Cat on a Hyacinth Hunt

by Carole Nelson Douglas

  "Nope."

  "He who hesitates is lost. And now I've embarrassed both of us by jumping on you like a--"

  "Shut up!" Tears were still refusing to fall from her eyes. "Don't you dare. It was one of the erotic high points of history, and we were there, okay? Both of us. We just can't do it again."

  "Why not? Temple, I know I'm supposed to care about things like this, but I don't care how often you slept with him, or how recently. I want you now and for the future. You don't have to honor the past."

  "But I do! Max and I really had something. It wasn't his fault that he had to leave. I can't tell you why, but it wasn't his fault. We owe it to each other to try again."

  "Is he in the witness protection program? Is that the reason for all the secrecy? I've wondered."

  "A performer? A Las Vegas magician?"

  "You quoted him as saying that brazen is often the best disguise."

  "Not the witness protection program, but something . . . similar."

  "Temple, you've known love, you've known sex. I haven't, until now. I'm not going to give this up. I'm almost ready to suggest that you don't tell Max,about us, but I wouldn't mean it, and I know you couldn't do it. But that's how far I've fallen."

  She put a hand to the side of his face, a touch almost as comforting as the tenderness in her eyes.

  "Max knows I have deep feelings for you. It's horrid that he was gone just long enough for you and I to connect. But I'm going to try as hard as I can to make it with Max. Nobody knows the man behind the magician. He's had pain, he has a past. We have a mutual history that's worthy of saving. If Max had met someone else while he was gone, I'd still try. And he loves me."

  "Too."

  Matt got up, surprised that his knees still locked when necessary.

  A picture of Temple branded itself on his mind and memory: her sitting there as demure and delicate as a ballerina in a Degas sketch, except for the erotic touch of her undone buttons. He loved her for not dishonoring their intimacy by trying to cover up her exposure, he loved her for giving him an erotic snapshot to treasure.

  "I suppose we'll talk, see each other, when it's necessary."

  "Of course."

  The tears still stood in her eyes. If they hadn't fallen yet, they weren't going to fall in his presence, ever. He imagined them glis-CAT ON A HYACINTH HUNT * 259

  tening on her collarbones and breast, himself lapping up the saltwater drop by drop . . .

  desire was dementia. Love was delirium.

  "Do me a favor," he asked. "Don't ever get rid of that dress."

  He didn't say goodbye, and outside the unit, he only got a few steps down the cul-de-sac before he had to stop and lean against the wall.

  The erotic charge still shook him. He felt possessed by a power greater than himself. He saw this as one more evidence of the Creator's incredible, indelible omnipresence, something to be celebrated, not stifled. And he couldn't stop an idiotic smile from crossing his face, despite his having heard the worst news of his life. Idiocy looked to be his lot for a while; he was in love and finally knew it.

  He started when he heard a click down the hall. It had taken Temple a long time to get up and lock the door after him. He wondered if she suffered from the same weak-kneed condition.

  If she stood with her back to the wall on her side of the partition, reliving the ecstasy and grinning like a lunatic. Like most serious matters in life, sex also seemed to be a healthy though heady mix of the sublime and the ridiculous.

  Chapter 37

  Ms Cellany

  Temple poured what was left of Matt's wine into her own glass and took a deep swig.

  Then she absently ran the cool, smooth brim over her lips, back and forth, over and over.

  Amen.

  She was huddled in a corner of the sofa, knees jackknifed, arms clutched around them, as if she were cold.

  But she wasn't cold at all. Temple balanced her glass on one kneecap.

  Lesson number one: sparing other people's feelings is usually a euphemism for sparing yourself the pain of telling the truth.

  Lesson number two: playing with fire will give you blisters. You might get to like blisters.

  Lesson number three: expletive deleted.

  Somehow she'd managed to be disloyal to everybody in this eternal triangle, including herself.

  Including even Midnight Louie.

  She really could have used a comforting feline presence right now. That sagacious furry face; those wise, slitted green eyes; that warm, solid body against her side.

  But even Louie had deserted her. Even? Max and Matt had not, more's the pity.

  She chugalugged the rest of the wine and un-corkscrewed herself to set the empty glass on the tabletop.

  Not on the tabletop.

  On top of a glossy brochure.

  Temple saw a flash of color and motion, a sexy female, an exploding firework. The usual Las Vegas come-on for everything from soup kitchens to nuts to celebrity-impersonator revues.

  How had this piece of trash gotten onto her coffee table? Maybe someone had stuffed it into her tote bag as she'd rushed by. Las Vegas was always foisting fleshly delights on oblivious passersby with more elevating issues on their minds. Like gambling.

  Fleshly delights, oh my. Oh, Matt. Oh, Max. Oh, Midnight Louie. Maybe she should stick to cats.

  Except that one word caught her attention as it was about to drift to sea.

  Hyacinth.

  "Shangri-La and Hyacinth. Hyacinth is also a cat, for heavens sake!"

  Well, she would have to ask Max about this lady magician and her magical disappearing cat called Hyacinth.

  She would have to see Max, soon. And say? Nothing. Sparing people's feelings, including one's own, could become a very bad habit.

  ***************

  Matt had hours to go before he could go to work and lose himself in open-line jive. He would listen with a whole new third ear now, to lovesick Romeos and Juliets, to suicidal rejectees, to women haunted by obsessive stalkers.

  But first he would call Lieutenant Molina. She had handed him a body. He had run with it.

  Now she could chase down the implications: hyacinths by the truckload, an anonymous donor, fingerprints on the silver dollars.

  He needed to call Temple.

  No, he really needed to call her, to ask her something.

  To hear her voice. To imagine her.

  He called.

  She answered, and sounded surprised.

  "Silver dollars? How many? Sure, I can count them."

  She was back at the phone after too long a while.

  "Thirty."

  "Exactly?"

  "Exactly. But you knew that."

  "Yes."

  Silence. Necessity was over; the gray area stretched between them.

  "I'll tell Molina," he said.

  She said nothing. He said good-bye. He wondered if she sat there listening to the dial tone for as long as he did. War was hell, but libido was hell with a flamethrower.

  *****************

  Temple called Max.

  "Hi. How many lady magicians do you know?"

  "There's one in Vegas. Melinda downtown.

  "Now there are two. Downtown. Shangri-La and Hyacinth."

  "Hyacinth?"

  "Apparently a cat is part of the act."

  "Cats and magicians go together like Siegfried and Roy."

  "Then how come Midnight Louie doesn't like you?"

  "He must not be a real cat. I take it you want to take in this show."

  "It seems like a good idea."

  "Consider it done. But not until tomorrow. I'm doing clandestine research on some of our current conundrums. We'll probably have to hit the late show. Okay with you?"

  "I don't think I'll be able to sleep until then anyway."

  "Come over for dinner tonight. You can tell me what happened at the visitation."

  She couldn't. She couldn't quite do it right now. But she couldn't say why, and therefore could
n't say no.

  She certainly couldn't tell Max what had happened, and had not happened, after the visitation.

  Temple sighed as she hung up. How had she maneuvered herself into lying by omission to everybody?

  ****************

  C. R. Molina hung up after taking Matt Devine's call.

  A bank of hyacinths. A woman in a long, black veil. Thirty silver dollars left in little square envelopes.

  The homemade funeral for Cliff Effinger couldn't have gone better.

  She pulled the photograph of the note found in Effinger's pocket toward her. She had expected Temple Barr to figure more prominently in the unfolding scenario, but the mysterious lady in black was usurping her place.

  Devine had sounded strained on the phone, like a man under intolerable pressure. She had a feeling he was holding something back.

  She had a feeling that he was about to release the always-hidden spring within himself.

  She tapped the chewed end of a pencil on her glass-covered desktop. She wanted to push him, but she didn't want to push him into a place where he had nowhere to go except to jump off.

  She liked Matt Devine. She didn't like most people she met through her job. As a policewoman, she was in trouble.

  Chapter 38

  Tight Places

  "Rough day?"

  Max swept Temple into the house, haunted by the late Gandolph the Great and Orson Welles.

  He gestured to push a stray strand of hair off his face, although his hair was swept back into a sleek ponytail, and nothing about it was stray. Could Max Kinsella be nervous about something?

  "Homemade dinner," he said, making a face. "I wish I could take you to restaurants here in Las Vegas."

  "You're taking me to a magic show later tomorrow."

  "A second-rate one."

  "Because the magician is a lady?"

  "Because the show is at the Opium Den, a third-rate venue if there ever was one. So tell me about the funeral while I whip up dessert."

  Max was good at anything that required assembly, but whipping out the perfect chocolate mousse did require more serious attention.

  "Thirty pieces of silver dollars. A trifle obvious," Max pronounced, after he heard the funeral-goer's tale.

  "Is that what you're making, a trifle?"

  "It's a mousse, and it'll be in your hair if you don't quit harassing the cook."

  Max lifted her up to the large kitchen island so she'd be out of his way.

  "You know," she said soulfully, "you'd make someone a wonderful wife."

  "You know, you've had a little too much before-dinner wine. When did you start today?

  Noon?"

  "Not till one," Temple said virtuously. "I guess this is really good stuff."

  Max eyed the level left in her glass on his next pass through. "Too good to spoil the broth, the salad, the main course and the dessert."

  "You've really put yourself out."

  "What else can I do, cooped up here?" Max paused before her, grinned. "Actually, I've already traced the flowers by computer."

  "Really?"

  "Sent from all sorts of places far and near by the dozens. Cost a fortune. The person who ordered them was named Trudy Zelle in every case. The scent of a woman. Does that name ring a bell?"

  "Yes, it does. In some foggy, burgundy part of my brain."

  Max stopped, clasped her hands. "You're a little reckless tonight. I like it."

  He kissed her, and he did it quite well.

  "Was the funeral charade too awful?" he asked, still searching for the source of her odd mood. "I suspect that the cashier's check for the whole thing will be signed by this Trudy Zelle.'

  Do you suppose her first name is a play on the word, Truly?''

  "I'm lost," Temple admitted a little tipsily. "I just came here to eat and be dazzled. Why are there so few women magicians?"

  "Male mystique," Max answered promptly. "Magic has been a classic escape route for boys too smart to get stomped in football and too optimistic to give up on girls until they get rid of glasses and zits."

  "Do you need a correction, or do you just wear contact lenses to dazzle women?"

  "My eyesight is twenty-twenty, Temple darling. And I can see that you're in a very funny mood tonight."

  "Do you love me, Max?"

  "Of course I do. You're the first person I could afford to love, the first woman I could count on not to be someone or something else than she seemed."

  Temple nodded. "Not like this Shangri-La, or Kitty the cutter."

  "Are you a little drunk?"

  "I should hope so, if I've been working on it since one p.m. in the afternoon. I like to think of myself as a high achiever."

  Max tsked like a schoolteacher as he took her empty wine glass away. Probably the T-bird would be next.

  "The chef requires a sober palate, Madame. I suppose seeing Effinger laid out was a rather chilling sight, for you as well as for his stepson. How's he holding up?"

  Temple giggled. She was more than tipsy.

  "Tell me, Temple."

  "He's . . . holding up. I'm . . . tired. What do you make of it? Hyacinths and Ladies in Black, nuns even? And then the Cat-woman--"

  "That movie has come and gone; Michelle Pfeiffer has unglued her cat ears and peeled off her wetsuit and licked off her whiskers. You'd better have something to eat, and I hope I've made it right."

  So Temple sat in one of the huge captain chairs and toyed with sirloin tips on spinach noodles with peppercorn bearnaise sauce. She teethed on tender-crisp asparagus spears and tried not to wash down everything in sight with the dinner wine.

  The chocolate mousse was sheer velvet, softer than Midnight Louie's ears, should she care to devour them, and Temple was growing sober despite herself.

  She felt full and more peaceful, and guilty as hell. She got up from the kitchen table and wandered into the kitchen proper, with its sleek sacrificial altar masquerading as an island work surface, while Max cleared the plates.

  "Should you go out in public?" she asked Max.

  "Downtown should be all right. It's still an off-price venue, despite the glamorous new dome that overarches it. I wish I could understand what's bothering you."

  "Maybe it's this mystery," Temple said. Not only magicians could use diversion to good effect. "What's the link between Effinger and those two casino deaths? And now his own death, wrapped in the scent of hyacinth and the aura of mysterious Dark Ladies."

  "Ladies, plural?"

  "You are quick, and too quick for me when I've got molasses in my veins."

  "What did you mean, 'ladies.' "

  "Oh . . . hyperventilating hyacinths!"

  "Temple, you only get inventive in swearing when you're really stressed."

  If she couldn't confess the scariest secret of all, maybe she could offer a less vital one.

  "It's. . . confidential."

  "Everything worth knowing in this town is confidential. Tell me."

  Max had followed her into this clinical kitchen so like a surgery of gastronomy. He was doctor; she was patient. She badly needed a nagging thorn to come out. Any thorn.

  "There's this woman who's. . . appeared to Matt."

  "Virgin Mary, huh?"

  "Hardly. Bloody Mary, more likely. I hate telling you this ... but she's the one who told him where Effinger was likely to be found."

  "Bloody Judas, maybe?"

  Temple nodded. "You don't know how right you are. She appeared to him again after Effinger was murdered. Within a couple of hours, before it was discovered practically."

  Max began pacing, listening, absorbing facts into his very bloodstream with a magician's eerie concentration that could hear locked tumblers clicking, audiences holding their breath, and glamorous assistants scratching their high-rise chorus-girl panty lines.

  "She attacked him, Max."

  Max stopped. Grinned. "He's not that good-looking."

  "With a razor."

  He sobered so fast the mocking figure
of a moment ago seemed like ancient history.

  "Sorry. That's serious. That's psychotic. What was her problem?"

  "Matt thinks--," Temple felt like a traitor for betraying Matt's confidence, but if she offered Max this truth that he might be able to do something about, perhaps it would atone for withholding the truth that none of them could do anything about.

  She was exposing Matt, but not where he was most vulnerable. She hoped. She was using the old magician's trick, creating glittering contrails with one hand, while the real work was being done by the other.

  "Yes? You were saying. Matt thinks?"

  "It's ridiculous, but Matt thinks this woman thought he was a hit man. That she told him where to find Effinger because she thought he would kill him."

  "Interesting. What made her take the ex-priest for a killer?"

  "Matt sensed she was one mean mama. He felt he had to take a hard line with her. She asked what he would do with Effinger when he found him and he admitted he didn't know, that he would 'probably kill him.' "

  Max nodded. "There are some people I'd 'probably kill' if I found them."

  "Some people? Max!"

  He shook his head. "We never kill the people we need to. It's something we tell ourselves we could do, but we don't. It's a way of admitting we've known people who deserve killing."

  "Never kill them? Even in your line of work? Whatever that is."

  Max laughed. "Suspicion becomes you, my lovely sleuth. I'm glad we can talk like this finally.

  Frankly. Temple, this can be better than before, because I can be more honest with you."

  He stepped closer, and she was comforted. Too bad she had to be less honest than before.

  Were relationships always comedies of bad timing? Or tragedies of off-tempo truth?