Douglas, Nelson - Cat in a Flamingo Fedora

Whatever seemed the only option, so Temple prepared herself to hold up the wall for some time. Sitting solo in a standup crowd like this was isolating and awkward. Most guests were either very young (which meant even younger than Temple) or quite middle-aged (which to Temple meant over forty-five). But that made sense. Darren Cooke was easily in his early fifties, no matter how much the plastic surgeons pinned his ears back year after year. Of course he would still attract the young and trendy; all stars did, even when their twinkle was mostly in the surgeon's laser-light.

Temple nibbled on what resembled a mutilated carrot. She hoped it was a carrot. She switched walls. Then she ambled to the windows to look out. Usually at a party, looking out attracted another looker-outer. Not here. She could have been invisible, in fact, was, because she was unknown. Should have brought Midnight Louie. He was a great conversation-starter.

And then, staring at the great nothingness beyond Las Vegas, at unchanged easygoing mountains whose brown summits snagged clouds as airy as biplane pilots' long, fringed white silk scarves, Temple realized the obvious.

Darren Cooke had consulted his "Nancy Drew" because something in his life disquieted him.

Why wasn't he coming out?

Temple set her ginger-ale glass on a table and turned toward the closed door at which the personal assistant had cocked a dyed-red eyebrow.

She met the assistant on an intercepting path.

"You can't go in there," the woman said.

"You ever wonder why he's left his guests alone so long? Mr. Cooke didn't strike me as the reclusive type. Not at his own party."

The frown returned, rather deep for such a young forehead. "He did seem .. . surprised by the call."

"Maybe you better check on him."

A blank stare.

"A shocking call. Heart attack maybe."

"No." The young woman seemed truly alarmed. "Not a heart attack. He's too young--" She turned and ran for the door.

Temple shook her head. Darren Cooke was way past "too young" for a lot of things. She discreetly followed the woman. No one else noticed; they were too busy performing the latest chitchat.

Temple paused outside the ajar door. Only silence seeped through. She pushed it slightly, encountering a barrier.

The girl was standing two steps inside, frozen.

Oh, my god, Temple thought. Not at his own party.

She pushed the door until it butted the girl, then pushed harder, until the girl gave way.

Temple stepped in, shutting the door behind her.

She didn't see what she expected, but neither had the personal assistant.

Darren Cooke was alive and well, sitting on the massive emperor-size bed, by the telephone.

A bottle of tall, clear liquor guarded the tabletop receiver. The faint drone of a dial tone wafted all the way to the door.

Cooke was slumped over, elbows on his knees, a bathroom water glass tilting in one hand.

The other hand was clenched in his perfect two-hundred-dollar razor-cut.

"Darren, what's the matter?" The personal assistant sounded like a hysterical teenager.

Cooke turned toward the door. He seemed to have heard the girl, but he focused on Temple. The Hollywood tan, whether from the sun or a bottle, looked like a waxy yellow buildup on his too-taut face.

"Good," he said, straightening. "Keep the guests happy, Alison. And you"--he was lost for a name, then found one--"Nancy! You stay."

Temple exchanged a puzzled glance with Alison, who tucked her glossy features into a disapproving pucker suitable for a nineteenth-century old maid, and left.

Temple took the seat Cooke indicated with a sweep of his manicured hand. It was a biscuit-colored suede chaise longue worth about three grand.

He pointed again, now to the travertine bedside tabletop. "Ouzo. My favorite private stock.

Straight from Athens. Want some?"

Temple nodded. She didn't, but finding a glass would help the man pull himself together.

He lurched up and disappeared beyond a set of double doors that likely le d to a palatial bathroom. While he was gone, she studied the master bedroom, which was as close as she'd ever come to High-Roller Heaven. Not for real VIPs the garish, gaudy excesses of lower-level suites, the ones that make the magazines and newspapers, the ones everybody likes to snicker at, for their sunken Roman baths, built-in waterfalls and tacky theme-park decor. Everything here was expensively plain and simple, boring even.

She looked down at her feet and wiggled her toes. The absurd flamingo-pink feather pom-poms on her toes fluttered and flirted back. That was her reality check; that's what kept her feet on the ground, the sweet eternal extravagance of shoes. Sole on ice. Not ouzo.

He came out finally, empty glass in hand, an ordinary heavy hotel glass, thick and clumsy.

"I'm not drunk, just. . . stunned."

"Maybe you need more help than I can give." Temple started to rise.

"No. No Papa Bear of police. No Mama Bear of shrink. You're like Baby Bear's bed and chair and porridge, just right. You won't scare the house." He sat on the bed's edge, then poured a couple inches of what looked like water into the glass. "Besides, Savannah hates your guts, and Savannah hates only people with class."

"If you know that, why do you know Savannah?"

He pointed wearily at the bottle. "My favorite private stock. Women without class."

"Aren't you married?"

"Oh." As if he had forgotten. "Oh, yeah. To a classy lady. Did that right, when I finally did it."

He glanced up through ruffled eyebrows, the thicker lintels age offers fading eyesight. A remnant of boyish charm trickled through. "You don't care. What can I do? Pay you? Give you comps? Why are you even here?"

"I'm curious."

"Like your cat. Midnight Louie. Light-Foot Louie." He laughed until the room rang. "What a performer, that cat. Knows how to hog the spotlight, and that's what fame is all about. Ask O. J.

Look. I'm not drunk. I know what you're thinking. I know what I'm thinking." He pointed to the abandoned phone receiver, still droning. The warning yodel that it was off-the-hook had long since given up the ghost. For some reason, Darren Cooke wouldn't--couldn't--break the connection with that dead phone line.

"Phone's a best friend to a guy in my game. Traveling. Alone. Phone home, if you got one, or got anyone there. Phone room service. Phone Athens for ouzo." He snapped his fingers. "It's the geezers' Internet."

"Sometimes people phone you."

"Yeah. Not often. Fans. Don't want fans on the phone. Letters are okay. Letters are distant.

Impersonal." He frowned. "Usually. The phone is personal."

Temple sipped the ouzo for lack of anything else to do. Never had it. A sharp licorice tang and the sting of almost-pure alcohol. She had heard ouzo could knock out a sailor, and she had never been to sea.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"I don't know." He opened the bedside-table drawer and pulled out a manila envelope.

An ordinary manila envelope. Temple took it when he offered it, amazed at where common ground existed. He was a star, but he stuffed the secrets of his shredded life into an ordinary manila envelope just like everybody else.

She pulled the papers out slowly, feeling them first. Stationery, that slightly soft weight.

Serviceable, store-bought goods, nothing expensive, unlike everything else in this room.

"I've been getting those letters for the past couple years. From my daughter."

"I didn't know--"

"Neither did I."

His left hand--ringless--ploughed through his dark hair. The ruffling gesture never revealed a glint of silver. Washed away, rinsed away. He drank from his glass and spoke again.

"Neither did I. No one ever said I had a daughter, or a son, or a goddamn golden retriever.