Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In A Crimson Haze

They want to keep us ignorant for our own good.' "

"A major failing of the church, as the hierarchy is finding out now to its eternal regret."

''Regret?" Temple asked sharply. "Or chagrin that it can't keep washing its own dirty laundry in private?"

Matt shrugged, waiting for her point.

"So. There you are. Or I am. We think we are pretty decent human beings with pretty decent motives, and we think that knowing the truth is better than not. We have what journalists call 'a right to know.' That's in direct opposition to the 'need to know' everybody running things wants us to have. So we have to be clever instead of confrontational. We have to ask the right questions of the right people, pull back all the wrong curtains and peek. And guess what?"

''If we pay attention to the man behind the curtain--"

Temple nodded, "Sometimes we find out he's got his hand in the till, or in the wrong underwear or in messing up the future of the country."

"Sometimes we find out it's a her," Matt put in.

Temple nodded again. "And sometimes, we find out. . . he's only pissing."

That set him laughing again,

"That may be vulgar, but I couldn't resist," she said.

Matt sobered faster than she did. "Truth usually is vulgar," he said. 'That's your message.

You can't clean a window to see through it without smearing some of the dirt around first. Isn't it hard now, to be on the other side?"

"You mean doing pubhc relations?" Temple leaned against the fender again, setting her purse and carton on the hood, pulling her shawl closer. 'That's the beauty of freelance. I work for myself, not Them." She sighed. 'That's how I got involved in the murders; I couldn't just let the victims be swept under the rug, especially those poor strippers' lives, which were so rotten already anyway. I guess my only rough time in PR was at the Guthrie, when I collected a salary to protect an Institution."

"Sounds like a vocation."

She grimaced. "Even an organization as benign as an arts group can harbor its secrets: an actor who's temperamental, or drunk and disorderly on the set, or a druggie; money shenanigans. Not that Guthrie confronted me with anything like that, but the world-renowned children's ballet had a ghastly PR problem years back, if you can call it such a trivial thing. The founder and director was a pederast." She glanced at Matt. "When it all came out, they discovered he'd had one youthful molestation arrest, and he'd been in the seminary briefly--"

"Shit!" Matt said, shocking her. "Sorry. I don't usually .. . it's like having been in a war, and then finding out half your comrades have been fighting for the enemy."

"Some poor woman was PR director for the children's ballet when that broke." Temple shuddered, though the night was not that cool. "I'm glad I've never had to smother that kind of fire. I'm glad I don't work for anyone anymore that I can't walk away from at any time. I'm even glad that Max Kinsella pried me loose from my 'position,' then left me high and dry and a freelancer in Las Vegas." Her smile grew crooked. "Sometimes I think the ethics curve is higher here, believe it or not. They've had enough decades of honest greed, lust and fun to be forthright about it."

"What about the mob influence?"

"Virtually dead, from what everybody says."

"So you believe everybody?"

''Never. But in this case I believe the mob's been bought out by the corporate mafia of international consortiums. Listen to us: ethics and the mob and rogue ballet directors. So you have to lie a little--play dumb--to learn what you need to know. What's it about?" '

Matt took Louie's carton from her, and smiled. 'I'm still working on my right to find out. Let's say I'm just looking for the man behind the curtain. And I haven't the foggiest idea what he's doing yet. Shall I drive, or you?"

''Me." Temple fished out her keys and jingled them like spurs for a mechanical steed. "I like to know where I'm going."

Chapter 13

Veni, Vidi, Veto

I am generally suspicious of ugly customers, and this Vito character I first spot by the carp pond is one of the ugliest I have ever seen.

But one should not judge on external appearances. These Siamese fighting fish, for instance, would give Godzilla a good name in the beauty department, yet they are highly regarded and expensive. Not to mention tasty.

Still, I am most suspicious of ugly customers when they spend all their time in a gambling casino and are not paying clients. At this odd occupation, this Vito-person is a master.

I spend many hours tracking him around the Crystal Phoenix, which keeps me well out of the baleful purview of the captivating Caviar. Vito displays an admirable tendency for dim corners, out-of-the-way places and a profile so low he is as invisible as an earthworm to those engaged in the hustle and bustle of a gambling establishment.

Luckily, Vito is so busy looking over the Crystal Phoenix that he completely overlooks my presence. If he does spot me, his sneaky gaze rakes right past me, as if I were a piece of furniture. I like to maintain a well-upholstered condition, but jet-black mohair I am not.

Vito is most fond of the basement, and there I cannot fault him.

While all of the Phoenix is kept frigid to prevent customers from feeling the heat or letting the dealers see them sweat, the basement is not only as cool as a sea cucumber, but it is blessedly quiet during the days. I myself like to ramble among the empty dressing rooms, watching the showgirls' ostrich-feather headdresses tremble seductively on their high shelves in the icy stream of an air-conditioning vent.

The slight shimmying motion of hot-pink curling plumes is a sensory delight second only to the silver hairs of the Divine Yvette shivering with the faint pulse of her throaty purr.

Vito also seems most Interested In these dainty feathered artifacts, for he climbs upon a chair to peer over and around them until strings of his greasy black hair steal across his pock-marked, sweaty face like Michael Jackson tendrils that are slumming in a Bad neighborhood.

In fact, I begin to suspect that Vito is something of a pervert, for I also find him poking among the racks of costumes set along the hallway walls. He will even go down upon his knees to burrow into the foaming masses of sequined silks and garish feathers.

Disgusting! I am quite attracted by feathers myself, but this is a natural affinity, as Is my passion for the smell and taste of leather. You could hardly call it a fetish, any more than you could label Miss Temple Barr's innocent fondness for high fashion high heels a fixation. There is high-camp taste and then there is outright kink.

With a creature like Vito, however, any tastes are likely to be debased to their lowest common denominator, and I say that with confidence even though I have no head for numbers at all.

Neither does the unfortunate Vito, apparently.

When he is not delving below in the lonely dustbins and among the leftover sweat-stained costumes, he lurks around the Phoenix casino areas. I watch Vito watch the blackjack and craps tables. I see him prowl the slot machine aisles, staring with hungry eyes the size of midget currants at the happily oblivious gamblers and house employees. Yet never once does he commit so much as a nickel to a slot machine, or slide a ten-spot across the cashier's hard marble sill or place a chip on a taut, cushioned surface of Ultrasuede.

What a cheapskate! Obviously, Vito is Up To No Good, but what kind of No Good is he up to?

This I cannot figure, and it is driving me catnip-crazy.

So is the smell of old bananas and cigars about his person. Perhaps he smokes old banana skins as a cigar. I would not put it past him.

After a few days of surveillance I am so intrigued that one morning when I see him waddling out of the Crystal Phoenix at three a.m. when all the action is just getting going, I decide to tail him.