Cat In A Crimson Haze

Chapter 44

Maximum Impact

Temple returned to her condo humming the only song from the service that she had recognized,

"Today While the Blossoms Still Cling to the Vine."

She unlocked the door and welcomed the familiar quiet, broken only by the eternal hum of her air conditioner.

Today the hum was amplified, for who sprawled like a sultan on the ivory sofa but His Majesty, Midnight Louie in purrson?

''You look proud of a job well done,*' she told the cat, opening the French doors across the room to let a butter-warm oblong of sunlight spill onto the walnut parquet floor.

She stepped onto the patio for a moment, standing in the shade of the overhang, taking approving inventory of the wooden tubs of cheerful blooming oleander and her white wrought-iron cafe table and chairs. A perfect place for breakfast for two. The air was cool, and the afternoon still new enough for her to enjoy it. She reluctantly returned inside to sit beside Louie, careful not to make the cushions jiggle, and stroked his side.

Louie's big black head lifted. He allowed his ever-vigilant eyes to slit half-shut in tribute to the tranquility of home, sweet home. Temple continued to stroke the solid, soft-furred body as Louie's purr escalated to the level of a Hoover vacuum cleaner.

"Looks like your wandering days are over for now," Temple said. "About time. For a while, I wondered if you were running out on me permanently."

Louie's eyes shut completely as he twisted his face to permit Temple to scratch his chin a little lower and to the left.

He looked almost as contented as she felt.

She sat in the quiet of her rooms, full as a tick on IHOP lingenberry pancakes with whipped butter, taking inventory.

Mass had not been as alien as she had dreaded. It was even rather inspiring, with the organ music, hymn-singing and sunlight seeping through the jeweled kaleidoscope of Our Lady of Guadalupe's stained glass windows. Best of all was the sense that Matt had crossed some threshold in accepting his new life that morning, and that he had invited her to partake in that transition.

He and Father Hernandez had also crossed some barrier between them. Temple suspected, one that had affected both men with a contagious sense of celebration.

She herself had plenty to celebrate. Temple decided. She kicked off her church-going beige medium heels, letting her stocking-clad toes explore the grass-long fibers of the synthetic white goat-hair rug under the coffee table.

Louie was back. Matt was coming back from the wrong road a harsh childhood had set him upon. Temple's work was rip-roaring on two fronts, what with her expanded ideas for the Jersey Joe Jackson attraction at the Crystal Phoenix and Spuds Lonnigan's place on Lake Mead.

Temple slumped against the big, soft sofa pillows and almost purred audibly to keep Midnight Louie company. He leaned against her hip and flipped his big tail over one leg, where it twitched now and then.

And, Temple thought with a lamentable lack of charity given her recent church attendance, Crawford Buchanan had been utterly, publicly, deliciously foiled in his scheme to hog the Gridiron and humiliate her. Talk about turning the tables on someone! Little did he know it . . .

yet, but Crawford had suffered his defeat under the spot-lit glare of an entire closing number.

Even the showgirls were snickering at his cowardice in not showing up, the deepest cut of all for a self-proclaimed ladies man like Buchanan.

Life is good. Temple thought, studying Louie's expression of utter satisfaction, and sharing the feeling.

Life is simple. Life is . . . open to anything.

The baddies who were sabotaging the Phoenix in hopes of pulling off a spectacular heist had been spectacularly exposed and corralled. The crowd's applause had voted Danny Dove's first Gridiron the best ever. Everyone obviously looooved Temple's put-upon skit, even with inadvertent last-minute additions, and Louie had merited another mug shot for the newspapers.

Temple yawned, then rose, giving Louie a farewell pat.

She picked up her shoes and skated into the bedroom on slick, stocking feet. Matt wanted to catch up on her martial art lessons, and she supposed turnabout was fair play. She had been doing all the tutoring lately.

She frowned as she changed into the shapeless set of sheeting called a gi. He was also nagging her about not giving up on group therapy, rightfully deducing--what a Sherlock he was becoming!--that she had missed several sessions.

Group therapy! Temple padded barefoot into the living room to dig her doorkey out of what had instantly become her Sunday, going-to-church handbag, a pale straw clutch purse buried in her closet for months until today.

She didn't need group therapy (although she had no objection to one-on-one sessions of the proper kind), not with everything in her life falling so neatly into place. Even Lieutenant Molina had treated her with an air of resigned collaboration last night instead of the usual official exasperation.

Let's see. Temple thought, eyeing Louie's impressive suburban sprawl on her couch, particularly in the southern region, i.e., the stomach. She had her key, gi and what else did she need . . . ?

She blinked at the white-hot daylight filling the open French doors to the patio. Better shut them, just in case. And . . .

Sunglasses.

They weren't in the uselessly tiny purse. She tossed it on the sofa and removed her watch.

Oh, no--only a minute to meet Matt down by the pool.

Where had she left her sunglasses? Imagine, heading off the biggest heist planned in Las Vegas for years only the night before, then misplacing her sunglasses in her own place the morning after. Not that a lot of intervening byplay hadn't happened to addle her brain. Still . . .

Temple put her hands on her hips. "All right, come out, come out, wherever you are, with your earpieces up."

Nowhere in the white serenity of her living room did she spot a telltale blob of red-and-gray.

The bedroom? No, she never would have taken them in there.

"Okay, Louie, 'fess up. Where did you hide my sunglasses? Did you knock them under the sofa?"

She bent to lift the sofa skirt. Three dust bunnies, a lipstick and a TV schedule from . . . four months ago. Uh-oh, hadn't been cleaning like a whirling dervish lately.

Temple huffed back to her feet. "Where are they?"

"Try the patio," a deep voice suggested in a silky purr.

Temple glanced suspiciously at Louie. He could talk now? Boy, was she in trouble!

No, Louie could not talk now, or ever.

Temple realized that the sun had passed behind a cloud; the bright day beating at her open French doors had suddenly dimmed.

She looked up.

A silhouette filled the door frame, from bottom almost to the top.

''Do you mean these?" the same voice asked, not Louie's at all, but not unfamiliar at all either, now that it was at close range.

Midnight Louie wasn't the only one who had deigned to come back.

Into the living room, wearing aviator-style mirror shades and a Hawaiian shirt, walked Max Kinsella, holding out Temple's misplaced sunglasses.

Tailpiece:

Midnight Louie Washes His Paws

Ordinarily, I have the last word. (Or the next-to-last word. My I overeager "editor" insists on exerting her "topping" privileges.)

For the first time, however, I have virtually nothing to communicate.

I am naturally, dear readers, as shocked and startled as you by the terminal turn of events to this latest adventure of mine.

I have no idea why this Max character has chosen to reappear, or why he should be allowed to do it when I am the Hero of the Hour and having a nice private pet with my devoted roommate. Miss Temple Barr.

As for Mr. Max KInsella's chosen attire, I can only say that I am shocked to my soul by the tackiness of his ensemble. I had hoped that Miss Temple had better taste than that. Hawaiian shirts belong on Hawaiians, and that is all, unless they suit for cleaning rags.

I have always found an elegant, understated look sufficient in my own attire, to the point where I am accused of wearing a "uniform." You will not catch me bounding about in day-glo collars (an odious invention to begin with).

As for the impact on this sudden return on the lives and times of those around me, I cannot bear to speculate.

It has been brought home to me (excuse the expression) during my ramblings recently that relationships are less easy to sever than one might think. I find myself now caught in the common Yuppie trap. In my middle years, when I should be enjoying the fruits of my labor by resting as much as I can, I am pincered between the needs and wants of two generations that of my forebear father and my apparent sprightly offspring. As for my vaunted sire, I do not consider Three O'Clock Louie too obnoxious a parent, as long as he keeps his distance and his nose and mitts out of my territory, which is Greater Las Vegas. I will cede him the environs of Temple Bar. But Temple Barr (note the double "r") and surroundings are my exclusive territory and that goes for trespassing dudes of the human species as well.

Then there is the matter of the personage now going by the moniker of "Midnight Louise." I am not amused.

I cannot single-handedly stop the deluded and doting individuals at the Crystal Phoenix from abasing themselves at the paws of this more than somewhat pushy pussycat. Nor can I prevent her from claiming, and others from conferring, the too-close-for-comfort name of Midnight Louise.

But I do not have to like this blatant upstart's greedy ways with my former territory and even my identity.

Now a trespasser of another sort is offending the atmosphere of my own home with a shirt that looks like it was cut-from one of Electra Lark's muumuus. I had intended to enlighten my many fans on the fine points of the preceding adventure, to impart the inside tidbit and share the intricate deductions of my convoluted mind that led to another Midnight rescue.

However, I am too distraught at the present time to dissect the deductive process.

The deduction I am mulling at the moment is that Miss Temple Barr is about to get a good taste of what it is like to have voices, faces and inquiring minds from the past sticking their long-gone noses into her current affairs and associations.

I doubt that she will be any happier at the prospect than I am, but it is only fitting that roommates share even this cross to bear.

MNL

P.S. Midnight Louie has moved into Cyberspace! His Internet address is http://www.catwriter.com/cdouglas (no period). Readers can subscribe to his newsletter, Midnight Louie's Scratching Post-Intelligencer via the web or by writing Carole Nelson Douglas c/o Tor/Forge Books, 175 Fifth Ave., 14th floor, New York, NY 10010-7848.

Carole Nelson Douglas Wipes

Her Hands of the Whole Affair

As annoyed as Midnight Louie is by certain last-minute developments, I suppose it could be worse. I could, for instance, be responding to his usual end-of-the-tail venom. I am confident that he will recover from his shock in due time and will have much more to say about the Mystifying Max et al, in a later volume.

I also refuse to be drawn again into a pointless exchange of rhetoric with Louie. Sometimes in their careers writers find themselves collaborating with colorful but unlettered individuals who try to run away with most of the credit.

All too often my brief opportunity to share professional concerns and techniques with readers has been short-circuited by Louie's caustic comments. So I'd like to take this opportunity to answer a common question: "How much in your books is real?''

Aside from the inescapable contributions of Midnight Louie, I too draw upon my own history. For many years, for instance, I contributed satirical skits to the Gridiron shows in my former state.

When I first wrote for the local Gridiron, I was fresh out of college and a lowly merchandiser at the daily newspaper. I accepted a company-wide invitation to submit Gridiron skits, not realizing that non^reporters (and women) weren't expected to respond. My innocent temerity in crashing what amounted to a closed shop in those dear, dead days beyond recall so astounded the Gridiron committee that I was invited to attend the post-show dinner for all contributors, even though they hadn't used my skit. They wanted to look me over.

I was the only woman present, aside from a spouse or two, and happened to sit next to my newspaper's managing editor. When I told him I wanted to become a reporter, he suggested I take the ''reporter's test" in Personnel.

I duly did, finding it to consist solely of hard science sections and the rules of every sport known to man, including such everyday amusements as lacrosse. Even the ''arts" section focused on what I considered masculine bailiwicks: architecture and music, to the exclusion of literature and the visual arts. Naturally, I did not get a dazzling score. However, I had gone off the chart on the "persuasion" rating. Within months, thanks to the editor's support, I was a full-fledged reporter despite lacking a journalism degree.

I still was ineligible to attend a Gridiron show. Women simply weren't allowed in then.

Women were not allowed into many places and events in the ancient sixties (even women politicians who were rudely satirized in Gridiron skits weren't allowed to attend). Since I had written satirical skits throughout high school and college, I wasn't about to stop simply because I wasn't allowed to see the shows I was writing for. So I continued to lampoon local and national events, and continued to get my Gridiron skits returned with the editorial injunction: "dirtier."

Just what kind of show were they running here? Within two years, I became the first woman to officially attend a Gridiron show along with hundreds of male political, business and media leaders, and I found out.

Women were admitted at last because ticket sales were slumping and the shows were costly. When the bottom line sags, iron-clad exclusions tend to snap like rotten rubber bands, A sign that I had successfully integrated myself into die Gridiron show I had never seen came when a neighboring executive in the audience, quite drunk, leaned toward me during one skit and suggested that "It's a shame a nice young lady like you has to listen to this."

"Listen to it?'' I replied with some amazement. ''I wrote it!" In another two years I became the first woman show chairman of my local Gridiron. That show achieved several firsts--

participation by 40 people instead of the same eight insiders, the first multimedia satirical slide show, and the first mobile set piece (a baby-blue outhouse on wheels).

It, like Midnight Louise, did not impress the old hands.

At the post-Gridiron party, a fellow writer lurched up to tell my husband and myself that

"the really classic Gridiron show" was one he had chaired, which he wrote all by himself in two weeks flat. The Gridiron died, appropriately, when this paragon of modesty again became show chairman a couple of years later. Any communal project twisted to oblige the egos of a self-serving few does not survive.

I no longer write topical satire. I don't need to since I became a fiction writer, which allows me to make up (almost) everything. Fiction really is stranger than Truth.

Trust me.