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

"That early?" Kit complained.

"The guys want to be mingling with the conventioneers by ten a.m. That builds audience applause for the actual competition and that influences our distinguished panel of judges. Can I count on your claps, ladies?"

"Absolutely," Kit boomed in her foggiest voice, "a standing ovation."

With a farewell crinkle of his sloe eyes, Cheyenne retreated through the engulfing greenery as lithely as a snake one might find in Eden.

"I think he's sweet on you," Kit said.

"No . .. I'm ages older. I mean, most of these guys are only twenty-two or something."

"Men reach their sexual peak at eighteen."

"You could have fooled me. They hardly seem old enough to enter into a mature relationship until the mid-twenties."

"Who's talking maturity?"

"I guess I'm behind the times," Temple admitted. "What do you think of these male cover-model contests?"

Kit coughed and gulped the last of her Gibson, then clapped a fanned hand to her throat. "Really?

Outside of ogling opportunity? Grounds for murder. Outrageous exploitation--and not of the boyos onstage. We women write the books, read the books, yet these cover boys get all the publicity and big-dollar endorsements. When was the last time you saw a mere romance author on a TV talk show or a television commercial? Yet there is Fabio, the Studmuffin of Scent, spritzing away like Schwarzenegger posing as a madly overgrown chef with his "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter" spray that wouldn't melt in his fine Italian mouth. Then there's his overblown book contract that some unsung woman is penning for low dough and no glory. Maybe women should have equal ogling opportunity with men, but the fact is that we're amateurs at it, and we get damn little out of it. Even when the tables are turned, we come out on the short end of the stick economically. That said"-- Kit leaned closer, a drift of smoky breath wafting toward Temple; she lowered her voice to true Tallulah range--"I'd take that one home for Christmas any day of the year, wouldn't you?"

"Ummm, pass. His health pedigree strikes me as risky. Besides, I distrust these guys on principle.

There's something smarmy about a man who makes his living off women. I believe they used to call them gigolos in your day."

"Oooh. Nasty little snapper, aren't you, niece?"

"I suppose," Temple added, "you are dying to go to that model contest rehearsal at the crack of dawn tomorrow."

" Mais oui, cherie. "

"Mom would be shocked to know that you turned out to be a dirty middle-aged woman."

"Your mother would be shocked if I had turned out a saint, so why give her the satisfaction? This boy-toy thing is such a fabulous sideshow, anyway. What's the harm in sneaking a preview peek? Perhaps it will inspire you to enter the Love's Leading Amateur contest."

Temple nodded sourly. "Sometimes I do indeed feel the champion of the world in that arena."

"I can't stay out too late," Electra warned when Temple returned to their room and suggested an afternoon outing to the new MGM Grand. "My two-day writing seminar starts bright and early at ten a.m. tomorrow."

"You'll be up even earlier if you join Aunt Kit and me in the cover-model pageant run-through.

Cheyenne especially invited me."

"Ooh, Cheyenne. I remember that sexy young man from the strippers' contest. He'd be terrific on Indian romance covers."

"Kit said that romance writers resent male cover models getting all the attention, instead of the authors and books."

"Maybe the publishers have overdone the hunk appeal, but as a reader, I'm not so much offended as bemused."

"Cover hunks. The expression suggests narcissistic, oily characters living off women."

"Equal opportunity, dear. Picture-perfect girls have been doing that for years with men. At least someone is bothering to court our good opinion. When you reach my age and width that counts for a lot. Now, about this outing today with your long-lost aunt--"

"It'll be fun for Kit and us to check out the MGM Grand Wizard of Oz display and the theme park out back. And don't worry, Kit isn't like an aunt at all; you'll love her. I haven't seen her in years. I'm amazed she recognized me. Best of all, she's an author who can give you tips for your contest entry."

"I don't recall reading anything by a Kit--"

"Not her pen name. That's Sulah Savage."

"No!"

"Yes."

"Not the author of Quicksilver Moon ?"

"Don't ask me."

"Sulah Savage is one of my favorite authors! I'd go through the buffet line at the Bucket O' Blood to spend some time with her. Why didn't you say so in the first place?"

"I didn't know how notorious she was."

"Well, shake a shoe, hon. I can't speak for you, but I'm ready. We're off to see the Wizard."

Chapter 8

Deep Waters

Lap-swimming was the most relentlessly routine discipline in the physical fitness lexicon.

And yet, Matt often thought while beating his way back and forth through the choppy chlorinated water, the combination of robotic motion and buoyant mental freedom produced a body/mind synergy with virtual reality overtones.

A swimmer became his own iron lung; breathing became a measured necessity rather than a forgotten art. While every muscle fought to keep the body afloat on its liquid treadmill, the mind made unauthorized excursions to the lower depths. Sometimes, while swimming in some pristine, heavenly blue pool, Matt's imagination plummeted to a childhood level of primal fear. He would recall an ancient episode from a Flash Gordon film serial. The-evilemperor-Ming from the planet Mongo, the guy with the Snow-White stepmother upstanding collar, had Flash tossed into a huge water tank . . . with a giant octopus.

Matt's glancing glimpses of sun-dappled water shadows below would suddenly sprout lurking tentacles where there were only pool-grooming hoses or the shadow of a palm blade. Or he would conjure the slice of a shark fin, thanks to more recent Spielberg-ian memories.

Today Matt saw or sensed no monsters of the deep, except the thrashing confusion in his own psyche. Every stroke accentuated the I-am-a-camera viewpoint. The airy, dry world above the Circle Ritz pool became a series of rapid intercuts: sky, palm tree, building edge, ruffle of agitated surface water, deeper water sliced by his body like a gelatinous aquamarine by a gemologist's diamond-edged blade.

Back and forth, his every motion was both ultimate effort and easy birdlike glide through an alien element. Sun. Sky. Spray. Kicking, carving. Thinking without thinking about it. Meeting monsters of the id and ego in the vasty depths. Glimpsing Leviathan in a teacup, Neptune in the iris of a chlorinated eye.

Matt touched warm concrete, pushed away, turned, then churned back the length of the modest pool in eight easy strokes of utter effort.

Sky. Sun. Shadow.

Plough the water into forever-vanishing furrows.

Sun. Sky. Shadow.

Shadow?

Matt reversed himself like a motor, instantly upright, treading water, his face and breath caught between warring elements. His eyelashes strained a liquid veil from his waterlogged vision.

The new silhouette of a bush beside the pool turned into a squatting man, knees jackknifed, elbows akimbo. Primitive man adapted such postures easily; over civilized man didn't have the joints or the humility for it.

Matt squinted into the corona of sunlight surrounding the figure. The black-by-contrast center resolved into lurid focus: Max Kinsella's protective coloring, a Hawaiian shirt.

Matt's squint became a frown. He felt like a grunt surprised by a Viet Cong during R&R.

"Something I can do for you?" he asked, implying that was the last thing he was inclined to do.

"Talk."

Matt grabbed the pool's thick curved lip, sank, gained buoyancy and pushed himself out of the water. He dripped like sunken treasure for a few silent moments.