Carole Douglas - Cat in a Zebra Zoot Suit

By now the landlady was breathing down her neck, heavily.

“Gosh, Temple, you sure walk fast for a petite person. Don’t even think about an adult housing development going up on this land. What would they call it, Hootchy-Cootchy Condos?”

“Here it is. I’m reading the fine print. They have a pair of managers, Punch Adcock and Katt Zydeco.”

“Great. They’ve got the strip club biz covered from A to Z. The guy sounds like a thug or boxer and the woman a hooker.”

“Don’t sound so glum. ‘Zydecko’ is a Cajun dance. I bet ‘Katt’ was born just plain Katherine Smith and this is her performance name.”

“So I’m somehow relieved that one manager may be a stripper?”

“Remember way back when I solved the Stripper Killer case? Believe it or not, it’s a step forward that some women now own and manage strip clubs. Less exploitive that way.”

“Somehow I don’t see the redeeming social value.” Electra pointed to the big-type teaser line at the billboard’s top.

Temple read, “Coming soon…and we mean it literally.”

She groaned in disgust at the bawdy pun. “Cheesy.” No class.

The pitch went on: You know Lust ‘n’ Lace downtown as an multiplex playground of toys and joys, lingerie and latex, you name it, you get it. Now opening soon, Lust ‘n’ Lace Live on Stage!, Vegas’s latest and lustiest and de-lace-iest gentleman’s club. We’ll have packages to suit every type and size of party. VIP, Bachelor, Bachelorette, Birthday, Couples, Corporate or Divorce Party. Each party package includes limo transport, liquor, admission, etc.

It was that “etc.” that Temple suspected covered a mega-lot of sins and extra charges.

“What was the building before someone decided to make it a gentlemen’s club?” Temple asked Electra.

“I think it was a garage back in the forties. Driving to Vegas in the early days was hard on cars. Rumor was Bugsy Siegel parked his cars there.”

Temple sighed. “Another ‘surviving trace of Bugsy’ claim. If he did all he was purported to do, and been everywhere he has been purported to be around Vegas, he’d have needed to live to a hundred…not be down, out, and dead at forty-one.”

“True. He’s among the soft sculpture people in the Lovers’ pews.”

“Really? I never noticed him.”

“Well, he’s slumped down and missing an eye under his gangster fedora, but otherwise nattily dressed, as always.”

Temple winced. The blast of bullets that had ended Bugsy’s life had shot out one eye. “I didn’t know your artistic streak had such a macabre bent.”

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” Electra intoned mysteriously, making Temple laugh.

“I certainly don’t know what color or colors your hair will be from day to day,” Temple said. “Your rainbow hair was ahead of all the young pop stars.”

Electra grinned. “At my advanced age, being ahead in anything is a triumph.”

“So we’re looking at Bugsy’s garage, and what else?”

“I know the building was a nightclub back in the fifties when the mob was running the Strip hotels, then empty for a while, and then a big five-and-dime. Its last retail life was as an antique mall, with individual dealers having side-by-side booths.”

“Oh, I love those places. Any vintage clothing and jewelry sold there?”

“Down, girl. That’s long gone, and it was more used than vintage.”

“So the old place is returning to its nightlife stage.” Temple ambled closer to the gaudy billboard. The panoramic illustration portrayed a nightly naughty Strip show, with circus-tent poles and chorus girls wearing feathers and rhinestones and not much else. Showgirls had starred in the typical Vegas advertising image since Bugsy had pushed up roses in L.A.

Beside her, Electra sighed deeply. Louie stalked over until he sat right under the sign. In the next second he’d ratcheted up a rear wood support post to leap atop the three-inch-wide frame. He stretched a long forelimb down to paw a giant feathered headdress.

“I bet this outfit will carry a lot of ‘toys’ that might tickle Louie’s fancy,” Temple said, rolling her eyes.

“Sure. The traitor. Flash a feather at a cat and he doesn’t ask if it’s socially redeeming or not. Listen, Temple, Vegas was built on bad, and I don’t turn up my nose at other people’s preferences in anything. Seeing the size of this building, I know any PR makeover you might do for my miserable few acres will be hopeless in the face of that.”

“Picketing would only publicize the place,” Temple conceded.

They stood in glum silence, Temple was out of bright ideas as they viewed the sheer size of the project. It was bigger than Pornucopia and the two-story Adult Superstore south of Downtown. Once the exterior was wrapped in female body parts and neon, it would turn Electra’s wedding chapel into an also-ran.

“You ladies can’t wait for the Grand Opening, huh?” said a smirking voice behind them.

Temple turned faster than a whipsnake. “Crawford Buchanan? You’re repping this project?”

“No, I’m just reporting on it.” His smarmy grin widened as he looked Temple over like she was one of the sex objects on the billboard.

“Send that smirk to the Snark Hall of Fame, Crawford,” she said. “I can see why some of the neighboring businesses are ready to picket this humongous expansion of down-market enterprise.”

Buchanan, the local Napoleon of nasty gossip media, seemed oddly taller. In addition to the usual shoe lifts, his graying dark hair had now been gelled into an impressive peak atop his head.

That “look” would soon be the laughing stock of the 2010s, the way the 1980s brassy gold bathroom faucets were despised on Home and Garden Decor TV today. Temple couldn’t wait until actors and other media men unloaded the “anthill” hairdo so fashionable and so unbecoming. At least Matt wasn’t about to join the mob on that.

“Picketing,” Buchanan said, “would just stir up publicity for Lust ‘n’ Lace, as you noted, T. B.”

Temple also loathed his using her initials as a nickname. The implied intimacy made her skin crawl. At least he didn’t know her middle name was the also-loathed “Ursula”. Crawford could sure make hay with T.U.B.

“Seriously,” she told Buchanan, “who or what corporation is bankrolling this project? Isn’t it risky to put a Vegas Downtown-type business so far south?”

“Yeah, but there’s not much land left anywhere now. I heard some out-of-town owner is getting older and ready to unload investments. And Vegas has finally come back from the biggest real estate dive in the country.”

Telling Temple how much inside info he knew gave Crawford a superior glow. She just smiled politely and let him yammer on. “This will be a huge deal. The managers are a colorful couple.”

She eyed the billboard. “I’ll bet. Who are Punch Adcock and Katt Zydeco?”

“Each of them has run sex entertainment businesses, but they’re hooking up to expand into this game.”

“There are, what, thirty sex shops in Vegas, not even counting strip joints?” Temple noted.

“You’re not saying you can ever get enough sex, are you, T.B.?” The smirk was back.

“I’m saying no matter how much the economy has bounced back, a big investment in an off location like this is iffy. I find it…puzzling.”

By now Midnight Louie had tired of two-dimensional billboard feathers and had hopped down to stalk over and sniff Crawford’s pointy-toed ankle boots. His nose reared back as his furry black belly swayed to the sidewalk, stretching to display his three-foot length from nose to tail-tip.

Then Louie strolled over to twine himself around Temple’s ankles, offering a flash of fangs and a snakelike hiss.