"Don't count on it." Kit was now patting her own unruly red-gray curls. "They'll cut you slack because you're a relative of a colleague. Besides, we poor romance writers have been the national media's whipping girls for so long that we've developed the pathetic optimism a single woman feels about another blind date. Maybe this time it won't be so bad."
"And maybe tomorrow is another day, Scarlett."
" Scarlett. " Kit's eyes squinched shut behind the sparkling picture windows of her glasses. "God, I wish, I wish I'd gotten that writing assignment! I'd have done a helluva better job, and I'd be squalidly rich by now."
" 'Squalidly rich' is an oxymoron, Auntie, as you well know from our earlier buzz session at the Debbie Reynolds' Hotel. What is it nowadays, with everyone and their first cousin writing sequels to classics by long-gone authors?"
"A dastardly trend," Kit said with a snarl. "Here's what it is: publishers . . . and agents . . . and heirs so remote they're almost invisible, all making easy money from dead writers by exploiting live writers as work-for-hire, sweat-shop labor to continue the 'sure thing' of the past. Forget about today's writers, and their present and future. Who are they gonna rip off forty years down the road if they don't let us writers get anywhere significant, huh?"
Temple seized an opportunity to segue into a touchy subject.
"You feel strongly about these publishing issues."
"I should. It's my livelihood."
"And you aren't crazy hot about the cover trend to feature semi-nude hunks."
"True." Kit, being an actress, had immediately read the underlying seriousness in Temple's voice.
She was waiting for the real question to surface.
Temple decided to end the suspense for them both. "Then why did you meet Cheyenne for a drink Wednesday night after I turned him down, and why didn't you mention that after he was murdered?"
Kit eschewed Jake's theatrics.
"Because I may not need hunks on my covers to sell my books, but I'm not opposed to admiring them in person," she said deadpan. "And then, of course, if I had murdered him, I wouldn't want to draw attention to our association."
"You had an 'association'?" Temple hadn't meant for her voice to rise an octave.
"Now, Niece, don't interrogate your old auntie." Kit smiled. "I didn't mention it because I was so damn embarrassed. I ran into the guy in the lobby bar after our expedition to the MGM Grand and dinner--and after you and Electra had gone to bed with visions of pirates swooping out of crows'
nests in your heads. We chatted and that led to a drink. I wondered why he'd wanted to talk to you, but I never found out anything, except that he was as charming as hell."
Nothing happened?" Temple demanded.
"Don't be so maternally vague. Spit it out. No, we did not go to bed. We did not even pass 'Go.'
We talked. We flirted a little.
I am single and past twenty-one. We said good-bye. Permanently, as it turned out. But I didn't want to look as if I'd grabbed your guy."
"As I recall, you liked the look of them, too," Temple noted suspiciously.
"Call it a postmenopausal speculation." Kit smiled again. "Once a woman reaches a certain age, she can get away with things men have been doing all along. Very liberating, really, and fairly harmless."
"Most of the author suspects are your age, or a decade younger." Temple, relieved, returned to her trail of pre-menopausal speculation. "Could one of them have actually done it?"
"Murdered Cheyenne?"
"Ultimately. But first, slept with him?"
"Anything is possible and maybe even probable. That's why I set up this interview, Niece. So you could study the prime suspects. Want to know if their position on cover hunks is righteously upright, or sleazily horizontal? Ask 'em in your own subtle way. Thanks to the cover controversy, they'll be so busy frothing at the mouth that they won't notice when you pose any not-really for-Prime-Time questions. And I know you'll pull off your impersonation with pizzazz. Not only do you have a legitimate news background, but you have the famous Carlson acting genes!"
Temple shook her head. "Name one famous acting Carlson."
Kit was stumped. "Well, since I retired from the stage--" Then she screeched out, "Richard!"
"Who is ... or was ... that?"
"Lord, give me patience with the child. Richard Carlson did some great grade-B sci-fi movies and lots of TV in the fifties. I Led Three Lives." Temple's expression remained unenlightened. "About the Communist menace in America." Temple didn't bat a press release. "Oh, and all those neat kiddie educational films for Bell Telephone Company, too, that we saw in grade school." When Temple still looked as blank as a ream of fresh twenty-pound bond, Kit added wistfully, "You have at least heard of Ma Bell, haven't you?"
"Just barely. Rings a bell. Okay, where am I to meet this posse of grand dames?"
"Electra said she'd arrange a private room with the hotel. In fact, she's seeing to the food and everything."
"Food?"
"You can't expect a major network show to buttonhole people in the corridors, can you?" Kit fumbled in her purse, then squinted at the neon pink Post-It note that emerged sticking to her forefinger. "Here it is. Room seven-eleven."
"Okay." Temple gamely turned toward the hotel elevators, then stopped. "Isn't that the . . . Ghost Suite?"
"The Ghost Sweet?"
"Never mind."
Temple trotted briskly for the elevators, as if she wasn't lugging six pounds of press kits. The seventh floor was purely residential, so it was quiet as a tomb when she stepped out of the elevator alone.
She advanced down the lush, recarpeted hall. Yup, 711 was the infamous Ghost Suite all right.
Temple paused to listen at the door. Faint laughter, but a clink of silver and crystal indicated corporeal life behind the sturdy wood door. Ghosts may snicker, but they don't eat. Although, Temple recalled, Jersey Joe Jackson's shade had shown a certain fondness for drinking champagne on one not-so-distant occasion. . ..
Temple shuddered and put her hand on the cold brass doorknob. Then she decided to knock, just in case any lively ectoplasm wanted to do some last-minute tidying.
"Come in!" Electra stood there, resplendent in a solid yellow muumuu, her hair a curled halo of reassuringly plain, past-sixty silver. "The boys have already delivered the first cart."
"Boys?" Temple muttered uneasily as she edged past Electra.
"You'll see. Meanwhile, your guests await."
Did they ever! Temple had never seen the Ghost Suite so definitely occupied. A flock of prosperous-looking middle-aged women perched on the authentic 1940s furniture. All were sampling hors d'oeuvres from glass and silver trays. A brass bar cart glittered with Baccarat crystal and decanters glowed with amber, topaz or diamond-clear liquors.
Temple immediately glanced to the end tables, but each one was protected by coasters.
"It's all under control, dear," Electra said beneath her breath, which smelled of. . . Johnny Walker Black. "Trust me. Would you like something?" She waggled her eyebrows at the bar.
"Not when I'm working," Temple said through her teeth, and under her breath as well. "Where did you get all this?"
"Restaurant. Van. Chef Song. The boys."
Boys? "Free, I hope?"
"Of course. You know they'd all do anything for you."
"I just wish it was something I knew about."
"I'll be right back," Electra said, slipping into the hall. "Go to it, girl!"
Temple pulled the light chair away from the desk beside the door. She put the heavy press kits on the desk, where they immediately slid into avalanche mode. She contained them as best she could, then smiled at her . . . guests.
"I'm impressed." The slender woman Temple had seen pointed out as megastar Misty Meadows nibbled cream cheese and caviar. "The network really knows how to put on the ritz."
Temple smiled broadly. Very broadly. She would say not one word that could be interpreted as misrepresentation. She shuffled press kits on
her lap and beamed at the assembly.
"I'm sorry to be late, so much to do! And I just grabbed your press kits, so I'm afraid I haven't done my homework yet."
"No problem," said a heavyset woman in hot-pink linen, making inroads on three celery sticks and a radish. "We're used to improvising."
"We're also used to abuse." Another woman's voice came clear and challenging from the chartreuse-upholstered loveseat that Midnight Louie so liked to lounge upon, who knows with whom ... or what? "I hope you won't hand the on-camera personality a script that says we romance writers 'crank out' these bestsellers in an effort to 'put a little sexual fantasy' in our lackluster, overweight, middle-aged women's lives."
Temple's upraised hands fanned in a plea for peace. "I understand your problem, and hope to be part of the solution. In fact, that's my first question. About these so-called cover hunks ..."
They groaned as one, which was more than she had hoped for. While they tossed disparaging comments about current cover trends back and forth, Temple made a quick study of the press kits, matching photographs to the actual persons.
The lineup was: Sharon Rose on the chartreuse satin loveseat; Misty Meadows on the armchair.
The solemn woman in glasses beside Sharon Rose was the outspoken Mary Ann Trenarry, who had carried the banner against the cover-hunk trend, although she had said nothing significant yet.
Maybe she regretted her strong position, as Kit had suggested.
Temple glanced to her left, nearly jumping to see the immense purple mountain of Shannon Little capped by a tilted straw hat with several snowy white feathers, from beneath which the romance doyenne icily glared down at Temple. A glass plate of hors d'oeuvres in her lap was as mountainously heaped as her person. But Shannon kept silent because she was devouring the goodies with mechanical efficiency, too-tight rings glittering as her fingers moved delicately to and from her mouth.
Though she had to admit that Shannon Little was a Purple Presence, Temple found the other authors disappointingly ordinary. Misty Meadows, seen close up, was one of those monotoned women from a sixties youth who wore no makeup. They all looked as if a wire brush had scrubbed their faces of all vivacity, a look that made the drama of Misty Meadows's hip-length hair seem like a forgotten adolescent cause without a rebel to wear it.
Sharon Rose's pink floral blouse and A-line skirt would have caused Hester Polyester to drool with envy. Her housewive's bubble-perm was as crisp as her apparel, and she had accessorized the casual outfit with a heavy gold necklace and earrings dripping diamond chips. All her taste was obviously concentrated on her plate, which was modestly filled with one of everything on the trays. Mary Ann Trenarry, a well-preserved woman well into her sixties, wore an exquisitely tailored coral silk suit with a single strand of pearls.
Only one woman in the room qualified as what Temple would call a glamour girl. Ravenna Rivers, likely a pseudonym. The thirty-something (and-wouldn't-;you-like-to-know-exactly what?) woman perched on a Sheraton side chair, her short, narrow black skirt showing lots of expertly crossed, exposed and hosed legs ending in red Manolo Blahnik heels. A white linen jacket vulgarized her aggressively tanned skin, and its vee neckline dipped way below the cocktail-hour zone.
Unbelievably profuse, elbow-length blonde tendrils framed an angular face made up to Joan Collins standards. Temple expected to hear the theme-music of some late-night soap opera playing "Enter the Vixen."
Temple didn't need a convenient musical cue to recall that Ravenna Rivers was rumored to have cozied up with the Homestead Man on her recent book tour. Apparently, this urban she-devil named Ravenna Rivers wrote frontier historical romances full of home fires and patchwork quilts, would wonders never cease?
"How do you authors vote on the cover man question?" Temple began.
"My position is plain." Mary Ann Trenarry set her glass of club soda on a coaster and sat forward.
"I think the focus on male cover models distracts the public, and the publicity machine, from our books. Romance novels, when written by women--"
"Good point!" Misty Meadows interrupted, bouncing on her chair like a cheerleader. "Decades ago when books like ours were written by men like Thomas B. Costain, they were 'historical novels'
and considered serious fiction."
"Costain never wrote novels like ours," Shannon Little interrupted imperiously, so inflamed that she temporarily returned a bacon-wrapped chestnut to her plate. "Women put the sex in historical novels."
"What about Frank Yerby?" Misty Meadows asked with raised eyebrows.
The women rolled their eyes.
"Please, you're talking pulp fiction," said Mary Ann Trenarry. "As I was saying, when women revived the historical novel in the seventies, with the new wrinkle of a female point of view--and, admittedly, something really new, explicit sexual frankness--their books were classed as trash. The urge to merge in full color and detail was a sociological reaction to women becoming liberated enough to reclaim their own sexuality. The result was what always happens to what women do: the books were belittled and only the sexual content attracted attention. Ravenna, who else besides women romance writers are keeping the Western novel tradition alive in these days when Louis Lamour is that last big-name male Western writer, and he's dead?"
Ravenna Rivers uncrossed her knees high on the thigh. Then she recrossed them, angling them smartly in the opposite direction. Imagine that, Temple thought enviously, ambidextrous crossed legs!
No plate occupied Ravenna Rivers lap, what little there was of it, but a lowball glass on the table beside her brimmed with straight Scotch, the color ale-dark.
"That's true. The Western romance keeps frontier stories alive. But this whole debate is so boring; what sells, sells, and that's why romance novels are here, why we are here now, why cover hunks are hot." Having said her piece, she took a swig of her Scotch.
Temple had been swiftly scanning the press-kit materials during the debate.
"Men certainly are a much more visible presence on covers," she said, holding up a handful of paperback book cover flats, over half of them featuring a bare-chested man, period. "Isn't this Cheyenne, the one who was killed?"
Temple could have been holding up the queen of spades, the way all eyes riveted to the cover in question.
"That's him," Misty Meadows agreed. "He was getting lots of work. Isn't he on your latest, too, Sharon?"
"Well, my books don't have semi-naked hunks on the cover," she said primly, "because I bother to insist that my publishers do them differently. My newest will have an embossed white tablecloth lace front cover, with a step-back painting of a charming picnic scene. I supervised the cover shoot myself in New York. I always do, so no lapses in taste occur. Cheyenne was quite handsome in a plaid shirt and jeans, and the heroine wore dimity. Of course, he did fashion work as well lately."
"Oh, yes." Ravenna smiled significantly. "Cheyenne was exceedingly versatile. He could do country or pop. He and Fabrizio made Vanity Fair at the Milan design expo, when they both wore aluminum-riveted space-age silver jeans. It's still the same old story, ladies. Skin sells. Sex sells.
You're fooling yourselves if you think anything different."
An unhappy silence ensued, during which Ravenna Rivers worked on her Scotch and Temple hunted for a question she wanted answered.
A knock at the door made them freeze like stalked rabbits.
Electra entered. "Ready for more?"
And in came carts of finger sandwiches, salad, fruits and pastries, wheeled by various brothers Fontana, all clad in the hunk uniform: tight blue jeans and form-fitting shirts with a closing problem.
And all in author-charming public relations mode.
"Here comes the champagne, ladies," sang out Rico, pouring and passing glasses as fast as he could. "Compliments of Fontana, Inc."
Temple put away her press kits, and tabled her curiosity with them. She would get nothing more out of these authors now. But she had two curious crumbs to consider. Ravenna Rivers obviou
sly had known Cheyenne very well, as she did many cover models, and almost every author present had their names across a book cover featuring the dead man, even Sharon Rose, who publicly disdained the cover-hunk craze.
"Champagne, miss?" Rico asked, bowing and pretending to not know her. He was undercover, too, you know.
She took the stem in her hand and sipped.
Rico winked.
Chapter 29
Four Queens Get the Boot
"Hi!" Temple stuck her nose into the Four Queens' dressing room.
She wasn't visiting the downtown hotel of that name, but rather the Crystal Phoenix's quartet of showgirls known by the same name.
Darcy, Midge, Jo and Trish were all present that evening in various states of dress and undress, depending on how you viewed the' process of preparing for a Las Vegas revue.
"Can I ask you guys a question?" she continued.
Calling the quartet "guys" was akin to calling Eskimos Fiji Islanders, but none of the four showgirls took offense. All were too busy taking off what few articles of clothing remained on them.
"What's up?" Darcy asked, adjusting the ride of her rhinestone g-string.
Temple produced Exhibit A from behind her back. "This."
All four women glanced up, defying gravity and the double sets of long false eyelashes glued to their lash lines.
"Bitchin' boot." Trish, a big-boned blonde, swung an extra long leg over a wooden chair back, then flexed her knee and stamped her taps down hard on the seat while she adjusted a marabou garter.
Each dancer's fishnet hose bore the symbols of a different suite of playing cards: tiny red hearts for Darcy and diamonds for Midge, teeny black spades for Jo and clubs for Trish.
Jo, a statuesque redhead whose purple-mahogany locks made Temple's brighter curls seem garish, laughed as she applied a crys-tal earring that brushed her collarbone to her left earlobe.
"Temple, you cute thang. Your two feet could go in that big ol' boot and you'd still have room to swing a cat."
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