Douglas, Nelson - Cat in a Flamingo Fedora

"That name sounds familiar."

"He's a quasi-movie star. A comic actor who's done road shows and now is headlining the new Gangster's revue about Las Vegas's colorful past, that is, the criminal elements we love to sentimentalize once they've safely rubbed each other out."

"That's right! I saw a placard when we came in to the place. So you had brunch with this guy? Why?"

"Because of Savannah Ashleigh. You've heard me mention her?"

"Have I ever. Mother of Louie's Persian playmate and she-devil of Hollywood."

"Well, Ms. She-Devil apparently bad-mouthed me to Darren Cooke."

"Why?" Matt sounded indignant that anyone would bad-mouth Temple.

"She's an ex-fling of his--he's as famous for flings as for his throwaway lines--and apparently the competition was too much with me around the A La Cat commercial. It's being partially filmed on the Darren Cooke set."

"I see," Matt said, looking confused.

"So she called me 'Nancy Drew' to Darren Cooke, which got him wondering why. When he realized that I had been involved in a . . . situation or two, he decided he needed my expert assistance."

"But you don't really ... do anything. You just happen to be front and center at crime scenes."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence. I thought I actually had some insight. So when he sat me down in an Oasis-penthouse suite, I was prepared to do what I could."

"What was his problem?"

"Pretty personal. I don't want to betray his confidence. Lord, I sound like a priest! Anyway, he beat his breast with remorse for his past wicked ways, then ended up propositioning me."

"On Sunday morning?"

"The day of the week isn't the point! The point is that his distress call was only an elaborate ploy to hit on another female victim ... me!"

"You mean his problem wasn't real?"

"Oh, he may be genuinely disturbed about it, but the man is such a knee-jerk Romeo that even his weaknesses become a pretext for chasing some new female on the scene. Any new female on the scene. I can't believe I fell for it."

"What did he do?" Matt looked like he really didn't want to hear.

"Nothing overt. He didn't have to. Made a veiled suggestion I saw right through, at which point I gathered up my Sherlock Jr. mail-order detective kit and left in a fairly discreet huff."

"So now you'd like to see his head on a platter at Hush Money's?"

"No, you can't blame a human hyena for having carrion tastes. If he exposed his tomcat ways, I exposed my own stupidity. I really do think I can solve people's problems. That idiotic Savannah Ashleigh isn't half wrong. I do think I'm Nancy Drew. I told him it was a police matter. I begged him to have it looked into professionally, even if he has to use some pricey Hollywood agency. He lost interest because the object of the game had never been his problem daughter.

He uses everything to excuse his promiscuous social life."

Matt was looking at her oddly.

"What? You're surprised that I could be such a self-important fool?"

"No..."

"Thanks, counselor."

"I'm thinking, if this man is as famous as you say, he could be the one who calls me."

Temple slapped a hand over her mouth in shock, which did no good, because she managed to talk through it anyway. "Ooh, I never thought of that. I was so caught up in my part in the prewritten drama, I couldn't see the sex addict for the Stardust. You're right! He's exactly the kind of guy who could be calling you. Thanks a bushel and a peck, Ned."

"Ned?"

"Never mind. I feel a lot better now that someone else has profited from my little walk on the wild side. Do you know when you got his calls?"

"We keep a log at ConTact, yes, but this guy even called from out of town. The dates wouldn't necessarily jibe with Darren Cooke's Las Vegas schedule, even if it is he."

"There must be some way to check it out."

"I'm sure you'll have some insight into a method any second now."

She looked hard at him to make sure he wasn't razzing her, but he was smiling, so she did too.

"You've had a banner weekend," she said. "First you nail Cliff Effinger to the wall in oatmeal-and-charcoal and then you figure out I've been brunching in Bluebeard's castle."

"It's been quite a weekend, yeah."

Matt's smile had faded. Temple picked up her tepid mug of cocoa. "I'd better microwave those rolls, and a cuppa chocolate for you."

As she rose, Louie picked that moment to make an imperious change of position. He lofted himself onto the coffee table atop Cliff Effinger's preciously recalled features.

"Lou-ie!" Temple screeched, tilting her cocoa and almost adding chocolate freckles to the already mottled Effinger mug.

Matt jumped up to corral the cat, but by then Louie was showing them the underside of his tail as he darted to the floor and out of sight.

"Is it all right?" Temple babbled. "How much did it cost? Can she do it again if need be?"

"Looks okay." Matt shifted the drawing away from Temple's mug. "Couple hundred. And I don't want to see her again if I don't have to."

"Oh, gosh, the paper's separating." Temple felt the sick feeling of any hostess whose guest's goods have been damaged in her house. "Matt, I'm sorry. Louie almost never makes sudden moves like that; he's just too big."

Temple fingered the peeling corner, and saw the paper curl back. "Wait! It's only two sheets on top of one another. The drawing's okay. Worthy of any post-office wanted wall. See?"

She carefully held up the top sheet to demonstrate. Then she spotted the portrait under it.

"Hey. It's you!"

Matt moved her cocoa mug to the coffee table's far side. "Apparently."

Temple sat again. "A real drawing, not a sketch. Good too. Not signed, though."

"She did it to warm up," Matt muttered. "She said. I didn't even know she was doing it."

"And she just gave it to you?"

"Well, I paid two hundred for . . . him."

"Matt, this drawing bugs you. Why?"

"I feel like the Native Americans, I guess. It's a stolen image. I don't know what to do with it."

"Frame it."

He frowned. "I've got better things to do with my money."

"And send it to . . . your mother."

"For Christmas or her birthday--" He visibly brightened at the idea, so Temple guessed that he was always at a loss for an appropriate present. "Maybe --"

"Or--" she went on. He waited hopefully for her next good idea, and she couldn't resist.

"Give it to a girlfriend to frame."

"You don't really want it?"

"Why not? It's obvious that you don't, which means you won't take very good care of it, and it's too nice to waste. She really did a fabulous job for an off-the-cuff session. Even caught that cute little worry line at your left eyebrow. Come on, Matt, you have to feel a little bit flattered!

You look mah-velous! I bet she thought so too."

He reached for the paper. "I don't want it--"

Temple kept it in custody.

One corner tore off.

She stopped smiling and he suddenly sat back on the sofa, far from the two pulp-paper portraits side by side on the coffee table.

"I haven't had a photograph taken since I left St. Rose of Lima. I'm not used to seeing myself.

Or to seeing how other people see me."

"You need to get over that," Temple said seriously. "You can't know somebody else until you know yourself. You really need to be a teensy bit vainglorious about being so handsome. It's only human."

"I know that. I know what I look like. But I don't like seeing what it does. It's not just the portrait, it's the . . . context."

"What happened?"

"Nancy Drew is right. You know something happened. You're worse than a mother or a ... a nun."

"Thank you. Actually, after my almost-close encounter with Darren Cooke, it's rather reassuring to be compared to a mother or a nun. I was beginning to think I was a bimbo."