Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In A Leopard Spot

The panther came to rub against the bars, stopping to sniff Max’s hand.

He uncurled the fingers slowly, like a petal opening. The huge cat pushed its blunt face forward as if to brush against the palm.

“Be careful!” Leonora spoke sharply, her voice a rasp of caution and shock.

Max was concentrating on the cat, not moving.

The two stood there for a few moments, as if communicating in a silent language.

Then the big cat moved on, began pacing against the opposite set of bars.

“Do you know where all your animals come from?” Max asked.

“No. Don’t looked surprised. We have suppliers. Sometimes it’s best not to know too much.”

Max moved on to an empty cage. “It’s always best not to know too much. Is this the cage that the…rogue leopard occupied?”

She came to stand beside Max. From the rear her artfully teased and streaked long hair looked amazingly like a mane.

Her voice was gruff. “Yes.”

“Any idea how the leopard got out, got into the house? Someone had to know the keypad number sequence.”

A silence.

Temple, ignored (and glad that Max and not she was the focus of this strange woman) studied Leonora’s body language as she answered.

Her posture shifted from the weight on one leg and hip, like a model, to an equal-weight stance, like a pugilist. Her shoulders lowered and squared. The mane brushing the tiger-print silk blouse twitched, ever so slightly, like a tail.

Leonora Van Burkleo was not pleased with questions about the how-tos of her husband’s death.

“How did the leopard get out?” she answered the query with another question. “It did not let itself out. Someone had to have released it, admitted it into the house.”

“How is that possible?” Max continued, ignoring her mad-cat signals. He was the same way with Louie. “Even if you knew the code, how would you handle the loose leopard? Granted, you get semidomesticated animals here, but they don’t just trot after people like a dog, into houses. Was it confined and then released inside, do you think? Was it led along, on a leash? Was it a particularly domesticated cat?”

“I don’t know! We never ask these things. They’re not here that long anyway, and if the exotic-pet fanciers don’t select them quickly, we pass them along to the hunt staff.” She paused, shifted her weight back to one leg, leaned inward to Max.

“A leopard is not a particularly large big cat. The hunters prefer lions and tigers.”

Max lifted his hands, framed the pacing panther in them like a film director planning a shot. He nodded. “Big is everything these days. Could your husband have let the animal into the house?”

Leonora’s weight dropped back to both feet, her knees sagging.

“Cyrus? But why? He’d never done such a thing before. These animals are…doomed, most of them. Cyrus was not a sentimental man, but he knew better than to personalize any of the creatures. And you’re suggesting he would ‘let’ one in, like a dog? Why?”

“I merely offer suppositions,” Max said. “The vague circumstance of his death might leave a taint about the place. You know, the ranch where the hunters become the hunted. Not too popular a concept with flabby weekend warriors looking for wall candy. But I agree. I see no reason that your husband would let a big cat into the house like a dog. Unless, of course, it behaved like a dog.”

At that she laughed, and took his arm.

“Believe me, Mr. Maximilian. Nothing behaves less like a dog than a big cat, no matter how many zoo habitats it has lounged in, or how many backyard cages it has languished in. A cat is wild, through and through. No one owns one. No one tells it where to go or what to do.”

“You’re right,” Max agreed, turning to Temple at last. “Want to see the hunting grounds next, darling?”

“Dying to,” Temple responded with feeling.

And she knew just what kind of mythical beast she’d like to hunt there. Catwoman.

The Jeep jolted back to the cage area. Temple supposed that was part of the Rancho Exotica “experience.” A sense of “roughing it” in everything—desert landscape, rugged ride over rough terrain, emptiness, and then sniping at some confused, fenced-in animal until it was cornered and could be killed by a blind man.

Temple, who sat up front with the taciturn driver, tried to relax her jaws but they remain clenched.

It didn’t help that she was covered in dust from eyelash to ankle, and that some muscular guy in safari-suit khaki was advancing to help her out of the high-seated Jeep Laredo like a great white hunter dealing with the client’s spoiled daughter. Even her emerald-and-diamond ring was clouded.

It also didn’t help that she sensed a cloud of cold fury enveloping Max behind her as the GWH took hold of her waist and lifted her down to the ground.

“Thank you,” Temple muttered into her assistant’s dark and brooding face.

This was beginning to feel like Mogambo . From Noël Coward to Clark Cable and Ava Gardner. That’s what you got from watching too many old movies.

She turned quickly to reassure Max with a look and discovered that it wasn’t fury he was radiating but fear. It was a fleeting expression, but Temple was stunned to find Max visibly anxious.

She turned to study her unasked-for escort.

“One of our security guards,” Leonora said. “His name is Rafi.”

Temple nodded at Rafi—odd name—and was about to introduce herself when Max interjected himself into the scenario like a leading man treading on the lines of an extra who had stepped out of place.

“Call me Maximilian.” He stepped in front of Temple. “Terrific layout. I’d really like to discuss it with you from a security viewpoint.”

“Rafi is a new hire,” Leonora began.

“Excellent. A fresh point of view is what I want. Care to stroll around the grounds for a moment, if you can spare one?”

Rafi, a sullen type who was immediately suspicious of Max’s enthusiasm, glanced carefully at Leonora.

She shrugged. “Mr. Maximilian is interested in buying the property.”

“You’d sell?” the security man asked incredulously.

Rafi seemed a bit belligerent for a hired gun, Temple thought. And Leonora’s feline face took on an edgy, guilty look that surprised her.

“Don’t worry, my man,” Max said quickly. “I’d keep on the staff. That’s all right, isn’t it, Mrs. Van Berkleo?”

“Of course. If they want to stay. You may want to hire Miss Barr away from the Crystal Phoenix, if you require an assistant,” she added cattily.

“What about—?” Temple began.

“Courtney has decided to leave for greener pastures,” Leonora said demurely. That blunt face did not do demure well.

Max’s attention had wandered, as if bored by discussion of people when a miniempire was before him. He gave the man called Rafi a man-to-man grin.

“Now, about those peripheral fences. Barbed wire? Do you really think they’d keep out interlopers?”

“What kind of interlopers?” Leonora demanded, overriding Rafi’s answer.

Max looked startled. “Every enterprise has its enemies. What about…say, those ethical-treatment-of-animals people. Vegetarians. You know what I mean,” he directed toward the security man.

He was walking Rafi away from the two women, off into the bush, so to speak.

“Quite…commanding,” Leonora commented.

Temple wasn’t sure which man she was referring to: Rafi, who had hauled Temple out of the Jeep like a delinquent twelve-year-old, or Max who had commandeered the security man like he was recruiting for the IRA.

“Yes.” Temple joined her hostess in looking after them. “Do you have enemies? It might explain your husband’s death.”