Cat in a Flamingo Fedora

by Douglas, Carole Nelson

  Temple dutifully wrote the name on a notepad she had extracted from her tote bag immediately upon being informed that she was a producer for a national news show.

  "I've heard of her," she murmured.

  "Amazing! I'm impressed. Savannah hasn't done anything to hear about since her last face-lift."

  "Was there anyone else in his life this past week, or month?"

  "Well, we haven't been rehearsing a whole month, dearie!" He was half-talking and half-inhaling on a new cigarette, his lighter flame ebbing and flaring like a candle in the wind. "Oh, the chorus cuties were always around Darren. He radiated charm. Girls seemed to jump into his bed like lemmings into the sea."

  "An interesting analogy. Are you implying that getting involved with Darren Cooke was self -

  destructive?"

  "No! No, no, no. I meant that they had very little concern for their reputations. I suppose he was a fairly major star, and these starry-eyed young things like to say thirty years later when they're knitting booties for the grand brats that they once had an affair with a star. One-night stand usually, with Darren. But nobody ever complained, as far as I knew."

  "Really! What a remarkable man." Temple cupped her face in her hand and placed her elbow on the table to lean in closer. "What about women who were strangely . . . unsusceptible to Darren Cooke? Any of them around?"

  "Well, nobody really notices the losers . . . but we have a new costumer who seemed quite inoculated against his charm. And Darren's personal assistant is quite a striking creature, yet she broadcasts such an icy air of pure business that I doubt even Darren tried the Romeo act on her."

  "Personal assistant," Temple repeated, writing and remembering. "I really should contact her. Where would she be now that he's . . . dea d."

  "Why, his office, I expect. Tidying up the files for the widow."

  "Office? Where?"

  "He appeared here so often that he maintained a small Strip office. Somewhere on Charleston. Surely you have assistants yourself who can look it up."

  "That I do." Temple finished her Clamato drink and shut her notebook.

  "I'll buy you another Bloody Mary," he said, pointing, obviously uneager for the interview to end.

  "Thanks, but I must get to work. I'll just poke around backstage, if you don't mind. Interview the 'little people' who are so often overlooked in media biographies."

  "Excellent idea! Our set is just crammed with the little people -- crew and hoofers and floor-sweepers. If you want an overview, don't hesitate to come to me."

  "I won't," Temple promised as sincerely as he had offered.

  When she rose, Aldo slipped into her seat.

  "I would like a Bloody Mary," he told the director, deadpan.

  Obviously, Aldo considered his next assignment to be keeping this camera-hound out of her way while she snooped around. Manny Kurtz was in fine (and persistent) Italian hands for at least forty-five minutes.

  *******************

  Once in the theater itself, Temple mentally changed identities and brought forward a new rank of half-lies.

  "Where's the cat?" an idle dancer called as she approached the stage.

  "Resting at home like a movie star." She climbed the few steps to the stage. The empty staircase reminded her of Midnight Louie's almost-tumble down those homicidally long risers . .

  . could the cat have tripped on something? The next person down that stairway would have been Darren Cooke.

  "I've enjoyed watching the company rehearse," she told the marooned dancer, crossing to where he lounged in the wings.

  That was an old theater person for you: she "crossed" the stage, didn't "walk."

  He nodded. "Would have been a good show with Darren. It'll be great with Caesar."

  "Was Mr. Cooke ... uneasy at all before his death? Did the average co-worker have any suspicion about what was coming."

  "Co-worker? We were just the chorus. He did seem a little withdrawn for Darren Cooke, the world's first wild and wonderful guy. I noticed that he played footsie with the blond chick with the cat commercial, but he didn't seem too pleased about it."

  "Darren Cooke pretending to be interested in women?"

  "In that woman, anyway. Hey, she was a silicone babe; I don't blame the guy. You seemed to be more his type."

  "Me?" Temple hoped she didn't look as guilty as she felt.

  "So how come you're asking about all this?"

  She sighed. "I'm helping a friend with a book." True, although in the future. "It looks at true-life situations that end in death." Half-true. "Nobody can figure out why he killed himself. I'm looking for a little insight. And, then, I actually met him during the commercial shoot. I'm an ex-reporter. I guess I'm like everybody else. I want to know why."

  "Guy had it all. Model wife. Kid. Money enough for a nanny to look after the kid, which is the best part. His show was going to do well. Gangster's is a great venue. I can't figure it."

  "Nobody ever--"

  "Ever what?"

  "I know you've just been around for this show, but did one of his ex-girlfriends or one-night stands get ugly about her built-in obsolescence?"

  "Nobody I ever heard of, and the hoofers hear a lot about the headliners, believe me. Except that Ashleigh bombshell. I saw them coming out of his dressing room, arguing about someone.

  Drew, that was it. The name! By God, I remembered it."

  The dancer straightened his spine and grew an inch in an automatic physical expression of his psychological exuberance.

  "Do you suppose that's important? That he and this Ashleigh woman were arguing about some other woman named Drew. Could be a last name, or a first name. What do you think?"

  That everybody thinks he's a detective, Temple told herself sourly.

  "Should I tell the police?"

  "I doubt it. I'm going to look around during break. Thanks."

  She walked backstage, imagining this sudden windfall of information getting to Lieutenant Molina. She imagined Molina finding out that the "Drew" under discussion was "Nancy."

  And finally, of course she'd realize, that the person was her, Temple Barr. She couldn't help wincing as she thumped down the narrow backstage stairs to the dressing rooms below.

  Chapter 28

  Dressing the Part

  If Temple knew how to do anything, it was how to schmooze up theater people, especially crucial backstage personnel.

  Like support staff in any endeavor, these folks were often taken for granted or even snubbed by visiting stars. For a little attention and commiseration, they could tell a lot about the stellar personalities with whom they had passing, but intimate, contact.

  So Temple spent the next hour gossiping with Mike the stage doorman, the janitor, a few more lingering chorus members who weren't needed until the next number and the all-important hairdresser and costumer.

  "I had standing instructions to let any pulchritudinous females into Mr. Cooke's dressing room," Mike admitted.

  "Pulchritudinous? He really said that?"

  "No, I said that."

  It soon came out that Mike, at seventy, was studying English at the University of Nevada to make up for a scanted education (in sixth grade he had dropped out to help support his family).

  "Really?" Temple asked, not knowing anybody who hadn't been forced to go through high school, and often college. "What could you do at age . .. eleven or twelve?"

  "It was the Depression. Lots of things. You don't want to know."

  Though Mike looked like a stunt double for Santa Claus, with his trimmed white beard and trifocal glasses, Temple took him at his word. In Las Vegas, the Capital of Present Tense, you often don't want to know people's past lives.

  "So, did any of these pulchritudinous females slither on in?"

  "You didn't," Mike said gallantly. "But that Hollywood harpy sure did."

  Temple almost purred. Mike's English classes were making him quite a hand with a cutting phrase. "You mean Savannah Ashleigh, who's managed single-handedly
to raise her breast measurement to match her IQ?"

  Mike had to think that one through, but then he grinned, showing some black holes where teeth should have been. "That's the she-devil herself. Boy, did they carry on in there! Mr. Cooke always looked very cranky after she came shooting on out. The only rendezvous those two were having was in the boxing ring."

  Temple paused to contemplate the lovely notion that Savannah Ashleigh had been Darren Cooke's Sunday midnight visitor, and had driven him to suicide ... or helped him leave the planet in the guise of suicide.

  But why? "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned," was a pretty good motive. No other woman had gone ballistic when the affair was over, but Savannah had the temper of a born pouter. She might have been hanging onto him like a piranha.

  "Anyone else?" Temple asked. "Females, I mean."

  "That trim little personal assistant of his. Great gams."

  "I hadn't noticed, but then I'm not supposed to. I saw her at his Sunday brunch. She seemed almost fanatically all business."

  "That's what she did here. In and out in five minutes, and the same stiff, stern look on her mug. She never even nodded to me as she went by, just trundled past with her briefcase and papers."

  "And?"

  Mike frowned and adjusted his pistol holster in the groove beneath his Santa-jolly beer belly. "Now we're down to staff. No, wait! Some elf in a miniskirt cut up to her hair-length came in once to see him. Didn't stay long enough for any hanky-panky."

  "I've seen the assistant but what did this one look like?"

  "Brown hair, not much makeup, flat shoes. And that miniskirt, black-and-white checks all over. Sure could move in that walking-chessboard thing, though. For such a mousy girl, there was something about her."

  "Do you remember what day she came in?"

  "Friday maybe."

  "Nothing really memorable about her?"

  "Not with all these show folk types around. You in show biz?"

  "No. My cat is, though."

  "Cat? Don't like 'em. Always jumping on cupboards and eating food."

  Temple could not deny it, especially since Louie would rather eat almost anything ot her than Free-to-be-Feline.

  "Mind if I poke around down here a little?"

  Mike pursed his lips and shook his head. Temple proceeded to poke.

  Darren Cooke's dressing room had been stripped of his effects; probably by that haughty but efficient personal assistant.

  Temple regarded the garment rod with its few askew wire hangers, a sad smudge of clown-white makeup smearing the neighboring mirror. If only mirrors could record what went on before their cold glass surfaces. Could one of Darren Cooke's female visitors have been his daughter? Had there been any hints that she was stalking him? Was that why he had pounced on Temple in the theater house that day and asked her to brunch?

  She went into the hall to look for the costume room.

  A faint buzz of industry drew her finally to a pair of shut doors. Her knock didn't disturb the sound of work within, so she pushed open one door.

  Worktables filled the space, not much staff. A rainbow of zoot suits lined a hanging rack against the wall, and more costumes decorated other racks. Decapitated heads lined tabletops like leftovers from the French Revolution; some wore wigs fanciful enough for 1790-something.

  A small, stout African-American woman bent over a pattern laid atop fabric, her mouth bristling with straight pins.

  She was working, alone and so intently that Temple tiptoed closer.

  "Pardon me. Are you Minnie? Mike the doorman said you might talk to me."

  "Nmmmph like ifff," she mumbled through her mouthful of pins.

  Temple hefted herself onto a nearby stool and prepared to wait. A radio somewhere played soft-rock classics.

  The woman began spitting out pins one by one as her flashing hands nailed the pattern to the fabric like a human staple gun.

  This was a veteran. Temple loved to watch seamstresses work. She herself could barely thread a needle and run it through a buttonhole, but real sewers had an almost ballet like economy and certainty of movement.

  "Done." The woman swiftly stuck leftover pins into the cushion attached to her wrist. "What might be your name, mite?"

  "Temple Barr. And I don't like being stereotyped by size."

  She nodded. "Why're you such a big friend of Mike's?"

  "I took the time to talk to him."

  "That Mike! Always jabbering. Me, I can't usually. What's the fuss? I have to remake this costume right soon."

  "Actually, I'm asking about poor Mr. Cooke."

  "Poor Mr. Cooke! I don't think so, honey. I know you're trying to speak nice about the dead, but there was nothing poor about that man. He had the cars, the clothes, the cash, the chicks and maybe the boy chicks too, if he'd awanted them."

  "You do know all the dirt, like Mike said."

  "Mike. That blabbermouth. When I sew, it's quiet, I'm quiet. Everybody forgets about me. I hear more than I should, but it's all just noise to me."

  "Now that Mr. Cooke's dead, though, you must be thinking over what you might have heard.

  You must wonder what drove him to suicide."

  Minnie folded fabric and pattern into loose squares. Her huge brown eyes were as sharp as pins, and her unwrinkled complexion was the warm, comforting color of cocoa. "Girl, I don't wonder. That's why I like this job. I been doing costumes in Las Vegas for almost forty years, and I ain't never been required to wonder. You got a reason I should change that?"

  "Yes, ma'am, I do."

  "You do? Just who are you to go round asking questions? You work for these folks that own Gangster's?"

  Temple took a deep breath. "In a way. I work for Nicky Fontana at the Crystal Phoenix, and his brothers have an interest in this place, so--"

  "The Fontana Brothers? Why didn't you say so up front, girl?" Her face unfolded in laughter, producing its first creases. "They are too much. Too much. Them and their family Viper. That is one bad automobile."

  Temple smiled. You had to love the Fontana Brothers, especially when the mere mention of their names served as an "open sesame" in the unlikeliest places around town.

  "I do their tailoring for them," Minnie confided. "Why do you think they look so good in those Italian suits? You should have seen them as whippersnappers. Cute as a litter of hound-dog pups."

  "I bet," Temple said.

  "You date one of those boys?"

  "No, I don't."

  Minnie frowned, as if any female who neglected her boys was suspect. "What you want to know?" She plucked an iron from its resting place to press a length of fuchsia suiting material.

  Temple could tell that Minnie was queen of her backstage domain, and had been so for far too long to fool. "I've got a bad feeling about that death. I think a woman was involved. A young woman. I'm trying to find out who might have seen Darren Cooke during the last days before he died."

  "This any of your bizness?" Minnie looked up, narrow-eyed, from her ironing.

  "No."

  She nodded. "You one of his girls?"

  "No!"

  Minnie glared at her.

  "He asked but I just said no."

  Minnie nodded. "He never missed a young thing that came within fifty feet."

  "Someone thought he might have killed himself because the young things weren't saying yes as often as they did when he was younger."

  Minnie made a dismissive sound. "There's always enough young things around dumb enough or greedy enough to say yes. This trip I count three girls in the chorus, and maybe some dark horse from outside. She came and went too fast, though."

  "Brown-haired girl, quiet except for a sassy miniskirt?"

  "That's the one, Temple. I never forget a skirt like that."

  "Maybe she wanted to be noticed," Temple speculated.

  "Sure. Anybody who wear a skirt that short wants something to be noticed. I don't know about her. Could be a--what you call it?--red herring."

  Temple smiled.
Minnie was getting mystery fever.

  "Wasn't that other one," Minnie muttered, "with the cat that was more stuck-up than her. I bet that woman's hair turned white from her looking in the mirror so often and scarin' herself."

  "You mean Savannah Ashleigh."

  "More like born Betty Lou Kravitz. Savannah's too nice a town to be associated with her. She was in and out for days, screaming and kicking. Then it was 'Poor Mr. Cooke.' I never seen one of his exes come round acting up before. And I been working all over this town, must've worked maybe eight of his other gigs. He was a favorite in Las Vegas, Mr. Cooke."

  Minnie tabled her iron and lifted a creaseless garment for inspection. She frowned.

  "One thing bother me. Day after he died, his wife came in for some of his things. She was a classy lady. I read about that, their getting married and having a baby. Why would that man keep on slipping around on the side with a famous model for a wife?"

  "Habit. A habit as hard to break as heroin."

  "Go on wi' you, Temple Barr. I don't believe that."

  "But his wife was here? What time? She supposedly had just flown in from France."

  "She was by about, oh, six o'clock in the afternoon. Before the joint really got jumping. Long, tall thing, my goodness! Not like you and me."

  "What did she take from his dressing room?"

  "Odds and ends. I moved out the costumes, but his makeup case was gone. That's all."

  Maybe, Temple told herself, and maybe not. She jumped to the floor.

  "You're not leaving?"

  Minnie liked an audience, or liked giving audiences, rather.

  "Yup. I have other errands to run. Thanks!"

  Temple retraced her steps in a hurry. Her first date would be with the phone book--to find out what flights arrived from Paris on Monday.

  Chapter 29

  Office Affairs to Remember

  Nobody was saying Darren Cooke had been killed, but Temple compiled a suspect list anyway.