" Libra?" l reply without a blink, "l do not believe in these horrorscopes. Besides, I am a Pisces myself. And how many individuals of the feline sort are in danger?"
"Many," comes the answer as a shudder shakes Karma's pale, silky form.
That is the difficulty with these purebreds: too neurotic, especially the reclusive kind. Even the Divine Yvette is a tad . . . skittish, no doubt the result oi being kept too often in a pink-canvas carry-bag. l understand that a certain shade of pink is calming to the human psychopath, but l believe that this same tint does nothing for felines except encourage them to become color-blind.
I yawn and ask again, "How many?" If I am going to sit still for predictions oi disaster, I want a precise body count.
"Dozens," Karma replies in a faint, keening voice.
"Dozens, huh? Sounds like a normal day at the animal pound."
Karma shudders again. Perhaps the air conditioning is kept too high, because I do not feel the urge to shake so much as a whisker.
"Do not mention that place of sighs and slaughter," Karma warns me in a doom-filled voice. "Why do you suppose I must sequester myself in silence and shadow? To keep the anguish radiating daily from that Place of Infamy from interfering with my sensitive apprehension of more specific and less common crimes against our species. I tell you that there will be chaos soon, that it will decimate our kind, an utter catastrophe."
"Dozens threatened with death, you say, but not at the pound?"
"Perhaps . . . a hundred or more."
"Where can sitting ducks of the feline stripe be found if not in the cages at the animal pound?" I muse aloud, inadvertently striking a rhyme just like my bookie pal Nostradamus.
"That is your job to find out." Karma growls softly. "l am a mere conduit, a receiver."
I tell her that l do not know why I should believe a word of this hokum. "Who made you Psychic Central?" I ask.
Karma sighs and settles into her haunches, forelegs tucked in so she resembles a mandarin on a rice-paper scroll.
"l am Birman-born," she announces at length.
"So I heard."
Another sigh, no doubt of exasperation with my ignorance -- or more likely, with my fail ure to be impressed by pedigree, "We are temple cats. "
"You mean like my pal Moshe the Mouser at Beth Israel?"
"A more Eastern temple than that," Karma answers with the usual disdain. These know-it-alls-i n-advance are always disdainful, "We are the Sacred Cat of Burma and companions to the priests of the Temple of Lao-Tsun, who worship a golden goddess with blue eyes named Tsun-Kyan-Kse."
"Recently?" I cannot help inquiring snappily. All these foreign words sound like the menu at a chop suey establishment.
"Time is a dream in the windowless eyes of an ancient house," Karma replies in a dismissive singsong.
Just what this means, I cannot say. Perhaps it is one of those pithy oriental poems called a haiku, which are not supposed to make sense.
Karma goes on to chant. "One day"-presumably in this Never-Never Land of Unaccountable Time--"evil men attacked the temple and killed the head priest as he meditated before the goddess."
I'd spend a lot of time meditating before a golden goddess with blue eyes myself.
"The priest's pure white cat, Sinh, put his paws on his dead master's body, defying the enemy raiders to defile the dead."
I recall a saying among veterinarians of my acquaintance: "if it is white, it will bite." and I must admit that my own experience bears out this aphorism, especially in the case of pit bulls.
Karma's voice continues, a growing purr rising under her voice like the three-hankie sound track on a Benji movie. "As he did this, his body f u r grew as golden as the goddess, while his paws remain ed as white as snow, for purity. His legs, lace, ears and tail became the color of earth, and his yellow eyes turned celestial blue. For seven days and nights, Sinh remained before the goddess, refusing all food until he died."
Oops. Sounds like this cross-dressing dude had a death wish, which would not be surprising.
Karma, however, cannot read my mind. Perhaps it is too close at hand, or perhaps she does no t deign to do so. She continues, much taken with the story of her supernatural ancestry. "Sinh took the old priest's soul to paradise with him. And when the other priests met to choose a successor for the head priest, the one hundred white temple cats marched into the main hall, assuming the image of changed Sinh as they came. They circled a young priest to replace the old one fallen. And since then, the Birman wears the golden coat of the godd ess, has her sapphire-blue eyes, bears the earthy marks of death and the pure-white paws of triumph over evil and death."
Karma lifts one of these prissy-gloved extremities for my inspection.
"Well." say I. "A touching story. My own forebears have a certain supernatural cache dating back to medieval times. We were persecuted for our color and suspected association with humans of a parapsychological persuasion. You Bir m ans had it soft in comparison. Purrsonally, I cannot see myself as the pampered companion of some priest. The contemplative life is not for me."
Karma shrugs. "That is obvious," she says in the Royal We tone of a Sacred Cat of Burma.
This chick is definitely living in the past, which does not speak well to her skill i n foretelling the future. Still, she is a cool old doll in her own ditsy, self-important way, and I decide it would not hurt to sniff out the Las Vegas scene and see if there is someplace besides the dreaded pound where a plentitude of cats abides, ripe f or the mass catastrophe this Karma doll is so fond of predicting.
Chapter 7
Sister Act
With just three of them there, it was inevitable that ConTact's phone lines would jingle like the nickel slots in the Sahara Hotel all night long. Sitting in the overhead fluorescent glare, watching the dots dance on the dingy acoustic tile and waiting for the luck of the draw in terms of incoming calls, was a lot like gambling, Matt often thought.
At least he found himself half-hypnotized by the unpredictable rhythm of it, the dullness of silence and murmuring voices around him interrupted by a shrill ring; then he was off to the races--thinking, talking, judging, guessing, persuading.
ConTact, being a generic hotline, took all comers.
At eight-fifteen, he convinced a rape victim--survivor, Matt grimly revised--to seek emergency-room attention after he reassured her by giving her some idea of what to expect. At nine, the Shoe Freak called. This well-educated sounding woman fretted in precise, academic tones about the worldwide conspiracy to ruin women's feet with high-heeled shoes. Her exhaustive personal surveys of podiatrists and fashion columnists proved her point, and she cited these experts monotonously.
Matt smiled when he recognized her voice. She was a "regular," and harmless, except for monopolizing phone time that could help someone who was out of control. The Shoe Freak was never out of control, which was both her problem and her salvation, in an odd way. She had found her obsessive hobbyhorse and could ride it to death without doing drugs or committing kleptomania or turning to any of another half-dozen pressure-releasing habits that are so destructive. Matt tried to shepherd her off the line as quickly as possible without refusing her a few moments' outlet. He smiled again as he thought of what would happen if he could put Temple on the line in his place some night.
"Brother John," the Shoe Freak was saying in her even, automaton voice, "you know that the reason men rule the world is because they don't destroy their arches in killer shoes."
"Do men rule the world?" he asked the smile still in his voice.
"It's nothing to smirk about. Certainly men rule the world." she began in a tone that promised a new and more predictable ax to grind.
"I'm sorry--another line is blinking like crazy. We're down on staff tonight."
"The only men senseless enough to cram their feet into these contemporary torture machines are transvestites, and my studies show that even they have shockingly high occurrences of bunions, hammer toes and fallen arches, despite the
part-time nature of their high-heel wearing--"
"I really must hang up," he interrupted, worried now that someone at the end of his rope might be hanging figuratively from an unanswered telephone line.
"Of course," she said in haughty tones, as if he had be en the crank caller, not she. "I 'll send you a copy of my full thesis when it's written."
On that threat, he punched another button to an open line and braced for the next caller. "ConTact."
"Hello," began a doubtful, elderly female voice.
Matt tried to balance the usual preconceptions with the need to get an instant fix on the sex, age and emotional state of his caller. This one sounded like she was dialing a local pizza place and wasn't too sure of what she had reached. For a moment he wondered if this was a redial from the hesitant woman with the hissing problem.
"I don't suppose this is the ordinary call you get," the voice went on, gaining strength and purpose.
"None of our calls are ordinary," he put in gently as a bit of disarming humor, "and I can't tell yet about yours."
"But I imagine the rules of your vocation are pretty strict."
Something about the phrase rankled. His fingers reached for the pad on which he often doodled during his long hours on the phone with the naked and the damned. A psychiatrist would have had a field day with his free-form inkings in black, blue and red ballpoint, he thought as he made the first stroke.
"We're supposed to talk about you," he reminded her, again gently. Unlike many his age -- thirty-three -- he had eternal patience with the elderly. He'd had experience.
"I'm not the problem."
By now, the voice, though no younger, had grown wry and rueful. It had a personality. Matt found himself beginning to relax. Whatever she wanted, she wasn't on the brink of a pressing personal crisis. He began to grow curious.
"Your situation doesn't sound critical. Maybe you should try Ann Landers."
She sighed. "I'm trying to find someone."
"Or the police."
"Someone I haven't seen in . . . oh, eighteen years."
Matt was momentarily stumped. "How about a private detective?"
"I know where this person is."
"Oh, is it a relative?"
"Not at all."
"And if you know where he--she--"
"He."
"If you know where he is, why can't you approach him yourself?"
"I don't know where he lives. And where he works, he isn't reachable in the normal sense."
"Surely someone where he works can take a message?"
"I don't know, w ill you?"
"Me?"
"I imagine that in your line of work there are rules about not identifying yourself."
"Quite true, we use pseudonyms, just like the people you phone at the classified department of the newspaper. It protects our privacy, and the focus shouldn't really be on us, so we all have nicknames, if you will."
"What is yours, young man?" '
For the first time, Matt felt naked about giving his working name, as if even this false barrier was about to be breached. The ballpoint pens smooth plastic barrel clung to a palm suddenly slightly damp.
"Brother John," he said , A silence.
"Is that you, Matthias?" the woman's voice demanded with a note of suspicion and satisfa ction that tensed his mind and body with an ancient anxiety, and momentary paralysis.
He had to answer. You don't elude a voice like that, the imperious tone of an old and old-fashioned teacher wrapping the innocuous question with invisible barbed wire.
"Ye-es," he admitted, against all the rules, against his inclination. He'd been so relentlessly trained not to lie that even the polite--or protective---social falsehood froze on his lips and then the truth came stuttering through.
Matt hias, No one had called him that in . . . years.
His pen was still, the intersecting red and blue spirals on his notepad bleeding color in a crazy-quilt pattern. The pen, as if on its own, began writing the block letters in a deep, paper-biting childish fashion: M-a-t-t-h-i-a-s A-n-d-r-e-w D-e-v-i-n-e. M.A.D.
"Who are you?" he asked.
That wasn't against the rules. Callers were the ones who were supposed to reveal themselves in this counseling game, not him. Not Matthias, whom he hadn't thought about in a long time. Once he'd turned fourteen, he had made everybody call him Matt.
"Sister Seraphina O'Donnell," came the answer, one that made him both sigh in relief and clench the pen so tightly that he accidentally retracted the point with a snap.
The barrel end pressed the pad and left a tiny "o," like an invisible bullet hole.
"Sister Superfi ne!" he said in amazement before he could stop himself. lt was what all the kids had called her, and it was a kind of compliment.
"So they tell me," she said with a chuckle. "I'm sorry I made you break the rules, but I'm glad you answered my call. I'm too old to feel like a fool on the telephone."
"How did you know . . . I was here?" Surprise was giving way to other emotions: anxiety, even anger.
"You did get a recommendation from the Monsignor at Saint Stanislaus to get the job."
"Oh, that. I 'd forgotten. What can l do for you, Sister?"
There he was, back; back i n respectful, grade-school mode, but with a hard-earned adult confi dence giving an edge to his question.
"I need a . . . personal consultation."
"Are you in Las Vegas?"
"Don't sound so incredulous, Matth ias." A laugh in her voice modifi ed the arbitrary tone.
Sister Superfi ne, for all her popularity at St. S tanislaus Catholic grade school, had been a disciplinarian as unshakable as a drill sergeant. That's why the boys had all secretly loved her and the girls had feared her.
"Las Vegas," she was continuing in a schoolhouse voice, "has more churches per capita than gambling casinos. I've been transferred to a long established Hispanic church here, Our Lady of Guadalupe."
"That's a long way from a Chicago inner-city Polish neighborhood, Sister."
"WeIl--" Now she sounded pushed, cornered. "I ' m retired, Matthias." Forgive me, Father, for I have grown old . . . an unpardonable but inevitable sin, even in the church.
"Your kind never retires, Sister Seraphina," he said quickly. " That's why you called me. What's this private consultation?"
She laughed again, apologe tically. "We have a little problem at OLG. I was hoping you could come out to see us on your off--hours."
"Yeah, I could . . ."
"It wouldn't take much time, and I don't know where to turn."
Now, coming from super-competent Sister Seraphina, that was a startling confession.
"What about the pastor at our Lady of Guadalupe?"
A long pause, the kind Matt was used to getting on the ConTact phone. The closer the questions cut to the bone, the longer it took to get an answer.
"He's . . . part of the problem. Please, Matthias. I'll tell you when you come. I just thank God I thought of you, and found you."
He would go, of course. He would go even though the idea gave him the heebie-jeebies, and he didn't want to see this sad parish, Our Lady of Guadalupe, with its freight of eternally poor parishioners, with its idle, retired nuns put out to pastures not heavenly but all too human, with its mysterious pastor who was a problem. He had been there, and it wasn't his problem anymore. Or was it? But you don't say no to an old nun, to an old, favorite-teacher nun, to an old, never forgotten nun who knows how to track you down. Do you? Matthias didn't.
The ballpoint drew a series of thin red lines through the name so painfully yet carefully printed amid the much-inked squibbles.
"I'm not what I was," he said. Even he could hear the strangled tension in his voice.
"I know," she said, sudden, warm, sad compassion in hers. "I know," she repeated, without using the old name again. "None of us are.
Chapter 8
A Close Shave
Temple had never seen so many cats. Temple had never seen so many cat
s in cages. Temple had never seen so many different kinds of cats.
She stood north of downtown in the middle of one of the Cashman Convention and Sport Complex's loftiest, sparest exhibition halls, a vast concrete-floored vault echoing with excited human and feline voices in ear-splitting counterpoint.
Rows and rows of tables bore rows and rows of steel-mesh cathouses, so to speak. These were not the pastel canvas carriers allotted to the likes of Savannah Ashleigh's pampered Persian, Yvette. These were outright cages of metal mesh, but the proud owners and breeders had added homey touches.
Blue-gingham curtains swaged the first cage front that Temple paused before. Within, a matching gingham-covered pillow harmonized with a powder-blue plastic litter tray in the cage's opposite corner.
Amid this gingham glory reclined a huge, snub-nosed, vanilla-haired cat with chocolate-brown fur frosting the tips of its muzzle, legs and tail. The creature lay in slit-eyed feline repose on the bare space between the pillow and the litter box, its plumy tail lashing the water dish now and then like a languid, furbearing metronome.
Temple pulled her glasses from her ever present tote bag to read a card affixed atop the cage: LAZY H Farms, Home of Champion Himalayans. Stud Service Available.
The comatose cat opened eyes as breathtakingly azure as . . . oh, Lake Mead, or maybe even Paul Newman's electric baby-blues. Then it yawned hugely with slow and practiced expertise. Presumably this was a recumbent stud from the appropriately named Lazy H. It certainly resembled a sultan of the cat world. Even Midnight Louie had not mastered such studiedly sublime hauteur.
Temple cringed interiorly. One look at these purebred pussycats and Louie's mongrel origins were too obvious to overlook. These cats had class, had pedigrees, and had price tags high enough to require life insurance.
Temple left the unruffled tomcat and strolled down the aisle, peering into cages and studying cards. Some cages were shimmers of royal purple lame draperies; a few favored organza in the color orange. Pink tulle dusted the harsh grid of many a steel cage, while the pussums within displayed a blase feline resignation to captivity and competition that Temple couldn't imagine Louie adopting for one moment.
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