Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In An Alien X-Ray

Temple turned into the bright light of a shouldered camera and smiled at least half as brightly.

Buchanan had switched to wearing a local cable TV gold sports coat with the station call letters on the breast pocket and ditched the crass diamond ear stud.

Luckily, the glare kept Buchanan’s regular but smug features in temporary darkness. “Miss Temple Barr,” he announced to whatever audience he represented at the moment, “feminine flack extraordinaire.”

She winced inside at his hokey and demeaning introduction, but maintained her broad smile. Flunk electronic media exposure these days, and it would be all over the world instantly.

“You are,” Crawford went on, “the presumptive PR rep for the shadowy individuals who own the murder site. I believe.”

“Goodness. You make me sound like I’m running for president with a PAC behind me. Yes, I’ve been in talks to represent one of the individuals who back this construction, but there was no desire on anyone’s part to own a ‘murder site.’ Besides, the coroner has not ruled on the cause of death, so any suggestion of ‘murder’ at this point is utterly irresponsible.”

Temple smiled demurely into the camera while Buchanan sputtered to think up a new question.

“So, Miss Barr, are you saying you don’t believe in UFOs?”

“Certainly many people do, and it’s not for me to say they’re wrong.”

“Rumor is the dead body was a plant.”

“Oh, no. I’m very certain he was some sort of Homo sapiens. ”

“And naked as a jaybird.”

“I don’t think he was a bird, either. Or Superman sans costume. We just don’t know enough about him. This is not The Day of the Triffids, Mr. Buchanan. And I doubt ‘space spores’ have escaped a Star Trek set to invade a desert climate.”

The surrounding believers were muttering and pressing closer. “However,” Temple said, “his presence and death certainly give one reason to wonder. ‘The truth is out there,’ and I do believe that ‘We are not alone.’”

Scattered applause.

The videographer turned to pan on the crowd. Temple grabbed Awful Crawford’s mic and fisted her hand over it. “You’ve got your interview,” she told him vehemently. “Now you’ll answer some of my questions.”

“Absolutely, TB. I’m at your disposal.”

“I couldn’t put it better myself. Listen. You know my cat, Midnight Louie?”

“That black back-alley escapee. I’d expect a cute chick like you to own something more upscale, like one of those fluffy white numbers on the TV commercials.”

“Louie was on some TV commercials.”

Buchanan smirked at having irked her to the point of defending her cat.

“Anyway,” Temple said, back on point. “I need to round him up. Have you seen him in this mess?”

He gave her a reproachful look. “Don’t I have my finger on the pulse of everything that goes on around Vegas? Sure, I saw your alley cat, and I would have interviewed him if I could have. He did tumble into the scene of the body dump—”

The crowds muttered again.

“—or landing,” Crawford said quickly.

Temple dragged him away from the current eavesdroppers by pulling the mic with her. He was as attached to his on-camera persona as a dog to its leash.

Surrounded by a fresh crowd of imaginatively attired folks with rainbow skin and artificially altered noses and ears, Temple resumed her interrogation. “Louie? Where? When?”

Buchanan looked around. “Well, he was making eyes at the strangest little critter I ever saw.”

“Female?”

“How do I know?” He was indignant. “It was like a miniature sled dog. You know, a husky, only a foot by a foot, say, and that thing was with a woman I interviewed.…” He craned his neck and even went a bit on tippytoes in his height-assisted ’70s-style platform shoes. “That woman, there.”

Temple released the mic from her now sweaty hot little hand and started edging past ridged spinal frills and fairy wings (fairy wings?) to the relatively normal-looking woman twenty feet away.

A sound of labored breathing behind her revealed she had not quite shed the intrepid dork called Crawford Buchanan.

Temple immediately began scanning the ground, but the woman wore deck shoes unaccompanied by any miniature Siberian huskies or a particularly large black cat.

“Excuse me,” Temple said, by now a trifle breathless herself. “This gentleman”—that hurt—“says when he interviewed you earlier, you were accompanied by a small … dog? And a black cat was in the neighborhood.”

The woman gazed at her with shock. “I’ve never seen this man before in my life. And, frankly, if I had, I’d make sure I didn’t see him again. He looks like a really self-satisfied aggravating twit.”

Buchanan was sputtering again. “I must disagree, ma’am. I did a brief stand-up with you not fifteen minutes ago.”

“‘A brief stand-up’! What a phony accusation. I am not that sort of woman at all, and even if I was, I would not be that sort of woman with you. ”

“You don’t understand, that’s a technical term,” he said hastily. “And I don’t understand. You were perfectly cordial when I talked to you earlier. Surely you remember me.”

“Surely I would do my best to forget your manners.”

“I have it on film. Where’s that cameraman?” Buchanan gazed around wildly.

A crowd was gathering again.

“You would actually film yourself making such offensive overtures? I saw some police people here just a moment ago.” She gazed wildly around this time.

By now, even Temple was gazing wildly around at both foot and head level.

“This is a misunderstanding,” Buchanan was saying. “I interviewed you. You must remember me.”

“There’s no law that I have to!” she shouted as the missing videographer, a tall portly guy, appeared and ushered Buchanan away. “What a putz,” she told Temple.

“Thanks for getting rid of him. I’m Temple and I’m looking for my cat.”

“I’m Penny, and I’m looking for my dog. He slipped the collar of his harness.” The woman pulled up her left hand, holding a leash and empty harness.

Temple had a feeling Midnight Louie had been the harness undoer. “That’s a tiny harness. What kind of dog do you have?”

The woman chuckled. “He’s a husky Chihuahua.”

“I’ve seen a few overweight Chihuahuas, but that would be big even on them.”

“Rens is not overweight, but he does look more like a Siberian husky, only tiny.”

“Gosh, he could get lost underfoot.” Temple looked around at the carelessly milling crowd taking photos of Area 54.

“He has a lot of sense, small body, big brain. But I do want to find him.”

“What brought you and Rens here?”

“We like to see the passing parade, and this sure is a doozy. I don’t believe in this stuff.”

Temple nodded.

“Besides, if aliens did decide to enter our solar system and check Earth out, I believe they’d be galactic conquerors or so different than us, they’d regard stamping us out the way we’d stomp on a scorpion.” Penny’s shoe stamped in demonstration.

Temple jumped. No scorpions were underfoot, but a cat tail … or a little dog paw could be.

Then she spotted a familiar street sight. “I’m going over there to look for Rens and Louie.”

Penny turned her head. “Good thinking. I’ll go the other way.”

Glad she’d hadn’t had time to don the hat before her impromptu “face time” in front of Awful Crawford’s videographer, Temple tied it on. The wide brim softened the glare and made searching the scene easier, and Buchanan—and Molina—might not recognize her, always a good idea.