Every time my little doll has one of these midnight misadventures, she performs the same routine. First she sinks her fingers into my warm fur, if I am there, which I usually am these days or nights, rather. I do have an escape clause: the open bathroom window. Miss Temple Barr's rooms are on the third floor and the window is small, so no felon larger than a midget is able to enter, although I can both enter and exit with the ease of a garter snake. Nowadays the domestic life suits my more laid-back style. I rarely t ake a nighttime stroll unless I have business of a crime-fighting or personal nature abroad.
Anyway, Miss Temple takes up her high-tech flashlight and l see the back of her Garfield T-shirt as she makes a tour of the premises, particularly of the French doors leading to the patio.
She returns, often with a granola cookie. This I keep strictly between herself and me: a lady's night time habits are no one's business but her own. I must adm it that I do not relish crumbs i n the bed, especially when they are the sort I do not personally find consumable, but l understan d my little doll's need for comfort after her attack, and at least she has not yet imported any crumbs of another sort entirely to her--and my--queen-'size bed. There is only one King of the Hill here and the name is Midnight Louie.
0f course, it is because of a dude before my time that Miss Temple was so rudely interroga ted by the pair of hoods in the Goliath garage. His name at lea st I approve of: the Mystifying Max. His game was okay also : magician. What was wrong with him was that he vanished--per manently, and without bothering to tell Miss Temple. I would not d o such a thing to a little doll like her unless I was road kill, w hich l fear is one of the theo ries that is bothering my lo vely roommate about her missing ex-significant other.
To tell the truth and speaking from my own experience around here, l cannot understand why a ny dude in his right mind would walk out on Miss Temple Barr, who has hardly any faults except f or her addiction to certain health foods, including a preparation called Free-to-be-Feline. That is h er only lapse in taste, and the Mystifying M ax could have put up with it. Af ter all, he did not have to eat anything worse than granola. I have managed to ignore the Free-to-b e-Feline for nearly a month now, with the result tha t I am getting a superb class of delicacies Iadl ed over the top as a temptation: smoked oysters, baby shrimp in Creole sauce and other appetizers that add up to a full-meal deal, a s they say on the television.
Perhaps there is one tiny inciden t I am not fond of, although it is understandable. After the att ack on Miss Temple, her helpful neighbor, Mr. Matt Devine, stayed the night. I hung around long enough to see him ensconced on the living-room hide abed ; then I comforted my little doll in the bedroom until she drifted off to a Tylenol-3 sleep before l skedad dled on errands of an investiga tive nature. All right, in this particular case I had a personal interest ----my lost ladylove, the Divine Yvette, had witnessed the first stripper murder.
All that is history as I sit here drowsing, humming along with the bees circling the calla lilies. The Goliath killer is in an institution for the criminally insane, and I am the victim of a criminally frustrated romantic entangl ement. The Divine Yvette has re tur ned to Malibu with her mistress, a so-called actress named Savannah Ashleigh.
Chapter 2
Nancy Ninja Strikes Again
"Where's Louie?" Temple stared toward the calla lilies', red and yellow blooms bright against large green leaves. "He was there just a minute ago."
"Probably got bored by how long it was taking us to get going," Matt said pointedly. "I thought you didn't want any witnesses."
"Right, I'm still not sure I'm cut out for this." Temple savagely jerked her waistline sas h tight. "I feel like Dopey the Dwarf in this outfi t."
She stared down at herse lf drowning in loose, white cot ton pajamas she wouldn't have worn to a junior-high slumber party.
The most disconcerting sigh t was her bare feet, flour-white against the blindingly blu e-vinyl mat they both stood on. Matt's feet were lightly tanned, at least, and therefore interesting instead of pasty, of course. Temple found everything about tall, blond and ha ndsome Matt Devine interesting, darn it. Matt remained o blivious to all but his lesson.
"This outfi t is called a 'gi'," he said, pronouncing t he word with a hard "g." Gee, Temple thought. Okay. She plucked unhappily at a gigantic sleeve.
"You'll get used to it," Matt said, "and it shouldn't feel too big. I got a child's size, after all."
Temple watched his w arm brown eyes grow dismayed as he realized that his intended reassurance had gone right for a sore spot with Temple: h er height, or--more precisely-- the lack thereof.
She shrugged fabric-swaddled arms, not used to making a hissing rustle with her every move. "Great. Teach Shirley Temple to do this, then; not me. She'd probably even sing something."
"This won't be so bad. I 'm not going to give you chapter and verse of any particular discipline, just some tricks that you can use if anyone attacks you again. Jack Ree showed m e the short-form women's defense stuff. Anyone can do it."
Temple eyed Ma tt, who looked as right in his g i as Robert Redford would, if ever RR would descend to doing a martial-arts movie. Maybe Matt's light tan and sun-gilded hai r made his gi look less like a fl our sack with a rubber band in the middle.
"I still don't know if I want to do it," she said. "I've never been good at athletic things. Balls always went over my head and team c aptains always picked me last." "That's the beauty of the martial arts," Matt insisted with an enthusiast's seriousness. "They all grew out of the peas ants' need to defend the mselves without the weapons the nobility took for granted. And Asians are a small people; any martial art is based on discip line and skill, not on size and brute force."