Cat on a Hyacinth Hunt

by Carole Nelson Douglas

  Although I knock off several of these venomous guides, and although I learn that many innocuous plants are thoroughly poisonous, the hyacinth is not among them, although the hydrangea and the heliotrope are. Close, but no cigarette.

  When I express my frustration, Ingram sniffs before replying.

  "You certainly are a bloodthirsty fellow, Louie. I am afraid that your line of work leads you to look for the worst in everything and everybody. I for one am glad that the fragrant hyacinth has been cleared of wrongdoing despite your best efforts."

  This sanctimonious speech is highly irritating. I desperately peruse the shelves one more time until the initials "AMA" leap out at me. We will see what the croakers have to say about this in their guide to "injurious" plants.

  I hit pay dirt in the index at the rear. Several citations for hyacinth all lead to a startling conclusion: the hyacinth is not only poisonous, but every cell of it is lethal, and this occurs in a species called "Hyacinth-of-Peru." (To confuse matters, it seems that hyacinth is also referred to as jacinth in some places.)

  What is not confusing is the particular toxin the plant dispenses when administered in sufficient quantity: digitalis. I am not a chemist, but it has not escaped me that digitalis is a drug of choice in simulating--or stimulating--heart attacks in victims.

  I am not a medical examiner, either, but I would love to see the autopsy report on Mr. Cliff Effinger. Did he die of drowning, or did he die of cardiac arrest in anticipatory fear of drowning?

  Did anyone look for traces of hyacinth digitalis in his system?

  "Is there anything else on hyacinth in this bookstore?" I ask Ingram, letting the AMA book fall shut with a triumphal slap.

  "Only a 'hyacinth glass,' which is a two-tiered bulbous bibulous vessel for containing and rooting hyacinth bulbs."

  "I do not believe I am interested in 'two-tiered bulbous bibulous vessels,' which in my book are dim bulbs indeed."

  I stare at Ingram so that he realizes I am obliquely referring to the biggest dim bulb of all, Ingram himself.

  He clears his throat, confounded that my slapdash search has unearthed information he was not privy to.

  "I can do no more for you," he concludes.

  He is right, except for one thing. "You can find me the key to the front door. I do not plan on making like an earthworm and wiggling my way back up the ventilation shaft."

  "You cannot unlock the door and then open it! And what will Miss Maeveleen say when she finds the shop unlocked tomorrow?"

  "Watch me. And ... as to what she will say, maybe she will get a watchdog."

  So I leave Ingram gibbering over his botanical texts. He reminds me of that famous mystery dude of old, Brother Caedfal. Ingram is not only celibate in the extreme, he is more at home flipping through the photographs of flowers than tiptoeing through the tulips in person. What a sad lot, who never stop to sniff the snapdragons.

  Since Ingram claims he cannot remember where the door key is kept, I am forced to retrace my entry route. While writhing through the duct, I review what I have learned. Although the hyacinth/digitalis connection is interesting, I do not see what good this outpouring of information on flora large and small is going to do me. I amble toward the Strip, hoping that a little noise and naughtiness will clear my overburdened brain.

  And then I look up and see it.

  Right before my eyes. A billboard advertising a Downtown lounge show. The main attraction is some shady lady in a chiffon robe that looks as though it has been through an accountant's shredder on April 14. She is no doubt some piece of cheesecake worth lingering over if you are on a human diet, but my eyes are riveted by a smaller, furrier figure in a corner of the billboard.

  This is an Oriental dish wearing a skintight custom-fitted catsuit of custard-colored velour, with lavender velvet gloves, racy hock-high hose and a kinky velvet mask covering her eyes and ears that matches the pronounced kink in her lilac-velvet tail. Her eyes, seen through the purple haze of her mask, are a piercing china blue and slitted thinner than the steel-blue of a straight-edge razor blade. She is obviously used to being in the bright lights.

  Of course I have already read the words two feet high above the preening females of their respective species. This is what they say: Spice and spectacle! Take the risk and taste the magic Shangri-la and Hyacinth. Nightly at the Opium Den.

  Here is a bit of Hyacinth any gumshoe worth his unfiltered Lucky Strikes will burn rubber to rush right over and investigate extremely closely: a lilac-point Siamese who moonlights as a lady magician's assistant. Is this babe up my alley, or what?

  Chapter 29

  Confession Time No. 9

  "Here's my dirty little secret."

  Matt Devine, not waiting to be invited in, or asked to sit down or offered coffee, tea or vodka, set the rolled sketch on Temple's kitchen counter.

  "The original sketch of Effinger?" Temple unrolled it delicately. Matt's call advising of his imminent arrival had been businesslike, terse and so very unlike him.

  "No. It's a new one."

  But Temple wasn't listening. She was literally struck dumb by the compelling portrait of a beautiful woman.

  "Who on earth is this?"

  "Good question. Two weeks ago I would have said my guardian angel. She was the woman who gave the lead on Effinger."

  "And now you wish she had never pointed you in that direction?"

  "Right. But you're concluding that for the wrong reason. She nails down my alibi for Effinger's death, quite literally."

  "But you no longer think she's your guardian angel?"

  "Now I think she's the devil." He sighed. "Temple, I gave you hell for hiding what Effinger did to you. But ever since the very next day, I've been hiding what this Kitty O'Connor did to me."

  "What?"

  Temple couldn't take her eyes off the sketch. The face was schizophrenically hypnotic.

  Perfectly symmetrical at first glance, then oddly off-kilter the more you looked at it. Despite her best efforts to be impartial, Temple probably felt she was seeing an ideal female face someone had dreamed up from anything but life. If this woman really looked this good . . . the competitive clutch in Temple's stomach was nothing that Max Kinsella's girl-friend should be feeling.

  "This," Matt said, referring to his hidden truth.

  She turned to see that he had pulled up his beige sweater on the right, and that a piece of paper adhered at an angle to his ribs. Not paper, a huge gauze pad.

  "Matt--?"

  He was pulling off tabs of white tape with no regard to tape burns, revealing a long, puffy dark scab imbedded in red, infected flesh.

  "Oh, my God." Temple, like all gawkers at other people's accidents, was repulsed, awed and felt obligated to interfere. Her fingertips touched the hot pink skin, but Matt jerked away.

  "It's pretty much closed now," he said. "The infection isn't spreading. I avoided going to an emergency room so I wouldn't have to explain myself. No stitches."

  "My God! She stabbed you? Why?"

  "We think a razor slash. I didn't feel it at first. And why? Apparently I wasn't as dangerous as she thought. Apparently she gave me Effinger's location because she took me for a hit man."

  "We?"

  "Bennie. One of the hot-line volunteers. He's a sixties grad and knew an . . . alternative doctor. Stereotypical Hispanic. Lots of knife cuts in that culture, right? Bennie saved my life, or at least my sanity."

  CAT ON A HYACINTH HUNT * 199

  "New Year's Day night."

  "Right."

  "The night Effinger was killed. Oh! Listen, Matt, maybe you better sit down."

  "I've been sitting down--and getting up--very carefully, ever since it happened."

  "Do you want. . . something to drink, eat?"

  "I don't need nursing. I need . . . absolution."

  "From whom?"

  "You."

  "Me?"

  "I bit your head off for concealing Effinger's attack, ruined our evening out, even went home to
pout. Then I got attacked, by a woman yet, and I did the same thing. Let's say I understand now. I got angry at you because I've been there, done that, and didn't know I was about to do it again. It's hard to admit you were taken advantage of like that, abused like that. It's . . .

  embarrassing."

  Temple nodded. "You said it when I was cornered in that parking garage last fall. If you've been victimized, you'll react like a victim. You'll run, you'll hide, you'll try to pretend it was nothing. Can I at least persuade you to sit down? You probably need the practice."

  He slapped the tape ends back into place, pulled down the sweater, and followed her into the living room.

  Temple carried Miss Kitty in her extended arms, as if they were waltzing together in a weird way. "I want to examine this baby under a good light." She turned up the floor lamp before sitting next to the sofa arm. "This the same artist who sketched Effinger?"

  Matt nodded.

  "She's good. Caught that unpredictable edge behind the drop-dead looks. Did this Kitty O'Connor, if that's her real name, really look this gorgeous?"

  "I suppose, but I don't see looks; honestly, I see past them, because I wish other people would see past mine. . . . she made me uneasy from the first. I suppose a really fine pistol is beautiful when it's pointing right at you, but you'd have to have a very detached point of view."

  "What was her connection to Effinger?"

  "I don't know. I know now that she's driven by intense hate. She told me I'd killed my first man just before she cut me. Obviously, she was referring to Effinger. She wants me to feel guilty for his death, because I didn't kill him. Perverse philosophy, isn't it?"

  "If she was there to attack you, then she couldn't have killed him herself."

  "Why not? She caught me at three a.m. just as I was leaving work. According to Molina, Effinger was dead by then."

  "She could have come from killing him. I wish we knew how he died!"

  "You're thinking he was slashed to death? When I saw the body I didn't notice any "marks on what I could see of it."

  "You didn't see his ribs, I bet."

  "No." Matt's hand reached for his side, an unconscious gesture of the past few days.

  Breathing still hurt, but he was getting used to that. At least he was still breathing. Effinger sure wasn't. "I don't know what we can do to find out Effinger's manner of death, other than asking Molina. She talk to you yet?"

  "Not yet. Probably wants me to squirm. Maybe I can pump her, but there is another way to find out how Effinger died."

  "How?"

  "Max."

  "Keep him out of it. And don't tell him what happened to me."

  "It might be important. Max knows a lot of... strange things. And Effinger is his business, too.

  The first casino-ceiling death is what forced him to run and hide."

  "Because he did it, or because he didn't?"

  "Naturally, I assumed--"

  "But has he said?"

  "No. But I don't believe his involvement in these deaths is any deeper than knowing more than he should about them."

  "While we don't know enough." Matt reached for the drawing. "But keep Miss Kitty out of this. She's my problem."

  "Don't want to lose face with Max, huh?"

  "This has nothing to do with him. But it's obvious that you still do."

  A perfect opening, Temple thought, at the absolutely worst time. While she dithered over his comment, he left, and nothing had changed.

  Chapter 30

  Love Potion No. 9

  I am not one to dilly or dally when a real dilly awaits me.

  I hie over to the Opium Den to find that the eight p.m. show is still running, with an "adult"

  eleven p.m. show up next. I assume the "adult" part is a human euphemism for female upper frontal nudity.

  I cannot understand this human male obsession with mammary glands. In my species, the glands in question come in quadruplicate, span upper and lower torso and are of no particular interest to anyone but a litter of kits.

  Ah, well, it takes all kinds to populate the planet, and fortunately, some of them are endangered species. I often think the human is the most endangered species of all.

  Certainly, when it comes to murder, it is.

  I slip backstage. How can I lose? The lights are dim; I am low and dark and soft-footed.

  Luck is with me; Miss Shangri-La's dressing room door is indicated with her name over the image of a wing-extended bat. (The bat is not a figure of blood-sucking in Asian mythology, but one of good fortune. To this I say: good luck!)

  I nudge my way within to find the usual dressing room. Among the strewn costumes and magical props I find the dressing table, and find upon it the remnants of a woman: false fingernails as long as staple guns, hanks of jet-black hair, hair picks sharp and long as daggers dangling decorations; open makeup tins.

  And, among it all, extending long, red-painted nails to roll a tin makeup cover over the dressing table edge, is the lady of the billboard, said Hyacinth.

  I manage to catch the tin circle before it hits the floor.

  She is long, lean and lithe. Looks like she was painted by that cretin who got a Spanish nickname: El Greco. Someone has affixed pixels of purple glitter to the lilac-tinted mask surrounding her arctic-blue eyes.

  She hisses at me. "Give that back! It belongs to me."

  "It belongs to your mistress, the lovely Shangri-La."

  "At least you can see. What are you doing here? We have bodyguards. They will break your bones and serve your tail to a monkey's bastard."

  I blink. This lady is not like any I have met before.

  "I take it that you are Hyacinth."

  She sweeps a clatter of makeup tins off the dressing table with a swish of her angry, crooked tail. "I am also called Shanghai Showblossom and Blood Orchid. I have many names, for the line of my ancestors is long and noble and sometimes infamous. Who are you?"

  "The name is Louie. Midnight Louie."

  "This is it? What is your bloodline?"

  "What is written in my shivs." These I flick out, fast. I do not normally flash my assets, but I feel it is important to impress this unimpressed but impressive lady.

  She leaps to the floor like a falling cut-velvet scarf: half air, half illusion, all pussycat.

  She is writhing around me, brushing the elegant buzzcut of her short fur against me. "I have not heard of you in this town before."

  "How long have you been here?"

  "Two weeks."

  "Well, then. And I like to keep a low profile."

  "A low profile is not always possible in Las Vegas."

  "Particularly when you are a world-famous performer. I had no idea Siegfried and Roy's royal white tigers had such lissome competition."

  "Have you seen me perform?" She is purring now. Flattery is a weapon too.

  "Not on stage, Sister Showblossom, but I bet it is a treat."

  "I can get you a free pass."

  "All my passes are free."

  "You are so bad." She flicks her tail-tip in my face.

  I can tell she likes me, and try not to sneeze. Sneezing is not noir.

  "Hyacinth is such an unusual name. How did you get it?"

  She sits, wraps that warped tail around her slim ankles and eyes me from under glitter-dusted lashes. "Actually, it is only one of my names, and it is due to something naughty."

  "I am always in the mood for something naughty."

  Her purr intensifies. "A man was threatening my mistress. He did not know I was in the room, high atop a chiffonier."

  I refrain from asking what a chiffonier is.

  "I leap down upon him, all claws extended, screaming the battle cry of my kind. He died of a heart attack, but his face was a star sapphire of scratches. Since that time, my mistress continues to dip my nails in curare whenever she repaints them."

  She flexes the blood-red shivs on her forefeet. Remind me not to encourage this tootsie to slap my face.

  "I still do
not understand how that admirable deed got you the name 'Hyacinth.'"

  "It refers to an attribute of hyacinth to deal death that few know about."

  I do not tip my hand. "The name suits you," I say. "How long have you assisted your mistress, on stage and off?"

  "Since I was a tiny kit weaned from mother's milk onto bat's blood."

  Yech! They eat some strange things in the Orient. In Asia, excuse me. Asia Minor and Major.

  Yet who am I to sneer at a true carnivore? I used to be one myself when I did not know better or realize that ready-made food was to be gotten for the begging. I am sure that this dame would not eat Free-to-be-Feline to save her soul, if she had one.

  "Your mistress is a magician. That is an unusual profession for a lady, and for a lady of the Asian persuasion."

  "She is a most unusual lady. But you will meet her in a moment."

  I turn. I am not sure I am ready to reveal my uninvited presence.

  'There are no secrets between us," Hyacinth hisses behind me. "She will be most interested that I have attracted an admirer."

  "That cannot be an unusual occurrence."

  She purrs again, and boxes me on the face, curare-dipped claws in. I have managed to dodge just enough that her shivs only stir my whiskers.

  "Louie. Midnight Louie. You are fast for one of your venerable age and weight."

  "I am no sumu wrestler," say I modestly.

  And then the dressing room door opens. Perhaps thunder and lightning drive it back against the wall. I cannot be sure.

  A figure stands motionless in the doorway, but the diaphanous garments shrouding it like a ghost's cerements move constantly, as if in a wind.

  The face is a demonic mask in the manner of a Chinese ghost: rice-powder pale complexion with rose-petal blush from cheeks to temples. The eyes and eyebrows are drawn in kohl, a stylized stage makeup that tilts these facial features into a piquant exaggeration.