Cat in an Orange Twist Read online

  “What is that car?” she asked the moment she laid eyes on Temple, the native Las Vegan.

  “The Chan.”

  “Chan? What is this? An abbreviation of channel? Did that TV station send it?”

  “No. And yes.”

  Crow black eyes fixed on Temple. “You are being intentionally cryptic.”

  “I am being intentionally precise. The limo’s name is not an abbreviation of ‘channel’ but a tribute to two great Asian film stars: Jackie Chan—”

  Amelia Wong snorted. The Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz had said of her evil plans for Dorothy: “These things must be done dellll-i-cately.” That is exactly how Amelia Wong snorted.

  Temple went on. “—and the purely fictional, but immortal, Charlie Chan.”

  “Rampant racist stereotyping.”

  “But . . . ultraintelligent and charming, all the same.”

  “Is that a compliment, Ms.—?” Ms. Wong glanced to her entourage.

  “Barr,” Baylee supplied.

  “Barr?”

  Temple inclined her head. “A compliment is only as good as the spirit in which it is given . . . and taken.”

  “What is your birth sign?”

  “Gemini in the Zodiac. I was born, however, in the year of the Tiger—”

  “Ah. So. A creature of passion and daring, and the sign that wards off fire, thieves, and ghosts. You do not look like a Tiger. I am expected someplace. No doubt.”

  Amelia Wong’s entourage flocked around her, wafting her into the limo-cum-rec room.

  Temple ended up, sans bottled water and built-in bar, riding up front with the chauffeur, Yokomatsu. She learned nothing about the limo-sine’s exotic inner workings, except the automatic shift, which was very old news to her. The chauffeur’s given name? Charlie, of course. An unemployed twenty-six-year-old blackjack dealer with a degree from Caltech, delivering a monologue on the pits a down economy was for the freelance soul all the way into town.

  Temple began to enjoy herself for the first time that morning.

  Lacey Davenport was adamant, and willing to say so.

  “I’m sorry. The green room can’t accommodate a crowd like this. Especially not now. We had a sudden opportunity to book some normally reclusive Las Vegas celebrities. We have the white tigers and lions with us today.”

  “So does a zoo,” tall, dark Pritchard said.

  “This is a very rare TV appearance for two very endangered species,” short, dishwater-brown-haired Lacey Davenport answered. Firmly. “And Siegfried and Roy are heroes in this town, especially now. It was an eleventh-hour photo op, so we simply can’t accommodate you all in the Green Room. Not with lions and tigers in residence. It’s not safe.”

  The bears, Temple thought, would be the Wong entourage. Ill-tempered bears.

  “Ms. Wong requires all her personnel with her at all times,” Pritchard said.

  Lacey leaped. “In that case, we have an empty office down the hall. But you’ll have to crowd in. And there are no mirrors.”

  “Foul feng shui,” Amelia Wong mentioned to the ceiling.

  By then the party had swelled with the addition of Kenny May-lord, CEO and president of Maylords. Maylords home furnishing store was new to the Las Vegas market and aimed to debut with a splash, perhaps of fountains, thanks to week-long special appearances by Amelia Wong.

  “The lions and tigers can move,” Pritchard said. She herself moved toward the closed door behind Lacey.

  Something within roared. Not growled, not snarled. Roared.

  Pritchard jumped back. “This is ridiculous. Ms. Wong is a billion-dollar corporation. You can’t palm a mere office off on Wong Inc.”

  The men in black, still wearing sunglasses, either placed their hands over their hearts in preparation for reciting the pledge of allegiance or to massage their not terribly well-concealed Glocks.

  Temple cleared her throat. Her voice always had a slight raspy tone, which served well for catching people’s attention.

  “Lacey, isn’t Studio B empty right now, until the noon news? Couldn’t you install the Wong party there? There would be plenty of room, and . . . no one would expect them to wait there, so security measures would be even better.”

  Lacey loosed a deep sigh. Temple had worked with her many times before. “Sure. If that’s what you want.” She flashed Temple a relieved grin. “We’ll send in pages with soft drinks.”

  “No soft drinks.” Pritchard again. “Our faxes clearly stated that only Vita Clara lime-flavored bottled water is used by Ms. Wong. Her associates prefer Evian.”

  She glanced at the distinct midwesterners in the party: the intimidated Kenny Maylord and Temple. “I don’t know what these people drink, but all of our needs were clearly laid out. Didn’t you get my faxes?”

  “Yes, but all the bottled water we have has been put out for the lions and tigers,” Lacey said, deadpan. “They get agitated in a TV studio, where the lights are hot, and they pant. A lot. They use roasting pans for water dishes when they’re away from their compound. And the Cloaked Conjuror and Shangri-La are also here with their leopard and panther, so there isn’t a drop of bottled water anywhere, except the nearest convenience store.” She eyed the entourage. “Perhaps someone on your crew could dash out—”

  Even more clear than bottled water was the fact that it was bad feng shui for a Wong flunky to fend for oneself.

  “We’ll wait in the studio,” Pritchard said shortly.

  The bodyguards flowed into lockstep behind Lacey as she led the way down the hall.

  Baylee looked worried, and Amelia Wong looked as though she were on another plane—or wished she was, literally, one out of this tank town—ignoring all the fuss about arrangements.

  Baylee caught Temple’s arm and held her back from the parade for a while.

  “Is it always like this in Las Vegas?” she asked in a whisper.

  “Like what?”

  “Lions in the Green Room?”

  Temple nodded. “You have to understand. Las Vegas is home turf to the world’s most exotic acts. Visiting celebrities seldom can compete with the homebodies, especially if the locals weigh a few hundred pounds and are lavishly furred. Sort of like Liberace on testosterone.”

  That image stopped Baylee cold for fifteen seconds. Then she frowned. “Ms. Wong isn’t used to this sort of treatment.”

  “Luckily, I am.”

  “So. Thank you for coming up with an alternative to the Green Room. And a page boy dashed out for the requisite brands of bottled water. If he hadn’t volunteered, I thought Pritchard was almost ready to set the two Dobermen on somebody.”

  Temple smiled at Baylee’s nickname for the Wong muscle.

  “They’ll be kept busy now,” she said. “The studio is huge and filled with dozens of cables of uncertain origin. Checking them out should keep the Dobermen occupied until showtime. I asked Lacey to make sure a healthful appetizer tray is delivered too. Nothing like gnawing on cruditées to soothe the savage soul. Funny how white lions and tigers and media stars like their meals raw these days.”

  Baylee’s smile was nervous. “I see why you’re needed here. Our party’s endangered predators should be purring by now.”

  “Thanks. And now I’ll leave things to Team Wong. I need to check out something back in the Green Room.”

  Temple was pleased to notice Baylee watching her exit with a slight expression of dismay. Apparently not all of the Wong minions had been browbeaten into institutional arrogance.

  She turned and retraced her steps, pausing when she was out of sight around a corner. Then she waited. Two minutes later, a harried Lacey Davenport came along on her soundless Nikes, all the better to not disturb filming.

  “Temple!” Lacey jumped back as she rounded the corner at a speedy clip. “You scared me. Are these fen shouey people from Mars or what?”

  Lacey was solid through and through, from her deft but hefty figure to her unflappable attitude.

  “’Fung Schwa
y,’ ” Temple said. “I hope the interviewers got the phonetic pronunciation I wrote out for them or there’ll be Hong Kong to pay.”

  “It’s on their cheat sheets, but I don’t have to bend myself out of shape trying to remember it now.” Lacey shook her no-fuss permed head. “Why aren’t you baby-sitting that crew? They could use it.”

  “They made clear that they want to stew over the situation without an outsider as witness. Besides, I’m more personally interested in your first act.”

  “That’s right. You have a cat at home. These animals are magnificent!”

  “This is a spot to support the Siegfried and Roy zoo breeding program?”

  “Of course.”

  “And the Cloaked Conjuror and Shangri-La serve as spokespersons now that Roy has been so badly injured? Will their leopards be on camera too?”

  “Leopard and black panther. Yes, but leashed.”

  “Not to worry. They’re the same critters, all leopards. Just the color is different. Listen. Can I hang out on the studio fringes to watch the cat act?”

  “I don’t know. We’re taping the Big Whites from the Green Room, can’t risk them on the set with people after what happened when Roy’s tiger dragged him offstage by the throat. Imagine: Las Vegas’s hottest ticket and a new multimillion-dollar ‘lifetime’ contract history in just a few seconds! That’s the trouble. We now know anything can happen with the big cats. You know how to behave yourself on a set, Temple, but . . . why are you so hot to watch this segment in person?”

  “Let’s just say I can’t resist magnificent animals in the flesh.”

  “Yeah, I’ve seen that magician-boyfriend of yours. Or is it ex-boyfriend? I never see you two around much anymore.”

  “Max is . . . touring.” Temple shrugged. “Really, I’d love to see those cats close up, live, and in person. Okay?”

  “Sure. Anything you want for getting those crazy decorator people off my case. Who do they think they are?”

  “In tune with the universe. Only it’s theirs, not ours.”

  “If they try to rearrange my cameramen, it’s all off.”

  “And I’ll already be on the scene to baby-sit them when you bring them out from the other studio.”

  “Deal.”

  Temple nodded and peeled away from Lacey to follow a nondescript hall until she encountered a wall of black linen curtains. She peeked between the first opening.

  The Las Vegas Now! set sat in a concrete-floored, high-ceilinged warehouse environment. It was surrounded by a web of thick black cables on the floor and three manned cameras.

  The usual “living room” setup of sofa and chairs had been supplemented by banks of large potted palms. Imported pedestals on either side showed off the visiting big cats to advantage.

  Yes, Temple had a big cat at home: a big alley cat named Midnight Louie. Yes, she liked to see the magnificent felines, who outweighed a baby grand piano in person, and performing, even though that was recognized for the risk it was since the tragic incident that had instantly closed Las Vegas’s biggest show a few months ago. Siegfried and Roy deserved a standing ovation for their work in preserving the white tigers and lions now lost to the wild.

  But what Temple really, really wanted to see was the lesser act and the lesser cats, now on the set and being interviewed and admired. And she didn’t really want to see the Cloaked Conjuror, the masked magician who’d made a hot ticket out of unmasking the illusions of other magicians. As the significant other of a “legitimate” magician, Temple wished him bad cess, as they used to say in antique plays.

  No. She wanted to eyeball, up close and very personal, the woman who had tricked her out of Max’s friendship-cum-engagement ring. A very decent little emerald from Max gleamed on her hand at this very moment, but it was a consolation prize, a mere crackerjack token compared to the opal and diamond ring he’d given her for Christmas in New York City almost six months ago.

  Temple felt she still contained the heart of a wrathful tiger as she remembered her previous encounter with Shangri-La when the woman magician had played the Opium Den. How easily Temple had been lured onstage as the audience shill. How she had been magically stripped of her romantic ring and then kidnapped with intentions to cross state lines . . . not hard in Las Vegas, which was cheek-by-Hoover-Dam with Arizona. How weeks later that very ring had turned up on the fringe of a murder scene. Ultimately it had come into the custody of Max’s and her worst enemy, homicide lieutenant C. R. Molina, a seriously overgrown woman whose hands wore nothing more exciting than a big, clumsy class ring, and probably never would.

  Temple had last glimpsed the delicate Tiffany construction of her ring in a plastic evidence baggie on Molina’s desk.

  That was too detestable to take sitting or lying down, or even standing up, as she was now.

  Shangri-La had wrested the ring away and vanished.

  Now the Asian enigma had reappeared after several months, newly partnered with the Cloaked Conjuror. Both magicians performed in masks. CC—another target of death threats; was that this year’s trendy problem or what?—wore a striped full-head mask that included a device that garbled his vocal patterns, so he sounded like a secret witness on a TV tabloid show.

  Shangri-La was more subtle. She was masked by makeup, painted like a figure from a Chinese opera. A dead white rice-powder face with flagrant red wings shadowing her eyes made her into an effective icon. She leaped about the stage in tattered robes, flaunting snaky tendrils of hair and long mandarin fingernails as curved and sharp as tiger claws.

  She was long overdue for a comeuppance for the ring caper, but Temple had not seen hide nor hair nor unfiled fingernail of her until now.

  Now that the Wong party was safely sucking French bottled water and California broccoli florets in their studio-in-waiting, Temple was darned if she was just going to lurk in the wings and watch the thieving witch’s on-camera performance. It was time to confront Shangri-La coming off the set and demand to know how the ring charmed off Temple’s finger onstage had ended up weeks later on the fringes of a parking-lot crime scene.

  MADD TV

  Before Temple could work herself up into attack mode, she watched in dismay as the two magicians and their big cats were suddenly signaled to hustle off-camera.

  The Cloaked Conjuror and his animals exited left first. Then Shangri-La cartwheeled off to the right.

  Paralyzed by the two sudden exits, Temple stood there like a dumbstruck person born in the year of the Ox.

  Eve Castenada, the host/interviewer, faced the camera, her aspect disconcertingly sober.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, I’m sorry to interrupt the live feature on the big cats and the valuable efforts to breed them for posterity. I’ve just been informed that the president of MADD, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, is attending a conference in Las Vegas and is here to comment on the rush-hour tragedy in Henderson.”

  Temple’s mind immediately recalled the front-page story in that morning’s Las Vegas Review Journal: three teens wiped out the previous evening by a drunk driver.

  The president of MADD was probably the surviving parent of a similar tragedy. Temple watched the set literally darken as the heavy-set, serious woman walked into camera range.

  Temple’s own mood plummeted from high dudgeon to fellow feeling. When she’d been a TV reporter in Minnesota she’d most dreaded covering survivors. She hated the personal questions she’d had to ask on-camera so much that she’d eventually left the job.

  Temple also empathized with the host’s switch from feel-good feature to hard-hitting news item. Pros made the transition look easy, but the people behind the smooth facades paid for their professionalism with nerves later.

  Temple felt bodies crowding behind her at the curtain to watch. One of them whispered in her ear.

  “What’s this?” A man’s voice.

  “President of MADD commenting on that terrible wreck last night.”

  “Someone came into the other studio and said we were scratc
hed.”

  Temple looked over her shoulder. Kenny Maylord stood there in his bland midwestern business suit and receding hairline, looking worried.

  “News bulletins happen on TV,” she said. “Even on feature shows.”

  From her left came another insistent push. The blond Baylee Harris.

  “Ms. Wong is furious. She has friends among the network stockholders. She does their condos and vacation homes.”

  “They’re too far away to make a difference now,” Temple whispered back. “And be quiet. This is a TV studio.”

  “This is a disaster for us!” Baylee sounded more sad than angry.

  “We’re losing our media momentum. What can we do?” Pritchard asked from behind her.

  Temple pulled the curtain shut. “Follow me,” she ordered the May-lord and Wong contingent, retracing her steps as silently as possible.

  At least they followed suit until they were out in the deserted hall.

  “You don’t understand,” Kenny Maylord said. “Maylords hosts its grand opening only once and that’s tonight. A Friday daytime slot is crucial.”

  “Ms. Wong seldom appears at small-time events like this,” Pritchard added. “It just happens that some of her biggest Asian clients keep pied-à-terres in Las Vegas. Her next gig is with the sultan of Dubai. She’ll never be available in Las Vegas again.”

  “Maylords needs the publicity,” Kenny insisted.

  Temple turned on both of them. “At the expense of pushing off that tragic news story? I don’t think so.”

  Both groaned, only Kenny’s was more of a moan.

  “Okay.” Temple’s sigh blew the curls off her forehead. When she was good, she was very good. And when she was bad, she was with Max, or had been. “Who came in and said your appearance was scratched?”

  “One of the page boys.”

  Temple checked her watch, then eyed Pritchard and Maylord. “Weren’t you supposed to announce a twenty-thousand-dollar donation to the local arts group?”