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

"A big mean, screamin' machine," Electra intoned with fond and unfaded memory. "One thousand cee-cees of silver-streak 'cycle."

"I don't even know what a 'cee-cee' is. Max's vintage British motorcycle," Temple translated for Kit's benefit. "Electra got it as a downpayment on our condo. She used it in her gig as a senior citizen stripper when I was doing PR for the stripper contest."

Kit blinked. "Senior citizen strippers? I knew Las Vegas had a loyal elderly clientele, but--"

"It's a long story," Temple said, "and rather rowdy."

Kit gave up for the moment to look around. "Pretty ordinary theater and house, without the turquoise and violet velvet curtains. So, What if you hadn't had Cheyenne's name to drop? Would we still be persona grata?"

"Sure." Temple grinned. "I work for the Crystal Phoenix now, so I could always use my position here."

"Hey!" came a deep booming shout from the back of the house.

"Yeah!" came its cousin.

"Ta-rah-rah boom-de-ay," came a lusty male chorus of at least six.

Temple turned, looked, cringed and tried to shrink in her seat.

"Temple's back, and guess who's got her?"

The bearers of this untimely news came charging down the center aisle en masse, or so it sounded. Temple couldn't bear to look, but she could smell them at fifty paces: a phalanx of English and Russian Leather intermixed with a soupcon of Brut.

Temple peered between her fanned fingers, trying for a body count. To her best estimate, she was viewing the complete Fontana, Inc. All nine brothers--except Nicky, who didn't travel in packs--

at once. Nicky, owner of the Crystal Phoenix and husband to hotel manager Van von Rhine, was the White Sheep of a large family more noted for its wool of blacker hue. The other brothers were bachelors--attractive, genially oblivious to all but the finer vices in life (like gats, gambling and gams) and prone to preen. But now their image had taken a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn.

Gone were the Italian ice-cream suits; also gone was the discreet bulge of Beretta here and there. No, now it was skin-tight designer jeans and bulging muscle shirts. Ralph not only had a pony tail, but it wasn't one anymore. Instead, his unbound hair, moussed into a tangle from a figure on a Cretan frieze, dusted his shoulders. The presence of so many feral Mediterranean males made Temple feel like an extra on the set of "West Side Story."

"These guys look like they should be on Hesketh vampires," Kit commented, not without appreciation. "Friends of yours?"

"Business associates." Temple smiled gamely up at the assembly. "What are you fellows doing here?" she asked before they could ask her. "Security detail?"

"Naw," said one, "we're in the Hunky Hero contest."

"Is there a group category?"

"Nope," said another. "We compete separately, but we make our public appearances all together, if that makes sense."

"Yeah, if the six Goat Guys from Elbow Grease, Indiana, can rack up modeling contracts, we figure the nine Fontana Fellows from Las Vegas, Nevada, can do twice as good."

"Who are 'the Goat Guys'?" Electra asked.

"Sextuplet bodybuilders from Indiana," Aldo--or maybe Armando--said disdainfully. "Genuine hayseeds. They raise fainting goats; the kind that up and fall down when they hear a loud noise.

That's probably what makes them so good at holding up all those swooning women on romance bookcovers. Practice."

Rico frowned in disagreement. "The way I heard it, they raised pygmy and dwarf goats, for little people, I guess. You know, those hairy suckers with the pig's feet and devil horns."

"Forget the details," Julio--or maybe Giuseppe, sometimes known as Pepe--said. "The bottom line is that the Goat Guys made it into the big time at last year's Incredible Hunk competition. They went straight from the slop pail to the media trough. Big-time modeling, acting, even recording contracts."

"Do you do any of that?" Kit asked.

"Raise goats? Hell, no."

"Model, act and record," she specified.

"Oh, that." Ralph was blase as he gave his locks a finger-fluff. "Any fool can do that stuff. You just gotta have the look. We're not the bodybuilder type, but we have other advantages."

"Yes," Electra and Kit agreed a bit too quickly for credibility's sake.

"So is there a talent segment?" Temple wanted to know. She really wanted to know.

"Yeah."

"There is?"

Ernesto--or possibly Eduardo--nodded soberly. "Yeah. Wearing clothes."

"And not wearing clothes," Emilio put in.

"Actually, the pageant is mostly about changing clothes," Ralph said eagerly. "First we all come on in clothes. Next we don't wear much clothes; then more clothes; then less clothes; then we all come back out in clothes and wait to see who gets to wear no clothes on a book cover."

"It's a big strain, let me tell you," Julio complained, "keeping track of all those costumes and what to take off and put on. Plus, they give us no time flat."

"And less room."

"And no private dressing rooms. The smell is like the locker rooms of the Rams after a playoff."

"But we don't mind personal hardship if it pays off big," Rico added with a grin.

"Doesn't it bother you to parade around onstage undressed?" Temple wondered. "What happened to the totally tailored Fontana brothers?"

"Fame."

"Fortune."

"An audience of adoring babes."

"But I do kinda feel a little naked sometimes," Ralph said with a doubtful frown.

"You do?" the amazed other brothers asked as one.

"Yeah." Ralph looked down and seemed, for a moment, as sheepish as one would imagine a Goat Guy would look if his fainting goat refused to swoon. "I kinda miss my Beretta."

"Ahh!" His siblings pounded him consolingly on the back, in the time-honored gesture of male sympathy. "You can't pursue a career in the arts without some sacrifices," Armando consoled him grandly.

Ralph nodded, and then brightened. "On the other hand, I can add to my earring collection.

Earrings are really hot among the contestants."

"We gotta go," Aldo urged. "Hit the backstage before we miss our cueball."

"Cue," Temple and Kit corrected in tandem.

"Wait'll you see us in our competition getups," Pepe bragged. "This is even better than our surprise appearance in the Gridiron show."

"I'm sure," Temple said, not at all sure that the world was ready for an intentional Fontana Brothers stage appearance.

"Tally ho!" said one.

"One for the money," said another.

"Two for the show."

"Three to get Freddy--"

"And four to go!"

They were off like Italian greyhounds, sleek, single-minded and born to win.

"Whew." Kit was suitably dazed. "Who was the chorus line from 'Guys and Dolls'?"

"The hotel owner's brothers, all nine of them."

"For a girl with romantic troubles, you certainly know a lot of eligible males; most, unfortunately, are on the young side."

"The Fontana brothers are bachelors, all right, but they're about as eligible as gigolos."

"Such darling brothers," Electra put in. "Look at Ralph's charmingly boyish attachment to his Bearetta. I had no idea young men nowadays were into stuffed animals. I'm sure they'll grow up and settle down in time. Do you think these Goat Guys will show up this year? Swashbuckling sextuplets.

They sound absolutely fascinating."

Temple shook her head without comment. She knew she had risen too early this morning for a person in a fragile emotional state.

"There she is," sang out another male voice, a baritone mimicking the Miss America theme song.

Temple stiffened. Apparently the world had nothing better to do this morning than to draw attention to her.

"Our ideeeeeal," the singer finished in perfect pitch, arriving beside their row of seats with a flourish. "Show us the tootsies," he ordered Temple. "What are our little tiny toes wearing today?"