Cat on a Hyacinth Hunt

by Carole Nelson Douglas

  Well, you could back your behemoth out of the way."

  But even before she had visual contact with her would-be assistant, she smelled stale smoke and sour clothes. Turning further, juggling her old-fashioned brown paper bag, seeing mostly asphalt until she managed to look up, she glimpsed seedy Western wear: scuffed turned-up boot toes, jeans worn white along the wrinkles, some tin belt buckle and a straw cowboy hat.

  Great, a parking lot cowboy.

  "Excuse me," Temple gritted between her teeth, ready to shove past the stranger.

  "Nope."

  She was so busy doing her balancing act that she hardly could see his face under the shadowing brim, but she knew she was in trouble. Temple retreated, backing up between the two vehicles. All right. She would squeeze around the front of her car.

  Or had the man's impinging presence backed her up? Because no matter how far she baby-stepped to the rear, he was still too up close and personal for her liking.

  And she needed some distance to get a real look at him because she was beginning to think she'd seen that seamed and crooked face before, but where? In the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department mug-shot files? Those photos of the usual suspects she'd had the pleasure of perusing at her leisure the last time she'd been assaulted?

  Last time? Yes. It was going to happen again. Her stomach tightened into hollow anticipation and her knees decided to turn in different directions. A sudden sweat felt like a July sun was beating her down instead of the tepid rays of midwinter. Her mind was racing, but getting nowhere, like a revving competition engine.

  "Take the tote bag; that's where the money is," she suggested.

  The man's unshadowed mouth grinned, revealing neglected teeth, and then she recognized him.

  "You're--!"

  "I'm flattered, little lady. I guess my reputation precedes me, huh? Let me help you with those big bags."

  He followed her suggestion and jerked the tote bag straps off her shoulder. The motion pulled her right arm away from the grocery bag, the key ring in her hand flying. It chimed to a heap under the low-slung van. Temple watched, aghast. Her one weapon out of the picture quite literally.

  The man tossed the tote bag to the asphalt behind him.

  Clutching the grocery bag like a shield, Temple felt her retreating heels sink into the thick, yellowed St. Augustine sod between the asphalt lot and the wooden stockade fence. The Storm's nose almost touched cedar; no one was meant to walk between the parked cars and the fence, but Temple was ready to tread air if she had to, just to elude this instant dead end.

  "You don't want to mess with me," she said, planning to heft the grocery bag at him, ditch the shoes and scramble over the Storm's shiny aqua hood in one graceful, balletic motion. . .

  He grabbed the recyclable brown bag, which ripped from top to bottom, and jerked it away.

  Groceries pelted Temple's feet and rolled under the vehicles, joining her keys.

  Effinger's dingy boot crushed a loaf of fresh, warm French bread in a crackling waxed wrapper. The thick crust, pulverized, sounded like bone shattering.

  Temple began scrambling as planned, but Effinger's lizard-skinned hand grabbed her wrist and slung her back against the warm metal side of the van.

  No room. No room to run, to deliver a graceful, balletic martial arts kick. Her mind revved in a self-defeating circle: she tried to twist her wrist so she could force it free where his grip was weakest, between his curled fingers and thumb, but her wrist was too slim; his huge hand circled it too tightly for Temple to accomplish more than an Indian burn of effort.

  "Why?" she wondered.

  "Because if someone can find me, it works the other way, honey. I can find him, and I can find out who he knows. Because he's too big to hurt any more, and you aren't. Tell him that. Tell him to keep the frigging hell outta my business."

  "I will," she promised, surprised by how truly scary bad words sounded when uttered by the wrong people. Promise 'em anything, but give 'em Arpege.

  Temple struggled to escape with all her Mighty Mouse might. Effinger just wrung her arm and twisted it behind her back. She ducked under his custody, conceding the arm and kicking hard at his knee.

  A narrow shadow loomed over her . . . Effinger's arm hauling back as he held her too far away to connect with anything but air. Then his open hand connected with the side of her face.

  Perception blurred as her glasses flew off her nose, her teeth snapped into her own tongue

  ... just a pinch between cheek and gum, a sharp, pinched feeling. Her head thumped the van's solid metal wall as a thick tang filled her mouth.

  "Tell him." Effinger's face leaned close. He desperately needed a breath mint. "Tell him to leave me alone."

  Temple nodded. Now was when the dental assistant would suck the mingled blood and spit from her mouth with the little vacuum hose. Drool was trickling out one sore corner of her mouth, and she without a neat clip-on paper napkin to catch it.

  Worst of all, she was sandwiched so tightly between Effinger's shabby, smelly body and the dusty van that she could hardly breathe. She wondered how scared--or scarred--Effinger thought she should be to become a sufficient object lesson to Matt. One slap was not enough, she knew.

  Still, she wiggled a little, pretending feeble resistance while trying to think of something effective.

  "Hey!" someone not far away yelled.

  The woman's challenging tone dismayed Temple. A woman witness wouldn't discourage Effinger. He liked beating them up. He grinned again under the shadow of his rancher's hat and brought a hand to her throat, tightening until the dry, hard pressure made choked blood sing a subliminal high C in her head.

  The internal scream erupted into an ear-drilling screech. Temple pictured clapping her hands to her ears in self-defense, but her hands didn't move because she couldn't feel her arms, could hardly feel her feet on the ground. She was tacked up to the side of the van like a grade-school drawing, a flat and distorted stick figure with splayed limbs.

  Effinger didn't like the piercing screech either, and slapped one hand back to his own ear, to something behind him.

  Temple gathered her waning strength both mental and physical in the moment he brushed at the interruption.

  Wasn't fancy, wasn't particularly balletic, but Temple got one knee cocked and aimed it for the classic target.

  The shrieking stopped.

  Wasn't a bull's-eye hit, wasn't that hard a hit, but she was amazed to feel Effinger ease off as he swung sideways against the van, either cursing or grunting or both at once.

  She heard something snap beneath his boots again.

  A bower of blurry floral fury came launching over Effinger's shoulder.

  He yelped like a dog. Temple kicked at his kneecap and connected this time. The kneecap's connected to the . . . thigh bone (a higher, harder kick) . . . the kneecap's connected to the . . .

  shin bone (another kick just above the boot top) . . . the instep's protected by the . . . boot hide, but, hey, she could try Old Faithful, the knee to the groin again, or just try to escape.

  Effinger's death grip on her throat had loosened. She made herself relax and slid slowly down along the van side as if passing out. He released her to attack the harrier at his rear.

  The moment his attention ebbed, Temple pulled herself up and dragged her oddly clumsy body atop the Storm's sloping hood. She slipped over the smooth aqua nose into the fence, her churning legs and ankles knocking wood and painted metal. She felt like a cartoon character defying gravity, her moving hands and feet skimming over the car's warm heavy-metal surface like a water-bug skating on a swamp.

  The shrieking began again, sustained as an off-key high note, maddening. Now she could cover her ears. Great; see no evil, hear no evil.

  Silence brought its own tonal terror.

  Temple struggled to rise from the thick grass verge, nearsightedly knocking her abused ankles on the concrete tire-stop of the parking slot next to the Storm.

  "Temple, baby?
Are you all right?"

  This was a voice of ordinary pitch, and bearable. "My glasses," she muttered, finally letting the warm mouthwash flood down her chin.

  The moving wall of clematis and hibiscus faded, then swam into lurid focus as Electra leaned over her again.

  "Oh, dear God! So much blood. Can you walk?"

  One of Electra's hands bore a red licorice-twist of metal and plastic, the other was fisted with the notched steel glitter of keys stabbed between every finger in the approved women's self-defense-tip fashion.

  "These won't help much," Electra warned.

  Temple managed to hold one unbroken lens up to her eye, rather like a monocle. "He's gone?" She talked thickly, as if still under anesthetic.

  Still? There was no anesthetic, or couldn't be with this much pain.

  "Gone?" she repeated, sounding drunken and disorderly and unconvinced.

  "We gotta call the police. Me, I mean. But first I have to get you to a hospital emergency room."

  Temple lifted her hands. Hold on, the gesture said.

  Electra ebbed away again, but was back with an open roll of paper towels from the spilled groceries. Why hadn't Temple thought of that?

  Electra tore fistfuls off the roll and pressed the crushed wads of paper to the front of Temple's clothes, and more tenderly to her face.

  "Mouths bleed a lot," Temple mumbled in her new Marlon Brando fashion. The Godsister.

  "You think I don't know that? With three grown kids?"

  Electra, daubing at the wet places on Temple's face and clothing, sounded angry, like Temple's mother had when she was a kid and had taken a spill on her first bicycle. Why blame the victim?

  "Who was that awful man?" Electra was asking between daubs.

  "You ever heard of the evil stepmother?"

  "Who hasn't?"

  "That was the evil stepfather."

  "Yours?"

  "God, no!"

  "Whose then?"

  Temple hesitated, trying to sigh and instead drawing a long, low whistle of pain through her teeth, if she still had any.

  "I need to see a dentist."

  "You need to see someone. Whose stepfather? And why is everybody mugging you?"

  "It does feel like everybody. Help me up."

  "Gosh. Look at your legs."

  Temple tried to do that through her makeshift lorgnette, but could only make out the yellow glimmer of winter-dead grass at her feet.

  "What's wrong with them besides not holding me up too good?"

  "You're scraped to hell and back. And you'll probably have a lot of bruises. Ice. Ice will help that, and your mouth. I'll get you inside, at least for now."

  "Thanks."

  Leaning on the upholstered trellis of Electra's out-of-focus muumuu-clad body, Temple limped back onto the parking lot asphalt and toward the building.

  "Oh, Electra!" She stopped.

  "What, dear? Where does it hurt?"

  "Key ring. Under the van."

  "We'll get it later."

  "No. Might remember, come back for it before us."

  "Oh." Electra suddenly shared Temple's vision of a man like that with the keys to a female tenant's apartment. She scurried to retrieve them.

  Temple smiled to picture the bland beige van being accosted by the fiery floral energy of an Electra Lark muumuuu. Or she tried to smile; it didn't feel right. She touched her teeth trying to see if they moved. Sure hurt. The back of her head throbbed too. And the bloody spit was mounting in her mouth again. Hurry, Electra!

  He might come back. Temple might pass out. She might have dental problems that not even the Tooth Fairy could compensate for.

  "I don't know how James Bond does it," she muttered crossly when Electra returned, keys jingling.

  "I brought your tote bag too. How James Bond does what?"

  "Takes a licking and keeps on ticking."

  "Men get used to being injured in school athletics. Besides, real men don't feel pain."

  "James Bond isn't a real man. Ooooh."

  "You need to see a doctor. Listen! We're in the parking lot. What am I thinking? I'll take you to the emergency room in my car right now."

  "No! Just help me back to my place. Not being able to see clearly is my worst problem."

  "You're not seeing clearly in more ways than one. Why are you being such a macho woman?"

  "Because I was the youngest of five, with a fistful of older brothers. You should have seen me after that toboggan trip down Suicide Hill." And she had to think about what had happened, and why, and who she would tell about it. Lieutenant C. R. Molina was not among the who.

  Electra had taken Temple's arm and was guiding her up the sin-gle step into the Circle Ritz's side door. She leaned so close that Temple could see the concern curdling her amiable features.

  "Electra, all I need ... is an ice pack, a heating pad, pain-reliever and some peace and quiet."

  "Hmmm."

  But Electra didn't argue further and Temple finally tottered through her own front door.

  Hearing the heavy mahogany shut behind her made her feel like a relieved pioneer, as if a barred wooden door would keep out the wilderness and every feral creature in it, man most of all.

  Electra led her directly to the bedroom, and Temple didn't object.

  On the zebra-striped coverlet, the sleeping Midnight Louie cast a velvet-black shadow. He stirred as Temple's side of the bed sank under her weight. Ever since Max had been gone, she had kept to "her" side; probably just because it was close to the alarm clock and the telephone, or maybe just because hope keeps habits alive.

  Seeing the cat's vague outline was oddly comforting. So was hearing Electra bustling around in the other rooms, digging the heating pad out of the guest bedroom-office closet, banging icecube trays in the kitchen. Temple half-reclined against the piled pillows as Louie stretched all his limbs straight out, then lumbered up to her side.

  "Hello, Mr. Midnight." She stroked his velvet-napped head while he arranged himself against her hip. "Had a rough day at the office? I sure did."

  Electra was hovering again, armed with fire and ice and a tepid glass of tap water to wash down a couple pills.

  "Tylenol. Two pills shouldn't interfere with anything stronger you might get later. Where's your dentist's number?"

  Relieved that Electra was no longer dwelling on the hospital, Temple let herself be packed with hot and cold: ice to the face and lower legs; the heating pad--and Midnight Louie's furred warmth--to her midsection.

  Safe in bed, and buttressed into place with pillows and home remedies, Temple allowed herself to drift into the alternate state of injury. Shock blunted the pain, even when Electra pulled her shoes off.

  "Are my Via Spiga patent-leather heels okay?" Temple asked, straining to lift her head and see. "No scrapes, no dings?"

  "I can't say as much about your legs." Electra moved towel-covered rocks of ice against her ankles. "We should get your knit top off, but I don't want to pull it over your poor face."

  "Leave it," Temple murmured, feeling a strange indifference. She just wanted to be left alone, to lay here and recover, maybe for a few days.

  Amazingly, she soon drifted into sleep, without even wondering what dreams would come, and who would be in them.

  Chapter 3

  Nightmare in Red

  Temple must have edged into the Twilight Zone.

  She had a sense of not quite losing consciousness, but of losing track of time, and perhaps space.

  She could still hear Electra rustling in the kitchen of her unit, but she felt suspended somewhere else, between two opposite poles, one as fiery and relaxing as hot wax, one icy and full of frozen tension.

  Her oddest delusion was that Midnight Louie had swelled in size, as perhaps her face was doing. His warm length had stretched along her right side until he seemed to match her height.

  Cats will do that, and Louie could twist himself like a licorice rope to an impossible length, front and back limbs flung to their farthes
t extremes.

  But Louie wasn't panther-size the last time she looked.

  So she looked again, cautiously, through her uncorrected vision.

  Louie's fuzzy (thanks to her deficient eyes, not his sufficient hair) tail dangled off the California queen-size bed's edge, and his heating-pad-abetted body heat ran alongside her all the way to the top of her head on its mound of pillows.

  Louie was large and flexible, but not that large and flexible. Not unless he was doing magic tricks these days.

  Temple turned her head--far too quickly and far too far for her condition--and squinted into the green eyes that looked as large as saucers in her unfocused gaze.

  "Midnight. . . Max! How did you get here?"

  Before he could answer, Electra hallooed from the next room. "If you've got everything you need, dear, I'm leaving now."

  "Fine. Thanks," Temple managed to mumble.

  She heard the landlady's key turn in her door, locking her in, with Max.

  His fingers played with her hair, startling her. Seeing through a veil, palely, made even the lightest touch threatening.

  "Poor baby. I found your old glasses in the medicine cabinet. Will they help?"

  "Yes!" Temple grabbed at the blur dangling from the invisible hand at the end of a black sleeve and shoved them at her face like a mask.

  "Ooh!" Even lightweight plastic hurt as it touched the bridge of her nose and curled behind her ears. But at least she could see. Max was clad in magician's black from neck to toe, lying alongside her pillow- and ice-packed body like a human breakwater.

  "What are you doing here? How did--?"

  "Electra wisely called for reinforcements, especially when you refused to go to an emergency room. I gave her my number when I came back. She was terribly worried, said you had hit your head."

  "Something hit my head. Mainly I got slapped."

  She lifted her left hand to her cheek and winced. Why did one have to probe a hurt to make sure it was real? "Ouch!"

  "Don't mess with it." Max captured her hand and held it. Her fingers felt icy in his warm grasp, but maybe that was from touching the ice packs alongside her face and neck.