Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In A Topaz Tango

He sniffed under the arms, smelling no deodorant, a faint perfume, and also a strong acrid waft of dried sweat. So she may have been terrified in the Mercedes, or may just have worked up that sweat during their hike down the mountain.

Max did as she said, calling room service, not sure whether his psyche or his suspicions or his sex drive was most in need of stimulation and therapy at the moment.

Another Opening, Another Blow

Temple had never felt a worse case of stage fright.

Wednesday night. Cha-cha cha.

She was stationed in the wings, pleased to be going on second, long after her bête noire, Crawford Buchanan.

For a “black beast,” as the French phrase put it, his face looked as white as a ghost, but then he’d always been pasty-faced. The undertaker-severe black suit he wore tonight didn’t help.

But Temple’s stage fright wasn’t for Zoe Chloe Ozone, who was wearing a spiderweb body stocking under a purple tutu with pink ballet flats and a pink marabou feather-covered top that made it look like she actually had a bosom.

It was for Matt Divine and his fourth-night debut as a master of the hip-slinging cha-cha. He was again partnering with the overbuilt Wandawoman, probably to reassure the audience that the reputed “killer” slinger of the wrestling ring wasn’t down and out for the count.

Temple spotted Molina in watchdog disguise in the opposite wing, fairly drooling to find Wandawoman guilty of Latin loitering or dancing without a license.

Temple just hoped Matt didn’t suffer any more dance-floor hit and runs involving the hefty wrestlin’ mama who was his partner.

His “costume” was black and white: black slacks and white shirt, the long sleeves rolled up to the elbow and the first four buttons undone to display the spray-on tan gilding all the men, even the pretanned José Juarez.

Call it clean-cut sexy. The simple clothes suited him. Although there was a lot of hip-swinging and over-the-shoulder partner smiling, the pairing came off amazingly well. There was a minimum of close contact, which kept Wandawoman from looking like an overdressed gravel truck dancing with a Maserati sports car.

Her legs on high heels looked sleek and strong and Matt managed to make the moments when he supported her in a dip or a pose look effortless.

All in all, a surprisingly respectable performance. Wandawoman came back strong from last night’s fainting spell, and got a standing ovation when she finished.

The complimentary judges gave them eights.

Glory B. and José Juarez were agile and athletic together, but somehow uninspired. Maybe it was the vast height distance, at least a foot. They never seemed “together.”

They racked up two eights and a seven.

Temple held her breath when Keith Salter stood back-to-back with Olivia before they began for their version of the cha-cha. After ten days of rehearsal and performance his abdominal profile was notably shrinking, especially following Monday night’s stomach pump. He almost looked sleek next to the elegantly gaunt Olivia.

The cha-cha was a busy little number, but not the most demanding. If Keith could hold it together, he’d be over the hump. His shirt and pants were slimming black. He and Olivia didn’t generate any onstage heat, but they managed their steps and took a very spectacular bow.

Two sevens and an eight.

That left only the Cloaked Conjuror and Motha Jonz, a partnership made in media Hell.

Temple could think of no disguise for CC that would fit the fast and lighthearted cha-cha. And Motha Jonz, well, she was criminally hot in law enforcement circles as well as on the Dancing With the Celebs stage, but how would the choreographers and costumers turn her into fun and fluffy instead of fat and puffy?

The band struck up some familiar chords from oldies radio.

Oh, it was crooner Barry Manilow’s old eighties’ standard “Copacabana.”

This was one of those funky Frankie and Johnny “story” songs about Lola, a dancer at the famous Copacabana night club, “where music and passion were always the fashion,” her lover Tony, and Enrico the new guy in town.

The first shock was the initial pose of the dancers, also back-to-back. Motha Jonz had a real man as a partner. No mask, no bulky fake head for a face. The Cloaked Conjuror was going barefaced! This was big news! Also a big risk, given the disasters that had dogged the show so far.

Without his full coverage head disguise, CC was a tall man with a dark pompadour and sideburns, and a pencil-thin mustache.

He wore a glitzy red satin shirt with sleeve and chest ruffles edged in black thread. Black skintight trousers and Spanish boots of black Spanish leather made his usual bulky figure seem to tower sleekly.

The audience was still audibly gasping at the Cloaked Conjuror revealed . . . until they saw what Temple had just realized as she began laughing with knowing surprise.

CC was still wearing a mask! A celebrity one. He was the spitting image of that Dancing With the Stars Las Vegas favorite: Wayne Newton. He had revealed nothing but another entertainer’s iconic persona.

Applause broke out for the clever conceit and the costumers who’d accomplished it.

Which meant that many had missed Motha Jonz’s equally inspired transformation. Until now Motha Jonz had most resembled a dreadlocked punching bag attired in overdone and glitzy flour sacks. Not any more.

Temple was clapping for that transformation from the wings.

Someone had turned Motha Jonz into a sleek cross between Queen Latifah and Catherine Zeta- Jones in the musical, Chicago. Her hip-hugging costume billowed out into salsa-hot orange ruffles at her thighs below and her shoulders above, giving the impression of a waist. Her dreadlocks were swirled into an updo that sported chrome yellow feathers and a rhinestone Spanish comb a foot high.

Her sleek lower legs and arched foot ended in four-inch platform spikes.

All of this made her look as tall and almost as thin as her partner.

The song said the Copacabana nightclub was the “hottest spot” north of Havana. As the impudent rhythmic lines of the song were sung by the show vocalists, CC and MJ circled and strutted, enacting their onstage love affair . . .

Lola had “yellow feathers in her hair.”

CC was her waiter-lover Tony, who moved from the “bar”—the beaming judges’ table . . . well, except for producer Leander Brock—to join Lola on the dance floor to court her.

The audience gasped as a third figure in black appeared at the fringes of the dance floor.

José Juarez posed there in his Zorro outfit, sans mask, cape, and sword, with a four-carat diamond ear stud. He cut in on Tony and Lola, and wrested her away in a twirl of ruffles, dragging her across the floor pasodoble style before Tony dashed in to draw her upright again.

The song lyrics said there was “blood and a single gunshot,” but only red spotlights smeared the dance floor.

The gunshot, though, was real: a sharp bark that pierced the amiable Latin beat.

The music and dance reached a crescendo.

Music and passion is always in fashion.

“But who shot who?” the lyrics asked as audience members started standing up one by one to see. The dancers froze in place.

“Lola” Motha Jonz was posed with her ruffled skirt pulled up to one hip, a tiny pearl-handled pistol lifted from a red satin garter on her fishnet-hosed thigh. Smoke wafted from the tiny silver barrel as a spotlight caught it dead-on.

Music and passion were always the fashion.

And “Rico” José lay still on the dance floor . . . .

Music and passion were always the fashion.

At the Copa, Copacabana.