Cat in a Leopard Spot Read online

  First, to do the trick, Temple would need to find a jackrabbit. Louie was her only live-in male of the moment, and he was the wrong species.

  Temple sat beside the carrier to catch her breath and pull the back straps on her sandals into place on her heels again. She’d nearly dislocated an ankle wrestling with Louie.

  He should be ashamed, the big lug, giving his ever-loving roommate such a fight when she was only enhancing his performing career.

  She checked the address she had written on the margin of the neighborhood weekly shopper when the television producer had called with the good news. “Tomorrow at ten A.M., all right?”

  Being a freelance PR specialist, Temple could always crowd this appointment into that day, or that bit of hooky into this schedule. That was the beauty of being self-employed; sometimes you were self-liberated.

  “That’s right, Louie, groom that foot, but not too much. You have to look abused for the camera.”

  He eyed her dubiously, whether in distaste at the redundancy of urging him to groom himself, or the impossibility of twenty well-fed pounds of glossy black fur looking abused.

  “Helpless would be a huge help too,” she added hopefully.

  His yawn showed a maw of white fangs that would have done a rattlesnake about to be milked of its venom proud.

  Temple shivered a little. Louie was big, but she’d hate to meet one of the real big cats face-to-fang. Unless they were the tamed variety provided to weekend warrior-hunters eager to bag a proud head for their office or home theater wall.

  This sort of cowardly lion hunter was so common that Van Burkleo had called his pride of former pets and zoo residents MGM lions.

  Mascots, in other words, ready to be pierced with bullets or arrows, hounded wounded against a wall and nibbled until dead with nonlethal hindquarter shots, all to preserve the handsome head for some creep’s wall.

  Temple was not surprised to find her fingernails dimpling her palms in pent-up fury.

  Good. Fury was useful. All she had to do was think of Savannah Ashleigh as one of these canned-hunt impresarios, kidnapping a favorite pet, confining it to a cage, doing what she would with it.

  From Louie’s carrier came a low growl that climbed and descended a scale or two in a minor key before it was done. Was he trying to tell her something?

  The Judge Geraldine Jones show was videotaped at a local sound studio. Temple and Louie saw not so much as an extension cord for the first two hours they spent there.

  The green room, lovely term that smacked of theatrical tradition, although it was seldom green anymore, was a cavernous studio filled with folding chairs and people filling out forms on clipboards balanced on their knees.

  Temple sat down, put Louie’s carrier beside her on the cold concrete, and began doing likewise.

  The forms, which released the producers from responsibility for every eventuality from act of God to hangnail, were duly signed and delivered to the perky teenage assistants who made the rounds of the plaintiffs and defendants, handing out paper cups of bad coffee and unbottled water when not collecting the signed sheets.

  “Oh, who have we got in here?” one ponytailed assistant asked, crouching beside Louie’s carrier and peering inside with little luck. “Oh. This must be the mutilated cat.”

  Temple was pleased that her spin on events had made its way into the backstage language, but she wasn’t pleased to have Louie labeled so publicly. Not that the actual show wouldn’t be a lot more public, but at least they got paid for the indignity. If they won the case.

  “Yes,” Temple said, sighing heavily. “Careful. He’s a little people-shy now. As you can imagine.”

  “Oooh, the poor little boy,” she cooed into the grille that was all she could see of the shadowy contents.

  “Well, he’s not a little boy in any sense now,” Temple added direly.

  “His name is”—the assistant frowned at the clipboard she had confiscated from Temple, along with the mostly nonfunctioning ball-point pen attached with a metal chain—“Louis.”

  “Louie,” Temple corrected. “He’s a very informal, friendly cat. Or was, before he was cruelly kidnapped.”

  “I don’t want to get your hopes down,” Miss Perkiness confided, her tender face softening with sadness, “but animal cases don’t do too well here. They’re only worth what the animal is, and that’s not much.”

  “Maybe not in this case. Louie has made several national TV commercials for Á La Cat.”

  “Reelly!” She peeked and perked at the same time. “Oh, what a fam-ous little boy. Mr. Louis.”

  Temple held her tongue, also her tote bag close in her hands. That would keep her from strangling Ms. Perkiness.

  A hustle and rustle across the cavern drew everyone’s attention.

  The clatter like hail on a tin roof announced the arrival of Savannah Ashleigh on stiletto Frederick’s of Hollywood heels, a pink canvas bag bouncing against her lean hip: one word emblazoned in white embroidery on its side: Yvette.

  Temple eyed her opponent with satisfaction. Savannah Ashleigh was wearing the usual overshrunk clingy top and the latest designer pants cut high on the calf and low on the torso, the better to show her belly button pierced by a tiny tinkling temple bell.

  Egad, temple bell sounded almost like her own name.

  Unlike Ms. Ashleigh, Temple’s belly button’s condition was kept secret behind an aqua linen suit whose skirt brushed her kneecaps and whose collar closed decorously at her throat.

  Looking like the original Hollywood Barbie Tart certainly wouldn’t help Ms. Ashleigh in Judge Geraldine Jones’s court.

  Savannah observed the stir her entrance had caused with satisfaction of her own and settled onto a folding chair. Yvette’s carrier rested by her hyperarched insteps.

  At Temple’s feet, the hard-shelled plastic carrier containing Midnight Louie began to rock and roll as its tenant whiffed the pheromone-filled presence of his Persian co-star. Savannah Ashleigh’s vengeful actions a few months ago may have rendered Louie sterile, but he was by no means “fixed.”

  Temple’s blood began to percolate all over again when she remembered how the actress had jumped to the wrong conclusions about Louie and Yvette. How she had kidnapped the unsuspecting tomcat and delivered him into the hands of the surgeon. How she had returned him in sadly altered state to Temple’s apartment door, wrapped like a mummy, just like poor Jimmy Cagney’s body in that famous gangster-movie scene.

  “This is one mummy that walks again,” Temple muttered under her breath, completely caught up in 1930s film history.

  While Savannah crossed her legs impossibly high on her bare, tan thighs and balanced her clipboard on her bony knees like a mortarboard poised on a pinhead, Temple slung her red canvas tote bag front and center. It was not embroidered with a prissy name like Yvette, but it bulged with incriminating evidence to help Temple make her case, including the—ta-dah!—sinister bloody satin pillowcase bearing the suggestively embroidered initials.

  Chapter 14

  Heaven Scent

  I cannot believe that a day that started out so foul has turned so fair.

  From across the huge chamber naked of any amenities wafts the sublime scent of my lost ladylove, the Divine Yvette.

  I forgive Miss Temple for her cruel and unusual act of incarcerating me in a lowly cat carrier in an instant. No means of transportation is too humiliating or humble when it whisks me into the presence of such a unique and adorable example of feline beauty and breeding.

  What can I say that would do justice to the Divine Yvette?

  How could a collar, a bone, and a halo of hair manage to turn a cattle barn into a cow palace? Wait. Maybe I have not put that right. What I mean is that this huge, brutal space has suddenly been visited by a breath of spring, by the dainty passing of a goddess, by a presence so ephemeral, yet striking, that it seems the surrounding humans, affected, should break out in joyous mews at the phenomenon.

  But they are blind, deaf, dumb and—
most important—scent-challenged at the way in which our very atmosphere has been honored. In fact, while there are words to describe a human bereft of sight, hearing, and speech, there are none to describe a human defrauded of the sense of smell. This just goes to show how low the species really is on the ladder of evolution.

  Scent is truly the prime and primordial sense, and look at humans! Forced to douse themselves in aromas borrowed from the plant and animal kingdoms even to experience one good, uplifting whiff.

  No wonder they have not noticed the advent of the Divine Yvette, although my Miss Temple, being a superior sort of human, has. That is why she is such a super sleuth. She is attuned to the animal world. I manage to peer through the air slots in the top of my loathed carrier. Even now Miss Temple is gazing toward the Divine Yvette hidden in her portable boudoir.

  No doubt she is longing as much as I am to see the lovely form lifted from her temporary prison and shown to the whole wide world.

  Then I notice that Miss Temple’s expression is not the rhapsodic one I expect. It is quite something else indeed. In fact, it is rather deadly. And it is directed far above the Divine Yvette’s carrier, directly at the puzzled profile of Miss Savannah Ashleigh, who is agonizing over some entry on a piece of paper she is filling out.

  No doubt it is the line asking her age, or perhaps her name.

  I hope this is not going to turn into a crime scene, or worse, a catfight of the human sort. That would be so upsetting to the Divine Yvette.

  Chapter 15

  Hussy Fit

  Temple lumbered onto the courtroom set when the announcer called her name. She felt like a gunslinger toting a pair of howitzers. Louie’s clumsy carrier bruised one hip, her overloaded tote bag banged into the other.

  Savannah Ashleigh had been summoned first, so hers was among the craning faces screwed over their shoulders like Linda Blair’s in The Exorcist to watch Temple’s overburdened progress down the aisle.

  It felt a little like a wedding day, only there was no groom looking expectantly for Temple’s arrival.

  There was only Judge Geraldine Jones, and she was looking annoyed. But then, she always did in court and on camera. No doubt that was why her ratings were so high.

  She was the third wave of TV judges: first came Judge Wapner, a WOM (white old man). Then came Judge Judy, a JOW (Jewish old woman). Now it was open season for judges of both genders and every ethnic background, although they all tended to be in the sunset of their careers. Judge Geraldine Jones was half-black, half-Asian, and all cranky. Of course the number-one qualification for the job was disposition. TV judges had to be traffic cops of the personal relationship highways: ever ready to overtake, lecture, and punish offenders against common sense.

  People watched live courtroom shows for the same reason they kept The Jerry Springer Show in the talk-show top three: they loved to see somebody else get chewed out.

  The announcer had already blared out the opposing position:

  “Temple Barr is a Las Vegas publicist who says her cat, Midnight Louie, was abducted and forcibly sterilized by Savannah Ashleigh, star of stage, screen, and a major cable shopping network, the owner of a female Persian cat named Yvette making a television cat food commercial with her tomcat. The Hollywood actress says that the Las Vegas publicist’s cat got her cat pregnant against her will. The publicist says the actress “fixed” her cat against his and her will. Who will win The Case of the Castrated Cat?.”

  So many thumps came from inside Louie’s carrier at the end of this public announcement that the container sounded like it was demon possessed, to carry the Exorcist analogy even further.

  “This case is an exploration of the fine points of the civil law,” the judge pronounced, staring over her reading glasses at Temple’s hip-hugging luggage. “Not an expedition to the far Himalayas. Do you need help from the bailiff?”

  “No, ma’am,” Temple grunted, finally reaching the table, atop which she could heft both burdens like sacks of flour.

  The judge blinked at the twin thuds. “I sincerely hope you don’t have any bodies in there.”

  “Just bodies of evidence,” Temple rejoined.

  The judge flipped through the papers littering her desktop. “This case does indeed involve alleged rape, impregnation, abduction, and mutilation. My, my, my. These bodies have been busy enough for a soap opera, even though they seem to be feline.

  “Since you, Miss Barr, are the complainant, you’ll go first.”

  Temple whipped out a sheaf of papers from her tote bag and opened her mouth.

  “But first, I advise you to keep it brief.”

  Temple shut her mouth. Just how brief was “brief”?

  “My cat, Midnight Louie,” she began.

  “Wait a minute.”

  “Yes, Your Honor?”

  “Does this Midnight Louie happen to be in one of those two pieces of baggage?”

  “Yes, Your Honor.”

  “Well, bring him out to meet the people.”

  “He may not, uh, be feeling cooperative.”

  “Is he always hard to handle?”

  “Well, he isn’t called ‘castrated’ over a loudspeaker every day.”

  “I’m afraid you can’t libel a cat, Miss Barr, so don’t go trying to add to the charges against Miss Ashleigh.”

  Temple darted a glance at her opponent, forbearing to shoot back that you couldn’t libel a Savannah Ashleigh, either, because anything bad you could say about the woman would be true.

  But Temple’s wrath was distracted by Louie, who actually bounded out of the carrier into the bright glare of the television lights like Milton Berle racing to a female impersonator session.

  “Well,” said Judge Jones. “He is one big, good-looking guy. I can see why a lady cat might be partial to him, even bowled over.”

  “Bowled over and assaulted,” Savannah interrupted. “My little Yvette was defenseless.”

  “I will look at your ‘little defenseless Yvette’ in a moment,” the judge said, “but first you will kindly keep your comments to yourself until it is your turn to complain. Oh, all right! Bring on your wronged cat and then we’ll have a pair on the table.”

  Savannah tossed ashy bleached locks teased into something resembling burnt meringue over her bare shoulders. She unzipped Yvette’s bag with the flair of a magician unveiling an illusion.

  When Yvette’s piquant Persian face, a symphony in silvery white fur, peeked over the pink rim, the courtroom oohed as one.

  Temple felt like the owner of plain-marmalade Garfield, the comics cat, up against Nermal, the world’s cutest kitten. Yvette was a sophisticated confection of wispy whiskers, perfectly round aquamarine eyes, and ears so delicately tinted pink they looked lavender through the thin down of silver fur that covered them.

  Then Savannah, a ham actor who couldn’t resist piling on the honey glaze, cooing adoringly and lifted little Yvette to her cheek, all the better for the judge and the audience to eyeball the petite charmer.

  Yvette squalled like a demon infant. She flailed her dainty feet, lashed her plumy tail, and sank her tiny claws into Savannah’s naked shoulder.

  Savannah squealed.

  Temple stroked Louie’s back and tail as he paced and turned in front of her, a perfect gentleman.

  At Yvette’s uproar, he moved to the table’s edge and directed a disapproving growl at Savannah.

  “She’s upset,” Savannah said, whimpering as she tried to unhook each pearlescent curve of claw from her flawless, microdermabrasioned skin.

  “I would be upset,” Judge Jones said, “if I had been hoisted from my afternoon nap to have my manicure messed with. Put the cat down on the table and wait for Miss Barr to finish.”

  A dark, unyielding eye fixed on Temple. “And? What is your proof that Mr. Midnight there is innocent of all charges? That Yvette minx looks pretty irresistible to me. I can imagine what a dude of her own species would think.”

  “As you see, Your Honor, Yvette is more capabl
e of self-defense than one would think. No one is contesting the fact that Yvette became pregnant during the commercial shoot. But I have photographic proof that all her offspring were yellow striped. Not a one was black. Or shaded-silver, for that matter.”

  “Wait a minute. Wait a minute!” The judge had grabbed her gavel at protesting sounds from Savannah. “What’s this here ‘shaded silver’ stuff? Sounds like a designer drug.”

  “It’s a designer cat,” Temple explained. It was her turn to talk, after all. “A purebred Persian color.”

  “No doubt that is why Miss Ashleigh is upset over any unauthorized breeding. Just nod or shake, Miss Ashleigh, until it’s your turn to present your case.”

  Miss Ashleigh nodded until her own particular Silicone Valley underwent an .8 on the Richter scale. No one could say she had disobeyed the judge’s admonition to “nod or shake,” having done both.

  “That will do,” the judge ordered. “I did not ask for break dancing. Now.” Her gaze returned to Temple. “Where is this photograph?”

  Temple whipped up a copy of a national tabloid.

  The bailiff, a dignified man in police uniform, made a ponderous trip to collect the photo and convey the exhibit to the judge. He was like a not-very-good bit actor who had been given too many chances to execute long, silent stalks across stage.

  Judge Jones was squinting at the telephoto-lens-blurred image. The paparazzi had caught Yvette in the act of nursing while her mistress sunbathed behind a privacy fence that wasn’t quite private enough.

  “These are definitely striped, every last one,” was the judge’s verdict. “Any similarly striped candidate for the office of father of the brood?” she asked Temple.

  “As it happens, Your Honor, a yellow-striped male cat was on the set during the entire filming schedule. His name is Maurice, and he was the spokescat Midnight Louie replaced.”

  “Hmmm. Any expert evidence that Louie is not the father of the little convicts? Well, they are wearing stripes!” she told a protesting Savannah.

  The audience tittered obediently at the judge’s broad delivery of her own joke.