Cat In An Aqua Storm

“Why? Are you on the arrangements committee? If so, I must say that we love meeting at the Crystal Phoenix, but I wish you’d rearrange Crawford Buchanan permanently.”

“Sorry. I’m not on that committee or any other one.” Temple finally decided to remove the bobbing stalk and eat it. She couldn’t get near the buffet table anyway, she concluded, eyeing the horde of feasting PR types swarming it. All queens, not a drone in the bunch.

“What were you talking to Van von Rhine about?” Sunny persisted. PR people were insatiably curious for the story behind the story.

“About a pussycat.”

“Pussycat?” parroted a lady in Sally Jesse Raphael-red glasses, leaning around Sunny.

“Well, more of a tomcat,” Temple admitted. “Midnight Louie was the house cat here until he wandered to my neck of the woods. I just wanted Van to know that he was all right. She and her husband Nicky Fontana took an interest in him.” Temple frowned. “At least I think he’s all right. He wouldn’t touch his Free-to-Be-Feline all afternoon.”

“Midnight Louie. Is that the ABA killer cat?”

Temple couldn’t quite read the woman’s name tag from where she stood. She often skipped wearing her glasses at social events. That meant that she got potluck from menus and met a lot of Petsys and Cerols, not to mention Jams and Retes at coed affairs. This lady appeared to be named “Nike.”

“Midnight Louie got the publicity for finding the body,” Temple explained. “He didn’t kill a thing at the ABA but time.”

“I wish he was here and would do away with Crawford Buchanan,” Sunny suggested between her teeth in a tone that did not live up to her name.

“What has he done that’s so horrible now?” Temple wondered.

“Check out the ballroom entrance foyer. There ought to be a law.”

“Crawford’s nature is to be awful,” Temple quipped, “not lawful, but I can’t resist seeing what God’s gift to PR women is up to.”

She set down her untouched Virgin Mary, sans celery, and glided through the crowd with the agile expertise of one whose business is going places fast without ruffling anyone.

En route she couldn’t help but wish that she had been on the arrangements committee. The ballroom was papered with a gilt-stamped motif of either Asian phoenixes or fireworks—without glasses she couldn’t quite be sure which—that shone softly in the dazzle from the overhead chandeliers. The lavish picture-frame paneling painted the color of vanilla ice reminded Temple of a French chateau. Taste. Elegance. Refinement. In a Las Vegas world overdosed on shallow glitter, the Crystal Phoenix stood alone, an island of restraint afloat in a blitz of glitz and crass commercialism.

Speaking of which... Temple passed through the double ballroom doors, stopping so fast and hard that her Christian Dior black satin spikes threatened to drive through the carpet backing.

Crawford Buchanan sat at a table draped in peach linen and piled with the black-and-white proof of his journalism credentials, the latest edition of the Las Vegas Scoop. A silver candelabra flickered at one elbow, its light playing over the matching silver of his hair—no longer frizzed into a permanent Brillo pad, but worn long and slicked back with mousse until it ended with a froth of trendy curls at his jacket collar.

“Ugh,” Temple muttered.

“If you don’t like the spokesman, wait’ll you see the product.” The woman who had materialized beside her smiled grimly. This one she recognized: Sylvia Cummins, WICA vice president, ran PR for the Crystal Phoenix.

“What’s he doing here?”

“Cutting into our pie,” Sylvia said. “You notice the sign?”

“No—oh, pinned to the tablecloth. Uh. ‘Cooties We Cherish’?”

“Better dig out the glasses, Temple, you don’t want to miss this one,” Sylvia advised under her breath as she brushed past to return to the ballroom.

Temple pawed in her gold evening tote bag until she felt the soft padded form of her glasses case. By the time she donned them, the last arrivals had dispersed. Only she and Crawford occupied the foyer.

Total tastelessness. Vulgarity. Crudity. It all sat enthroned in Buchanan’s little corner of the world. Temple walked over, glaring as she deciphered the offending sign. Cookies with Crawford, it read. Might as well advertise RUSSION TEA WITH RASPUTIN.

“Have you sunk to crashing WICA meetings now?” she greeted him.

“Hey, it’s a free foyer.”

She studied his handout flyers advertising Crawford Buchanan & Associates Public Relations. “I didn’t know you had any associates but fleas.”

“Temper, temper, T.B.,” he cautioned, unruffled. That was the most annoying thing about Crawford, he was not insultable.

“Women in Communications Association means just that. I haven’t noticed you having any sex-change operations lately. I should ask Van von Rhine to toss you out.”

He smirked. “At least you noticed. And try to eject me. I’ll sue WICA for being a female-chauvinist organization quashing free enterprise by the opposite sex.”