Cat in a Topaz Tango

by Carole Nelson Douglas

  He sniffed under the arms, smelling no deodorant, a faint perfume, and also a strong acrid waft of dried sweat. So she may have been terrified in the Mercedes, or may just have worked up that sweat during their hike down the mountain.

  Max did as she said, calling room service, not sure whether his psyche or his suspicions or his sex drive was most in need of stimulation and therapy at the moment.

  Another Opening, Another Blow

  Temple had never felt a worse case of stage fright.

  Wednesday night. Cha-cha cha.

  She was stationed in the wings, pleased to be going on second, long after her bête noire, Crawford Buchanan.

  For a “black beast,” as the French phrase put it, his face looked as white as a ghost, but then he’d always been pasty-faced. The undertaker-severe black suit he wore tonight didn’t help.

  But Temple’s stage fright wasn’t for Zoe Chloe Ozone, who was wearing a spiderweb body stocking under a purple tutu with pink ballet flats and a pink marabou feather-covered top that made it look like she actually had a bosom.

  It was for Matt Divine and his fourth-night debut as a master of the hip-slinging cha-cha. He was again partnering with the overbuilt Wandawoman, probably to reassure the audience that the reputed “killer” slinger of the wrestling ring wasn’t down and out for the count.

  Temple spotted Molina in watchdog disguise in the opposite wing, fairly drooling to find Wandawoman guilty of Latin loitering or dancing without a license.

  Temple just hoped Matt didn’t suffer any more dance-floor hit and runs involving the hefty wrestlin’ mama who was his partner.

  His “costume” was black and white: black slacks and white shirt, the long sleeves rolled up to the elbow and the first four buttons undone to display the spray-on tan gilding all the men, even the pretanned José Juarez.

  Call it clean-cut sexy. The simple clothes suited him. Although there was a lot of hip-swinging and over-the-shoulder partner smiling, the pairing came off amazingly well. There was a minimum of close contact, which kept Wandawoman from looking like an overdressed gravel truck dancing with a Maserati sports car.

  Her legs on high heels looked sleek and strong and Matt managed to make the moments when he supported her in a dip or a pose look effortless.

  All in all, a surprisingly respectable performance. Wandawoman came back strong from last night’s fainting spell, and got a standing ovation when she finished.

  The complimentary judges gave them eights.

  Glory B. and José Juarez were agile and athletic together, but somehow uninspired. Maybe it was the vast height distance, at least a foot. They never seemed “together.”

  They racked up two eights and a seven.

  Temple held her breath when Keith Salter stood back-to-back with Olivia before they began for their version of the cha-cha. After ten days of rehearsal and performance his abdominal profile was notably shrinking, especially following Monday night’s stomach pump. He almost looked sleek next to the elegantly gaunt Olivia.

  The cha-cha was a busy little number, but not the most demanding. If Keith could hold it together, he’d be over the hump. His shirt and pants were slimming black. He and Olivia didn’t generate any onstage heat, but they managed their steps and took a very spectacular bow.

  Two sevens and an eight.

  That left only the Cloaked Conjuror and Motha Jonz, a partnership made in media Hell.

  Temple could think of no disguise for CC that would fit the fast and lighthearted cha-cha. And Motha Jonz, well, she was criminally hot in law enforcement circles as well as on the Dancing With the Celebs stage, but how would the choreographers and costumers turn her into fun and fluffy instead of fat and puffy?

  The band struck up some familiar chords from oldies radio.

  Oh, it was crooner Barry Manilow’s old eighties’ standard “Copacabana.”

  This was one of those funky Frankie and Johnny “story” songs about Lola, a dancer at the famous Copacabana night club, “where music and passion were always the fashion,” her lover Tony, and Enrico the new guy in town.

  The first shock was the initial pose of the dancers, also back-to-back. Motha Jonz had a real man as a partner. No mask, no bulky fake head for a face. The Cloaked Conjuror was going barefaced! This was big news! Also a big risk, given the disasters that had dogged the show so far.

  Without his full coverage head disguise, CC was a tall man with a dark pompadour and sideburns, and a pencil-thin mustache.

  He wore a glitzy red satin shirt with sleeve and chest ruffles edged in black thread. Black skintight trousers and Spanish boots of black Spanish leather made his usual bulky figure seem to tower sleekly.

  The audience was still audibly gasping at the Cloaked Conjuror revealed . . . until they saw what Temple had just realized as she began laughing with knowing surprise.

  CC was still wearing a mask! A celebrity one. He was the spitting image of that Dancing With the Stars Las Vegas favorite: Wayne Newton. He had revealed nothing but another entertainer’s iconic persona.

  Applause broke out for the clever conceit and the costumers who’d accomplished it.

  Which meant that many had missed Motha Jonz’s equally inspired transformation. Until now Motha Jonz had most resembled a dreadlocked punching bag attired in overdone and glitzy flour sacks. Not any more.

  Temple was clapping for that transformation from the wings.

  Someone had turned Motha Jonz into a sleek cross between Queen Latifah and Catherine Zeta-Jones in the musical, Chicago. Her hip-hugging costume billowed out into salsa-hot orange ruffles at her thighs below and her shoulders above, giving the impression of a waist. Her dreadlocks were swirled into an updo that sported chrome yellow feathers and a rhinestone Spanish comb a foot high.

  Her sleek lower legs and arched foot ended in four-inch platform spikes.

  All of this made her look as tall and almost as thin as her partner.

  The song said the Copacabana nightclub was the “hottest spot” north of Havana. As the impudent rhythmic lines of the song were sung by the show vocalists, CC and MJ circled and strutted, enacting their onstage love affair . . .

  Lola had “yellow feathers in her hair.”

  CC was her waiter-lover Tony, who moved from the “bar”—the beaming judges’ table . . . well, except for producer Leander Brock—to join Lola on the dance floor to court her.

  The audience gasped as a third figure in black appeared at the fringes of the dance floor.

  José Juarez posed there in his Zorro outfit, sans mask, cape, and sword, with a four-carat diamond ear stud. He cut in on Tony and Lola, and wrested her away in a twirl of ruffles, dragging her across the floor pasodoble style before Tony dashed in to draw her upright again.

  The song lyrics said there was “blood and a single gunshot,” but only red spotlights smeared the dance floor.

  The gunshot, though, was real: a sharp bark that pierced the amiable Latin beat.

  The music and dance reached a crescendo.

  Music and passion is always in fashion.

  “But who shot who?” the lyrics asked as audience members started standing up one by one to see. The dancers froze in place.

  “Lola” Motha Jonz was posed with her ruffled skirt pulled up to one hip, a tiny pearl-handled pistol lifted from a red satin garter on her fishnet-hosed thigh. Smoke wafted from the tiny silver barrel as a spotlight caught it dead-on.

  Music and passion were always the fashion.

  And “Rico” José lay still on the dance floor . . . .

  Music and passion were always the fashion.

  At the Copa, Copacabana.

  Wait a minute!

  Rico hadn’t fallen, as in the song. That was what was so confusing. Both men wore black, but one was bulkier.

  “Tony” CC had fallen. Hard. Gracelessly. His limbs were splayed in ugly disarray.

  Music and passion were always the fashion.

  The audience giggled at the awkward staging.
/>   The music stopped.

  The cast froze in place.

  Music and passion were always the fashion.

  Lola’s shot had gone wild, which wouldn’t have mattered if she had been firing blanks as planned. If not . . .

  Someone breathed “Oh, my God” over a microphone in a deep, dramatic voice, Crawford Buchanan finally getting to use his most sepulchral tone.

  A man from the sidelines executed an emergency knee slide toward the fallen fencer. Rafi Nadir of all people, also all in black.

  The audience actually broke into scattered, spontaneous applause.

  This was all part of the show. “Wasn’t it?” they were asking each other.

  For a moment Temple recalled Max’s identical knee-slide entrance on the stage of the Elvis impersonator competition at the Kingdome.

  But the next onstage speedster was Danny Dove, the choreographer-judge used to handling dance floor injuries. He joined Rafi in gauging the fallen man’s condition.

  Molina didn’t slide on her knees but she was there almost as fast as Danny. Her hands, gloved in latex, which went oddly with her hippie garb, snatched the toy gun from Motha Jonz’s hand.

  “He’s been shot,” Rafi announced softly, pressing hard on the downed man’s upper arm. “We need a doctor!”

  “Oh, my God,” Crawford Buchanan intoned again. “Commercial break, goddammit! Commercial break. What the hell?”

  José and Motha Jonz, after freezing with disbelief, had edged over to the fallen man.

  Temple’s close observation of the scene was rudely interrupted.

  Crawford grabbed her arm and twisted her to face away from the crime scene. “Thirty seconds to the Brat Brigade. Thirty seconds until you’re on.”

  Temple opened her mouth like a fish told it was headed to a sushi bar.

  He shook her a little. “You are the distraction, ZC. Get yourself and your junior hoofers onstage. Now!”

  Yeah, right.

  Temple wanted to know what Danny and Rafi were doing, how CC was. Instead, she had to amp up the annoying Zoe Chloe Ozone. What would even she say in the face of televised mayhem?

  Something snappy and ad-libbed.

  The cameraman was pointing to her. The red light on his camera flashed as if a train were coming right at her. Five, four, three, two . . . live!

  “Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. And dance freaks everywhere. This is your instigative reporter, Zoe Chloe Ozone, on site and on—ah, none-of-your-business-unless-you’re-a-narc—here at Dancing With the Celebs, said celebs taking a well-deserved break as all old folks should.

  “Do not worry. We are going to shake and shiver and quiver your YouTubes. I am here to hype those two teenage masters of the samba, Meg-Ann and Chris.

  “Now, Chris you know as the senior, sexiest, and most-likely-tobe-mobbed Los Hermanos Brother. Meg-Ann you don’t know as the girl most likely to kick a soccer ball to kingdom come.

  “They are here up close and personal to kick assumptions about young dancers to bits and bytes. Get your home videos rolling; let’s give it up for a couple of young up-and-comers who never give up, Chris and Meg-Ann, dancing the samba!”

  Zoe Chloe clasped her fingerless gloves together in a gesture as much prayer as goad.

  The young couple galloped into camera range on cue, heads level, feet flashing, and butts bouncing like Meg-Ann’s carroty curls.

  Girls in the audience started screeching like banshees to see a nobody like themselves primped up and polishing the hardwood with the oldest Los Hermanos hotshot. To Temple he looked like a full-cheeked choirboy with unfortunate sideburns. To teen girls everywhere, he was the hottest thing on Clearasil.

  Temple watched her kids with an almost maternal pride. Much as she was invested in EK and her booster, Mariah, athletic Meg-Ann was displaying lots of pizzazz and personality as she moved from intense sport to hard-driving dance.

  Their energy and enthusiasm were banishing the image of the Cloaked Conjuror being wheeled away on an emergency gurney like a downed football player, surrounded by people never introduced from the stage, except for Danny Dove, who got a round of applause when he vaulted the judges’ table again to take his seat at the far right.

  Savannah Ashleigh was looking around as if still not sure what had happened, her mini-Chihuahua purse pooch scrabbling its claws in tune with its owner’s panic and scattering judging papers to the floor. Producer Leander Brock was still frozen in disbelief.

  Zoe Chloe’s emergency stint as emcee ended with the wild applause for the junior dance routine.

  Unfortunately, nothing about tonight’s show had been routine, except for yet another onstage mishap.

  Temple was mobbed by young autograph seekers as she tried to escape along the hallway to the back elevators.

  “You were sooo coool,” her girly admirers cooed.

  “We wanta see you dance!”

  “What did it feel like to be right next to Chris after they left the stage?”

  “Is he hot or what?”

  “Meg-Ann is kinda butch for a hot guy like that.”

  “Patrisha would rock his world.”

  “Dustin is hotter, don’t you think?”

  “Brandon is, you dork!”

  “Adam!”

  “Where do they hide out before and after the dances? We can’t find them anywhere!”

  Zoe Chloe retreated, disappearing into the service elevator finally. “Forget about Adam and Chris and Brandon and Dustin. Where’s Waldo!” she asked as the doors closed, citing a kids’ picture book from before when these ardent fans were born.

  That oughta confuse them long enough to make a getaway.

  One-armed Bandit

  “How bad is CC’s arm wound?” Rafi wanted to know.

  They’d all been waiting in the suite for Molina to return.

  “Nasty,” she said, collapsing into an armchair. “But everyone’s happy, including the Cloaked Conjuror, because they can put him on pain pills, wrap up the arm, and he can still dance the tango for the final round tomorrow. The mishaps just up the ratings. Showbiz!”

  She laughed, adding, “Look at you all! I’ve never seen a sadder set of glum clowns, including me. The show will go on, but I’m not sure the junior division will be onstage for the awards shows.”

  “Mo-ther, no!” Mariah wailed from the huge ottoman she shared with EK.

  “There’s been gunplay on the stage, sweetie. No way am I going to risk any minors.”

  “Did Motha Jonz fire the shot?” Matt asked. He’d returned to the suite and shared one of the living-room love seats with a sober-faced Zoe Chloe Ozone.

  Molina raised an eyebrow. “You supposed to sling an arm around that underage professional brat?”

  “I’m eighteen, copper,” Zoe crowed, sticking out her tongue, much to Mariah’s giggly approval.

  “Forget staying in character,” Molina said. “It’s wearing; on us, if not you. We all have some serious thinking to do. I haven’t given the producer the go-ahead on the show. They’re continuing rehearsals for now.”

  “You can shut this whole thing down?” Matt asked.

  “You betcha, chorus boy.”

  “Mo-ther!

  Molina glanced sourly from Matt to her daughter and back. “And you’ve all got dance fever.”

  “You don’t want to shut down the show,” Rafi said.

  “And you have a say in this, because—?”

  “I don’t have a say in it, but I am involved, Carmen, and you know why.”

  During the ensuing silence, Mariah glanced from Rafi to her mother, sensing the unspoken tension and wondering how a security guy could call a police lieutenant by her first name that almost nobody used, even her mother. Except when she sang.

  Molina’s jawline grew tighter than a drum skin in the show band. “I would think the assistant director of security at this hotel would want to avoid further disruptive . . . violence.”

  She left it unclear just what kind of violence
she was referring to.

  Rafi remained unruffled. “These are acts of sabotage so far. You didn’t answer the question. Did the shot that hit the Cloaked Conjuror come from Motha Jonz’s gun?”

  “Yes.”

  Matt got it. “So . . . a prop gun was loaded, instead of just having a dummy smoke-generating shell in it. Nobody offstage was shooting.”

  “And this is better, how?” Molina asked Rafi.

  “It’s criminal endangerment so far. Nothing lethal. You shut down the show, we’ll never catch who’s doing this.”

  “Sometimes avoiding violence is better police work than catching perps and risking lives.”

  Rafi shook his head.

  “It’s always better to catch a stalker than let him disappear back into the woodwork to crawl out again. I think that’s what we’re dealing with here, and what you’ve dealt with before. I wouldn’t want my teen daughter on the loose without it being settled. I’m sure if you ask the other junior moms, they’ll go along. Me and my staff will cover those girls like a blanket. I have a lot of good female staff. They’re bunking together, easy to supervise. Your people can handle the adult cast.”

  Molina’s sallow cheeks flared with color at his reference to a stalker. “If anything happens to those kids, I’ll have your job and your head.”

  “Nothing new, Carmen.”

  Again, one of those loaded silences. Temple snuggled into Matt’s shoulder, glad it was unwounded. “I wish you didn’t have to go back and forth to the radio station nights,” she whispered.

  Molina must have had ears in the back of her head.

  She hiked her neck around to stare at them. “I am not in the mood for eavesdropping on Love’s Young Dream. You don’t want to follow through as Zoe Chloe, Barr, so much the better for me and my nerves.”

  She snapped her head back to face Rafi. “Okay, Nadir. You’ve got the whole world in your hands. Don’t freaking drop it.” Only she didn’t say “freaking.”