Midnight Louie 05-Cat in a Diamond Dazzle

by Douglas, Carole Nelson

  "I did not renege! I was nearly killed. Besides, a Lolita-in-waiting was rabid to take my place."

  Electra shrugged. "Still, you don't have an escort for tonight."

  "I don't need one. Besides, Matt's working and Max is working at being invisible again."

  Electra stopped primping long enough to examine Temple's silver-beaded dress and steel-heel shoes. "I'm worried about you, Temple. You wore that outfit last night. It's not like you to forget to dress for every occasion."

  "No one saw me last night, and I don't feel like traipsing around in costume again. I've wenched my last wench. I'm only going to this folderal tonight in case you win."

  Electra beamed. "That's sweet. I suppose I shouldn't hope, but I think I have a real strong entry.

  He's a highwayman and she's a gently reared aristocrat."

  Temple looked startled, then a bit uneasy. "Isn't that ... a rather common romance scenario?"

  "Perhaps, but it's how you execute the primal fairy tale that matters. Some situations reside so deeply in our psyches that we retell them again and again. Like Beauty and the Beast."

  "Like Cinderella, " Temple added, smiling at herself in the mirror as she clipped on long, dangling earrings. Too bad she had only one shoe, and two Prince Charmings, however dubious.

  "Exactly." Electra regarded Temple with renewed suspicion, but gave up. "I expect you to tell me all about Louie at dinner. Time to go down and find out what happens."

  "Amen." Temple picked up her tiny silver evening bag.

  The ballroom that had hosted luncheons and dinners all week was decked in even more gossamer than before. All the tiny chandelier lights glittered through rainbow veils.

  Beneath this celestial whimsy, an earthier artifice prevailed in a carnival's worth of costumes and masks, of brilliant jewelry and clothing.

  "They're really puttin' on the glitz tonight," Temple noted.

  "I suppose it seems like an anti-climax to you," Electra said. "You have no surprises in store this evening."

  "I've had my surprise." Temple knew her mysterious smile would torment Electra, but that was as much as she was going to say about the shoe, and how she had gotten it.

  "Let's find Kit and a table before everybody rushes for seats. I want to sit near the center front, in case--"

  "In case you have to run up for an award," Temple finished. "I hope you do, Electra. I really hope you do."

  "Kit's up for an award, you know."

  "I didn't know that!"

  "Neither did I, until an award candidates' list fell out of one of your author press kits."

  "Well, that sly bootsl Oops, unfortunate expression. I'll chide Kit severely for not telling us."

  Just as they chose a table, Kit found them and pulled out an adjoining chair.

  "You're too modest for an acting Carlson," Temple told her before she had sat down. "Why didn't you mention that you were up for a, a--"

  "A Romie? So are about twelve thousand other authors. Don't put your white gloves on to cushion your hands while applauding for me. Although I hope our friend Electra will cause us to callous our palms."

  "What does 'Romie' stand for?"

  Kit frowned. "How the hell would I know?"

  Electra leaned in to recite, in a true believer's voice, "RO-Mance Is Everything. Capital ROMIE."

  No kidding." Kit looked impressed. "Where'd you find that out?"

  "In class."

  "What's the award for?" Temple asked.

  Kit dropped her beaded evening bag and dove under the tablecloth to search the floor.

  Electra leaned over her bent back to whisper, "Best S-E-X."

  "No!"

  Electra nodded solemnly. "Only we call it sensuality. Looks better to the press."

  "I would think so! Find anything, Auntie?"

  "Two breath mints and a purse." Kit resurfaced, flushed and ready to change the subject. "What's the scoop on the Fabrizio offing? Surely the killer will not go unpunished? I'd sentence him to life--a lifetime of watching Fabrizio videos, and hearing Fabrizio motivation and romance tapes, Fabrizio playing the kazoo, Fabrizio gargling--"

  " She might just like that."

  "A woman did it?"

  "Maybe."

  "You're no fun." Kit pouted and kicked the long tablecloth skirt like a restless child. "I wish they'd get this show on the road; there are eighty-nine award categories, each with several candidates, which means that two thousand and eight possible wrist-slitters occupy this room."

  "I can understand why they decided to do the awards before dinner," Electra said. "But did they consider that, since losers will outnumber winners, a lot of appetites will be lost before the waiters even serve the salad?"

  Temple skimmed the award brochure lying across her dinner plate. Kit had exaggerated only a little. Award categories recognized every wrinkle on the much-traveled face of romance fiction: time travel and futuristics, historical and contemporary, suspense and intrigue, stand-alone and line titles. That only emphasized how many romances were published each month, and how they had become virtually half of the paperback market.

  Yet at this convention Temple had heard tales of exploited and underpaid authors, of a midlist purge, of authors cut from publishers' lists by the tens and twenties. If there was big money to be made, only a few lucky authors hopped aboard the gravy train.

  Those authors' names peppered the award brochure pages. Temple now knew and liked--or loathed--some of them. Sulah Savage, of course. Shannon Little and Misty Meadows. Mary Ann Trenarry and Sharon Rose, who must use her first and middle names as a writing pseudonym, although "Sharon Harvey" didn't sound too bad. Ah, yes: and Ravenna Rivers, the Homestud Man's Vamp of the West.

  "Hello," a timbreless voice echoed through a microphone. "I'm Savannah Ashleigh, your surprise awards moderator tonight. And I'd like to extend all you G.R.O.W.L.ers a great big grrrrrrr."

  Temple regarded the podium. A blitz of blond scintillated behind the speaker's box. Blond hair, blond body, blond gown. Spell it b-1-a-n-d and you'd be closer to the truth.

  "First," Savannah's breathless monotone resumed, "the All-Time Readers' Favorites Awards. For Best Mistress ... ah, for Mistress Widow of Best Single Tittie . . . er, Title. Release. Oh."

  Savannah gazed upon her attentive audience, decided their dropped jaws indicated adoration, and held out her hands to urge the silent mob to quiet. "It's Misty Meadows, Best Single Title Release!"

  Kit slid onto her tailbone in embarrassment, hiding her face behind her open award brochure.

  "That woman is unbelievable! She's too vain to wear reading glasses. With that level of delivery, this awards list will take hours to get through. I hope to heaven I don't win. I can't imagine how she'd mangle my name."

  "You overestimate her," Temple muttered. "Glasses wouldn't help her reading and speaking skills. She's a film actress, after all."

  And so the evening stumbled on, with every ear and eye fixed on Savannah Ashleigh in the spotlight, struggling vainly to interpret award titles and winners' names.

  "And for Best Sex!" Savannah looked up, proud, then down again. "Uh, Best Sexuality . . . no, Sense. Best Sense of. . . Reality? Sue LaSavage!" She used the French pronunciation, of course, or her best approximation of French. "Soo La Sa-vahge. "

  "I sound like a nymphomaniac railroad line!" Kit stood, threw her napkin to the table and stalked up to accept the award by graciously thanking every insensitive idiot who had ever stood in her way, therefore ensuring her sterling success.

  Temple was still laughing when Kit returned to the table, slammed an object that resembled gold-plated mating dolphins down on the thick tablecloth, sat, picked up her discarded napkin, unfolded it and covered her head.

  Temple was still laughing when Mary Ann Trenarry waltzed up to collect the "Most Innoculated Heroine" award.

  "Innovative! " Kit, still under her peach-linen tent, translated with disgust.

  Ravenna Rivers undulated up to retrieve a "Sexy West Hero Awar
d."

  " Sexiest Western Hero, " Kit droned ominously.

  Seeing both women onstage was a study in super-feminine stereotypes, blonde on blonde.

  Before Savannah Ashleigh could butcher another category, someone tapped Temple on the bare shoulder.

  She turned to recognize Molina's mustached partner. He bent to whisper sweet somethings in her ear: "The Lieutenant would like you to meet with her now."

  Molina, here? Had to be, if her partner was. What was up?

  Temple excused herself, to little notice. Electra was so nervous she sat rapt at Savannah's maunderings, wringing the fabric of her diaphanous muumuu. And Kit, the Wise One from the East Who Speaks Only from Under a Veil, Soo La-Saa-Vahge, continued to commune with Thespis.

  Molina stood against the wall like an idle waiter. With her neutral bearing and navy pantsuit, she could pass for one. She stood even with Savannah and the podium, watching both as if she expected them to creep, like Birnam Wood, utterly away.

  Temple eased into place against the wall beside her, feeling like shrimpy Shirley Temple paired for a tap-dance with looming, lanky Buddy Ebsen.

  Molina held out an awards brochure, and indicated a certain name. "You know her by sight?"

  Temple nodded.

  Molina leaned down to whisper.

  "Don't do anything, for God's sake." Molina drew back against the wall. "Just point a finger."

  "No kisses required?" Temple couldn't help asking. "This is a romance convention."

  Molina glowered but didn't answer. Temple knew why. She was armed and dangerous. She was about to arrest a murderer.

  Savannah Ashleigh, meanwhile, sounded quite giddy. She assumed that she was getting the hang of this awards thing, quite erroneously. She giggled between categories, and grew coy before she announced the winning name, which she invariably mangled.

  "For... for Ass... Asset to the Feel Award--" Giggle. "That's field, everyone. For Field Asset Award, Sharon Rose!" Savannah drew the list to her face. "Is that it? Sharon Rose. I can do that!"

  Sharon Rose moved toward the podium. Her gown was yellow polyester chiffon, long and full.

  She had a matching yellow organdy bow pinned dead center of her brown hair, just above the curled fringe dusting her forehead. Her hands and unvarnished nails clasped the dolphins around what would be their waists, as if they never meant to let go.

  "I can't tell you how much this means to me," her quivering voice trilled over the microphone to every nook and cranny of the ballroom. "I have labored so long and hard to make this field reach its full potential, to prove that good writing is the road to success, that our covers don't have to rely on the tawdry and tacky. Quality, That is the word I live by, and write by. Thank you so much for recognizing mine."

  She rustled down to the dinner table level, afloat on sunshine chiffon and the audience of admiring fans.

  Molina stepped forward and drew her toward the wall where a woman photographer waited. All the winners (except Kit) had paused to record this moment for posterity.

  Molina whispered something to Sharon Rose while Savannah giggled and garbled at the microphone. Sharon Rose nodded. Molina turned to Temple, and passed on the message.

  Temple, stunned, wove discreetly into the tables until she reached one. She spoke to someone there, who immediately rose and followed her, followed her back to Molina and the wall, and the silent partner by the waiter's portable tray table. Back to a triumphant Sharon Rose, beaming like a polyester daffodil.

  The police closed in, including two uniformed officers, one male, one female, who materialized from the swinging doors to the kitchen.

  Another author was weaving through tables to the podium in gratified surprise. Not Sharon Rose.

  Some other author was thanking whatever gods may be, not Sharon Rose. Some other author was hearing the applause of her peers and fans, the sweetest sound in the world. Not Sharon Rose.

  Sharon Rose was hearing her Miranda warnings, delivered in a crisp, official drone that made Savannah Ashleigh sound animated.

  Sharon Rose was extending her hands to surrender her trophy.. . and extending them behind her for the handcuffs.

  So was her husband, Herbert Harvey. Or was it Harvey Herbert?

  Poor man, Temple thought, watching the stunned couple cowed, corralled and led discreetly through the kitchen doors. She glimpsed an anxious Nicky Fontana and Van von Rhine waiting against the institutional stainless steel.

  Poor Herbert Harvey. Now that was an epitaph for a runner-up. A henchman. The lesser half in a merger of murder and greed. And, ultimately, a hit man with Fabrizio to his credit.

  Molina handed Sharon Rose's award to Temple.

  "You may wish to return this to the committee," she said. "And they may wish to forward it to her relatives. She did earn it."

  "Why arrest them here and now?" Temple asked.

  "To get them before everyone left town, and we had to wait for confirming information from Italy and the Orient, both on very different time zones, with very different languages. Especially the Italians, when it comes to efficiency. You have heard about Italian trains?"

  "No doubt rank stereotype, Lieutenant. The Fontana Brothers are Italian."

  "I rest my case."

  "Was I right?"

  "I'm afraid so. I checked. Sharon Rose and her husband were in Italy--Milan, in fact, meeting with her Italian publishing house--at the same time Cheyenne and Fabrizio were modeling for Armani there. The Harveys had commissioned the boots in Florence, noted for its leather goods. Both murdered models were 'given' the boots to commemorate their meeting with Sharon Rose and her husband in Milan a week ago. Both men considered such perks their due as rising romance-cover models. They never knew they were acting as mules for smuggled diamonds."

  "Cheyenne was killed because he was going to reveal the scheme, wasn't he? That's what he wanted to ask me about the night before he died."

  "Hey!" Molina smiled. "He may have just wanted to ask you out. You'll never know. But you're right. Cheyenne was not stupid. He went direct from Milan to Las Vegas, as did Fabrizio. Different flights, but not by much. We checked. Cheyenne also went straight to what passes for an honest pawnbroker in Las Vegas when he saw some stones from one boot heel had fallen off into his duffel bag during the transatlantic flight, and examined them. The pawnbroker gave us a statement: he identified the stones as gem-quality diamonds. I'd guess that Cheyenne told Fabrizio in his dressing room, then realized that Fabrizio wasn't about to give up the gold in any field. Finders, keepers.

  Cheyenne had to get onstage in a hurry, thanks to dealing with the horse, so he ditched the evidence boot under the costume rack, planning to retrieve it later."

  "There was no later." Temple picked up the scenario, though no one would ever know it for sure.

  "Minutes later, Fabrizio used his hawking gauntlet to stab Cheyenne with his own arrow."

  "He ditched the glove under the waste tray in the hawk cage."

  "A bloody glove?"

  "I'm afraid so."

  "How did you find it, Lieutenant? How do we know it isn't a plant?"

  "Please. Backstage witnesses say a cat trying to get at the hawk tipped over the cage. The tray pulled out and the glove tumbled to the floor."

  "A cat? What kind of cat would go after a hunting hawk?"

  Molina blinked. "Witnesses say it was a black cat."

  Temple refused to comment. "I never suspected Fabrizio until much later, when I learned that a single gauntlet had disappeared from his costume." She smiled wearily. "It's ironic. The only reason I suspected Herbert Harvey was learning that he was going hunting in Canada after the convention.

  Then I thought of bow-hunting. But he didn't kill Cheyenne with an arrow, though he finished off Fabrizio with a dagger."

  "A dagger borrowed from general supplies in the joint costume cage, by the way," Molina said.

  "We got a warrant to search the Harveys's room on probable cause and found the receipt for the cover
boys' damn boots concealed in their luggage. In a custom Italian western boot. Hers."

  "They put a lot of faith in boots, didn't they?"

  "Fabrizio figured he was safe. That Sharon Rose and her husband wouldn't dare tell the police if he kept the diamonds, because they'd have to admit their money-laundering scheme. And the diamonds were a perfect investment; anyone could sell them. Harvey had been backstage with his wife; it was easy to stab Fabrizio in the dark confusion of the lighting rehearsal. They planned to collect his and Cheyenne's boots later, although we had Fabrizio's and one of Cheyenne's boots and you had the other."

  "Why was Sharon Rose laundering money? She has plenty."

  "All is not enough for some people. You were right about her foreign sales having something to do with this. She's privately sold all her backlist books to the burgeoning Far East market. The money they paid her was converted to diamonds in Hong Kong. If anyone saw her books in Chinese, she could say they had reprinted them illegally; it happens a lot. Then Sharon Rose generously gifted her cover models with the commemorative boots. Voila: models and boots make it unchallenged into the U.S. Sharon Rose wanted to avoid taxes, but now she faces murder/conspiracy, tax dodge/money-laundering convictions."

  "So the Arrow Man actually did one of the dirty deeds?" Temple mused.

  Molina looked puzzled. "Arrow Man? You mean Harvey. Had Fabrizio's greed not encouraged him to keep the jewels, Herbert Harvey wouldn't have had to commit a murder. Unfortunately, you intervened before either of this murderous, larcenous couple could recover the gems from the boots. And Fabrizio, not knowing he was a marked man, was worried enough about your knowing about his missing glove to try to kill you, even as he was being stalked."

  "Poor Herbert Harvey. Such a nice man," Temple murmured. "Apparently."

  "Apparently a pawn of his wife's. She was the brain driven by a bright, hot heart of pure greed.

  Just now she was claiming that the publishers are responsible for her scheme, for forcing authors to lead such scrimping, uncertain lives."

  "At her rate of sales, please! She had it made. Why did she have to mess it up? I still can't picture her low-key husband as a killer."