Cat In A Leopard Spot

Another long drive—what was out on the perimeter all those miles back for Max to scout?—finally rewarded her with the sight of a low stone compound built along the base of the mountain.

The road took her to the center of a sprawling construction stabbed with walls of glass and redwood. A wooden door wide and high enough to befit a cathedral provided a focal point.

There the asphalt ended like a thermometer in a fat pool of parking lot-cum-turnaround.

Temple parked and got out of the car, wondering if she looked as dusty as its once-mirror-black surface.

She took off her sunglasses. The surrounding scene lost the vivid color the tinted lenses intensified. To the naked eye, the building seemed like a Bauhaus version of a ’50s ranch-style motel: self-consciously low, long, and modern, a rugged man-made slash underlining the majesty of the mountain behind it.

The big doors entered the cathedral-ceiling main structure at the building’s center. Call it Chapel Central. Temple headed for them.

By the time she got there, a normal-size door at the side of the impressive entrance had opened. A tall, slim woman stood waiting in it.

Tall, slim women always made Temple feel like a truant reporting to a principal, but definitely not p-r-i-n-c-i-p-a-l as in “pal.”

Feeling as fraudulent as a delinquent seventh grader, Temple stomped to the low-profile door on her high-profile wedgies and gave her name and rank again.

In like a safe-cracker’s lock pick.

In and face-to-face with a tiger.

Foot-to-paw, rather.

The quarry-tile floor before her was covered with the splayed hide of a magnificent Indian tiger, only its glassy-eyed head rising in repellant 3-D from the flatness of its glorious skin.

Max had mentioned moneyed scofflaws who would break the rules of God and man, but he hadn’t warned her she was about to deal with people who needed to walk on wild animals to feel tall.

She shot a searing glance at Miss Tall and Slim, who was pausing casually on one flattened foreleg of the tiger.

After having so recently seen the magnificent live beasts prowling and lounging at the Animal Oasis, this scene was like going from a kindergarten slide show to a porno flick.

Luckily, the contrast rendered Temple speechless, or she would have blown her cover.

“I’ll take you to Mr. Van Burkleo’s den,” the supermodel said. “If you’ll follow me—” She moved on without looking back, expecting compliance.

Temple followed, but she walked around the animal skin.

It was a long walk. Like all rich men’s residences, this one required a floor plan to get around in.

It was nice to walk this far indoors in Las Vegas without passing slot machines for once, though.

To take her mind off the tiger rug, she studied Miss T & S’s tasteful sand-colored linen suit, which she accessorized with brown alligator pumps made from a hide so real that Temple expected the heels to start snapping at her if she got too close. Temple thought items like that were banned in Boston, and Austin, and all parts of the U.S.

But she wasn’t current on what wildlife products were banned as imports. Maybe even the poor tiger rug was permitted.

But not permissible in her world. Imagine poor Louie hunted down for his hide and then slapped down on a cold terra-cotta tiled floor for eternity! Well, for a long time, anyway.

Temple’s thoughts churned as she huffed and she puffed her way after Ms. T & S in her alligator shoes. Of course, Temple wore leather shoes, but that was a byproduct of cows that would have been killed anyway and she supposed she would have to reevaluate her whole footwear code shortly. Also fast food.

At least the Midnight Louie Austrian crystal shoes exploited no living thing. Except who had glued the crystals on? Oh, dear. Even Dorothy could hardly click her ruby slipper heels in good conscience nowadays if she really thought where everything came from. Temple supposed even Wicked Witches of the West had some rights….

Speaking of which…

“Wait in here,” the tall sylph announced in a tone so flat she sounded put upon by being forced to speak again. “Mr. Van Burkleo will be with you shortly.”

“Thank you,” Temple said, not mentioning that everyone was with her “shortly.” She marched into the “den” and stopped abruptly just past the threshold.

The place was a jungle of stuffed animal life.

It was as if every animal she had seen live and glorious just an hour ago was now represented in its dead and stuffed state on every wall and floor of the massive room.

Amidst such a profusion of glassy-eyed accusation high and low any humans in the scene seemed pathetically lost, dwarfed by the dead beasts that surrounded them.

“Is there anything that you’d like?” her attenuated guide asked in a tone that devoutly hoped not.

Temple was a born redhead, and born to be contrary.

“Why, yes. I could use a little information.”

“Information?” Repeated with distaste, like a dirty word.