Кэрол Дуглас: Cat In An Aqua Storm

“I’d think you were a twenty-four-carat human being. I envy you,” he said, as the velvet ropes parted for Temple’s VIP pass. It was the least Ike Wetzel could do, and Ike Wetzel always did the least.

“Why?”

They were soon seated in a wine-velvet-upholstered banquet. An obsequious waiter dashed up with glasses of champagne on the house.

“Why?” she repeated after they had settled in.

“ ‘Friday’s child is loving and giving,’ ” he quoted, toasting her with a tall, thin flute that sparkled like a yellow diamond.

“When and where were you born?” she asked, curious to the last.

“I’ll tell you someday. Shhh . The show’s about to start.”

“Are you sure you really want to see something this risqué...?”

“Shhh,” he said. “Kitty did it. I want to know why.”

The show began. There was the flare of prerecorded music, the parade of performers. The glitz, the glory, the get-down-and-dirty nitty-gritty of bump and grind. The grinning boys showing off muscles visible and invisible. The glorious girls with bodies a Barbie doll would die for. The Over-Sexty set, never saying die.

A vroom, vroom growled from the wings.

Temple clutched Matt’s arm. “Holy hot rod, here comes Electra!”

“Introducing Moll Philanders,” the man at the mike intoned.

Dry-ice fog drifted across the stage. Temple expected Dracula, and instead got a sleek silvery form that spit luminous flames—how the Hesketh had Electra managed that? The cycle was ridden by a dark, ambiguous helmeted figure. “Born to Be Wild” revved up on the sound system.

As the Vampire stopped with a batlike screech stage center, the leather-clad rider dismounted, kicked the stand into action, and began to peel leather from skin, and pose beside, atop and under the motorcycle. Temple especially appreciated her trick of lying back along the leather seat, her legs flailing in time to the raw beat.

For an old broad, Electra was pulling out all the stops. Except. After the chaps peeled away, and even as the jacket was tossed, she whirled it around her head. It became a fringed cape that swirled through the smoke and covered her like a Turkish towel. The audience saw a lot of discreetly bare shoulder and knee, but not much more.

A lot of flash, and very little flesh. Theater to the Max. Temple stood applauding at the end, tears of pride in her eyes. She understood Ma Bartles. Go, Electra! Give the lie to getting old and giving up. Matt was on his feet beside her, clapping sans tears.

It didn’t seem right without Midnight Louie there.

34

Little Cat Feet

The muumuucameflying at Temple in the colors of hibiscus and orchid.

She regarded it dubiously. Ever since the strippers' competition, she was not about to buy Electra as a Grandma candidate.

“A policewoman left this off,” Electra announced while still twenty feet down the hall.

Temple waited within the solid frame of her mahogany double doors, alerted by Electra’s excited phone call, but leery.

“Is it something about the stripper case, dear?” Electra asked once she was at the condo door, huffing and puffing.

Temple regarded the thin roll of paper and shook her head. Just Molina returning the poster of Max she had borrowed, as promised.

“And the manila envelope” Electra prodded. “Honest to Adonis, it looks like there are body parts in there!”

“Even Molina isn’t that nasty,” Temple answered.

But she opened the envelope with real curiosity. Then her mouth dropped. A black satin feline face emerged, pinned onto the shiny satin toe of a high-heeled pump. Two of them. A perfect pair.

“These are Kitty Cardozo’s shoes!” Temple gave a macabre shiver. She pulled a piece of police memo paper out of the package.

“Kitty had a spare pair at her apartment,” the brash handwriting read. “Lindy said you could have them. Looked just your size. —Molina.”

Temple turned them sideways to read the gibberish of letters and numbers on the lining. Molina was, as too often lately, right on. Size five, double A.

Temple swallowed. “I wish Kitty could have these.”'

“Maybe,” Electra suggested, “she’d be happy to know you inherited them, dear.”

“Maybe. I wish we’d found out who was hassling her. None of the other strippers knew. He’s still out there.”

It was almost noon on the Monday after the competition. Molina hadn’t wasted any time. Maybe Temple shouldn’t either.

Why not? Women were supposed to take risks these days.

After Electra left, she sat in the blinds-drawn dimness of her bedroom, Midnight Louie lying like the world’s largest lump of Christmas coal across her bedspread. Matt would be about ready to get a wake-up call.

Temple picked up the red-shoe phone, its sleek plastic shape curving to her hand. She remembered Matt’s sudden confusion when she had jokingly threatened to give him a mash-call. These were perilous times, and a woman sometimes had to be bolder than her upbringing suggested. Max... Max had fixated on her, had seen her and decided. Had bent all his resources and concentration upon her. He was an irresistible force, but he was gone.

Maybe she would have to be a little irresistible herself. Matt wasn’t Max. He was a man in hiding, too, but he didn’t dare be as open about it as Max. He had to be teased along. Someone, some woman, had to care enough to take a risk.

Temple dialed the number Electra had given her.

She would wake him up. She had a purring, slightly smoky phone voice. Some people thought it was sexy. How far do you go to break down someone else’s barriers? Maybe she’d find out. It wasn’t much different from those long, coy teenage conversations. Boy/girl, girl/boy, practicing for the real thing.

The phone lifted. “Hello,” Matt said in his best professional hot-line voice. Not a bad voice, but she’d rather hear it less controlled, and more surprised.

“Hi. This is your neighborhood hot line calling,” Temple purred. “This is your wake-up call. Are you ready to give some lessons? Martial arts, I mean.”

Midnight Louie lounged on her bed, watching with calm, catlike neutrality. But when she caught and captured his glance, she winked.

It was night, and Matt picked up the phone, as he always did at that hour.

“ConTact?” the woman’s hesitant voice asked anxiously.

“Yes.”

“I—I feel I should give my name, but—”

“Names aren’t necessary. Make one up if you like.”

“Really? That simple? Mary Smith, then. Do you buy that?”

“It doesn’t matter what I think, only what you do.”

“Oh, God. I don’t know what I think. I met a man. He was so sweet. How... what do I call you? I can’t talk to you about this without a name.”

“How about ‘Brother John’?”

“Why do you use that?”

“Because I am your brother, and everyone’s a John, or a Mary.”

“Yes, maybe so. I can’t understand. He’s so thoughtful. So sweet. He hit me, Brother John. I don’t know what to do. It only happened once. Only... it’s never happened to me before. You should see the candy and flowers he sent. But he hit me. It made me feel bad... wrong. But I liked it when he apologized. I kinda got a kick out of it. I don’t understand why he has to say I’m so stupid, why I have to feel so superior and inferior at the same time. Brother John—? Are you there?”

“I’m here. I’m listening. What do you want to talk about?”

“Him. I’ll call him Jim. That’s not his name. But I’ll call him Jim. I just met him. . . .”

Tailpiece