Cat In An Ultramarine Scheme

She revved the Miata and squirted out of the morgue’s parking lot onto Pinto Lane and then Charleston Avenue, buzzing by vintage-clothing stores as if they were in the city dump. The Blue Mermaid motel whizzed by on her left. Down the street stood its inspiration, the Blue Angel. Temple had heard that the graceful female neon figures atop their respective motels were inspired by Disney’s Blue Fairy from the classic animated feature Pinocchio. And she knew that a woman designed the Blue Angel, Betty Willis, who also came up with the iconic and still-standing “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” sign that “said” Las Vegas all over the world. Go, Betty!

Temple never saw the “Virgin Mary blue”–attired mermaid or angel figure without thinking of Matt. He’d first sensitized her to the religious significance of that particular hue of blue, which Temple realized echoed the shade of a Tiffany’s jewelry box, of all things. Temple had a sudden inspiration. Her wedding attendants would wear VM blue! That ought to please Matt’s Chicago Polish-Catholic relatives. Her Unitarian and Lutheran relatives would never guess a thing.

Wait! Who would be her attendants? Matron of Honor, Aunt Kit Carlson Fontana, of course. Bridesmaids? She didn’t have a sister or many female friends close enough to pay for a VM-blue gown and an airfare to Chicago or Minneapolis.

Aha! Matt had a young Chicago cousin, Krys. And there was Temple’s oldest brother’s daughter, Tabitha. What about Mariah Molina, if her mother would let her? Heh-heh. That would so get her mother’s goat and also help Mariah’s self-esteem. She was getting taller and leaner and needed to get over her teen crush on Matt. Watching him get married ought to do it. On the other hand, Matt in a tux was not a discouraging sight… .

Three bridesmaids seemed plenty, but Temple could picture all eight eligible Fontana brothers as groomsmen in pale formal attire, morning coats out of an Oscar Wilde play—to die for! Obviously a … summer wedding. So she needed five bridesmaids more by then. Her mother would be over the moon. Only one daughter, one mother-of-the-bride dress. Temple would manage it, the whole schmear.

Okay. Matt’s best man? He was short of relatives too. Maybe his birth father? Yes. Full circle.

Wait another minute! Temple was blue-skying the future when the present was a tangle of Las Vegas’s perpetual reinvention woes and bizarre deaths and buried secrets. Didn’t the past just always have to keep cropping up that destructive way?

She directed the Miata down the Strip and then off it, to Gangsters.

A parking valet in a Bonnie Parker beret offered to care for her car in the most personal way, with assurances it wouldn’t get hit with any nasty G-men bullet holes.

A Fontana brother had been alerted to escort her inside.

Temple shifted through her brain cells to identify the brother. The feature-shading fedora didn’t help. The Fontana did, though.

“Call me Ralphie the Wrench. We’ve all got new mob handles. Nicky’s idea.”

“Sure thing, Ralphie. I need to consult with the Glory Hole Gang. Where are they hanging out now?”

“The executive chef’s suite. It’s got a whole new test kitchen, but it’s also a bunkhouse. Nicky calls it that so they don’t feel it’s charity. The fellas are too old to be off on their own, except for Eightball, who is not about to give up his little house from the old days and his PI license.”

By then they had passed through the ka-ching chatter of the casino area to the elevators.

Ralphie the Wrench continued to play tour guide en route to the tenth floor. “Work on the Speakeasy’s bar and restaurant layout and the Chunnel of Crime is pretty intense, so the GH guys are mostly in the suite these days, menu planning.”

Ralphie pulled the latest fancy phone from his pinstriped breast pocket and rang up ahead of them, explaining afterward to Temple, “Even really old bachelor guys are not tidy enough for lady visitors without warning.”

Always the gentleman mobster, Ralphie the Wrench knocked for Temple, escorted her inside the suite, checked that the residence was fit for the presence of a lady, and then left her to her mission.

Pitchblende O’Hara was lounging on the huge upholstered conversation pit, wearing a flour-dusted apron and drinking a Red Bull. He jumped up at Temple’s arrival.

“I’m the designated welcoming committee, Miss Temple. Gollee, you look fresher than one of Spud’s French pastries right from the oven. We are gonna call them Bonnie’s Bits.”

“Well, maybe I just look flaky by now,” Temple said, waving good-bye to Ralphie as the door closed on his pinstriped back. “I need to talk to all of you. Can the kitchen crew put the experiments on heat-lamp warming and come out for a few minutes?”

Pitchblende rose and beat it back to the kitchen, drawing Temple’s attention to his size-thirteen feet in battered Roper boots. Serviceable, not fancy, and probably resoled and resewn a number of times.