Cat In An Alphabet Soup (Catnap)

Why, Temple wondered, had Owen Tharp shaven off the mustache shown on his publicity photo? Was he vain and unwilling to ditch a younger photograph? Did he now think not having a mustache made him look younger? He had to be fifty at least. Or had losing the mustache been a ploy to make himself less recognizable at the ABA? If Molina hadn’t spotted him, Temple certainly wouldn’t have. He was ordinary-looking to begin with. He could have easily remained behind unnoticed on Thursday night and killed Chester Royal.

And Lanyard Hunter. He acted so resigned to Royal’s demeaning little ways, as if constant editorial ego-flaying were no skin off his back. Was he really so cool under that smooth, patrician manner of his?

It was Lanyard Hunter who spotted Temple. He straightened, a movement that alerted Tharp to her presence. Both men stopped talking and regarded her. Some women might have accepted this sudden pall in the conversation as due homage to their beauty and charm, but Temple was just irritated that her chances to eavesdrop had plummeted to zero.

“Still tidying up Chester’s messy PR blooper?” Hunter asked. “So crude, getting killed at an ABA.”

“It was tidily done, though,” Temple said. “The police still haven’t arrested anyone, and you’ll all be leaving soon.”

“Except Chester,” Tharp said roughly. “He was shipped off by Cadaver Express yesterday.”

“I can see why you write the books you do, Mr. Tharp. Lorna Fennick said you added a macabre twist to the list.”

“Sorry,” he said. “I suppose it’s in bad taste, but then so’s a lot of horror fiction, and I have the bad taste to write it. What I meant was, they flew Royal’s body out.”

“Where?” Temple wanted to know.

“Who’s the ghoul here now?” Hunter put in. There was a touch of pique in his voice. She guessed that her blithe rejection the other night had not sat well with his male ego.

“I just wondered who would claim Chester Royal, since his wives are long gone and glad of it. And there were no children.”

“He didn’t need children to abuse,” Tharp said bitterly. “He could make us writers do what we were told—most of the time—but we’re all out of the nest now, and he’s dead matter.”

“Are you staying with Pennyroyal?”

Both men flashed nervous looks around, but only weary ABA-goers slogged past, book-bloated and indifferent to gossip.

“Sure,” Tharp admitted. “Reynolds-Chapter-Deuce is a good house. The imprint might perk up with some new blood running it.” He grinned at his gruesome cliché.

Hunter smiled faintly. “Owen, you’re a consummate actor, always entering into the spirit of a new part. Now you’re the cheeky, press-on employee, eager to support the house in the face of catastrophe. I’ll stay if it suits my mood or my wallet.” Hunter eyed Temple. “Tharp here was just trying to persuade me to let him ghostwrite a series for me. He thinks my production level could stand beefing up, even if he has to do it personally.”

“Will you do it?” she asked.

“If it pays, why not?”

Temple turned to Tharp. “You might be in line for a promotion under your own name, anyway—or I should say your own pseudonym.”

“What do you mean?”

“With Mavis Davis over at Lodestar-Comet-Orion-Styx, doesn’t a lead spot open up?”

Both men looked shocked. Hunter’s hands came out of his pockets white-knuckled. Tharp’s very stillness broadcast his disturbance.

“So Mavis has flown the coop,” Hunter finally said. “With the big bucks,” Tharp added. “We may be on a sinking ship, pal.”

“Or,” Temple interjected cheerily, “dueling for the position of captain—of the Titanic.”

With that she veered into the dispirited passersby and wove her way to the exhibit entrance and the Rotunda where awaited, like an apple dangling from the Tree of All Knowledge, the registration center.

A lone woman now commanded the long counter that only days before had thronged with eager ABA-goers demanding immediate attention and name badges. Now the attendant watched the occasional passerby through bored eyes adorned with lurid aqua contact lenses that perfectly matched the paint on Temple’s Storm. Little did the woman know that she had one shiny red apple to hand over.

Temple approached her briskly.

“Hi. I’m with ABA publicity. I need to contact a member of the convention at his hotel. Can you look that up?” First the woman looked down at Temple’s badge, to make sure it bore a stripe in the proper color. Staff was red this year, red like a Roman Beauty apple.

“What last name?” the woman drawled, letting her eyelids droop over the electric irises.

“Jaspar. Earnest Jaspar. J-A-S-P-A-R.”

“Not too many j’s,” she said grumpily, as if annoyed that she wasn’t being put out as much as she could have been by a Smith, say, or even a Wesson. “The Riviera,” she announced shortly after consulting an encyclopedia-thick computer printout.

“On the Strip?” Temple was startled. There were closer hotels.

“It hasn’t moved since Thursday.”

Temple went on tiptoe and leaned over the shoulder-high (on her) countertop. “Does it say how long he’s staying? Whether he’s still there?”