Cat In A Crimson Haze

Chapter 20

Dis-guys

Some may find it odd that I am not home at the Circle Ritz ingratiating myself with Miss Temple Barr during her hour of need, but I was never cut out for the nursing profession.

My talents are best put to use removing vermin from the mean and dirty streets, rather than from the sterile environs of a sickroom.

Not that Miss Temple is sick in the classic sense, but I am sure that a bum hind-paw is no fun fast, especially since it will make wearing her trademark high heels difficult for a time.

So I do not scamper home to the Circle Ritz to throw my two cents and tongue-licks into the feeding frenzy of concern flurrying around the invalid. Miss Temple Barr is a lady whose care for others wins her an avalanche of tending when she is in need herself. Surely she will prefer the tender attentions of Mr. Matt Devine far more than my sand paper brand of succor.

No, I can better spend my time tracking down the heinous handymen who sent my little doll tumbling down a hill of concrete stairs like Jill on a roller-coaster ride with a pall of sand Instead of water.

Fortunately, I know just who to look for: one Vito, surname unknown. (Now there is a luckless sire with a pressing reason to get lost.)

Unfortunately, I have not spied Vito or his ilk around the Crystal Phoenix of late, though this trick with the loosened stair-rail brackets has his no-doubt-well-documented fingerprints all over it.

So I hunker down in the Crystal Phoenix basement, with which I am well acquainted. Some of my most cherished moments occurred in the dressing rooms here: my tender rendezvous with the Divine Yvette; my quite literal nailing of the Stripper Killer; the TLC I received from the Phoenix showgirls when I was only a down-and-out street dude without a reputation as a world-class shamus.

My long-stemmed gals from the good old days remain in full feather, I discover as the clock ticks toward the evening hours and showtime nears.

"It is Louie!" they chorus when I make my rounds of the dressing rooms.

"Ooh," says Miss Darcy McGill Austen, lifting me atop a makeup-cluttered dressing table.

"You have gained weight!"

I do not make a practice of sweeping people off their feet and commenting publicly about their supposed avoirdupois.

"Then it is lucky that we have no treats on hand," Miss Midge Mancini responds quite carelessly. She flourishes instead the wire brush for polishing my topcoat to black satin. I produce a half-hearted purr as I undergo this massage, being most annoyed that the eats are absent.

Soon my flock of attendants scatter. Their hour upon the stage draws near. The busy, bustling underbelly of the Crystal Phoenix is suddenly silent and empty.

This is the way I like it. I jump off the red velvet pillow Miss Darcy McGill keeps for my visits and land soft as a powder- puff on the hard concrete. If evil is afoot down here, now is when it will stir.

Yet all remains still, except for a few feathered costumes trembling like aspen leaves in the air-conditioning vents' icy exhalation.

I prowl the hallway, seeing and hearing nothing. ... Finally, I detect a familiar sound. Not the drip, drip, drip of a forgotten faucet, but the patter of high-heeled feet. Miss Temple Barr cannot be abroad! Perhaps a showgirl has left behind an essential item of dress, such as a g-string.

I duck into a dressing room doorway, then peek.

Sure enough, one of these long, tall tootsies is hotfooting it down the hall on silver size-eleven high heels, none too quietly ... or gracefully. In fact, when one ankle twists she pauses to emit a few choice words, most of which would not be chosen by anyone who wanted to avoid an R-rating on a movie script. I am sorry to say that these dancing dolls sometimes grow a tad hardened from their gypsy lifestyle. My subject grabs the metal upright bar of a hallway costume rack, continuing her colorful cussing and yanking at the rhinestoned heel strap of her offending shoe. This gives me a chance to examine her full undraped glory.

Whew. Showgirl material must be in short supply. Despite rhinestone swags hanging off everything from headdress to feathered skirt, I have never seen such bony elbows, knees and feet, not to mention razor-stubbled legs that should be peach-satin-smooth. Despite the dim light, I even detect a smudge on her upper lip.

Imagine my amazement when my unattractive prey is joined by a man in a brown UPS

uniform who is at least four inches shorter than she. Lili Marlene at her lamp-post she is not.

"God, I am dying for a cigarette," she mutters in greeting, her voice as grating as her appearance.

"Not on the job," he growls, eyeing her up and down with a leer. "Some snazzy outfit. Get any dates yet?"

"Shut up!" she growls, smashing her heel-clad shoe to concrete, "You will get a blind date with an incinerator if you keep up the smart remarks. Are you sure no one saw you come down here?"

Naturally, I am extremely interested in the turn this conversation is taking. I edge forward in the dark of the dressing room, closer to the door.

How am I to know that I am stepping on the trailing chiffon veil of a headdress gracing a white styrofoam headblock high on an unseen shelf?

This is how I know: the gruesome head and about twelve pounds of rhinestones come smashing down on my unprotected form, flashing and crashing like a Fourth of July firework all the way.

At least I have the sense to dive back deep into the room and burrow into a box of tap shoes--ouch! Those metal toe-stubbers hurt. Not the best shelter, but the pair at the door are too busy bickering to search high and low, which is the only place they would find a savvy customer like Midnight Louie.

"No one here," the UPS guy announces after a cursory search.

"Of course not," Lady Godiva says in a baritone grumble. "These damn outfits are so heavy the thing probably collapsed of its own weight and fell. I do not know how those broads manage to shake a leg, much less the good stuff, in this body-armor. Let us get to work before intermission comes and somebody spots us."

The high heels click away like they are being worn by Chester Goode from "Gunsmoke." Now is that not a mental image to cherish?

But I have no time to dwell on vintage television shows, for I have finally seen through the sawdust and the glitter to spot the five o-clock shadow and the gut beneath the rhinestone facade, skimpy as it is. That is no showgirl, that is Vito in the flesh, if you can call it that.

I scamper to the doorway and poke a cautious muzzle down the hall.

I cannot believe my eyes, ears and nose. I am too late. The pair have vanished like the Cheshire Cat, not even leaving a grin behind.

I thoroughly reconnoiter the area. No dice. No dudes in showgirl skin. Even my ever-faithful nose loses the trail when I pause by the costume rack. In sneezing at a noxious aroma of powder and sweat, I Inhale a pink cloud of tiny ostrich feathers and ruin my sniffer for the nonce. Done in by a dead bird.

Of course my investigations are over for now. Sometimes life is a drag.