Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In A Leopard Spot

No wonder animal rightists got a tad agitated. Once you started thinking about how people used and abused animals, and animal “products,” once you realized the human race was now launched into cloning and genetically designing animals to serve its every need or whimsy…

Temple turned as she heard the double doors into this chamber of horrors open.

A man stood framed by them, wearing a khaki jacket and pants bristling with pockets.

He was stockier than a stuffed laundry bag, his head sun-reddened between the spiderweb of thin gray hair strands still left to him. Huge freckles spread over his face and tops of his hands like fat rings in soup. Three large warts only emphasized his blunt, wind-burned features.

Beauty and the Beast had been given a cruel new twist, for the beauty was in the taxidermist’s remnants of the animal kingdom, and the beast was the one puny man in their midst.

Oh, he wasn’t so puny physically. In fact, Temple might ordinarily be intimidated, ever so slightly, by such a huge, hearty, and callous specimen of Homo sapiens.

But, buttressed by the wise artificial eyes of noble creatures from water buffalo to lion and tiger and bear to deer and the elephant foot standing at truncated attention as a wastebasket beside his massive mahogany desk…

Well, Temple had never been in the presence of a serial killer before.

Get the goods on this guy , she heard herself thinking, and let Max take him down .

She felt like just another bit of insignificant prey…and then like a tiger-in-disguise herself. Hidden by the jungle, moving silent and swift. Ready to pounce…

“Miss Barr, is it?”

He came forward, held out a callused hand (from holding an elephant rifle, no doubt), and shook hers in a relatively relaxed manner. “And how can I help the Crystal Phoenix today?”

All right, PR Woman, do your Clark Kent imitation. Or maybe Lois Lane .

“It’s so kind of you to see me on such short notice, Mr. Van Burkleo. We’re in a bit of a pickle at the Phoenix with our animal exhibit.”

“I thought you were doing a petting zoo.”

“We are, and we have a consultant handling that. But…at the last minute the owners—”

“The Fontanas.”

Temple didn’t correct him. The owner of the Crystal Phoenix was Nicky Fontana, singular. And Nicky had nothing to do with his family’s mob background. But mentioning such a shocking desertion of his roots wouldn’t serve Temple here.

“Yes,” she said, smiling. “Such a nice family to work for.”

Van Burkleo’s sandy, hairy eyebrows raised. She didn’t look like a mob soldier.

“We are not unaware,” she went on, “that our best clients would very much like access to the services you provide. And we thought you might be willing to advise in our acquisition of one or two more…thrilling exhibits for our renovated areas.”

“Have a seat.”

She nearly threw up. The “seat” he indicated was that literal monstrosity, a Victorian chair constructed solely of deer horns upholstered in crimson velvet.

Temple arranged herself on it like Queen Victoria greeting a foreign dignitary (though her feet, even in three-inch-high wedge heels, didn’t quite touch the floor).

“What an interesting…zoo you have here,” she observed.

“A few of my personal trophies.”

“Then you are a big-game hunter yourself.”

He bowed.

“You have been to Africa many times?”

“Yes.” He smiled. “But the best specimens were not bagged there.”

Temple managed to look genuinely mystified.

“This,” said Van Burkleo, “is what your Crystal Phoenix clients will be able to track, shoot, and bring home from here.”

She nodded, slowly, absorbing the enormity.

In the desert outside of Las Vegas, if you paid enough, you could slaughter an endangered species and have it shipped home on ice for the taxidermist. But how?

“Surely there are laws—?”

’We fly meat all over the country. This is a working ranch. Cattle.”

“Cattle.” That made as much sense as raising llamas. The only head that did not gaze back at her from the crowded walls was that of the humble steer or cow. Too common. Too domesticated. Too doe-eyed. Too easy.

“Cattle,” he repeated, pleased that she had so quickly learned their code. Their hypocrisies. “And what kind of ‘stock’ can I interest you in?”

“Nothing too exotic,” she said apologetically. “A big cat or two.

I suppose white tigers are—”

“Very difficult. Not impossible, but very difficult. Luckily, we have some excellent breeders locally.”

Temple sat still, shocked to her core. Was he implying that he could raid the breeding stock of the most public and protected big-cat programs in the country?

Such power—or nerve—was truly chilling.

“We really don’t care to compete on that level,” Temple said. “Something smaller would be fine. A panther. Or a leopard. Maybe both.”

He nodded. “Excellent choice. You do understand that obtaining a prime specimen may be expensive?”

“What attraction in Las Vegas is not?”

At that moment the broad coffered door leading into this den of iniquity opened again.

“A guest, Cyrus?” asked the woman framed by the doorway.

Temple had expected the aloof Courtney. Instead, she found herself riveted by the most exotic-looking woman she had ever seen. In fact, she blinked hard a couple of times to make sure she hadn’t been transported to the Island of Dr. Moreau.

The woman seemed to expect the unabashed wonderment of strangers. She slunk into the room, one leg crossing so markedly in front of the other that the gait underlined her resemblance to a jungle cat.

A tawny mane of painstakingly streaked hair haloed her face…or what was left of it.

Temple had seen TV reports on extreme plastic surgery: young adults having themselves tattooed, pierced, and cut-and-pasted into hybrid human/animals. The extremest example she recalled was a guy who was morphing into a lizard-man, surgically split tongue and all.

This woman’s case wasn’t as obvious, but it came close. Eyebrows plucked to a thin blond line were barely there. Her supplemented cheekbones jutted out so far they made her eyes look smaller and forced them into an unnatural tilt. Collagen-thickened lips went beyond starlet-swollen to misshapen, blending with her snubbed nose until together they made a…muzzle.

Worst of all, when she reached the desk, Temple saw she was wearing those patterned contact lenses. This amber-colored pair gave her pupils vertical slits, like a cat’s eyes.

Add all that to the fact that everything she wore was bronze or hide patterned, and that costly gold charms shaped into the heads and bodies of big cats dangled from her neck, ears, and wrists, all winking with tasteless constellations of diamonds…Temple was speechless.

“Leonora,” the woman said in a husky purr, extending a hand with nails so long they curved into claws. They were enameled a pale ocher color, which made them even creepier than if they’d been lacquered an obvious Carnivore Red. It was as if they were lying in wait for the real thing, like blood.

Temple had stood without thinking why. Maybe to be polite and shake hands. Maybe to be readier to run.

Leonora kept coming closer. She was wearing chamois suede capri pants, a tiger-striped silk-and-spandex top, cork-soled espadrilles.

One clawed hand, tanned pale mocha, reached for Temple.

Temple wasn’t sure if her hand lifted to meet it, or to paw it aside.

Smooth, cool flesh grasped hers. The curved nails brushed the thin skin on the top of Temple’s hand.

“Leonora Van Burkleo,” the woman emphasized.

Temple glanced at Cyrus in dazed comprehension. This was his wife. From the marked age difference, his trophy wife. From Leonora’s bizarre and deliberate resemblance to a beast, his literal trophy wife.