She was ready.
First she had to put up with reactions.
“Hey, toots! Love the paint job. Looking good. How about an interview for KREP?” Awful Crawf suggested, slinking alongside her at the pool.
She cringed. Without the wig she felt naked. Worse, recognizable. Was blonde really the best disguise? Maybe for Marilyn. But her? She easily outtrotted him, avoiding the moment of truth.
“Wow. Oh, wow.” Mariah. “Wonder what they’ll make me look like? I should be really spectacular. Well, I’m younger. Way younger. Although you look pretty teen-y for a … you know.” She glanced about for cameras and mikes. “For an older woman. Will they dye my hair too? My mother will kill me.”
Rafi Nadir was a study in skepticism when she passed him in the hall. Quickly. But he didn’t seem to recognize the “ballsy little broad” he knew now that she was a blonde. He recognized something about her though.
“You don’t look like a chick who’d go down a dark hidden passage anymore.”
Temple was annoyed to discover herself insulted.
Chapter 33
Upping the Auntie
Temple knocked on the door of room number two with her knuckles, almost hoping no one was home.
“Come in.”
Drat. Watch out for what you claim you want; you might get it.
Kit Carlson sat at a French desk, clickety-clacking away on a large-screen laptop computer, lips moving silently and eyes fixed on the text in front of her.
After a minute, Temple said in a little girl voice quite unlike her natural husky rasp, “I hope I’m not interrupting anything?”
Kit’s head finally turned, slowly, from the screen to recognize her presence.
“Just the climax of my latest book.”
“I thought you wrote romances.”
Kit’s eyes looked over the plastic rims of her glasses. “Exactly.”
“Oh, that kind of climax. It’s happening … right here?”
“You don’t suppose I compose in the bathtub?”
“I wouldn’t doubt it. I don’t know if my jet-black mascara goes with my blindingly blonde hair. You have a lighter kind of mascara?”
Kit pushed her glasses up on her nose. She was a small woman with chin-length hair that insisted on assuming large loose strawberry-gray curls. She seemed better cast as some well-aged French chanteuse in a small nightclub, gargling throaty world-weary songs sans mike, a glass of poison-green absinthe sitting on the piano beside her.
“Of course. Dead-black mascara on me makes me look like Elvira, Mistress of the Dark. I have a nice warm brown shade that should compliment your new Goldilocks locks. Come into my parlor for a moment.”
Once they’d hied into the privy, Temple asked her most burning question.
“Do I still pass as undercover agent after being forcibly stripped of my wig?”
“A dreadful thing for a double agent, to lose the cover of darkness. But I must say Ken Adair did a terrific job of making the real you look utterly unlike yourself.”
“So my new look isn’t a dead giveaway?”
“Oh, no, dear. It’s a spectacular success.”
“So you’re saying I look too good to be mistaken for myself?”
“Except by a relative. Or an intimate. Any more of those here?”
“Only an enemy or two”
“Oh, you’d fool an enemy. They tend to fixate on specifics. As long as your trademark hair is history and your eyes are an astonishing shade of green, your secret is safe.”
“So what do you think of all the scary things that have been happening?”
“Scripted,” Kit said promptly. “The producers are bent on stirring things up. Stripping the contestants to their barest emotions.”
“With this crew of exhibitionist blondes, that’s not hard.”
“Now, dear, don’t be brutal to blondes. They have so much to overcome nowadays, like Jessica Simpson and Paris Hilton.”
“So you think we’re all lab rats being teased by the producers? No lurking evil-doer in sight?”
“Oh, evil-doers are always lurking. I often use them in my books. Is that why you’re here, pretending to be young and difficult? Who would be so dreadful as to force you back into revisiting your teen years? That dishy boyfriend I met in New York? Max … something … yum-yum?”
“Max isn’t aware of this. I’m here on unofficial police business. Well, unofficial official police business.”
“Surely no one is taking this circus of hokey threats seriously?”
Temple didn’t feel she could mention the mutilated poster and Molina’s concern for her daughter’s safety. For once she agreed with her enemy. Something nasty was going on here. But what?
“Maybe not.” Temple rose from her seat upon the commode, reassured. “I hope you didn’t lose any major inspiration.”
“No. Guido was about to do something interesting with a box of Lady Godiva chocolates. Deep dark bitter chocolates, do you think, dear, or perhaps white ones?”
“Never touch ’em,” Temple said, retreating toward the main room. “I’d better get back on observation. For some reason, the Teen Queen team gets nervous if they don’t know where I am every minute.”
“You’re a perfect little delinquent, Xoe Chloe Ozone! That’s why. My straitlaced sister would be … appalled.”
“You won’t ever tell Mom?”
“Not if you don’t tell her about my quandary with Guido and the gourmet candies. Karen was always so … Midwest.”
“If you stay in town long enough after this is over, Aunt, remind me to introduce you to the Fontana brothers.”
“Mobsters? I can always do research.”
“Yum-yum young mobsters. Definitely the white chocolate type.”
“Really?” Kit rose from her seat upon the tub surround to show Temple out, like Lady Macbeth rising from trying out the throne of Scotland. “Plural, you say. Very intriguing.”
“Thanks for the use of the biffy,” Temple/Xoe said once they were within mike and camera range again in the main office room. “I’ve got eighty million little tiny hairs to rinse off from that salon job they gave me. You’d think that Adair guy was a mini-Bucky Beaver.”
“You look smashing. A death of a thousand hair snips is worth the agony for the result. Take lots of long showers to rinse off the little pricklers, and keep your self-esteem up. You show great potential, Xoe, if you don’t get stubborn and blow it.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” Temple returned, emphasizing the “ma’am” as Kit grimaced in distaste. “I’ll do my best to be a candidate you all can be proud of.”
Then she left, without gagging, miraculously.
Chapter 34
Two-Faced
While my Miss Temple is doing the beauty bit, I spend my time prowling from boudoir to kitchen. My two favorite chambers, it is true, but at least Miss Midnight Louise is not around this time to point out my failings.
I have been accepted as a walking mascot, always good for the occasional camera shot. So have the Persian girls. I hear the camera operators slavering over our natural grace and good looks. We have no bad angles, they say. Unlike other objects of their lenses, apparently.
Of course, a full head … and shoulders … and legs … and tail of hair does wonders to hide any conformation flaws. And our eyes are naturally green without benefit of artificial enhancement. And the Ashleigh girls are the reigning hair color, silver and golden blonde. I must admit that my Miss Temple looks alarmingly unlike herself even with the dead-skunk hairdo now history.
Things are proceeding apace here at the Teen Queen Castle, and I am getting more nervous by the moment.
Perhaps this atmosphere of female pheromones has lulled the male factor into a stupor. Even Rafi Nadir, a man meant to notice danger if not bring it into play himself, is strangely mellow. He is demonstrating a certain gallantry to these mostly underage ladies, especially the younger set.
Of course, being employed by Miss Savannah Ashleigh would im
mediately encourage any nearby male to elude her obvious toils and focus on the more refreshing and innocent of her gender.
I cannot help thinking, though, that they all have been lulled into the calm before the storm. That the juvenile dirty tricks going on are camouflaging some serious mischief that is brewing.
So I prowl the perimeter, looking for signs of anything amiss. I suffer camera close-ups, and attempted molestations by the herd of blondes. I poke my nose into odd nooks and crannies, and follow any more of those sinister hidden passages I can find.
I begin to find secrets to follow, such as Crawford Buchanan’s odd special entrée to ringmistress Beth Marble’s office.
I whisk right in with him, knowing that the ladies always have a welcome mat out for a suave and continental guy like me. They are suckers for a kiss on the hand and I am a past master at that art, having spent years studying Tantric grooming, so I am as versatile with my tongue as Mr. Mick Jagger or Mr. Gene Simmons of KISS. And you know what those dudes are. International rock stars.
Life is so unfair! I could have given them both a run for their groupies and their millions if only I had been born a lot taller, with access to a semi-thorough body-wax job.
But I ankle over to Miss Beth Marble and make with the ankle rub, which soon has her purring.
“What a disgusting alley cat,” my pal Crawford comments.
A mistake. When push comes to shove, many a lady would take a cat over a mere man anytime. And why not? We are genteel but sheer steel under our satin topcoats. We are discreet. We can keep a secret, or dozens of them. Mum’s the word. We will never grow mustaches suddenly. We have all the attributes of a fur coat without the angst of politically incorrectly offing other creatures, plus a nice baritone purr much like certain sensual aids advertised for big money in the back of Cosmopolitan magazine. Our company and affection are free. We keep their feet warm. We do not ask for custody of the children, or the car. We are invariably neat. We never miss the toilet unless we have a serious point to make. We are always willing to eat out.
What is not to love?
I feel the tendons in Miss Marble’s heels tighten at Buchanan’s slur.
“He is harmless,” she says.
Erroneously. That is what I love about little dolls. They are so sure they know what is what. So what would they do without me knowing better?
“Anyway,” the Crawf goes on, sitting so carelessly in the chair opposite her desk that even I hear something on his person scratch leather.
I cringe in tune with Miss Marble’s entire frame. It is not her leather chair, merely a loaner for the length of the show, but she takes responsibility for all that occurs at the Teen Queen Castle. Boy, is she in trouble!
I murmur sympathy under her desk and resume massaging her ankles. Let the Crawf do his worst (and he has plenty of that). No one does ankles better than Midnight Louiel
“Anyway, what?” she asks.
I stiffen. She is starting to rebel. Any fool or feline could see that. Not the Crawf.
“I have kept the unsettling events here off the air,” he whines on. “That gives me access to the tape recordings, as we agreed.”
“We agreed that you would not release them before the end of the show.”
“Right. But … things have changed. I need something lively to keep my exclusive coverage syndicated. Gossip. Cat fights. Dirty tricks. I want the last batch.”
“Mr. Buchanan.” She makes the title and name sound even more despicable than I could manage with my most dismissive spit and hiss. “I cannot say I understand your influence with the producers, but ultimately I am responsible for the ethical operation of this program. We are halfway through, only a week to go. I submit that you can wait.”
She stands, forcing me to jump aside to preserve my second most valuable appendage. If she has forgotten my presence she is one miffed little doll!
I leap upon her desk, fangs bared, backing her up.
She strokes my back and, um, upright member, which is fluffed out like a radiator brush, should anyone alive still remember that useful tool.
“You are upsetting the cat,” she tells Pukecannon. “Whatever hold you have on the producers, the show is almost done now and I no longer need to kowtow to your demands. You already have extorted far more scoops than any of the legitimate media. You will just have to get your new information on your own. That should be interesting, as I doubt you have ever got anything in this world solely on your own.”
His already pasty complexion (the curse of a life on the airwaves; luckily Mr. Matt leads an outdoor life that prevents such disabilities), pales. I love the way people can change their skin color at the drop of a four-letter word or even a two-letter word like no.
“You will be sorry,” he says, using the ancient playground threat heard around the world.
“Not today,” Miss Marble says. She pauses to run a hand along my spine all the way to the tip of my quivering tail. “And not any other.”
It is a great closing line, and I give her a two-tail salute at ninety degrees upright in recognition of same.
Too bad it is ruined by this long, sustained piercing shriek somewhere on the premises.
I beat Crawford Buchanan to the office door by sixteen lengths of my you-know-what versus his you-know-what.
Chapter 35
Diet of Worms
Temple was resting in her room, trying to figure things out, when she heard the scream, probably along with everybody in the house, and what’s worse, she recognized the screamer. She’d always had an ear for various vocal tones.
She took off at a dead run, the cute little flapping Xoe Chloe mules keeping her from running quite fast enough. So she let them fly off in the hall and pounded on barefoot.
Knowing the tone of the scream … alto vibrato … told her who but not where it was coming from. Her bare arms had broken out into so many goose bumps of unhappy premonition you’d think she’d been having a wet dream about Spike the Vampire.
Holy shiitake mushrooms! she thought. Let me be wrong!
Her heart was pounding way past the safety zone, her bare soles hitting hard on the concrete beneath the carpeting.
Turn here? Maybe. Or there?
Or … maybe just follow the dark flowing contrail that was Midnight Louie, ears back, tail straight back, body low as a jet-black Maserati?
Where did he come from? No matter. Go with the flow, as long as it was feline.
She zigged and zagged and bumped into blondes fleeing in the opposite direction. Where was Paris Hilton when you needed her? Overbooked, that’s where!
She was entering the portion of the house allotted to the Teen Queen coaches, running her memory of the day’s schedule sheet through her mind like a white shirt through a mangle.
Friday, Xoe Chloe interview with Beth Marble, office number three at two P.M. And at three P.M … . in office number four. Oh, my goddess! Oh, no! Let it not be—
Louie’s low-flying tail vanished through a doorjamb just ahead. Temple almost turned an ankle making a right-angle dodge to follow him.
Office. Very … plain. Almost stripped. A scale in the corner. A chart on a wall.
A body in a leather desk chair, throat tilted back. Face … darkened. Red black. Unrecognizable.
And oh, holy moley, wholly Molina! Mariah standing in front of the desk, chair and all. Screaming. Screaming for all of her just-teen worth. A real little belter.
Something bad in the neighborhood. Someone dead in the neighborhood. The dietitian. The mousy, by-the-book, plain-Jell-O dietitian. Marjory Klein.
Found dead in her office chair. By Mariah.
Temple raced up to put her hands on Mariah’s shaking shoulders, pressed down hard.
“It’s okay. I’m here. Hel-lo! Look. Even the silly cat that’s been prowling around the place is here too. He wouldn’t risk his skin if it weren’t safe. Have you ever known a cat that wasn’t totally cool?”
Those last two words finally jerked Mariah’s
focus off the dead body.
“Cat?” she asked. “Cool?”
If a cat could look at a queen, or even a dead body, maybe she could too.
Louie used the opportunity to twine around Mariah’s ankles, over and over again. It was fine feline therapy but it wasn’t enough. Mariah suddenly spun into Temple’s embrace. Grabbed on to her like a leech. A growing girl big enough to rock Temple off her bare heels.
But Temple recovered and held on back. They were roomies, after all, and that went way beyond silly reality shows and even Mother Superiors in common.
“I’m sorry,” Temple told her. “So, so sorry. I was afraid it would come to this. Hoped not.”
Mariah just sobbed. Temple remembered sobbing that hard. Long ago, when she was so young that every setback, real or imagined, was a total tragedy.
This was all too real though. This was a tragedy, period. The dead woman was such an unlikely object of another person’s venom. Of murderous hatred.
Just yesterday she’d been earnestly urging legumes and cruciferous vegetables on that hopeless Xoe Chloe creature.
Temple found herself crying along with Mariah.
Still, another part of her brain sounded warning. This will bring Molina herself into the equation.
Not a good thing for either Mariah or Temple. Or Xoe Chloe, for that matter.
Later, Temple was very glad she and Louie had been the first to arrive on the murder scene. That meant that she and Mariah were partners in interrogation. She could fulfill her undercover role and stick up for the poor kid if necessary.
Temple was relieved that Molina hadn’t shown up, yet wasn’t surprised to see Detectives Alch and Su arrive shortly after the uniformed officers had come, dismissed the EMTs, and sent for the coroner and the crime scene team.
Molina would want her favorite investigative team on scene in her stead. While patting Mariah’s back and being otherwise the wise, stable big sister, Temple was madly speculating whether Alch and Su would see through her colored contact lenses and blonde blow-dry job to the annoying amateur sleuth they knew and could do with a lot less of.
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