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

Maybe she regretted her strong position, as Kit had suggested.

Temple glanced to her left, nearly jumping to see the immense purple mountain of Shannon Little capped by a tilted straw hat with several snowy white feathers, from beneath which the romance doyenne icily glared down at Temple. A glass plate of hors d'oeuvres in her lap was as mountainously heaped as her person. But Shannon kept silent because she was devouring the goodies with mechanical efficiency, too-tight rings glittering as her fingers moved delicately to and from her mouth.

Though she had to admit that Shannon Little was a Purple Presence, Temple found the other authors disappointingly ordinary. Misty Meadows, seen close up, was one of those monotoned women from a sixties youth who wore no makeup. They all looked as if a wire brush had scrubbed their faces of all vivacity, a look that made the drama of Misty Meadows's hip-length hair seem like a forgotten adolescent cause without a rebel to wear it.

Sharon Rose's pink floral blouse and A-line skirt would have caused Hester Polyester to drool with envy. Her housewive's bubble-perm was as crisp as her apparel, and she had accessorized the casual outfit with a heavy gold necklace and earrings dripping diamond chips. All her taste was obviously concentrated on her plate, which was modestly filled with one of everything on the trays. Mary Ann Trenarry, a well-preserved woman well into her sixties, wore an exquisitely tailored coral silk suit with a single strand of pearls.

Only one woman in the room qualified as what Temple would call a glamour girl. Ravenna Rivers, likely a pseudonym. The thirty-something (and-wouldn't-;you-like-to-know-exactly what?) woman perched on a Sheraton side chair, her short, narrow black skirt showing lots of expertly crossed, exposed and hosed legs ending in red Manolo Blahnik heels. A white linen jacket vulgarized her aggressively tanned skin, and its vee neckline dipped way below the cocktail-hour zone.

Unbelievably profuse, elbow-length blonde tendrils framed an angular face made up to Joan Collins standards. Temple expected to hear the theme-music of some late-night soap opera playing "Enter the Vixen."

Temple didn't need a convenient musical cue to recall that Ravenna Rivers was rumored to have cozied up with the Homestead Man on her recent book tour. Apparently, this urban she-devil named Ravenna Rivers wrote frontier historical romances full of home fires and patchwork quilts, would wonders never cease?

"How do you authors vote on the cover man question?" Temple began.

"My position is plain." Mary Ann Trenarry set her glass of club soda on a coaster and sat forward.

"I think the focus on male cover models distracts the public, and the publicity machine, from our books. Romance novels, when written by women--"

"Good point!" Misty Meadows interrupted, bouncing on her chair like a cheerleader. "Decades ago when books like ours were written by men like Thomas B. Costain, they were 'historical novels'

and considered serious fiction."

"Costain never wrote novels like ours," Shannon Little interrupted imperiously, so inflamed that she temporarily returned a bacon-wrapped chestnut to her plate. "Women put the sex in historical novels."

"What about Frank Yerby?" Misty Meadows asked with raised eyebrows.

The women rolled their eyes.

"Please, you're talking pulp fiction," said Mary Ann Trenarry. "As I was saying, when women revived the historical novel in the seventies, with the new wrinkle of a female point of view--and, admittedly, something really new, explicit sexual frankness--their books were classed as trash. The urge to merge in full color and detail was a sociological reaction to women becoming liberated enough to reclaim their own sexuality. The result was what always happens to what women do: the books were belittled and only the sexual content attracted attention. Ravenna, who else besides women romance writers are keeping the Western novel tradition alive in these days when Louis Lamour is that last big-name male Western writer, and he's dead?"

Ravenna Rivers uncrossed her knees high on the thigh. Then she recrossed them, angling them smartly in the opposite direction. Imagine that, Temple thought enviously, ambidextrous crossed legs!

No plate occupied Ravenna Rivers lap, what little there was of it, but a lowball glass on the table beside her brimmed with straight Scotch, the color ale-dark.

"That's true. The Western romance keeps frontier stories alive. But this whole debate is so boring; what sells, sells, and that's why romance novels are here, why we are here now, why cover hunks are hot." Having said her piece, she took a swig of her Scotch.

Temple had been swiftly scanning the press-kit materials during the debate.

"Men certainly are a much more visible presence on covers," she said, holding up a handful of paperback book cover flats, over half of them featuring a bare-chested man, period. "Isn't this Cheyenne, the one who was killed?"

Temple could have been holding up the queen of spades, the way all eyes riveted to the cover in question.

"That's him," Misty Meadows agreed. "He was getting lots of work. Isn't he on your latest, too, Sharon?"

"Well, my books don't have semi-naked hunks on the cover," she said primly, "because I bother to insist that my publishers do them differently. My newest will have an embossed white tablecloth lace front cover, with a step-back painting of a charming picnic scene. I supervised the cover shoot myself in New York. I always do, so no lapses in taste occur. Cheyenne was quite handsome in a plaid shirt and jeans, and the heroine wore dimity. Of course, he did fashion work as well lately."

"Oh, yes." Ravenna smiled significantly. "Cheyenne was exceedingly versatile. He could do country or pop. He and Fabrizio made Vanity Fair at the Milan design expo, when they both wore aluminum-riveted space-age silver jeans. It's still the same old story, ladies. Skin sells. Sex sells.

You're fooling yourselves if you think anything different."

An unhappy silence ensued, during which Ravenna Rivers worked on her Scotch and Temple hunted for a question she wanted answered.

A knock at the door made them freeze like stalked rabbits.

Electra entered. "Ready for more?"

And in came carts of finger sandwiches, salad, fruits and pastries, wheeled by various brothers Fontana, all clad in the hunk uniform: tight blue jeans and form-fitting shirts with a closing problem.

And all in author-charming public relations mode.

"Here comes the champagne, ladies," sang out Rico, pouring and passing glasses as fast as he could. "Compliments of Fontana, Inc."

Temple put away her press kits, and tabled her curiosity with them. She would get nothing more out of these authors now. But she had two curious crumbs to consider. Ravenna Rivers obviously had known Cheyenne very well, as she did many cover models, and almost every author present had their names across a book cover featuring the dead man, even Sharon Rose, who publicly disdained the cover-hunk craze.

"Champagne, miss?" Rico asked, bowing and pretending to not know her. He was undercover, too, you know.

She took the stem in her hand and sipped.

Rico winked.

Chapter 29

Four Queens Get the Boot

"Hi!" Temple stuck her nose into the Four Queens' dressing room.

She wasn't visiting the downtown hotel of that name, but rather the Crystal Phoenix's quartet of showgirls known by the same name.

Darcy, Midge, Jo and Trish were all present that evening in various states of dress and undress, depending on how you viewed the' process of preparing for a Las Vegas revue.

"Can I ask you guys a question?" she continued.

Calling the quartet "guys" was akin to calling Eskimos Fiji Islanders, but none of the four showgirls took offense. All were too busy taking off what few articles of clothing remained on them.