Douglas, Nelson - Cat in a Flamingo Fedora

Yup. There he sits like some bronze statue out of antiquity, deceptively still. Maurice Two has witnessed his murderous scheme backfire. I have no doubt he is already dreaming up the second installment. I start up the stairs toward him.

By now, though, the director has ordered the cameras to back off and there is a race up the stage stairs. Two sets of high heels pound in tandem as the Divine Yvette's and my respective stage mamas each strive to be first to congratulate her darling.

Miss Temple wins by a nose, and a rather endearing, short nose at that, and sits beside me on the fifteenth step. Maurice lucks out again.

"Louie, are you all right?"

"Of course he is all right," Miss Savannah Ashleigh snaps from below. "He nearly crashed into my adorable Yvette while doing all that fancy footwork. What a showoff."

"A natural gymnast," Miss Temple corrects, not too gently, meanwhile tenderly probing my anatomy for sore spots.

I do not doubt that tomorrow my lean torso will feel the effects of those aerial acrobatics, but for now, all is clover.

The director is still babbling about what a great segment this is, and how he wants to get a bunch more shots on the set when possible. Even the human star of the show has wandered over and is now deigning to notice me.

"Clever fellow," he tells Miss Temple. He bends down so Miss Savannah Ashleigh cannot hear and also tells her, "Do not forget about coming to my Sunday brunch tomorrow."

She nods, paying him much less attention than a star like Mr. Darren Cooke is used to, all the while feeling the flexibility in my limbs, which are the usual wet noodles.

"Darren," Miss Savannah Ashleigh says, following him into the wings, my lovely Yvette trapped in her grasping arms, "was not Yvette wonderful?"

He can only agree, but I see that his heart is not in it, nor is Miss Savannah much in his heart or mind. I am happy to say that I and Miss Temple seem to have replaced her in his regard. I begin to wonder how I could drop in on his brunch on the morrow, for I am sure he would have asked me had he realized that I am willing to attend these little career-building social affairs now and then. Although Miss Temple is touchingly concerned about my welfare, she does not view me as quite the asset I am. She is clearly underestimating the scope of my future performing career, not to mention my many previous contributions to her dabbling efforts in the crime-solving department.

Miss Temple has become so carried away by my athletic exertions that she picks me up and actually attempts to rise. I see that I am to be toted back down to my carrier, and am much touched by her efforts, but fear she has overestimated her toting power. I am no lightweight normally, and with half a pound of A La Cat turning to concrete in my gut I am even more unwieldy than usual.

Miss Temple's dainty shoes kick the almost-fatal trip wire to the bottom of the stairs.

Nothing like stumbling over the evidence. She misses the second-to-the-bottom step on the set and teeters for a moment before she gets her balance back. Then she cranes her head over my swollen stomach to examine the floor.

"Tsk. Someone left a piece of wire onstage. How careless. I'll have to get it once you're back in your carrier."

No, no! I look up. Maurice is slinking down the stairs unnoticed, like any second banana. I am helpless to resist, although I do offer Miss Temple a few delicate pricks of warning.

"Louie! Don't fight. I'll let you out as soon as we're in the car. Union rules require you to have a container."

Of course by the time she has carefully minced down the steps to the stage, dumped me in the carrier and returned to do her good deed and pick up the rogue wire, it is ...

"Gone," she mutters to the empty stage and house. "I could swear I stepped right on it."

By now Maurice has batted it a few dozen yards away into the wings, and if he has any smarts, into the nearest waste receptacle.

I swallow a growl of frustration, but it is a small one. I doubt he left any pad prints on the wire, and besides, no human would think to look for them, anyway.

If one is going to commit murder, an innocent facade is the best disguise, and fur is fail-safe in that regard. However, that works both ways, and if Maurice persists in trying to turn me into cured ham, I may have to fix his bacon.

The expression makes my stomach growl, but first I have to be rid of that A La Cat. I believe I will shock and over joy Miss Temple by gobbling down that awful Free-to-be-Feline when I get home. A few swallows of that ought to make everything come up in a most satisfying way.

Chapter 13

A Cooked Goose

"Oh, Louie!"

The cold, wet lump under Temple's bare foot told her she needed her glasses after all.

She hopped one-legged (like a flamingo) back to the bed and its companion table. Putting on her glasses, she examined the suspect part of the parquet floor. Yes, a damp grayish glob, like a wet cigar, defaced the wood.

Temple sat on the bed edge and wiped the bottom of her foot with a tissue. She pulled six or seven more tissues from the box, then went back to collect, wrap and deposit the giant hair ball in the bathroom wastebasket.

Through all of this, Louie sat majestically on the zebra-striped coverlet, licking off more hair to end up in yet another Major Hair-Ball Production.

"I suppose because you're a TV star-to-be now you think your hair balls are cashmere."

Louie stopped licking to regard her thoughtfully. At least Temple assumed his manner was thoughtful. She would hate to think it was possibly disdainful. He pushed up on his front legs, then leaped to the floor, carefully treading around the damp area. But he limped a little.

"Louie, are you all right?"

She trailed him, barefoot, to the living room, where he took a turn into the kitchen. There he paused over the Free-to-be-Feline bowl he had actually honored last night by consuming some of the contents thereof. After a sniff he turned back to the living room and finally hopped up on the sofa.

His limp had evened out on his travels, so Temple opened her door to collect the fat Sunday paper and left it on the coffee table while she returned to the bedroom to contemplate her options.

What to wear to a Darren Cooke Sunday brunch was the problem. Temple didn't usually fret over what to wear, except to worry about forecast rain or unseasonable cold. But Temple didn't usually hobnob with the city's influx of celebrities. And Savannah Ashleigh would probably be there. For some reason, ever since they became dueling stage mothers, she felt rather competitive toward SA. At least she didn't want to embarrass Louie, who was now known even to Darren Cooke.

Maybe she should follow his example and always wear black. A muumuu like Electra, but black. Except. . . Temple wasn't that fond of wearing black. And white was too summery now and her closet was a bore, along with everything in it, and half of that everything needed dry cleaning or drip-drying or small repairs with needle and thread, which she had not laid hand to in months.

Of course her scheme to replace all her wire hangers with smooth plastic ones had fallen apart half accomplished, so every other outfit she wanted to examine was tangled with something else. What Temple bought depended on her mood that day as well as what was on sale, and given her theatrical background, her wardrobe had multiple-personality syndrome.

When Temple complained about her lack of a signature style, Electra said that at least she didn't have a range of six sizes to consider, and no notion which she would fit into on that particular day, as Electra had faced until she had converted to the all-accommodating muumuu.

Temple guessed that would happen to her in a decade, when thirty became forty.