Carole douglas - Cat on a Hyacinth Hunt

"Saw the dentist yesterday. She was open half the day and I'd booked the appointment before I knew Louie and I would be the toast of New York during the holidays."

Van nodded, still admiring the colorful model. "I don't know who Brother John is, but I'll put his name up in neon if it's adequate thanks for getting a children's park designed by an internationally renowned artist."

"Brother John," Nicky ruminated. "It must mean something. I don't have a brother Gianni, hard as that may be to believe, but I'll adopt this one gladly."

"A simple flamingo-pink plaque somewhere should be all that's needed," Temple said demurely.

"I suppose it could be a Brother, as in order of brothers," Nicky speculated. "Domingo could be Spanish."

"Or Italian," Van put in.

"Or Incan," Temple added.

"He is . . . international, isn't he?" Van asked, looking dazed. "But study this layout. It's an Alice -in-Wonderland sort of maze, a children's sculpture garden. And the animals will be displayed in this most unnatural environment quite naturally. He's even specified a Wonderland croquet vignette with the plastic flamingos as mallets."

"And the Mushroom Maze is a prairie dog town," Nicky added.

"Amazing," Temple agreed. What wonders, she wondered, would Max produce this evening to compete with a Domingo Original. "It lends itself to all sorts of tie-in products."

"Wonderful idea, Temple." Van's tranquil face glowed. "I've been so stupefied by Domingo's offer that I hadn't considered the spin-off possibilities."

"We'd have to cut Domingo in on the product profits," Temple added, "but it would be well worth it."

"Absolutely," Nicky agreed. "I'm sure we can work out a good deal. The guy was like Santa Claus with an American Express platinum card. He brought his wife and kid with him, and of course Van had to bring them up to the penthouse to see Cinnamon."

"How is the baby?"

"China's just terrific, Temple."

"She has actual hair now," Nicky put in.

"She always had hair," Van retorted. "It was just... baby-fine."

"Louie will like her a lot better with more fur," Temple said. "I can sympathize with the state of parenthood now that I've lugged him all over Manhattan in a cat knapsack."

"So how did everything go?" Van sat down behind her desk.

Temple gratefully collapsed into one of the upholstered Parsons chairs paired before it, while Nicky played on the sidelines with the moving parts of Domingo's model.

"How did it go? You could consider it an existential Christmas, I guess. Santa was dead."

"Santa .. . died?"

"At the advertising agency Christmas party, no less. Louie tried to warn us something was up, but they wouldn't listen to Lassie either."

"You're kidding!" Nicky said hopefully, from the sidelines.

"No, I'm not. Put quite a crimp into the selection process for the Allpetco spokescats and spokesperson. I don't know who will get the nod, and, right now, I don't care. I'm eager to get going again on the Phoenix project, especially now that this bonus has dropped into our laps. I think I'll go gaze on the real estate out back, try to envision Domingo's park as a part of it."

"Go. Gaze. Graze a little in the restaurants, if you like." Nicky waved her away like an Italian mama shooing schmoozers out of her kitchen. "You're always on the house at the Crystal Phoenix."

"Not a bad advertising slogan," said Temple, only recalling a moment later why the phrase sounded familiar: It's always midnight at Hamilton's .

Midnight at New York-New York on New Year's Eve would always be a miserable memory.

Trying to carry on as normal had been the worst possible move for everyone.

Temple smiled a wan good-bye to Van and Nicky and made her long, solo way to the hotel's rear courtyard, which housed the pool, some tennis courts and a lot of undeveloped Las Vegas scrub that was worth its weight in sand.

Visions of sugar plums and plum advertising contracts vanished before the bright, palm-decorated vista. Not only was the surface land waiting to be morphed into a new fantasy recreational area, but the Crystal Phoenix lay above a network of underground tunnels that could be exploited for a delightfully dark Disneylandish Jersey Joe Jackson mine ride, complete with the old coot's holographic ghost. Temple thought about Jersey Joe building the Joshua Tree Hotel here in the forties, then squirreling caches of his ill-gotten goods all over the wastes of Las Vegas and the surrounding desert. Maybe excavation would unearth more treasure, like the highjacked silver dollars discovered a few years ago. And maybe not. Today's coveted treasures were multimillion-dollar state lotteries.

She glanced up at the hotel, now transformed into the elegant Crystal Phoenix, trying to pinpoint Jersey Joe Jackson's seventh-floor ghost suite. Even if his shade didn't actually haunt the suite that had been his home in good times and bad, it would holographically prowl the underground mine ride. That was more than Howard Hughes's ghost could claim, for all that his estate still owned most of Las Vegas.

So it wasn't just expensive mania, which seemed to drive New Las Vegas these days, it was history!

Temple actually felt one warm brown bubble of optimism explode on the top of her brain.

She was perking up, quite literally. She thrived on ideas, on linking strange odds and ends, and on getting her brain bubbling until it overflowed into her demeanor and that flooded into the enthusiastic public relations pro personality.

That side of her had been dormant of late, she realized, dragged down by personal conundrums like Bachelor Number One or Bachelor Number Two. God forbid a Number Three should show up on the scene. She'd lose all momentum then.

Some of the palms would have to go. But they wouldn't be replaced with the ersatz reconstituted palms that lined the entry to the Mirage. Domingo was right: better the genuine fake than the trumped-up substitute. Neon palm trees painted metal-sculpture pink, and green-and-blue palm fountains. But not instant freeze-dried palms.

And the carp pond. Louie's beloved former hangout. That might have to be relocated....

Temple wandered in its direction, toward the thicket of canna lilies not now in bloom.

She stopped, surprised. A black cat sat in elegant relief against the broad canna lily leaves.

Of course. Midnight Louise, aka Caviar. She was the Crystal Phoenix mascot now that Midnight Louie had moved in with Temple at the Circle Ritz.

Louise sat statue-still, perhaps staring at an exotic goldfish doing a pas de deux, fins in the water. Koi in kinetic motion. Even the cat's shadow didn't stir.

And then Temple blinked the mushy contact lenses into better focus.

The cat's "shadow" wasn't a shadow, but another black cat, this one hunched on all fours, gazing fixedly into the pond.

Temple edged nearer on her dainty red-and-purple-and-pewter Manolo Blahnik snakeskin pumps.

Neither cat stirred, but they simultaneously turned their faces toward her, one gold-eyed, one green.

"Louie! Is this where you've been? I missed you last night. Well. . . this morning, really."

He blinked, as if clearing his new contact lenses. Then he stared down into the water again.

Temple felt distinctly snubbed, but she supposed that returning from New York to become, in short order (a) an assault victim, (b) an invalid and (c) a New Year's Eve gadabout did not endear her to her loyal feline friend.

Besides, she had thought that he and Midnight Louise did not get along.

Temple approached the cats until she too could see into the water.

But no fish schooled there. The pond was empty, perhaps vacated for the coldest part of the winter. Maybe the koi had gone south to winter at Phoenix, Arizona. What were the great feline hunters watching, then, water bugs?