Cat In An Aqua Storm

“There ain’t nobody around,” Ruth finally said with rueful humor, “but us chickens. So let’s get out of here before somebody sees us and assumes the worst.”

15

Little Girl Lost

The threewomen debarked from their cab—they had hailed one on Paradise—amid a flurry of cordial goodbyes. While Ruth headed for the Goliath valet stand to retrieve her sign, Lindy and Temple dashed inside.

The lines were drawn, Temple knew, but at least the combatants were willing to talk turkey on the live airwaves. Meanwhile, Lindy led Temple to the second-floor hotel suite that served as competition central.

Though the rooms were empty now, the normally neat furniture sat askew. End tables were littered with ashtrays, bowls of stale popcorn and paperwork. All Temple wanted was an empty chair and an unengaged telephone.

She plopped down, dropped her heavy tote bag beside her and dug out her straining personal organizer. Phone numbers took up half the bulk. Time to play radio-station roulette. She dialed one string of numbers after another, quickly learning who was in, who was out, who was interested, who was too busy to talk.

After forty minutes of nonstop calling, Temple had lined up three talk shows in the next four days and had four more shows scheduled to call her back, Whether producer or interviewer, the radio people she contacted loved the notion of strippers calling in and baring their souls instead of their bodies for a change. Las Vegas took its exotic entertainers for granted, but with guests lined up to debate the issue, stripping suddenly got a lot sexier, as far as radio ratings were concerned. Nothing made for good media like a major clash of opinions.

Satisfied but talked out, Temple restored her precious sourcebook to the tote bag, then cruised the littered tabletops for something nutritious. She was forced to settle for seven stale pretzels and three green M&Ms.

All the competition personnel, she decided, must still be down in the ballroom trying to whip lights, action and cameras into shape for the big show on Saturday night.

Taking the elevator down, she found herself wondering why the murderer had killed his victim so early into competition week. Only half the performers had arrived yet. Only half the chaos was available to confuse matters.

She charged through the teeming lobby, well aware that all Las Vegas hotel lobbies resemble sets for the film, Airport, with tour groups booking in and booking out in long, luggage-clogged lines... all Las Vegas hotels, that is, except for the unfortunate few that aren’t doing big-time business. Their lobbies resemble deserted bowling alleys.

Pausing to glance into the ballroom, Temple viewed the same controlled chaos she had penetrated before. She hesitated, wondering if Ike Wetzel would make a good sparring partner for Ruth on the talk shows. No, too inarticulate. He was one of those maddening men who retreat to smug, smirking silence in the face of female outrage, like the ever-lovable Crawford Buchanan.

She didn’t spot any reporters milling about, and sighed her relief. The murder had already run its sensational course in a town brimming with sensation and crime. All she had to do now was organize sufficient, sedate publicity and beat off any overeager news people.

In that case, she could go home and pound out her radio schedule so far, or... since she was here anyway, she could check out the dressing room again. Alone. She headed for the back stairs, her mind manufacturing ways to justify her nosiness if anyone—say Lieutenant Molina—caught her snooping.

She figured that the police had been over the dressing room with a forensic fine-tooth comb by now. She should have the place to herself, and, without Lindy present, something about the murder scene that nagged at her might become clear.

Her heels clattered in four-four time down the concrete stairs. No one had seen her, proving that the murderer hadn’t needed to be clever, just lucky. The Goliath was a massive beast of a hotel whose functional underbelly was often deserted if you knew when to explore it.

In the nondescript corridor narrowed by racks of muslin-covered costumes Temple tried to muffle her ringing footsteps. Just because the place was deserted was no reason to announce herself to ghosts.

One ghost haunted a different dressing room. She paused, then pushed open a door she had entered many times before.

A glamorous wardrobe of glittering gowns occupied the costume niche where Max’s deliberately subdued performance clothes had hung not many months before. Either a female impersonator occupied the room now, or some glamour-puss songstress.

Temple advanced to the mirror, saw herself looking perfectly respectable and as guilty as any trespasser. Cosmetics spewed across the glass-topped Formica counter, and none of these makeup bulbs showed the tattletale gray of burnout.