Midnight Louie 05-Cat in a Diamond Dazzle

by Douglas, Carole Nelson

  Stunned, Tempest heard Captain Blast's seven-league boots stomping over the stage sand toward her.

  Her fate lay in this hard but handsome mans hands, and his intentions lay in the hot, burning flames of his ice-blue eyes.

  She desperately tried to . . .look tempestuously disdainful, yet knowing that she must endure all that the pirate captain might do to her before a leering crew of thirty-three tall, broad men cut from the same bold, rapacious sailcloth . . .

  ... RUN!

  But first. . .

  she desperately decided to . . .

  de-bend her dress bodice.

  Like all gravity-defying acts, this one looked easier to do than to undo. Drat, her pose-down debut would be a sight to remember. Where was the sweet retreat of fiction when she needed it?

  "Hah!" Captain Breezy stopped, took a wide stance that emphasized thighs the size of Easter Island hams, and pointed imperiously to Temple, whose only relation to any kind of Storm was as a licensed driver. Life had returned to Real Time, no matter how bizarre.

  " La Rossa." He smiled. Showed his teeth. Leered. Licked his lips. Ate her grandmother. "We are already experts at the pose, no?"

  Before Temple could shake her head, or shrug her gown back on her shoulders, Fabrizio strode over and caught Temple's itty-bitty hand in his great big paw.

  He led--dragged--her to center stage, not her idea of undercover work.

  Apparently, it wasn't Danny Dove's idea of how to run a rehearsal either.

  Danny jumped up and spun Temple out of Fabrizio's ham-handed grip before either of them could blink.

  Now Danny pointed imperiously. "You. To the risers with the rest of the chorus line." He turned to the assembled hunks.

  "If you must have a demonstration of the finer points of a pose-down, I will give it. Now, you must remember that although you are dealing with a person who may weigh as little as half your own poundage, she is liable to feel heavier than you think, especially if you try too-heroic maneuvers without a careful rehearsal. For instance, no Taming-of-the-Shrew sack of potatoes over the shoulder shtick . . .

  unless you've rehearsed it."

  Danny demonstrated by bending and rising with Temple draped over one shoulder, his arm around her knees the only thing that kept her from tumbling to the hard stage floor.

  Temple tried to gasp, but the corset ruled out all emergency breathing techniques. Danny had spun so she faced the empty house, and a good thing, too; gravity was pulling her bodice to depths that Quincey and company could not dare dream of. She crossed her arms over her gaping decolletage (and crossed her fingers on her shoulders) while eavesdropping on Danny's crisp lecture on her rear ... er, at her rear.

  "In this position, the woman's weight is mostly over my shoulder, but gravity makes even the lightest one like lead. Let go of her legs, and you drop her. Lean back too far, and you drop her. My advice is: don't try it. If she ends up on her ass, you end up looking like one. Not very romantic."

  Temple felt her world shake as Danny bent and she once again touched terra firma, feet-first.

  Not for long.

  "I know, gentlemen, that during pose-downs you are fond of executing a maneuver known as a 'dip.'

  " Danny's scathingly precise enunciation made the act of a dip sound like . . . well, the act of a dip.

  "Bear in mind that the female torso bends, but it does not break."

  Danny turned and bent again. Temple suddenly was staring at the hems of curtains suspended in the flies. She felt she was lying head down on the grounded half of a teeter-totter. Speaking of totter, she felt that she was going to slide headfirst and backwards off the edge of the known world . . . which-did-too-have-one!

  "Not to worry." Danny's reassuring tone soothed as he maintained their difficult position and continued his lecture.

  "This looks easier than it is. Notice that my supporting arm is lengthwise as much as possible beneath the lady's spine. Notice, too, that I leaned back a bit as I bent her and myself over, so her feet are not churning to keep braced on the floor. You do not wish to make your lady fair look like a hyperactive gerbil. If you must dip, and I do not recommend that you try this in your own home, practice slowly and safely. Get it right. Otherwise, you will have her flailing in your arms ... or falling to the floor. Then the only dip you have to take is your farewell curtsy as you are hooted offstage as an unromantic boor."

  Danny pulled Temple upright as if she weighed six pounds and dropped custody of her hand. "Any questions?"

  Temple had one. She knew she had been heaved around like a side of beef, but she had never really felt out of control, despite her fears. And Danny probably weighed a hundred and forty pounds with his hair wet.

  A slow, ponderous wave of clapping bestirred the becalmed hunks, who understood the weight problem, if nothing else. Danny took Temple's hand and stepped away. She recovered fast enough to take a shallow (due to the dress) bow, and smile like a trouper.

  "My hero," she whispered wryly as Danny bowed and kissed her hand.

  "Better than being a hero sandwich," he muttered, rolling his eyes at the risers, where Breezy pouted like the world's largest five-year-old.

  Danny's angelic grin as he regarded Fabrizio sobered to a director's sternness. Temple ambled offstage, trying not to feel dizzy.

  "Spotlight-hog," Lacey greeted her. "Too bad you got stuck with the wimpy director."

  "I'll tell him you said that," Temple answered sweetly. "I know he'll make sure that you get all the dorkiest guys as pose-down partners."

  "Right on, Batgirl!" Quincey grinned at Temple.

  Together they watched Lacey slink away to wave at the guys on the risers.

  "You did okay," the sixteen-year-old told Temple in a hurried, hoarse whisper. "But don't be such a nerd about the damn neckline."

  It was, Temple realized sadly, excellent advice.

  Since the worst, for now, was over, she realized her subconscious had been playing tricks during her mental sojourn in Historical Romance Heaven. The least of them was the unlikely handle of Tempest Storm: it had come to mind so quickly because it was the stage name of an infamous stripper.

  Did this fact offer an omen for Temple's fate during the real, live dress rehearsal and actual performance still to come?

  Temple decided to distract herself from forthcoming indignities with another shoe hunt.

  Chapter 27

  Witch Switch

  I am more than somewhat worried about Miss Temple Barr.

  After witnessing her odd behavior the other day at the MGM Grand theme park, which resulted in her being swept off her tootsies not once, but twice, by dirty, greasy pirates, I fear that her recent emotional upsets have also swept off her sanity.

  So I resolve to keep a weather eye on her (in keeping with the nautical theme of her recent expedition).

  And what do you know? The very next time I find her slipping away from the Crystal Phoenix for a little R&R (Wrest and Wreckreation) it is the dark of evening, and where do her size-fives head but back for a return engagement with the Big Guy at the MGM Grand? Does she not get the picture? She is not safe on these nasty, neon streets.

  I amble after her, wondering what sort of aerial antics she is up to tonight.

  Once again I risk life and lateral limb nipping through the awesome glass doors, which would like nothing better than to snap shut on any part of my anatomy in arrears. These casino doors are hungrier than a loan shark on a diet.

  On this occasion, Miss Temple appears to be playing the role of innocent tourist. She immediately heads for the quaint little kiosk with the cabbage-size Technicolor flower blooming all around it at the back of the "Wizard of Oz" enclosure just inside Leo's welcoming paws. I note that an admission fee is charged, so I slink into the ersatz greenery and belly-crawl on the skimpy dirt until I am a mere whisker away from the Yellow Brick Road.

  (By the way, do you have any idea of why the Yellow Brick Road is yellow? This is real insider stuff, so listen up. Toto.
Yup. For a pipsqueak, he was mighty powerful in the elimination department. Dogs will do it anywhere, you know. And that goes for other matters, as well. An inferior species from start to finish, but they do have their occasional uses.)

  I wait impatiently for Miss Temple to catch up to me. There are many disadvantages to being human, but having to pay admission must be one of the worst. Not only does Miss Temple have to slam down five bucks for this insider tour of the Haunted Forest and the Emerald City at its center, but she has to wait until showtime while a mob of tourists jostles and stomps behind her.

  According to a sign on the gingerbread kiosk, the Emerald City houses a magic show. I could show her some real magic: just belly-crawl under the fence and you are in free of charge. Of course Miss Temple might claim to find the notion of crawling into an attraction rather undignified, but--given her recent shenanigans in the rigging with the pirate scum and her new role as wench--she is hardly one to plead dignity as an excuse for not doing something.

  So I hunker down in the so-called woods and wait, trying not to let the artificial smells of plastic and putty put me off the scent. Soon I pin my ears back as a gaggling crowd of tourists and their jabbering offspring stumble down the Yellow Brick Road that weaves through this movie-set woods like a center highway line painted by a drunken sailor with Montezuma's revenge. An awesome assortment of tennis shoes parades by, but nowhere do I spot my little doll's high-heeled sneakers. Okay, they are not really sneakers. They are black denim with a rubber-clad sole and heel made to resemble maple, so they are easy on the ears.

  The babbling gawkers hunt and peck down the Yellow Brick Road while I shimmy my way near, sniffing for Toto. Luckily, this setting is so artificial that nothing natural has been permitted to permeate the pathway. At last! I spot Miss Temple's dainty spikes hushing down the lane. She is tailing the sightseers, but pauses by the first solo act in this compact scenario, little Miss Dorothy Gale with her Red Riding Hood basket and her red-sequined shoes.

  Miss Temple Barr has no time to dally with picnic baskets and checked pinafores. She squats down by Miss Dorothy and studies the sequined pumps. She doesn't even look up when the mannequin cranks into life and begins declaiming a pre-recorded message. I can tell what Miss Temple is thinking, even from the rear (hers, not mine). She is mooning over the ruby red slippers, though she knows that they are a copy of a reproduction. She is never one to overlook a snazzy pair of shoes.

  But she rises with an audible sigh and makes a face at Miss Dorothy Gale. It is not really her shoes Miss Temple covets in her high-heeled sole. Too low, too dowdy, too dusty for my little Rustilocks. She minces on, eerily silent for once in her new snooping shoes.

  What can a fellow do but follow?

  Not forty feet farther down the YBR, she stops cold. Or perhaps she stops hot. Either way, she is as still as one of these overdressed, over-chatty statues. I slither closer to discover the object of her attention.

  I am soon sorry.

  Someone has escaped the gingerbread kiosk, and it is no ticket-seller. In fact, this figure could not sell flying monkeys to a circus. There she stands--tall and green and thin and unlovely-no girl from Impanema, but the Wicked Witch of the West, a sight designed to give even an anteater an upset stomach. Her clawed hands are clutching her glassy spy-globe while her sharp nose and chin try to touch warts as she cackles about what she will do to Miss Dorothy Gale "and the little dog, too."

  Actually, maybe the Wicked Witch is not such a bad sort, after all.

  Miss Temple must have come to the same conclusion, for she stands mesmerized by the animated performance, which is good, but not earth-stopping. I am somewhat taken aback--in fact, I am forced to scoot under a scraggly spreading plant of some sort-when Miss Tempie bends down and begins examining the ground around the witch.

  She keeps an eye over her shoulder for wandering tourists, but seems to be looking for something.

  Not five feet away she finds it. A genuine tree branch, about three feet long. Scrawny, like the witch.

  And leafless and loose for the taking, which she does. My poor little doll. I have been neglecting her for the siren call of my kind. Can her state in life be so barren that she must resort to collecting dead branches as a hobby? What happened to her hankering for shoes?

  Whatever the answer, I am not about to get it now.

  Miss Temple discreetly brandishes her branch with a triumphant expression, then returns to confront the witch. Hey, I do not cotton to the old grouch, but there is no need to take a switch to her animated effigy!

  Even as I doubt the evidence of my eyes, the green sky above the Emerald City shifts with lightning.

  Thunder rumbles and glowers. I anticipate the arrival of a gaggle of security guards while the message

  "Surrender Temple" is etched across the dreadful lime sky above.

  Miss Temple Barr, of course, is oblivious to all but her weird task. With a last lunge forward and a terrific jerk upward on her stick, she manages to dislodge the witch's long black skirt from the ground.

  Beyond it I glimpse shadow and no substance--the witch has nothing left to stand on! No wonder she melted like liquified rubber at the film's end. I also finally understand the object of Miss Temple's machinations. The witch has no feet, and therefore no shoes.

  Oh, what a clever, inventive girl my little doll is! I confess that I have utterly underestimated her for once. Of course she would suspect a pair of black-cat Halloween shoes of being hidden under the Wicked Witch of the West! Not only did the ruby slippers originally bedeck the witch's feet (when she had these useful appendages, which her stand-in does not), but black cats and witches go together in the popular imagination like white doves and peace. Not in this instance, alas, but good try Miss Temple!

  Even as I transmit waves of support and approval, I notice that someone human has sneaked up on Miss Temple. A blond young woman in a short skirt and a vest. She is frowning.

  "Pardon me, ma'am," says this Goldilocks in the wrong world.

  Oh, Miss Temple must hate that "ma'am." She straightens so fast her precious branch snaps into two skimpy pieces, and she knocks her shin on the fence rail "Did you lose something?" The babe In the woods regards my dear roommate with a solicitous smile that is most denigrating.

  Never let it be said that Midnight Louie associates with those overburdened by the heavy weight of literal truth.

  "Uh ... yes," Miss Temple extemporizes in a wide-eyed Dorothy way. "A ... cat. Not a real cat. A little black cat figure I keep on my keychain. I think it rolled into the woods right here."

  "I don't see anything," the helpful girl guide says.

  Meanwhile, Miss Temple has noticed the uniform nature of the girl's attire and realizes that she has been caught by someone official.

  "Maybe I lost it getting out of the car. I'll check there. Am I too late for the show?"

  "Almost," the young woman answers. "Better hurry."

  And so Miss Temple Barr does: right past the blathering animated tin woodman and scarecrow and into the towering green domes of the Emerald City itself. The young woman watches her retreat so closely that I cannot follow, although I am dying to see the magic act inside the fabled viridian metropolis.

  Instead I make my hidden way to the Emerald City's other side, observing that it is constructed of particle board and glitter. Illusions. Life is a magic act and this time I am in the last row. But I am waiting in the fake greenery when Miss Temple emerges from the structure, blinking. Above us, thunder grumbles and the Wizard exhorts the masses from the podium of his balloon gondola.

  The more things are different, the more they are the same-- here or over the rainbow. And where are the purported bluebirds, anyway? I could use a snack even more than Miss Temple Barr could use another pair of shoes.

  Chapter 28

  Romantic Rendezvous

  "Where have you been all morning?" Kit demanded the next day, sounding mighty like Temple's mother.

  "Out. Hun-ting" Temple echoed
Bela Lugosi's fiendish intonation when he had played Dr.

  Frankenstein's hunchbacked assistant; he didn't always get to be Dracula.

  "Okay, Igor," said Kit, proving herself well up on vintage horror movies. "Shoe business again, huh?"

  Temple nodded, not eager to relay her indignities at Fabrizio's hands. She was also wondering where Kit had been all morning, given Jake's disturbing new information about her aunt's late night assignations. And Electra hadn't been too evident this morning, either, come to think of it!

  Oblivious to Temple's mental reservations, Kit verbally careened on. "Whilst you were off tracking the wild Weitzman, I arranged for a high-powered coven of romance writers to assemble.

  A murderer may be among them. Need I say more?"

  Temple shook her head.

  "All right." Kit went on, talking a mile a minute. "The setup is you're a producer for Prime Time --

  "

  " Prime Time? You don't mean the network news show?"

  "Right." Kit shoved a slippery stack of author press-kit folders into Temple's arms. "I grabbed these in the press room, so it looks like you've done your homework."

  "Thanks for the big promotion, but I really can't pose as a Prime Time producer. That's...

  actionable if anyone finds out. Impersonating a tabloid TV producer with intent to trap a murderer doesn't carry the same risks. Nobody in tabloid TV has much reputation to protect, but masquerading as network --"

  "Cool it, kid. I admitted that you're my niece, so these authors probably assume you're just a lowly producer-in-training-wheels. And so young for such an important position, too."

  She patted Temple's unruly curls into place, like a mommy readying her offspring for the garden club.

  "Aunt Kit! You are the senior member here. First you suggest I offer myself up to some mysterious pageant ritual called a pose-down; now you arrange an audience with the queens of romance under childishly false pretenses. You said these women were mega-bestsellers. They'll be much too sophisticated to fall for me extorting information under cover of media blitz."