Douglas, Nelson - Cat in a Flamingo Fedora

"I've seen the assistant but what did this one look like?"

"Brown hair, not much makeup, flat shoes. And that miniskirt, black-and-white checks all over. Sure could move in that walking-chessboard thing, though. For such a mousy girl, there was something about her."

"Do you remember what day she came in?"

"Friday maybe."

"Nothing really memorable about her?"

"Not with all these show folk types around. You in show biz?"

"No. My cat is, though."

"Cat? Don't like 'em. Always jumping on cupboards and eating food."

Temple could not deny it, especially since Louie would rather eat almost anything ot her than Free-to-be-Feline.

"Mind if I poke around down here a little?"

Mike pursed his lips and shook his head. Temple proceeded to poke.

Darren Cooke's dressing room had been stripped of his effects; probably by that haughty but efficient personal assistant.

Temple regarded the garment rod with its few askew wire hangers, a sad smudge of clown-white makeup smearing the neighboring mirror. If only mirrors could record what went on before their cold glass surfaces. Could one of Darren Cooke's female visitors have been his daughter? Had there been any hints that she was stalking him? Was that why he had pounced on Temple in the theater house that day and asked her to brunch?

She went into the hall to look for the costume room.

A faint buzz of industry drew her finally to a pair of shut doors. Her knock didn't disturb the sound of work within, so she pushed open one door.

Worktables filled the space, not much staff. A rainbow of zoot suits lined a hanging rack against the wall, and more costumes decorated other racks. Decapitated heads lined tabletops like leftovers from the French Revolution; some wore wigs fanciful enough for 1790-something.

A small, stout African-American woman bent over a pattern laid atop fabric, her mouth bristling with straight pins.

She was working, alone and so intently that Temple tiptoed closer.

"Pardon me. Are you Minnie? Mike the doorman said you might talk to me."

"Nmmmph like ifff," she mumbled through her mouthful of pins.

Temple hefted herself onto a nearby stool and prepared to wait. A radio somewhere played soft-rock classics.

The woman began spitting out pins one by one as her flashing hands nailed the pattern to the fabric like a human staple gun.

This was a veteran. Temple loved to watch seamstresses work. She herself could barely thread a needle and run it through a buttonhole, but real sewers had an almost ballet like economy and certainty of movement.

"Done." The woman swiftly stuck leftover pins into the cushion attached to her wrist. "What might be your name, mite?"

"Temple Barr. And I don't like being stereotyped by size."

She nodded. "Why're you such a big friend of Mike's?"

"I took the time to talk to him."

"That Mike! Always jabbering. Me, I can't usually. What's the fuss? I have to remake this costume right soon."

"Actually, I'm asking about poor Mr. Cooke."

"Poor Mr. Cooke! I don't think so, honey. I know you're trying to speak nice about the dead, but there was nothing poor about that man. He had the cars, the clothes, the cash, the chicks and maybe the boy chicks too, if he'd awanted them."

"You do know all the dirt, like Mike said."

"Mike. That blabbermouth. When I sew, it's quiet, I'm quiet. Everybody forgets about me. I hear more than I should, but it's all just noise to me."

"Now that Mr. Cooke's dead, though, you must be thinking over what you might have heard.

You must wonder what drove him to suicide."

Minnie folded fabric and pattern into loose squares. Her huge brown eyes were as sharp as pins, and her unwrinkled complexion was the warm, comforting color of cocoa. "Girl, I don't wonder. That's why I like this job. I been doing costumes in Las Vegas for almost forty years, and I ain't never been required to wonder. You got a reason I should change that?"

"Yes, ma'am, I do."

"You do? Just who are you to go round asking questions? You work for these folks that own Gangster's?"

Temple took a deep breath. "In a way. I work for Nicky Fontana at the Crystal Phoenix, and his brothers have an interest in this place, so--"

"The Fontana Brothers? Why didn't you say so up front, girl?" Her face unfolded in laughter, producing its first creases. "They are too much. Too much. Them and their family Viper. That is one bad automobile."

Temple smiled. You had to love the Fontana Brothers, especially when the mere mention of their names served as an "open sesame" in the unlikeliest places around town.

"I do their tailoring for them," Minnie confided. "Why do you think they look so good in those Italian suits? You should have seen them as whippersnappers. Cute as a litter of hound-dog pups."

"I bet," Temple said.

"You date one of those boys?"

"No, I don't."

Minnie frowned, as if any female who neglected her boys was suspect. "What you want to know?" She plucked an iron from its resting place to press a length of fuchsia suiting material.

Temple could tell that Minnie was queen of her backstage domain, and had been so for far too long to fool. "I've got a bad feeling about that death. I think a woman was involved. A young woman. I'm trying to find out who might have seen Darren Cooke during the last days before he died."

"This any of your bizness?" Minnie looked up, narrow-eyed, from her ironing.

"No."

She nodded. "You one of his girls?"

"No!"

Minnie glared at her.

"He asked but I just said no."

Minnie nodded. "He never missed a young thing that came within fifty feet."

"Someone thought he might have killed himself because the young things weren't saying yes as often as they did when he was younger."

Minnie made a dismissive sound. "There's always enough young things around dumb enough or greedy enough to say yes. This trip I count three girls in the chorus, and maybe some dark horse from outside. She came and went too fast, though."

"Brown-haired girl, quiet except for a sassy miniskirt?"

"That's the one, Temple. I never forget a skirt like that."

"Maybe she wanted to be noticed," Temple speculated.

"Sure. Anybody who wear a skirt that short wants something to be noticed. I don't know about her. Could be a--what you call it?--red herring."

Temple smiled. Minnie was getting mystery fever.

"Wasn't that other one," Minnie muttered, "with the cat that was more stuck-up than her. I bet that woman's hair turned white from her looking in the mirror so often and scarin' herself."

"You mean Savannah Ashleigh."

"More like born Betty Lou Kravitz. Savannah's too nice a town to be associated with her. She was in and out for days, screaming and kicking. Then it was 'Poor Mr. Cooke.' I never seen one of his exes come round acting up before. And I been working all over this town, must've worked maybe eight of his other gigs. He was a favorite in Las Vegas, Mr. Cooke."

Minnie tabled her iron and lifted a creaseless garment for inspection. She frowned.

"One thing bother me. Day after he died, his wife came in for some of his things. She was a classy lady. I read about that, their getting married and having a baby. Why would that man keep on slipping around on the side with a famous model for a wife?"

"Habit. A habit as hard to break as heroin."

"Go on wi' you, Temple Barr. I don't believe that."

"But his wife was here? What time? She supposedly had just flown in from France."

"She was by about, oh, six o'clock in the afternoon. Before the joint really got jumping. Long, tall thing, my goodness! Not like you and me."

"What did she take from his dressing room?"

"Odds and ends. I moved out the costumes, but his makeup case was gone. That's all."