Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In A Crimson Haze

"Dazzling," Temple agreed.

"For the final medley, I use the stage trap door to bring up the entire cast, like miners from below the earth, the government secret agents, the Cosa Nostradamus muscle, the concealed aliens and their spaceship, which will fly into orbit around Elvis's enormous paunch, which has toy cars racing around it. . . ."

"Gross," Temple said with admiration.

Danny looked over the tops of his clear plastic half-glasses. ''It's not easy to outdo Vegas Garish at its own game, but I believe I have created the backdrop for a truly tasteless Tinsel-town east."

"Everything looks fabulous," Temple said. "I suppose Crawford is in clover."

"Crawford," Danny Dove enunciated in tones of deep disdain, "would be pushing up clover, if I had anything to do with it. What an ugly little man. However did the show committee decide to let that cross between Pee Wee Herman and General Sherman run things?"

"I think Crawford marched through a committee meeting in a sharkskin suit. He's awfully overbearing to direct a cooperative effort."

"Listen, young lady. Nobody directs anything on this Gridiron but yours truly." Danny Dove leapt to his threadbare-tennis-shod feet in a single, gravity-defying spring.

Temple struggled upright, trying not to twist a tall J. Renee heel.

"We start rehearsals tomorrow at two p.m. Do drop by. You might offer some little suggestion that would be amusing. You are such a clever girl."

"Thanks, but won't it irritate Crawford if a mere writer shows up to consult?"

Danny crossed his hands on his chest and tilted his head like a good child. "Yeth," he mock-lisped with an angelic grin. "It will annoy our little man no end. So don't be late."

Even Temple heard the happy spring in her step as she left the empty rehearsal area.

Her fictional remake of Las Vegas was getting a first-class production, despite Crawford Buchanan's sneering acceptance of what he treated like a second-class script. Her actual and ambitious remake of the Crystal Phoenix's image was beingembraced by the hotel's enlightened managers. That was putting pence into Temple's pocketbook as well as elevating her ego.

She tripped up the stairs to the hotel's main floor, her hand on the wooden railing as light as her heart. . . and then she just tripped.

The railing had become a long, bouncing baton as it pulled off the wall and caromed toward her legs like a log.

She lost her footing and her ankles took two terrific bangs. The high heels collapsed like a tower of poker chips. Temple was falling down the long flight of stairs, their sharp concrete lips digging into her tumbling body. The railing clattered down ahead of her like a giant's berserk drumstick.

Everything happened too fast for her to scream, and there was nothing to catch onto. She tried to roll with the fall, martial arts style, even while trying to grasp with her hands and her mind at something that would stop her before she got-- ow!--seriously hurt.

The noise echoed down the long, empty basement spaces. Immobile at last, she lay sprawled over several steps. Her tote bag sagged open three risers down, its contents trailing in forlorn clumps all the way to the bottom step.

An oncoming slap of running footsteps mimicked the pace of her runaway heart. She clasped her arms over her hollow stomach, happy to find it in the proper position.

"Oh, Miss Temple--!"

Danny Dove vaulted the railing lying askew on the bottom steps and deftly avoided her strewn belongings to race up to her two steps at a time.

While he asked her if she were all right, he expertly tested the mobility of her joints: her neck, her wrists, her... ow! . . . ankles.

"What happened?" he demanded.

"The railing just pulled off the wall. Then it knocked my feet out from under me like a bowling ball--or like a bowling baseball bat." Down the frighteningly long ripple of step rims she could have rolled over, she spied her empty shoes, both standing perfectly upright on their sleek heels.

"I don't remember my shoes coming off--"

"Of course not," Danny said, "a bad fall is like being in the funnel of a tornado, dear girl.

Well, nothing about Our Little Dorothy seems particularly damaged but That Ankle." He frowned at the offending joint. **You must sit right here and collect your crumpets whilst I rush below for some cold water. The minute you get home you must elevate and ice-pack it. Now, don't move!"

Off he went, leaping airily down the treacherous steps.

Why would she move? Temple felt several dozen numb tinglings that were trying to be bruises, and worse, she was breathless and shaky. But she didn't feel like bawling, a distinct improvement over her behavior after her last physical disaster. Perhaps Matt's martial arts training was making her into a big, brave girl.

From above her came slow, ponderous steps. A security guard was lumbering down toward her, angling over to the wall she huddled against to take hold of the remaining section of safety rail.

While she watched, he clasped it, stepped down, grabbed on, and gazed in horror when it came away in his hand. Temple, looking up, saw another runaway log en route toward her stranded body at a bouncing, unpredictable clip.

She curled into a ball protecting her head, expecting imminent collision.

Instead she was showered with a dash of cold water and surfaced sputtering.

The runaway railing was bouncing to the bottom, knocking over her upright shoes on the way down.

The guard, still vertical, made his huffing way down to her and her baptizer, Danny Dove.

Danny shrugged at her damp condition and lifted a half empty pail.

"Sorry, kiddo. It was either a bath or another beating."

"I never seen the like." The elderly guard sat on the steps above Temple to collect his breath and himself. "That there railing would have whomped you good, but this fellow just hoppity-skipped up the stairs like lightning and clipped the thing in mid-air so it bounced off the other wall. You do Kung Fu or something, mister?"

''Ballet," Danny Dove answered promptly, kneeling to plunge Temple's right ankle into the icy water. " 'Swan Lake' could train pole vaulters."

The guard twisted to regard the bare walls. Empty wrought-iron railing brackets clung to them like large, predatory flies. "What's going on here?"

"Criminal negligence," Danny Dove snapped. "Obviously the screws were loose, not only on the railing brackets, but in the head of whoever is responsible for maintaining the basement area. If this had happened a few hours later, when those stairs are used by dozens of dancers, it could have been a mass tragedy."

Temple squeaked politely. Danny looked down at her water-logged ankle again.

"Sorry, dear thing. Am I winding this too tightly? It's only some sheeting strips left over from a set-flat dutchman job, but the best bandage available.

"If you," he told the guard severely, surveying the man's Elvis-paunch middle, "can manage to crawl up and get the maintenance staff, and Miss von Rhine, we can clean up this mess and get Miss Temple on her way to some real treatment."

The burly guard nodded and worked his way upward, grabbing the occasional bracket like a mountain climber clinging to pitons.

"There, there," Danny Dove crooned as he lifted Temple's sopping foot from the bucket.

"You'll be dancing the marimba again in a day or two."

"That's funny," she said, "I sure couldn't dance it before.*'

When he laughed at her apt paraphrase of the ancient surgeon/violin joke, she added, "I don't think I could even cook it."

Chapter 18

Devine Revelations

When Nicky Fontana's silver Corvette convertible pulled up in front of the Circle Ritz, Electra and Matt were waiting by the curb that the Vette's tires came close enough to kiss.