Cat in an Ultramarine Scheme Read online

  “Yes, the chamber of commerce types did look silly with that business of blocking out the word mob from the Mob Museum title.”

  “I’m no English major,” Van said, “just international business. What does redact mean, anyway?”

  “Editing or revising a piece of writing for publication,” Temple explained. “The museum backers actually crossed out the word mob in the title of the Mob Museum. Trying to have it both ways in PR is foolhardy.”

  Temple quickly printed out the name with a felt-tip pen on Crystal Phoenix letterhead, then inked out the word mob.

  “Why on Earth, or even in Vegas,” Van asked, “create a tourist destination you can’t advertise?”

  “Why,” Nicky asked back, “duplicate what’s already there, aching to be expanded and ballyhooed?”

  “I agree, but what’s already there?” Van asked.

  “The Fontana family’s mob museum,” he answered in triumph.

  Silence ensued again. In it, Temple noticed that the hotel cat, Midnight Louise, had either entered on hushed little cat feet or, more likely, arisen from a concealed napping spot in the executive office suite.

  She was now sitting demurely at Van’s ankles, licking her clawed front toes one by one, grooming her own brand of “peep” toenails, Temple thought.

  Although Midnight Louie, Temple’s . . . roommate, had inspired this feminine version of his name for this once-stray cat, Louise was smaller than he, with longer black hair. She was just as spit-polished as her larger, buzz-cut, and “butcher” version.

  Midnight Louise flicked a paw over one ear, as if cleaning it for better reception. Ears R Us.

  Seeing that blot of black on the pale carpet, Temple finally got Nicky’s reference, thinking of another glitzier blot of black on the Vegas scene.

  “Nicky. You mean Gangsters!”

  He nodded, pleased as a teacher with a prize student. “Like gangbusters! You got it, Miss Temple.”

  Van was puzzled. “That’s a small off-Strip hotel-casino setup.”

  “I’ve been there,” Temple said. “Lots of ‘local color’ from the delicious bad old days. A string of indecently stretched black limousines always underlines the entry canopy. You’d think it was a funeral fleet. The hotel facade is polished black marble and neon-lit glass blocks. Very Art Deco. The upper stories are capped by a huge neon fedora and gun barrel, both cocked, with veiled red lights visible as squinting eyes in the eaves’ eternal penumbra.

  “Customers are escorted inside by broad-shouldered men in sinister fedoras who wear pastel ties against dark shirts and suits. ‘Le Jazz Hot’ and forties swing is on the audio system.

  “It’s a modest six-hundred-room hotel, but has the four-star Hush Money steak house, Speakeasy bar and restaurant, and a four-thousand-seat theater and gaming casino that’s ‘raided’ nightly by the fake feds. The Roxie, a vintage movie theater, even plays newsreels—about gangsters, of course.

  “They have a small museum with gats and getaway cars from the gangland days of old, and up-to-date shopping in flanking wings: Gents and G-Men on the left, with the Moll Mall on the right.”

  “That does sound like a smart concept,” Van conceded, “one that’s been totally overshadowed, Nicky, by your brothers’ allied and adjacent booming exotic limo service of the same name. Bad misfire. A clever concept lost in the execution.”

  “Ouch.” Nicky mock-cringed. “Don’t say ‘execution’ in connection with mention of the family business.”

  “Hardly a ‘family’ business. You’ve never linked the Crystal Phoenix with your uncle’s or brothers’ Vegas doings. Smart.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m the white sheep of the family. On paper.”

  Van placed the flats of both hands on her floating glass desktop and levered herself to her full heeled height.

  “Nicky Fontana! You don’t mean to say you’ve been secretly backing your relations’ questionable ventures? That is ‘Death in Vegas.’ ”

  “I’m saying I have pull with the Gangsters’ owners, that’s all.”

  Temple exchanged a glance with yellow-eyed Midnight Louise, who was frozen in mid-grooming, paw lifted, ear cocked. This was hot news.

  “And,” Nicky continued, “I happen to know this brouhaha about a city mob museum has spurred the owners of Gangsters, the best little undermarketed hotel-casino in town, not the limo service of the same name, to launch a redo, taking and running with the mob theme barefaced, instead of resorting to pussyfooting around and ‘redacting’ history.”

  “Oh, my God,” said Van, turning as pale as her taffy-colored hair, and sitting.

  “Sweet,” said Temple. “That publicity campaign could rock.”

  Even Midnight Louise emitted a surprised little squeak, which only Temple heard.

  She had an ear for little nothings of the feline sort.

  Where Louie Used To . . .

  I am sunning my battered frame by the cool aquamarine length of my private pool on the Circle Ritz grounds when a shadow falls over me.

  Shadows in Las Vegas are as rare as mint in a marijuana patch, so I know without opening my eyes that something ugly and unexpected is hovering over me.

  I snick out all eight of my front shivs without a sound and open one green peeper.

  Hmph. A jowly black face with a five o’clock shadow of dog doo-doo brown dominates my field of vision. Same color spats and gloves. Reddened eye-whites. Big white teeth fresh from the dental tech’s brushing, but no minty afterbreath. Instead, I sniff the reek of raw meat and desiccated pig’s ear, maybe even some pansy kibble product.

  Yup. It is a dog. A big ’un. Runs maybe 140, like a middleweight. Makes me want to run, but my ribs are still bruised from the derring-do, save-the-maiden stuff at the end of my previous case, and I do not feel like it.

  “Dead dogs wear plaid,” I say, uncrossing my mitts and preparing to carve a red tartan pattern into his ugly mug.

  “I heard you were big for your boots,” he growls.

  A glob of drool hits my shiny black lapel.

  That is it.

  I am up on my feet and braced for serious skin surgery. I may be a lightweight compared to this yobbo, but I am faster on my tootsies and have more hidden razors than a pimp with a shaving fetish.

  “Hold it, Shorty,” the bruiser harfs. “I would love to staple your pinballs to the teak decking, but I am making like a St. Bernard here.”

  “You are carrying hard liquor?”

  “Naw, a message. Okay? Jeez, lighten up.”

  That is a physical impossibility, both in my coat color and attitude, as both of them are the always-fashionable black. But I sit on my threatened pinballs and wait for this dude to sling some serious trash talk.

  “So sing.”

  He pants out the message in that annoying, excited whine dogs get, no matter how large or small, nearly knocking me over with concentrated drool-breath.

  “I am the construction-site watchdog on some shoring-up work out at Lake Mead, see? So I am patrolling and minding my business, which is being prepared to tear the throat out of any trespassing human, when I am accosted by one of your sort.”

  I nod, impressed. It would take a lot for even me to accost a Rottweiler on patrol. Whoever is trying to contact me must have stones. And gravel for brains. Or be desperate.

  “Your kind is not in my job description,” the big dog goes on, “so I let him live long enough to sing a song or two. Turns out he has breached my territory deliberately. I gotta admit I am surprised. He appeals to my sense of duty to the human race . . . the ones who are not violating my masters’ territory, that is. I agree that when I am off duty and driven back to town I will take a stroll to this Circle Ritz residence and lay some info on one Midnight Louie. I figure that is you. Cool joint.”

  Well, now we are chatting as guys will do. I retract the shivs and redact the tough talk.

  “Mighty cross-species nice of you,” I say. “You ever hear of a dude in your line of work, but a little different
? Drug and explosive sniffer. Small fella with a mighty snout. One of those Liz Taylor wrist ornaments. Called Nose E.”

  “Oh, him. Maltese. About my paw-print size. Yeah. He does not do legwork. Purse-pooch detail. I know of him. Smarts and nerve, but not my kind of protection-racket guy. Neither are you, no offense.”

  “None taken, Mr.?”

  “Butch.”

  Right. “So, Butch, what is the message, and who had the nerve to walk up to you and ask you to play passenger pigeon?”

  “The message is that a human body part has turned up in Lake Mead, and someone has to clue in the local constabulary. Apparently you are good at communicating with humans. Me, I do not find it worth my while. I do my job, keep my nose clean, give out my lumps, and gulp down my steak tartar on the hoof or, off duty, as a postwork treat.”

  “Same here,” I growl.

  My Miss Temple would be appalled by my demeanor, but guys must intimidate guys.

  “I need to investigate this for my own self. Where do I find this snitch of yours?” I ask.

  “Hercules Construction project, near Temple Bar, at an eatery called Three O’Clock Louie’s.”

  I nearly do a cardiac swan dive. Every word is familiar, from the site on Lake Mead that by odd chance echoes my beloved roommate’s name, to a restaurant that bears a moniker close to my own.

  Butch chuckles deep in his massive throat. “I thought I would shock the black kneesocks off you. This has been worth the hike. My ‘snitch’ and your contact is the dude named after the restaurant, Three O’Clock Louie.”

  “My good dog,” I say, having recovered. “The reverse is true. The restaurant is named after him.”

  “Whaddayou know? I figured you were a hairball off the old hide, but I did not know they are naming restaurants after your kind nowadays. It is not as if your old man is the Taco Bell Chihuahua, may he rest in peace and up to his knickers in puppy biscuits.”

  “Neither are you, buddy. Now be a good dog and tell me when your construction crew is making the next run out to Temple Bar on Lake Mead.”

  “Temple Bar. Dopey name.”

  I hold my temper down and my shivs in.

  He harfs on. “I am off duty and actually AWOL right now. Just follow me to the yard, and you can hop the next outgoing cement mixer.”

  “Thanks, but I will hop a gravel truck any day. I do not go for rotating rides.”

  “Just kidding, pal,” Butch says, slavering himself a river on our landlady Miss Electra Lark’s new cedar decking.

  The sun is pretty high and hot for the haired set now.

  This is the worst time of day for a long sweltering drive in an un-air-conditioned truck cab, but duty—and Three O’Clock Louie—call.

  Who’s your daddy?

  I might not have sired Miss Midnight Louise, as much as she would wish to hold that over my head, but there is no doubt I am a nugget off the old noggin of Mr. Three O’Clock Louie, his own self.

  Simply . . . Artisto

  “Don’t take my word for the Gangsters’ possibilities,” Nicky said, now that he had a stupefied and silent audience of two. “I consulted an expert. Exhibit A. Be nice, ladies.”

  Temple eyed Van. “Did Nicky just tell us to ‘be nice ladies’?”

  “If so,” Van answered, “it isn’t going to happen.”

  By then Nicky had stepped to the office door and swept it open as if pulling back a curtain.

  For another stupefied moment a tall dark-haired man in a white tropical suit stood poised on the threshold, looking, at first blush—a very bold blush—like the eleventh Fontana brother.

  “I present,” Nicky said, “our multimedia artiste, Señor Santiago, direct from Rio de Janeiro.”

  By then Temple had taken in the glitzy silver stripes in the newcomer’s corona of long, gel-spiked hair and the black silk shirt under the pale suit, accessorized by a flamingo pink tie.

  “No ‘Señor,’ ” the vision announced. “I am simply . . . Santiago.”

  “And who exactly is ‘Simply Santiago’?” Van demanded of her exuberant spouse.

  Before Nicky could answer, Santiago stepped inside, producing from under his right arm a slim white ostrich-skin portfolio that matched his white ostrich-skin cowboy boots.

  “A master of many media and slave of nothing commonplace,” he announced. “My curriculum vitae, madam.”

  Temple watched Van nervously, remembering the last one-named “conceptual artist” to hit Las Vegas. The unlamented “Domingo” had smothered the Strip landmarks in pink plastic flamingos. Not the Crystal Phoenix, however.

  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.