Douglas, Nelson - Cat in a Flamingo Fedora

"A pirate ship is sunk during the hourly sea-battle, isn't that the case?" he asked.

"No, a British Navy ship is sunk, briefly. Like the British lion, it only lies down to rise again.

Law and order go down to the pirate ship's guns."

"Then Domingo's flamingos will rise, in a sunset cloud, along the verges of the moat. It will be a Kodak moment for all the tourists. Do you think the hotel will agree to my installation?"

Temple decided to unveil her own piece of performance art. Unlike Domingo, she did not require a booming voice and big gestures, just the facts that were her job to know, and tell.

Her shrug was rueful and vague. "I have your press kits. The installation of a miniature Alps of soldered-together lira in the Trevi Fountain in Rome should impress them, along with the hundred herds of sheep in the courtyard of the Louvre. That the French would tolerate the droppings alone speaks well of the importance of being the object of your attentions. I know the hotel's hierarchy, and should be able to bow and scrape my way up it.

"But you must understand something, Domingo. This is not some hundreds-of-years-old city with a flagging economy and tourism business, and a need to sacrifice its ancient monuments to the latest international artistic whim. This is Las Vegas, a back-lot Baghdad-on-the-Mojave thrown up almost as fast as the pyramids in a Cecil B. DeMille epic. Bugsy Siegel may have given it a kick in the pants, but the mob and Howard Hughes built this city and now the corporations own it. Corporations don't need anybody.

"Maybe in the sixties and seventies Las Vegas was still hungry enough, or greedy enough to court good--or even better, bad-- publicity. Now Las Vegas doesn't even bother. Anything lavish and large that the mind of humankind can produce, Las Vegas can reproduce for three times the money in one-thousandth the time. This is not a real city, it's an open-air carnival, and it doesn't need flamingos, or Domingos. But I can ask, and maybe they'll say yes."

Domingo had listened, hands in pants pockets, head lowered like a bull's.

"This is half my point. Everything is owned. Every artwork must be begged for. There is so much empty land in the United States, near Las Vegas, but it is all owned. The artist is owned. If they say 'no,' they become a part of my art."

"And if they'yes'?"

"They become a part of my art." Domingo smiled for the first time. "How will a small little thing like you broach all these lords of Las Vegas and get anything?"

"I'll do my best. And you do have a pretty impressive reputation."

This time Domingo shrugged, both his shoulders rising like snowcapped mountains moved by a volcanic emotion.

"When you get to the top of the hierarchy, arrange for an appointment with me. I speak best for myself, but have no time to hack my way up the mountain."

Temple nodded. She had expected no more, nor no less.

"Verina will get you all that you need. Our office is off the Strip."

He waved them both away, going to the window to gaze down on the real Las Vegas in miniature, the cluster of grandiose buildings laid out like Tinkertoys on a barren stretch of desert ringed by mountains. For all its multimillion annual visitors and staggering construction projects--Temple wouldn't be surprised to see an Ark Hotel go up with two of every animal on earth except the gambling, overpopulating human kind--for all its hubris, Las Vegas was still a sand-castle city, a puny architectural pretension huddled in the center of nature's most life-hostile, wide-open vista; cheek by cheeky jowl with wind-sculpted scarlet stones of the Valley of Fire, which in the ruddy gore of a desert sunset outshone all the neon that Hoover Dam could electrify. It was an oversize dollhouse, maybe, for boys instead of girls. Marzipan and mirrored glass, air-conditioning and laser-lights, stuffed toys and cotton candy.

Step right up, folks. You pays your money and you takes your chance.

Even Domingo.

Chapter 7

Call Again. . .

"I've been thinking about you," Matt told his most devoted caller.

"Oh?" The Voice sounded intrigued, even pleased. Matt smiled grimly. Manipulating back was too satisfying. Man was the only animal that could become his own tormentor.

"You've only been calling me for the last eight months."

"You counted. I'm flattered."

"No, I checked the logbook."

"Logbook?" A tinge of panic.

"As a nonprofit agency, we have to account for ourselves." This was an off-white lie; in reality, the book logged crank callers. But Matt wanted his caller to see the larger network beyond the lone counselor on the phone. He got quite a reaction.

"More than anything, you have to remain private. Discreet. Isn't confidentiality what you promise, what you sell, what you get paid for?"

"Is that how you think of us, as hookers? As an intimate service you pay for?"

"Why not? I've done it all my life. Paid for service. Nobody ever does anything for free, one way or another."

"That's a cynic's self-justification."

"What's this 'we' all of a sudden, anyway? I thought it was just you and me. You trying to hide behind an organization, Brother John?"

"Isn't everybody nowadays?"

"Not me. I stand alone."

"Except on the phone."

"Not fair! We're supposed to be talking about me, not about what you think of me."

"I don't think anything of you. I'm an organization man, remember?"

"I don't care who you are. That's the beauty of this arrangement, isn't it? We don't have to know each other. We don't have to like each other. But you have to answer the phone."

"You don't have to call."

A pause.

"There's where you're wrong. I do."

"Is it another addiction, then?"

"Life is an addiction, Brother John. You ever think of it that way? That if we're not addicted to staying alive, we die?"

"You say you're not suicidal--"

"It's a phone! You say a lot of things on the phone . . . that you're interested in somebody's deal, or body. That you won't be late for an appointment you have no intention of keeping. That you wish somebody a 'Happy Birthday' or a good life. None of it's necessarily real."

"I'm not a debating society. I'm here to help. It seems to me the only help you need is a twenty-four-hour on-line baby-sitter."

"What is this, tough love? You used to just listen. I could hear you being nonjudgmental.

Then, a call or two back, it changed. Why?"

"At least you're thinking about somebody besides yourself."

"Is that it? I'm too self-centered? Why shouldn't I be? I'm famous for it. That's why I liked talking to you. Usually I have to give people a certain amount of time to spout off about themselves, but you . . . you would just listen. You could be a robot for all I know."

"Is that your ideal partner for a heart-to-heart, a robot?"

"You don't get it. That's not an insult. That means you're good at what you do. You don't let you get in the way. Talking to you is like talking to myself, and then I see things ..."

"Insight is important, but--"

"No, you listen, listen to me about what you should do, for a change. Don't judge. You never know what circumstances made me the self-involved pig I am. You never know how much I might hate this wonderful famous self of mine, or how many people around me might hate it too. You never know when my talking to you might be a matter of life or death. Do you? Do you, Brother John?"

What could he say? Nothing. Matt felt his shoulders sag.

"Now, listen..."

Chapter 8

Breaking the Carrier Barrier

"Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage," but a cat carrier makes a pretty good chastity belt. Like the Cavalier poet-dude, Richard Lovelace, I speak from painful experience.