Midnight Louie 05-Cat in a Diamond Dazzle

by Douglas, Carole Nelson

  "You do not like to be picked up by Fabrizio? But why?" His hands spread wider, both to question... and to prepare to pounce.

  The encircling women grew quiet, like jackals waiting for the lordly lion to finish off the prey before they tore the leavings apart.

  Temple swallowed, but her voice was firm when she answered. "Because I can't take notes when I'm off the ground, and notes are very important to a field producer for Hot Heads."

  The fans' faces transformed from suspicion to rapture. Breezy was no less blissful. Hot Heads was the moment's most torrid tabloid TV entertainment show. The Heads was short for headlines, but the contraction was apt: famous faces and talking heads telling all made the show so hypnotizing to viewers.

  "Why did you not say so earlier, dear signorina? I would never want to interfere with your working. And what do you wish?"

  "Ah, just a few minutes of your time while I take preliminary notes for our on-camera personalities."

  "You have them, these minutes. You have all of me." His arms spread wide, his open shirt gaping to strain across rippling chest muscles. Temple found the effect rather creepy. She could see her mythical tabloid headline now: "Fabrizio possessed by sentient muscles from Mars!"

  Temple backed away from the oncoming Fabrizio and his train of silent, intent, gap-mouthed watchers, then led him to one of Van von Rhine's cream Italian leather seating pieces that dotted the lobby. Van had designed the Crystal Phoenix with such personal pains that every piece seemed a favorite of the hostess.

  Temple perched on the cushy seat's edge, her heels planted on the lobby's navy and gold carpeting. Experience had taught her that sinking into down-stuffed furniture could entrap her.

  Fabrizio leaned expansively into a shirred leather corner, like a very rich milk chocolate in a luxurious box, spreading his arms over the backrest and his legs until one askew knee almost nudged Temple's. And she taking so pathetically little space on her best days!

  She laid her notebook on her crunched-together knees--she felt like a novice in a Spanish cloister, but Breezy was such a territory-hogging guy that she had no other choice, unless she wished to be annexed.

  The fans had withdrawn to a decent distance, just barely, and hovered, hoping to overhear any scintilla of stray sound.

  Fabrizio smiled at her, steadily, knowingly, intimately. "Why you not like picking up, eh? Every woman"--he pronounced it "woo-mahn"--"likes man to take charge, to carry her away from the everyday. This is what Fabrizio do. Why you not like?" His piercing gaze, honed under hot studio spotlights hundreds of times at $3,000 a pop, she had read, focused on Temple like a lascivious Latin laser beam.

  The three-grand ogle did not impress her. They all had that smug invasive look, the professional ladykillers, implying that the woman was some uptight ignoramus resisting the Sultan of Sex. And just underneath the romantic schmaltz lay an implicit threat of superior masculine knowledge, if not force, of knowing what was best for her. Temple was too polite to tell Fabrizio that the whole manner repelled her because it was so perfectly professional.

  "I have a phobia of heights," she said shortly.

  "Oh, yes." He nodded. A neurotic weakness was perhaps understandable, and not unexpected.

  "So you say before. I will not let you fall. You would no longer be afraid with Fabrizio."

  "I'm, ah, afraid I would be. Now, about the show--"

  His body and features clicked into another mode: rapt attention.

  "Everyone, of course, knows your story, Fabrizio."

  "Ah, yes. How Fabrizio is simple Italiano boy. Always I want to be model, travel, always I build body and want to go to America. Like Arnold. But then I model for romance covers, and the woo-mahn is ecstatic. I now am multi-media personality. I have workout book and tapes, calendars, romantic advice line, cologne for men."

  "Do you model for romance covers anymore?"

  "No, too busy." His smile again showcased the Teflon teeth.

  "Or . .. there are so many other male cover models competing now."

  Fabrizio shook his head until his split ends whipped the sofa back. "No. Covers are start, not end.

  Small fries for international multimedia personality. I only come to do walk-through for pageant because G.R.O.W.L was a good start for me. But I do not need this audience. Fabrizio is for whole world now."

  "Then you don't feel threatened by all the up-and-comers?"

  He shook his golden mane again, his distant watchers shiver-ing with delight. "Fabrizio not threatened by anybody." The lothario's smirk was back. "Except lovely woo-mahn who believes she is afraid of height. This makes Breezy feel very bad, that she does not think he is strong enough to hold her."

  "So you're not even threatened by a murderer?"

  The last word froze the look on his face, but the intimacy had left it.

  "You think a murderer would want to kill Breezy? No. This dead model, this Cheyenne. He was new to this, and he did not have the physique of Fabrizio, no?"

  "Still, he apparently had done some modeling abroad. That's usually a sign of a rising career."

  "Peanuts, how you say? Little stuff. Fabrizio does all the big stuff, leaves that small fries to the others now. He would be no threat to what I do, what I am. No man is."

  "We may assume that you are not a suspect, then, since you had no motive?"

  "Suspect? For small woo-mahn you play big games. Why should Fabrizio wish anyone ill? He is rich, famous, happy. Many woo-mahns wish to be picked up by Fabrizio, all over the world!"

  The massively muscled arms spread wide again, the better to display his firm, rounded, fully packed pectorals. Funny, Temple thought, that used to be a female secondary sexual characteristic.

  Breezy's thigh pressed into hers, hot and hard. It reminded her of an encroaching Christmas ham.

  She slapped the notebook shut. "As the second Incredible Hunk winner, you can't compete again anyway, can you?"

  "No. But there is no need. Fabrizio has won every heart, because he speaks from the heart." A ham-sized hand pounded the tan-gilded breastbone, in case Temple had overlooked a part of his anatomy. "Sincere, that is the secret of Fabrizio. And we do very well with that."

  How odd that he referred to himself in both the third person and the royal "we," when mentioning his business enterprises. Temple supposed that he was a one-man conglomerate of sorts. Pneumatic Man, able to spread himself into million-dollar multimedia areas with a single muscle flex.

  Temple stood. "Thank you. This will help ground my anchors."

  Fabrizio snapped his fingers. A harried-looking woo-mahn trotted over, tote bag in hand. "This is Cindee, my publicist. She has press kit."

  A glossy folder with a color image of a hip-up naked Fabrizio was thrust into Temple's hand. The photo was so lifelike that Temple expected her palm to suffer an oil slick.

  Fabrizio stood, too, towering over her as he had loomed over countless swooning, swept-away cover models. His eyes, already too close together, narrowed horizontally as well. "You will one day like to be picked up by Fabrizio."

  On that threat and promise, he strode back into the mob of woo-mahns, who closed on him like eager antibodies surrounding an infection.

  "See!" Kit had materialized from somewhere, and was as happy as hell's bells. "He doesn't bite.

  Learn anything relevant?"

  "Only that there is no justice in who gets rich and famous, and how."

  "Pshaw, we knew that already."

  "He's not worried about being a victim," Temple said thoughtfully. "Either he hasn't thought about the possibility, or ... he knows why Cheyenne was killed."

  "Maybe we could waylay him late at night and interrogate him."

  "Aunt Kit! You don't find that bloated hunk of overdeveloped ego attractive?"

  She shrugged, shameless.

  Temple headed for the elevators, Kit by her side.

  "You were right, though," she told her aunt. "Pretending to work with tabloid TV is an open sesame. Works much better
than legitimately being employed by a local TV station years ago."

  They were edging into the chiming slot machine area, for no one can go anywhere in a Las Vegas Hotel without passing these garish coin-catchers for the eternally hopeful.

  Temple suddenly grabbed Kit's arm, jerked her into an aisle and sat them both down on two adjoining stools--hard.

  "I can't believe it!" she said indignantly. "Keep your head down."

  "Why? Is Fabrizio trolling for redheads again? I fear I'm a bit faded--"

  Temple's red head was bobbing up and down like a dunking apple on Halloween. "Shhhh!" she ordered, her fierce eyes focusing over the top of the slot machine. "What are they doing ...

  together! Of all the nerve."

  "Who?" Kit cautiously peered over the machine in the direction that Temple was staring. "Those two cover models?"

  "They are not cover models!" Temple was almost rabid with rage. "They have no business being here. Especially together."

  "Temple! Who are they? They look innocuous enough."

  "That was my first mistake. One is the Mystifying Max--"

  "Your ex?"

  "So to speak. And the other is Matt Devine."

  "Oh. Your ... maybe current." Kit tilted her head almost horizontal to the floor to sneak another look. "Which is which?"

  "Who cares? What are they up to?"

  "I would say about six-three, if you're looking at the tall one. Hmm, not bad, Niece. Either one could compete in the pageant. If you don't need both, I'm available."

  Kit was summarily jerked back down to her stool.

  "Fine, if you're in the market for traitors!" Temple was still fuming.

  "What have they done?"

  "Well, the last time I saw them together, you could carve the hostility into chunk-size pieces and feed it to the sharks. Now they're strolling around the Crystal Phoenix like buddies. And Max claimed he needed to keep out of sight! Sure. Of me!"

  Kit ventured to stretch her neck up again. "And so he is. Now. Matt too. Pity. I'd sure like to see them closer up."

  Temple stood slowly, ready to duck again. "I don't know whether they make me more nervous when I can see them, or when I can't."

  "That's men for you, every time." Kit yawned. "Well, now that I've had my daily dose of excitement, I'll pop up to my room for a beauty rest before dinner." She patted Temple's hand.

  "Don't let this worry you. I'm sure that there's a very simple explanation."

  "There isn't," Temple said grimly.

  Clutching her Fabrizio folder until the glossy paper squeaked, she ventured to the elevator with her aunt. She kept scanning the area for another sighting.

  And never saw hide nor hair nor pectoral nor tempestuous mane of anything that resembled a cover hunk the entire way back to her room.

  Electra was lounging on the bed when she got there, studying a folder full of papers.

  "How did the writing class go?" Temple asked, tossing Fabrizio facedown on her bed's coverlet.

  "Terrific. We had a two-hour lunch break, so I dashed up and began my contest entry. That little machine is so adorable and petite, just like you!" She didn't notice Temple grinding her teeth. "It makes such cute little words, all prancing across the itty-bitty screen. So much more interesting than a typewriter. I'm glad you brought it."

  "So am I. I'm going to have to punch some notes in tonight. The cast of characters at this circus is larger than the extras roster in a Hollywood epic. Speaking of epic, I had another close encounter with the scrumptious Fabrizio."

  "Oh." Electra was so intent on her class papers she hardly reacted.

  "And guess who I just saw strolling through the lobby? Max Kinsella and Matt Devine."

  "That's nice, dear. I've got to concentrate on my scene-and-sequel writing exercise."

  Temple held her arms up, wide, Fabrizio-style. Didn't anyone want to be swept off their feet anymore? Not even by a hot news flash?

  "I'm going to jump in the shower with Fabrizio," Temple said, gathering her gear.

  "That's nice, dear. Don't let the water get too hot."

  "And with Norman Bates's mother!" Temple shouted from around the bathroom corner.

  "Urn hmm. Say hello for me."

  Chapter 19

  Ship of Jewels

  Entering the Treasure Island Hotel and Casino was like diving into the chill of a grotto formed from tarnished brass. Despite the elegantly orchestrated atmosphere, Temple heard the same old Musak playing the same old sweet song. This was a cabaret, my friend, and the theme song was "Money, Money, Money." Coins tumbled into slot machine tills like pieces of eight pouring out of bottomless, upended treasure chests.

  Though the decor was dark and dignified, it had a macabre bent. Large antiqued brass skulls on the door handles split lengthwise as they opened, and the tastefully beige massive chandeliers, on second look, were composed entirely of human skulls and garlands of dangling bones.

  Temple, however, was indifferent to the mock-morbid; she'd seen death's true, bare-faced presence close-up at the Crystal Phoenix all too recently. No, the boisterous slot machine area intrigued her, and not because of the sporadic, seductive clink of crashing quarters.

  Like many blase Las Vegas residents, she had neglected to tour the new behemoths grazing along the Strip's Jurassic Park of hotel-casinos. She had read about them, but had not yet gone to see the architectural elephants in person. So she was only guessing when it came to what evil (or delights) might lurk inside the Treasure Island, but... yes!

  Temple clasped hands to breastbone and went up on tippy-toes, despite the three-inch heels on her Evan Picone pumps, all the better to see her quarry.

  She smiled sappily--not at the garish blinking and clinking slot machines--but at the ceiling above them. A pirate's ransom of brass, silver and real gilt paint, of pearls and cut-glass gemstones, tumbled from niches set under the ceiling. Enough treasure chests hung above the gamblers below to hide a hundred crystal shoes.

  Temple cruised toward the glitzy black-and-gold island of a bar that was ringed with sky-high treasure troves. Of course the displays were temptingly out of reach--just. Certainly that seemed unjust. If she were just six feet tall. Or had Alice's little bottle that made her bigger. If she just had a stepping stool, or a pogo stick or stilts!

  If hotel security personnel just weren't cruising these black-gold waters like uniformed barracudas, looking for people who were behaving oddly. People like Temple herself, who was watching the ceiling, which was probably watching her back. She snagged the nearest stool and sat before a machine decorated with a grinning buccaneer, dagger in teeth.

  She dug into her tote bag for her wallet, then scraped some quarters out of the zippered compartment. While she idly consigned the coins to swift perdition inside Long John Silver's ravenous metal mouth, she eyed the surroundings.

  Men in sharkskin suits, wires from discreet communication devices attached like some naturalist's tracking mechanism to their ears, floated through colorful schools of oblivious tourists nibbling at instant fortune. The uniformed guards were more obvious, for a reason, but their eyes constantly scanned for potential trouble.

  The Midnight Louie shoes were not to be seized, like common pirate booty, but seen and reported, Temple reminded herself.

  Nothing in the contest rules required her to take them into actual possession. The numerous treasure troves dangling from the casino ceiling like so many jewel-encrusted tongues made perfect hiding places. All she'd have to do was walk by and eyeball each one for signs of the elusive slippers.

  Except, her height, or lack of it, was a disadvantage, which was no news to her. The hidden shoes might only be visible to a taller person. Nothing in the contest rules said that they would be placed in plain view of a shrimp, either. Children were obviously not competing for this particular prize. She could only make the rounds of the various troves at enough distance to get a panoramic view of the contents.

  I am a camera for the vertically challenged, in Cinem
ascope.

  So Temple sneaked up on her quarry, throwing away quarters like worthless coppers of old as she hopscotched from slot to slot, choosing positions that would allow a wide view of the nearest trove.

  It was neck-spraining work. Her eyes could hardly focus on the assembled glitter as she squinted through her glasses. And she didn't dare look up for too long, or she might attract unwanted attention.

  She had worked her way around the bar area and was scouting the area's fringes when someone tapped her on the shoulder just as she was sacrificing another quarter to the slot-machine gods.

  "I see what you're doing," a voice behind her announced.

  Luckily, it was not an authoritarian voice, nor male, so that eliminated the Iranian secret police in the somber suits as well as most of the security guards.

  Temple turned to look, nearly giving herself whiplash.

  "What's your game, honey?" a woman asked.

  She was thinner than a wire clothes hanger. The clothes she so feebly supported were a peach polyester pantsuit over a violet floral polyester blouse. A thin fleece of taffy-blond ringlets surrounded her face like an elaborately decorated 1950s bathing cap. Time and desert sun had folded, spindled and mutilated her face into a brown frill of wrinkles, from which her pale eyes peered like water chestnuts.

  Time had also embedded her in the amber of another era, encouraging her to draw harsh dark-brown eyebrows and a tangerine mouth on the well-tracked mask of her face.

  Temple recognized her instantly, though they had never spoken before: legendary casino slot-shot Hester Polyester, who in another place and another time (and another outfit) might have been known by a more common surname like Brown. Or Smith.

  A coral canvas fanny pack sat dead center of her flowered, concave middle. No watch circled her freckled wrist; dedicated slot players never sleep, or go anywhere else. Schools of wooden tropical fish dangled from Hester's overtaxed earlobes. Temple was so shocked to meet the Minnesota Fats of slot machines that she didn't check out Hester Polyester's footwear until last: gold metallic tennis shoes.