"Vegetarians do? I thought they didn't like protein."
"Never mind." Temple was too stupefied to be furious anymore. "I'm going to call this doctor. And if I don't like what I learn, I may sue you."
"You can't. I sue other people. They don't sue me."
"Maybe they haven't yet. But they could, and I will, and maybe the others will get the idea about countersuits before I'm through."
"You have a lot of nerve."
"Yes," Temple said pleasantly.
She left before her nerve reached her fingertips and she did something fatal to Dr. Mendel's other handiwork.
In the lobby, she mauled a Yellow Pages directory until she found the doctor's number.
"Dr. Mendel is with a patient," a receptionist informed her.
Temple was on the warpath. "I'm with the Secret Service. The First Lady is giving a speech in the area, and would like to consult Dr. Mendel on a personal matter. She is not staying in the area very long, but she has heard about him from Cher--"
"Oh! Just a moment."
In just a moment the doctor was in.
"Yes?"
"What did you do to that cat Savannah Ashleigh brought in?"
"I thought you were with the Secret Service."
"I am, and it's a federal crime to kidnap an animal to perform unsanctioned procedures, especially outside your own specialty. The cat was not hers. This incident could cost you your license, Doctor. Depending, of course, on what you did."
"N-nothing. Just what she said to do. I fixed the animal so it couldn't reproduce. Or, rather, so it couldn't father kittens. It's a simple procedure done all the time all over the country on thousands of men. Er, males. I'd never done it before, but I knew what was involved and it was only a cat, after all."
"Only a cat? This cat is a direct forebear of Socks, the White House cat. You have heard of Socks?"
"Yes. Oh, dear. Miss Ashleigh was most insistent, and she is a . . . constant client. I never dreamed the animal was not hers to do with as she would. It was a very simple, uncomplicated vasectomy, I assure you. No undue bleeding, just a couple of internal staples that will dissolve.
He should be as good as new in a day or so."
"A . . . vasectomy? Isn't that difficult on a cat's small, er, appendages?"
"Well, he is a rather large cat. And I am used to working very delicately."
"Isn't a vasectomy unusual in a cat?"
"Why should it be? That's the way we do people. It's not my specialty, of course, but I've read the occasional article. I assure you he got the best surgery available. I doubt any other cat has had such a splendid vasectomy performed. My work is virtually invisible. And I even did a small tummy tuck while I was at it."
"Thank you, Doctor. The, uh, First Lady is most reassured. It will not be necessary to subpoena your records, after all. But in the future, I would advise you to perform only procedures that Miss Ashleigh requests to have done upon herself. And, by the way, I do think a bit more collagen in the lips would be an enhancement."
"Aren't they sufficiently plump, as is? I went further than I thought aesthetic the last time, on her insistence."
"Fashions change, Doctor. You might consider more. I understand the First Lady is considering some enhancement in that direction."
"Really? I will, I will consider it, Miss, uh, Service."
Temple hung up smiling. That was one way to give Savannah Ashleigh the fat lip she deserved!
***************
Temple sensed that 11 a.m. was a tad early to call on Domingo. He did not rise with the flamingos, she guessed, or even the mourning doves. Still, she had neglected his interests lately, and thought it only polite to explain why.
She knew his suite, so didn't need the intervention of a desk clerk to get there.
When she knocked she heard some inside activity, then Domingo himself opened the door.
He was beaming from ear to ear when he saw who had come to call.
"Miss Temple Barr! I have been hip-deep in flamingos and thought I would never see you again. It's all going beautifully, everything you put in motion. I am having brunch; would you care to join me?"
Temple recalled the last brunch she'd had in the suite of an older, famous, charismatic man and was ready to shake her head . . . when she heard the unmistakable sounds of a child banging a spoon on a dish.
Domingo looked sheepish. "I am not used to it, either, but am told it will pass. Do come in."
At this point, a tank division couldn't have kept her out.
Temple edged in, to see a room-service table set up by the windows from which she had looked down on Las Vegas not many days ago.
A woman sat there, a woman in her late thirties with a cascade of curly dark blond hair like a Renaissance Madonna. And to go with the Madonna in the flowered sack dress was a toddler in a high chair who was busy turning fruit cocktail into a hat.
"Temple Barr, my guide to Las Vegas, this is my wife, Constance, and our child, Moira.
Would you care to have brunch with us?"
Temple could have eaten a plastic flamingo at this point and never even noticed. She edged toward the table sitting in a splash of Nevada daylight.
"How nice to meet you. Domingo never said--" She looked at Domingo.
He shrugged, sheepish again. "This is a different life for me. I am slow to share." He turned to his family. "Temple has been a great help to me, but she was only here to get the project started."
Some worry in Constance's eyes softened. "We're greenhorns about this sort of circus, Moira and I. Domingo thought it was finally time we were introduced to the madness."
"Madness it is, especially in Las Vegas," Temple agreed. "I came here only to tell Domingo that my other commitments are heating up. I won't be able to do much more on this project.
Frankly, I don't think he needs my help anymore."
"Nonsense! You were invaluable."
Young Moira had no patience with adult social rituals, or the time they took. She lifted the plastic bowl of fruit cocktail and put it upside down atop her head.
"Oh!" Constance tossed her linen napkin to the table and scooped the child out of the high chair. "A food sculptor in the making, I can see it already. Clean-up trip, if you'll excuse us."
"Sure," Temple said. "I recommend that she keep the maraschino cherry as a beauty mark, though."
Laughing, Constance carried her daughter into another room.
Domingo quickly commandeered Temple's elbow and led her to the windows.
"I owe you a great deal, and have not much time to thank you."
"Thank me? I just did my job, ran interference."
"You were afraid I had designs on you," he accused softly.
"Noooo! Well, yes. I'd had a bad experience lately with another famous man also infamous as a ladies' man."
"I know how bad I am considered. But I am that no longer."
"Verina--?"
"My last weakness. I would die if Constance should find out, which is why I thank you for freeing me from the last of my bad habits. I am a new man."
"How did I--?"
"That incident with the hat. It showed me how shallow and jealous Verina was. Now that I have a daughter of my own, I look at women differently. You are so fresh, so honest. I saw you as my daughter grown, not as a rival of Verina's, as she saw you. This had never happened to me before. It gave me hope.
"My marriage was my first step toward a new, more stable life. Art eats you up. And when you become notorious as a young man, you want to eat everything around you to feed your artistic appetite. It is a wasteful, foolish life, and I lived it for many decades, until the adulation of women became a necessity, especially as I got older and they got younger. I have fought this demon ego that men are encouraged to serve, and I finally think I will wi n. I am a vain man, but I am also a good artist, and this life will destroy my talent if I do not leave it behind."
"I didn't do this, Domingo. You did."
"With help. I had
a very good counselor. An anonymous counselor. I gave him hell, but he never abandoned me."
"Really," said Temple. "And, I was just wondering, when did your wife and child arrive? I never saw them."
"It was a surprise. They flew in from Switzerland. Constance is an accomplished pianist, did you know? It was late, nearly midnight, and one of my darkest hours, I may tell you. And there they were in the hallway, my wife and baby. Just what I needed to banish forever the dark side of my self.
"I had been making progress, but so often when I was alone that dark side took over, goading me. You will never understand the temptations that come to a man in my position, and how easily they overtake him."
"I'm glad you've beaten yours, Domingo."
Temple put out her hand, and he shook it, then lifted it for a kiss.
On that Continental and unexpected parting note, Temple finished the last of her errands, with almost the last of her important questions answered.
Chapter37
Postmortems
"I'm happy to go with you to the vet's, Temple, but what's your real reason?"
Matt wouldn't take his eyes off her, so she couldn't dismiss his question, though she'd hoped to answer it after all her uncertainties about Louie were answered.
She kept her eyes on the route she was driving, and told him about them all: Savannah, Molina's inconclusive conclusions and finally Domingo.
Matt was shocked into silence.
"He appreciated my help? After wrestling on the phone with me like an antagonistic angel from the Old Testament? I can't tell you how much that man made me doubt myself, my current role, my history. And . . . he's all right now?"
"He believes so. And he admits that the side you saw--or heard, rather--was his demonic other half. You had to do battle with the worst of him in order for the best of him to come out.
But it worked, Matt. You're a good counselor. And so am I, by example, of course."
"Take off that halo, Temple. It clashes with your fiery hair."
"I'm just so pleased. Domingo really feels rather fatherly toward me, can you imagine? I remind him of what he hopes his daughter will be one day, if that makes sense. That's so...
sweet. That's so much better for the self-esteem than being hit on by older men, honest."
"I guess men can't know what that feels like."
"Maybe you can." Temple shot him a look, but Matt was gazing out the window, lost in his own reflections. "All's well that ends well," she said, quoting cliched Shakespeare and so happy she didn't care.
"And Louie has been vasectomized? What does that mean?"
"I'm hoping Dr. Doolittle will tell us."
****************
"Yes, now that I examine the area --Louie, stay still!--I can feel the snipped ends.
Remarkable."
Dr. Doolittle shook her head over Louie's involuntarily prone form. "Marge, you can take him back to his cage."
"Cats can be vasectomized," the vet explained to Matt and Temple. "Though their equipment is smaller than human anatomy, we have the instruments and skill to do it. We just don't, because vasectomy only prevents reproduction. It doesn't end any of the tomcat behavior that pet owners find hard to take."
"What is that, Doctor? I haven't had any problems with Louie."
"Apparently he goes out on his own enough that he doesn't feel the need to mark your living quarters as territory. If he did, the stench would send you to me pronto. And, of course, he'll still pursue females and fight males for the privilege. You'd be better off completely neutering him and confining him indoors."
Temple sighed. Did questions of animal behavior never end, especially among humans? "I'd hate to traumatize him again, after what he's been through. If he can't create unwanted kitties, that's the most important part."
"No, the most important part to Louie is he's still a fully functional male." Dr. Doolittle shook her head. "He has always been the most unusual cat, and now he's truly atypical. Well, we'll watch and see. If he comes home with too many claw slashes on his handsome face, you may want to do the more advanced procedure. I really don't approve of cats roaming."
"Louie doesn't actually roam," Temple tried to explain. "He goes places to do things. And he's a media cat now. We don't want to change his personality now that he's a star."
"Maybe not. You can pick him up for good later this afternoon."
As they left the veterinarian's office, Matt frowned.
"Seems you're advocating a double standard here, Temple."
"How?"
"You're allowing the cat to have his cake and eat it too, but we poor human males aren't allowed the same options."
"When you're all fixed like Louie," she said sternly, "and can't leave unwanted children like Alison Darby littered about, we'll see."
*******************
Temple dropped Matt off at the Circle Ritz and decided to run one last errand. She smiled en route to the Crystal Phoenix. This was the first time Matt had spoken in defense of the virile male. Maybe he was beginning to feel the advantages of the noncelibate lifestyle.
She didn't know if Michelle would still be in residence, but she called up and heard the familiar " 'Alio?"
Temple felt she owed Michelle an explanation of how her card had been erroneously marked, and by whom. She wanted to clear herself with Darren Cooke's widow, remove any last vestige of doubt. This was an innocent errand, and she thought Michelle should know what demons were on her late husband's back: the letters from the unknown child, who may not even be his child. It would help her understand his suicide. God, Temple thought, putting herself in his shoes. Maybe he had sinned, but the punishment he faced in his last hours of life was more than sufficient payment.
Room 711 was the same, except that signs of packing lay strewn on the living-room furniture and Padgett could be heard gurgling from the bedroom.
"I'm glad I caught you," Temple said. "You should know some things."
"Yes?" Michelle kept fussing with the baby's things, folding and packing frilly dresses in exquisitely embroidered pastel fabric.
Darling things. A baby would be like doll I can carry. Maybe not so bad. Maybe like a cat, without fur.
"Can I help? Apparently your nanny is busy with Padgett."
"No. She's gone. She was only a temporary."
"Really? It'll be hard, to take a baby on the long flight back to Paris, alone."
"The stewardesses are wonderful. They love babies."
Temple nodded. She had noticed that stewardesses were partial to young flyers. "Adults must be such a pain."
"Adults, yes. A pain."
Temple sat on the arm of a sofa. Michelle struck her as tense. Her long, thin figure moved jerkily, like a puppet, and her eyes never settled on one place, and certainly not on Temple.
"Listen, Michelle. You've been most gracious to me, considering what you had reason to think of me. I. . . wanted you to know that there is proof that my card was tampered with. I am what I said."
"Proof?" Michelle kept moving, folding, packing delicate baby things. The child had a lot of them.
"I've found--the police have questioned--your husband's personal assistant."
"I've met her, yes. Alison. A bit wild in the fashion area, but overall a sensible young woman."
"Not really," Temple said gently. "You see, Darren had been getting letters from a young woman claiming to be his natural daughter--"
"Natural. I do not know that word in this relationship."
"His illegitimate daughter."
Michelle stopped moving, her stork like body bent over one open case. She wore a rosy pink jumpsuit in a metallic fabric, very space-age and unkind to less than ultrathin figures. She reminded Temple of one of Domingo's flamingos, a plastic ornament of sorts, frozen forever in a certain, graceful attitude.
"Daughter."
"Yes. She's an adult now ... if she really is his daughter, and there's no evidence in her background that she is. She may be simply a demented ad
optee who longed for a famous father, and fastened on your husband, because of his womanizing reputation."
"Reputation."
"She'd been sending him letters. Harassing, ugly, hateful letters. That's why he consulted me in the bedroom, for privacy. He was brooding about this situation, hating himself for having abandoned someone he never knew about. I suppose, now that he had a baby daughter, he pictured himself abandoning her, and couldn't bear it."
"No, he wouldn't have been able to bear it." Michelle finally straightened from her interrupted task and looked directly at Temple. "That was the one thing I thought I could count on, no matter how much he failed me and our marriage. His love, his protective love for his daughter."
Temple nodded. "The one, truly sincere feeling in his life, which is why the existence of this bitter, vengeful adult daughter tormented him. You must believe that."
"Must I?"
"Yes, because that's why he killed himself. She came to him that night. The one unseduceable female in his entourage. She was willing, and he was hurting and--I'm sorry--I'd turned him down and even told him that he'd be getting more of that in future." Temple bit her lip. "I did contribute to his death. I know that now. I thought I was being assertive. But I was being insensitive too."
"No!--"
"I was there. I know. It wasn't really me, but I was another feather on the scale that was weighing ever heavier against him. Because his so-called daughter's revenge was truly demonic.
She went to bed with him, and then she told him who she was. He freaked, naturally. She wanted his money too, but I don't think that made him suicidal. I think it suddenly came home to him that any girl could be anybody to somebody--daughter, sister, mother--that these were young lives he played with and that he had a lot to account for. He was feeling low already, so--"
Michelle nodded violently, an expression in her eyes darker than despair. "Yes. He would have killed himself. He was so close." She looked at Temple. "But he didn't."
"How can you know? I doubt Alison Darby did it; she was so shocked by his death. Her plans hadn't included that. And of course she lost the chance to extort money from him, and she wanted it all. Nothing left for you and Padgett."
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