cat in a crimson haze

by Carole Nelson Douglas

  This time his smile was ironic, and personal, and quite charming. "Where I was before today.

  But why I'm looking for him isn't the reason I asked you here. It's how. I've been trying in my own clumsy way to make inquiries, and nothing seems promising. I thought you might have an idea or two. You know how to get things done."

  "Certain things." Temple sighed in her turn. How touching that Matt found her the Quintessential Organizer, the Fixer, the Solver. "Why do you think he's here in Las Vegas?"

  Matt shrugged. "That was the only thing he cared about, cutting out on Mom and me and spending a few days--and half her paycheck--in Las Vegas. I came to regard the city as a kind of personal savior, after a while. For all its Sodom and Gomorrah reputation, it got him out of our house and our hair."

  "But, Matt, that was--'' Temple was not adept at mental math, so there was a telling pause while she calculated and he hung on her every grimace.

  "Seventeen years ago,'' he finally furnished for her.

  ''Seventeen years. So much has changed in Las Vegas since then, so many new places to gamble elsewhere in the country have cropped up since then. Your stepfather might have moved on to Atlantic City, or the new riverboat establishments near Chicago. He might be--''

  ''Dead,'' Matt finished for her, his tone as grim and final as this ultimate in four-letter words.

  She nodded. "Maybe you'd be better off if he was."

  "I'd be better off knowing that's for sure."

  "Can I ask one . . . personal question?"

  "You will anyway."

  "Why not look for your . . . real father?"

  Matt looked dumbfounded. "He's not real to me. He's not the one who--"

  Temple hung on every word, recognizing the importance of this answer, above all the others.

  Matt must have recognized it, too. He suddenly grew silent, leaving her to twist slowly in the weightless vacuum of his unfinished phrase. " The one who ..." Who what? Hung the moon?

  Killed the goose that laid the golden egg? Made a priest out of young Matt Devine?

  "Was your stepfather's last name Devine?" she asked,

  "No. That was my birth father's name. Mom went back to it after he left. I had never taken his name."

  "Then your mother must account for the Polish in you."

  "Yeah. Kaczkowski. I swear to God," he added, smiling. "Devine, I don't know. Might be Gaelic."

  Gaelic? Like Kinsella? Oh, no! "Hey," Temple said, recovering, "at least your real father left you a pronounceable last name; that's something."

  He nodded, lost again in his quandary.

  "As for your stepfather, from what I've seen of Las Vegas regulars, they stay pretty faithful to the old town. What are you doing, checking the casinos and hotels for his name?"

  "Yeah." He hesitated. Temple suspected that he was coming to the issue that really troubled him, and that more was troubling him than his family history. ''And lying a lot." "Why?"

  "Can you get information from unsuspecting people without lying a lot?"

  While Temple considered that question, a cocktail waitress in a gathered skirt about a centimeter longer than the control-top line on her off-black pantyhose sauntered by to offer them menus and take drink orders.

  Matt kept his nose in the eyebrow-tall menu and his eyes on the entrees, though Temple noticed that the waitress's skirt was just the right height to scratch his nose, were it or she so inclined.

  Temple always wondered why the taller the woman, the shorter the skirt; on her this ebony ruffle would be nearly knee-length. Glancing around, she saw that the serving staff were all dressed in sophisticated black-and-white. Maybe Central Casting had sent them over from the nightclub set in a forties movie. The men wore tuxes and pencil-thin mustaches. The women wore lots of abbreviated black with pencil-thin white-lace ruffles in all the right places, from bustier to bustle, including the black satin pillbox hats tilted over their right eyebrows like vintage bellboy caps. Caaall for PhilUllip Moooor-ris the, Cat, perhaps? Hot-cha-cha. Where is Jimmy Durante when you really need him?

  Matt emerged from his menu only when the waitress had sashayed away. He leaned across the snowy linen to Temple. He spoke sotto voice, despite the growing buzz of other diners.

  "This place was supposed to be quiet and have some good food." Matt frowned. "I didn't know about the, er, ambiance."

  ''I suppose all this black-and-white is a rather perverse reminder of your past," Temple couldn't resist commenting.

  Matt remained unruffled, despite the environment and despite suffering from the recent embarrassment of revealing a past. ''Most of the religious I knew were post-habit days," he said to quash her sense of mischief. ''I was referring to the noise level."

  Temple noticed only then that a trio had appeared in a dim corner lanced by needles of spotlight. A tenor saxophone was running up and down its liquid metal trills, while a snare drum in the background emulated a soft, rhythmic rattlesnake. A piano's bluesy, throaty tinkle underlay it all like a smoker's cough.

  ''Isn't it odd," she said, "that they're making all these nun movies--like Sister Act and Nunsense --only now that nuns wear civilian dress?"

  "Now it's safe. Less chance of offending a habit-wearing hardliner these days."

  "I guess people have always been fascinated by priests and nuns," Temple mused. "First there's the distinctive uniform; then there's the celibacy mystique."

  "I've never heard celibacy called a 'mystique' before," Matt said dryly, leaning back to make room for the waitress and her lethal ruffled hem. She deposited a lowball glass and a long-stemmed, slow sip of leg before him at one and the same instant.

  "What's that?" Temple stared at the dark, murky drink in front of Matt, not having noticed his order.

  "A Black Russian. What's yours?" He nodded at her long-stemmed glass.

  "A White Lady. I felt like something . . . elegant. At least we're in tune with the color scheme."

  They laughed and lifted their glasses. Then they sipped their drinks and began to talk of more important things, like themselves.

  Matt had another confession to make. "I'm glad that you like the place, and that you could come tonight. I was worried that you might think I was avoiding you."

  "I know you've got commitments. Matt. Besides, I've been busy too."

  "So I noticed. With what?"

  "Oh, it's fabulous." Temple's natural optimism loved an audience to bubble over on. 'The Crystal Phoenix has hired me to reposition the hotel for the new family market. That's like playing Tinkerbell with a whole, real little world, a magic kingdom without Disney's capital letters, or capital investment. And then I was roped into working on a Gridiron skit-- you know; the annual political satire show like in Washington. Awful Crawford is show chairman this year and got writer's block on a production number, so I've invented the most outrageous, unbelievable Theme-Hotel-from-Hell. Trying to out Vegas is a real challenge."

  "I bet, but why bail out Buchanan? Isn't he your bete noir?"

  "Black beast' is too good a phrase for the lowlife! Bargain-basement bastard is more like it."

  Temple settled down, not wanting to ruin a lovely evening. '*But my skit is lots of fun. Maybe you, uh, might want to go to the Gridiron. With me. To see it performed, I mean."

  ''Sounds great. If . . . my exploits as an amateur P.I. don't require me to be elsewhere."

  Temple nodded her understanding, already planning what she would wear to the Big Event.

  She'd never had a date for a Gridiron before. Not in Minneapolis, and not even here. Last year, Max had a conflicting show at the other end of the Strip; even a professional magician couldn't be in two places at once. Temple winced to recall that less than a year ago, she and Max had still been together.

  In the background, a torch singer was tuning up the vocal chords. Temple let a few seductive riffs of sound coil around her blue mood like the cigarette smoke nicely absent from the restaurant. In seconds, she was back in the present, and pleased to be there.
Umm, this place was a genuine find. So romantic. Matt was looking soulful, thanking her again for being understanding.

  "I'm so lucky that you live at the Circle Ritz, too," he was saying. "It's like I was . . . guided . . .

  there. Mrs. Lark, Electra, has been so supportive, and you, you're my 'open sesame'--"

  Temple's tootsies curled again, sans shoes but with pleasure, as if they were the turned-up toes on an Arabian Nights slipper.

  ''It's amazing,'' Matt went on, ''how many doors you've opened for me. To the past, and to the future."

  The music had assumed a familiar rhythm. You must remember this. Temple told herself. A kiss is just a kiss. A new day is just another sunrise. Don't blow it. Don't fixate on old news.

  A woman's low, dusky voice had joined the sax's soulful whine. Burgundy dark and deep, it moved from times gone by to singing of the man that got away. Then came the drums'

  relentless, coital beat, like the rain and the rocking chair and the train pumping its iron-hearted way out of town.

  And after that, the beat/beat/beat of the tom-toms, night and day. And the man that got away. And the frail that wails near the jail. House. Jailhouse rock. No, wrong song. Wrong era.

  Wrong time. A kiss is just a kiss, and fundamental rules apply. Always. No matter how many kisses, how many near-misses. As time goes by. As time goes bye-bye.

  "Temple." Matt leaned nearer, looking concerned.

  She saw him through a musical mirage of stained glass, as if through a rain-rippled train window and he was leaving town, or she was, and nobody could run fast enough to reach the fleeing coach, to hear the rhythm, catch the beat, listen to the song.

  Two and woo, love and you, missing and kissing and such a familiar song, a familiar voice ...

  Matt's hand covered Temple's on the table. He still looked concerned. Concerned is nice, but

  . . . dammit!

  Temple twisted away from Matt, leaving her hand in his custody, like a living creature coiled in the safety of its shell. She turned to the murky stage, to the sleet of bright, piercing spotlights and the melody so familiar, in reprise.

  The singer sat sharp as a silhouette in a pinspot, a brunette butterfly pinned on white damask . . . her skin tapioca satin, the flower in her hair a dark, velvet growth. Her figure was as murky as an El Greco portrait, her features carved from backlit salt.

  She sang.

  The old, slow-train blues classics.

  In a deep, true alto that made Temple's bones vibrate like the strings of an abandoned cello in a warehouse.

  She made everything moot. The past. The present. The man in black. The man in blond. She was ... so familiar, like the song and the ache.

  "Matt--!" Temple managed to warn him with the last, surprised breath that was in her.

  At last he turned away from her toward the shadowed, tiny stage that had caught Temple like a light-jeweled net in a silver sea.

  The announcer, wherever he was, took this opportunity to add a slick, baritone coda to the night's first set,

  "And now, ladies and gentlemen, an appreciative round of applause for our own 'Blue Dahlia'--our mistress of moody blue mystification, the incomparable Carmen."

  "Of course. Carmen," Temple breathed, not surprised so much by the name, but by its presence here. "Makes you wonder what the bloody hell the 'R.' stands for!"

  "Carmen?" Matt repeated with maddening confusion. "Isn't that--is it possible? Lieutenant Molina?"

  Chapter 12

  ... Equals Molina in Hand

  "I didn't want to interrupt."

  Lieutenant C.R. Molina gazed down at them from an artificially abetted height. "I spotted you two the moment I came on stage, but you seemed so . . . self-absorbed."

  Temple looked down, to Molina's feet. High-heeled platform shoes.

  Molina had the actual nerve--at her already intimidating height--to wear platform shoes Black suede. With straps over the toes and anchoring the heel. Clunky forties shoes, like the Andrews Sisters used to wear. Where were Molina's sisters? Wasn't this a sister act? No, Molina was apparently here solo, a spotlight hog!

  ''You're really wonderful," Matt was saying, his confusion instantly converted to effusion.

  ''We could have been listening to the radio, or a record. CD," he corrected himself quickly.

  Not many CDs in the seminary, Temple would bet.

  Molina allowed herself a modest smile. Gollie, Temple thought, she sure looked silly with that blue-velvet orchid perched behind her left ear. At her height, someone might mistake her for a jacaranda tree.

  "You mind if I join you? I'm on a ten-minute break.''

  "Of course." Matt leapt up to snag a chair from a neighboring table.

  Molina sat between them, smiling from one to the other with the serenity of an unwanted maiden aunt who is quite sure that her presence is both unexpected and annoying to all parties.

  Temple sourly studied the woman's outfit now that her shoes were hidden under the table--a midnight-blue silk-velvet draped frock from the forties, like all clothes of that era both no-nonsense and as subtly slinky as a snake.

  "That time you came to the Convention Center," Temple said with dawning suspicion, "when the ABA killer was after me and the entire fire department showed up. You were wearing some vintage getup, too--black crepe with copper beading!" she accused.

  "What a memory. You've caught me red-handed." Molina spread the hands in question to show her supposed defenselessness. ''I can't commit to a regular performance schedule here, but I come in and do a gig when I get some time off. Every cop should have a hobby."

  "Hobby," Matt repeated, his tone contradicting her. ''You sing like a pro."

  ''Maybe." Molina's smile was the slow, slight one that's not for show, but for one's self. "Not much commercial demand for my kind of music. I'm lucky to find a place willing to put up with my hours. You really didn't notice me, did you?"

  "Well ..." Matt glanced at Temple.

  "We didn't even expect live music," she said quickly, irked at being so unobservant. Matt was definitely a bad influence. She hated that Lieutenant Molina might come to the same conclusion, and she would. "We've never been here before."

  "You'll probably never come here again," Molina suggested silkily.

  Of course they both protested, in tandem and too much. The idea of conferring about private matters against the background crooning of a homicide lieutenant was pretty off puting.

  "Only the manager knows what I do for a living," Molina went on, her long fingers turning the heavy class ring she always wore. Her nails were cut almost straight across. Temple noticed, her own crimson claws drumming the padded white tablecloth, and didn't give off even a glint of clear polish.

  The street-length dress had a bouquet of velvet flowers at opposing hip and shoulder; Molina wore no jewelry beyond the class ring, not even a wedding band. With her physical presence and blue eyes, even earrings would have been too much. Her only apparent makeup was a vintage shade of Bloody Murder Red lipstick so dark it looked black in the lamplight. Now those lips thinned into a Dracula's Daughter smile.

  "Serenading cops are not marketable,'' Molina noted, "except on St. Patrick's Day. I'd appreciate your keeping my real occupation to yourselves."

  They swore that they would, in breathless unison and much too intensely.

  Molina frowned, looking exactly like an undercover cop in drag. "You two aren't up to something in the amateur crime detection department again, are you?

  "Who . . . us?" Temple provided the indignant chirp. She was so good at it. "Absolutely not.

  Counselors and publicists need to get away from the job, too."

  ''Well--" Molina stood slowly, as only a woman as long as she was could. She smiled down on them in the dramatically dim light. In this environment, in that getup, her leonine air seemed as feminine as it was languidly dangerous. "Enjoy yourselves."

  The sax man huffed and puffed a bluesy intro on his gleaming instrument. Molina threaded through
the tables to the small stage, moving like a leopard thinking about an appetizer.

  Temple glanced anxiously at Matt. He still looked stunned. And a bit guilty. "She really is first-class." He glanced at Temple to find her frowning. "I mean, at singing. Who would have thought it?"

  ''I don't know. Everybody has their surprises to spring." Temple noted with intent to point fingers.

  He smiled disarmingly. "What's yours?"

  ''I haven't decided yet. But don't expect me to break into 'Melancholy Baby.' I couldn't carry a tune in a violin case." She remembered Matt's expert organ-playing at Electra's wedding ceremony. "Can you?"

  ''Only in church choirs," he said, too lightly.

  If Temple could have kicked herself with one of her doffed shoes she would have. She had attended a Catholic mass only once in her life, for a cousin's wedding. The priest had intoned--

  sang--several parts of it. Of course Matt sang; it once was a career requirement.

  Now Lieutenant Molina--or her surprising alter ego. Carmen--was singing again.

  And now that they knew exactly who was providing the restaurant background music.

  Temple and Matt found themselves glued to their chairs like good little kids: hands folded, heads attentively tilted, unable to look away from the stage or say a single discouraging word to each other.

  Their food finally arrived, providing a distraction they dove into with knife and fork as if the harmless stainless steel utensils were hammer and tong.

  In fact, Molina's sardonic "Enjoy yourselves" had created the reverse effect.

  "It's blue murder," Temple muttered after dismembering her fried catfish fillet, "to discover you know the performer you're ignoring. And even harder to ignore her once you know who she is."

  "It's especially hard when you know she's a homicide lieutenant," Matt added, attacking a pair of pork chops as if they were renegade wild pigs.