Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In A Crimson Haze

Of course Temple proudly introduced him to one and all; he was her date for the Big Night.

This was far more adult stuff than their pseudo-prom. Matt quickly found, disliking being on public parade. The women in the cast, her professional sisters, lifted their overdrawn stage eyebrows and cooed. The men eyed him with a touch of unspoken competition he found unnervingly new, and Danny Dove effused over him like he was the Second Coming.

"Isn't she wonderful, our Miss Temple! Nothing fazes her. And fast with a rewrite, let me tell you. What is your line?" Another appraising glance, underlined by a disconcerting glitter of appreciation. "Aren't you the cat's meow? Are you an actor?''

"No," Matt said. ''A shrink of sorts."

"Oooh. Better watch out. Miss Temple. He'll have you psychoanalyzed and on a couch in a second flat."

With a fanfare of bawdy laughter, Danny Dove bounded off on innerspring ankles to supervise a dozen different things.

"Danny is truly taken with you," Temple noted with amusement. "He's so protective of me that he usually glowers at my escorts like a Victorian father. The Fontana Brothers were subjected to a constant barrage of insults."

"He's . . . different."

"Well, he is gay, and if you weren't with me--"

"Oh, my God," said Matt, glimpsing yet another pitfall of the theatrical world.

"Don't worry. He'd never hustle a straight guy. But he can look. He's been really sweet to me, besides being the best director I've ever seen in action"

''Better than anyone at the Guthrie?" Matt asked in disbelief.

Temple thought. ''As good as, in a different milieu."

"Very different." Matt tried not to stare as a sylph attired only in glitter and a chiffon scarf darted across the hall from one dressing room to another, "You'd be surprised," Temple said, aware of his unease. "All theater people grow casual about the formalities. This stroll amongst our players should do you good. You've led a sheltered life."

"I know. But your dress is probably all the education I need at one time."

She stopped walking, surprised. "This? Glitzy Girl debutante stuff. It certainly doesn't show a lot of skin."

"But it . . . moves in a, an interesting way."

Temple quirked an eyebrow. "I'm impressed. You noticed. Poor Danny is doomed."

"It's not funny. I can't believe how oblivious I've been to so much. Is it any wonder that in seminary we never suspected sexual deviates among us? We were reared to be holy innocents."

"Now, instead of being wholly, you're just partly innocent," Temple said, "the best of both worlds. Everything's under control down here, as much as a backstage area ever is, and I see nothing that looks like Crawford Buchanan. Danny said yesterday that he had vanished into the wormhole from which he came."

"You don't sound properly relieved."

"No. Even if Crawford is sulking because the show is no longer all his, it would be like him to breeze in at the eleventh hour on performance night to claim all the credit. He may have an Alp of ego, but when it comes to honor, he is strictly in the molehill league. Come on, let's check out the house."

The same unnervingly smooth elevator transported them to the first floor. They threaded through the casino crowd until they reached a queue of people hedged into a line four-bodies-wide by emerald velvet ropes hung from Plexiglas-and-chrome posts.

Matt was beginning to understand Temple's enthusiasm for the Crystal Phoenix. It avoided the predictably posh cliche, such as red velvet ropes in brass stands, constantly reinventing itself and therefore the look of Las Vegas.

"Excuse me." Temple was blithely trotting outside the velvet boundary to the line's distant head, oblivious to proprietary frowns.

Matt followed in her wake, embarrassed. Good Catholic kids always took their turns in line, no matter how long.

She stopped so suddenly he collided with the beaded glass curtain of her back. Matt steadied her, and himself, by grabbing her upper arms. He hunted among a confusing array of unfamiliar faces for the source of her ankle-jolting pause.

Oh. There stood Carmen Molina, almost unrecognizable in a tall, floor-length column of maroon crepe and sequins from a decade that matched her age, beside a Frank Bucek.

''Lieutenant Molina!" Temple summoned a tone of arch surprise. ''I didn't recognize you without that ear thinga-ma-jiggy." Her agile fingers pantomimed a growth at the side of her head. ''What are you doing here?"

Molina's scant smile didn't bother stretching all the way to her eyes. "Not an occasion for flowers," she said. "I suspect the audience will more likely want to throw vegetables, uncooked.

I am a private citizen. I do go out now and then. And the Gridiron is an annual exercise in civic satire. I need to know how the script writers are depicting the police department, and if anything libelous is being said about anyone." She finished by nodding "hello" to Matt.

Matt realized that he was still clutching Temple like the hero on a grocery-store romance and loosened his hands. Injured ankle or not. Temple was securely mounted on her favorite high horse as well as her favorite high heels, and was in fine fettle.

"Agent Bucek," Temple acknowledged next. "I do hope that if the script police find anything actionable, they'll wait until the final curtain to make any arrests."

''Give us a break," Molina said blandly. ''We just want to see the show. I would say . . . break a leg, but that strikes a little too close to home.''

Temple laughed and sailed on, dragging Matt behind her.

At the azure-and-emerald carpeted steps leading to the Peacock Theater, Temple finally confronted a guardian in the form of a Crystal Phoenix security woman.

Temple snapped open the tiny metallic purse dangling from her shoulder on a fine chain to present two salmon-colored passes.

They were waved into the auditorium.

"Everybody is going to hate our guts," Matt suggested, sotto voce.

"I'll limp then, legitimately." Temple did just that as they disappeared into the theater.

"They'll feel so ashamed, begrudging a poor, disabled person her privileges. Oh, look! Isn't it gorgeous? Van and Chef Song have outdone themselves."

Matt surveyed the banquettes diminishing on a steeply raked aisle toward the shrouded stage. In the deliberately dimmed lights, the wine velvet seats glowed against black linen tablecloths set with gilt-edged white china. Dead center of each table a huge crystal brandy snifter held a pair of circling goldfish, their long, lacy fins and tails undulating through the limpid water.

Each setting, replayed by the dozens throughout the huge chamber, gave an impression of a continuum of exquisite and infinite beauty, of images repeated to the nth power in a fun-house of mirrors.

"Don't worry about skipping the line," Temple said. "All the VIPs coming tonight will be doing just that--the governor, the mayor, some mega-star performers." Temple thrust the salmon-pink tickets back in the metal bag swinging at her hip. "Danny gave me Crawford's show chairman set of tickets because he hasn't shown. Can you read the table signs? We're at number eight."

Noticing the white cards on their thin chrome stands, Matt scanned the numbers until he spotted the right one. He knew that Temple would die before donning her glasses in such a public setting.

''Down there." He pointed to a perilously distant banquette just right of stage center.

Temple sighed. ''A mercy that I'm solid on my pins again. These endless shallow stairs aren't made for walking on."

Matt, relieved to notice other people threading their way into the glamorous emptiness, wondered who the VIPs in their black ties and glittering gowns were, though any viewer of tabloid television probably could have told him.