Cat in a Red Hot Rage Read online

  So that emergency ambulance run from the Neon Nightmare was for naught. My poor Miss Temple! Just when she had intended to tell Mr. Max “good-bye,” he has gone to the Great Good-bye in the Sky.

  My whiskers droop. He died young. I can understand Miss Midnight Louise’s fury at the accident. It had looked rigged to me too. Mr. Max was too expert to take a fall without sabotage in the picture. I admit that I will miss my human rival and look-alike.

  My Miss Temple will be beside herself when she finds out. For now, I must forsake the trail of Mr. Max’s fatal fall and go whither she goeth, to be there when the roof caves in. And it will.

  Chapter 5

  Twist and Shout

  Temple pulled her red Miata into the Crystal Phoenix’s entry area to shouts and applause.

  She jumped out as the parking valet took it, realizing she was wearing her hot pink Steve Madden slides. Maybe that was what was getting all the twisting of necks and shouting.

  “Amore,” the Italian word for love, was supposed to hit your eye like a “big pizza pie,” according to the old song, but Temple was being whomped in the iris by a wave of purple and red clothing.

  People clothed in both colors were streaming through the glass doors into the Crystal Phoenix lobby like so many bicolor birds of paradise.

  People. Check that: women. Women wearing T-shirts and feather boas and high heels and wide-brimmed hats, dragging wheeled purple leopard-pattern luggage, wearing red lipstick and purple eye shadow, women of size, women of no size, like her. Wait! Older women. Well, “seasoned” women, as Gail Sheehy had put it so profitably in her latest life-state book.

  The lobby was teaming with red and purple. Temple felt positively dowdy in pink. Then she spotted a pink hat here and there amid the flock and felt better.

  Until she remembered that a woman in pink had been killed.

  She had no idea where Electra might be, so she dialed her landlady’s cell phone.

  “Yes?”

  The voice was brisk, female, and not Electra’s.

  Temple couldn’t have misdialed; Electra’s cell phone number was in her directory.

  She muttered something about misdialing anyway.

  “You were calling Mrs. Lark?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who is this?”

  “Who is this?”

  “The police. Who are you and why are you calling?”

  “I’m a friend of Mrs. Lark’s and I heard that something had gone wrong at the hotel.”

  At that moment Temple became aware of a tall pale figure behind her, and turned. It wasn’t a ghost, it was a Fontana brother in an expensive Italian ice-cream suit, accompanied by her errant aunt Kit, who had not come home to the Circle Ritz the night before and was looking not the least worse for wear.

  Temple’s mother’s sister, a New York City actress turned romance novelist, had come to stay with Temple for a few days. She had surprised the heck out of Temple by ending up having more than a few dates with the eldest of Vegas’s Most Eligible Bachelor frat pack, the nine single Fontana brothers. Their uncle, Macho Mario Fontana, was the last of the mob bosses. The brothers were presumed to be elegant quasi-muscle around town. They owned, among other things, Gangsters’ vintage limousine service. The youngest, and number ten, was married and owned this hotel.

  Aldo Fontana—tall, dark, and dangerous—took the phone from a frazzled Temple’s hand. “This is Crystal Phoenix security,” his majestic baritone mentioned, almost threatened in a silky, seductive way. Kit rolled her eyes behind his looming back and pantomimed fanning herself and swooning.

  “May I help you?” Aldo held the phone away from his ear so that Temple could hear the raging soprano aria on the other end. Temple guessed who it was; a female seriously disinclined to swooning: Detective Su.

  Meanwhile, her aunt Kit, a thirty-year-older petite version of herself, cozied up to her side.

  “Sorry I didn’t call to announce a change of venue last night, but it was awfully late.”

  Temple could easily imagine a woman forgetting the time in Aldo’s company, and shrugged. “I know a New Yorker like you can take care of yourself, Aunt, and anything that might come up.”

  “Speaking of that, what’s going on? Why are you here apparently being berated by a cell phone?”

  “Electra called me at the Circle Ritz. There’s a death connected to this convention and the authorities are holding her for questioning. That was one of the detectives in charge of the case.”

  Meanwhile, Aldo had snapped her cell phone shut and returned it with a flourish.

  “The Lalique Suite. The police have set up shop there.”

  Temple raised an eyebrow. She’d been the hotel’s PR person for a year now. The Crystal Suites were pretty fancy for police use.

  “ ‘This convention’?” Kit looked around, as if seeing all the purple and red for the first time, and indeed, she probably was. A swarthy Italian hunk in expensive clothes as pale and soft as creamery butter would be hard to see past.

  Temple took her aunt’s arm as they followed Aldo to the private elevators. “ ‘Big Wheel in Las Vegas’ convention for the Red Hat Sisterhood,” she explained, having gleaned all that from attendees on the way in. “It’s for older women with style, joy, and pizzazz. Like you.”

  “Oh. Except that I’m with Aldo and they’re not.”

  Temple eyed the many women around them who had stopped short, riveted by his tall, smooth passage through them.

  “I wouldn’t bet on that if you were so foolish as to unhand his arm and let him loose. They’d be on him like an expensive suit.”

  “But I’m not going to unhand him,” Kit said. “I’m sure Aldo can convince the police that Electra Lark is not a crook.”

  “It’s ridiculous,” Temple agreed when the three of them were alone in the stainless-steel elevator, wafting upward, “for anyone to think my landlady would kill someone.”

  Aldo waved his manicured fingers. One would never guess they were rattlesnake-fast to draw a Beretta.

  “The police always make snap judgments,” he said, suiting gesture to words. “It saves them thinking. I’ve paged Nicky. He’ll put a stop to this police nonsense.”

  “Nicky?” Kit asked.

  Aldo smiled tenderly down at her and even Temple felt the heat. “My youngest brother. He owns the hotel.”

  “Wow. And what do you own, big boy, besides a Viper and an expensive collection of aged scotch?”

  “For one thing, my luscious linguini, a race horse.”

  Kit was truly shocked, and Temple too. She’d never known what supported the litter of Fontana brothers, excepting Nicky, the white sheep of the family, and some iffy side businesses.

  Kit leaned into Temple to whisper an explanation for the pet name. “He thinks I’m really rather . . . supple for my age. All those cheerleader splits didn’t hurt.”

  “Aunt! I don’t need to know these things,” Temple hissed back. “What’s your horse’s name?” she asked Aldo to get the discussion onto a higher plane.

  “Midnight Louie,” he answered. “Black as coal, fast as greased stainless steel, took second in his last race. A real comer on the inside.”

  “But—”

  “I figure your cat has been lucky for you and has at least nineteen lives, from what I’ve seen. What can it hurt?”

  Louie with a thoroughbred namesake! Temple doubted that he cared much about such connections, but she was impressed.

  The elevator doors spit them out onto an aubergine-carpeted hallway, deep purple to the common folk. Temple had never seen the Crystal Suites, nor had much needed to. Now she did.

  The soft-lit sconces along the silver suede-covered halls were priceless vintage Lalique frosted glass.

  The suite itself had huge Lalique door handles of facing phoenixes, commissioned for the hotel.

  Another Fontana brother opened it before they could ring the bell, but it was not a usual member of the “frat pack.”

  “Nick
y!” Temple cried, embracing her boss (as near as a freelancer can have a boss) and biggest client and remembering to add, “It’s me, Temple, passing as a blonde.”

  “Good thing it’s you,” he said. “Van doesn’t like me canoodling with any blondes but her.”

  Van had just arrived to peek over his shoulder.

  “Temple, I see you’ve come over to the light side,” she said, smiling at the blond dye job.

  Nicky’s wife was an Alfred Hitchcock blonde, smooth, cool, and dignified, like the stars of his best films: Grace Kelly, Kim Novak, Eva Marie Saint, and animal rescuer Tippi Hedron. One of her films, a rare lesser Hitchcock effort named Marnie, had featured a young pre-Bond Sean Connery! Yum. Temple may be engaged now, but age did not wither nor custom stale the Scottish actor’s sex appeal.

  Van von Rhine was Nicky’s wife and the hotel manager. Where he was all macho charm, like any Fontana brother, she was cool Anglo efficiency and smoldering drive. If they were both on this scene, the situation was serious.

  Nicky high-fived Aldo, then the couple settled in to hear Kit introduced, managing not to appear surprised that Aldo’s latest squeeze was also Temple’s visiting maternal aunt.

  “Listen,” Nicky said, his low tone pulling everybody conspiratorially close.

  “Van and I got this TV cop show off the main floor. We do have a murder on the premises, and your friend Electra was there for the denouement,” he told Temple. “I don’t know how even a sharp PR diva like you is gonna keep both the hotel and your friend out of the headlines.”

  “Electra’s my landlady and I doubt she’d kill a gnat. Can I talk to her?”

  Van spoke for the first time. “It’s a he-she detective team. She spits nails; he slings mashed potatoes. Do love your hair.”

  “Su and Alch,” Temple diagnosed. “I know them. He’s tougher than he acts, but she isn’t. She’s the real deal, a mini-Molina. Lieutenant Molina is my bane on the LVMPD. Born to be bad, particularly to me. Thanks for the vote for the hair color. It’s temporary, though.”

  “Bleach never is, baby,” Nicky put in.

  “Eventually,” Temple said, finished with coiffure matters. “Keep Aldo and Kit on the fringes with your camp. I’ll wade in and see if they’ll let me talk privately to Electra.”

  “You a lawyer now?” Aldo asked incredulously.

  “No,” Kit answered, “but she is a Carlson on the distaff side and we are nothing to mess with. Viking stock, you know.”

  Aldo blinked at the image of petite, low-rise Kit, or Temple, as Valkyries.

  What did he know? Columbus had been preceded to North America by the Vikings. Everyone north of the forty-fifth parallel knew that!

  Temple went inside first. The room was expensively pale in decor and furnishings, except for a big bright blob of red and purple in the seating area near the floor-to-ceiling windows.

  As she approached, Temple saw the canny detectives had placed Electra facing the windows so her features were in blinding daylight while they were silhouettes to her aging eyes.

  Bullies!

  But it worked.

  Electra was in her sixties, which Temple now regarded with shock and awe after a heart-to-heart with her aunt about what aging women could expect. She was almost thirty-one, unmarried (although with strong prospects), and suddenly very sympathetic to the problems of aging women in a culture that worshiped young and thin and shallow.

  She appreciated Electra’s free spirit even more after a few heart-to-hearts with her aunt.

  She appreciated the landlady’s tropical muumuus color-coordinated to the temporary dyes she sprayed onto her halo of springy white hair. The wedding chapel business she ran out of the Circle Ritz. Being game to hop on a motorcycle at her age, wearing a helmet that proclaimed “Speed Queen.” Her warm and lively interest in all her tenants, including Matt’s emergence from ex-priest to buff boy about town. All were part of the Circle Ritz mystique, and Electra Lark was its resident fairy godmother.

  No way would this lady off somebody. Of course, such a conviction would never stand up in court, so Temple would have to see that it never got that far.

  As she came even with the silhouettes of Alch and Su, she noticed with astonishment that Electra’s hair was all-over purple. An ex-undercover girl in honey-bunnie blond shade number 43 was hardly one to criticize.

  “Electra!” Temple said, to let her know she had backup.

  The face that turned to her, usually haloed with good cheer and motherly encouragement, suddenly looked pale, aged, drained.

  “Temple! Thank God you’ve come.”

  “Just what do you think she can do for you?” Su asked.

  Su was a tiny Asian-American woman not much older than Temple who managed to convey Green-giant size competency. Temple supposed that was from being a little woman in a big man’s profession.

  “Can we talk?” Temple asked the detectives, moving away from the windows.

  They followed her out of Electra’s hearing range.

  “I know this woman,” Temple said. “She’s not a killer.”

  “Neither are most of us,” Su pointed out, “until something pushes us over the edge.”

  Morrie Alch, a teddy bear of a homicide detective with nicely polished claws, was staying out of it. Women’s business.

  “At least you can tell me why Electra’s being questioned,” Temple said.

  “We don’t have to tell you anything,” Su said, close to a sneer.

  It must have chapped Su’s chopsticks that her boss, Lieutenant C. R. Molina, had sent Temple undercover as a teenager at the recent Teen Queen Idol reality TV show set, instead of her.

  Competing guys were standard police issue, but dueling gals could be meaner.

  “Okay, ladies.” Alch puckered his lips judiciously. “Miss Barr might get something we can’t out of the . . . suspect. The lieutenant would like that.”

  “And then,” Temple said, “I’d like you to let Electra go about her business.”

  “Not!” Su.

  Alch frowned.

  “I bet you couldn’t pry her away from this convention,” Temple argued. “She’s volunteered to set things up. And she wouldn’t leave Las Vegas. She runs two local businesses. She has local people like me to look out for her. Simply being found near a dead body would have had me in lockup numerous times.”

  “Should have,” Su said.

  “Lighten up, ladies,” Alch said. While they were both scowling at him for that method of address, his palms lifted in a peace gesture.

  “We have grounds for holding Mrs. Lark,” he told Temple, dead serious. “But not enough. I’ve checked with Molina. She’s not ready to bring Mrs. Lark in for questioning on the evidence so far. So, you can take her outta here when you go, or put her back with the other birds of a feather.”

  Su glared at him with soundless fury, but Alch gave her A Look. He gave Temple another one. “I’m going to let you take her out of here, but that’s not an irreversible option. And anything of interest she tells you, you tell us. Right?”

  “Absolutely, Detective Alch.”

  Su snorted.

  Molina had okayed Temple’s custody of Electra? What was the Iron Maiden of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department up to?

  That’s what Nicky and Van and Aldo and Kit wanted to know as Temple retreated to their position by the long Italian leather sofa against the wall.

  “What’s the deal?” Nicky asked in a whisper.

  “I get to talk to Electra, and take her out of here if she doesn’t do something foolish and confess.”

  “Great, but why?” Aldo wanted to know. “The cops never back off unless they have to.”

  “Not enough evidence to hold her,” Temple said. “I think. Maybe they’re just giving her enough rope.”

  “We don’t want this case dragging on any more than they do,” Van said.

  Nicky winked at Temple. “She’s saying you better solve this one for the cops. Get them out of our hair. Out
of her vanilla-smooth French twist.” Nicky ran teasing fingers into it, making Van’s eyes glare steel-blue. She shook him loose.

  Not many people knew “Van” was short for “Vanilla.” Temple did.

  Van smoothed her hair back into place. “Do whatever you can, Temple, to cool down this situation.”

  “Right.” First, she had to find out from Electra what was really going on.

  “I’m lucky I got them to cut you loose,” Temple whispered as she settled beside Electra on the cushy leather sofa.

  Electra clasped her hand with matronly zest.

  “So nice to see you here, dear. Who gave you permission? Was it that nice Detective Alch?” Electra whispered, glancing coyly at the fiftyish detective.

  “Yeah. Luckily, Morrie likes to pull Su’s chain.”

  “Morrie. Such a cute name. Do you think he’s married?”

  “I think he’s fifteen years younger than you are, Electra.”

  “Just right. Boy-toy age for me.”

  Temple sighed. “Electra, why are they holding you for questioning? Who died here?”

  “It’s so silly, Temple. You know me. Always eager to help. I volunteered to set things up before the convention—”

  “You mean that wave of purple and red in the lobby is just the advance troops?”

  “Heavens, yes! We’ll soon have five thousand Red Hatters in town, splitting up between the Crystal Phoenix and the Goliath. We have several hundred here now to help with setup. My Red-Hatted League is one of the local chapters.”

  “So that’s why you’re here. And you are being questioned by the police because—?”

  “There was this Pink Lady—”

  “Not a drink.”

  “No! Girly cocktails are so passé now. They really knock back those martinis on Sex in the City.”

  “That’s Sex and the City and it’s in reruns now, Electra. Not hot. Speaking of hot, just how many Red Hat Sisterhood members live in Vegas?”

  “I don’t know. The Las Vegas area has more than one hundred chapters with up to forty-some members, and that’s who’s here setting up.”

  “Yowie. That alone almost makes five thousand! How did a local PR ace like me miss knowing about all of them?”