Cat In An Aqua Storm

Lindy ambled around the place, too, pausing before a mirror. Six of its framing makeup bulbs had gone gray and cold instead of pouring out the usual white-hot glare. Her fingers touched an eight-by-ten glossy photo stuck into the mirror frame's lower right corner.

“Someone must have put this here,” Lindy rumbled pensively, and coughed.

Temple came to join her in staring at the portrait: pale hair and features scribed by a classic oval, posed at a flattering Hollywood tilt, caught in stark theatrical tones of black, white and shades of gray.

Even without a hint of coloring, the face was gorgeous. Perhaps a makeup artist could analyze the proportions, features and their balance, could explain why the face was so mesmerizing. Temple wouldn’t want that. The face spoke for itself, radiated an inner expectation that enhanced the outer loveliness.

“Dorothy Horvath?” she asked.

Lindy nodded, tears turning her dark eyes into slick, black marbles. “She was a beautiful kid, a drop-dead knockout. She would start her act in an organdy pinafore that went electric blue-white under the overhead ultraviolet lights. Called it her ‘Dorothy act,’ 'cuz she came from Kansas, she said. Funny, quiet kid with a face to die for.” Lindy realized how apt that expression was, and winced before dragging deeply on the cigarette.

“ ‘Glinda North,’ ” Temple said. “I understand her stage name now. It’s after the good witch of the north in The Wizard of Oz. Maybe Dorothy wished for a fairy godmother like Glinda. What about the men in her life?”

Lindy shrugged. “Same old story, and, anyway, who knows?”

Temple studied the photograph. “Beautiful women often complain that no one relates to the real person inside.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Lindy said with another shrug.

“Hey, you’ve got a great face.”

“Maybe.” Lindy’s quirky smile wanted to, but didn’t quite, believe Temple. “Once you’re past thirty in this game, you can either be an old stripper trying to keep up with the young stuff, or an old ex-stripper.”

“Don’t say that!” Temple gave a mock shudder. “I’m not that far from thirty myself. Now I learn another career choice is kaput. I’ll have to keep slinging press releases.”

Lindy waved a dismissing hand. “You don’t look a day over eighteen.”

“Don't say that, either. That's the story of my life.” Temple shook her head at Glinda North's glamorous photo face. “I wish I knew the story of hers.”

“Come back later, when the other girls are here. Maybe you can put the pieces together. We all know a little bit about each other. Can't help it in such close quarters.”

“But no one had an obvious motive to kill her, not even a jealous rival?”

Lindy shook her lusterless black-dyed hair. “No way. We all looked out for Dorothy. That girl couldn't string two safety pins together without losing one.”

Temple eyed Lindy's world-weary features. “Is your age the only reason you don't strip anymore?”

“No. I manage a club. The money in stripping's good, but you get tired of that eight-hour bump-and-grind.” She looked at Temple, then puffed on her cigarette. “You ever see strippers work?”

“The... topless hotel shows.”

“No, not those hoity-toity, touch-me-not walking department store dummies loaded down with eighty pounds of feathers and rhinestones. I mean real working strippers, who get down and get dirty with the guys in the front row. That would help you understand the life more than bumbling around upstairs. Come on, I'll take you.”

“Where to?”

“Where else? Kitty City, my alma mater.”

While Temple contemplated objecting to the word “bumbling,” Lindy crushed her cigarette in the discarded lid of a makeup tin. She strode from the room with such surety that Temple clicked along in her silent wake, her high heels echoing eerily on the concrete floor.

In no time the pair was jostling through the stream of incoming crowds until they hit broad daylight outside the Goliath. Shocking. Lindy and Temple stood blinking in the bright, blazing heat that drenched them the moment they left the entrance canopy’s shade. The Goliath’s massive desert white exterior trimmed with scarlet and gold almost outdazzled the sun.

Temple paused to don her prescription sunglasses. “My car’s in the ramp way out back. We’ll have to take a cab.”

“Fine. We’ll put it on Ike’s tab.”

“Ike?”

“Didn’t I mention it? I manage Kitty City for Ike Wetzel.”

“And run the show over here, too? The Kitty City crowd has a lot invested in the competition.”

Lindy squinted down the sidewalk and made a face. “It’s our job. Look. Now, there’s somebody who really should take a walk on the wild side.”

Temple followed Lindy’s gaze to a sign-carrying figure pacing in the hot sun twenty feet away. She could read this block-letter message better than Crawford’s. RESPECT, NOT RHINESTONES: STOP STRIPPING WOMEN OF DIGNITY AND CUSTOMERS OF MONEY. The letters “W.O.E.” underlined the sentiment.