Cat In An Indigo Mood

Chapter 32

Newmaker, Heartbreaker

One thing about living alone again, Temple had decided during Max's several-month absence: You always have first crack at your favorite sections of the newspaper.

Maybe because of her three years as a TV news reporter, she always began with the front news section, then moved to the local news, and finally to features. Sports was immediately consigned to a recycle pile where it was handy in case she heard the unmistakable gack-gack-gack machine-gun regurgitation sound of Midnight Louie about to deposit a hairball on some particularly cherished piece of paper or furniture.

This was war: Temple would leap up, seize the still-folded sports section and run to the area of the apartment that seemed in imminent danger of dietary bombardment.

Of course Louie would hear her racing to the rescue of the decor, and would begin backing up so she couldn't get the news-print under his face in time to receive the forthcoming explosion.

If she managed to capture the prize before he could back out of easy grasp under a chair where it was really hard to reach to clean the rug, he would then retreat further to present a secondary spit-up or two in other awkward. hard-to-get-at places.

Too often she arrived only in time to see the impressive projectile arc onto a six-inch span of floor or seat cushion or her latest paperwork.

Sometimes, though, she reached an alpha state in physical and mental terms--she arrived at ground zero before detonation, made her defensive placement and defused the artillery with the face of her least favorite ball-bouncer who had just been signed up for umpty-zillion dollars right out of high school to win games, do drugs, and abuse women, all in living color through the various newspaper sections that would feature him in the coming years: sports, business, front page scandal position and, finally, rehabilitated and born-again, the feature page (with family) and sports section (with teammates).

This was one of those occasions when she was up to the up' chuck challenge. In the very nick of time, Louie's hairball lay like "a black island in an ugly sea of soylent- green (could he have actually eaten some Free-to-Be-Feline?) and strawberry-pink (what was he getting into now?).

Sighing, Temple patted the patient for having achieved a successful delivery in an appropriate place, and returned to the living room -to read the first section of the paper.

Louie ambled in later to wash his smug face, sitting on the faux goat-hair mg so he could look picturesque while doing it.

He looked up when she hmmmed to herself, but she read on with relative composure.

Not twelve minutes later, she gasped and leaped up.

He looked around, as if presuming that he ought to be assuming his previous position for another ritual retrieval war.

But Temple barely glanced at him as she headed for the kitchen phone. Then she stopped.

"Fingers schmingers! Why not let my legs do the walking?" she asked aloud. "No unauthorized barfing while I'm gone, Louie,"

She shook a stern finger at the wide-eyed cat, then headed for the -apartment stairwell, the paper's front section firmly in hand.

She wished her emotions were as well under control.

Even as she knocked at Matt's door she realized it was a decadent ten A.M. to her, but more like midnight to a night-worker like him. At least she hadn't rung the doorbell. Maybe she could tiptoe discreetly away. . . .

But the door opened, and there Matt stood. looking uncharacteristically rumpled, but as wide awake as an over-the-road truck driver on No-Doz.

"You look totaled," she told him bluntly.

"Give me time. I have a feeling I'll look worse."

The phone rang, and he waved her in as he went to answer it.

"No," he was saying, "I'm not interested in a talk show appearance. Yes. No. Yes, I see. No."

Temple marched over and commandeered the phone. She Who Has Beaten Cat to Rug can do anything.

"Hello, this is Mr. Devine's agent speaking. I'm sorry; we're expecting a conference call from Dreamworks any minute. You'll have to clear the line." She hung up.

"Isn't that a bit rude?"

"You bet. It's the only thing these booking agents understand. Don't worry, it only makes them hotter to trot."

"And wasn't DreamWorks, Spielberg et. al., a pretty unbelievably big lie?"

"That's the second-only thing TV talk show booking agents understand. Pretty unbelievably big lies. And it doesn't discourage them one bit, either. So, strategy-wise, I've just upped your value considerably."

Temple lifted the section of newsprint in her right hand. "This is you, isn't it? They didn't give a name, just used 'Mr. Midnight.' "

Matt sat on the red sofa, looking like a lost sock. "Yes, it's me.

Leticia is pleased purple, has been referring phone calls to me for the last hour, and l probably feel about a tenth as bad right now as that poor girl, which is ten times too much for me."

Temple sat down beside him. "How did all this happen?"

"It's a call-in show. She called. When the situation became clear, I did all I could to keep her from doing something unthinkable. Leticia called 911 then kept our studio phone on the air so the whole world could hear the rescue team break down the motel-room door. Everything.

Action radio."

"Hey, you're a hero."

"Then why do I feel like a heel? That girl is seriously disturbed, and now, thanks to The Midnight Hour, she's national news."

"Thanks to The Midnight Hour, her baby is alive." Temple let herself slump against the stiff sculptural support of the Kagan sofa.

"This designer guy must have been a graduate of the Spanish Inquisition. I'm pretty zonked myself. Max leaves town for a couple of days, and when he comes back someone takes a shot at him."

"Where?"

"In the head."

"My God, Temple! I meant where did the shooting take place, but--" It s okay. All he lost is about a quarter of his ponytail. You could call it a scalping, but I suppose the official term is that the shot was just a 'crease.' He was driving on the Strip at rush hour."

"Could it have been . . . road rage?"

"Not when you're stopped for a red light."

"Boy, we've both had a night of it."

"Separately, however." She smiled wanly. "It looks like your new show is launched."

"Don't say that! I hate it. Here I sit, realizing that I actually, accidentally might have done some good, and it's going to turn into a side show. I am, to say the least, confused." He glanced at her, and smiled wryly. "But you had figured that out, hadn't you>"

She grinned back. "I mean it, kid; l can run interference for you. You do need representation, and my Aunt Kit knows all sorts of New York types who are up to the job for real. One call, and you've got a friend who knows how to keep the jackals off, or at least how to make them pay for the privilege of sucking the living flesh from your bones."

"Have you grown cynical lately? Oh, by the way, what name did you say your Aunt Kit writes under?"

"Sulah Savage. Why?'

"I . . . just wondered. If I'm going to ask her for an agent reference, it would be polite to know what she does."

"She'd live if you didn't, and polite is not that important in New York."

"I know. I've just got so much to think about all of a sudden." Temple nodded soberly. "So have I. Did you see the morning paper?"

"No."

"Well"--she opened the section---"here's the story on you . . ."

He nodded impatiently and ignored it.

"And here's the other interesting thing."

"You mean there's something in the news that might take the spotlight off me? Hallelujah."

"Nothing that good, but interesting in its own way. Methinks I know this artist's work."

Matt rubbed his eyes and tried to focus on the small sketch near the bottom of the section's back. "Janice Flanders," he agreed.

"I'm just curious, because this story is so vague. I can see the police are leaking just enough info to get some news coverage in hopes of identifying this poor woman. And why go to a cumbersome, old-fashioned sketch artist? Janice is good; God knows, l know she's good, but this approach makes me suspicious, that's all."

Matt eyed her sideways--even bleary his brown eyes had serious hot-fudge over dose potential--then spoke abruptly, as if he'd leaped a barrier.

"Your suspicious instincts are impeccable, as usual. There's been a pair of killings. Two unidentified, and deliberately made unidentifiable, women. Molina--"

"I knew l smelled a rat."

"Molina found the first body at the Blue Dahlia."

"In person? No kidding!"

"The woman pictured here is the second victim. The first one is a total conundrum. Molina called me in because . . . oh, who knows why Molina does what she does? But . . . I saw the crime scene photos, the evidence, the poor woman's clothing. And I recognized a smell on the clothes." Matt laced his hands and looked at the parquet floor, which was exactly the same as the forty-year-old parquet floor in Temple's unit. "I had to admit to Molina that I recognized it, and that I thought I had run into it somewhere with . . . you."

"Oh, great. Temple Barr: guide to the smell of a dead woman's clothes."

"Not like that. We were somewhere. Together. I can't pin it down, but I seem to be more sensitive to smells lately. Odd ones, anyway. I suggested to Molina that she have you in to examine the dead woman's clothing."

"Give it the sniff test, huh? That is ridiculous, Matt! What do you mean you associate this dead smell with me?"

"It's not a dead smell. Quite the contrary. It's one of those noxious deodorizing stenches."

"And it made you think of me immediately. Oh, thanks."

"Not of you. Of some place we went."

"Where? New York -New York? Maybe the cigar hat. That had a 'stench.' "

"Temple, I'm not trying to insult you. I was trying to help Molina. I told her if she wanted any more information, she'd have to have you in to . . . give an expert opinion."

"Is she going to?"

"I think she'll have to."

"She's going to have to rely on my nasal expertise?"

"Possibly."

"Oh, Well. If I can actually identify something--I assume she'll be suitably grateful."

"I doubt it. Molina is never suitably grateful."

"But she does seem to be relying on you."

"Using would be the better choice of words. She has a job to do; she'll rely on whoever she has to."

"I would love to have her have to rely on me."

"I thought you might. Here's your opportunity."

"But l wanted it to be for something more . . . grandiose than my nose."

"I realize that. I would like something more grandiose than The Jerry Springer Show battering down my door."

"I'll call my aunt right away. You need professional help."

"Temple, as it stands now. I am professional help. Scary, isn't it?"

"No," Temple said. "Not at all. I'll let you know what Kit recommends. Meanwhile, take notes on all offers, be polite until we can hire a pro to be impolite, and commit yourself to nothing.

I hate to tell you this. You need an answering machine."

"Not another 'essential' l can't afford or even operate?"

" 'Fraid so. Time to join the rest of us millennium-Yuppie lemmings leaping into automated lifestyles."

He shook his head. "Maybe. I also might have to take some time off from ConTact. I've already got a call in to Chet. My boss'"

Temple stood. rubbing her neck, which was stiff, small wonder.

"I have a feeling you're going to be your own boss for the meantime."

His eyes summed her up with sudden compassion. "I'm sorry about Max."

"Thank you for meaning that. I'll call Molina when I'm up to it."

"Thanks."

"Mutual favors are what friends are for."

"I'm glad we're friends."

She nodded. "I think we'll both need them. Did you have time to wonder if any of this stuff that's going on all at once is an accident?"

His expression said he hadn't.

***************

Temple came home to find Midnight Louie in the bedroom reclining smack-dab in the middle of her acre of zebra-pattern comforter. If he was counting on natural camouflage, he was out of luck.

She put her hands on her hips.

"Okay. Max leaves town for a couple of days and is welcomed back by a shot in the head.

Matt debuts as a radio counselor for one night and prevents an infanticide. So what have you been up to lately? Besides Technicolor hairballs."

Louie seemed to award her question serious thought.

He laid back to give some renegade hairs on his right front paw a silent tongue-lashing.

He again offered her the benefit of his wisest, most uncanny look. Then he leaped to the floor, crossed quickly to her row of shuttered closet doors, and pawed open the tight one of the middle set.

Temple gazed at her revealed clothes, which were in relatively decent order for once.

Louie stretched up to paw among the dangling skirts and pant legs.

"No claws," she yelled. "That's my personal resale and vintage section; some of that stuff is older than I am and even more fragile."

Temple went over to straighten her abused Clothes. She paused, then lowered her face to them and sniffed. A hint of strawberry cologne, perhaps, madame? Yes.

She sat suddenly on the corner of the bed.

Oddly enough, she did feel fragile.

A little fragile, and a whole lot suspicious.

Someone would have to do something about this.

Lille Bob Dylan, Matt Devine's fave composer for the wedding-chapel organ, had sung once: Guess it was up to . . . me. Little me.