Cat in a Flamingo Fedora

by Douglas, Carole Nelson

  "Him. My regular. The sex addict."

  "But. . . Darren Cooke is dead. I may not be sure why, but I sure am sure of that. Mr. Cooke, he dead."

  "So they say, but my chronic caller isn't. He also isn't Darren Cooke, unless they run phone lines from the afterlife."

  "Matt! Then you didn't hear the last person to visit Darren Cooke arrive. You heard some other floozie arriving at some other Lothario's door."

  "Sounds reasonable to me."

  "This . . . ruins everything. My whole case."

  "Maybe it shouldn't be your case, Temple. Maybe it's a sign to retire from the Nancy Drew business. We were wrong, all the way. Just plain wrong. And you're just as wrong about Darren Cooke's death being suspicious."

  Temple couldn't think of a thing to say.

  Everything Matt said was absolutely right.

  Maybe.

  When he hung up, she recalled that something (besides the Mystifying Max) had troubled her presleep mind. She often got her best ideas in that foggy limbo land between wakefulness and sleep. Now, fully awake and almost as disturbed by what Matt had just told her as she had been previously by her Mexican standoff with Max, Temple felt her barefoot way into the main room. Still no Louie. Great; another problem to worry terrier like at her overcharged mind.

  Where on earth was Midnight Louie?

  The copied entries from Cooke's recipes-for-rendezvous file lay dumped on the coffee table.

  She had skimmed them at the office, recognizing some names, not most. But she had recognized something else without quite knowing it. Yawning, she stood next to the lit floor lamp, staring down at the pages. Should have set the copier's darkness feature higher. Some of the writing faded on upper and lower loops, making it almost cryptographic. She kept looking for the discrepancy that was bothering her unconscious mind.

  Something was... different. Temple's glance lingered on the famous name of a West Coast TV talk-show anchorwoman. Why did she need to do the bedroom boogie with Darren Cooke?

  "Midnight rendezvous in a limousine," was scrawled across the woman's embossed business card. "Great traction, but a sticky carburetor."

  Temple frowned at the crude summation, then realized that the crassness didn't bother her as much as the handwriting. Was it really Darren Cooke's? She had seen a sample of his writing somewhere ... when?

  She yawned. Where? At his brunch. On what? Then her eyes opened wide enough to let in too much lamplight. She rushed squinting back to her bedroom. What had she worn to Gangster's the first day she had watched Louie?

  She must have absently tucked away Cooke's card, the gag one, on which he had scrawled his hotel-suite number for the brunch. She remembered consulting it before leaving for the Oasis Sunday morning and slipping it into ... no, she hadn't taken her tote bag for once, and she had worn leggings ... no pockets there, but the Big White Shirt she almost never wore had one tiny breast pocket for effect. Could she have slipped it in there, then returned the shirt to the lost-and-found department in her closet for another three years?

  Turning on all the bedroom lights only made her eyes water, but she paged, blinking, through the hangers until her hand closed on the slightly wrinkled shirt.

  A hasty pat-down revealed something flat and sharp-edged inside the pocket. Either a forgotten calculator or ... She reached in with a gingerly forefinger and thumb, and pulled out. ..

  Cooke's card!

  She didn't compare it to the copy paper she'd brought into the room until she was sitting on the bed. The handwriting on the recipe cards and Cooke's card were identical. But, Temple recalled, on her card, the one Michelle had found, it had not been quite the same. More heavily pressed down, slanted less, not exactly right at all. If only she could see her card to be sure!

  Who had it now? Cooke's widow or Lieutenant Molina?

  A slight difference in writing, if genuine, would explain why Temple was erroneously labeled for the trysting pile: Cooke didn't do it. Someone else did, either assuming that their brief bedroom interlude was romantic rather than of a business nat ure, or wanting someone--

  people, the police--to think that Temple was Darren's last lover.

  She had to see her card again. And there was something else she ought to look into. Who had any business imitating a busy man's handwriting? Who had any chance to become adept at it? No one but his very own personal assistant.

  But not until morning. Temple settled down again in the dark.

  "Goodnight, Max," she whispered. "Goodnight, Louie."

  Wherever you are.

  Chapter 32

  Louie is Knocked Out

  I awake, prone. I expect to be in a cage, but it is worse than that. I lie in a sort of homemade pen.

  I recognize the room right off: small, pale, with a long table covered in white cloth and a smell of rubbing alcohol and disinfectant.

  Despite the long, cloth-covered table, this is no dining room. There is only one chair, a rolling stool, in the corner. There is a built-in cabinet full of things that smell harsh and antiseptic.

  Every bone in my body aches, and every muscle, and my head most of all.

  I know I have been put into an artificial slumber with chloroform or some more powerful anesthetic. My memories of my arrival here last night are confused. This Mickey Finn they pumped into my veins is not helping me any.

  The cab ride cost eight dollars and seventy cents. Miss Savannah Ashleigh tipped the driver a buck. I made sure to remember the amount in case I need to retrace my route here. I remember the driver grumbling about cheapskates. (As far as I know, skates are not very cheap these days; those on-line blades cost a small fortune.)

  Uh! Why can I remember the small stuff and not the big? The room goes in and out of focus, like the walls are breathing and I am not. All right. The office was officially closed. I remember the doctor, a man in a white coat, (really precise ID, Louie!) complaining that he had no staff, no nurse.

  "I will be your nurse," Miss Savannah Ashleigh had volunteered in an iron tone.

  He had fussed some, about not being licensed for this. About criminal mischief. What about my owner? he had asked.

  "He is a stray. An alley cat. No one owns him," she had answered honestly enough, vitriol searing every word.

  The thing is, Miss Savannah Ashleigh believed that she was lying, that she was concealing Miss Temple Barr's relationship to me.

  I can read the handwriting on the prescription pad. I am here to be put to death. It may be a private execution, but it will be as final nevertheless. I wonder what the Divine Yvette will be told. Probably that I ran off, never to return. What will Miss Temple Barr think? That I was run over or lost. She will search every crack in the Las Vegas concrete for me, leave no grain of sand unturned, but it will be useless. No one knew of my mission to the Goliath. No one will suspect that I was carried off by a vengeful, crackpot film star. No one will know. Ever.

  I sigh. I plan to fight every inch of the way, but suspect I will not be given much chance. I may even be gassed in the Divine One's carrier, oh irony of ironies!

  Now would be a great time to deliver one of my favorite closing speeches. "It is a far, far better" et cetera.

  But there is nothing better about this predicament.

  When the doctor comes at me with the needle, I duck and twist and buck, but ultimately feel the final prick. I do not understand why he is so reluctant. Surely he performs such nefarious acts every day. I must be at a shelter, accused of being rabid or some such story.

  Certainly Miss Savannah Ashleigh acts as if she has some say-so over the doctor's actions.

  But that was then ... and this, much to my surprise, is now. I find myself awake, as I did not expect to be ever again.

  Now I feel pain.

  And I realize that my fate is to be far more horrible than a quick a nonymous death in a neat little room.

  I am to be kept alive. I am to be tormented. I am secretly in stir. But while there is life, there is a chance of escape, however s
lim. I am still a fighter.

  And yet it strikes me, as I gaze at the merciless fluorescent light above me, that I am paying the ultimate price for something I did not do. I never once successfully touched the Divine Yvette. Not through any failure of my own intention, but through mere circumstance.

  For the first time in my life, or what is left of it, I am able to state: I am a completely innocent dude.

  Chapter 33

  At the Drop of a Card

  Temple awoke the next morning with flamingos on her mind.

  Dream fragments still floated on the out- of-focus white screen of her ceiling. Oh, yeah. She had been doing a fandango with Max, for an audience of flamingos, who were swiftly grabbed by passersby for use as . . . golf clubs.

  Then Midnight Louie had waddled by, upright on two feet, wearing an orange vest and top hat, clutching a pocket watch and complaining that he was late for work. Electra appeared out of nowhere as the Red Queen, followed by a pack of Darren Cooke's conquest recipe cards.

  Matt had been nowhere in sight in this Mad Hatter's dream, which was typical.

  She sat up in bed, donning her glasses to inspect the coverlet for Louie. He seldom stayed out all night anymore, but he had now.

  Flamingos. Things had been so hectic lately that she'd forgotten to check in with Domingo.

  And she hadn't gotten a message from the A La Cat film crew, so she didn't know when Louie would be needed next. Perhaps not until Yvette had recovered from her dysentery or distemper or whatever was supposed to be wrong with her, besides sprinkling in her carrier and shrinking when wet. Meanwhile, Temple could laze in bed a little and speculate on all sorts of things that were none of her business, always the most fascinating topics of consideration.

  Had Sid Caesar stepped into Darren Cooke's soft shoes yet? Did it feel creepy to stand in for a dead man? Omigosh! She'd neglected to ask the director for a free show pass for Electra. Even with Cooke dead, she was sure a devoted fan like Electra would want to see what he would have been doing if he weren't dead.

  Snatches of the chorus production number swirled in her head, the human hoofers intermixed with quick-stepping flamingos. Pretty good show. Clever idea to hark back to Las Vegas's colorful days of yore, when larger-than-life figures like Bugsy Siegel and Howard Hughes had made Las Vegas their private playpen, then ultimately the world's.

  Actually, the revue, with its tribute to Bugsy and the Fabulous Flamingo hotel that he founded, was more appropriate to the current Flamingo Hilton. The one that gave Domingo's installations such a run for the money with its lavishly lit facade of a flamingo chorus line. Bits of the original 1946 structure still lurk within the thrice-rebuilt hotel today. And Temple had learned why Bugsy (who hated his nickname) had named his hotel-casino the Flamingo: Flamingo was a nickname for his feisty girlfriend Virginia Hill! Virginia apparently turned a vivid shade of red when she drank, which was often. Temple would have to tell Domingo sometime ...

  Flamingos. So many feathers to cover a gawky-graceful bird that only weighed three to seven pounds, including lightweight, long neck and legs--even the six-foot-tall ones, which would almost match Max's height. . .

  Temple's hand drew patterns along the comforter's zebra-stripes. Darren Cooke had almost been ready to perform that revue for an audience. He'd been drenched in Old Las Vegas flavor for weeks. He used a recipe box to hold Cooke's cookies and their cards. Why wouldn't he use a flamingo box to hold the missing manila envelope?

  Nothing to do with Domingo's presence here. That was coincidental. But the Flamingo Hilton's safety-deposit boxes... Cooke must have stayed there before, been "comped" as a celebrity. Wouldn't the management have let him use a hotel safe for a few weeks if he had asked? Treating celebrities with discretion had been a Las Vegas password even before Sinatra's Rat Pack ran up tabs and tabloid coverage in the sixties.

  Temple checked her clock face in the harsh light of day. Ten-thirty. Time to rise and shine, Lt.

  C. R. Molina!

  Temple speed-dialed the police number, and was lucky enough to reach Molina eventually.

  "Barr," Temple said as brusquely as Molina announced herself. "Have you tried the guest safes at the Flamingo?"

  "For what? Being broken and entered?"

  "Not tried in that way. Have you checked to see if Darren Cooke kept a box there?"

  "Why would he? He wasn't registered there."

  "Maybe not this trip, but I've got a hunch he might have hidden the envelope of letters there."

  "You left out 'crazy' in front of 'hunch.' We don't have time--"

  Temple cut her off. It felt good. "Only the police could find out for sure. What would it take?

  A phone call? I'd be happy to identify anything you find."

  "It takes a warrant too. And I bet you'd be--" Molina began, but Temple hung up.

  Being a chicken, she had mumbled " 'Bye" first.

  ****************

  Temple figured she could handle the second stage of this paper chase herself. She called the Oasis and asked for a room. The operator put her call through, but the phone rang until it tripped a voice-mail request to leave a message.

  No way, Temple thought, with all the savvy of a PR veteran. Leaving messages gave people time to think about what they'd say to the message-leaver. Temple didn't want that. Surprise was paramount when you wanted to elicit a confession. And she did think one aspect of the Darren Cooke death called for a confession.

  So she decided to take a chance on trying another likely site in person. She went on a whim.

  She had a hunch, and a nagging, itchy hunch is as demanding as any unsatisfied drug habit.

  The drive wasn't long, but it gave Temple time to plan her approach. She would be matter-of-fact, but nonaccusatory. The idea was to confirm a suspicion, not to stir up defensive anger.

  She parked in front this time, in plain sight, and neared the windows with their blinds drawn tight against the . . . overhead sun, which wouldn't hit the glass full on until late afternoon. A little early to be so discreet.

  Temple's knock set the closed miniblinds shimmying against the door's inset glass. She knocked again. And again.

  Finally she walked to the corner, counting and studying cars, and down the side street to the building's rear. Parked halfway down that side, all by its lonesome, sat an old Volkswagen Beetle convertible painted a dazzling new white.

  Her hunch already paying off, Temple marched back to the Strip shopping center's front facade and the blind-shrouded office.

  She knocked again, waited, then said loudly, "I know you're in there, and I won't go away.

  You could leave, of course, in the car parked out back, but I'd just find you someplace else."

  She waited, forbearing to knock again.

  Finally, the door blinds rattled. A lock clicked. Temple turned the knob and entered.

  The outer office seemed almost as dim as last night, even with all the tabletop lamps on.

  Against one wall, the copier wheezed. Temple could see its tiny green operating lights from the door.

  Alison Darby looked hot and bothered in a shapeless gray jogging suit with baggy pants. Her fashionably cut, burgundy-tinted salon hairstyle was flat on one side and pushed into an inappropriate pouf on the other, as if slept on. Her face was in similar condition, puffy and hollow at the same time, making her look far older.

  "Did you often sign documents for Darren Cooke?" Temple asked, figuring her victim was stressed enough to tell the truth without thinking about it.

  "Sign? What are you talking about? Why are you here? I've got to finish up the office work quickly, because I certainly can't afford an Oasis room now that Darren's dead."

  "A lot of secretaries do it, forge their bosses' signatures. I bet they get pretty good at mimicking their handwriting too."

  "Personal assistant," she corrected. "I wasn't just a secretary, though it sure looks like it now." She eyed the office and rubbed a sweatshirt sleeve against her damp forehead, making the
improbably magenta bangs stand up like soldiers on parade.

  "Why kill yourself? Surely his widow will want you to stay on as an employee and sort through things."

  "No. I don't think she will. And, anyway, I don't want to stay any longer than I have to."

  Harried, she eyed the idling copy machine.

  Working over a warmed-up copy machine under a deadline can be a sweaty job. Temple knew, having done it just the other night. But she guessed that something else might be making Alison Darby so hot under the collar.

  "Just tell me if you wrote Sunday's date on my card in Darren's bedroom that day. Because it isn't quite his handwriting."

  "How do you know?" The tone was sassy teenage challenge.

  "Because," Temple said gently, "I looked at Darren's other cards, with his real handwriting on them, in the box in his office, right back there."

  Alison glanced backward, as horrified as if the ghost of Cooke had strolled out from the office.

  "And I copied them, like you're doing now." Temple nodded to the pile of index cards beside the copier. "Look. I know you were trying to protect your boss. I don't know what you thought you'd accomplish by making me seem like one of his conquests, but that won't hold up. Michelle has my card now, and the police will have it soon."

  "Michelle!" Alison cast anxious glances from Temple to the copier. "Why would she have it?"

  "I'm not quite sure. You may have left it in his bedroom to be found, or have brought it here to the recipe box, where it was accidentally found. Michelle might have come in one day--"

  "I couldn't refuse her keys to the office."

  "No. But you didn't have to point a finger at me through my card. I was only in the bedroom with Darren for a few minutes--"

  "That was always enough for him!" she spit out.

  "But it wasn't enough for me. And all the time in the world wouldn't have been enough for me if the man were Darren Cooke."

  "You ... didn't like him?"