Temple headed to the sprawling pseudo-Saharan Oasis Hotel.
Danny was drilling dancers there, working up a huge new show. Rehearsing night and day. The start-up cost was millions. Temple recalled Simon lightly chiding Danny for his frequent recent absences the night of the Maylords opening. A fond pride. An intimate’s good-natured complaint.
Like she would joke about Max being the Invisible Man in her life.
She found herself walking into the Oasis’s Zero-King air-conditioning, moving among murmuring crowds into the noisy heat of action and risk.
Theaters always were located at the rear of Las Vegas hotels, discreet marquees meant to be resorted to only when gaming was temporarily deserted.
This theater marquee was dark. A placard announced the future opening of another Danny Dove spectacular. Toddlin’Towns, a tribute to the world’s great show cities. Paris, Chicago, London, New York . . .
Temple pushed through the easy-opening double doors into the back of the huge, raked house.
Far below, the stage was a black postage stamp pierced with pinpoints of lurid light.
Antlike, people milled in kaleidoscopic patterns below. Danny’s art. Making motion into emotion. Patterns into phenomena.
Temple walked down the carpeted aisle, her heels digging in like pitons against the inevitable pull of gravity that tried to make her stutter into a trot and finally a run. Digging in against inevitability.
As she got closer, she could hear Danny exercising his voice like a ringmaster cracking his whip. Conductors commanded and cajoled with mute arm movements and expressions. Stage directors ruled with pages of postperformance lined notes. Choreographers created with voice and motion, physical presence and command.
They took your breath away.
And then you did more than you had ever imagined you could.
Temple needed to do more now than she had ever imagined she could.
Eventually the company noticed the lone figure stomping down the raked aisle. Their group gaze flicked away from their maestro to the distraction. Nobody ever interrupted a Danny Dove work session.
He finally sensed the diversion and turned, imperially annoyed. Saw Temple. Paused. Melted a little. Saw her expression, or lack of it. Frowned.
He turned back to his troops. “All right, people! If you’re going to be distracted you are no damn use to me. Off! Go contemplate your sins! Try to manage a four-four-time trot as you leave. Take a break. Hustle, children! You are movers and shakers, not cigar-store Indians! Dance your exit, damn it! Haven’t you learned anything about making a final bow?”
They clattered away on their taps, a herd of percussionists in leotards.
Danny turned on Temple as she approached. “I’ve never seen you steal a scene before, toots, especially from me. You know rehearsal is sacred. So what’s the big occasion? It had better be.”
She went on silently, until her toes hit the stage-left stairs and her feet moved up onto the black hardwood stage and thundered at every step.
“Danny, I’d rather die.”
“Nobody ever dies in a Danny Dove production.” He waited until she came even with him. “It’s ‘Face the Music and Dance’ all the way.”
He held out his arms like a swain in a ’30s movie.
Temple tilted her head in bewilderment. That released a tear that had been dammed by her eyelashes.
Danny swept her into a box waltz, the dopey, basic four-step every kid had been taught in grade school. Temple stumbled anyway, but Danny was such a superb dancer, such a superb leader, that her stumbles meant nothing.
They moved around the stage, in the silent mathematics and music of dance steps.
“Tell me,” he said.
Temple’s voice was as clouded as her eyes. “I was there. Everything that could be done, was done. All the way to the hospital. Everything that could be done, was done.”
Danny said nothing, but he moved inexorably. Back, forward, side to side. He gave her time. Time, time, time, in a sort of runic rhyme.
He kept her moving, her head spinning faster than her emotions. He was the still, upright hands at the center of the dial. Midnight. Unmoving midnight.
“Simon,” she said. “It was Simon. I’ve been on the cell phone checking every few minutes with Kenny Maylord all the way over here. Everything was tried. At Maylords. In the ambulance. At the hospital. It was too late.”
Danny danced. He took Temple with him at arm’s length, in that insane, insane grade-school gym-class pace.
Temple felt her tears twirling away. Evaporated, in some Terpsi-chorean spin-dry cycle.
Danny finally stopped. Bent his head until their foreheads touched.
“Hospital. Everything tried.” He repeated her key words. “He’s dead.”
She nodded, feeling his head bob along with hers, like a puppet’s. What would she feel if she found out that was why Max hadn’t been contacting her? Too sad and confused and guilty to live.
“Gone.”
She nodded.
Danny’s hands were absolutely dry. They slowly released hers.
“Danny.”
He said nothing, never moved.
“I’ll never be ready again.”
“You have to be. I couldn’t tell a cause of death, but I’m thinking it was murder.” The word didn’t seem to register. “They’ll come asking you questions. The police.”
He dropped her hands. The dance had ended.
Danny shook his head. “They can’t ask anything more than I would. Than I do. Temple. You were the one with the guts to tell me. You’re going to have to be the one with the guts to help me. To help Simon.”