Cat In A Diamond Dazzle

Chapter 5

A Really Big Shoe-down

"It's no use, Louie," Temple announced at 10:30 p.m., slapping back the covers so quickly that the cat was forced to edge aside.

Midnight Louie, rearranged in the Sphinx/Leo position so prominent in Las Vegas nowadays, regarded her sitting form with polite yet bored amazement. Cats were as good as concealing their thoughts as . . .

well, the Sphinx.

"I just can't sleep," she went on aloud despite Louie's obvious disinterest, "and I won't spend any more time tossing and twitching over men whose names begin with the letter M. There is more to life than angst in the first degree. I'm outta here."

She picked up the red shoe phone and sparred a round of numbers into it, by heart. It wasn't answered until the fourth ring, but Temple felt no guilt whatsoever. She'd had it with guilt.

"Did I wake you? Sorry. I won't take more than a minute. Electra, get me out of here! It's a go on your GROWLers. Whisk me away to Wishful Thinking Land. Reality . . . mucks. Eight tomorrow morning? No problem."

She set the phone down on its high red heel and disconnecting black sole, then regarded Midnight Louie in her turn. "There's only one place a girl can go when everything has gone wrong in her life, and I'm on my way."

Temple jumped up, tore off her Garfield T-shirt, no doubt to Louie's supreme relief, and sprinted over to her fifties dresser with the foot-deep drawers.

Pantyhose hurled left and right until she found a pair that lacked runs, snags and holes in the toes.

Her flurry of action had lured Louie from the bed to the floor, where he was playing footsie with the rejected pantyhose.

"Eat 'em if you want to," Temple advised him in atypical abandon. "Why keep defective hose around that I'll never wear?" That line might also apply to certain human beings whose first names began with the letter M, but, like Scarlett, Temple wasn't going to think about that until tomorrow.

She donned a linen culottes and top in such a cheery shade of butter-substitute yellow that it would make teeth grit for miles around, snarled a brush through her bed-tousled curls and left the bedroom.

In five minutes flat she had her red patent leather tote bag on the passenger seat and was weaving the aqua Geo Storm in and out of the Las Vegas Strip's twenty-four-hour traffic jam.

Caesars Palace was lit up like a wedding cake, all illuminated white columns. The image did nothing for Temple's mood, but she parked the Storm in the lot and hoofed her way into the churning crowds.

The dark casino with its thousand pinpoints of low intensity light was a blurred, sound-barrier-breaking, warp-speed passage to her.

Seconds later she broke into the tasteful beige ambiance of the hotel's marble-lined Forum shopping area. Here she finally paused, although it was a detour on her ultimate route. Despite the hour and the hot action in the casino, crowds still jostled through the tangled byways of shopfronts. Temple hitched the tote bag straps higher on her shoulder. Don't mess with me, purse*snatchers!

She was coming up fast on the pale Cararra-marble backside of Michelangelo's David, a replica that loomed eighteen virtually nude feet into the mall's airy classical vault. The surrounding rotunda was painted bawdy-house red with oodles of white plaster-work, creating an intimate bedroom ambiance for David's marbled muscles. Another slick imposter, Temple thought darkly. A costly imitation of the real thing. Just like certain relationships !

She cast David's insouciantly bare, ultra-masculine form a glance. His name decidedly did not begin with an M. Soon she would be seeing similar territoriality in the flesh at Electra's G.R.O.W.L. conference.

Growl! So what!

Like Caesar, she stood at a personal Rubicon: between two vastly different paths. Hah! Did her subconscious think it was referring to matters metaphysical? No. This choice was far more crucial than a mere fork in the rocky road of her lovelife.

Should she go east, or should she go west? East lay the more familiar turf of the Appian Way, a well-heeled shopper's paradise of vamp and sole, most of them not manmade, but the real thing.

West lay the Place-She-Dare-Not-Contemplate and remain sane, the Place-She-Had-Been-Ignoring, the guaranteed site of temptation beyond budget. Temple had never laid eyes on the exact location, though she had known of its existence for months. To plunge into such a dangerous region in her state of emotional chaos was folly, but there are times when only exquisite excess will soothe the savage soul.

Sole.

Even now she thought she could hear the siren song of high heels tapping, could see the sad, stirring vision of rows of unoccupied shoes lined up like doggies in a window, hoping for a possessor. ... Pick me.

Pick mel Pick me!

She turned right, west, and marched to her doom and to her delight. Odd how often those opposite concepts went together!

First, she decided on a frontal attack, which was the long way around, but a brisk walk does wonders to soothe the savage heart. She retraced her way through the casino and out the sweeping front entrance flanked by more reproductions of classic statues. Given the mating habits of the Roman gods they represented, reproductions were oddly apt. Temple followed the curving walk from pool to pool of dramatic lighting, pausing only under the huge rotating Planet Hollywood sign at the midway point.

By the time she reached the Strip, she was braced for the background clatter of cars and foot traffic, and bathed in millions of kilowatts of a neon symphony. Caesars's warm white incandescence glowed on her left; the Mirage's sophisticated coppery cliff-side shone amid tropical splendor. The Mirage volcano emitted a cigarette cough as it prepared to whoop and roar with artificial fireworks, the Strip's only chain smoker.

But Temple was pointed between these titans of the Las Vegas Strip, toward her own temple, a rotunda bristling with gilded horses flaunting their twenty-four-carat hooves. A hop on the moving sidewalk and she was wafted, alongside a stream of tourists, up a gentle incline toward The Forum Shops at Caesars Palace. (Omit the apostrophe in Caesars, she mentally reminded herself, like a good PR

girl who knows all the local quirks, and even some national ones: the Dr in Dr Pepper never has a period, nor does the S in Harry S Truman, nor does Caesars Palace sport an apostrophe.) Like Jean Paul Sartre's Hell, the novice found No Exit from The Forum Shops except through Caesars'

casino. Las Vegas architecture was as canny as a maze. Despite all the bells and whistles, the object was to maroon visitors right where the management wanted them: dead center in a casino.

No such illusions would do for Temple tonight. This was a serious pilgrimage. So she brushed by aimless tourists with single-minded skill. Many people had slowed to gawk at the eternally blue trompel'oeil sky, where wispy clouds shimmered in a shifting bath of sunset haze. She dodged around the massive marble obstacle of the first indoor fountain. A ring of people was awaiting the hourly animation of Bacchus, Plautus, Apollo and Venus, but Temple rushed through, unimpressed by the dome's laser-lashed storming sky, or the emerald constellations of stars that twinkled through.

She streaked past Planet Hollywood like a copper-topped comet, did not pause to watch its indoor world-shaped sign turn above the neon-framed cave of the trendy restaurant. She de-toured around the gigantic sculpted fountain in the ersatz street's center, not even glancing at the honored Italian names under the surrounding Greek pediments surmounted by statuary: Versace, Gucci, Escada, Armani. Once again it was Romans over the Greeks, and everybody else, by a designer logo.

She knew most of the stores here, but kept an eye out for the newest one. By now the black yawning maw of Caesars, glinting with the gold teeth of casino lighting, loomed beyond the Forum Shops's eternal twilight glow like a monster mouth.

Where was it? Had she overshot her goal? No! Her feet were tiring. Even the businesslike clicks of She squinted at the shop signs above the doors, deliberately underplayed to showcase the brilliantly lit shop windows below. Temple's heart began beating faster as she recognized part of a name. Surely that first word .. . S-t-u? Yes! She had never seen it before, but she would have known it anywhere. Her feet moved faster.

She crossed lanes in the stream of shoppers like the Storm darting through traffic, her chin lifted so she could see above the madding (and Texas-tall) crowd to the object of her outing.

Was that woman in the high-tech rubber jumpsuit going to dash in the door before her? Not on her life!

Temple's feet barely touched ground as she scuttled through the moving mob, slipping through the open door a step before the Rubber Jumpsuit.

Ah. Ahhhh.

Here all was not only classical, but class. The understated gleam of travertine walls, warm backlighting that showcased (shoe-cased?) glass shelves artfully lined with goods. She was aware of miniature dressmaking forms attired in gold brocade, of purses and the odd accessory scattered artfully hither and yon. But they were not the Main Event.

Temple contemplated the static, yet somehow anticipatory peace of a shoe store. All those smooth, unsullied soles waiting to glide over the plush carpet like magical skates. All those unscuffed toes and heels primed to pose before the floor-level mirrors. All those clever bows and straps and decorative heels. All that evening glitz and glitter waiting to accompany all the little girls from Kansas and the cinder-choked hearth to battle and to balls.

Unlike skirts and dresses and belts, shoes do not allow their owners to outgrow them. Carefully kept, they do not wear out, like socks and hose and human knees and friendships. Age cannot wither, nor custom stale their infinite variety of color, cut and style.

Temple moved slowly, softly in the large room, a connoisseur in an art gallery. No longer would she have to haunt Saks and Neiman Marcus sales at the Strip's Fashion Show Mall for unsold size fives. Oz had come to her. The Wizard had landed, gently, on the Yellow Brick Road and she needed more than ruby red slippers for the journey. Suddenly last summer, this stand-alone shop of shoes designed by Stuart Weitzman had miraculously appeared in her own back yard. SW shoes by the yard awaited her.

She sighed. It was meant to be. All she had to do now was afford them.

Temple edged along the store's perimeter, dazzled by the glimpse of one exquisite shoe after another. Even the vanilla-colored casual shoes had their own subtle glamour, although, when it came to shoes, Temple liked them high, narrow and handsome. Temple found herself catching a ghostly reflection of herself, and stumbled back in amazement.

A Plexiglas-box-topped pedestal had served as her imperfect mirror. Beyond the translucent outline beckoned even greater wonders: a wall of dancing shoes with solid rhinestone-covered heels, each glittering like a size-five rainbow, some diamond-bright, others gleaming with sapphires and rubies and emeralds.

"Those are Pave Collection models custom-designed by Mr. Weitzman," a gentle voice noted beside her.

"I know." Temple could not take her eyes off the treasure trove of shoes. "I've heard of them. They're fabulous."

"They can be designed to match a particular gown or any theme of the customer's choosing."

Temple nodded in a dream. "How much--?"

The saleswoman told her, in an even gentler voice with not a hint of condescension.

Temple nodded. She wasn't surprised. She also was not about to ever become the owner of a pair of Pave Collection shoes. At least she would have visiting privileges.

"Thank you." Temple tried to sound as if she needed time to decide which several styles she wished to purchase.

The saleswoman drifted away diplomatically, leaving Temple to contemplate the cruelties of budget.

Temple remained transfixed. To her this was Stonehenge, Avalon, Nirvana. The cares of the day, as Stephen Foster or someone equally antique would put it, faded away. Some women found such surcease of sorrow in chocolate. Temple always found it in an exquisite pair of high heels. At least her addiction was not fattening (especially not to the wallet).

Which one of the black satin pumps would she pick? The one covered in winking red ladybugs, with matching bag? The Deco-inspired one of a woman (on the heel) walking a Scottie (on the toe) with a long glittering leash (along the instep) ? The golden glitz of a sun/moon/stars motif?

Visions of Austrian crystals dancing in her head, Temple finally focussed on the contents of the Plexiglas plinth standing like a prow, a figurehead before the wall of Pave Collection shoes. Behind the clear Plexiglas floated a pair of diamond-white shoes, Cinderella shoes paved in crystal. A card explained the Pave Collection philosophy: up to 14,000 hand-set Austrian crystals encrusting each and every pair.

Temple edged around the pedestal, careful not to touch it, to jar the precious cargo inside. And then .

. . and then . . .

Holy cats!

She was nose-to-nose with Midnight Louie. Well, a black, Austrian-crystal cat, anyway, with great personal presence, climbed the back of each glittering heel, a single emerald stone winking at his eye.

Solely cats!

A second card was propped on a delicate easel on the pedestal's other side. Halloween's coming, it announced in elegant script . Find a pair of these "Jinx" black-cat, hidden somewhere in Las Vegas, by October 31 and claim a pair in your size as the prize.

Yes! Temple clasped her hands. The answer to a lovesick maiden's prayer. Not men whose first names began with M, but shoes whose name began with "Midnight" as in Louie. What more could a modern-day Cinderella wish for? Stuff the vacillating prince; get it on with the cool shoes!

Obviously, she was destined to find and win these shoes. Ob-viously, this was a heaven-sent distraction from her current personal conundrum. Obviously, Las Vegas's prime crime-solving amateur could beat out every other candidate in the Streak for the Shoes.

Temple marched up to a person that she assumed was the saleswoman who had addressed her earlier; she had been too dazzled to notice much but the shoes.

"Do I need an entry blank?"

The woman's face, which was about her age, looked politely inquiring. Surely she too had only one thing on her mind? How could she work here and not?

"For the Midnight Louie shoes ... I mean, the Halloween Jinx shoes."

"Oh. Just spot them by October thirty-first, then drop by and fill out a card with your name and address."

"Piece of chocolate cheesecake," Temple said, as satisfied as if she had eaten the whole, metaphorical thing.

She left the store, hardly noticing the crowd, and wended her way back through the crowded casino, not even glancing into the Appian Way at David with his sling and no G-string as she passed.

For some reason, she felt ravenous.