"A client's a client."
"Don't be so stubborn. What kind of a P.I. slinks around town eyeballing the feet on lady mannequins? Are you following me, hoping I'll lead you to them?"
He shrugged. "You might have a better instinct."
"You bet I do. And if I find you snooping in my tracks again, I'll... I'll call the police and charge you with something disgusting. Like shoe-sniffing."
Eightball put up a defensive hand. "It's just a job."
"A dirty job. The whole idea of a contest is to have fun, is for someone to find and win the shoes, not engage some hired gun."
"I ain't armed, and I'm getting damn tired of hunting high and low for a pair of fancy shoes. It's not like it's a significant assignment. And it sure ain't worth the wrath of a redhead."
A pause followed this cranky confession. Temple thought about calming down.
Kit lifted her hand palm-out, first two fingers spread to make a peace symbol. "Remember," she told Eightball, "I'm just Temple's even-tempered, fading-redhead aunt Kit."
"Eightball O'Rourke." He nodded sourly, and suspiciously. "You ain't interested in those damn shoes, are you?"
"Only as an innocent bystander. As such"--she included Temple in her glance--"I suggest we adjourn to the Crystal Phoenix. Whatever side you two are on, there are no shoes here for you to bicker over, except the ones we walked in on. Thank Thorn McAnn!"
Putting shoes into their proper place, they all walked back to the Strip and caught a cab to the Crystal Phoenix.
Chapter 17
... Seems to Whisper Louise
It is not long before the sophisticated brains, eyes, nose and vibrissae (whiskers to you less educated folk) of Midnight Louie find their way to the lower-level dressing room that has been claimed by Miss Savannah Ashleigh.
I could say that I had used my sensitive nose to trail whatever Rodeo Drive scent of the month Miss Savannah is using now, but that would be misleading. I could have done so, but did not need to, as I have a good idea of where she is to be found. This is, in fact, the same site that she commandeered on her most recent visit to the Crystal Phoenix when she had some ceremonial duties at the Rhinestone G-string competition. In fact, it is old homeaway-from-home week. Not only is the Divine Yvette present in the pink carrier that serves as her portable residence, but our reunion is marked by an event similar to our last encounter: a murder of a human person who makes a living by wearing as few clothes as the law will allow.
I am all for it. Not murder, but wearing as few clothes as the law allows.
You will notice that one does not have to tell the truly superior species to bring warm clothing: they arrive with all the outerwear that they will need--warm, durable, full-length coats of fur or hair or feathers or scales. It is only humankind that arrives on the scene wearing nothing more than a fragile layer of skin. (I can attest to just how fragile that skin is, having accidentally peeled off a fine line of it now and then.) But humans are not totally ignorant. Taking instructions from the humble spider, they have evolved numerous and complicated ways to weave, spin and construct suitable clothing.
Then, having overcome their natural inferiority complex, they move up to a level of idiocy that one would think they made up, did one not know the species intimately.
They split into two mutually exclusive camps. Some become skinophiles and can be found in nudist camps. Others, the vast majority, become skinophobes and can be found in Bible camps. I wish that they would make up their minds, but that seems to be the last thing that humankind is capable of.
A very few humans learn to exploit the druthers of the skinophiles by performing in their natural state (which skinophobes find filthy and disgusting), wearing a few skimpy accessories that skirt the laws on such actions. What is really brain-boggling is that when naked humans invent little nothings to give the lie to total nudity, they usually feel obliged to shroud the only site where they can boast a smattering of fur anyway! This is why human beings see psychiatrists and animal companions run away from home.
I myself see nothing to crow about in the unclothed human state, but feel, philosophically, that all species should continue in their natural condition. For one thing, in making an art of clothing themselves, humans have an unfortunate tendency to covet the skin, fur, scales and feathers of other species, most of which cannot give up their outerwear without losing their lives, not that most people show any remorse for their ill-gotten garb.
Ah, well, as long as I am not forced to wear pantaloons and vest, I suppose it is no skin off of my nose.
But it would most definitely be skin off of your nose if you ever tried to take my epidermis for a muff.
Luckily, muffs are history nowadays.
And, luckily, the curled muff of silver fur that is the Divine Yvette is sleeping safely in her carrier, alone. At last! I pad near the mesh window to my darling and gaze fondly on her snoozing form for several seconds. Frankly, the Divine Yvette is sweetest when she sleeps. When she is awake, she is likely to ask awkward questions, and sometimes, even show the front of her fangs (which are supematurally white and well maintained, but are fangs nevertheless).
So I am standing in rapt regard of my sleeping innocent, watching the tips of her vibrissae tremble with each breath, when somebody behind me whispers, "Hsst."
Usually I am not one to be surprised by the stealthy approach. I turn in alarm, expecting that odious Maurice. I am no less alarmed when I see who confronts me from under the long row of garments hanging on Miss Savannah Ashleigh's costume rack: the vulpine Louise.
"What are you doing down here, Pops?" she asks. I can tell that her form of address, rather than being a respectful bow to my paternal status, is an expression she uses to address gents of a certain age.
The implication is that I am a geezer.
I never pick up an implication if I can let it lie there and ferment. So I lift a casual mitt to my face and rub my whiskers contemplatively.
"Just looking over the scene of the last crime," I say, incidentally reminding her who really cracked the Stripper Killer case and nailed the perp. "Now that Miss Temple Barr is busy with another show here, I do not want any unfortunate reruns of the breaking, entering and murder both attempted and accomplished that we had before."
"Oh, your old war stories," she huffs, rolling over to admonish an ear, apparently for the crime of even hearing about my exploits. "I have the account now. Everything is under control."
"Indeed? I suppose you consider the murder of an Incredible Hunk too trivial an event for your notice."
"I noticed, daddio. These human hunk types are too large to overlook. In fact, I made the murder scene before the police, if not before your nosy roommate. That woman is a regular Typhoon Mary."
"I believe you refer to a historical personage known as Typhoid Malaria, who brought a dread disease with her everywhere she went. Miss Temple Barr is nothing like that. She is merely quick to notice that things are amiss. Now, you," I go on, yawning a little, "probably were so disinterested that you could not even remember the color of the dead dude's hair."
"Burmese brown," she snaps back, barely missing the tips of my whiskers. I smell the odious reek of Free-to-be-Feline on her breath. "Eyes of watered-down green. Hawk feather on the arrow that brought him down. His own weapon, ironically."
I now know, of course, exactly what I wanted to learn.
"What was this dead dude doing with a live arrow?"
"Wearing it... and not much else." Midnight Louise wrinkles her little black nose, which is rather cute, if I do say so myself. "Whew! What a lot of skin to smell, along with the equally unpleasant scent of death. I do not know why these hunks insist on sharing so much of their body odor with the rest of us."