Unknown - Cat_In_A_Hot_Pink_Pursuit

“What are your reasons?” Honey asked as if beeswax wouldn’t melt in her mouth.

“Needed to get away from the family, such as they are.” Temple snapped her gum for emphasis. “My brothers’ bike club was keeping me up nights.”

“You’re brother’s a biker?” Blanca asked with a curdled expression.

“Brothers. Plural. I have … six, I think. Yeah. You ever heard of the Demon Dozen?”

“No.”

“Why’d they let you in here?” Ashlee made no secret of the fact that this was a comment on the bad taste of the producers, not merely a question.

“That’s a no-brainer. I’m the only one here who isn’t a Paris Hilton clone. Thin and dumb is getting old.”

“Would you please stop chewing that tacky gum!” Blanca said.

“If it weren’t tacky, it wouldn’t be gum, sis. Can’t stop. It’s my weight-control secret.”

“Gum?”

“Yeah.” Temple blew another big pink bubble, then reeled it back into her mouth. “Burns calories. The longer you chew it, the more you lose.” Now that she had their rapt attention, it was time for a kicker, the more ridiculous the better. “And if it’s green tea gum—very rare, that stuff—you’ll lose a pound a day.”

“Really?” Amber edged near, her lips almost quivering to acquire a wad of green tea bubble gum.

Temple was seriously wondering how she could “manufacture” such a thing.

“All right, girls. Ready to rock-and-roll on the exercise mats?”

They all turned to regard the Barbie doll in bright pink spandex yoga pants and top. “I’m Brandy, y’alls personaltrainer, and an hour a day keeps the cellulite away. We’ll be working out by the heart-shaped pool. Won’t that be inspiring? Follow me.”

Silver was both preening and frowning. “Didn’t Jayne Mansfield have a heart-shaped pool? She was the best blonde bimbo since Marilyn.”

“She had a heart,” Temple said, “but not a head.”

Only ex-newsies would remember the car accident that had decapitated the actress in nineteen-something ancient. The newspapers and TV stations always like to recall the date of anything grisly once a decade or so and call it an anniversary mention. That was one reason Temple had left the news biz for the PR biz. Grisly did not go over big in PR. Except, somehow, it seemed, on accounts she handled… .

The crew of identically clad contestants, joined by the Little Sisters from the breakfast room, marched behind Brandy out to the welcome sunlight of the house’s expansive grounds.

What a sight to behold.

Twenty-eight hot pink yoga mats surrounded the heart-shaped swimming pool, its gunite walls painted pink for the occasion.

The only thing that marred the pink perfection of the scene was the whipped cream letters lying like fluffy clouds across every mat, spelling out …

Everyone else stopped cold in the hot Las Vegas sun, frowning into their hot pink sweat bands, but Temple/Xoe just had to step forward and count: Die, you damn heartless bitches!

Twenty-eight letters exactly, counting the punctuation marks. Twenty-eight little candidates all in a row. Someone was a perfectionist.

Chapter 20

Whipped Scream

You have not lived until you have seen the Las Vegas crime scene investigation folks (now famed on TV) photographing twenty-eight hot-pink yoga mats with whipped cream pooling on them in the sun.

By the time that they, and I, have been alerted and are on the scene, the colorful language, laid out one letter and/or punctuation mark to a mat, has melted enough that the b in “bitches” looks more like a sideways w. The authorities have to take the witnesses’ word for it as to the original intention.

I, however, have to take no one’s word, and never do. That is why I am such an ace detective. I am incorruptible. I must admit, though, that the whipped cream was a temptation too yummy to leave untasted. I was alone on the scene then. My Miss Temple, aka Xoe Chloe for the nonce, had been shepherded indoors toawait the police, along with everybody else. Human, that is. Or what passes for it on reality TV. The show security staff, i.e., bronzed gods in loin cloths, were arrayed along the doors to the pool area, facing inside to keep twenty-eight agitated candidates and assorted staff members from messing up the scene of the culinary crime.

So I was free to explore on my own.

The first thing my shameless taste test discovered was that the whipped cream was not even beaten. It was, in fact, a particularly soapy shaving cream, one that offered a full-bodied texture and a risqué and amusing hint of mint.

Not my vintage, thank you. And I thank Bast that I am not required to shave. It would be a full-time job. My unstunted white whiskers—vibrissae to the cognoscenti at the vet’s office—were double-dipped in fluffy white after my explorations, so I paused under a bush to wash off the evidence.

Yuck! No wonder people wash out the mouths of their sassy kits with soap. I would not even refer to a female dog by the proper term after a close encounter with this stuff.

I am clean-shaven as far as my kind is concerned but fighting residual nausea when I notice that a couple of curious cats have whiskered in on my action. Before I can throw my weight around and order them away, I realize that both are of Persian extraction, and one is of the sublime shade of platinum blonde known as “shaded silver.”

I drop my laundry mitt and stand at attention with every muscle in my body.

Although the sight of her personalized carrier told me the Divine Yvette would be on the premises, her personal presence is still a potent form of shock and awe. Not to mention also encountering her kittykin, for the fulsome blonde of blended apricot, gold, and cream shades is her shaded golden sister, the Sweet Solange.

No one told me the Shaded Sisters were part of the deal.

I leap out from my place of concealment but naturally must play the brusque (though noble) crime scene guardian.

“You there!” I cry as they are about to dip their dark little tootsies in the c of the word formerly known as “bitches.”

“Desist.”

Aqua-green and moss-green eyes circled in black mascara regard me with calm surprise and no hint of obedience.

Seeing the pair of them side by side is the human parallel of viewing a Jaguar XKE next to a Lamborghini. Where is a guy to look first?

I should mention one of the most unusual and charming aspects of the shaded Persian breed. Pale as their silver and golden coats may be, the leather on their persons—nose, eye surrounds, pads—is black, as are the hairs on the bottoms of their feet, which is why I call them “soot foots.” Purely to myself, you can imagine. No Persian worth her pedigree would answer to such a lowly description.

I trot over to enforce my order, for the females of my kind are not the docile and downtrodden type. Au contraire.

Hmmm. I see the Divine Yvette’s presence is the usual bad influence already. I am starting to think in French.

“Bon jour, girls,” I say.

“Hssss, les flics,“the Divine One says, which is the French equivalent of “Cheese it, the cops!”

(I should also make clear that the Divine Yvette is not the slightest bit French, unless rubbing shoulders with teacup poodles on Rodeo Drive makes her so. But she likes to think that others think so. And they both bear French names. Why people attempt to social climb via their animal companions’ names, I cannot tell you.) Me, I was born nameless, and the street people gave me my moniker, Midnight Louie. Fine with me. I think every male on the planet is secretly a Louie, only they just do not know it. Yet.

“Ladies, ladies.” I have arrived, panting slightly, whether from haste or another, less conscious cause I will not say.