Cleo Kilpatrick, Electra's cat-breeding friend who had obtained Temple's visitor's pass, rushed over after attending to her row of cages. "What do you think?"
Temple gazed around and shrugged. "Impressive. But I haven't seen one . . . human-looking cat, if you'll pardon the expression, since that little black one in the cage at the entry."
Cleo, a fortyish woman smartly attired in a T-shirt with a spangled leopard rampant across her substantial chest, shook her carefully frosted head. "That's the Humane Society stand. They try to place their more attractive homeless cats at the shows. We give them free space."
"Terrific, Uh, What kind of . . . cat? . . . is this?"
Cleo leaned inward to study the animal in question. "Oh, that's a very rare cat, but it's not a recognized breed."
"It does look ready to be sauteed or something. I've never seen a cat look so much like a plucked chicken."
"It's supposed to. That's a Sphinx."
"It looks more like a naked lunch." Temple shivered in sympathy. "Isn't it cold without any fur?" she asked sensibly.
"No . . . a Sphinx's body temperature is four degrees higher than the ordinary cat's. Most owners keep them in sweaters when they're not on show."
Temple gingerly bent to study the creature's hanging creases of greige skin at flanks and chest. "That furrowed forehead is so sad. Seeing a naked cat is awfully shocking. And the ears are so big. I keep thinking of Dumbo."
"Have you ever seen your own cat wet? He might look as spindly as this one."
"Not Louie," Temple swore with conviction.
"Anyway, the Sphinxes are here just as a curiosity. They don't breed true."
"So they're a genetic freak?"
"An anomaly," Cleo said quickly. No negatives to anything feline were permitted anywhere near a Fancy Feline fancier. "That's how some of today's most prized breeds began, with one oddball kitten in a litter that was carefully bred and cultivated."
"I certainly can cultivate some print exposure for this poor, overexposed kitty," Temple said. "Where is the woman Electra told me about, the one who got the threatening phone calls before the show opened?"
"Threatening?"
"Hisses sound pretty sinister, absolutely viperish."
Cleo just laughed. "You haven't been around cats much, have you? Cats hiss plenty if provoked. I think Peggy is imagining things, or else someone she irritated recorded a cat fight and is playing it over her phone."
"This Peggy irritates a lot of people?" Temple asked, dutifully following Cleo as she wove between tows to the big central aisle.
Cleo stopped, allowing Temple to stare pupil to pupil with a huge, long-haired white cat that resembled a snowy owl with great gold eyes. She expected it to cry "Who?" at any moment.
"Everest Sweet Snowball Heavenly Hash," Cleo rattled off automatically as she gazed fondly on the gigantic feline.
"Champion Persian male. Two years old, great doming, they call him 'Hash' for short."
A cartwheel of stiffened lace circled the animal's neck like an Elizabethan collar, no doubt to keep it from licking its lavish ruff. Temple examined this mound of powdered and blue-rinsed fur and found a face that was short on nose but big on eyes. "It looks like a white Pekinese."
"They breed Persians for that flattened nose, but frankly, that makes the animals prone to breathing difficulties. A more natural nose may now be permissible with some judges."
"Hooray for Hollywood," Temple said sardonically, Cat breeders were beginning to get on her nerves almost as much as unearthly purebred cats did. "Have they resorted to giving these cats collagen to ensure the proper profile?"
Cleo eyed Temple as if she were crazy, or worse, a heretic.
"That would be strictly forbidden. The point is to breed for the look. Any breeder who physically tampered with a cat would be barred from competition."
"What would that mean?"
Cleo grew even more incredulous. "That person's cats would be as dead as dodoes. No one would buy them, no one would covet a mating with that source, the kittens would be worthless and the breeder would go out of business."
"These shows are that important?"
"They are if you aren't just running a kitten mill. Listen, Temple, our breed standards are serious and are rigorously applied. We may not get rich selling purebred cats, but we certainly take it seriously. It's an achievement similar to nursing along a bonsai tree. Years go into forming the proper line to produce a champion.
"We slave over these cats, we primp and pamper them. If we're very, very lucky, sometimes we get a kitten that can go all the way in its class. lt's like owning the winner of the Kentucky Derby, only there are no roses and not much money in it, unless you count all we spend on our animals."
"But it's not a hobby--a pursuit--worth intimidating anybody for?"
Cleo considered that while running her admiring eyes over Hash's immaculately indifferent body and soul. "I suppose people can get wrought up over lesser things. This isn't just what you call a hobby, you know. Cat people are passionate on the subject."
"Then a rival might want to unnerve Peggy Wilhelm to get her to withdraw her cats from competition?"
Cleo puckered her lips and seemed to consult the Oracle of the magnificent Everest Sweet Snowball Heavenly Hash. The great yellow eyes blinked, and Cleo shook herself out of her reverie, turning her full attention on Temple.
"Might," she said, nodding, "Might go to any length. I tell you, people get crazy about these cats. Sometimes you'd think they were their children. You ever hear about the Texas cheerleader mom's murder attempt? It made time on 'A Current Affair.' "
"The only current affairs I know about are my own, I'm afraid," Temple said with a grimace, "and sadly lacking."
Cleo shook her parti-colored, fine-coated head. "Some people get too competitive for their own good--and anybody else's. In that Texas case, a stage mother tried to hire a killer to ice the mother of her daughter's cheerleading rival, figuring the rival would be too broken up to try out for the squad. Over cheerleading! Anybody who fixates on any kind of competition can go over the edge. I'm afraid your friend who's worried about Peggy's cats has good reason."
"Then let's go find Peggy and talk to her," Temple suggested.
They moved into the main aisle, a perpetual-motion melee of people carrying cats. Temple eyed perfectly groomed Persians dangling limp-legged from the hands of their breeders, who held them at arm's length on the way to the judging area to avoid ruffling a single hair.
She tried to picture herself carrying Midnight Louie that way. All she could see was four flailing black legs and a sprained, if not broken, wrist for her.
Temple gawked at lean, short-haired oriental breeds being whisked to and fro in the same fashion. The Siamese, in particular, were so attenuated from narrow head to hindquarters that they looked like something from an El Greco nightmare.
She and Cleo paused to watch a judge rate a cat--a fluffy white one with gorgeous blue eyes--that looked half-normal.
"Oh," Temple said, instantly enamored.
"Turkish Angora," Cleo explained. "They're long-haired but much rangier than the Persians, which are a cobby kind of cat."
While they watched, the judge sprayed the tabletop with disinfectant, and then fetched a snowy beauty from its cage.
Temple tensed at the no-nonsense way the man handled it--like an inanimate object. He posed it on the table, examined its head, legs and tail, all the while making loud and personal pronouncements for the benefit of the people occupying the folding chairs arrayed before the table.
"No cat I know would put up with that," Temple remarked, although she knew only one cat, which maybe was the point.
"These are show cats. They're used to it, and they're ranked on how well they respond to handling."
"Sounds like white slavery to me."
Cleo Kilpatrick stared at Temple. "You could be right. That attitude could be the problem."
"Huh?"
"Peggy Wilhelm coul
d be hearing from animal-rights activists. Some are such Fanatics that they don't even feed their dogs and cats meat, fish or dairy products. Some local types could have decided that cat shows are cruel."
Temple nodded. That made sense. "Where is Peggy's stand?"
Cleo paged through a sheaf of papers. The locations of the various breeders were indicated by microscopic numbers on a layout sheet that had to be checked against a separate list.
An exasperated Cleo hissed like a cat----or a snake----and pulled her half-glasses, dangling on a pearl cord around her neck, up to her nose. "Looks like . . . row L, numbers sixty-six to sixty-eight, or eighty-six to eighty-eight."
The two women hurried in the direction Cleo indicated, Temple's purple Liz Claiborne high heels on concrete drawing frowns from breeders intent on calming their animals.
Temple's eternal curiosity kept slowing her to a Crawl. In covering two rows, she made the acquaintance of Japanese Bobtails, which sported the kind of tails they were named for; Manx, which had no tails; and American Curls.
"Those ears are far-out." Temple paused to study the crimped appendages on an otherwise normal feline head.
"Mr. Spock, I presume? Any relationship to Scottish Folds?"
"Oh, you know about Scottish Folds," Cleo commented with some surprise.
"Know about 'em? I personally know the two most famous Scottish Folds in the country--Baker and Taylor, the corporate kitties, Bookish types."
Cleo shrugged, a gesture that made the leopard emblazoned on her chest seem to snarl. "That's right. The cats that were kidnapped at the booksellers' convention were Folds, weren't they? American Curls are a newer breed, but they're being developed in the same way."
Temple took in this particular American Curl's name, which reflected paternal and maternal forebears-Earesistible Curly-Q-Tip of Cuticurl--then moved on. A moment later she was pausing to examine the paperback book splayed open atop a cage. The cover was tracked with little red cat paw prints and titled "The Cat Who--" something.
Then a cat of another color caught Temple's attention: a short-haired calico animal with calm hazel eyes. "Cleo, this cat doesn't look any more special than my own Midnight Louie."
Cleo perched her dangling glasses on her nose and leaned near to examine the feline. "Ordinary housecat," she pronounced.
"What's it doing here?"
"There's a housecat category."
"Really? Just for ordinary cats?"
Cleo smiled. "But only the extraordinary ordinary cats win. They're judged like the rest, though not against breed standards."
"Hmmm," Temple strolled along a row of seemingly common cats. None had Everest Sweet Snow Heavenly Hash's air of aristocratic disengagement. "This one's almost as big as Louie. How come he merits the red-satin hangings?"
"That, my dear, is not just any ordinary house cat. Don't you recognize him?"
Temple eyed the outsized tiger-striped animal. It was big enough, and blase enough, to be a male used to cat competitions, but why should she recognize some cat-show regular?
Cleo burst into sudden, and vapid, song. "'If it's whisker-lickin' yummy, it's Yummy Tum-tum-tummy.' "
Temple looked at her as if she had momentarily succumbed to cat-scratch fever.
"You know, the TV cat-food ads, For the Yummy tum-tum-tummy brand. Maurice is the spokescat. We're lucky to have him here in person."
"Right," Temple eyed the dignified animal again. The only thing she could picture him doing with a bowl of Yummy Tum-tum-tummy was burying it. She bent down, bringing her fuchsia framed glasses right up to the cage. "He looks almost as big as Louie," she observed.
Maurice blinked and twitched his large pink nose.
Temple had never cared for tiger-striped cats, but this one had a tiger-sized nose. Louie's nose, on the other hand--or head--vanished into the unremitting black of his expression, against which the tracery of his snow-white whiskers was as delicate as the strokes of Chinese lettering.
"Hey, my cat's cuter than this one," Temple concluded, unbending.
Cleo smiled with weary recognition. "That's why we have a household-pet category; everyone says that. This fellow was a stray under a death sentence at the animal pound when his trainer picked him up. Temperament's the thing when it comes to on-camera cats. Would your cat do well under lights?"
"I don't know. He's pretty laid-back when he wants to be, especially on my best silk dresses." Temple eyed the catatonic Maurice again. "Do they give them tranquilizers?"
"Strictly forbidden," Cleo said, shocked, "At least at cat shows, I don't know what they do on camera."
"Probably coax this fellow to perform for pellets of Free- to-be-Feline," Temple speculated glumly. "That's probably what Maurice, the Yummy Tum-tum-tummy cat, does cartwheels over. My cat won't touch the stuff."
"Free-to-be-Feline is a lot better for him," Cleo said sternly, moving on down the row.
A shriek of alarm halted both women in their tracks, Cats' ears flattened all around them. A second shriek--this one more a horrific wailing--echoed through the concrete vault.
Cleo was running toward it.
"What's happening?" Temple asked breathlessly, her tote bag banging against her ribs and hip and her high heels as brittle on the concrete as sleet.
Cleo turned as she ran, her half-glasses pummeling the glitzy leopard face on her chest. "l hope it's not-- Golly, that's the direction of Peggy Wilhelm's setup!"
Other people were rushing toward the screams. Cleo and Temple were at the head of a pack. Temple glimpsed cats milling in their ruffle-draped cages, cats crouched in cage corners, giving low, eerie growls. Cats . . . hissing.
It wasn't hard to tell who Peggy Wilhelm was. She was the buxom, brown-haired woman clutching a semi-naked cat, pacing like a tiger in front of her cages with a face frozen in shock and outrage.
"What happened?" Cleo demanded as soon as she and Temple made an abrupt halt.
The distraught woman thrust the animal toward her and Temple as mute evidence, then just shook her head.
"Oh, my . . ." Cleo's face wrinkled in consternation and denial.
"What's wrong with her Sphinx?" Temple asked in a low tone.
"That's the problem," Cleo said. "Her cat isn't--wasn't --a Sphinx, it's been--"
"Shaved!" Peggy Wilhelm wailed, pacing like a bereaved mother cradling her lost child.
Temple studied the strange form. Along the hairless backbone and midsection, the cat resembled the Sphinx she had seen earlier, but it also reminded her of a Siamese with blanched paws that had been given a one-two pass with a U.S. Army hair clipper.
"What . . . was it?" she asked Cleo discreetly.
Not discreetly enough to escape Peggy Wilhelm's outraged ears. "A Birman," she wailed. "She was perfect. She could have been a contender, Grand champion."
Crooning cat people gathered around, their faces studies in helpless sympathy.
"Has she been hurt otherwise?"
Peggy hadn't thought to look. She had only seized her violated car and clutched it as close as possible. She examined the narrow legs, the stomach, and the face. The shaving job was not impeccable, leaving ridges here and there reminiscent of what Temple had been told was a curly-coated Rex.
A two-inch-wide swath denuded the top of the head to the tail tip; another crude slash narrowed the cat's middle like a cinch belt.
"No cuts, thank God . . . but she's out of competition for at least a year."
"Sounds like spite." Cleo said reluctantly. "Or rivalry."
"When did it happen?" Temple asked.
Peggy slowly replaced the cat in its cage, latched the door, and then regarded the cluster of people. Temple's interrogation seemed to have a calming effect.
"I don't know," she answered. "I set up at seven this morning, then brought Minuet and the others in. After that, I had to leave to help my aunt with her morning feeding--"
"Your aunt has a baby?" Temple couldn't help interrupting. Peggy Wilhelm herself looked well past fifty.
"Feeding of the cats, of course," Peggy explained irritably.
"She's too old to handle it herself. Anyway, I just got back and . . . that's what l found."
"What are they supposed to look like?' Temple wondered.
Peggy stepped away from the cage behind her to reveal a blue-eyed beauty with long, cream-colored fur, pristine-white feet and the soft, lavender-gray markings of a lilac-point Siamese on muzzle, tail and legs.
"Oh." Temple was in love again. It was a good thing she was already committed to Midnight Louie, unpedigreed nobody that he was, or she'd go home with a cat breeder's ransom in exotic purebreds, at least the long-haired variety.
"Such a shame," she said with new understanding.
Peggy Wilhelm just shook her head. "I had that coat brushed and powdered to sheer magic."
"Then the . . . assault had to have happened after you left at--"
"Eight or so,"
"--and now." Temple consulted her wristwatch, then the onlookers. "How many people were here between eight and ten-twenty this morning?"
Scattered answers came.
"A couple dozen, but we were all involved at our cages."
"Most of us were coming and going."
"Who was closest to Peggy's cages?" Temple asked. An awkward silence held while folks figured this out, and also figured out if saying anything would incriminate themselves or a neighbor.
"I was grooming my Smoke Persians at the end of the row," a large woman in an orange-velour sweat suit volunteered.
The vast majority of breeders were women, but not all of them.
"Are the cats' cages arranged according to breed?" Temple wondered next.
Cat on a Blue Monday Page 6