Cat In A Sapphire Slipper

“We were supposed to go to the G-String Club on the Strip,” Nicky was saying under his breath, “with the nude harpists. I mean, fun’s fun, but this place is obviously—” He shut up as he noticed Matt approaching.

Aldo’s back was to Matt and he kept talking. “Kit will have my nose hairs in a vise and our Miss Temple will have all our heads on pikes outside the Crystal Phoenix if she finds out about this. The guys said they’d arranged a first-class venue with one discreet, cake-popper-out-of stripper. The usual harmless prank.”

“This,” Matt said, “doesn’t look ‘usual’ to me, and I’ve never been to one of these before.”

Nicky’s upper lip was actually dewed with tiny dots of sweat. He had his cell phone to his ear.

“Sorry, Father,” he murmured absently. “Damn!” he spat at Aldo. “I’m not getting a signal. We are screwed. What’s going on here? That drive was way too long.”

Aldo was chewing his lower lip. “I thought we were deliberately being driven around town so we’d have time to do our duty by the champagne.”

The eldest and youngest Fontana brothers were clearly dealing with an unexpected situation.

“Why don’t we ask the driver?” Matt suggested.

Nicky and Aldo exchanged a long stare.

“Good idea!” Aldo strode toward the door, Nicky and Matt behind him.

Aldo opened it on someone on the other side. Someone in a nifty black chauffeur’s cap and jacket, and nothing else but fishnet stockings, four-inch black heels, and an Uzi cradled in her uniformed elbow.

“Holy shi—shazam!” Nicky breathed, glancing at Matt midway through his expletive.

“No need to get huffed,” the caramel-skinned chauffeurette said, caressing the Uzi’s trigger with her forefinger. Her nails were long and lacquered crimson. “You all look so cute standing out here with your mouths hanging open, but you’d better get back inside before this big mean gun gets too heavy for little me to hold and I grab onto the wrong part.”

Nicky and Aldo backed up quickly. Maybe it was her remark about the wrong part. Matt stayed put.

“You drove us out here?” he asked. “Why?”

She looked him over, mostly his face and blond hair. “You may be an innocent bystander, mister, but an Uzi isn’t very discriminating.”

“Jesus!” Aldo breathed behind him. “I for one don’t underestimate the ‘weaker’ sex. This is as serious as that chest-stapler she’s holding. What the hell—?”

“Get back inside,” Nicky ordered. When Matt didn’t move, he shouted at the girl, “You’d off a priest?”

“Ex,” Matt tossed over his shoulder without taking his eyes from the woman. He was used to talking to suicidal and sometimes homicidal people on his call-in radio advice show. This girl didn’t strike him as either.

But her next words and tone changed his mind. “A priest,” she purred. “Now isn’t that interesting. Maybe we can use you for some ceremonial necessities later.”

“They don’t do extreme unction anymore,” Aldo said, jerking Matt back inside the foyer by the jacket sleeve. “Hold your trigger finger, lady. We’re all inside.”

Matt shook himself loose as soon as the door slammed shut. “She’s not for real.”

“That Uzi sure is,” Nicky said. “Never argue with a fully automatic gun that can kill your whole damn family in one strafe.” He redialed his cell phone. “Nothing. You take this,” he said to Matt, slipping it into his jacket pocket. “It’s an auto-dial to Van. I have a feeling this is a Fontana affair.” His face and voice were grim.

“Some gangsta hoods have heisted us,” Aldo said. “Don’t let the James Bond girl in fishnet hose fool you, padre. This is a sharp operation. They’ve got Fontana Inc. in the palms of their machine pistols. The whole enchilada. Shit!”

“Yup. The whole Mama Fontana pasta factory.” Nicky turned to Matt. “Play along. Don’t make any fuss. We’re the target, obviously. They may overlook you.”

“They?”

But the two brothers were separating at the double doors to the parlor, drawing Berettas and waiting like cops about to storm a crime in progress.

“Mr. Fontana and . . . Mr. Fontana?” came the madam’s once-booming voice, sounding quivery. “Please come in.”

“And drop your weapons before you do,” a second voice commanded.

Consulting each other with a glance, Nicky and Aldo lowered their guns to the floor and kicked them inside onto the field of blue flowers that carpeted the place.

Matt stood, shocked, in the foyer as the two men vanished into the Victorian sitting room at some unseen gunpoint.

This must be act one in a Vegas mob war.

From Temple’s talk of the Fontana brothers, he’d considered them hunky comic relief on the Las Vegas scene. Apparently it was a lot more serious than that. Thank God Temple was safe at home at the Circle Ritz. Sweet Jesus. Louie! Her precious alley cat was here, in danger of getting caught in the crossfire. Anything happened to him, it’d be worse than the current anxiety she was feeling about Max. She tried to downplay it, but he knew.