray area stretched between them.
"I'll tell Molina," he said.
She said nothing. He said good-bye. He wondered if she sat there listening to the dial tone for as long as he did. War was hell, but libido was hell with a flamethrower.
*****************
Temple called Max.
"Hi. How many lady magicians do you know?"
"There's one in Vegas. Melinda downtown.
"Now there are two. Downtown. Shangri-La and Hyacinth."
"Hyacinth?"
"Apparently a cat is part of the act."
"Cats and magicians go together like Siegfried and Roy."
"Then how come Midnight Louie doesn't like you?"
"He must not be a real cat. I take it you want to take in this show."
"It seems like a good idea."
"Consider it done. But not until tomorrow. I'm doing clandestine research on some of our current conundrums. We'll probably have to hit the late show. Okay with you?"
"I don't think I'll be able to sleep until then anyway."
"Come over for dinner tonight. You can tell me what happened at the visitation."
She couldn't. She couldn't quite do it right now. But she couldn't say why, and therefore couldn't say no.
She certainly couldn't tell Max what had happened, and had not happened, after the visitation.
Temple sighed as she hung up. How had she maneuvered herself into lying by omission to everybody?
****************
C. R. Molina hung up after taking Matt Devine's call.
A bank of hyacinths. A woman in a long, black veil. Thirty silver dollars left in little square envelopes.
The homemade funeral for Cliff Effinger couldn't have gone better.
She pulled the photograph of the note found in Effinger's pocket toward her. She had expected Temple Barr to figure more prominently in the unfolding scenario, but the mysterious lady in black was usurping her place.
Devine had sounded strained on the phone, like a man under intolerable pressure. She had a feeling he was holding something back.
She had a feeling that he was about to release the always-hidden spring within himself.
She tapped the chewed end of a pencil on her glass-covered desktop. She wanted to push him, but she didn't want to push him into a place where he had nowhere to go except to jump off.
She liked Matt Devine. She didn't like most people she met through her job. As a policewoman, she was in trouble.
Chapter 38
Tight Places
"Rough day?"
Max swept Temple into the house, haunted by the late Gandolph the Great and Orson Welles.
He gestured to push a stray strand of hair off his face, although his hair was swept back into a sleek ponytail, and nothing about it was stray. Could Max Kinsella be nervous about something?
"Homemade dinner," he said, making a face. "I wish I could take you to restaurants here in Las Vegas."
"You're taking me to a magic show later tomorrow."
"A second-rate one."
"Because the magician is a lady?"
"Because the show is at the Opium Den, a third-rate venue if there ever was one. So tell me about the funeral while I whip up dessert."
Max was good at anything that required assembly, but whipping out the perfect chocolate mousse did require more serious attention.
"Thirty pieces of silver dollars. A trifle obvious," Max pronounced, after he heard the funeral-goer's tale.
"Is that what you're making, a trifle?"
"It's a mousse, and it'll be in your hair if you don't quit harassing the cook."
Max lifted her up to the large kitchen island so she'd be out of his way.
"You know," she said soulfully, "you'd make someone a wonderful wife."
"You know, you've had a little too much before-dinner wine. When did you start today?
Noon?"
"Not till one," Temple said virtuously. "I guess this is really good stuff."
Max eyed the level left in her glass on his next pass through. "Too good to spoil the broth, the salad, the main course and the dessert."
"You've really put yourself out."
"What else can I do, cooped up here?" Max paused before her, grinned. "Actually, I've already traced the flowers by computer."
"Really?"
"Sent from all sorts of places far and near by the dozens. Cost a fortune. The person who ordered them was named Trudy Zelle in every case. The scent of a woman. Does that name ring a bell?"
"Yes, it does. In some foggy, burgundy part of my brain."
Max stopped, clasped her hands. "You're a little reckless tonight. I like it."
He kissed her, and he did it quite well.
"Was the funeral charade too awful?" he asked, still searching for the source of her odd mood. "I suspect that the cashier's check for the whole thing will be signed by this Trudy Zelle.'
Do you suppose her first name is a play on the word, Truly?''
"I'm lost," Temple admitted a little tipsily. "I just came here to eat and be dazzled. Why are there so few women magicians?"
"Male mystique," Max answered promptly. "Magic has been a classic escape route for boys too smart to get stomped in football and too optimistic to give up on girls until they get rid of glasses and zits."
"Do you need a correction, or do you just wear contact lenses to dazzle women?"
"My eyesight is twenty-twenty, Temple darling. And I can see that you're in a very funny mood tonight."
"Do you love me, Max?"
"Of course I do. You're the first person I could afford to love, the first woman I could count on not to be someone or something else than she seemed."
Temple nodded. "Not like this Shangri-La, or Kitty the cutter."
"Are you a little drunk?"
"I should hope so, if I've been working on it since one p.m. in the afternoon. I like to think of myself as a high achiever."
Max tsked like a schoolteacher as he took her empty wine glass away. Probably the T-bird would be next.
"The chef requires a sober palate, Madame. I suppose seeing Effinger laid out was a rather chilling sight, for you as well as for his stepson. How's he holding up?"
Temple giggled. She was more than tipsy.
"Tell me, Temple."
"He's . . . holding up. I'm . . . tired. What do you make of it? Hyacinths and Ladies in Black, nuns even? And then the Cat-woman--"
"That movie has come and gone; Michelle Pfeiffer has unglued her cat ears and peeled off her wetsuit and licked off her whiskers. You'd better have something to eat, and I hope I've made it right."
So Temple sat in one of the huge captain chairs and toyed with sirloin tips on spinach noodles with peppercorn bearnaise sauce. She teethed on tender-crisp asparagus spears and tried not to wash down everything in sight with the dinner wine.
The chocolate mousse was sheer velvet, softer than Midnight Louie's ears, should she care to devour them, and Temple was growing sober despite herself.
She felt full and more peaceful, and guilty as hell. She got up from the kitchen table and wandered into the kitchen proper, with its sleek sacrificial altar masquerading as an island work surface, while Max cleared the plates.
"Should you go out in public?" she asked Max.
"Downtown should be all right. It's still an off-price venue, despite the glamorous new dome that overarches it. I wish I could understand what's bothering you."
"Maybe it's this mystery," Temple said. Not only magicians could use diversion to good effect. "What's the link between Effinger and those two casino deaths? And now his own death, wrapped in the scent of hyacinth and the aura of mysterious Dark Ladies."
"Ladies, plural?"
"You are quick, and too quick for me when I've got molasses in my veins."
"What did you mean, 'ladies.' "
"Oh . . . hyperventilating hyacinths!"
"Temple, you only get inventive in swearing when you're really stressed."