Cat in a Hot Pink Pursuit

by Carole Nelson Douglas

  “It is not a case. It is a personal matter. My roommate took on this nutso assignment and I have been dragged along like a Hello Kitty purse,” I say, referring to line of feline-themed frivolities for the grade-school set.

  “‘Hello Kitty!‘This is exactly what I say when I am visiting the executive suite at the Crystal Phoenix and happen to spy your puss on the nightly news. If Miss Temple is undercover here, you are way overcover: ‘a passing alley cat who took one look at the lovelies in residence and stayed on to become an unofficial mascot.’ One week it is masquerading as a domestic accessory in Fine Furnishings, and the next week it is scarfing up ‘a lean fish and veggie’ diet on a reality TV show set. You are getting downright decadent in your old age, Pop.”

  “Shhhh,” I hiss, checking for any Persian girls who might be within hearing range. Overhearing such nonsense might give them the wrong idea about my age and carefree lack of encumbrances. “I am not your pop. Murder has been done here. I need discretion more than ever.”

  “Why do you think I am here? That nasty killing is all over local TV.”

  “What? The producers of this shoddy but hot show do not have the juice to squelch bad publicity?”

  “Get with it. Nowadays bad publicity is good publicity. This the era of really cheesy reality, on TV or off of TV. Look at Paris Hilton and Victoria Gotti. Bad is good.”

  “Call me old-fashioned, but I like to think certain standards prevail. Why are the police not shutting this show down?”

  “Why shut it down? The place is already wired from one end to the other, all kosher and everybody signed up to agree to it. They could not legally get a wire tap on a murder scene, but all they have to do here is review the daily footage and stalk the suspects. We should have it so good in our business. At least Midnight Inc. Investigations should have a full complement of staff on the premises. Especially since our prime client is here and in danger.”

  “And that would be?”

  “‘Your Miss Temple,’ as you are always putting it. You know that she relies upon us for footwork.”

  “Um, me maybe. I do not believe she is aware of your occasional participation.”

  “All the better.” Miss Louise makes my heart sink by nudging me under a shaded bench against the house and sitting down for a long consultation.

  From this vantage point, we watch the humans come and go while I give a running commentary on who is who and who hates whom.

  I learn that Miss Louise is one hundred percent in agreement with my Miss Temple on the vapidity of blondes of either gender. I then twit her on her fondness for Mr. Matt. She swishes her long fluffy train in my face and says that the rare exception always proves the rule, and I had better watch out because her Fancy Feast coupons are on him in the Miss Temple sweepstakes.

  I then defend the suave man of the world, black of hair but pure of heart, and she concedes that she would not kick Mr. Max out of bed if she happened to be in residence there.

  She predicts that my “honeymoon” with Miss Temple cannot last forever, and I should stick to working in the family business because soon that may be all that I have to keep me warm.

  Before I can get my whiskers in a wad at this scenario, a glimpse of Mr. Rafi Nadir’s motorcycle boots passing through on some demeaning errand for Miss Savannah Ashleigh interrupts us.

  Louise recognizes him with just one whiff of leather sole. “Ah. The freelance muscle-about-town. I know you have a soft spot for him because he helped Miss Temple out during a dangerous moment once, but I find him turning up at criminous scenes all too often.”

  “‘Criminous?’ What have you been reading at the Crystal Phoenix while waiting for Chef Song to wave some effete delicacy of Chinese cuisine under your nose? Agatha Christie? Talk about decadent! ‘Criminous.’ That is not PI talk. Are you a house detective or a housecat?”

  “Back off! The lone dude with the lone gun went out with the forty-five. Face it, Pops, it is the age of CSI. You want long words like ‘criminous,’ you should hear what the forensics folks toss around. This dead lady here was killed by something chemical, not a gun or a knife.”

  “Still plenty of that out there,” I grumble, for the chit is right. It is science not horse sense (though I have never known an equine with much of it) that rules modern crime-solving circles.

  While I am hunkering down, contemplating the demise of the lobo detective (as witness my own cravenly alliance with Midnight Louise herself), I cast an eye to see what Mr. Rafi has brought to the side of Miss Savannah.

  I stiffen with surprise, all over.

  He has brought two canvas bags, one pink and one purple, both with mesh sides, each containing an Ashleigh sister.

  I cannot contain myself, although I try to not let Miss Louise see that.

  “Must go interrogate a couple of witnesses,” I mutter under my breath.

  “Witnesses! Daddy-O! What would these two floozies ever witness except their mistress’s indiscretions?”

  “Exactly, Louise. A starlet of Miss Savannah Ashleigh’s stature—”

  She snorts but I step aside before my coat is sprayed.

  “—of her stature is sure to hear all the latest gossip. Of course, the Persian girls overhear it all. Stay here. Two of us might look suspicious.”

  At this, I make an end-around approach to the Ashleigh lounge chair, for the woman is highly prejudiced against me, even though she knows I am a totally sexually responsible dude since my enforced operation at her hands. Well, at the hands of her plastic surgeon.

  Now the V-word is my byword. Not Viagra, Bast forbid, but for V as in … vasectomy. I am a thoroughly modern male, even if by mistake.

  Soon I am huddled under the lounge chair again, picking up tidbits of information from the girls.

  “Our mistress is so unheeding,” Yvette complains. “She likes to swelter in the UVs, so she assumes we would like it. With our luxuriant fur coats, of course, we prefer cool dark places.”

  “Me too,” I say.

  The paired purrs from the carriers nearly drive me crazy. “So what is happening with your mistress? She must surely be uneasy that a contest advisor has been offed.”

  “Mais oui.” Only it sounds like “meow” to the uninitiated, i.e., humans. Solange presses her piquant face to the mesh so that several of her long curled vibrissae protrude and tickle my own whiskers. “She has been uneasy for some time. Someone has been lurking around, and it has gotten worse now that we are here at the Teen Queen Castle.”

  “Hmmm,” I purr. I would normally think Miss Savannah was imagining this stalker or making it up for publicity purposes. Yet I glimpsed a dark figure in her room with my own night-vigilant eyes. “What will the death of one of the advisors mean to the show, once the police free the murder scene and shooting can begin again?”

  “Shooting?” The Divine Yvette bats her black mascaraed lashes as a prelude to a swoon. “You think there will be shooting?”

  “I meant cameras.” But of course shooting is not impossible with a murderer among us.

  And I recall Miss Temple telling her Aunt Kit about a notorious shooting death in this very house many years ago. I have not led Miss Louise astray. Eavesdropping is the low-key operative’s biggest asset, and you cannot get a lower operative than me.

  I glance back to where I left the young sourpuss, my partner. The spot is vacant. I cannot understand why she did not wait around like a good girl for me to return and make my report, but frankly, I am glad not to have her cramping my style with the sisters Ashleigh, now that I have them to myself.

  She might blow my cover and refer to me by some demeaning nickname like “Snoozer” or “Geezer” or, heaven forbid, “Daddy-O.”

  Chapter 41

  Wolfram and Heart

  Matt wore a Carl Sandburg T-shirt, baggy khakis, loafers without socks, and a Chicago Cubs cap on backwards.

  He’d arrived at eight A.M. and spent the day lurking in the halls and emergency stairwells of the building that housed Bra
ndon, Oakes, and McCall. Just an ordinary guy, staking out who came and went through the doors of the prestigious law office.

  He’d wanted to look like a guy who’d gotten lost in the lobby and was still trying to find his way out. Nobody questioned him.

  Around two P.M., after he’d watched the noontime exodus return to the law firm, he bought lunch at the lobby coffee shop and pumped the waitress.

  Even in his instant scruffies, his looks won smiles and chitchat and information. The coffee shop provided latte, yeah, they had a machine for every variety of espresso. Lots of very big people went up there. So what was he doing here?

  Waiting to connect with a contact. He was in the record business.

  Realllly! Her cousin Stevie had a fab basement band. Radical but not too, you know? Ready for a big-time commercial break. He didn’t look like a DJ. They were usually such losers in the looks department. He should be on MTV.

  Yeah.

  Matt finished the dregs of his caramel-whipped cream latte, just a dozen calorie counts shy of a hot fudge sundae, and went back up to the forty-fifth floor.

  To lurk.

  Krys, who had okayed his outfit this morning, would be amazed to know how dull subterfuge was. He was amazed to know how dull it was. He thought about Carmen Molina, back in Vegas. Had she ever done this detail? Maybe. Maybe not.

  What were the chances? The law office staff seemed to recognize him. So how likely was it that some relative of his lost father would breeze up in the elevator and into Brandon, Oakes, and McCall? Today or any other day.

  Infinitesimal. Matt bet that DJs didn’t often use that word.

  Ex-priests did, though, having been conditioned to think in terms of infinity.

  In terms of infinity, what were the chances that he would find any trace or trail that led to the man who’d fathered him?

  Almost zero. He didn’t care. He’d learned long ago not to care. He’d tried to tell his mother that. Trouble was, she did.

  What had been the high point in her life had been the nadir in his.

  Nadir. Speak of the Devil. Rafi Nadir. Another unwanted father. Carmen Molina had made it clear that Nadir hadn’t deserved to know he was the father of a child she would bear and rear without him.

  The usual rap was men were unreliable. Men skated out from under fatherhood and its obligations. They were louts. Rats. Immature. They seduced and abandoned. They made Matt sorry he was one.

  Except …

  He didn’t believe it. He’d seen it during the Sacrament of Reconciliation, formerly known as Confession. Men were scared. They thought they had to be the whole enchilada, 24/7: strong, sole supporting, macho men. It was too much.

  He considered his mother at nineteen—her critical condition. Pregnant, with him. Catholic. Young. Damned. Despised. No support of any kind. Hard not to hate the guy who put her there. Except that she hadn’t. And he’d gone off to a foreign war and died. No chance to prove his mettle on the domestic front.

  The elevator made all the grunts and groans of being about to open again. Matt peeked through the stairway door like a kid playing hide and seek.

  Another “briefcase” walking into Brandon, Oakes, and McCall.

  Except … this guy didn’t carry a briefcase. He wore an expensively pale suit. His ash-blond hair was silver at the temples. Same height, same build, thickened a little around the middle.

  Matt gaped, as if he’d seen a ghost walking through a wall, as the form vanished into the dark wood door of Brandon, Oaks, and McCall.

  The proof of the pudding was what this man would look like from the front, when he walked out.

  Matt stuck the toe of his new sports tennies against the heavy metal door. This he had to see, no matter how long it took.

  It took forty-eight minutes by his stainless-steel watch.

  Several people came and went. Matt began to worry about a discreet exit door farther down the hall … but, still, the elevator had to be taken, unless someone wanted to walk down forty-some flights. And then that someone would come face-to-face with Matt lurking in the hidden echoing concrete spine that ran up the length of every skyscraper.

  The lawyers’ office door didn’t so much squeak as rumble a little when it opened and shut.

  It was opening now, spitting out the front view of the man Matt had glimpsed from behind. He managed to eel out of the stairway to meet the man at the bank of elevators.

  To meet himself.

  Related, no doubt.

  How to mention it?

  The guy did the usual big-city elevator shuffle: push the DOWN button, stare at the computerized numbers of floors and cars above. Pace. Glance at his watch. Glance askance at the guy who’d joined him in waiting, trying not to stare at strangers, of course.

  Matt’s throat was so dry he couldn’t have received Communion to save his soul.

  Alex Haley’d had Kunta Kinte. Now Matt had his own Roots. Someone who looked like him. Someone he looked like besides his mother. It didn’t matter, he’d always said. It mattered.

  The man slipped a look at him again. He seemed nervous.

  Matt took off the stupid baseball cap, stuffing it in the pocket of his baggy Dockers. He regretted the carefully casual clothes, regretted not looking like himself. Not looking like this impeccably dressed man three elevator doors down the hall.

  The man, maybe—forty-five. A cousin? Not a brother, his real father had been too young. Matt had to be an only child. The mystery man cleared his throat. Looked away.

  The elevator indicator tinged.

  They both froze.

  Watched the door open between them, neither wanting to meet the other as they rushed to claim it.

  The man glanced at the EXIT sign over the stairwell where Matt had lived most of today.

  He knew. Or suspected. He wanted to run.

  The elevator doors opened. Closed. A couple inside watched them with puzzled, and finally contemptuous, stares. Why call for an elevator if you weren’t going to take it. Why indeed?

  And then they were gone.

  Alone again.

  “I think,” Matt said, “that your last name might be the same as mine should be.”

  The guy stared at him. His eyes were gray. So was his skin color. Matt saw he was older than he’d looked at first glance, and began to fear he might be having a heart attack.

  He began to have one too. This guy was actually old enough … to be his father.

  Chapter 42

  Feline Shepherd

  I am shocked. Shocked, I tell you!

  With my own concealed ears, I hear my Miss Temple consign young Miss Molina to the questionable oversight of Mr. Rafi Nadir, who may be her unacknowledged sire.

  Being an unacknowledged sire myself, I feel a deep sense of obligation to keep an eye on this extremely unlikely pairing.

  If my Miss Temple has set the wolf to watch the lamb, I will be the mountain lion set to watch the wolf.

  And when it comes to major matches, felinus versus caninus always wins.

  So, when Miss Savannah Ashleigh betakes herself inside, I pad after Rafi who pads after her.

  Once she is fully attired, if you can ever call the belly button-exposing, cleavage-baring clothing of MSA that, we follow her to her office quarters for the day and stand guard in the hall.

  He is in the standard feet apart, hands crossed in front posture of security guys since my forebears stood guard duty in the palaces and temples of ancient Egypt.

  I assume the deceptive stance of a sleeping feline. It works every time.

  Sure enough, along comes Miss Temple, escorting Miss Mariah to her first appointment of the day.

  “Mariah, this is Mr. Nadir. He will help you if anything goes wrong.”

  Mariah is having none of it. “You mean if Savannah Ashleigh is strangled in her own monokini by the time I go in for my appointment?”

  “Hey,” Mr. Rafi Nadir says in a cajoling tone. “Nobody buys it on my watch. What say I accompany you on your rounds a
nd make sure?”

  “What about your client?” Mariah asks, savvy kid that she is.

  “Oh, I suppose your friend Xoe Chloe will be responsible for her.”

  Miss Mariah consults Miss Temple, who shrugs in typical, deplorable Xoe Chloe fashion.

  And so the deal is struck. My Miss Temple will watch Miss Savannah Ashleigh, a personage we both wish would be boiled in canola oil and put on the South Beach Diet until death did them part. And Mr. Rafi Nadir, the bane of Miss Lieutenant C. R. Molina’s life, past and present, will be watching over his own daughter, unawares. If Miss Savannah gets restive and calls for male reinforcements, instead of Mr. Rafi, I myself will rush to the scene to distract her and the Persian babes. It is the least I can do, and I have been known to drive Miss Savannah to distraction in the past.

  It is amazing the things an observant feline can know, and not say.

  I decide where to invest my time and energy, and decide it is the unlikely partnership of Nadir and Molina.

  Miss Temple watches me ankle off down the hall after them, looking worried.

  So we all three end up waiting outside various offices for Miss Mariah’s daily consultations.

  “You pull bodyguard duty often?” Mariah asks.

  I am about to answer but Rafi Nadir beats me to it.

  “Nah. Most people who hire bodyguards need the publicity more than the muscle.”

  “This is a weird place.”

  “You got that right”

  “I mean, it is supposed to be a contest but it seems like someone is pulling the strings.”

  “How so?” He leans down like a gentleman to hear her answer.

  I lean up.

  “I mean, it is supposed to be a fair contest but everything so far is rigged. All the Teen Queen candidates are tall, thin, and blonde. They all look alike. Maybe it was a mistake that I was made a finalist.”

  This gives him pause.

  “Hey, kid, you got it the wrong way around. Looking all alike is not the way to go. You look like yourself, then you’ll know you’re not a fraud.”