Douglas, Nelson - Midnight Louie 05-Cat in a Diamond Dazzle

"Please, less gory imagery. Now I do freelance PR around town. In fact, I just landed this hotel, which is doing a total makeover."

"Whatever brought an artless Minnesota babe-in-the-North-Woods to Vegas?"

Temple winced. "A traveling magician named Max."

"A magician. Another theatrical link. Temple, you were obviously born to trod the boards."

"What about you? Didn't you leave home at some absurdly young age to act in New York?"

"Yes. One tends to do that sort of thing at absurdly young ages."

"And?"

"I did act in New York, and did a lot of other things in New York. Couldn't model, too short. So I sold perfume at Saks, and worked for an answering service and dog-walked, acting every now and again. And then, one day almost twenty years ago, I discovered Sulah."

"Youve been publishing novels for twenty years and the family never knew?"

"The family never wanted to know. You know them. Rooted in Midwestern conservatism. I could never stand a life of Thou Shalt Nots. Thou shalt not move more than a mile from thy birth home. Thou shalt not ever leave the first job or husband thou hast. Thou shalt not express thyself. Thou shalt not smoke."

She made a face and stubbed out her cigarette in the tiny crystal phoenix-shaped ashtray provided.

The Phoenix's smoking accoutrements seemed elegant even in this age of enforced social responsibility.

"Aunt... what do I call you?"

"Kit. Just Kit. Please. I never had any children and I'm not about to start now. Thank God you're well past the age of consent-- aren't you?" When Temple nodded, she went on. "My middle name's Katherine, and I always liked Christopher Marlowe's plays. People have been calling me Kit for thirty years."

"But your cards home--"

"--were signed Ursula. I know. Thou shalt not change thy given name, either. Why did Sister Sarah ever give you the progressive first name of Temple, anyway? I remember Mom and Dad were speechless about it."

"Maybe it was her one tiny rebellion. I was her last chance, after all."

"And look at your brothers and sister: Cindy, John, Bob and Larry. You must have been her menopause baby."

"No, I'm sure not." Temple answered with a tinge of horror. Surely her mother had not been that old when she was born, had she? Then she realized that her mother must be almost seventy.

"Neutral names are all the rage now," Kit said contemplatively. "Who can tell whether a stockbroker named Tyler or Morgan is a boy or a girl? Maybe that's good. Maybe it'll be easier for women to get the jobs they want. Look at the young woman named Shannon who was accidentally accepted at The Citadel, a bastion of male exclusivity, otherwise known as a bastardy. They're still kicking up over it."

"Hmm," said Temple, who hadn't found her ambiguous name any particular advantage in the struggle for survival. The name Shannon had also reminded her of the morning's incident. "Are all romance writers as awful as that Little woman?"

"Shannon Large, you mean? No, but the media love to accent the ridiculous in this genre.

Unfortunately, we used to have several candidates for that crown in the early days, and a few such dinosaurs survive. Romance Queens of the genus Tyrannosaurus Regina. But most romance writers are as everyday as Hamburger Helper: hard-working women--and a few brave men--who labor in obscurity to earn five figures, all of them with no more personal pizzazz or prima donna temperament than a sponge mop. I, of course, am not one of them."

Kit flicked an errant tobacco flake off her tongue with such panache that Temple regarded the gesture as a hallmark of breeding rather than evidence of the filthy habit that it was.

"Are you thinking of writing romances?" her aunt asked.

"No! But Electra might be."

"Well, tell your friend to talk to me if she wants any advice from the published."

"Did your previous remark mean that you earn more than five figures?"

"Not at first."

"But now?"

Kit nodded and sipped her Gibson as demurely as a cat lapping up tap water. "It's not been easy.

Most romance writers have been cruelly exploited for years--don't laugh, I'm not dramatizing, although I admit that I do have tendencies."

"But why romances?"

"Because they are Theatre, my dear! Action, Adventure, Passion. Nobody mounts Marlowe and Webster anymore. Poor old Shakespeare is always being updated until we have punk-rock Romeos and Juliet's, Julius Caesar is a Mafia don and The Tempest is done as a Star Trek episode, with Caliban a Klingon. Historical romances offer me sweep, swash and buckle, tragic separations and ecstatic reunions, villains grand enough to gnaw the scenery with their pointed fangs and forked tongues, language that flows as it was wont in previous centuries, and only clicks and stutters like a banal telegram in more modern works. It has imagination! Optimism! Happy endings--after much travail and torment, of course. It is just like Real Life, if you think about it."

Around them, patrons burst into polite applause. Kit inclined her mahogany-red head and lit another cigarette. She would make a magnificent Madwoman of Chaillot, Temple thought, instantly revising her thought. Kit was a bit young for the part, yet Girau-doux's play was one of those lovely exercises in language so seldom performed anymore. No wonder her aunt wrote instead of acted.

"Miss Barr?"

The voice was masculine, ever sweet and low, and came from above. Had Gabriel descended?

Temple glanced up to find a dramatically dark, long-haired man in a shirt that laced up the front looking down at her.

Obviously a heartbreaker, but how the chromium picolinate did he know her? Kit's raised eyebrows across the table were asking the same question after reaching a similar conclusion.

The soft-spoken deference in his voice and stance oozed unconscious, but nonetheless effective charm. She knew him from somewhere . ..

"Cheyenne," he reminded her with a shy (or possibly sensual) smile.

Oh, yes. Cheyenne. One of the male strippers in the Rhinestone G-strip competition. He of the intriguingly ambiguous (or was that ambidexterous?) sexual preference and ethnic origin.

"Are you competing here?" she asked in confusion.

He nodded. "A lot more rewarding than the last contest you saw me in. Fabio has made millions in endorsements, and this wannabe Fabrizio hopes to cash in on the same market. I figure it's time for a different type."

Temple hated to tell him that brunettes always came in sec-ond to blonds of either sex. Redheads were even worse off, despite the current rage for red on Hollywood actress' heads.

Kit tipped her head and showed lazy cat-slit eyes. "Fabio was the first; he'll make the most."

Cheyenne smiled his ever-appreciative smile. "Still plenty left for the rest of us. I've just come back from some European modeling gigs--London, Oslo, Amsterdam, Berlin, Rome. In fact--"

His hot fudge gaze slid like brunette lava over Temple's features, one by one. But this time another, less intimate message seemed to be behind it. Something as icy as anxiety.

"Maybe we could get together this evening for a few minutes, Miss Barr. I have a big deal brewing. It won't be announced for a couple of days, but..." he laughed disarmingly. "I might need a publicist, or at least some friendly advice. I could buy you a drink."

Temple weighed the flattery of a tete-a-tete with one of Love's Leading Lotharios against her lust for the Midnight Louie shoes. Feet won, hands down.

"Thanks, but I've got a previous engagement tonight. Anytime later on during the convention, though."

Did honest disappointment fleet across that lean, sculpted face? Temple's pulses throbbed with a frisson of regret.

"Later will have to do, then. Thanks." Cheyenne's wry smile broadened to public dimensions as his gaze flitted between them. "Both of you ladies are welcome to drop in on our pageant rehearsal in the Peacock Theater tomorrow morning. My act has a surprise built in that'll knock everybody dead. Eight o'clock."