Cat in an Alphabet Endgame: A Midnight Louie Mystery (The Midnight Louie Mysteries Book 28)

by Carole Nelson Douglas

  “Midnight Louise did that? She always seemed such a dainty sweet little cat.”

  “So did you, Temple. And look at how many crooks you have exposed.”

  “But Louie’s staying here. Look! His Free-to-Be-Feline bowl is almost empty under that plastic sheet.”

  “I fill that bowl over and over again, Temple, and it’s always empty in the morning.”

  “So you are applying tins of sardines, oysters, and shrimp over the top?”

  “That’s always gone too.”

  “Maybe he’s lost some weight.” Temple hoisted the cat up to her chest. “Omppph. Still at least twenty pounds. Maybe not.”

  “This has been quite an upheaval for Louie, Temple. His home is not the same. It will never be the same again.”

  “I know, I know. I feel horrible about it, but he’s so adaptable. Such a survivor. I’m sure he understands, don’t you, boy?” She chucked him under the chin. Was that a tiny spray of white hairs she spotted growing? Was Louie feeling abandoned? Depressed? Gasp. Middle-aged?

  “Oh, Louie, Louie. Things are changing, but that’s life. It will be better soon.”

  She pushed her face forward, but he turned his away, gazing up at the hanging plastic shroud covering the construction area, where a steady pounding made Temple want to run away and come back another day.

  Maybe poor Louie was feeling that way too.

  “Please, Louie,” she entreated him. “Hang in there. Everything will be wonderful soon.”

  32

  Gilt Trip

  Speaking of the Guthrie Theater, my performance is, of course, a major Thespian moment.

  Instilling guilt in humans is a delicate, but remarkably easy process.

  I have been practicing for this role since a fuzz-bottom. That is how we train these people to perform.

  First, one must cultivate a certain Continental ennui.

  You suppose yourself French, and world-weary. Your eyelids can barely remain open, your gaze can barely reach for the ceiling, were even a menacing wasp circling.

  You think yourself as heavy as you can be, the opposite of what a sane human would do, and your right front mitt and vibrissae, a.k.a. whiskers, may twitch minutely.

  Humans sigh, but our breed yawns. Long and deeply. Life is all too empty, cheerless, woeful and not worth living without X-Tasy Bits-brand liver and kidney and a nice Chianti.

  What? Your human victim wants to play kissy-face—whisker-crumpling, muzzle-smooching kissy-face? Ugh.

  How off-putting. You twist your neck until avoiding all contact makes it plain you are barely managing to put up with this sadly enabling creature who wants only to make you safe, warm, dry, and overweight. And inside.

  I hate to do this, but I realize that my journey with my Miss Temple will not be over until we both understand we have our parts to play and our peace to make and will always be together, come rain or shine or bloody murder.

  For now, I let her put me down (thank Bast!). What is this obsession with picking up? I came with four on the floor, fully equipped from the factory, and will be leaving the Daily Planet obit pages the same way, many years from hence. I hope.

  Meanwhile, as Miss Temple sets me back down with copious sniffles and tears, I plot how to get her where I want her, where it will do me and her the most good.

  Mostly her.

  Unlike Sam Spade, I am willing to play the sap for a dame.

  If it suits me.

  But only for so long.

  33

  A Peak Experience

  When Temple returned from the work in progress at the Circle Ritz to her and Matt’s lovely suite at the Crystal Phoenix, she sat and thought, and shuffled pieces of paper on the handsome desk meant usually for show.

  The suite had a real safe, built into a wall, not the cheesy metal boxes on hotel closet shelves, and she’d brought out the maps of the Strip and its attractions.

  She got up and went to the window-wall. Her twelfth-floor suite was at an ideal height. From up here she could still see the canyons of streets and highways between the towering buildings. The darkening mountains were notched against a cloudless sunset sky on her right and the Strip lights were gaining on the coming dark on her left.

  She paced. Thought. Sighed. The delicious week in San Diego had soothed away tensions from the previous whirlwind sequence of two weddings, an armed robbery attempt, a fraught multi-family reunion, and a current renovation of home, sweet, home.

  Temple’s brain was now rested and revving up, getting ideas.

  She still had Max on speed-dial. She felt a bit guilty for using it.

  “Here comes the bride,” he announced as he answered. “What a beautiful wedding, Temple.”

  “How do you know? You were invited, but you didn’t accept.”

  “I was invited, but I didn’t have the bad taste to show up at the actual ceremony and general reception and have to be explained.”

  “Always mystifying.”

  “Always practical.”

  “The doves were a nice final touch, but the Fontana boys got the credit.”

  “And they’ve earned it. Besides, I had to brace myself for my command performance at your so very delicate and emotional production of A Family for All Seasons. You will be magnificent on a talk show venturing into current issues. I have never been so masterfully manipulated to be honest.”

  “You know everyone in your families needed to reconcile the past.”

  “Yes, yes. Very sensitive, but back to what an absolute beauty of a bride you made. I may not have recovered my memories of me, of you, of us, but I confess I felt very sorry for the poor sod who missed out on you, whether you were coming down the aisle or managing a hell of a tricky family reconciliation.”

  “Catholic Confession is now called the Sacrament of Reconciliation, I’m told,” Temple said demurely. “I may not be Catholic, but I’m pro reconciliation.”

  “Good for you. I may not have been apparent at the actual wedding, but that doesn’t mean I missed most of the main event at the church.”

  “Not. I knew you couldn’t resist being the ghost at the banquet. Did you like my train?”

  “Train? Oh, yes…killer.”

  “Liar. You don’t give a whit about trains. I thought so. You were concealed up in the choir loft. You crashed my wedding too, like that skunk, Crawford Buchanan. And you were invited.”

  “I appreciated that, but the best view in any theater is always from the balcony.”

  “True,” Temple said, looking out at the Las Vegas view.

  “We haven’t talked since the family intervention.”

  “I know. It may seem crazy to call, but I’ve had a brainstorm about the puzzle of the late Effinger’s drawing and the Ophiuchus constellation.”

  “As a practical man, I assume the Mister is hanging over your shoulder.”

  “He should be, but the TV show producers decided they wanted copies of the pro-shot wedding tapes. The producers are here on other business, so Matt’s at the Bellagio, in their faces, discussing the limits of our public versus private lives. Get that established now or lose all control. Tony is with him.”

  “Such problems,” Max teased. “Therefore you’re home alone?”

  “Yes, darn it. I really need to show you what I’ve found.”

  “You’re in the mood for a scandal? So soon after the wedding cake?”

  “I was hoping the Mystifying Max could still disappear and reappear without a soul knowing about it.”

  “Ah. A chance to use my rusty cat burglar skills. Excellent. Do unlock the balcony doors, I’ve had an emotionally fatiguing week because of an auld acquaintance not forgot. Sean and I flew to Racine before he and Deirdre flew back to Northern Ireland.”

  “Their B and B sounds like a great honeymoon locale.”

  Temple laughed at herself. She was planning on how she could be wicked and hook up Max and Molina. Seemed to be a bit of rivalry-attraction there.

  Look at me! Temple though
t. Married barely a week and already a matchmaker. Max and Molina…two tough, single, probably lonely people…what if? Then she imagined them walking down an aisle together, knew it would be at swords’ point, and laughed at herself.

  Max must have lurked in the choir loft, though. Which meant that wedding singer Molina must have been a tad complicit. At the least, she hadn’t ratted him out, which would have ruined the dove bit.

  Fifteen minutes later came a rapping, gently tapping on her glass balcony doors. ’Twas the raven-haired Max, and nothing more. Thank goodness.

  “You climbed twelve stories?” Temple asked. “Impressive.”

  “Not really. I took the elevator to the eleventh floor and managed one story. Tell me,” Max said as he closed the balcony doors behind him. “Your beloved will be understanding if he should find out about this?”

  “He will. I’ll tell him. He may huff and puff a bit, but ultimately he’ll be okay with it, yes, because he’s my beloved. He knows in his heart and his bones that you’re no threat to him.”

  “As well he should. He brought down Jack the Hammer. I would never mess with a guy like that. He’s really come into his own, hasn’t he?” Max said seriously. “You have that effect on people, Temple. I have yet to say that about myself, but I’m working on it.”

  “Max, I was so sorry to hear you lost your house, and all your history. I loved that place.” The thought of both Max and Louie feeling homeless nagged at Temple like a hangnail you keep picking at.

  “You’ve obviously been talking to Molina. That home had been tainted already. Kathleen attacked us all in that place. Threatened you. Shot Matt. Gave my noggin another memory-blasting blow. At least I remember that.”

  “Are you really so…resigned?”

  “No. The house being destroyed was a blow,” Max said, sitting on the sofa arm. “Don’t we all cringe when we hear the vast toll of innocent flesh ISIS takes and then it destroys the architectural legacy of all peoples of times gone by?”

  Ordinarily, Max admitted to no vulnerabilities, but this was a new, more philosophical Max.

  “Kathleen did it?” Temple asked, wincing.

  “Who else? She never had any home, any history but a hidden and destroyed…and destroying…past. I guess she thought she was owed to do that to someone else.”

  “Not ‘someone’. You. I hate her for what she did.”

  “Me too. But for her acts, not for the small stubborn part of humanity she clings to.”

  “That’s generous.”

  “That’s what I learned from you, and Matt did too. What can I do for you?”

  “I’ve been working on the maze that is the Effinger murder, the IRA donations, the Synth magicians and the Ophiuchus constellation puzzle.”

  “All that and getting married too?”

  “Matt’s quest is ended.”

  Max’s laugh was rich. “He’s the accidental hero, isn’t he? Uncovering a treasure hunt far more sinister than the mystery we’ve all been following. My God, he’s got the angels on his side for having the guts to go up against the nastiest secret killer in Vegas. You do know he was on top of it at the end like mob-buster Elliott Ness, and isn’t ’fessing up to that because it would be awkward for you and Molina?”

  “Yes, all that. And I’m very proud. But my latest insight can’t wait. I’ve moved the crude Cliff Effinger drawing of the hero fighting a giant serpent that supposedly represents the thirteenth Zodiac sign of Ophiuchus, and the “house” shape of the major stars in the Ophiuchus constellation over each other on tracing paper and have had a breakthrough.”

  “Can’t this wait until we can summon our Round Table to discuss our Table of Crime Elements like we used to? Matt deserves to be in on the end of the puzzle if you’ve found it. As you say, he’s way too secure to resent me anymore. Especially since I was diplomatically absent at your wedding.”

  “And you could spot any brewing trouble better from up there. Did Molina know she had hidden backup?”

  “You must stop thinking she knows everything.”

  “She knows Kathleen burned your house down, and I didn’t know about that.” Temple frowned a little frown. “Have you been consorting with the enemy?”

  “I wouldn’t call it consorting.” Max looked uneasy, not a Max Look Temple had seen before.

  “Well, well, well,” Temple said. “Did Kathleen pay dearly for erasing your history like you were ancient ruins and she was ISIS when you tracked her down in Ireland?”

  “Ruins! I’m not so newly humble to admit to that. All I can say is that Kathleen is not to be found in Ireland anymore.”

  “You didn’t find her? I don’t believe that.”

  Max shrugged. “I couldn’t say I found her peace of mind, but I found the daughter she gave up shortly after birth.”

  “Daughter? Born in the Magdalene institution? Taken away from her? Oh, Hoover Dam and double damn! The poor woman. No wonder she was a crazy witch.”

  “Poor girl. She escaped with her infant daughter while yet a girl herself and found a nice agnostic family to rear her. Not an easy thing to do in Ireland, believe me, to find people who are not undiluted true believers.”

  “She found a UU family!”

  “What passes for that over there, yes.”

  “Maybe I’ll have to reevaluate her.”

  “And that would be your reconciliation moment.”

  Temple nodded. “Don’t judge until you walk in another woman’s…Stuart Weitzman’s.”

  “For you. For her, the way Kathleen walked was thorny beyond shoes.”

  “Darn it, Max. You’re making me cry for Kathleen. She stole one shoe of my best pair of heels, yet she returned it. Everything was a taunt for her.”

  “Don’t cry for Kathleen. She’d hate that, and you won’t be able to show me what you found.”

  All right. I want to demonstrate another radically different imposition of the Ophiuchus stars on the Las Vegas map.”

  “And why not wait for your devoted spouse?”

  “Because true inspiration strikes rarely and soon fades. I thought of you for that 3-D visualization a magician has. And for what I realized I saw on the marvelous altar front, and saw echoed in the nave of Our Lady of Guadalupe church.”

  “So your getting married got you a glimpse of a treasure buried for three generations and clued you in on the equally long-missing IRA funds? Ironic, but the loot in the church was Ted Binions’, not IRA connected.”

  “I do realize that. And Matt will be happy to come home and collect his Giacco Petrocelli memorial jackhammer and come along with me to find out, if you don’t want to.”

  “Actually,” he admitted, “Binion’s stash being unearthed gave me another idea on the IRA puzzle.”

  “That settles it. Max. We need one last rendezvous at the Neon Nightmare.” She stood up. “I’m wearing my capris and deck shoes, and carrying my tote for the papers. So I’m ready for a treasure hunt in a pyramid.”

  His expression turned cautious, closed again. He obviously didn’t want to go there. “That place is out of business.”

  “But I’m not.”

  “That’s comforting, but it’s a deserted venue.”

  “The best kind for kinky criminal doings. To be discreet, you can drive and meet me there.”

  “Is this town still big enough for the two of us?”

  “The three of us. Don’t forget Midnight Louie.”

  “The three of us.”

  “It’s Vegas, baby.”

  34

  Midnight Magic

  Things have changed, changed utterly.

  Along the Las Vegas Strip. Among my favorite people and places.

  Yet some things will never change.

  My Miss Temple—(forget Missus, an ugly word, totally not French, and Madam has connotations. In my book, ladies are always Miss, but I will grudgingly use Mrs. on occasion)—is a known vintage clothing lover.

  I have long realized the addiction went beyond suits and
shoes to such finds as the snazzy chrome nineteen-twenties toaster that holds any snail mail she still gets. Sadly, she buys cat carriers new; at least until I get my paws and claws to work on them.

  The biggest objects of her vintage obsession are the cluster of modest motel-casinos in the nineteen-forties that grew into the dazzling skyline of higher and higher hotel-casinos…whose grandeur faded one by one as they became “gut jobs” and fell to make way for ever grander and higher replacements.

  I find myself musing on how the Strip itself mirrors more than half the twentieth century and a bit of the twenty-first. And how change and rebirth is impossible without death, whether it is the death of the body or an idea or a vision.

  That is why I retreat nowadays (when ripping and pounding at the Circle Ritz make even the zebra-print carrier no retreat), to the abandoned Neon Nightmare building to meditate, as my breed is wont. It seems a perfect metaphor for Vegas dreams and melodramas.

  Las Vegas has so much flash and cash floating around in its neon stew that when a venue is slowly dying, it is an instantly detectable Black Hole amid the wheeling, glitzy galaxies of the Strip and even the night sky so often overpowered by the wattage below.

  It had been that way for the Dunes and the Aladdin in the eighties as “new ownerships” appeared on the desert sands in the east horizon and quickly sank into the mountains in the west. Including The Sands itself. Such names, from the Stardust to the long-lasting Riviera, only recently imploded with pomp and ceremony.

  We hip cats about Vegas mourn these losses, every one a prime Dumpster-diving location in its heyday, as well as the epitome of class and creativity for its time.

  The implosion of the Grand Old Dames of the Strip kicked into high gear during the nineties, destruction becoming a massive stage show itself. First, the impeccably placed charges. The filmed countdown. The wide media coverage of a once-fabled building holding memories of once-fabled entertainment acts collapsing in seconds into itself, into nothing, melting like the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz. And all death throes available on YouTube now. Watch them and weep for the bygone glamour.