Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In A Crimson Haze

"I can hear her PR wheels turning," Nicky told his wife with a laugh. "You shouldn't have mentioned it."

"Speaking of things I shouldn't mention," Van said, "did I see Midnight Louie loitering by the doors to the grounds today?"

Temple grimaced. "Oh, that Louie. He just strolls out to the car with me and waits by the door. It seems mean to leave him behind. I hope it's all right if he looks over his old stomping grounds."

"Maybe," Nicky suggested, "he can start excavating for Phoenix Under Glass."

"He's big," Temple admitted, "and strong. But not that big."

She gathered her papers and thrust them into the tote bag of the day, a bronze metallic quilted number that matched her Via Spiga pumps.

"I've got a business lunch up top at the Fontana," she said nodding to its namesake as she stood up.

Nicky unleashed his smile again. "More empire-building?"

"No, just a little unofficial snooping."

"Another murder?" Van asked with interest.

"No, only intent to commit."

"Who's the committer? Anybody we know?"

"Me," Temple said with a grim smile, making her exit and leaving them, if not laughing, at least as curious as hell.

************

Sunny Cadeaux was tall, thin, blond and waiting at a window table when Temple reached the 14th floor circular restaurant that was Nicky Fontana's namesake.

Trust Sunny to charm a desirable table out of the head waiter in Hades.

Temple waved off the maitre d' and joined Sunny, navigating the tables and chairs by guiding her bulky tote bag around them. When she arrived at the table, Sunny lifted her purse--

a wafer-thin fold of cobalt leather that could hold one letter and several very thin dimes--from the empty chair.

Temple collapsed into the seat, slinging her tote into the well between herself and the window.

"We missed you at the last WICA meeting," Sunny said.

WICA had nothing to do with witchcraft, but stood for Women In Communications, Associated, an organization that included PR and media women. Sunny was a television reporter with a local channel, a woman so unflappable that she was sometimes suspected of being an attractive corpse. Temple knew her impassive air wasn't impartiality, but rather an attempt to keep wrinkles from her pale, porcelain skin.

'I've been a tad busy," Temple admitted.

"We've read about it. Isn't your job to get news of your clients in the paper, not yourself? Or your cat's puss in print?"

''Can I help it that Midnight Louie is so darn photogenic? And I wish they had cropped me out of that fire rescue photo. I looked like Little Orphan Annie fresh from a spin-dry."

''You looked adorably rumpled. I wish I could look adorably rumpled."

Temple eyed Sunny's blond chin-length hair, smooth as satin except for the pert flick at the ends. "Believe me, rumpled is not your style, even in life-threatening situations."

"You've been prone to those lately," Sunny noted, leaning back to make room for a padded vinyl menu cover large enough to play checkers on.

Temple cracked hers open, then peered over its top. "This is as hefty as the Ten Commandments and it's just the luncheon menu. What do they offer at dinner--an encyclopedia?"

"The waiters probably wear sandwich boards." Sunny snapped the impressive volume shut.

"I'll have the usual. Why did you want to see me?"

As the waiter approached, Temple desperately eyed the menu. She was having her usual identity crisis about what to order from a strange bill of fare. The banana, papaya and kiwi fajitas sounded truly intriguing, but then so did the swordfish quiche.

She caved in and ordered what Sunny always did: salad, but a fruit version instead of the house greens.

''Are you doing anything for the Gridiron this year?'^ Temple asked.

Sunny's pale blue eyes grayed with wariness. ''Maybe. Usually I play a bit part in the show.'*

Sunny's bit parts always involved wearing filmy lingerie, if the male skit writers had anything to do with it.

"I meant, are you writing anything?'' Temple said.

"No. I seldom do."

"Well, I always do, and I just realized I never got an announcement requesting skits for the show. I've been a little stressed out lately," Temple added modestly, referring to her moment of disheveled glory on page fourteen of the Las Vegas Sun .

"Really?" Sunny unfolded her napkin and sipped from her goblet of spring water, in which floated the obligatory lemon slice.

"Really. Sunny, you're always on the fringes of the Gridiron group. What's going on?"

Sunny's long, pale fingernails nudged the silverware this way and that while her eyes considered the panorama beyond the window, the familiar flock of Las Vegas hotels grazing along the Strip like a colorful exhibit of architectural dinosaurs.

"Sunny!"

Temple was at last rewarded with a direct glance, one that quickly dodged again to neutral territory. "I didn't know you hadn't heard anything. Temple. Honest. But, if you didn't, it might have something to do with this year's chairman."

"I've always participated in the Vegas Gridiron Show, just as I used to in the Twin Cities."

Temple's tone of voice wavered between puzzlement and a grumble. "My song satires are usually chosen for the opening and closing production numbers, for heaven's sake. Why would they forget to tell me about it? They need my stuff. What chairman?"

Temple was forced to interrupt her tirade in order to make way for a platter of leafy greens topped with such exotically sliced and contorted fruit that they appeared to have come fresh from the hands and meat cleaver of Chef de Sade himself.

''We should have split one," Sunny said ruefully, gazing on her own humongous house salad.

''Sunny! What chairman?"

Sunny did what she seldom did, so Temple knew the situation was really serious. She sacrificed her deadpan composure and her rice-paper complexion to make a face.

"Well, who is it?" Temple demanded.

"Crawford Buchanan."

"What? Who would make him show chairman? He doesn't even write for a real newspaper--"

"Neither do I; I broadcast. And you're not in media anymore."

"Still, I'm a Gridiron veteran, and nobody ever had any problem with my participation before. So Crawford has blackballed me?"

"Maybe it's not personal. Nobody who usually writes for the show has been notified of a skit deadline."

"Nobody? When's the show this year?"

"October eighteenth."

"That's less than a month away! Rehearsals will begin any day now. What can Awful Crawford be thinking of? Even he isn't crazy enough to . . . oh, no!"

Sunny nodded as she nibbled a leaf of undressed romaine. "Um hmm. The word is he's going to write the show himself. Solo."

"So low " Temple corrected her with feeling. "That egotistical...worm. He's written a skit or two before, but what makes him think he can come up with ninety minutes of topical satire--

funny topical satire--all by himself?"

"Male ego?" Sunny suggested.

''That answer insults males everywhere. Crawford has the ego for a stunt like this, but his qualifications in the other department are very iffy."

"Temple, I know you don't care for him, but maybe he'll do all right."

She shook her head, rejecting the possibility that Crawford Buchanan could come up smelling like anything other than an' onion. "How did he get named to the job? Why doesn't the Society of Journalists' committee ever name a woman show chairman? Don't answer: apparently women aren't as overbearing as Crawford Buchanan."

"I heard he made a pitch to the board about how he could do it better than anybody. Cited his experience covering the Vegas entertainment scene."

"Crawford doesn't 'cover' it, he oozes all over it."

"Why do you hate him so much?"