Cat In A Diamond Dazzle

Chapter 15

Hocus Focus

Temple came to a dead stop just inside the hotel lobby, her mind in public-relations brochure mode: Picture this.

Picture walking into a Las Vegas hotel and casino.

Picture twinkling lights and clinking slot machines.

Picture Frank Sinatra leaning over a lobby balcony to greet the clientele.

Caesars Palace, you say? The new MGM Grand? Some other high-profile Strip hostelry?

No.

This is the only Las Vegas establishment to bear a woman's name, a woman whose forty years of film, song and dance put the E in entertainment of the old school: glitz before grunge, talent before attitude.

Aha! Shirley MacLaine, you think.

No, it isn't that Rat Pack token woman of yesteryear turned

New Age guru. It's--

"Debbie Reynolds's Hotel and Hollywood Museum," Temple mused aloud as she and Kit gazed up at Frank, who gazed right back without blinking a blue glass eye. "Why are we meeting your author friends so far from the Crystal Phoenix?" she asked her aunt.

"Security," Kit said. "This hotel is off the Strip, so convention-goers aren't as likely to wander over here. We want our instant little focus group to feel free to dish dirt. Besides, the group will adore touring the hotel's Hollywood costume museum after our little cafe-au-lait conference."

"I see," Temple said, though she didn't, "but here, even the walls have ears." She gestured to other celebrities lining the upper level.

"But deaf ears." Kit glanced at the well-attired mannequins. "Isn't that the Duke? In a tux? He really didn't have to dress for us."

"This is neat." After gazing up at the celebrity mannequins lit by a triad of massive crystal chandeliers, Temple returned her attention to the first floor, wading through a moat of slot machines toward a hallway guarded by Mae West in full feather. "Hollywood Walk of Fame," a light-bedazzled marquee above their heads announced. At the hall's opposite end, the glitz was multiplied by a theater marquee whose round flashing lights beckoned like Broadway on a Saturday night. Cardboard cutouts of Laurel and Hardy on the left wall welcomed them with hats in hand.

"I knew you'd like it." Kit hurried after. "I was only guessing what it would be like, though. You haven't been here before, really? And you a resident!"

"I can't keep up with everything in this town. When's lunch?"

Kit squinted at the thin, elegant watch decorating her wrist. "The others are coming in three different cabs, so as not to stir suspicion. Should be along any minute."

"You're sure these security measures are required?"

"Absolutely. The Phoenix is crawling with media and other eager ears ready to overhear and report.

You can't expect our . . . expert witnesses to spill their guts when they might end up on Candid Camera, or--even worse--that tacky tabloid TV show Hot Heads. "

Temple shook her own hot head of blistering red hair. "I can't believe that romance writing is such a dangerous game."

"A day ago, who would have thought cover modeling could be so lethal?" Kit demanded.

Temple nodded, ambling down a memory lane of memorabilia. The film-strip design carpeting detoured to a rest room alcove, where signatures of the kitsch and famous covered the walls. A cardboard-cutout Ann Miller lurked on a stairway landing, wearing mostly fishnet hose and a mile-wide smile.

"So these are all authentic props and costumes," Temple noted. "I always wondered where that stuff ended up."

"Sold at auction and separated," Kit said. "The idea here is to bring it all back together. I bet you're really aching to see Dorothy's ruby red slippers. A pair is on display here."

"Truly?" Temple brightened. "The ones on the MGM mannequin are contemporary copies, because the actual shoes used in the movie are too valuable to set out to steal. Poor Toto was dognapped a few months ago."

"Somebody nipped Toto?" Kit's deep voice reached a soprano squeak of indignation. "Is there no respect?"

"Not in Las Vegas, and not in New York City either, I bet."

Kit shrugged, then looked past the rail dividing the hallway from the restaurant, a low-lit cavern whose dark walls showcased black-and-white photos of famous film faces of the forties.

"Perfect!" Kit clapped her hands with delight. "We can snag that huge back-corner banquette, then conspire in utter privacy. Maybe Humphrey Bogart will stop by our table and ask Sam to play 'As Time Goes By.' "

"And maybe Ingrid Bergman will ask us the way to the ladies' room."

"Oh, pooh, Temple. You have no romance in your soul. Sometime this weekend I'll have to find out why over a mai tai or another equally tongue-loosening concoction."

"If we want that booth, we had better sit down."

"Right."

They made for the entrance and its waiting hostess, but Temple stopped before they could be seated.

"Is that really Tallulah Bankhead's trunk?" she asked.

"Absolutely," the attractive blond cashier confirmed from be-hind her glass case of sundries.

Despite the initials T.B. emblazoned on its brown side--"My initials," Temple whispered to Kit--the trunk was a low-profile prop compared to the glamorous babes atop it. Suspended in gaudy gowns like a pair of lifesize puppets, which they were, were Jim Henson's imperious Miss Piggy and Wayland Flowers's brass-mouthed Madame, both in hot pink and ostrich plumes. Behind them was a wall mural of a 1930s Hollywood studio "class photo," filled with famous faces named Astaire and Gable and Garland.

"Hmmm," Temple said, the windmills of her mind visibly churning in double time.

"We need to be seated." Kit dragged her away from the exhibit as if she were a dawdling child.

"Yes, mother," Temple mocked as they wove through the intervening tables to the gigantic corner booth of tufted red leather.

"The rest of our party should be along shortly," Kit told the hostess, who left the requested six menus before returning to her post. "Temple! What is it?"

"Just a wicked idea. Maybe your focus group can help me with it after lunch."

"I need to fill you in on who we'll be seeing."

"Right." Temple set the menu aside and folded her hands on her lap like a good child.

"You wanted a crash course in who's who and what's what in the romance world, so I've recruited--

not the best and the brightest--but the nicest and the knowingest. The stars are on a plane of their own and may be nice enough, but simply no longer share the common interests of the rest of us grunion struggling for our places on the sand. The raw beginners are eager, but naive as newts. What I've assembled is a panel of midlist experts. You do know what midlist is?"

"Not yet bestselling, name-brand authors; steady performers with potential."

"Very good, my dear. Doing PR for the American Booksellers Association convention was an instant education."

"Actually, I learned all that stuff from meddling in the murder investigation."

"We do not ask how, just how much. Anyway, what you'll meet here is a cross-section of the heart of the romance industry, pardon the expression. I know them from other conventions. We've all been around the publishing track a few times, and we're not about to be pushed off the merry-go-round. Still, we're not megastars. We have concerns about the field and what's happening in it, and to us."

"Sound like experts to me." Temple lifted her water glass in a toast.

Kit chinked rims with her own water goblet. "Just don't be surprised to find that feelings run high. For many of these women, this is their livelihood."

"Is that enough to kill for, do you think?"

"You mean. . . one of us might have murdered Cheyenne?" Kit looked truly shocked.

"Suspects come in all shapes, sizes and sexes."

"I believe that there are only two sexes, niece."

"Not in Las Vegas," Temple said firmly. Her blue-gray eyes intensified to the color of navy slate. "Say, do you suppose those prize shoes might be on a drag queen at Gays 'n' Dolls downtown? Who would ever think to look for them on a size twelve foot?"

"A transvestite revue? Not on your life. Those shoes would no more deign to dance to the wrong number than Dorothy's ruby slippers would shoe the tin woodman. Now, get your mind off fancy footwear and on the murder case at hand, because here come my body of experts."

Temple looked across the dim room. A clot of colorful convention-going garb ranging from linen blazers to cotton print dresses to hand-painted jersey sweat suits were milling beside Miss Piggy and Madame. If they were hoping to disguise their origin, they were off to a bad start. Each clutched a black canvas bag emblazoned with g.r.o.w.l. and hot-pink hearts.

In moments the hostess had led the four newcomers to the banquette. All one could hear was the squeak of cushions as they slid behind the table on both sides of Temple and Kit.

Temple felt like a kid trapped mid-seat in a carnival thrill ride. On the one hand, she was cushioned from all exterior shocks; on the other, she was in danger of being crushed by her human shock absorbers.

They accomplished the business of ordering by calling for two large pizzas and ice tea. The waitress bustled away after warning them the pizzas would take twenty minutes.

"No problem," Kit said. "We have lots to talk about." She began with introductions. "Temple is my niece and totally trustworthy." (Temple thought that was a nice thing to say, especially since they had just met.) "The lady on the far left is Doctor Susan Schuler." (Temple paused as she worried her glasses from the squashed tote bag beside her. A doctor--that was interesting. What kind?)

"Do you mind if I take notes?" Temple asked. "Not for ... evidence or anything, but simply because I won't be able to tell you apart for a while."

"Hey, that's easy." A woman wearing a red, black and white flowered dress with puffed sleeves reached into the tiny patent leather bag trailing from a thin shoulder strap. "Slap on our con-vention badges, people, for Temple. We can remove them again in transit."

Soon Temple was gratefully studying the group's left shoulders.

"What kind of doctor are you?" she asked the woman named Susan, a low-key type who wore no makeup and whose short, permanent-waved hair was a greige Brillo pad.

"A gynecologist," said a younger woman in a yellow linen blazer, with a teasing laugh.

"Not a medical doctor," Susan said tolerantly.

"Ph.D?" Temple asked with the awe of a lowly B.A.

"Right, in anthropology."

"Susan's written a book on the roots of romance fiction," Kit said. " Alpha Men and Omega Women. "

"Any relation to that bestseller, Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus? "

Everybody but Temple laughed. Susan reached into her canvas convention bag to extract a trade paperback with a plain-Jane cover.

"Afraid not, Temple. This is a scholarly tome from a university press, with a minuscule print run. Even persuading a university press to publish a book on a topic as despised as romance novels was a triumph."

Temple pulled over the book to riffle the pages. Chapter titles like "He Tarzan, You Jane" leaped out as they flashed by. Also "Wild West vs. Nest."

"It's yours." Susan's smile would melt nails and certainly dissolved any dry academic air clinging to her. "Instant background, and we academic press authors are pathetically happy to have people read our books, even if we have to give them away."

"Thanks. It looks fascinating--no, really! This chapter, "Hawks and Doves"--it sounds like a political thesis."

"Bless you! God knows I'd get more respect for analyzing dull matters like politics." Susan shook her curlicued head. "Hawks and doves are opposites, as they are in real life, but in romance novels the battle is the war between the sexes."

A jolly-looking woman with airy blond curls, wearing a nice, comfy knit pants outfit to disguise her nice, comfy expansive body, lifted a finger to pronounce: " The Flame and the Flower. Let us all bow our heads for a moment of silence."

Temple neither bowed nor kept the peace. "What does that mean?" she asked the blond grandmotherly type, whose nametag read LaDonna Morgan.

The other women laughed.

"It's a title," explained a sleek black woman of forty named Vivian Brown.

" The title," LaDonna corrected.

Even Kit had something to say on the subject. "The title that launched a thousand hips, so to speak.

The first sexually explicit historical romance written by a woman."

"What about Forever Amber?" a woman named Lori asked. She had shining, long brown hair and a teenager's fresh-cream complexion, though she must have been Temple's age. Or more.

"A forerunner," Susan declared, "but not the true revolutionary work that Kathleen Woodiwiss's book was."

Temple watched the discussion, feeling that she was watching a tennis match from the much-confused point-of-view of the net.

"What do flames and flowers have to do with hawks and doves?" she wanted, very sensibly, to know.

"Titles," Susan explained. "The ever-important titles. The uninitiated sneer at what they see as stereotypical romance titles, not realizing the art of it. Oxymorons are all in the romance field."

"Oxymoron ..." Temple was sure she had once known what that word meant, long ago and far away, in a college communications class in Minnesota. "Not something I put on an untimely zit, is it?"

"Nor is it an idiotic castrated bovine." Kit's over articulated, prissy diction made everybody giggle.

"I think Kit is referring to what we call a plain bull with no balls in Missouri," LaDonna said.

"Is that why they call it the 'Show Me' state?" Lori threw in with a wicked grin.

"Oh, lawdy, we're gettin' bawdy." Vivian sighed. "Temple will think we're awful."

"You can't write about the world's most hilarious subjects-- love, sex and marriage--without a sense of humor," Kit said. "And Temple has been in the thea-tuh, dahlings. Nothing shocks her."

"Not true," Temple objected. "I've just learned not to show it. Right now, I am shocked that, with so many writers present, no one has explained 'oxymoron' yet in a clear, one-syllable manner."

"We bow to academe." Kit nodded at Susan, who had watched the byplay with a smile.

"The textbook definition is more confusing than Kit's, believe it or not: an oxymoron is 'a rhetorical figure in which an epigrammatic effect is created by the conjunction of incongruous or contradictory terms,' for example, 'a mournful optimist.' "

"Get that woman a copy editor! Simplify, simplify." LaDonna hooted, then put her hands on her ample hips. "I've always wanted a rhetorical figure, though."

"Not to mention an epigrammatic effect," Vivian added.

"That would be LaDonna in a Wonderbra," Lori teased her full-figured senior.

"Seriously." Susan smothered laughter in the stiffening corners of her mouth. "Seriously speaking, romance novels heighten the differences between the sexes before they resolve them. If literal oxymorons aren't used in titles, certainly suggestive opposites are employed. In these metaphors--we do all know what that means?--the man is the wild, untamed, consuming masculine element and the woman is the fragile, lovely, preserving or enduring element. Flame. Flower. The Flame and the Flower. "

A moment's silence held as each recalled a favorite, illustrative title.

" The Leopard and the Lark, " Sylvia put in.

" The Hawk and the Dove, " said Lori, nodding.

" The Tiger and the Titwillow,' " Temple interjected. "Or, with a bow to our new friend the oxymoron,

'The Bull and the Buttercup.' I get the picture, ladies."

"That's just one pattern of title." Susan was still grinning at Temple's impudent images.

Temple frowned in suspicion. "Why does the symbol representing the man always come first?"

"Because he gets his in the end," LaDonna said.

"What does he get?"

"He gets the girl," said Kit.

"He gets domesticated. Tamed." Susan sounded fully academic now. "That's why the titles exaggerate gender differences. That's where the oft-satirized 'Sweet, Savage' school of romance titles came from, and phrases like 'devil's angel' or 'steel and silk.' Don't let the namby-pamby female symbols fool you. Romances ultimately empower the woman. By succumbing to the force of masculine passion, swaying with the sensual storm, the heroine subdues the hero's lone-wolf ways and transforms him from demon lover into loving husband, helpmate and, ultimately, father."

" 'The Wolf and the Willow,' " Temple summed up sourly. She wasn't in the mood for the male-female gavotte or happy endings. "Okay. Granted that romance novels are complex blends of mythological models and pop culture, where do the cover guys fit in?"

"Between the sheets," impish Lori suggested, dimpling like a Regency Miss.

"Off the cover!" Vivian's fist pounded the table top.

"Hear, hear!" came from Kit.

"Now that's an interesting phenomenon," Susan began. "In the beginning--"

"In the beginning the heroine was the cover focus, and the hero was just a handsome prop," Vivian noted. "That was the heyday of the 'bodice ripper' covers that gave the genre such a bad name.

Remember the heroine with her hair flowing over her shoulders and her front falling out of her dress?"

"The Love Is a Wild Assault days," Susan agreed. "Don't look askance at me, Temple, there really was a romance novel titled that. As women readers became more open about what they wanted in romance novels, the heroine went from a passive, reluctant object of unwanted masculine onslaught to--"

"An adoring, willing, ogling prop at the feet of the new romance cover star--the mighty hero." Kit shook her head.

Temple smiled. "I take it some of you dislike the new hero-central covers."

"Some of us," Vivian said, "have loathed the old clinch covers and the intermediate 'dueling cleavage'

covers of bare-chested hero and half bare-breasted heroine all along. Now we loath the newest wrinkle: he alone in all his muscular, hairy glory, although he can't have hair on his face or his chest, for God's sake. Male models are waxed and air-brushed into unreality just like female ones. And, in the process, somehow women have been pushed off center stage in what's considered a women's genre, written by women for women."

"Oh, Viv, you're just griping because you have a master's degree in history to protect you from intimations of sleaze."

LaDonna's face beamed as the waitress wafted a large round pizza tray onto her end of the table.

"Face it, honey. Hunks are in, so we writers might as well enjoy the view. Besides, it's liberating to have men as sex objects for a change."

"What do you think?" Temple asked Susan as the second pizza tray hovered and then descended like an aluminum UFO in their midst.

The group separated their chosen slices from the artery-clotting herd and installed them on bread plates. Discussion stalled as cheese extended into thin strings and knives excised edible bites.

Susan thoughtfully nibbled a sauce-gored slice. "The new covers offer positives and negatives. Lots of romance covers nowadays have beautifully embossed and foiled fronts with more mainstream and neutral subject matter: flowers, fabric, and precious objects. The front cover opens to an interior step-back painting: the old clinching couple--or the man alone in a few cases."

"Now those you could take on the subway, or a bus." Sophisticated Vivian, with her black blunt-cut bob, managed to fit her comment in between swallows. She was attacking her pizza like Attila the Hun.

"But hunks sell books," LaDonna insisted between bites.

"Do they?" Kit was breaking her pizza slice into tiny pieces with fork and knife. "Sure, Fabio was a twelve-day wonder, but will anyone pull down the attention and the money the first and most famous male cover model did?"

"Even if they don't match his take, so what?" LaDonna answered. "The Incredible Hunk contest is a big chance for these guys. Most are models who wanna be actors, or actors who wanna be models. Not only is there a little barbell money in cover modeling, but the hunk contest itself is fodder for tabloid TV, so whoever is named Incredible Hunk gets a lot of exposure."

"I guess." Kit rolled her eyes at the unconscious double entendre. "Possible calendars, game show appearances, film jobs, syndicated TV show parts, maybe even a stab at the America's most famous houseguest/hostile witness title."

"Ooh, what a great idea!" Lori's eyes were shining to match her glossy hair. "Kato as an IH

contestant."

"Which one do you have in mind?" Vivian asked in an indifferent drawl. "The dude or the dog?"

Temple wanted the talk back on track. "Is that kind of media exposure worth killing for?"

That stilled knives and forks and mouths. Kit leaned close to mouth dramatically: "Motive Number One: Model Competition."

"Fame and fortune is always a worthy motive," Vivian said.

"So a rival hunk could have killed Cheyenne?"

"Sure." LaDonna shrugged. "Except one dead dude wouldn't guarantee another the title. The judging is honest, as far as I know."

"There are early favorites," Vivian objected. "You know that, LaDonna. You've seen the guys chat up the convention-goers. Prince Charmings by the pack. They charm them, then sweep them off their feet--"

"Is that what it's called?" Temple interjected. "Charming?"

"Temple was 'swept' by Fabrizio in the registration line," Kit explained.

"That Fabrizio." Lori sounded disgusted. "The original Mr. Unoriginal. He comes on as all muscle-man, but he only picks up the petite women. What a wimp! Fabio should sue."

"What makes Fabio king of the Prince Charmings?" Temple asked.

"He was the first romance cover model to emerge as a personality in his own right. Then he won the first cover-hunk contest, parlaying it into international celebrity," Susan pointed out. "Is his career so different from what Arnold Schwarzenegger or any other muscle man since and before Johnny Weissmuller did? Only nowadays, a media muscleman can have his own profitable 900 line, his romantic music cassettes, etcetera, ad nauseum. Thanks to romance novels selling forty-nine percent of all paperback book titles, he can be marketed directly to women without making a single Hollywood film."

"Whoa!" Temple's attention had really caught fire. "Forty-nine percent of all paperback books? Does that include nonfiction?"

"You bet." LaDonna crumpled her paper napkin into a lump like a bloody tomato and threw it onto the empty pizza platter.

"Why aren't you all rich then? Or are you?"

Amid hoots of laughter, Kit leaned close to whisper: "Motive Number Two: the Woman Scorned."

"Many are called, but few are chosen," Vivian quoted acidly. "Women writing romances have always been the most exploited group in publishing. Our royalty percentages are often lower than those of other writers. Sometimes our very pen names are not our own to take to another publisher. We have been production-line workers expected to toil forever for minor rewards. And, of course, as the icing on our very plain cake, we get no respect for what we do. Romance novels are just silly women nattering on, especially embarrassing when we write about sex without using the clinical, unemotional prose male writers have institutionalized since Hemingway was immortalized, to make men feel good about being afraid to feel anything."

She paused to catch an indignant breath. "The earth moved.' Really captures the moment, doesn't it, ladies? Hell, Hemingway was just too uncertain of his masculinity to convey more than terse little nothings about sex."

"My land o' Dixie!" Kit fanned a hand before her face, a swooning southern belle in intonation as well as gesture. "Our little Vivian is shorely all fired up about that most unsuitable topic!"

"Kit's got it," Susan said. "What really makes the male-oriented world of publishing and criticism uneasy about romances is that they present a female quest in female terms. Every young girl who enters the dating game perceives that it's one she can lose terribly. She bears the greatest consequences of sexual activity: pregnancy and loss of reputation, ergo self-esteem. How can she learn to be sexual without being betrayed by her body and the society that demands such an impossible role of her?

Virginal but desirable. Sexuality without experience. Eternal love discovered without trial and error."

"Too true," Temple said.

"And now," Vivian put in, "romance novels are the focus of national media attention, and do we get a more enlightened, less sexist, revised view of their underlying issues? No, we get swooning features on cover hunks, which makes our work look even less socially relevant."

LaDonna put down her ice tea with emphasis. "What's even worse, and what drives me nuts, is that quarter-of-a-million deal Fabrizio made to 'write' a series of books. Makes it look like there's nothing to writing a romance. And we all know who's really writing those Fabrizio books--an underpaid, unsung female romance writer. I wonder how Sidney Sheldon would like it if the cover models for his heroines made oodles more money than he did. Wouldn't put up with it for a nanosecond."

"Celebrity authors have always been part of publishing," Kit interjected a little more coolly. "I saw an old book tie-in to Mary Pickford. Gypsy Rose Lee wrote a couple of ghosted mysteries decades ago, and we all know that some celebrity names on mystery and science fiction novels are fronts for the anonymous real writer who produces them."

"Those unsung writers get more ghostwriting than they do for their own books, or they wouldn't take on the work," Lori pointed out.

"And they'll continue getting less money for their work if publishers keep hiring the rich and famous as fronts instead of nurturing real writers' careers." Vivian sat back with an indignant whoosh of the padded vinyl banquette seat for punctuation.

"Oh, please!" LaDonna's eyes rolled over the tops of her half-glasses. "When have writers ever been nurtured? We have to fight for our books, our careers and our survival. If you wanted nurturing, you should have enrolled in kindergarten."

"So . . . who's angriest about the new prominence of cover hunks?" Temple asked.

A moment's silence while mental wheels turned.

"Sometimes even the biggies aren't too fond of the trend." Lori said. "I heard that Mary Ann Trenarry threatened to leave Bard Books when they signed up Fabrizio for all of her future and reissue covers."

"At her career stage, it doesn't matter what they put on her books."

"It does to her. She's been a vocal spokeswoman for the redeeming social value of romance novels, and of her books in particular. This Fabrizio deal has her chewing royalty statements."

"What about the husbands?" LaDonna asked suddenly.

"Huh?" everyone said.

"Temple asked who was angry about the cover hunks. What about the husbands who have to hear about the fantastic Fabrizio' and his ilk?"

"Whose husbands?" Kit wanted to know. "Readers' or writers'?"

"Both, I suppose," LaDonna said. "Maybe especially the husbands of prominent fans, the ones who organize the hunks' fan clubs. They sometimes get to work with them one on one. Most husbands aren't used to competing with perfect media models like women are."

"I did hear something." Lori looked both eager and reluctant.

"Tell us!" several urged.

"That's what we're here for," Vivian pointed out. "To pass secrets."

"And to keep them to ourselves." Lori fidgeted with her dark hair, twirling a long, straight tress on the instant roller of her forefinger. She sighed. "Remember that Ravenna Rivers went on that long book tour with the West Wind imprint's Homestead Man? I heard that afterwards she called him the 'Homestud Man.''

Kit turned to Temple. "Romance publishers will hire a male model as an image/spokesman for a line of books nowadays. As a marketing tool, he gives all the authors' books a signature look; as a media draw on tours, he packs in readers who'd never show up for poor, unexciting us. West Wind's Homestead Man is Dwayne Rand, a Texas frontier type."

"That reminds me," Lori interjected with a giggle. "Ravenna also called Dwayne The Amazing Randy'

after that tour. Do you think she was trying to hint at something?"

Kit ignored the gossip to further educate Temple on current romance-marketing ploys. "Picture Tom Selleck with Wild Bill

Cody Lovelocks, but without the moustache. That's the Homestead Man."

"That's a tough assignment," Temple admitted, recalling her amazement at Max's rather understated ponytail. "And Tom Selleck without a moustache would be roast beef without mustard."

"No moustache," Kit said. "Sorry. Damn few moustaches for cover hunks; same reason newscasters don't wear them. Considered too ethnic."

"That Homestead Man!" Lori was continuing to gush. "He's a Dreamboat with a capital D as in Dishy.

The rumor is that interviewers on Ravenna's tour assumed they were sleeping together. Her husband heard something and came running with his forty-five. For sure the tour was abruptly cancelled."

"I heard she had a book deadline to meet." Vivian looked troubled.

"The deadline was her husband's ultimatum, believe me," LaDonna added. "No more gadding about with good-looking guys."

"I don't know why Mr. Ravenna Rivers's so worried," Vivian put in. "Half of these guys could be allergic to women. Do you know how high the percentage of gay men is among bodybuilders, dancers, actors and models, ladies? Enough that straight men in those fields get a bit defensive about their occupations."

"Sexual preference doesn't matter," Dr. Susan said authoritatively. "It's the fantasy image that counts. Look, most of these women who go crazy over the male models know it's all show and no go.

They're not expecting a relationship. It's an escape at a romance conference weekend, a goal to get an autograph or a photo taken with a cover man. Consider it a scavenger hunt."

"Hunting implies a prey," Temple pointed out. "What about Cheyenne? Any rumors about him?"

"Oh, that's such a shame!" LaDonna looked genuinely grieved. "Such a nice young guy. He was a favorite for the G.R.O.W.L. award at this year's pageant. That's the popular vote. And from what I heard, his routine would have been spectacular."

"He competed at a previous pageant?" Temple was surprised. She had figured Cheyenne for a local male stripper who was moonlighting, not a cover hunk wannabe of any seriousness.

"Sure. Last year in Atlanta."

"So some of the cover model contestants repeat from year to year?"

Lori nodded. "Just like in women's beauty pageants. It takes experience to win. Why? You don't look too happy."

"I'm not. If contestants repeat from year to year, then I assume conference attendees come back too?" They all nodded. "So we've got more potential here for relationships than I thought."

"What's so wrong about that?" LaDonna was defensive. "Sure, there are regulars, both onstage and off. Most of the same authors return every year too. It's our annual chance to chat and back-pat. This is a very mutually supportive field."

"And mostly female," Temple said. "Except for a few good men. And a very few tagalong husbands.

Yet the authors are rivals as well as colleagues. Then add the heightened competition of the pageant.

Like I said, this isn't just an annual convention, it's a traveling carnival of relationships. And I don't have to tell you romance writers what relationships can be in real life as well as in fiction."

"Murder," Vivian said slowly, nodding her head. "They can be murder."

The four conspirators left two by two, apparently convinced that there was less reason to hide their joint outing on the return cab ride.

"We'll say we were doing the Strip," Lori said.

Temple was reflective as Kit bid each one good-bye with thanks and promises of getting together later at the conference.

"Well?" her aunt demanded, scrambling to dig out and light a Virginia Slim. "Hey, don't look at me like that. This is a smoking section. I just refrained while the others were here."

"Why do people do to their relatives what they wouldn't to friends?"

"They expect relatives to understand." Kit's hands had frozen midway to her mouth, slender cigarette in one and upright, poised lighter in the other. "I can wait."

"No, go ahead. I owe you something for gathering the clan."

"What did you think of them?" Kit muttered through the act of inhaling.

"Great sources--do all writers gossip so much?"

"It's not gossip, it's networking in self-defense. Writers are isolated, yet we live and die by the publishing industry. So we grapevine like mad. Writers are also proud, so we tend not to reveal what we get for our books when the pay is stinky. When the advances get to the big time, everybody knows."

"It looks like I should talk to some of these writers with axes to grind. Any advice?"

"Just pass yourself off as a national media person and they'll slit their writers' wrists and let the ink run out. Not even bestsellers get enough attention."

"You were quiet during the gossip session."

"I listen, but I don't dote. We need to know what's going on for our own protection, but I don't enjoy hearing about other people's woes and throes. I can do all that stuff to the characters in my books. I did notice something when I came in a couple days ago, though."

"Did it involve Cheyenne?"

"How did you guess?"

"I listen, but I don't dote."

Kit stabbed her half-smoked cigarette out in the ashtray. "I did notice some cozy conferences between the deceased, as we say on the Perry Mason set, and the pageant hostess."

"The pageant hostess?"

"Yup, an anchor team of he/she emcees the event, reading unrehearsed witticisms with iffy timing.

The host team changes from year to year, depending on where the conference is held, so there's no ongoing relationship between hosts and contestants to worry about. But I could have sworn that there was history between Cheyenne and this babe."

"Do you have the name, rank and serial number of the 'babe'?"

"A Hollywood type, naturally, Los Angeles being just a hop, skip and plane trip over the state line. So-called actress, once. You probably never heard of her, or saw her in anything, and can count yourself lucky. A real B-movie mama. One Savannah Ashleigh."