Cat in a Flamingo Fedora Read online

  If she'd been Little Miss Muffet and he had been a tarantula, she couldn't have been more surprised. Glancing around, she saw that they alone sat in the house seats. Everyone else was clustered up on the stage to watch the rehearsal.

  Cooke's smile revealed Hollywood-white teeth and a perception of just how much his fame and reputation nonplussed her.

  Oh, what white teeth you have, grandfather, Temple thought. And big eyes for another conquest maybe.

  "I understand your cat is the star of the coming big scene."

  "Co-star. Savannah Ashleigh's Yvette actually was contracted for the commercial before Louie."

  "Louie? I still love it. A great name for an alley cat."

  "Midnight Louie," she reminded him.

  "Even better." He peered politely into the dim carrier, but Temple would bet he didn't give a fresh fig about cats. "I assume he's black. Black animals are usually harder to film. How did he get the part?"

  "He, ah, crashed the site of the last commercial shoot. Louie seems to have an abiding interest in Yvette."

  "He's not a tomcat?"

  "I'm afraid so. I meant to get him fixed, but . . . things keep happening."

  "What things?" Cooke's face was sober now, one of those unusual men's faces that look more handsome when they're not smiling. Like the young Brando or Beatty.

  Temple was reluctant to explain all the ins and outs of her and Louie's careers in crime. Her hesitation seemed to please Darren Cooke.

  "The Divine Savannah called you 'Nancy Drew' the other day. Why is that?"

  "That's what you call her, 'the Divine Savannah'?" Temple found that a scream, attaching an adjective coined for the Divine Sarah Bernhardt to a strictly B-movie actress like Savannah Ashleigh.

  "Not to her face," Cooke added with a slight smile.

  "And why would she be talking about me to you?"

  "Savannah is like Scarlett O'Hara. She sees herself as greatly wronged by the inequities of the world. Apparently your alley cat coming out of nowhere to share the billing with her purebred is beyond her endurance."

  "Too bad. She'll just have to hope that tomorrow is another day."

  "But what's this Nancy Drew stuff?"

  "Silliness. Why do you want to know?"

  He frowned, a nice manly frown that would come across well on camera. Film actors knew their every bad angle, their every winning expression; they practiced hiding one and flashing the other daily. Temple sometimes wondered how they survived without a flunky carrying a mirror around for them. She had seen young actors that could no longer look someone they were talking to in the eye. They were that busy searching out a mirror, or any reflective surface.

  Cooke was a veteran; the mirror was internalized by now. He could feign concentration on another person pretty well. No wonder he was a ladies' man.

  Now he was looking sincere, but decently reluctant. "I have a delicate problem I don't want to discuss with the usual . . . professionals. I would trust an amateur more at this point. And a woman. If you are a grown-up Nancy Drew, and you are a fetching candidate for the role," he added with a rapid sizing-up, "I might-- want your advice. For a professional consideration, of course."

  "Mr. Cooke, I've never been paid by anybody for stumbling onto the scene of a crime. As a public-relations person, I have a responsibility to see that events I'm coordinating are efficiently run."

  "And murder is so inefficient."

  "Exactly. Not to mention bad press. The sooner it's off the books, the sooner the status quo is restored. That's how I got involved in what I got involved with."

  "Fascinating. Crime-solving as good PR. It makes sense. I know you might not want to take on a commission, but it's really advice I need, and badly. Tomorrow's Sunday. I throw an eleven a.m. brunch for friends and crew in my suite at the Oasis. Come up for a bite, and we'll find time for a talk. That's all I ask."

  Temple was a veteran PR woman. She'd had her fill of celebrity socials where everyone used the mirror of her spectacles for a looking glass. Still, this was the first time she'd been invited by the host celebrity before. Even more interesting, he was a notorious womanizer who seemed more interested in her little gray cells than her crimson curls.

  As she hesitated, he said something astounding.

  "Please."

  Temple nodded mutely. The last time she had turned down a man she suspected of lascivious motives, he had died before her eyes. Only then had it occurred to her that she had a certain reputation in this town for getting to the bottom of things. She wasn't just a young, single woman in Las Vegas anymore, she was P.I. PR woman, supersleuth!

  Just like Louie was about to become Mr. Midnight, TV star!

  As Darren Cooke discreetly slipped away to rejoin the cast onstage, another low voice was at her ear.

  "Miss Barr."

  Sharon Hammerlitz, the hostile animal trainer (not that the animals were hostile, just the trainer), leaned over her.

  "Keep Louie calm. Frank is going to do a run-through on the sequence with Maurice, but we'll need Louie backstage now to slip in for the final take."

  "Why Maurice first?"

  "He's a stuntcat, so call him Midnight Louie's body double. I know how to make Maurice go where they want, so they can get a quick fix on the entire action sequence. Then I put Louie in, and hope."

  She sounded crabby and Temple, watching Sharon walk off with Louie's heavy carrier, couldn't blame her. A perfectly adequate and trained pro, Maurice, had been pushed aside by a rank newcomer who probably would muff his business. Luckily, Louie had no lines to blow, as far as Temple knew.

  Temple trained her attention on the stage, and noticed Savannah Ashleigh at stage left, glaring out at the empty seats. Empty except for Temple.

  She was obviously wishing either Temple or Midnight Louie dead, and probably both.

  Chapter 10

  Tripping to Stardom

  So. What indignity can the mind of director invent?

  I am soon to discover.

  I most resent being carted away from my dear Miss Temple so soon after the approach and departure of Mr. Darren Cooke. But the so-called animal trainer has come to collect my carrier without as much as a by-your-leave. And poor Miss Temple is so perplexed by the recent request of Mr. Darren that she hardly notices my withdrawal! I must say that she is at times irritatingly susceptible to male ploys coming from the wrong species. I am the true gentleman of the lot, and would make no untoward demands.

  So I leave her alone in the theater seat, mooning over who knows what, as I am borne to my fate. I have heard, of course, every bit of dialogue that has transpired in my vicinity, from the hiss-and-spit between Miss Temple and my darling's obnoxious mistress, to the strange request from the star of the show.

  I fear he is less interested in Miss Temple's sleuthing abilities than in her scarlet hair and trim little ankles. Oh, that I could escape this assembly-line carrier and tend to business!

  However, I have worries of my own. It also has not escaped me that Maurice Two is not only usurping my rehearsal role, but he has apparently been freed of confinement for some time, while I still languish in the calaboose.

  Not a good sign. This dude has gotten away with murder before on a cat-commercial set, and that was not even on location, but at the Yummy Tum-tum-tummy plant. Now he has all the confusion and clutter of a backstage production number to disguise his nefarious doings, the exact same cover that made the romance convention such an ideal site for serial murder.

  Naturally, I would be Maurice Two's second victim (that we know of, I add ominously), so he is a practiced paw at murder most feline.

  I am lugged, rather clumsily, up the thirty-nine steps of the set. (I do not actually count the number of steps, but it feels like a lot, and thirty-nine is a nice mystery number.) The chorus has parted for my arrival, so I have an honor guard of flashy dudes in lurid suits. Once I arrive at the pinnacle, I see an assistant hovering with a loathsome object in her hand: it is a miniature fedora in a col
or I can only call blushing-salmon pink. In other words, even a sockeye salmon would cringe to see an article of clothing in that extreme shade of pale orange-red called flamingo. No wonder these birds often hide their heads under their wings. I would too if I had to run around all day looking like a sunburned posterior. Schiaparelli did not call it "shocking pink" for nothing.

  I am removed from my carrier while the fedora is tilted over my right eye and held on with a black elastic. Out of the corner of my left eye, which is the only functional one at the moment, I see Maurice sitting on the sidelines snickering. He is footloose and fancy-free and could have arranged all sorts of booby traps for me during the perilous descent ahead.

  For the script is simplicity itself. I look far below to see the Divine Yvette being primped by her personal stylist as well as Miss Savannah Ashleigh. Someone has wrapped an ostrich-feather boa dyed in this same flamingo-pink color around her fluffy little ruff and diamond dog collar.

  (You would think the truth-in-advertising laws would prevent using ostrich feathers in flamingo guise, but I suppose no one besides me cares about the fine points anymore.) Besides aggravating the cast by clothing them in interspecies articles, the producers of this little epic are calling for me to speed down the thirty-nine steps, half-blind, right toward the Divine Yvette.

  They have imported a number of barbarian devices with the supposed purpose of encouraging me to follow stage directions whether I will or no. Little do they know that I do not need to be a Method actor to zero right in on the Divine One as fast as my four lightning limbs will permit me.

  Perhaps you have heard of a "cold bolt" of lightning. I understand that this is a rare phenomenon: a gray-black lightning ball that streaks through a room. Well, put the Divine Yvette wherever you wish, give me a glimpse and Cold Bolt Louie will be there in a flash. They do not need their ostrich-feather whips, their bell-laden bouncing balls, their clickers, their crouching trainers and assistants huddling along the camera route to herd me back onto the right path. I can take direction without being hit over the head with it, especially if it is something I would want to do anyway.

  I see that they have mounted a track device on which the camera can coast alongside me, capturing every graceful, cheetah-like leap as I run down the thirty-nine steps.

  I also see that it would have been easy for Maurice to plan some dirty work. The steps are painted black, and smudged with the tracks of many human hoofer feet. A bit of spilled oil in the right place would do wonders. My sharp eye (remember the foolish fedora!) does not spy any slick places, but Maurice Two managed to leave no trace at the site of his last job, or rather, Maurice One's last job. If it were not for the feline seance that took place during my previous case, I would not even suspect that Maurice Two is not the original Maurice, but the successor who moved up through caticide.

  To be forewarned is to be forearmed, as by taking arms against a sea of troubles we end them. My sea of troubles is the rank of human faces in the chorus, who will all be doing their tap-dancing thing on the sidelines as I and the camera hurtle past.

  I watch like a hawk when the director cues the animal trainer to send Maurice down the steeply inclined gantlet. I feel a little like an Aztec priest high on my step pyramid watching the feline sacrifice plummet to the deadly ground below.

  A plastic ball is set bouncing down the stairs, then the trainer at the bottom whistles and rattles a plastic container of Yummy Tum-tum-tummy. You notice that the operative word here is "plastic." Such is the falseness of show biz. Then a clicker sounds.

  Maurice takes out after that pathetic plaything like Pavlov's pussycat. I watch his rump bump and grind down all thirty-nine steps while the camera keeps pace on its elevator glide mechanism. Now that is how I would like to make my entrance! This running one's gaiters and mittens off is for the birds, preferably flamingos. I am not much fond of flamingos at this point.

  But, no, I am expected to risk life and limb on those damned steps. The camera is hauled up to the top again. Maurice, panting, is carried back up and placed beside me. As if there were anything that I could learn from this bozo besides murder methods.

  "Piece of cake," Maurice says between huffs.

  "Yeah? Frosted with arsenic or strychnine?"

  "You are a suspicious sort, Louie. How would I be able to hurt you with so many witnesses looking on, including a camera crew?"

  "You managed to do in Maurice One in equally public circumstances. I will warn you now; if anything happens to me, my little doll will be all over this stage with a laser-light. She will examine every centimeter of film and find the means and the culprit. She is my insurance."

  "Your little doll is an amateur who got lucky a time or two. Besides, she will not be suspecting feline felony."

  "Maybe not, but if you should by some odious chance be successful, I will come back to haunt you, and so will Maurice One."

  "I do not believe you! Who saw this ghost besides you? Only some bats in the haunted-house attraction, which is a pretty good assessment of your mental state . . . batty! Okay, sucker. Time to play your part. Break a leg, buddy!"

  By now we are snarling and the crew is hushing us and acting as if I am somehow responsible for it all.

  'That," the A La Cat honcho harrumphs loudly, "is what we get for working with a tomcat."

  I cannot tell you in what degree of loathing the word "tomcat" is spoken. Hey, were it not for tomcats, there would be no cats, although there are a few million too many, I grant you. I tell you, we middle-aged, unfixed, free-roaming dudes are a downtrodden minority these days. It is almost enough to make one go off and join a survivalist clan out in the boonies.

  But social criticism is not my main problem at the moment. How to save my skin is. When the director yells, "Quiet!" everybody shuts up except the chorus, who clatter around like nervous horses. They are supposed to lip-sync their number, the A La Cat jingle, which will be recorded in the studio later.

  "Action!" cries the director.

  The trainer at my rear swats my posterior with what feels like a baseball catcher's mitt embedded with thorns.

  I rocket down the aisle of empty stairs, chorus costumes a nauseating blur of melted sherbet as I pass, the camera dolly cranking and creaking away alongside me. Then I see it. On about the twenty-seventh step down, a little figure eight of steel wire like they wrap newspaper bundles in.

  Momentum is not allowing me to pick my step placements. I am bound to get tangled up in that treacherous loop like a calf in a roping contest. The Divine Yvette's little face is growing large, a look of horror widening her dark pupils. What can I do but improvise?

  I carom off to the side, into the chorus line on my blindside, and snick out my shivs. In a split second I am climbing a mandarin-orange suit (ick!) until I am perched upon a mandarin-orange shoulder.

  I tilt my head against the warbling chorus boy's face, although no sound is emitting from his lips and his eyes are rounder than the Divine Yvette's. I am no lightweight, and remain on his shoulder only because of my superb balance and my fully extended shivs curving into his shoulder pads and the underpinnings below, which may be epidermis. I do so hate to get human skin under my nails!

  Before he can react enough to give a howl that would ruin the take, I bound down to the stairs again, weaving in and out of the tapping choristers' rainbow-colored legs. I might even look like I am dancing, were I not running for my life.

  When I think the treacherous spot is well behind me, I bound into the center space and continue my insouciant descent, straight for my baby's feather-dusted arms.

  Except that I must stop first, on a dime, and fall back in awe.

  There, posed before the Divine Yvette, is this crystal wine glass, heaped with the homely gray glop of A La Cat. Except that a food stylist has been at it for hours, and every little flake sits up like a fox terrier in a circus act. Every flake has been hydrated and teased until it shines like a salmon in the sunlight. It looks pink and pale and plump. It looks dow
nright tasty as the Divine Yvette, following her cue, edges back from the dish, bats her long eyelashes and permits me a sample.

  This will be the hardest part of the entire ordeal. I stop, box my nose with a couple of hardy gestures then bashfully jam my nose into the stuff. I figure if my nostrils are blocked it will not smell so bad, and what does not smell bad, does not taste half-bad, in my experience.

  So I wolf down this masterpiece of inferior design, finally stopping to ste p back and bow to the Divine Yvette. She simpers and minces closer. We end up, whiskers entwined, lapping up A La Cat cheek to cheek.

  The camera at the bottom is probably zooming in for a nauseating close-up.

  "Cut!" the director yells from somewhere far away, and I know I am safe until the next take, at least. But I will survive.

  There is one motive, and one motive above all, that will see me through any perfidy that the murderous Maurice has up his stripes. I am sorry to say that it is not the round-eyed face of the Divine Yvette so near, staring up at me with limpid adoration.

  The fact is, I would die before I would allow myself to leave the planet while wearing this ridiculous headgear.

  Chapter 11

  Picture Perfect

  When the phone rang, Matt was sta nding in the kitchen eating his usual noon brunch of cereal, yogurt and an orange.

  He stared at the instrument, usually silent. When his phone did ring, it was rarely a friend--

  he had practically none--or a relative--they were all distant or dead. Usually it was unwelcome news.

  Chewing, he took his time heading for it, wondering if the high-tech yodel would stop before he could get there. With no answering machine, the caller would forever remain a mystery.

  Mysteries didn't bother Matt. He was used to keeping a respectful distance from the Unknowable. Knowing too much was the enemy.