The two women hurried in the direction Cleo indicated, Temple's purple Liz Claiborne high heels on concrete drawing frowns from breeders intent on calming their animals.
Temple's eternal curiosity kept slowing her to a Crawl. In covering two rows, she made the acquaintance of Japanese Bobtails, which sported the kind of tails they were named for; Manx, which had no tails; and American Curls.
"Those ears are far-out." Temple paused to study the crimped appendages on an otherwise normal feline head.
"Mr. Spock, I presume? Any relationship to Scottish Folds?"
"Oh, you know about Scottish Folds," Cleo commented with some surprise.
"Know about 'em? I personally know the two most famous Scottish Folds in the country--Baker and Taylor, the corporate kitties, Bookish types."
Cleo shrugged, a gesture that made the leopard emblazoned on her chest seem to snarl. "That's right. The cats that were kidnapped at the booksellers' convention were Folds, weren't they? American Curls are a newer breed, but they're being developed in the same way."
Temple took in this particular American Curl's name, which reflected paternal and maternal forebears-Earesistible Curly-Q-Tip of Cuticurl--then moved on. A moment later she was pausing to examine the paperback book splayed open atop a cage. The cover was tracked with little red cat paw prints and titled "The Cat Who--" something.
Then a cat of another color caught Temple's attention: a short-haired calico animal with calm hazel eyes. "Cleo, this cat doesn't look any more special than my own Midnight Louie."
Cleo perched her dangling glasses on her nose and leaned near to examine the feline. "Ordinary housecat," she pronounced.
"What's it doing here?"
"There's a housecat category."
"Really? Just for ordinary cats?"
Cleo smiled. "But only the extraordinary ordinary cats win. They're judged like the rest, though not against breed standards."
"Hmmm," Temple strolled along a row of seemingly common cats. None had Everest Sweet Snow Heavenly Hash's air of aristocratic disengagement. "This one's almost as big as Louie. How come he merits the red-satin hangings?"
"That, my dear, is not just any ordinary house cat. Don't you recognize him?"
Temple eyed the outsized tiger-striped animal. It was big enough, and blase enough, to be a male used to cat competitions, but why should she recognize some cat-show regular?
Cleo burst into sudden, and vapid, song. "'If it's whisker-lickin' yummy, it's Yummy Tum-tum-tummy.' "
Temple looked at her as if she had momentarily succumbed to cat-scratch fever.
"You know, the TV cat-food ads, For the Yummy tum-tum-tummy brand. Maurice is the spokescat. We're lucky to have him here in person."
"Right," Temple eyed the dignified animal again. The only thing she could picture him doing with a bowl of Yummy Tum-tum-tummy was burying it. She bent down, bringing her fuchsia framed glasses right up to the cage. "He looks almost as big as Louie," she observed.
Maurice blinked and twitched his large pink nose.
Temple had never cared for tiger-striped cats, but this one had a tiger-sized nose. Louie's nose, on the other hand--or head--vanished into the unremitting black of his expression, against which the tracery of his snow-white whiskers was as delicate as the strokes of Chinese lettering.
"Hey, my cat's cuter than this one," Temple concluded, unbending.
Cleo smiled with weary recognition. "That's why we have a household-pet category; everyone says that. This fellow was a stray under a death sentence at the animal pound when his trainer picked him up. Temperament's the thing when it comes to on-camera cats. Would your cat do well under lights?"
"I don't know. He's pretty laid-back when he wants to be, especially on my best silk dresses." Temple eyed the catatonic Maurice again. "Do they give them tranquilizers?"
"Strictly forbidden," Cleo said, shocked, "At least at cat shows, I don't know what they do on camera."
"Probably coax this fellow to perform for pellets of Free- to-be-Feline," Temple speculated glumly. "That's probably what Maurice, the Yummy Tum-tum-tummy cat, does cartwheels over. My cat won't touch the stuff."
"Free-to-be-Feline is a lot better for him," Cleo said sternly, moving on down the row.
A shriek of alarm halted both women in their tracks, Cats' ears flattened all around them. A second shriek--this one more a horrific wailing--echoed through the concrete vault.
Cleo was running toward it.
"What's happening?" Temple asked breathlessly, her tote bag banging against her ribs and hip and her high heels as brittle on the concrete as sleet.
Cleo turned as she ran, her half-glasses pummeling the glitzy leopard face on her chest. "l hope it's not-- Golly, that's the direction of Peggy Wilhelm's setup!"
Other people were rushing toward the screams. Cleo and Temple were at the head of a pack. Temple glimpsed cats milling in their ruffle-draped cages, cats crouched in cage corners, giving low, eerie growls. Cats . . . hissing.
It wasn't hard to tell who Peggy Wilhelm was. She was the buxom, brown-haired woman clutching a semi-naked cat, pacing like a tiger in front of her cages with a face frozen in shock and outrage.
"What happened?" Cleo demanded as soon as she and Temple made an abrupt halt.
The distraught woman thrust the animal toward her and Temple as mute evidence, then just shook her head.
"Oh, my . . ." Cleo's face wrinkled in consternation and denial.
"What's wrong with her Sphinx?" Temple asked in a low tone.
"That's the problem," Cleo said. "Her cat isn't--wasn't --a Sphinx, it's been--"
"Shaved!" Peggy Wilhelm wailed, pacing like a bereaved mother cradling her lost child.
Temple studied the strange form. Along the hairless backbone and midsection, the cat resembled the Sphinx she had seen earlier, but it also reminded her of a Siamese with blanched paws that had been given a one-two pass with a U.S. Army hair clipper.
"What . . . was it?" she asked Cleo discreetly.
Not discreetly enough to escape Peggy Wilhelm's outraged ears. "A Birman," she wailed. "She was perfect. She could have been a contender, Grand champion."
Crooning cat people gathered around, their faces studies in helpless sympathy.
"Has she been hurt otherwise?"
Peggy hadn't thought to look. She had only seized her violated car and clutched it as close as possible. She examined the narrow legs, the stomach, and the face. The shaving job was not impeccable, leaving ridges here and there reminiscent of what Temple had been told was a curly-coated Rex.
A two-inch-wide swath denuded the top of the head to the tail tip; another crude slash narrowed the cat's middle like a cinch belt.
"No cuts, thank God . . . but she's out of competition for at least a year."
"Sounds like spite." Cleo said reluctantly. "Or rivalry."
"When did it happen?" Temple asked.
Peggy slowly replaced the cat in its cage, latched the door, and then regarded the cluster of people. Temple's interrogation seemed to have a calming effect.
"I don't know," she answered. "I set up at seven this morning, then brought Minuet and the others in. After that, I had to leave to help my aunt with her morning feeding--"
"Your aunt has a baby?" Temple couldn't help interrupting. Peggy Wilhelm herself looked well past fifty.
"Feeding of the cats, of course," Peggy explained irritably.
"She's too old to handle it herself. Anyway, I just got back and . . . that's what l found."
"What are they supposed to look like?' Temple wondered.
Peggy stepped away from the cage behind her to reveal a blue-eyed beauty with long, cream-colored fur, pristine-white feet and the soft, lavender-gray markings of a lilac-point Siamese on muzzle, tail and legs.
"Oh." Temple was in love again. It was a good thing she was already committed to Midnight Louie, unpedigreed nobody that he was, or she'd go home with a cat breeder's ransom in exotic purebreds, at least the long-haired variety.
"Such a shame," she said with new understanding.
Peggy Wilhelm just shook her head. "I had that coat brushed and powdered to sheer magic."