Temple, shocked, leaned against the wall behind her. Actually, it was the door to the balcony, which eased open under her weight. She saved herself from falling over backwards, then tilted onto the balls of her feet and came out swinging, at least verbally.
"A client? You've actually been hired to hunt for the shoes? By whom?"
"Can't say."
"Can't say?"
"Client privilege."
"Someone has hired a private detective to find the shoes and win the contest? Such a person hardly qualifies as a 'client.' That is. .. that is low! Despicable. Beneath contempt. Like hiring a pro to take tootsie rolls from a tyke." Temple paced. "Besides, who has that kind of money to throw around?
Someone who could afford to buy the shoe, that's who. Eightball, you have sold your soul for a pair of designer spikes! You are overturning the balance of power in the footwear world. You are lending your abilities and your name to the shoddiest scheme ever to come parading down the Las Vegas Strip, and that's going some! I can't believe it." Temple stopped pacing.
"A client's a client."
"Don't be so stubborn. What kind of a P.I. slinks around town eyeballing the feet on lady mannequins? Are you following me, hoping I'll lead you to them?"
He shrugged. "You might have a better instinct."
"You bet I do. And if I find you snooping in my tracks again, I'll... I'll call the police and charge you with something disgusting. Like shoe-sniffing."
Eightball put up a defensive hand. "It's just a job."
"A dirty job. The whole idea of a contest is to have fun, is for someone to find and win the shoes, not engage some hired gun."
"I ain't armed, and I'm getting damn tired of hunting high and low for a pair of fancy shoes. It's not like it's a significant assignment. And it sure ain't worth the wrath of a redhead."
A pause followed this cranky confession. Temple thought about calming down.
Kit lifted her hand palm-out, first two fingers spread to make a peace symbol. "Remember," she told Eightball, "I'm just Temple's even-tempered, fading-redhead aunt Kit."
"Eightball O'Rourke." He nodded sourly, and suspiciously. "You ain't interested in those damn shoes, are you?"
"Only as an innocent bystander. As such"--she included Temple in her glance--"I suggest we adjourn to the Crystal Phoenix. Whatever side you two are on, there are no shoes here for you to bicker over, except the ones we walked in on. Thank Thorn McAnn!"
Putting shoes into their proper place, they all walked back to the Strip and caught a cab to the Crystal Phoenix.
Chapter 17
... Seems to Whisper Louise
It is not long before the sophisticated brains, eyes, nose and vibrissae (whiskers to you less educated folk) of Midnight Louie find their way to the lower-level dressing room that has been claimed by Miss Savannah Ashleigh.
I could say that I had used my sensitive nose to trail whatever Rodeo Drive scent of the month Miss Savannah is using now, but that would be misleading. I could have done so, but did not need to, as I have a good idea of where she is to be found. This is, in fact, the same site that she commandeered on her most recent visit to the Crystal Phoenix when she had some ceremonial duties at the Rhinestone G-string competition. In fact, it is old homeaway-from-home week. Not only is the Divine Yvette present in the pink carrier that serves as her portable residence, but our reunion is marked by an event similar to our last encounter: a murder of a human person who makes a living by wearing as few clothes as the law will allow.
I am all for it. Not murder, but wearing as few clothes as the law allows.
You will notice that one does not have to tell the truly superior species to bring warm clothing: they arrive with all the outerwear that they will need--warm, durable, full-length coats of fur or hair or feathers or scales. It is only humankind that arrives on the scene wearing nothing more than a fragile layer of skin. (I can attest to just how fragile that skin is, having accidentally peeled off a fine line of it now and then.) But humans are not totally ignorant. Taking instructions from the humble spider, they have evolved numerous and complicated ways to weave, spin and construct suitable clothing.
Then, having overcome their natural inferiority complex, they move up to a level of idiocy that one would think they made up, did one not know the species intimately.
They split into two mutually exclusive camps. Some become skinophiles and can be found in nudist camps. Others, the vast majority, become skinophobes and can be found in Bible camps. I wish that they would make up their minds, but that seems to be the last thing that humankind is capable of.
A very few humans learn to exploit the druthers of the skinophiles by performing in their natural state (which skinophobes find filthy and disgusting), wearing a few skimpy accessories that skirt the laws on such actions. What is really brain-boggling is that when naked humans invent little nothings to give the lie to total nudity, they usually feel obliged to shroud the only site where they can boast a smattering of fur anyway! This is why human beings see psychiatrists and animal companions run away from home.
I myself see nothing to crow about in the unclothed human state, but feel, philosophically, that all species should continue in their natural condition. For one thing, in making an art of clothing themselves, humans have an unfortunate tendency to covet the skin, fur, scales and feathers of other species, most of which cannot give up their outerwear without losing their lives, not that most people show any remorse for their ill-gotten garb.
Ah, well, as long as I am not forced to wear pantaloons and vest, I suppose it is no skin off of my nose.
But it would most definitely be skin off of your nose if you ever tried to take my epidermis for a muff.
Luckily, muffs are history nowadays.
And, luckily, the curled muff of silver fur that is the Divine Yvette is sleeping safely in her carrier, alone. At last! I pad near the mesh window to my darling and gaze fondly on her snoozing form for several seconds. Frankly, the Divine Yvette is sweetest when she sleeps. When she is awake, she is likely to ask awkward questions, and sometimes, even show the front of her fangs (which are supematurally white and well maintained, but are fangs nevertheless).
So I am standing in rapt regard of my sleeping innocent, watching the tips of her vibrissae tremble with each breath, when somebody behind me whispers, "Hsst."
Usually I am not one to be surprised by the stealthy approach. I turn in alarm, expecting that odious Maurice. I am no less alarmed when I see who confronts me from under the long row of garments hanging on Miss Savannah Ashleigh's costume rack: the vulpine Louise.
"What are you doing down here, Pops?" she asks. I can tell that her form of address, rather than being a respectful bow to my paternal status, is an expression she uses to address gents of a certain age.
The implication is that I am a geezer.
I never pick up an implication if I can let it lie there and ferment. So I lift a casual mitt to my face and rub my whiskers contemplatively.
"Just looking over the scene of the last crime," I say, incidentally reminding her who really cracked the Stripper Killer case and nailed the perp. "Now that Miss Temple Barr is busy with another show here, I do not want any unfortunate reruns of the breaking, entering and murder both attempted and accomplished that we had before."
"Oh, your old war stories," she huffs, rolling over to admonish an ear, apparently for the crime of even hearing about my exploits. "I have the account now. Everything is under control."
"Indeed? I suppose you consider the murder of an Incredible Hunk too trivial an event for your notice."
"I noticed, daddio. These human hunk types are too large to overlook. In fact, I made the murder scene before the police, if not before your nosy roommate. That woman is a regular Typhoon Mary."
"I believe you refer to a historical personage known as Typhoid Malaria, who brought a dread disease with her everywhere she went. Miss Temple Barr is nothing like that. She is merely quick to notice that things ar
e amiss. Now, you," I go on, yawning a little, "probably were so disinterested that you could not even remember the color of the dead dude's hair."
"Burmese brown," she snaps back, barely missing the tips of my whiskers. I smell the odious reek of Free-to-be-Feline on her breath. "Eyes of watered-down green. Hawk feather on the arrow that brought him down. His own weapon, ironically."
I now know, of course, exactly what I wanted to learn.
"What was this dead dude doing with a live arrow?"
"Wearing it... and not much else." Midnight Louise wrinkles her little black nose, which is rather cute, if I do say so myself. "Whew! What a lot of skin to smell, along with the equally unpleasant scent of death. I do not know why these hunks insist on sharing so much of their body odor with the rest of us."
"It is their way of being provocative."
"Consider me provoked." She frowns until the short, satiny fur on her brow wrinkles like a throw rug.
"I had to slink away pronto, though, before anyone spotted me. I tried to interrogate the horse, but it was too spooked to speak."
"The horse? You mean tall as a two-story building, with hooves?"
"Yeah, a big bruiser with knobby knees and a forelock. And it wore iron shoes. Mere size does not intimidate me." Louise's round gold eyes give me a once-over that is not a compliment. "Anyway, the equine was in shock. Could only whinny about a slap on the rump. Later, I jumped up in the flies and got a bird's-eye view of its rump, and it deserved slapping. Had all these white spots on it, like it had been caught in a bleach rainfall. Silly-looking creature."
"I believe you refer to a valued birthmark that indicates a breed known as the Appaloosa."
"Appaloosa, applesalsa, it ain't talking."
I cringe at my reputed offspring's grammar. Not only ain't, but a contraction. She misreads my body language, which is not unusual.
"So what would you have done different, Pops? All I know is that this fallen hunk was masquerading as an Indian warrior when someone stuck him in the back with an unbroken arrow. Goodbye, Cheyenne."
"Cheyenne?" I sit up and take notice of my chest hairs, which I proceed to groom with some agitation. Not only are they a trifle mussed, but my mind is also a little ragged around the edges as I realize I have heard that name before, in this hotel.
"Cheyenne," she repeats, narrowing her eyes to horizontal slits you could not see out of a tank through. "What of it?"
I cannot decide whether to take her into my confidence or not, for I know the name from Miss Temple's association with the stripper contest. Could this murder have its roots in the last slaughter at the Crystal Phoenix? While I am making up my mind, the Divine Yvette is waking up in her carrier, emitting a series of soft, sleepy mews that are sweet and charming and loud enough for the vulpine Louise to hear even with her ears flattened.
She--the vulpine Louise, not the Divine Yvette--perks her ears, elongates her neck, then rises and trots over to inspect the carrier.
I can only hope that she does not notice it is occupied, but that is extremely unlikely.
"Mew," the Divine Yvette murmurs in greeting the black feline face peering through her mesh.
"Louie?"
"I might have known!" The vulpine Louise whirls to face me, inadvertently smacking my chops with her tail. At least I prefer to think that it is inadvertent. "This pose of slinking about the premises to protect poor Miss Temple, when you are visiting some sleazy showcat! And my mother was not good enough to occupy your attention for more than a one-night stand. Males! You are all alike, no matter the species."
I spit out some stray black hairs and maintain my dignity. "You are sadly mistaken, my dear girl. The Divine Yvette and I have a purely platonic relationship."
"The Divine Yvette? What a pushover for some over breeding and a pedigree, along with a phony French name!" Midnight Louise turns on the drowsy Divine Yvette to snarl, "Parlay voo French, cheree?
Translate this."
With that, Midnight Louise smacks the mesh so it collapses like an expired balloon.
I am paralyzed by horror. And I am even more horrified when I see the mesh bounce back as the Divine Yvette lets loose with a flurry of ungloved jabs, claws out.
"Civet!" she hisses. "Rank roadside runaway! Nameless hussy! Fatherless floozy! Ungroomed hairball!
Alley scum. Your mother is a glove liner and your father's tail is a rearview-mirror trophy."
Midnight Louise sits back to let the abuse unfold, casting a brief glance in my direction.
"Not exactly," she interjects when the Divine Yvette takes a deep, heaving breath before expanding on her charges further. "Daddy dearest is a friend of yours, I believe."
"Impossible," the Divine Yvette hisses in righteous indignation.
I am, of course, caught between two irresistible forces of feline nature. I can only sit still, cringe and wait for the storm to pass.
'That is what I call him, too," Midnight Louise spits. "And they call me Midnight Louise."
"Oh!" The Divine Yvette's fury has subsided suddenly.
"I will let you chew upon that fact," Louise says, de-arching her back and shaking out her tail, "as I bid you adieu. Just remember that this is my turf nowadays, and I demand a certain respect, even from visiting aristocrats. Do not count on my old man having any influence whatsoever with me."
She stalks off, stiff-legged, her tail kinked and still twitching.
The Divine Yvette's carrier is worrisomely quiet. I inch nearer and peek in.
The Divine One is busy licking her silver coat into fresh-minted condition, rolling out her long rosy tongue with skillful regularity. She glances up with her deep blue-green eyes.
"You did not tell me that you were married, Louie," she rebukes me in sad, calm tones.
I swallow. "It was an informal affair. And we are divorced now. Hey, Las Vegas is the capital of the quickie marriage and divorce. That was a long time ago."
"Oh? I detect zat zee dainty Midnight Louise cannot be more than a year or so old. I am nevair wrong about zee age of anoz-zair female."
Is it possible that the Divine Yvette has developed a French accent since Midnight Louise accused her of being French? Talk about a suggestible sensibility!
"I am sorry, dear lady, that my miscreant daughter was so rude to you."
"I am sorree, Louie, that you have such a rude offspring. And now I must nap. My beauty sleep was interrupted."
"You will not hold my relatives against me?" I inquire more anxiously than I would like.
The Divine Yvette sighs as she rests her soft gray triangle of a face on her silken paws. "I cannot say. I have always known that we exist on two different planes--"
"You are not leaving already?"
"But I try very hard not to be a--how you say? A snob. Perhaps your daughter could benefit from obedience school."
"That is for dogs!" I reply, horrified.
The Divine Yvette shrugs and shows the pearly tips of her two exquisite fangs. "If the shoe fits, the foot should wear it. Au revoir, mon ami. "
I withdraw, not knowing what to blame Midnight Louise for more: betraying my past lovelife to my current amour, or giving the Divine Yvette the idea that she is French.
Chapter 18
Every Large Breezy ...
Temple and Kit returned to the Crystal Phoenix to find the lobby packed with registering G.R.O.W.L.ers.
"Oh, no!"
"What?" Kit asked, scanning the mob.
"Fabrizio again. Does he stake out the registration line, or what?"
"Of course he wants to catch them coming in. This is his business, Temple, and these women are his fans."
"At least we registered early and can sneak past."
"But we're not going to." Kit corralled Temple's arm as she tried to eel away. "Here's an ideal opportunity to practice your new undercover persona."
"What new undercover persona?"
"Remember? I told you at lunch. Trot out your old reporting skills and become officially no
sy. This crowd expects the media to be out in force, and it's dying to get noticed."
"Dying is the operative word around here lately."
Temple frowned as Kit pulled her toward Fabrizio's knot of women. "I really don't want another close encounter with Fabrizio. He's so bold, so blond ... so bigger than life. I feel like I'm going to be stomped by Trigger when I'm around him."
"Ah! But you are Media now. Breezy will be a pushover, and you'll do the pushing. Mention a major show, and he'll trot over quietly for a lump of sugar, I promise. Now, here's the notepad and pen from my registration packet. Remember, he's probably got the inside scoop on all the pageant personalities. He might even be the killer. Go, girl!"
Kit pushed Temple into the charmed circle surrounding the cover model. It made an odd sight: the squat cluster of women swarming the towering blond-maned man like a ring of enchanted mushrooms. He was it. The pinnacle of power, the Viking god with oiled muscles, sun-streaked blond hair and a twenty-four-karat Personality with a capital Pow.
Temple felt like an ambivalent bobby-soxer on the edge of the Elvis phenomenon, but ole Breezy zeroed right in on her, probably because she was, as usual, the most liftable female present.
"La Rossa!" He greeted her like an old fling.
His tanned face beamed, his Mediterranean-blue eyes twinkled, his impossibly white teeth flashed. This guy was a one-man weather report: clear and sunny and shining only for you, lucky woman you. Just you and another two-and-a-half million females on the planet. His . . . oh! ... huge, grasping hands were stretching for her.
Temple let out a big breath, as Matt had instructed her to do when confronted with a superior force, barked, "Stop!" in English, then "Basta!" in Italian, and held her palm up like a school-crossing guard.
David could not have gotten Goliath to so much as blink with this tactic, but Temple's routine halted the oncoming action figure in mid-stride. Maybe the Italian word for "enough" had done it. A cloud of uncertainty shadowed Fabrizio's relentlessly upbeat features.
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