Cat in a Jeweled Jumpsuit

“Now." She rises, aims the remote at the machine, and zaps it into loud life.

I flatten my ears. These afternoon talk shows are filled with yowling, keening people lined up to engage in hissy fits and claws-out fist-fights, making a spectacle of themselves. If I had a shoe, I would heave it at them. in fact, I watch with interest as MissTemple comes to curl up beside me on the couch, kicking off her navy-andburgundy high heels with the leather rosettes on the toes so delectable for chewing.

She settles in, absently patting my head off-center. I hate that! I observe the scene on the screen: the usual lineup, the usual host pacing like a major cat behind bars, the usual zoo of exotic guests, the usual peanut gallery of a growling and spitting audience. Miss Temple leans forward when our upstairs neighbor, Mr. Matt Devine, walks on, and from then on I do not even get my head patted off-center. Not only is this show interminable—unlike my snappy sixty second commercial debut—but MissTemple keeps rewinding the tape to run Mr. Matt's segments over again. It is like watching an entire television program with a bad case of the stutters.

I cannot take it, and soon drift off to LullabyLand, where cat food commercials are the main event, and people are confined to sixty second cameos. In my dreams, the Divine Yvette, shaded-silver queen of the screen, is joined by her glorious shaded-golden sister, the Sublime Solange. I feel my whiskers twitch with bliss. I am not only skimming down the endless flight of steps to their supple Persian sides, but I manage to give the evil Maurice a karate kick on the way down. He flies into the air and disappears in the dark wings of the stage set.

My triumph is complete . . . until the buzzer rings and hauls us all offstage.

I wake up punch-drunk and blinking, to find MissTempleon the telephone and the VCR tape on permanent hold. Mr. Matt Devine's earnest face is frozen on the screen, but Miss Temple has finally turned her back on it.

“What?" she is saying. "That cannot be. It is ridiculous." She pauses. "Of course I can come over, but I hardly expect to be able to do anything about it, other than to talk some sense into the workmen, and they are not the type to listen to me . . . no! I really do not need any more 'backup,' thank you very much, Aldo. I can handle this, solo.”

My ears perk up. If there is something to be "handled," and if Miss Temple Barr is insisting to someone else that she can do it "solo," my special skills will definitely be needed.

It sniffs as if something is up at the Crystal Phoenix Hotel and Casino, where Miss Temple's grand plan of renovation is even now coming to fulfillment, now that the classiest little hotel and casino in Las Vegas is her biggest client. I have a major stake in the Crystal Phoenix from the old days. Back before it was remodeled into the elegant joint it is today, it was a derelict hotel along the Strip, like the Aladdin was now and then for years until it finally fell like the walls of Jericho a few months ago. The Crystal Phoenix is where I began my career as dudeabout-town and unofficial house dick. That was before I met MissTemple and we decided to share digs here at the Circle Ritz apartments and condominiums.

I glance at the television screen and wrinkle my nose. That was before Mr. Matt Devine came into the picture, or even before MissTemple came to Las Vegas in the mysterious company of Mr. Tall, Dark, and Debonair: Max Kinsella, a magician known as the Mystifying Max. He lived up to his billing by vanishing without a trace for several months, leaving a vacancy with MissTemple at the Circle Ritz that I slipped into like an eel on ice. But now Mr. Max is back, an ex-magician, but not ex-enough in other departments, which both Mr. Matt Devine and yours truly are not exactly gleeful about, if you get my drift.

But why should anybody get my drift? I know enough to keep my ears open and my lips buttoned. What they do not know that I know will not hurt me. If you can follow that, you are welcome to assume you have gotten my drift as much as anybody ever will.

Chapter 2

(You Were) Always on My Mine

("You Were Always on My Mind" was written for Elvis and he recorded it in 1972. Willie Nelson's hit 1982 version was named song of the year in both '82 and '83)

"I'm sorry to have bothered you," Aldo Fontana greeted Temple in the bustling lobby of the Crystal Phoenix Hotel.

“It's no bother; it's my job. And I've been a little delinquent of late," she admitted.

Aldo, tall, dark and deadpan, took the opportunity to look her up and down, all five feet of her, appreciatively. "I have always considered you a little delinquent, MissTemple. But I wouldn't have said it."

“I meant that I've been busy and have neglected the hotel project."

“That is why I hesitated to disturb you." He shook the sleeves of his chablis-colored designer suit until the left cuff brushed the face of his Piaget watch.