Cat in an Orange Twist Read online

  “Yeah,” Kenny said. “From Maylords. Ms. Wong was going to present it.”

  “Okay. I suggest you make the donation to the Nevada chapter of MADD instead.”

  “MADD? That has nothing to do with interior design.”

  “It has a lot to do with interior sympathies in Las Vegas at the moment. If you can do that, I might be able to get you and Ms. Wong on-camera for a minute or two.”

  “But the details of the store opening—”

  “The contribution of Ms. Wong to national culture—”

  “Are not the act to follow this. Do you have children? Mr. May-lord? Ms. Merriweather?”

  Pritchard shook her lacquered jet black bob, but Kenny Maylord nodded.

  “How old are they?”

  “Six and four,” he said.

  “Add ten years and imagine how you’d feel if they’d just died in a car crash caused by a drunk driver. Not a time to mention cocktail opening receptions for anything! Just get on, let Ms. Wong and Mr. Maylord be introduced. Offer your sympathies to the families and community, and make your donation. Okay?”

  Two dazed heads nodded. They followed in Temple’s wake as she skittered faster than a water bug along the slick concrete floor, hunting Lacey Davenport.

  Everything went down according to her improvised plan. A briefed Amelia Wong was the soul of gracious sympathy and Kenny Maylord’s balding dome only shone with modest sweat under the brutally bright TV lights. The producer had been more than willing to squeeze in the squeezed-out guests if they became instant donors.

  Temple watched from the curtained wings, Lacey at her side.

  The Maylords opening was mentioned. Once. Ms. Wong’s expertise was bowed to. The astounded president of MADD accepted a fake check in lieu of the real one, thanking them both so very, very much.

  “We’ll flash a card on the Maylords opening time and place at the end of the hour’s final news segment and throughout the day’s programming,” Lacey said. “What was the money really going to go for?”

  “The arts fund and a feng shui makeover by Ms. Wong of a local Montessori school.”

  “Not bad PR,” Lacey conceded, “but this was even better, more newsy and immediate. I hope your clients appreciate you saving the day for feng shui folk everywhere.”

  “I know the twenty-thousand-dollar check will do some real good. And that has got to be better feng shui for the Maylords opening tonight.”

  Another Opening,

  Another Shui

  Miss Midnight Louise and myself sit side by side, our noses pressed to the glass.

  This is not an uncommon position for our species.

  It is, however, an uncommon occupation for us, who are seldom so at ease with one another. And what has caused this unprecedented truce? We are witnessing a sight that I, at least, view with considerably mixed emotions.

  Observe: my neighbor at the Circle Ritz apartment building, Mr. Matt Devine, is sitting on a sofa of vibrant hue. He is looking right at home, although he is dressed up in a caramel-colored linen blazer over a cream-colored silk shirt. With his blond head-fur, he looks like the cat’s meow, if that cat were a shaded golden Persian like my acquaintance Solange.

  It is not Mr. Matt Devine and his unusual state of nattiness that disturb me.

  It is the lady sitting right beside him on that highly colored sofa.

  “This looks bad,” I mutter into my whiskers. Actually, it is more of a growl.

  “Lighten up,” Louise instructs me. Being female from head to tail, she is very good at instructions. “What is bad? Who is that strange lady with Mr. Matt?”

  I am not about to tell her she has put her kittenish mitt right on the heart of the problem.

  She goes on building her case. “I have not seen her around and about the Circle Ritz or the Crystal Phoenix Hotel or any of the usual hangouts that your personal humans patronize.”

  “I do not know who she is either,” I admit.

  What she is I can tell without a program. She is a New Lady in Mr. Matt’s life.

  While my roomie, Miss Temple Barr, has maintained a long-term relationship with Mr. Max Kinsella, there is no doubt that she would not cotton to Mr. Matt getting so cozy with a strange female. And humans talk about “dogs in the manger”! They are way up on canines in this regard, if you ask me.

  But no one does, and I would not answer anyway.

  Of course I do not see why my Miss Temple cannot cozy up with both Mr. Kinsella and Mr. Devine, à la the feline species. Often the same litter will share serial fathers, hence the endlessly innovative colorings of my kind. But, no, humans insist on degrees of separation that are way more strict than the rest of the animal kingdom adheres to, which in human relations causes everything from hissy fits to homicide.

  “Mr. Matt looks splendid in a cream coat,” Miss Louise remarks a bit dreamily for a fixed female. “If only he did not have those creepy brown eyes.” She shudders delicately. “They always remind me of dogs.”

  It is true that a cat the color of his clothes would sport green or gold or even blue eyes, but humans cannot help sharing an eye color with dogs. So I tell Miss Louise, who shrugs and begins the favorite female pastime of all species, picking apart another lady. I do not forget that Miss Louise lived briefly with Mr. Matt when she first hit town and probably has a secret crush on him, like all the other females in town, despite her feline distaste for his eye color.

  Big brown doggy eyes do have a certain appeal to the nondis-criminating.

  “She is a lot bigger than your Miss Temple,” Louise notes.

  “Miss Temple is exquisitely petite, like the Divine Yvette.”

  “That feather-headed Persian!” Louise spits. “You always did go for those shallow showgirls. The lady sitting with Mr. Matt looks solid. Good breeding stock, but brains too. At first glance I took her for Miss Lt. C. R. Molina, but I see now that she is a different sort altogether.”

  While we are speculating, someone walks into the picture beyond the glass we peer through.

  It is Miss Temple Barr herself, all dressed up in the sparkly silver ’60s knit suit she had tried on for my approval earlier and my signature pumps of solid Austrian crystal stones, with my suave black profile glittering subtly on the heels!

  “Ooooh!” Louise transfers her weight from mitt to mitt in anticipation. “I predict a cat fight of major dimensions.”

  I admit that my neck tenses. This will not be pretty.

  But Miss Temple merely stops before them and chats. Everybody smiles. The strange lady nods at Miss Temple while Mr. Matt introduces her. I wish I could hear what they are saying! It is like watching the opening scene of a film without a sound track.

  There is more odd about this scene that the nauseating cordiality of all concerned. The sofa Mr. Matt and his new lady friend perch upon is not the red suede vintage number my Miss Temple found for his apartment at the Circle Ritz. It is not a free-form Vladimir Kagan design from the ’50s that would make a great museum piece. It is a vivid orange leather that simply cries out for an elegant noir kind of dude like me to stretch out on it . . . and knead my front shivs into its soft, hide-scented surface. Ummmm.

  “That sofa is good enough to eat,” I cannot help remarking.

  “Orange is definitely our color,” Louise agrees. Like me she is as black as the jack of spades, except she is a jill.

  “And I was born on Halloween,” I add. “Some would consider this a bad omen for a dude of my coloring, but I sneer at silly superstitions.”

  “You sneer at a lot of things, Daddy Dudest,” she notes dryly. “I do not know when I was born,” she adds.

  This is a dig, because she is convinced that I am responsible for her advent on earth and should be mensch enough to at least remember the month.

  “Halloween is months away,” I say vaguely. “I wonder what they are all doing here.”

  “It is a big Las Vegas opening,” she points out.

  “It is a very minor Las Vegas opening.”r />
  “Then why did we come?”

  “I heard Chef Song was catering it and there will be lots of leftover shrimp scampi and other saltwater delights.”

  “Then should we not scampi around back by the Dumpster and be first in line?”

  I gaze into Louise’s narrowed golden eyes, so cynical for one so young.

  My own eyes are green, limpid, and as innocent as a threedollar bill.

  As one, in this if nothing else, we head for the buffet-line-to-be out back, leaving our humans to handle their own messy affairs for once.

  Chatty Catty

  “So what are you doing here?” Matt asked Temple. This didn’t sound as smooth a conversational transition as he had hoped.

  “I’m doing PR for Maylords. And you?”

  “Uh, Janice is on the staff.”

  “Oh, really?” Temple took the opportunity to perch beside Janice on the sofa arm.

  Maybe her high heels were killing her, Matt thought, though they seldom did. So maybe it was curiosity.

  Temple continued, “I heard everyone on staff went through a tough six-week training session before the opening. Boot camp for the retail set. But on salary. Pretty impressive. Maylords is really slinging the cash around for this opening. What do you do here?”

  Janice’s amused expression grew quizzical. “I’m in an odd position. I’m not a fully qualified interior designer yet, but I directed the overall look of the artwork in the displays. The staff is either designers or sales force, so I’m a bit of both.”

  “Listen,” Temple said, “I’ve seen some of your own artwork. You’d be qualified to photo-style the Taj Mahal, I’d bet.”

  “And you’ve done a fabulous job with the opening party and the press. Matt has always said you were very creative.”

  “Oh, he has? How nice.”

  Temple looked at him. Janice looked at him. Why did Matt feel like chum dangling between two attractive but circling sharks?

  “I envy you both,” he said. “Your minds are always concocting something out of nothing. I just sit in a chair nights and psychoanalyze strangers for fun and profit.”

  “Being a radio shrink is not an easy gig.” Temple tolerated no self-deprecation except on her own behalf. “You do actual good for people.”

  He wished he could do some good for himself and escape this awkward situation. Why it was awkward, he couldn’t say, but it was.

  “So.” Temple turned to Janice again. “I see the store will be doing monthly art shows in the framing area. Any of your pieces scheduled?”

  “No.” Janice shook her head as she smiled. “However upscale it is, Maylords is a furniture store. It shows and sells art that would be considered . . . wallpaper. Nothing too meaty.”

  “And you’re meaty.” Temple nodded. “I’ve heard so much about you, but have never had a chance to compliment you. I saw those police-style portraits you did from Matt’s descriptions. It’s too bad computers have superceded police sketch artists, but how lucky that Lieutenant Molina suggested Matt try you for help in finding his stepfather. Those sketches you did for him, both phenomenal . . . at least the one of the man was. I met him once. Briefly.” She shuddered slightly at a brutal memory Matt wished they both could forget. “I never did see that woman face-to-face.”

  “From what Matt said about her, you were lucky.”

  When, Matt wondered, had he been totally cut out of this conversation?

  Temple smiled grimly in agreement. “We’re all going to be lucky to see or hear no more of her. Matt did tell you?”

  Janice just nodded. Matt could see Temple softly riffing her tangerine (she never missed a nuance) enameled fingernails on the silver metal evening purse in her lap. He knew she loathed short, uninformative answers, being an ex-TV news reporter and professional word-smith. Words were her paint, and Janice was keeping her personal profile very sketchy indeed right now.

  While Matt tried to think of something to say—it had to be his turn by now—their trio suddenly became a quartet.

  “Temple, you minx, you’ve been hiding!”

  The man’s frame was as wiry as his cannily bleached, curly blond hair. Matt knew him, so he was free to spring up and shake hands.

  “Danny Dove, the choreographer,” Temple said, glancing at Janice. “Janice Flanders is an artist and was in charge of the store’s opening look.”

  “Fabulous!” Danny’s waving hand indicated the overall ambiance, then captured one of Temple’s hands. “I hate to drag you away, munchkin, but there’s someone I’ve been dying to have you meet.”

  “We can’t have Las Vegas’s premier choreographer dying,” Temple answered, nodding farewell to Matt and Janice. “If you’ll excuse us?”

  Matt was left standing, his hands in his pants pockets. Janice stood up beside him.

  “Danny Dove,” she said. “Wow. He’s big-time in this town.”

  “Funny, no matter how massive the Las Vegas tourist trade gets, it’s still called a town. Temple worked with him on a couple of special shows.”

  “She’s one multitalented little munchkin,” Janice said.

  “True.”

  “In fact, she’s adorable.”

  “Temple would cringe to hear that. She hates being reminded that she’s small and cute; she wants to be taken seriously.”

  “Danny Dove didn’t get a rise out of her.”

  “He calls everybody pet names. Choreographer’s habit, I guess. Besides, he saved her bacon.”

  “Hmmm.” Janice gazed at the dressed-up people filtering in twos through Maylords’s maze of model rooms filled with modern, and very expensive, furniture. The orange leather sofa was $4,800, Matt had noticed.

  He eyed Janice, wondering how Temple had seen her: a tall woman with short brown hair, wearing a beige linen top and skirt hand printed with rather cryptic images, like three wavy lines and a fish. Not pretty, but pleasant and strong looking.

  “So she’s the one.” Janice’s mild tone set alarm bells clanging all along his circulatory system.

  “ ‘The one?’ ”

  “Don’t play dense, Matt. The one-something-almost-happened-with-except-she-was-taken.”

  “Did I mention—?”

  “Yes, once, a while back.”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “I do. So. Is she the one?”

  “How did you guess?”

  Janice gave him the same narrow perceptive look that she applied to the subject of a sketch before she began slicing the charcoal across the paper.

  “By the very thorough once-over she gave me. She knew who I was from ten feet away.”

  “She did?”

  “Made me with one glimpse of my name tag.”

  Matted eyed the small rectangle of plastic plastered to Janice’s left shoulder. “Janice” was incised into it, no more.

  “I’m sure she was just interested because she’d seen those two sketches you’d done for me. She said they were great.”

  “I’m sure not. Matt, don’t be naive,” Janice said. “I wouldn’t underestimate that munchkin for a minute. She’s smart as a whip and faster than a speeding bullet and other assorted clichés, and doesn’t miss a thing. I don’t blame you for falling for her.”

  “I—”

  “Well. Am I right?”

  He was now thoroughly lost in no-man’s-land. Janice had invited him to be her escort for the landmark occasion of her first full-time position since her divorce. Now here she was grilling him about his feelings for another woman. Even an undersocialized ex-priest understood that this was a lose-lose situation.

  Janice laughed. “It’s okay. The real world is filled with the echoes of unfinished symphonies. I’m just saying you couldn’t find two more opposite women than she and I.”

  Matt silently objected. Lt. Molina and Temple were even greater opposites, but he didn’t intend to inject Carmen Molina into this mess.

  “You think it’s odd,” he ventured, “that I could like two such different . . . peo
ple.”

  “Fudger!” Janice laughed again, then put her hand on his forearm, a comforting gesture. She wore one ring on her second finger: a sherry-colored citrine in sterling silver with gilt accents. “It’s okay. I’m just glad that awful woman who stalked you is out of the picture. I can handle adorable, but I cannot cope with psychotic.”

  “Funny; I’m the other way around.”

  “That’s because you’re a counselor,” Janice said. “Speaking of psychotic, did I fill you in on the corporate dynamics around this place?”

  Matt gazed at the softly lit vignettes of perfect rooms, the ambling magazine-chic couples clutching wineglasses. “They sell furniture. What corporate dynamics?”

  “Very odd.” She leaned in, leaving her hand on his arm, whispering. Matt smelled something light and elusive, like very pleasant soap. “That’s what I thought. Selling furniture. Not a noble profession, but a necessary one.”

  “Who’s arguing?”

  “Well, our esteemed manager, for one. Did you see a pudgy, red-faced man in a wrinkled oatmeal linen suit scurrying around?”

  “Yeah. He’s the manager?”

  “The one and only Mark Ainsworth. When we got our final pep talk before opening, Kenny Maylord himself addressed us en masse. He said what a fabulous group of designers and sales associates this was. Well, they should be; they all jumped ship from the other major furniture showrooms in town. Anyway, it was all about how great we are. Then he left and pigeon-toed Ainsworth took over and stood up in front of God and everybody and said, get this, ‘In three months half of you will be gone.’ We’re all still blinking at that one.”

  “Gone? Like . . . let go?”

  “That’s what he said.”

  “In three months? After paying you all for six weeks of training? Doesn’t make sense.”

  “No. I had a strong impression of good cop/bad cop being played on the discount mattress front.”

  “Discount mattress?”

  “Don’t let all the fancy furniture fool you; the real duel for home furnishing power in Las Vegas is over mattress sales. Figures. Everybody’s got to have them and they need periodic replacement. Plus the markup is retail heaven. Not to mention the psychosexual implications.”