Carole Douglas - Cat in a Red Hot Rage

Taco and Bell? Temple thought, cattily. Are we angling to be a fast-food commercial huckster as well as an over-the-hill Paris Hilton wannabe?

Kit came skittering back. "What a bad name that woman gives airhead starlets. You heard, I presume. Her voice has the projection quality of a buzz saw.”

Since both Kit and Temple had been blessed with arresting, slightly raspy voices to counterbalance their petite size, that was saying something.

“Hey, Kit. I just realized that I'm a dumb blonde now, just like Savannah. At least she might not recognize me.”

A shriek erupted at the front desk area. Savannah was prettily perched atop her hot pink luggage trolley as if she'd seen a mouse.

Actually, Temple saw, she'd just glimpsed Midnight Louie sniffing around the pink canvas pet carriers, which must contain Savannah's Persian cats, Yvette and Solange. The Crystal Phoenix was a favorite hangout of his.

“That cat is a criminal!" Savannah shrieked. "Arrest him. He wants to rape my babies.”

Bellmen came running over, but Louie had dashed under the cart. He wasn't there when the bellmen went on their knees to look (and possibly to look up Savannah's miniskirt). He'd pulled a disappearing act under everybody's noses. That made Temple think of Max. She began patting down her tote bag for the lump of her cell phone.

Meanwhile, Savannah opened the fancy pet carriers with maternal panic. Out pussyfooted the shaded golden Persian, Solange, wearing a red hat with purple flowers, and the shaded silver Persian, Yvette, with a red marabou boa around her neck and edging her purple cape and a red pillbox hat tied to her silver-platinum head.

Camera lights sparked as Red Hat Sisterhood ladies circled around, taking dozens of photos of Savannah and her red hat cats and pink-dyed pooches, who also wore pink hats, one a fedora (must be the boy, Taco) and one a beret (the putative girl, Bell). Or Belle, rather. Bellwhether? Temple stood unmoving, dazed by the possibilities.

But never underestimate an alley cat born and bred. Into the sea of red and purple dashed a flash of solid black. When it disappeared, Taco was whimpering and sitting on his tail, hatless as well as hairless.

Temple let her mouth drop open.

“Who was that masked cat?" Kit asked.

“All I can say is that Louie was forced to wear a flamingo-pink fedora in a cat food commercial when we were in New York last Christmas. I think Taco's semi-sombrero is dog meat."

“What a nuthouse. No wonder the second Mrs. Lark was killed with no one caught red-handed at the scene. With everybody wearing a red or pink hat, who's to say who did what to whom? It's like costuming; if it works, nobody can see past it."

“You're absolutely right, Kit. It's even possible the wrong victim died."

“Now that's a thought. That would clear Electra lickety-split."

“Nothing about crime solving is lickety-split.”

Even as they spoke a wave of cool neutral colors washedinto the tide of red and purple. Nicky's brothers, calming and charming the troubled waters.

Emilio bent and came up holding Taco and Belle, while Armando captured Yvette and Solange. Julio escorted Savannahto the elevators, color-coordinated pets in tow. Giuseppe and the second youngest, Ralph, were doing duty as community photographers. Their impeccable Italian tailored suit coats hung with a half-dozen instant cameras as they obligingly photographed groups of Red Hat ladies posing naughtily for the camera, knees cocked and hands on generous hips. In Italy, women of substance were considered sexy, so Red Hat lady and Fontana brother had met their match.

“Ridiculous," Kit sniffed, no doubt worrying about Aldo amid all these happy hussies. "Women my age and older preening like fading chorus girls in front of the entire world.”

A solo Fontana brother waltzed up to Temple; no lavish, wide-brimmed hat could fool a fine Italian eye. Besides, he'd inadvertently spent some recent time around her, so she recognized him immediately.

“Our difficult guest," Aldo told her, "is assured that Midnight Louise will no longer trouble her purse pooches. Any ideas how I can indeed ensure that?"

“Of course!" Temple said. "The Crystal Phoenix is Midnight Louise's beat now, not Louie's. Funny, even I took that black speedball for Louie. He was framed!”

Mixing up the two black cats also underlined Kit's point that everybody in the Red Hat Sisterhood was inadvertently in disguise.

Aldo had other things on his mind than cats and hats.

“Where, my lovely MissTemple, is your delightful aunt? I seem to have lost her in this parade of feminine fripperies. Never have I seen so many bright, and large, hats.”

Kit, hidden by her huge pink brim, turned sheepishly to lift her face and also admit her membership in the silly sisterhood.

“ Bellissima! Is this you under that charming chapeau? Such a blazing pink is certainly your color."

“Hot pink," Temple corrected him.

Aldo's dark eyes grew mock-rebuking. "I did not wish to compromise your adorable relative's reputation in a public place, but it is indeed a very . . . hot . . . pink." On the last word he touched his forefinger to Kit's lips.

Well, Temple thought, she'd swoon right there and toodignified-to-preen Kit was blushing the same color as her hat. It was nice to know the older woman was still capable of blushing, although a dreadful facial flush called rosacea was another thing Kit had mentioned the aging belle had to fight.

“Go and have a Pink Lady with Aldo, Kit, in the Crystal Bar. I'll snoop around here and head back to the Circle Ritz once I can pry Electra from her volunteer post.”

Actually, Kit looked terribly smart in her hat as she ambled away. She didn't walk off "into the sunset" with Aldo, because, thanks to the hat, she was the sunset.

Temple spared a couple minutes to take in the scene.

It looked as if the giant blown-glass blossoms from the huge Chihuly chandelier at the Bellagio had drifted down to cover every female head in sight.

If the advance guard of six hundred Red Hat Sisterhood members could command such a presence in a Las Vegas hotel lobby, then the incoming five thousand should really take over the old town. The press was sure to giggle at this overblown convention of aging women refusing to be invisible, but Temple felt a sinister chill.

It reminded her of the Father Brown mysteries (which she'd quietly started reading a year or so ago in honor of meeting an ex-Catholic priest). Luckily, the modest, often-overlooked British priest-detective (no Red Hat candidate in any context, he) bore not the slightest resemblance to a certain modem American ex-priest, Matt. Her Matt. That thought felt so right.

But the Father Brown stories were philosophical, even metaphysical and often metaphorical. She remembered one about "where would you hide a leaf?" The answer was "in a forest," only, in the story, the leaf was a murdered body and the forest was a battlefield.

The Crystal Phoenix was a different kind of battlefield now, against aging, not death itself. But the issues and motives could be as desperate. Every woman attending the convention hadlived long enough to have a story, to be the heroine or villain of one. Maybe it was all jovial girly celebration, but loss and heartbreak had to be lurking in the background.

And Temple was one who didn't believe that murder had a gender, despite all the dead lovelies on the crime-show autopsy tables.

Women could kill as well as die, and she knew her bubbly landlady had firmly landed in the unpleasant police category labeled "under suspicion.”

Chapter 9

No Kitting

I have decided to take a small detour from the lobby, since my natural territorial urges have caused a stir.