Douglas, Nelson - Cat in a Flamingo Fedora

"Action!" cries the director.

The trainer at my rear swats my posterior with what feels like a baseball catcher's mitt embedded with thorns.

I rocket down the aisle of empty stairs, chorus costumes a nauseating blur of melted sherbet as I pass, the camera dolly cranking and creaking away alongside me. Then I see it. On about the twenty-seventh step down, a little figure eight of steel wire like they wrap newspaper bundles in.

Momentum is not allowing me to pick my step placements. I am bound to get tangled up in that treacherous loop like a calf in a roping contest. The Divine Yvette's little face is growing large, a look of horror widening her dark pupils. What can I do but improvise?

I carom off to the side, into the chorus line on my blindside, and snick out my shivs. In a split second I am climbing a mandarin-orange suit (ick!) until I am perched upon a mandarin-orange shoulder.

I tilt my head against the warbling chorus boy's face, although no sound is emitting from his lips and his eyes are rounder than the Divine Yvette's. I am no lightweight, and remain on his shoulder only because of my superb balance and my fully extended shivs curving into his shoulder pads and the underpinnings below, which may be epidermis. I do so hate to get human skin under my nails!

Before he can react enough to give a howl that would ruin the take, I bound down to the stairs again, weaving in and out of the tapping choristers' rainbow-colored legs. I might even look like I am dancing, were I not running for my life.

When I think the treacherous spot is well behind me, I bound into the center space and continue my insouciant descent, straight for my baby's feather-dusted arms.

Except that I must stop first, on a dime, and fall back in awe.

There, posed before the Divine Yvette, is this crystal wine glass, heaped with the homely gray glop of A La Cat. Except that a food stylist has been at it for hours, and every little flake sits up like a fox terrier in a circus act. Every flake has been hydrated and teased until it shines like a salmon in the sunlight. It looks pink and pale and plump. It looks downright tasty as the Divine Yvette, following her cue, edges back from the dish, bats her long eyelashes and permits me a sample.

This will be the hardest part of the entire ordeal. I stop, box my nose with a couple of hardy gestures then bashfully jam my nose into the stuff. I figure if my nostrils are blocked it will not smell so bad, and what does not smell bad, does not taste half-bad, in my experience.

So I wolf down this masterpiece of inferior design, finally stopping to ste p back and bow to the Divine Yvette. She simpers and minces closer. We end up, whiskers entwined, lapping up A La Cat cheek to cheek.

The camera at the bottom is probably zooming in for a nauseating close-up.

"Cut!" the director yells from somewhere far away, and I know I am safe until the next take, at least. But I will survive.

There is one motive, and one motive above all, that will see me through any perfidy that the murderous Maurice has up his stripes. I am sorry to say that it is not the round-eyed face of the Divine Yvette so near, staring up at me with limpid adoration.

The fact is, I would die before I would allow myself to leave the planet while wearing this ridiculous headgear.

Chapter 11

Picture Perfect

When the phone rang, Matt was sta nding in the kitchen eating his usual noon brunch of cereal, yogurt and an orange.

He stared at the instrument, usually silent. When his phone did ring, it was rarely a friend--

he had practically none--or a relative--they were all distant or dead. Usually it was unwelcome news.

Chewing, he took his time heading for it, wondering if the high-tech yodel would stop before he could get there. With no answering machine, the caller would forever remain a mystery.

Mysteries didn't bother Matt. He was used to keeping a respectful distance from the Unknowable. Knowing too much was the enemy.

He picked up the phone, mouth clear. "Hello?"

"Molina," was all she said, and all she had to say. "Got a pencil handy?"

"Pen." He patted his shirt pocket for the drugstore Rollerball always clipped there. A pen was an employee's best friend at ConTact.

"Take this down: Janice Flanders," she went on before he could even click the point out.

"Sixteen Forty-nine Wilder Lane. Five -five -five, seven-two -four- eight.

Matt scribbled the information one-handed on the phone-book cover's skimpy white border. "What--?"

"Most of the time we use computer identification programs. Used to rely more on actual artists. This is one of the best. You might try her on your phantom stepfather."

"Thanks, but I thought--"

"Just let me know if this leads anywhere."

He jerked the phone away from his ear. The dial tone suddenly buzzed there like an angry hornet. Whew. Molina wouldn't earn any public-relations awards with her tone on that call.

He felt dully resentful, like a kid who's had to deal with a teacher who's snappish for no known reason. He felt punished rather than assisted. He would have mentioned her rudeness, but she was gone too fast to challenge.

The name and numbers he had slashed down were barely readable. He almost felt like forgetting them. Help this surly he didn't need ...

But, then, guardian angels don't always come clothed in feathers and cumulus clouds; sometimes they wear sackcloth and ashes. Matt smiled wryly. Molina probably hated helping him out on what she judged a wild-goose chase. She probably hated being helpful. Heck, she probably hated him . That was a new thought; people usually liked him. Matt considered. Maybe he was losing his polite seminary edge.

No sense in putting this off. He dialed the number, waited a decent number of rings, and was rewarded on the fifth one.

"Flanders Folios." The voice was friendly but briskly businesslike.

"I'm calling for Janice Flanders."

"Speaking."

"My name is Matt Devine. Lieutenant Molina at the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department recommended you. I'm trying to find someone I glimpsed a few days ago."

"Is this police business?"

"No, personal. Private."

"Who did you say--?"

"Matt Devine."

"No, the officer's name."

"Oh. Molina."

A pause. "Don't remember working for a Molina. He been there long?"

"It's a she, and I don't know."

"When do you need the sketch?"

"Whenever's convenient. I, ah, work evenings, so it'd have to be during the afternoon hours."

"Great! All my clients are on opposite schedules. Listen, why don't you come over now; we can discuss details when you see what I've got in my studio."

He agreed, she told him rough directions and that was that. Matt hunted up his checkbook, then tried to find a place to carry it. A moderate climate called for casual dress and checkbooks fit best inside jacket breast pockets. He settled on taking his nylon windbreaker and stuffing the checkbook in the side pocket. Before he left, he consulted the slimmer book under the tabletop phone book, a street guide to Las Vegas/Henderson.

From the squirmy lines of her neighborhood streets, it was a newer development. He prayed his checkbook was up to commissioning the first portrait Cliff Effinger had ever had. For the first time since Molina's call, a chill of excitement gripped him. Would this artist really be able to conjure an identifiable likeness from the scattered motes of Matt's memory?

*******************

The neighborhood lived up to his expectations, and had been that way for perhaps fifteen years. The lots were larger of lawn and the homes lower of roofline than the trendy new homes sprouting ski-slope roofs and winking expanses of Palladium windows in nearby Henderson.