Unknown - 16_Cat_In_An_Orange_Twist

Temple nodded sagely. Greenapple martinis did that to one. “The conflict between our Puritan past and entrepreneur future. Henry Ford authoritarianism versus Enron greed. All yang, if you ask me.”

“I embody that conflict, I know that.”

“And that’s why someone wants to murder you.”

“No. Someone wants to ‘stop’ me. Murder is merely a means of expressing a political agenda. A racial and gender agenda.

Do you believe me?”

“I do,” Temple said solemnly. Odd, this felt like a marriage of true minds. Must be the vodka. “High achievers engender

antagonism. But that isn’t exclusive to American culture. It’s universal, isn’t it?”

“Yes. The more international I go, the more true I find that premise.” Amelia refilled their glasses from the pitcher, then poured some of her vivid drink into a shallow bowl, smiling as the Lhasa apsos gathered around, tasted, then shook their sagacious beards and ears. They reminded Temple of very short mandarin emperors. “I am impressed,” Amelia said, “by the diversity of your allies.”

When Temple, stunned, remained silent, Amelia went on.

“You know the police. And the police know you. You know both Danny Dove and the talented Janice Flanders in Maylords’s Art Department. You know the Fontana brothers, all of the many Fontana brothers, apparently. And chauffeurs and talk show producers … and even more obvious hired muscle.”

“Well … how do you know all this?”

“I am smarter,” the petite-chic Amelia Wong said, “than people like to think a media fad is. And tougher than I look,” she added.

“How tough?”

“The Tongs and the Triads have been trying to infiltrate my retail empire for years. My bodyguards aren’t just for death threats from fanatical feng shui adherents.”

Temple raised her eyebrows, trying to think on an international scale. “Smuggling?”

“Of course. I am an international entity. I import and export to and from both East and West. I am therefore good press. That gives me entree and privileges that the ordinary citizen of Hong Kong or Shanghai wouldn’t have. I am the perfect ‘front woman,’ except that I am my own woman.”

“And that’s why your life is in danger?”

“Maybe.” Amelia sank back into the cushy sofa, her dogs heaping around her like so many hairy designer pillows. “Maybe,” Temple said. “Or not.”

Amelia lifted a delicately arched eyebrow. But said nothing.

“Why are you doing this Maylords gig?” Temple asked next. “You don’t need to expose yourself to the public this way. You could do the weekly TV show and your national magazine and stay far away from imminent danger.”

Amelia sipped her martini, sighed. Regarded Temple. “Benny Maylord helped me early in my career. I did weekend

specialty presentations at his launch store. It is the least I can do to reciprocate.”

“You mean Kenny.”

“I mean Benny. The other brother. He was CEO then.”

“The brothers trade off running the business?”

“They did once,” she said. Her lips puckered before they sipped the deliciously tart martini again.

“There has to be a story there.”

“I don’t know it. I offered Benny a chance to fill me in, but he was as tight-lipped as we’ll be after finishing these greenapple martinis.”

“So it’s a family matter. Understandable that you feel you owe the family, but still-”

“My stints at Maylords got me media attention. It began the entire buildup. I owe Benny Maylord. We started out together.

I’m less impressed by the brother, but family is family.”

“Tell me about the fanatic fans.”

“That is a redundancy.”

“I know. The word ‘fan’ came from ‘fanatic.’ So the mania is built in. So, I suppose, is a possibility of violence. I thought feng shui instills order and harmony.”

“Properly used, yes. And it is merely a method of ordering the world around you to enhance your own needs and ambitions. We all systematize our environments, even the most untidy. Feng shui is a conscious commitment to installing order instead of disorder.”

“So why would feng shui practitioners go berserk?”

“Some use it as a guaranteed system for good luck. When their luck doesn’t visibly change, they blame the method, not their own manias.”

“The word ‘maniac’ comes from ‘mania,’ ” Temple noted.

“Anything that encourages people to search their inner souls and assuage their deepest needs can bring on obsession. Religion. Dieting. Gambling. The number of my demented former fans is small, but they can be vocal. Some have blamed me for bankruptcy, even the death of a spouse or a child.”

“They blame that on rearranging the furniture?”

“Feng shui is much more than that. And furniture is an important part of the domestic landscape, which, after all, so

intimately reflects the inhabitants’ interior landscape. Think about it.”

Temple did, sipping delicately at the sweetly tart green liquid in her martini glass. But the first significant piece of furniture

she fixated on wasn’t anything in her rooms-except maybe Louie, who followed his own feng shui in choosing where to artistically display his bonelessly sleeping form-the first furniture that came to mind was Matt’s red suede ’50s couch.

In his sparsely furnished rooms it screamed “major Hollywood motion picture” among a bland array of small, doomed independent productions.

Of course the Vladimir Kagan designer relic was a coproduction: Temple had found it at Goodwill and forced Matt to buy it because … because it was cool and actually valuable, it turned out. And it wouldn’t fit in her rooms, with all her accumulated stuff that was so much less interesting.

“You’re thinking of something both pleasurable and troubling,” Amelia said. “I’m almost afraid to ask what, and I’m never

afraid to ask anything.”

“What? Oh, I was wondering if two people can share custody of a single couch.” “They can with children.”

“But children are so much easier to move.”

Amelia laughed. “You obviously don’t have any. Nor stubborn dogs.”

“Only a stubborn cat.”

“Cats are too clever to be stubborn. They appear to go along with what you want, then turn it into what they want. I prefer

the childlike directness of dogs.” “Do you have children?” -

“Grown.” She smiled.

“And their father-?”

“Outgrown.” Her smile stayed the same, slight but pleased.

Aha! Temple wondered how Mr. Wong liked being cut out of the picture now that Amelia was Ms. Media Millionaire Sweetheart.

“Perhaps your … ex is unhappy about missing out on an empire.”

“It was his own idea to leave.”

“That makes it even worse.”

” No,” she answered with a smile that was both sympathetic and oddly impersonal. “The settlement was far more than generous. From me to him, of course. Now you tell me this.”

Amelia Wong set down her martini on the gold-leafed coffee table. She clapped her hands. The dogs jumped off the sofa in a golden wave and undulated back into the room from which they’d been called.

She eyed Temple with laser-ray intensity. “Why is a temporary public relations representative so interested in me? Or in the bizarre attack on Maylords, for that matter?”

“Public relations people are only supposed to care about the glitz and the glory, not the problems behind the scenes?”

Amelia made an impatient clicking noise, like an aggravated beetle. Her irises seemed as dark and shiny, and impervious,

as a beetle shell.

“This is a matter for the police. It is not your business. It is not my business. We are businesswomen, not policewomen. It is not our duty to tidy up every untoward happening that we witness.”