Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In A Crimson Haze

As soon as Chef Song skedaddles, I will point out her error and play the hero by leading her to the nearest stand of Desert Tobacco, which is guaranteed to make the heartiest eater repel any toxic substance.

The chef, nodding and grinning like a homicidal puppet, leaves the scene at last.

I am about to do as planned, when Miss Caviar rises and trots after him. After performing some nauseating leg-rubs in the doorway, she is invited in.

Will travesties never cease? I always had to break or sneak my way in to the Crystal Phoenix.

That is the way it should be done. That is the way it was always done.

I stalk over to the abandoned bowls. Ugh. Free-to-Be-Feline salting a well chopped mixture of white chicken meat, shrimp and . . . caviar. The other bowl holds clear liquid. I sniff it, expecting to inhale turpentine or some other deadly libation. Water. Just water. Smelling faintly of minerals and other healthful natural additives. Bottled water! What kind of decadent dishes are these? Not poison, but bribes. What is happening to the species?

I stalk to the pond edge and gaze into a dozen fish eyes as glassy as marbles, all those carp pushing eagerly to the pond's edge as if dying to leap into my grasp.

Unfortunately, I have lost my appetite.

Chapter 26

Old King Coil

The cursor on Temple's laptop screen blinked faster than a racing pulse.

Nothing is more aggravating to a writer than a blank mind to match that blank screen, all while an agitated cursor itches to be off and running down the invisible pixels, spitting out letters.

She had meant to dream up a Three O'Clock Louie campaign. Every new exposure generated a flurry of new ideas. Now the flurry had flitted to the back of her brain. What dominated her mental foreground was the Jersey Joe Jackson connection to the Glory Hole Gang and the Joshua Tree, the hotel that became the Crystal Phoenix. The Ghost Suite had been his; some said it still was.

Disconnected ideas were running around her unconscious like gerbils in an exercise wheel.

The Phoenix and ghosts, ghost towns and the old days, digging for gold and silver dollars, theme parks. Nothing coalesced.

When the phone beside her rang, she snatched the receiver off the cradle, eager for distraction.

"Temple?"

Oh, no, this wasn't distraction, it was penance.

"Yes, Crawford."

"Glad to catch you at home.''

"I'm glad one of us is."

"Stay there. We don't need you nosing about the show anymore. Besides, it's dangerous."

"Danny Dove invited me to drop in on rehearsals, and he's the director, not you."

"Well, I'm uninviting you. In fact, I'm warning you."

"Warning? Is this a threat?"

"You bet. If you set one bum foot in the theater, I'll file the suit I've been considering."

"I thought all your sweat-stained suits were at the cleaners."

"Just jibe away. I'll up the numbers. I'm serious here. I've had chest pains ever since your UFO went AWOL and nearly flattened me and half the cast."

"It's not 'my' UFO, it's a stage prop. How can you blame me for a set piece that came loose because your hysterical shove forced me to jerk one of its anchoring ropes?"

"I can blame anybody, but I will sue those who have the bucks to be worth it--the Crystal Phoenix, Van von Rhine and Nicky Fontana. And Danny Dove. For negligence."

"Get real. The police think the 'accident' was arranged."

"Doesn't matter how it happened, only that it did. I figure about six mill ought to cover it."

"Crawford! Don't be an ass. Sorry. It's impossible for you not to be one. But don't be dumb, too. You'll sink the Gridiron and all your wonderful skits."

"No, I won't..Danny Dove is tossing them out right and left, anyway, and what he's keeping he's mauling into mindless mush. That little twerp is acting like Hitler in high heels, stomping all over my best lines, my best pieces. He claims they 'won't play.' What does a toad dancer know about good writing?"

"Danny Dove does jazz and tap mostly nowadays, plus he's designed and mounted several of the Strip hotel's most successful shows."

''Sure, defend him. If you're the best attorney he can get, he'll be easy pickings in this suit."

"So that's why you called ... to threaten me?"

"No, I called to tell you to stay away from the Gridiron. If you call that a threat, that's your privilege."

"Crawford, you dragged me into it against my better judgment in the first place."

"Yeah, but then I thought I could dump your skit and that would be that. I had no idea Dove would jump on it like a frog on a lilypad."

"You . . . planned to dump my skit? Why?"

"Because this is my show. I was gonna write all of it."

"Then why ask me, beg me, to go over to the Las Vegas Scoop on a Saturday and write my fingernails to the bone all day?"

The phone line was suddenly, tellingly silent.

"Maybe I just wanted to see you," Crawford said in a sullen tone at last.

"See me what?"

"Sweat," he admitted. "There you were, hogging the Gridiron's big opening and closing numbers year after year. This time you were gonna show up for the big night and find it was a big bust. Only that damn wrist-waving Danny Dove wouldn't go along--"

''What a dirty trick, but then, why am I surprised? I guess I doubted even you were that rancorous."

''Listen." Crawford's voice had gone deeper and softer, so it hummed like bass static over the wires. "Maybe I was planning on playing the jerk, but it's not so funny now. Some big muscle around town isn't happy about what's in your skit. They've been sending plenty of messages--to me, like I'm responsible or something. I've got some of those messages on my answering machine. Anonymous. They want your skit out of the show. Maybe they want you out of the picture. I'm telling you to stay away from the Crystal Phoenix and the Gridiron. If you don't, and it's curtains, don't say I didn't warn you, which is more than you did for me when the E.T. special was crashing down on my head."

"Crawford, are you saying someone's trying to close down the show because of my skit?

Why? What's in it?"

"Obviously it isn't very funny, which was what I told Dove, and now the powers that be have noticed that. So, stay away. That's what I'm going to do, until the coast, and the cast, are ' clear."

He hung up without saying goodbye.

Like maybe there was no point, like maybe she was dead already.

Temple stared at her computer screen with its paltry sprinkle of words: 'The good times never stop at Three O'Clock Louie's."

Underneath Crawford's usual bluster Temple had sensed genuine fear. In his own craven way, he was warning her to do as he was doing and desert the Gridiron.

So. It was his project. So what if Danny Dove was left in the lurch? He'd get something mounted. And the Flying Fontana Brothers Security Syndicate was crawling and clambering all over the place. Johnny Diamond was set to sing Temple's medley of satirical show tunes, surely he'd be all right. Nobody would dare to mess with a big name like that. But what on earth could be so threatening about her skit?

And if the accidents were intended to discourage the production, whoever was arranging them didn't know the old maxim that ''the show must go on." Troopers like Danny and Johnny and the eager semi-amateur cast weren't about to bow out because of some dubious accidents.

Unless those "accidents" included the murder of the man in the ceiling, Matt's missing stepfather, Cliff Effinger.

Temple saved the gibberish on her screen and gave it a name: 3Louie. No wonder she had mistaken the black cat at Temple , Bar for Midnight Louie; she'd seen so darn little of him lately that she'd forgotten exactly what he looked like. In fact, the last place she had seen her Louie was at the Phoenix. . . .