I perch for a while, and preen while catching my breath, then loft idly down to Miss Electra Lark's patio. This is the most dangerous part of the venture. Her patio is crammed with bushes snipped into familiar-looking silhouettes, no doubt by an obsessive-compulsive with a large collection of manicure scissors . I land revoltingly near one silhouette teased into the shape of a poodle fresh from the groomer.
Yet I have no time to waste in critiquing the topiary. I brush against the French doors, testing for an unlocked door. A low rattle as the portal bows to my superior force , not to ment ion my nineteen pounds, tells m e that I have a prayer. I stretch up----far up. I am a long dude, as well as a bit long in the tooth, and my forepaw curls around the lever. Then I jerk, herd. The door springs ajar to my expert touch. I drop down to nose it open, sticking my puss into a room shrouded in shade, every m ini - blind drawn tighter than a m iser's line of credit.
I push into the soft, cool dark, lulled by the hum of the air conditioner that reminds me of my dear, departed mama. The open door admits a ba r of hot, bright light behind m e. It slants across an array of funky furniture that would do a garage sale proud. It reveals dust motes and sofa legs and vases so ugly they should be put in jail . It bounces off the lurid green glow of a watching eye from under the opposite sofa.
Before I can do anything, my sharp ears flick at the sou nd of another door being opened, deep in the apartment's interior, by a key.
Chapter 5
Calling All Cats
"Wait here in the entry, dear. I'll find that paper in a minute."
"Won't you need light?" Temple called after Electra's vanishing figure, her forefinger poised on the light switch to the right of the double entry doors.
Around her, in the fun-house glimmer of Mylar vertical blinds that lined the semicircular space and shimmied in the slow turn of a lazy ceiling fan, icicle-slices of her own image vibrated in the dim light.
"No," came Electra's fruity voice from the shadowed depths of the penthouse. "It's right here."
Temple was seriously tempted anyway. Electra's rooms were always kept dim, and darn few people saw them. One flick of her forefinger and she would satisfy a portion of her curiosity--at least about everything within range.
She could always pretend she hadn't heard. Temple took the plunge.
Nothing happened. Whatever light the switch had once controlled was gone, perhaps replaced by the ceiling fan, whose control box was on the other side of the door. Temple looked up. No light attachment, either. Double darn.
So she stood politely waiting, trying to look innocent and wondering if her flick of the switch had turned on something else in the place -- m aybe a coffee maker, or an iron, w ouldn't it be her luck? And the minute she and Electra left, the accidentally turned-on item would start to burn down the whole Circle Ritz. Guilt was a terrible thing, Poor Raskolnikov. Maybe when Electra returned, she should just cave in and confess.
Temple edged back to the wall and flicked the switch to its up position just as Electra's sandal-shod feet shuffled over the parquet floors.
Dazzling light flooded the entry area, as narrow and glaring as a sky-sweeping spotlight.
"Oops! Sorry," Temple said. How did a light switch that was off in the up position go on after being turned off again?
"Argh!" Electra complained, bustling over to the switch in a muumuu almost as brilliant as the light. She switched the lever down and the glare vanished as obediently as one of the Mystifying Max's magical objects. "That's for dramatic effect. at night."
"Where is it coming from?" Temple squinted against the sudden darkness. Her eyes fi nally followed Electra's pointing finger to an up light sitting on the floor.
In the room beyond the break in the blinds, something glimmered. Marble- round and as lurid green as a laser beam. Temple heard a muf fled thump as Electra took her fi rm upper arm in hand and ushered her from the penthouse.
Although the halls in the forty-year-old Circle Ritz building were not alleyways of illumination, the glow of wall sconces seemed daylight-bright compared to the secretive shadows in Electra's digs.
"I thought l saw--" Temple began.
"Oh, people are always thinking they see something in my place. It's all the junk I collect."
"I thought I heard--"
"This is an old building, dear, and the palm leaves scrape on the roof. Now here's the fl yer. I bet you can do something with this."
"I bet not." Temple took the popsicle-pink sheet over to a wall sconce's pale light. First she had to dig her glasses out of the bronze tote bag over her shoulder before she could read the too-fine print. "Cat shows are as common as fleas, Electra. Every Civic Center in the country has 'em in alternating months. All the advance publicity you can get is a photo of a funny-looking cat in the paper, and any amateur could manage that. Besides, what can they pay me in? Cat litter? Louie almost never sullies his box at home."
"Not this show; it's not common," Electra insisted, coming over to point a pudgy finger at various blocks of information, which gave Temple a chance to admire her Black Grape nail polish with silver stars arranged in various arcane constellations.
"Look," Electra insisted, "this is the mother of all cat shows. Every recognized breed will be represented, even curly coated Rexes. And there's a costume show; that ought to be newsworthy."
"Cats in clothes? That's silly; Electra, and probably the Humane Society would have a thing or two to say about it."
"Not a meow. These breeders are fanatics about cat care. They wouldn't do anything harmful. In fact, it's quite the other way around."
"What do you mean?"
"Oh--" Electra reclaimed the fiyer to stare at the obligatory facts of date, time and place. "My friend Cleo Kilpatrick, who raises Manx, says the Fancy Feline Club that's sponsoring this show has gotten some odd phone calls."
"Odd catcalls? Sounds like an ill-tempered audience. What kind of odd calls can a cat club get?"
"Peop le calling up and . . . hissing, or maybe it's real snakes. They can't tell."
"Someone is calling up a cat club and putting agitated snakes on the line?"
"Fascinating, isn't it? I thought you'd be intrigued."
"Intrigued! Why on earth would you want to involve me with these loonies?"
"Several of my friends are Fancy Feliners and they don't take these calls lightly. Lots of folks hate cats, for some reason, and these purebred cats are worth a lot of money. The cat people are real worried."
For answer, Temple dug again in her tote bag. She fi nally pulled out a slim case, from which she deftly extracted a pale m auve card with her medium-long fi ngernails, which today were varnished a tasteful seashell pink.
"Read my card. I t s ays 'Temple Barr, P.R.'--not 'P.I .' "
Electra shrugged generous shoulders even more generously shrouded in a howling Hawaiian jungle print. "Maybe it's not a bad idea to broaden your job description, the way you keep running into murders."