Cat in a Neon Nightmare

by Carole Nelson Douglas

  Matt suddenly knew what to do. “No trouble is so bad it can’t be helped by talking to someone else about it. What kind of bad is it?”

  Very bad. She thought she was pregnant. She was in high school. Her boyfriend, forbidden of course, was older and wanted nothing to do with her or her condition. Her parents would never understand. She didn’t dare confide in a girlfriend; she didn’t have many…any…of those.

  The classic story had also been classic in the New Testament. The church had resolved it with the concept of the Virgin Mary. Sadly, no other unwed mother since then had received a similar dispensation. In the Holy Land, they were still stoning them to death.

  “Just once,” she was saying. “Honest. I never thought…just once.”

  If there could be a virgin mother, could there be a sinless sinner? Not in any religion he knew. There could be an innocent sinner. That he had reason to believe.

  He coached her into giving birth to some options: a drugstore pregnancy test. Buy it out of the neighborhood, off the Strip. If it came out positive, talk to a school counselor. Her writhing protest was clear even over the phone line. Planned Parenthood, he suggested in desperation, aware that were he still wearing a Roman collar, even figuratively, that would be anathema. But where does a girl desperately seeking impersonality go with this most personal of problems? To people she doesn’t know, since the ones she does have made clear through sixteen callous years that they don’t really care enough about her to inspire any kind of confidence at all. That was the real sin. It starts at home and spreads beyond to school and the larger society. Once the human hen yard decides that you are the chick to be picked out and pecked to death it only gets worse and your predictably nervous behavior only reinforces the bullying.

  Matt recalled the awful incident Ambrosia had mentioned of the Pakistani teenager gang-raped by the village elders. If a pregnancy resulted, that fact would only further condemn her, even and especially in the eyes of her own family. She would be doubly dishonored. For this the God of Christians had made himself human and died by torture, to reflect and reject humans’ inhumanity to humans, and two thousand years later it still went on.

  His caller was sounding a little more hopeful. Not a lot. A little. She had a plan, a mission. A test to buy. Information. Maybe she wasn’t. Maybe she’d go to Planned Parenthood.

  Maybe, Matt thought, her self-destructive spiral could be halted by contraception. He had mixed feelings about that issue. He knew many “good” Catholic couples who had rationalized using it despite the church’s stand against it. Many others had tried “natural” family planning methods with great or not-so-great success. Being orthodox in any religion was always a balancing act.

  But given that this girl on the phone, this child, had been conditioned to not care much for herself, preventing her from having another person in her care until she had matured seemed a necessary stopgap.

  “Thanks for listening to me, Mr. Midnight,” she was saying, gushing, high on the idea that she had places to go, things to do, that she wasn’t necessarily alone.

  “A lot of people would listen to you, if you take a chance. But pick them carefully.”

  “I know. Not everyone is mean, is what you’re saying, even if it seems that way. Chuck—” She hadn’t meant to mention his name, not ever and especially not on the radio.

  Matt couldn’t help smiling at the notion of all the “Chucks” out there in the listening audience who were doing hasty examinations of conscience.

  “I never thought I could get caught. I never thought, I guess. I need to figure out why I did that, and how not to get caught again, right?”

  “You need to figure out who you are and what you want and need and care about.”

  “Everybody says that: figure out who you are. They never say how.”

  “Look at what makes you happy. Look at what makes you hurt. Think about your future, not just now. Think about what you owe to yourself, not anybody else.”

  “Isn’t that selfish?”

  “No. That’s self-knowledge. We’re all working on it. Every day in every way. We don’t always get it right. Making mistakes is how we learn.”

  “Have you made mistakes, Mr. Midnight?”

  “Many.”

  “But here you are, rich and famous.”

  “Not so much of either, but more than I ever thought.”

  “ ‘More than I ever thought.’ Maybe that’s it. Being more than you ever thought. Hey, thanks. And say ‘Hi’ to Elvis for me.”

  Matt shook his head at her parting shot. A regular listener, there even when “The King” or a darn good imitation had called in a few times. This was Las Vegas. What do you expect if you hang out a counseling shingle on the airwaves? You are going to get what you asked for. The lonely, the lost, the Elvis freaks.

  “Only the Lonely.” Was that an Elvis song? Maybe, maybe not, but clearly Elvis had been so lonely he had never been alone until he died that way in his own throne room.

  The next caller was a crank, insisting that aliens had taken over the famed Area 51 outside Las Vegas and were all masquerading as Elvis impersonators.

  God save him from Elvis freaks.

  Another caller was back in the all-too-real world. She was, she said, a devout Catholic widow. But the Social Security system screwed seniors out of their earned benefits, so she was going to live without benefit of matrimony with Stanley, who wasn’t Catholic and had no problem with it, so they’d both collect the SS they needed to underwrite their monthly prescription-medicine bills.

  Both of them had distant adult children they would tell they were married. They hated lying to the kids, but wait until the juniors found out what prices the seniors had to put up with.

  Matt heartily encouraged her. To live so long and still find the courage to bond and then pay a survival-threatening penalty struck him as the heart of social injustice.

  He couldn’t believe how much this job forced him to endorse positions contrary to Catholic doctrine. He was out in the real, secular world now, not within the enchanted circle of a parish. He had faced a true ethical dilemma, and come out of it more uncertain and confused than ever. Was Miss Kitty winning? Or was he coming to terms with things he had been able to avoid in his vocation? He wouldn’t know until, like his first caller, he went through the process, took action, found himself.

  The phone line clicked as another caller came on.

  “Mr. Midnight.”

  The clock said eight minutes to go on his expanded two-hour stint.

  “I’m here.” It had become a catchphrase for his show.

  The station had commissioned new billboards around town with those two words. Mr. Midnight is here for you. (Even if he isn’t here for himself, Matt would add whenever he drove past one of the billboards.) They ran spot ads on radio stations the nation over, wherever his program was syndicated. “I’m here.”

  That’s why he had to be here, tonight, the hardest time he’d ever put in. He should have been somewhere with Vassar, even if it was at the city morgue. Ashley Andersen, she had told him, finally, last night. Confessed her true identity. Ashley Andersen from Wisconsin. On scholarship to Vassar and never fitting in. And look at her now. Glamorous. Well-off. Scandalous. Dead.

  I’m here. Sometimes. Strictly by schedule.

  “Play ‘Misty’ for me.”

  Of course she would call back. Especially now.

  “You’re dialing the wrong show. Ambrosia’s off the air. I don’t do music, just chat.”

  Ambrosia was making frantic throat-cutting motions, but he shook his head just as definitely. Vassar’s death had made him angry for her, and ultimately, wonder of wonders, for himself. Let the games begin.

  “Just chat.” She repeated, laughing, with a lilt.

  Her voice had the loveliest trace of an Irish brogue. Nothing stage-Irish or exaggerated. Just a faint mist of musicality. Hearing her, one could almost love her instead of loathe her.

  Matt held to that idea. Had K
itty the Cutter been lovable once? Or never? Was that what had shaped her?

  “What’s your trouble?” he asked, emphasizing the word for the Irish political conflict, The Troubles.

  “Ah. It’s about a man.”

  “Of course.”

  “I gave him everything. Or the chance at everything.”

  “And he failed you. Just like a man.”

  “Well, no. He was a man. He betrayed me.”

  “My gender takes a beating on this program.” Matt could never bear to call it a “show,” though sometimes it was. “Another gal done wrong by some heartless cad?”

  “Not heartless. Too much heart. No balls.”

  He glanced at Ambrosia. Games he could play on his own time. Raunchy language that could lose the station its license was another matter.

  She shook her head, disowned any say-so on program content. This was too vital.

  Matt had long since disowned the issue of cowardice. Martial arts had built up his self-esteem in that area, if not others. He had abandoned every precept of his youth and vocation to meet Vassar. Even she had understood and respected that. As he had come to respect her. Yes. That was his weapon. His assignation with Vassar had been a meeting of the minds, even the soul. Who would have thought it?

  “A coward,” Matt said. “Fickle. Anything else?”

  “Only that he went to a common whore, snuck around on me. Thought I’d never know.”

  “Maybe he knew you’d know, wanted you to know, wanted you to get the idea, and get lost.”

  “Wanted me to know? Snuck around, I said. Danced in and out of casinos all along the Strip so no one could trace his path.”

  “Apparently you did.”

  “Well, a woman knows.”

  “So, forget him. You really want that kind of sneaky rat?”

  “Hmmm. I had hopes that he would have some morals. His history certainly indicated that.”

  “So what are you going to do? Moon over this no-good guy? Confront him? He’ll only lie.”

  “You’re right. The only thing to do is to wash my hands of him. Wash that man right out of my hair. Wash my hands of him, like Pontius Pilate.”

  Matt felt a chill. She knew her Scriptures as well as he did. He was to be crucified, was that it?

  “Maybe,” he said, “you should consider yourself lucky. This is Las Vegas. You can get a lucky break here. He obviously wasn’t worth your attention.”

  “Obviously. He obviously was a lot more sneaky than I thought. I guess I’ll just leave him alone all by himself to pay the price. There will be one, won’t there?”

  “For every action and reaction, there is always a price.”

  “Right. So this is my declaration of independence. He’s off my hook. I want nothing more to do with him. Let him stew in his own juices, if he has any. I’m outta here. Will you tell him for me?”

  “I think you’ve done it yourself, very well.”

  “Thank you. It’s been fun. And, if you really want to do me a favor, play ‘Misty’ for me.”

  Matt was surprised to find Ambrosia “breaking” into the studio, shattering the “third wall.” That’s what actors called the invisible divide between them and the audience, and it pretty much applied to radio too. Both mediums offered ersatz intimacy.

  Before Matt could answer, Ambrosia punched some buttons on the console.

  The Midnight Hour closed for the first time with music, not talk: Johnny Mathis crooning “Misty.” His voice was as caressing as ever. Matt couldn’t believe this was the swan song to Kathleen O’Connor’s obsession with him.

  Once the words and music were launched and the mike was dead, Ambrosia glared at Matt. Not at him, on his behalf. “Sorry, my man. I really wanted to give that girl what she had coming to her. And that was not a last word from you. She don’t deserve that.” She smiled suddenly. “Oh, that Johnny is one mellow fellow, isn’t he?”

  Would that Mr. Midnight were one too.

  Chapter 19

  …Max Outed

  Not many people, especially security, carried firearms that required cocking anymore.

  Max decided he had heard his almost-invisible door magnetically shutting again. Or…he was not alone in the pitch dark.

  He stood still and listened.

  No one can stand still longer than a performance-hardened magician. Perfectly still. Even his breathing slowed. His performance days were a bit too far behind him, but most of his physical disciplines had held up. He worked out daily.

  In time all the tiny almost sub-sonic sounds to be heard became clear.

  The faint thump of the raucous musical heart of this odd building. The occasional click, almost mechanical, that came not from a pistol-packing phantom, but from somewhere inside this dark and concealed space.

  Max began moving on his treadless, rubber-soled shoes designed to leave no trace and make no sound. He felt like a mime against a black velvet curtain, moving, or appearing to move, but hardly perceived.

  And then he heard a thin trail of laughter, as distant as a dream.

  His hands reached further out, finding a wall.

  He moved along it, swift and silent as a spider, halting the instant the wall vanished.

  The slight breath of air on his mask-bare face, the touch of his fingers, told him he had reached the intersection with a wider hall.

  This he went down, drawn by the sound of men murmuring, the sound increasing, murmurs becoming words. Thurston in twenty-four…on Halloween yet…damned bastard!…the thugi…dead, I suppose….

  A woman’s voice came bright as a bird chirp in that basso chorus. Cloaked Conjuror, she said. Jeered. Laughter, mostly male. Hearty. Mean.

  Max stopped moving, listened further.

  More murmurs and now the convivial click of crystal. Not glass, but crystal with its higher, bell-like clarity, as seductive as a long fingernail skimming silk.

  He had to be there, bare-faced or not.

  Max let his fingers do the walking, those combination pads and prints so supersensitive they could feel another’s sticky fingerprints on glass.

  They reached out and touched something. Another door into the dark.

  Max knew how these doors worked now. He gave this one a karate chop at the doorknob level, where no doorknob, where no light existed.

  The barrier snapped open, halfway, truncating Max’s figure into two halves, both dark.

  A roomful of people stared at him as if he were an apparition. What an entrance! Now all he had to worry about was an exit.

  Chapter 20

  …Synth Lynx

  It strikes me as very odd that humans have to work so hard at having fun.

  What is it all but running around the block until the day of the executioner’s axe? For the mouse it is the toothsome cheese that comes just before the steel trap. For the cat it is the endless naps that come before the Final Nap. For people, it seems to be addictions, group tours, and therapy.

  The scene at Neon Nightmare reminds me of a cruise on the good ship LSD. I was not around for the vintage happenings, but it recall what I have learned of the sixties: sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Just add neon and you get the general idea.

  The light, sound, and action here is so manic that a dude of my persuasion strolling into the open raises no more of an eyebrow than a chain-smoking, hooka-pipe-hooked caterpillar did in Alice in Wonderland.

  Speaking of Alice, there are no little girls in ballet slippers and full skirts here. I am seeing lots of skin, much of it tanned (one way or another), tattooed, and pierced. The same goes for the dudes.

  When they are not gyrating in the flashing neon strobes on the central floor, they are hunched around too-tiny tables importing illegal smokes, tokes, and cokes of the non-capitalized kind.

  I cannot feel too superior. I do like a little nip now and then myself. It has even been known to turn me head over heels, quite literally. But this is a small vice I indulge in the privacy of my own home, provided for me quite legally by my t
houghtful roommate, who herself does not indulge in anything illegal other than meddling in police matters. And maybe sporting incendiary hair, an invitation to arson of a temperamental sort.

  Although I understand that my Miss Temple has been snooping around such debased environments as strip clubs lately, I am glad that she is not here to see this: Mr. Max slinking along the perimeter to disappear into a door as invisible and matte black as his own attire.

  Mr. Max does slink almost as well as I do, for a two-leg. I know he is investigating the premises, but it still saddens me that he must hang out among such dissolute individuals.

  I decide to go forth and do likewise, however, for I have this pet theory. Okay, it is very pet and very much theory. I believe that Hyacinth and her evil magician-mistress Shangri-La are links to the Synth.

  They have been turning up at the fringes of several cases like a bad dream now for months. In fact, Hyacinth has been turning up in my personal bad dreams like a case of kitty acne. (You know, that nasty black rash that shows up under the chin. No problem in my case, as black is my business, my only business, but it provokes a major depression in my pale-coated kin, believe-you-me!)

  So I am determined to stick around this joint until I learn more than I should.

  Granted, that is a dangerous position to be in, but if you are a solo operative, danger is often the only way to go. I may not get anywhere tonight, but at least I will see Mr. Max safely home after whatever he is up to is over.

  My Miss Temple would appreciate my thoughtfulness, and I will know as much as Mr. Max does, which strikes me as a very good thing.

  Chapter 21

  …Magic Fingers

  If the people in the room were surprised to see Max appear in their concealed doorway, he was pretty nonplused himself.

  It was like looking into one of those small worlds in a glass globe that could make snowflakes fall when shaken, not stirred.

  The room was paneled in cherry wood and glowed like fine claret. Flames flicked against a soot-black chimney. Max noticed that the disembodied fingers of fire fueled gas logs, but otherwise the effect was British Empire clubhouse, and quite inviting.