Cat In A Leopard Spot

“I can indeed.” Leonora prowled within scratching distance of Max, who was dressed more expensively, and thus more quietly, than ever. “I am sure we can offer him something worth…bagging.”

“Actually,” Max said, taking a hasty spin around the two-story hall with the long-horned antelope heads mounted high like once-living chandeliers, resembling a man casket hunting at a cut-rate funeral parlor, “I’m interested in buying the total operation.”

“Really?” Leonora’s lean, mean eyes paid tribute in exact turn to the Patek Philippe watch (no mere Rolex for Daddy Maxbucks), the Roman ring, the Zegna suit worn with…gasp!…a Gap turtleneck.

Where did he dig up these things? Temple wondered. Was there a Wardrobe Anonymous Warehouse somewhere for undercover operatives? The same place where rotating cars were stored? Someplace where it can be easily done. Perhaps out on Highway 375 near Area 51.

“My condolences,” Max said with scintillating sincerity, taking Leonora’s paw. Hand. The golden menagerie of charms on her wrist jingled like spurs. “Perhaps it’s too soon to discuss business.”

Leonora’s long, lacquered nails curved possessively around his fingers. “Business?” she purred. And she did purr. Temple wondered if all her plastic surgeries had damaged her vocal cords somehow, had given her that contralto rumble. Or was it another affectation, like her new face?

Temple restrained a warning growl.

“I’m sorry, madame,” Max continued, not sounding it at all, “to intrude at such a time, but an enterprise like this needs a guiding hand”—her lethal nails curled harder into his fingers—“or at least a front man with international connections.” Max was suddenly all brisk business. “I’m in this country only a short while. I was interested in seeing the facilities, if you don’t object.”

“Not at all. But I’m afraid that the assets will be tied up for some time. Cyrus was not one to share his financial dealings.”

Max reclaimed his hand and stuck them both in his blazer pockets as he strolled around the vast, southwestern-style entry area.

“Quite an impressive layout. I understand from…Miss Barr that you have an equally impressive, ah, head shop, so to speak, here also?”

“How quaintly you put it.”

At that moment another woman entered the huge hall, moving more like its mistress than an employee.

Temple sensed Max’s immediate interest as Courtney Fisher, as tall and tan as the girl from Ipanema, came swaying into their charmed circle.

“Is there anything your guests need, Leonora?” Courtney asked. “Refreshments? I’ve finished copying all the computer files.”

Leonora lifted a languid wrist and opened her mouth to perform hostess duties, striking Temple as a trained animal warming up for a familiar act. She spared her the effort.

“I met Mr. Van Berkleo’s assistant on my earlier visit. Maxi, this is Courtney Fisher.”

“Charmed.” Max took her hand, bowing so low over it in a European fashion that his face gazed at the vee of her maize linen suit and any presumable décolletage anyone so slender might be expected to have.

That’s when Temple tumbled to the fact that Courtney probably had been a mistress here: Van Burkleo’s.

Max had sensed it instantly, in the way the two women prowled at just too much social distance around each other, like nervous tigers in a too-small-for-territoriality cage.

“I don’t care for anything, do you, darling?” Temple responded to the recent beverage offer.

Max hesitated just long enough to flatter both women. “No. We are here to see the animals.”

“Then you must start here, which is, oddly enough, the ending point.” Leonora’s strangely immobile face managed the tiniest moue. “For the animals as well as poor Cyrus.”

“You needn’t show us.” Max sounded amazingly sincere for someone who meant the opposite.

“It is nothing.” Leonora’s face grew smug. “Cyrus died among his beloved beasts. If he could still be here with them, I’m sure he would be. In fact, I’m having him cremated so he can remain with them. You would have no objection to agreeing to his eternal residence, Mr. Maximilian, if you purchase the ranch?”

“Ah…no. Of course not. Highly fitting.”

Highly freaky, Temple thought.

She heard Courtney Fisher jingle away behind them as they moved toward the den, aka the scene of the crime.

Leonora also jangled and glided away, but toward the lair in which Temple had met Cyrus Van Burkleo. She still wore the colors of the Serengeti Plain. Her widow’s sackcloth and ashes were spots and stripes. She resembled some Bob Mackie edition of a Camouflage Barbie doll, small golden trophies of animal likenesses surrounding her person like clanging temple bells.

Temple glanced at her new ring as she followed Max and Leonora into Van Burkleo’s office. It had the opal ring from New York beat by about fifty thou, but she wished she had that one back.