Cat on a Hyacinth Hunt

by Carole Nelson Douglas

  A nice thought, but it is still darker than the inside of water buffalo's belly down here (no doubt the same water buffalo whose tortured bawls serve as the music still faintly heard from the stage above).

  A pair of slanted red eyes glow from the dark. I understand that I am to follow these demonic torches, and do.

  Soon we are slipping silently up a narrow staircase, and then it is a short trip down a dim hall to the dressing room I had visited earlier.

  Hyacinth turns the instant we occupy the dressing room, shutting the door by stretching up against it until her lean weight pushes it shut.

  Her lilac-hosedlorelimbs touch the dressing room's concrete floor for only an instant. She lofts atop the dressing table to gaze down on me through heavenly blue eyes.

  "What a dump," she says. "We usually play far better venues than this."

  A perfect opening for the alert private operative. I jump up to the empty chair seat. This is a wooden affair with a round seat and rounded back, dating from perhaps the 1930s.

  "What kind of establishments are your usual venue?"

  "Convention centers, major hotels." Hyacinth lofts her tail left and right as if pointing to these unseen but fondly remembered palaces of entertainment.

  "Then why have you been shunted to this joint?"

  "I cannot say."

  Hyacinth's slightly crossed eyes have a sly and dreamy look. I do not know if she is being coy, or she actually has been forbidden to say.

  "A pity that you and your mistress must put up with such second-rate accommodations when you offer a first-rate show."

  "Oh, you think so, Louie?"

  "Indeed. I have been in Las Vegas for more years than the rings on the tail of a tiger-strip, and I have seldom seen a magic act of such elegance and amazing illusions. It reminds me of the Cirque du Soleil," I add, mentioning one of the top acts in Vegas, a combination of acrobatics, mime, circus, ballet and magic. "No doubt Your Grace's ... I mean your supremely graceful presence accounts for the uniqueness of the act."

  "My mistress is rather good, too, do you not think?"

  "Oh, she is fine. For a human."

  "I think so too, Louie." She tilts her head. It is as narrow and bony as a serpent's, and I cannot say I care for her hyper-elongated looks, but there is no denying their elegant power.

  "We have much in common, considering that you yourself are so common. I must mention our vastly different backgrounds. I am a descendent of show cats. You are ... a street person of no notable antecedents."

  "Not true," I say, idly grooming a mitt.

  "Oh?"

  "My ancestors go back to the time of Pharaoh."

  "I am sorry, Louie, but your common, coal-black coat; your squat nonaristocratic body; your clubby, ordinary ears and thick, unkinked tail all betray none of the aristocratic qualities of a feline of ancient lineage. That is why there are papers to document such things, not to mention the physical requirements. This is so usurpers cannot claim royal blood."

  "Sorry. I heard this news from Bastet herself, during a power-seance to call up Houdini last Halloween. I did not wantXo be the last in line of Pharaoh's private operators--I am not a snob myself--but I cannot duck my destiny. Especially when Bast herself is the message-bearer."

  "You do not bear the mark of Bast."

  "Oh, the old dame wanted to hang her signature earring on my clubby, ordinary ear, but I do not go for these sissy accouterments. I do not care how many supposedly macho dudes affect earbobs nowadays."

  Hyacinth gasps. "You know of Bastet's earring?"

  "Nobody punctures one of my extremities and lives to tell of it."

  Hyacinth narrows her morning-glory blue eyes and hunches down. She resembles a pile of furred antlers in this position. A guy could commit hara-kiri on her hipbones trying to do the wild thing. I do not go for earrings, nor do I endorse this human fetish for females so skinny they become lethal weapons of the edged variety. However, when I am on a case, I cannot allow my preferences to get in the way of cadging information from a source. The fluffy furred images of the Ashleigh sisters flash before my memory. I guess I go for the pneumatic types. But they are not here and the subject before me is the sinewy Siamese called Hyacinth.

  "So where did you two last perform?" I ask casually.

  "Hong Kong."

  I am impressed and allow it to show. 'That must be some flight from here to there."

  "Oh, we stopped over in Paris first."

  "Paris."

  "Have you been there, Louie?"

  Yeah, sure. Every other day. "Not. . . recently."

  "It is a bit overpopulated with poodles, who are allowed an extraordinary freedom of the city, but it is a lovely metropolis. I have been to Caracas, Quito, Katmandu, Rabat, Singapore, Tokyo, Sydney and Amsterdam."

  My flattery has gotten me everywhere, I see.

  "Quite an itinerary. I just got back from New York myself."

  "Oh, New York! We never stop over there. Too dirty, too noisy, too American."

  "I can see that you are an international kind of girl."

  She hunches down, leans her narrow face toward me, hisses through her fangs, "You ever had any Panama Purple?"

  "Not to my knowledge."

  "I have some in my treat bag. Want to try a sniff?"

  Doing hallucinatory substances is not a requirement of my job, but I am curious about what this dame is into. And I can sniff the best of them under the table, if I have to.

  So I look the usual curious and follow her as she leaps down to the floor and minces over to a purple-velvet bed. Sure enough, there is a drawstring bag beside it, a silk-floral affair (I believe the flowers are hyacinths), and Hyacinth herself is soon sticking her long aristocratic nose into it.

  A whiff like medicinal marijuana puffs into the room. I am not much for either medicine or marijuana but it is not polite for a guest to turn up his nose at his hostess's best dishes.

  So soon I am rolling in it. It is the weirdest nip I have ever encountered, and the dried leaves do indeed have a purple cast. Panama Purple, huh? I am not about to admit my ignorance of this primo stuff. But it is strong. Soon my head is in the clouds and my feet are in the air.

  Miss Hyacinth is in the same state, but I am sorry to say it is not shared by her mistress when she comes into the dressing room.

  I am aware of a cloud of floral chiffon floating above my eyes-- my slightly crossed eyes--of a perfume of distilled hyacinth that is distinctly floral and human, not feline. Long, daggerlike nails probe my underbelly under the guise of scratching my stomach.

  "What have we here, Hyacinth?" a honeyed voice inquires.

  Human voices, when honeyed, are more dangerous than the growl of a mountain lion.

  "I believe that this pussycat was at the scene of a recent crime. Perhaps we should hold him as a material witness, hmm? Would you like that, my little beauty? Your very own personal playfellow?"

  The four-inch-long blood-red shivs jab into my gut. "Of course you may keep him, my darling girl! What else are these foolish boys for? But we will put him away for the moment. We have work to attend to. Playtime later, my pet. Playtime later."

  ***************

  Everything here is dark, but then there is nothing here. I am flat on my back, in utter blackness, on a hard surface.

  My ears and toes buzz. Actually, my ears ring and my toes tingle.

  That Panama Purple stuff was more potent than a bull matador in mating season.

  Of course I wake up alone. You can be sure that the treacherous Hyacinth is coming to in much softer circumstances, although the idea of being caressed by those artificial shivs that last I felt makes my skin crawl.

  In fact, my skin crawls so much I almost think I could slip right out of it and through some crack in this box like smoke. But that delusion is just an aftereffect of the alien catnip. I stand, shakily, and nose the limits of my prison. As I suspected, it is one of these breakaway magician's boxes, but that does not mean I can wave my way
out using my tail as a magic wand!

  These devices are meant to deceive witnesses with their apparent integrity. I am well and truly trapped. It is a nasty feeling. Usually when one of my kind is trapped, we worry about the bored bean-counting ways of the local animal pound. (The beans they are counting are no doubt the heads of the doomed departing as they are admitted into their doors. I also think that they are called "pounds" in honor of the multitudinous pounds of flesh they do away with. Do you know that they actually keep track of how many victims they dust off in a year?) But evil as the animal pound is to all my kind, I fear I face a greater evil: the unknown villainies of Hyacinth and her magician mistress.

  Chapter 40

  Command Performance

  Matt's doorbell rang.

  He rushed to answer it, thinking it might be Temple. Somehow he expected she would have to be as drawn to him as he was to her.

  "Oh."

  "You were expecting the Avon lady, maybe?"

  "No. Just someone I knew. Better."

  "And how many people in Las Vegas do you know better than I?"

  She had him there. "Oh, about four."

  "May I come in?"

  "Uh, yeah."

  "Sit down?"

  "Uh, please."

  "I can see you're really connected today. Something happen I should know about?"

  "Probably lots of things."

  The element of surprise had lost its sting. Matt pulled one of his second-hand chairs to the sofa table and gazed at the police lieutenant expectantly, a good student.

  She wore her usual neutral clothing as a wall does its paint. It was hard not to see her and think of business, except when she sang at the Blue Dahlia, and that incarnation was such a 180-degree turn from her daily persona that it seemed a mirage.

  "What can I do for you?" Matt asked.

  "A lot maybe." Molina bit her lip, a tentative gesture he'd not seen in her before. "I need you to finger your attacker."

  "You've got her in custody?"

  "No. But we've got a lead on her, and she may be involved in a lot more than razor cuts."

  "You make her sound like a barber."

  "Barbers got their starts in medieval times as surgeons, blood-letters, do you realize that?"

  "I've heard some history of the red-and-white striped barber pole. What does that have to do with what you want me to do?"

  Molina laughed. "Nothing. Just a little social history. You'll need to get off work, I'm afraid.

  You can have your supervisor call me, if necessary."

  "Night work?"

  "That's your police force at their best. I want you to accompany me to a show."

  "Is this like a date, Lieutenant?"

  "It could look like that. We'll be undercover. Look normal. Nothing fancy."

  "And what do I do at this show?"

  "Point out this woman, this Kitty O'Connor, if you see her."

  "You know she'll be there?"

  Molina shook her head.

  "Has this something to do with Effinger's murder?"

  Molina shook her head again, shocking Matt.

  "If it isn't about Effinger's murder, what on earth is it about."

  "He was a little man in a big world. Maybe he loomed larger in your smaller world, but the police have other things to worry about."

  "And you think this Kitty O'Connor may . . . also ... be involved in these larger things?"

  "Maybe." She stood up. "Tomorrow night at ten. I'm afraid it has to be the 'adult' show.

  Sorry."

  "I think I can survive a little frontal nudity nowadays."

  "Especially after the Blue Mermaid." Molina grinned. "You living in this town has got to be one of God's biggest jokes."

  "What do I wear?"

  "Whatever fits a night downtown. Not to worry. I'm bringing my weapon. And reinforcements. All you have to do is keep your eyes open and point out the suspect."

  "That's what they told Judas Iscariot."

  "No kissing. You had your chance, and apparently you blew it. And you've already collected your thirty pieces of silver, plus a little extra interest." She glanced at his side as delicately as a doe. "Feeling okay?"

  "It only hurts when it rains." He suddenly remembered Temple's unshed tears. Eternal rain.

  "Lucky you live in Las Vegas, then." She smiled as she left, her Mona Lisa smile, which was not warm, not amused, but somehow mocking, and especially self-mocking.

  Should he tell Temple? he wondered.

  No. She had enough to worry about without adding Molina's authoritarian games to her burdens.

  Chapter 41

  Louie Among the Hyacinth-Eaters

  Catnip dreams weave in and out. I am a Chinese junk adrift on the Yangtze River.

  Hyacinth petals float like soap slivers on the dark water, and death barges pass, skeletons at their oars and corpses for figureheads.

  The cat head of the statue of Bastet turns slowly as I drift by, reclining on a petal-strewn deck.

  Her eyes are the color of faience beads, both blue and green. Her fangs are capped with beaten gold. Blood drips from the tips. A wide Egyptian collar extends to her human breastbone.

  She does not appear at all friendly to dudes who have had a little too much nip through no fault of their own, but then nobody much does.

  I lurch upright and wander to the barge's edge. Water lilies, white and purple, float upon the river, and the low, wart-ridden forms of drowsing crocodiles crowd the shoreline bulrushes.

  But I am not here and they are not they. The water lilies open to become bloated drowned faces, and the floating crocs are really human bodies that roll over among the reeds to reveal the face of... Effinger.

  How would I know this dead dude's face, the astute among you might ask. A good question.

  I never encountered him face-to-face. Even at his death, his features were veiled in bandages of gauze. He never assaulted me with his ugly mug.

  However, his mug shot was flaunted before me more than once in Miss Temple Barr's and my former apartment. (This is not her former residence, mind you, and it is only not fully mine now, unofficially. Got that? I thought you would not.)

  Who could blame me for being haunted by a dead body of Effinger's very sketchy acquaintance only a few days after witnessing its assumption back into the Land of the Living?

  Especially after I have inhaled the deadly Panama Purple?

  I know I am in a box, and a box devoid of any softening factor. I lie on wood with the smell of paint soaked into its every fiber. I suppose I should be thankful that no funereal upholstery lines my prison. On the other hand, I am not sure that a cat casket would be lined by anything grander than a hand towel.

  Of course there are no facilities here. No food. Only darkness and the occasional hiss of voices heard through a keyhole of time. Perhaps I imagine the voices. Certainly I imagine much else, such as softly swirling movement, which would kill any appetite should I have it.

  I cannot understand why anyone at the Opium Den would wish to keep me prisoner. Unless I am not a prisoner... but a slave.

  Methinks the potent pussycat who goes by the name of Hyacinth is used to having her way with males of all species, a characteristic she no doubt learned from her rapacious mistress.

  Am I captured to be a sort of plaything for this sharp-shivved feline femme fatale? Will I be expected to perform at her pounce and yowl? She is of Oriental persuasion, and I have heard of harems in the East. Of course, usually the harems are in the proper proportions: hundreds of lissome lovelies to one virile dude. But it is possible that these renegade ladies from Hong Kong have reversed the proper order of things, such as one finds among a few (thankfully) rare insects, where the female of the species bites the male's head off once the mating ritual is over.

  I cannot blame these foreign females for coveting my unique masculine features, especially now that I am both "safe" and salacious, but I must be a free agent in these matters, not subject to some feminine whim.
Why, if too much performance pressure is placed upon my delicate masculine psyche, I might even refuse to play ball.

  What would they do then? Behead me?

  Oops. I do believe that this is an ancient form of execution in the mysterious East and Near East.

  Well, I will be ready when they storm my cage, planning to tear me from my refuge for unconsenting sessions of who-knows-what. I will fight tooth, nail and tail. They will get bad cases of whiplash trying to pin me down for their foul purposes.

  If only I could get all four on the floor, clear my head and dredge up the energy to unsheath my claws. If only I could determine which side is the floor.

  But the effects of the Panama Purple drag me deeper into uneasy dreams. Where is Miss Temple? She would defend me against these unnatural females of her species and mine. Has she found the message I left her? Interpreted it correctly? Come to save me from a horrid fate of forced enslavement to the most debased urges found on the planet?

  Will I be forced to wear a metal collar and a nose ring? Fed soporific foods so that I become a passive tool of their warped desires? Kept in a kitty harness? My drugged imagination conjures the worst that might befall an alleycat who has been shanghaied into an alien world via an alien state.

  The idea of breaking out of my box passes through my mind, but a strange lassitude has crept over all my limbs. I suddenly know what narcotic has been slipped into my nip: it is the dreaded date-rape drug. These imported females will stop at nothing to have their way with me!

  Truly, this is a fate worse than death. Maybe.

  On the other hand, it might be interesting.

  Chapter 42

  Cabinet Meeting

  "Where's my sparring partner?" Max asked when he arrived at Temple's condominium.

  There was no question of the unit being "theirs" anymore, not with Max camped out at the house he had rented to Gandolph, not with their new arrangement of not quite living together, not quite living apart.