"I hate ball games. I hate that expression. Could you try something less cliched?"
"You're concentrating on trivia because the Big Picture is too new to take in. Look. I must know Someone who knows Someone. This is New York City, after all. Everybody's a specialist. Let me call around and get you a reference. Then we can talk housing arrangements."
"Yes, but I don't see--"
Yes, but. You don't see. That's the problem. Just hang up. Sit tight and let Aunty Kit handle it. I'd love to see you for Christmas, sweetie, but I'd much rather see you with a decent contract in your hand. Cheerio."
Temple couldn't tell if her aunt was under the influence of a food craving or simply wishing her good-bye. But she did as instructed; she hung up and looked at Midnight Louie, who had actually exchanged his comfy sofa for the hard kitchen countertop when the call had come half an hour ago.
"Looks like we'll be seeing Kris Kringle at Macy's this year, Louie. You know, Miracle on Thirty-fourth Street Macy's. Except they might not let you in. Oh, golly, I hope Aunt Kit knows what she's doing. If she blows this deal... but she's a novelist and she used to be an actress, and they both use agents, so I guess she's my nearest expert, besides being a contact in Manhattan. Just think, Louie! You and me, living it up for the holidays in New York, New York."
I yawn. I have interrupted my nap, after all, to rush over and eavesdrop. The first call was a lot more interesting, because it was mainly all about me.
"Poor fella! You're so pooped from your medical nightmare, and now I'm supposed to whisk you off to New York and all the performance pressure, in pursuit of mythical beasts: cruel chimeras of Fame and Fortune. I wonder if we need another agent to look after your interests alone? Like in messy divorce cases. You are going to be a 'party of the first part,' after all."
I got a late-breaking headline, doll. I have always been the Party of the First Part, especially now that I still have all my parts--by some miracle and a dopey blonde's mistake. And they call us dumb beasts!
"I do not know." Miss Temple kicks off her magenta suede high heels so I can read the label. Some dudette named Nicole Miller. It is nice to see the little dolls coming up in the world nowadays and becoming majorettes of industry and design.
She wiggles her toes, a gesture I can appreciate, and I do not even wear shoes, much less skyscraper shoes. I wonder if she will take her designer stilts to New York, New York. It is an either-way call: heads she wears 'em and is not fit to flee a mugger, and tails she does not, and is therefore unarmed with a sharp instrument when attacked in Broadway daylight.
"Will any hotels let you in? Maybe the Algonquin. It has always had a 'house cat,' after all, along with a house tie for errant gentle-men in too-casual attire. Kit says we could stay with her, but I hate to impose."
Say, this Indian joint is my kind of place. I am always dressed in formal black. As for staying with Miss Temple's aunt, one Miss Kit Carlson, that is okay with me. Impose, impose! I am the only "house cat" on any premises I choose to honor with my presence.
She sighs. "I would consult Matt, but he has left for work, and Electra is officiating at a wedding downstairs ... why does good fortune always strike when all your friends are AWOL?"
I am here. She must have heard me because she starts stroking my ears. I wonder if I am destined for the Mr. Clean earring. Well, all the rock stars have them. I suppose I could have something tasteful. Like a sterling-silver carp. Or eighteen-karat gold, if I am a star.
She jumps so high when the phone rings again right in front of us that I nearly leap off the countertop. Get a grip, girl! If you are going to be a big-time manager, you will have to be as cool as Ice T.
"Hello? Yes, I heard from your account exec and I'm giving it serious thought. Of course I have to consider all the ramifications-- that is a lot of money, but I need to discuss it in person. Oh? On your tab? And the cat? Well, he has to fly too. Only in the cabin. I won't have him in the cargo area. All those horror stories--"
Cargo area? What does the geek on the other end of the line think I am, chopped liver? I woul d not confine Miss Savannah Ash leigh to a cargo area, and after what she had done to me, that is a severe indictment indeed of cargo areas.
"I'll call you as soon as I know something definite. Yes, I realize it's eight p.m. in New York. You work awfully late there, don't you? Oh, everyone does. We work hard in Las Vegas, too, only we get done three hours earlier. I'll call tomorrow. Yes, it has to be tomorrow."
She holds her hand over the receiver and finally asks me something. "Who can Kit dig up at eight on a Friday night?"
Beats me. Elvis, maybe. Or an out-of-work vampire. Now that's an agent after my own heart, a genuine bloodsucker.
Miss Temple hangs up and continues what she thinks is a monologue. "Oh, Louie! What a strange turn of events. You, a corporate mascot. I wonder if they know what they're letting themselves in for?"
Temple stared at the phone. Like a watched pot that never boils, a watched phone never rings. Public relations rule number one. Public relations rule number two: never work with children or animals; they're too unpredictable and they'll steal every scene.
But that was all right if scene-stealing was the name of the game, and Louie was a natural.
"I wonder if they know your proclivities for crime?" she asked her only audience.
My proclivities for crime? The only proclivities for crime that I have in these latter domestic days of my lives are your habits of tripping over dead bodies. Maybe if you gave up high heels you would trip over bodies a lot less.
"Maybe my strange affinity for murder only works in Las Vegas. Maybe in New York everything will be different. I sure get a high-pressure feeling from that vice president. I thought this town thrived on hype--"
The phone trills again. I cannot take this Grand Central switchboard act. I leave Miss Temple to her fate and jump down to inspect my Free-to-be-Feline bowl. Still pretty uninspiring. The couch calls.
"Yes!" Temple was relieved to hear her aunt's hauntingly husky voice. It was like eavesdropping on an aural doppelganger. Temple cleared her throat, though it never helped to banish the fog from her voice. Why it should work by proxy, she didn't know.
"Got someone," Kit said. "Does this sort of thing all the time."
"What sort of agent?"
"An odd sort. Not an actor's agent. More like a personal-appearance agent."
"Is this person working for me, or Louie?"
"You, You're the only one who can sign a contract. Presumably you own the cat, not vice versa."
"Have you ever kept a cat?" No.
"Then you don't know how wrong you are. But I assume Louie will press his paw on the Jotted line if I make him do it. The trip to New York will be the test. If he doesn't like traveling, it's no deal. I'm not going to cart a twenty-pound feline protestor around."
"This could be a major opportunity for you as well as the Cat, T0emple. Quince tells me big money should be in it. You could become like . . . Shari Lewis and Lamb Chop."
"Louie's no Lamb Chop. If I want to make like he's a hand puppet, he'll probably eat my hand."
"Are you saying the animal is vicious?"
"I'm saying he's determined; there's a difference. He was a street cat for Lord knows how long. He went his own way and still does to some extent. At least Savannah Ashleigh has made sure that he won't father any inconvenient kittens, but he'll still be interested in any available girl-cats he comes across."
Any? I think from the other room. Does she believe that I exercise no discretion in these matters? What does she take me for, an alley cat?
At this point Miss Temple launches into a dramatic description of my recent kidnapping and stint as an involuntary subject of a mad plastic surgeon. I doze off, having heard this story before, in person.
I know all the important stuff anyway. We will fly to New York City. We might stay at a tony hotel, or we might stay at the aunt-doll's digs. Miss Temple will take me places to see people neither of us kno
w, who will give us lots of money. We will have an agent. We will be big shots. We will have to watch our hindquarters. So what is new?
Chapter 2
Sofa, So Good
"When do you leave for New York?" Matt asked Temple.
The December sunshine refracted from the pool as they passed it on the way to the Circle Ritz's minuscule parking area.
"Day after tomorrow."
He stopped dead. "And this can't wait? Don't you have better things to do?"
She had stopped too, and stood jingling her key ring, which dangled a lot of hardware besides keys to jingle: police whistle, pocket flashlight, pepper spray. For a small woman, Temple's accessories were usually king-size.
"Can't wait," she explained. "It's my Christmas present to you, and I won't be here for Christmas."
"Believe me, I can get along without this at least until the New Year."
"But I can't! What do you gel the man who has nothing?"
"Nothing."
"You don't get off that easy. Come on. This'll be fun."
He doubted it, but once Temple made up her mind about something insignificant, she was as hard to stop as a Sherman tank. On significant matters, she was as two-minded as anybody else.
Matt followed the muted click of her high heels over the asphalt, the winter sun surprisingly warm on his sweatered back.
"You drive," Temple suggested, digging in her tote bag for the actual keys to the car. "I'll navigate."
"You're the expert."
He was glad to get into the Storm, small as it was, to adjust the seat, shut the door, take the wheel, after an exclusive stint on the Hesketh Vampire.
A motorcycle was an antisocial vehicle, he had found. You rode alone, even with a passenger behind you. A car was not only weatherproof, but a portable parlor as well.
"I know you probably hate this," Temple was commenting, "but it's a good lesson in everyday life." She nourished a fist of scrunched Yellow Pages torn from her phone book. "The best route would be The Bee's Knees first, then hit Leopard Alley. We can save Indigo Albino for last, or even swing past the Goodwill and Saint Vincent de Paul's."
"Sounds like a list of speakeasies." He started the car, amused. The expedition rather intrigued him, this innocuous hunt so unlike the genuine track-down on his mind.
"Just aim me toward the right part of town," he told Temple.
"That's the problem. Most of these shops aren't in the 'right' part of town, but in the iffy side. Rents are cheaper."
She directed him north to Charleston Boulevard, away from the Strip. Matt liked tooling around town on weekday noons, when everything was less crowded. It reminded him of Saturdays off from school when he was a kid, when his mother took him shopping in downtown Chicago for clothes.
And that reminded him of less pleasant plans.
"Some of this stuff'--Temple was studying her battle plan marked in ballpoint pen--"is pretty wild. Or far gone. But gems are still out there. A lot of it is fifties or sixties; you may not like that."
"I don't know what I like yet."
"Really?"
Matt shrugged, floating the Storm through a left turn. No sideways slippage, like on the Vampire. No charge of excitement either.
Matt could finally tell the difference, but didn't know which he liked better. Yet.
"What was the house you grew up in like?" Temple asked next.
"Built in the nineteen twenties. Our neighborhood was brick and stucco two-story, two-family places crowded together. Two-flats, they called them: small, dark rooms; small, mostly dirt yards, because that's where the kids all played."
"We had one of those bland blond fifties ramblers, one-story, everything rectolinear, like a railroad car. That's why I love the Circle Ritz. No room is square!"
"Our furniture was forties stuff. Saw tons of it in the rectories later, only that was rich parishioners' mahogany hand-me-downs. Every rectory looked like a set for The Bells of St. Mary's."
"Missed that one. A movie?"
"Forties movie with Bing Crosby as a priest and Ingrid Bergman as a nun." He hummed a bit of the title song.
"Wow. A real golden oldie. And old Ingrid running off to have an out-of-wedlock child, too."
"That was later. Here's Burnham. Where do I park?"
"Anywhere along here."
The lot was sand and stones. Matt had glimpsed a psychedelic sign and display window out front, both radiating color and clutter.
"I'd never set foot in a place like this in a million years," he said as they left the car.
"Good. Stretching your boundaries already. Honest, no illegal drugs and naughty adult toys sold here. Just funky old stuff."
He still felt he wouldn't want Lieutenant Molina catching him going into this place. They wove past unmatched pieces of furniture set up outside the shop, Temple stopping to squint seriously at a wicker rocking chair. "Be nice on the patio, maybe."
Inside was more of the same. Matt studied the chrome glitter of vintage appliances, the bright secondary colors of orange and turquoise dishes, the wire-framed chairs. Suitable for furnishing a clown academy, maybe, but not for his mostly empty five-room apartment "Oooh. That's a nice dinette set."
Temple zeroed in on a chrome and gray table surrounded by four chairs pneumatically upholstered in silver-flecked gray plastic.
"Great condition." She ran her hand over the plump plastic, her
silver-blue nail polish making her hands seem armed in stainless steel.
Dinette sets gave Matt the willies, for some reason. "I'm not about to start serving guests."
"No, but the odd neighbor might drop in."
"Very odd, if she frequents this place."
"You've got to look past the bizarre stuff to the treasures."
"Sounds like a motto for visiting the risque establishments along Flamingo Road and Paradise."
But Temple was already engrossed in exclaiming over a chrome thingamajiggy with attractive pierced panels on either side. With a razor-tipped fingernail she demonstrated that the panels flipped down. "Twenties toaster. Will clean up like new. Twelve bucks. Sold." She picked it up. "Rule number one: if you see anything you like, hang on to it."
"What for?"
"You're eyeing my treasured toaster dubiously."
"It can't still function."
"No, but it'll make a great letter-holder. 'In' mail on one side, 'Out' on the other."
"Never would have thought of that."
"That's why you have rooms full of nothing."
"I don't think twenties toasters are on my 'most urgent acquisition' list."
"You don't even have a list. Just look. See if anything catches your eye. Don't worry about what it used to do. Just think how you could use it now."
His hands slid into his pants pockets as he wandered the crowded floor. Maybe if he didn't touch anything, he wouldn't have to buy anything.
Temple streaked from area to area like a butterfly cruising honeysuckle vines. She had to touch, lift, tilt, study a dozen pieces. And then she was paging through the clothing racks. Except for the somber shadows of old tuxedos and worn leather jackets, the racks were a kaleidoscope of women's clothing. Weird women's clothing. Or maybe that was a redundancy.
Matt found himself staring down at a fifties-model black telephone, its brown cords trailing like rat tails. Funny. He'd forgotten the old phone number in Chicago, before the exchange was altered when phone usage exploded in the sixties. They'd had a word as an exchange, not three little numbers. Exchanges back then had sounded classy. Very British. Very WASP Madison, not Mahoney. Kent, not Kaplan. Wentworth, not Waschevski. Emerson, not Effinger.
"A phone?" Temple's voice was so close it startled him. "You work on phones all night and now you moon over one in a vintage store?"
"Hadn't seen one like this in a long time."
"What a difference three years make," Temple mused. "I was born after everything went from black and white to color--appliances, sheets, telephones and even telev
ision."
Matt smiled. "We didn't keep up with the latest trends on Sofia Street. Black and white, and a few good shades of gray, were good enough for St. Stanislaus parish."
"No wonder you have virtually nothing in your apartment. Come on. Except for the toaster, this place is a bust."
"But ... I haven't looked at everything."
"I have."
Temple swept out, toaster in the crook of her arm, along with a small yellow paper, the receipt.
"What's next?" Matt asked when he was behind the wheel of the car and the toaster was stashed on the backseat. "Leopard Lane?"
"Alley," she corrected. " 'Lane' is far too upscale for a vintage store. The name should be a little tawdry. Leopard Alley. It's only twelve blocks away. Take a right at the next corner."
Leopard Alley lived up to its name. It was inside an aging strip shopping center that had been converted to an antiques mall. The interior was a maze of cubicles allotted to various dealers. In one booth glassware dominated; in another, kitchen and garage tools.
Leopard Alley announced its imminence with a painted canvas path of faux leopard spots.
"Look at that footstool! Isn't that wild?"
Matt regarded the wrought>>iron stool upholstered In fuzzy fake Leopard skin, Wild, and not his style. At least he was learning something on this expedition, Perhaps he was hopelessly addicted to Rectory Rococo - Something convoluted and diocesan in Ash Wednesday mahogany, reeking of incense and parish politic's,
"oh! What do you think of this?"
Temple had donned a leopard skin pillbox hat from the fifties, that sat as uneasily upon her springy red hair as Bob Dylan's "mattress on a bottle of wine."
"Not your color," Matt said.
"I guess I'm not built for exotic." She lifted a long black plastic cigarette holder dotted with rhinestones. "Thirty-eight dollars! Give me a break."
"Louie would look like the king of the jungle on this pillow," Matt pointed out.
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