Cat In A Leopard Spot

He seemed to relish the black car’s nondescript profile, and its play upon his name. It was as if his life always had to be so anonymous that brand names became extensions of his personality.

Today he drove the Maxima out Highway 95 into the desert that surrounded Las Vegas like a white paper doily surrounds a glazed fruit tart, Las Vegas being the tart, of course, and a gaudy little number she was, too.

Temple adored going places with Max and doing things together again, even if they were clandestine. Their “honeymoon” period was symbolic; intimations of marriage had been scuttled by the realities of Max’s antiterrorist past when it rose up like a deep-sea monster.

Today, there were no monsters, and there never would be any sea here, just desert. The blue sky was cloudless, yet grew misty at the horizon where the distant mountains shimmered like the mauve and lavender glints in an opal.

Much as Temple loved to drive herself, a bit faster than the law allowed, she loved letting Max drive her somewhere, somewhere surprising. He was a magician by profession, after all, even if he was now forcibly retired.

When the car finally turned onto a rutted sandy road, it drove into the encroaching desert for a quarter mile. Then she saw a big wooden sign with white-painted lettering carved into its wind-weathered surface.

“‘Animal Oasis,’” she declaimed and asked at the same time.

“No shills needed here,” Max reassured. “This is where we’ll research your upcoming role. Ever wonder where I got that cloud of cockatoos for the finale of my act?”

“You kept them in that wonderful mesh aviary at the Goliath theater. They looked so gorgeous flitting around that tropical greenery. I’d never seen plants backstage before, unless it was for a production of Little Shop of Horrors.”

“Audrey Junior was hardly a plant,” Max objected, referring to the domineering carnivorous growth that had starred in the cult film and the later musical play and film. He was as much a theater and film buff as Temple was, another reason they had clicked like the opening tumblers of a bank safe.

“I’m just in a gruesome mood,” Temple admitted. “Did you know your cockatoo retreat inspired my idea for an elegant petting zoo at the Crystal Phoenix?”

“That Goliath setup was only for the length of my contract. The birds came from here. And they came back here when I went.”

“Do you miss them? I mean, did you like working with animals?”

“Sometimes better than with people. Well-trained birds are easy to work with. Except for the occasional dropping. A real drawback when wearing black is your trademark.”

“Kind of like really large, gooey dandruff.”

Max grimaced at her comparison. “Luckily, the distance between stage and audience hides a multitude of flaws.”

Temple didn’t mention that sometimes the distance between magician and mate could also hide a multitude of flaws.

She thrust aside past issues, leaning forward to see their destination, intrigued to encounter a place that housed performing animals. Animal Oasis. It sounded like a shelter, but was there really any true shelter for creatures that could be bought and sold like household plants?

They parked behind a low beige-stucco building set into the brown bezel of the usual desert scrub. Beyond it, Temple glimpsed higher stucco walls fringed by exotic greenery. As they left the car, she could hear water trickling in the distance. A lush, damp smell tinged the dry wind that riffled across the sand.

“It does look like an oasis in there,” she told Max, pushing up on her toes to see over the wall. “No! I know. It looks like the wall that kept in King Kong on Skull Island.”

Max laughed so hard that the man coming out of the building to greet them froze in his tracks and looked back to see if a clown car was following him.

“You’re not a bloodhound on the track of crime,” Max told her, “you’re an unlicensed imagination in search of a Stephen King storyline.”

They approached the bewildered man, a typical outdoors guy for these arid parts. Time and the desert had impressed a road map of wrinkles onto his features like a tooling die biting into leather. His teeth gleamed bone white in his weathered face, and his eyes were Lake Mead blue.

“Max Kinsella,” he was saying, with wonder. And warmth. He strode forward to grab Max’s right hand and wring it as much as shake it. “I thought you’d left us for good. Damn, but you look fine.”

Then he turned the weathered charm on Temple, grinning expectantly.

“Temple Barr, PR.” She extended a hand before Max had a chance to explain her. “I’m helping Max out on a project.”

“Kirby Grange.” He didn’t offend her by shaking hands any more delicately, but the grip wasn’t punishing, just firm and brief. “This here’s my outfit.”

“Any great apes in there, Kirb?” Max asked, removing his sunglasses, and glancing at Temple.