Midnight Louie 14 - Cat in a Midnight Choir

by Carole Nelson Douglas

  It swept a huge circle and came up behind him. The motor throbbed like Wagner’s Pilgrims’ Chorus, like the Valkyrie on the warpath.

  The rider wore no helmet, just a pair of wraparound sunglasses as pitch-black as tar.

  His hair was windswept tar. His knuckles on the handles were white in the night, ungloved.

  He wove behind Matt, left and then right, and every swerve put itself between the Vampire and the Kawasaki that followed.

  Then the huge machine moved up on Matt, slowly but certainly.

  He rode in Matt’s left blind spot, like a cowboy herding a steer.

  Matt couldn’t engage with the other motorcycle. This interloper had interposed itself between them. He found himself resenting the intrusion.

  It had been him and Kitty O’Connor and now they were three.

  He was being herded out of the empty shopping center back toward the freeway and civilization and speed limits and population.

  It occurred to him that he ought to be grateful, but he wasn’t.

  Maybe this would have ended it, once and for all.

  He was being herded too damn fast.

  His speedometer in the lurid dashboard lights read ninety miles per hour and he’d hardly noticed it.

  His escort pulled abreast without revving up a decibel.

  He glanced over, saw the lacquered hair, the thick sideburns.

  Elvis saluted and pushed inward to force Matt onto the entrance lane of Highway 95.

  In his right mirror Matt saw the overbuilt motorcycle turn like Leviathan to face the oncoming black blot of the Kawasaki.

  Damn, but he wanted to see the outcome of that collision!

  The night swallowed the images of the two motorcycles. He was awash in headlights and taillights and seventy-mile-an-hour lane changers and overhead lights as bright as the morning star.

  This was Las Vegas, and his money was on Elvis. There was no percentage in messing with a living legend, especially after he was dead.

  Matt felt a new swell of appreciation for the time-honored religious tradition of patron saints.

  Elvis made a troubling spiritual figure, despite his clumsy aspirations to the role while living, but as a ghost he was pretty damn impressive.

  Heads or Tails?

  At least I am able to return at a decent hour.

  I manage to beat Miss Temple back to the Circle Ritz and am lounging on the comforter with my rear leg hiked over my shoulder like an Enfield rifle on parade, grooming an intimate part of my anatomy, when she comes waltzing in.

  “Still up, Louie?” she asks the obvious…unless it is a question of a personal nature and therefore not so obvious.

  Either way, I do not deign to answer, as usual.

  I am too miffed by her bizarre appearance to deign to notice her.

  When she leans over the bed to give me a midnight smooch, I turn my head away. Has she not looked in a mirror lately? Not that I go for dames who would place looking in a mirror over looking at me, but an occasional peek could spare another individual much distress.

  “What is the matter, Louie?” She backs off, puzzled, her adorable little muzzle all wrinkled like a shar pei’s, who are not so adorable.

  Then she runs into herself in the dressing table mirror.

  “I bet it is the wig! You did not want all this blond Dynel rubbing on your whiskers. Well, this is history. For now.”

  She strips off the Lauren Bacall “do” to reveal her own sassy curls all crushed beneath. This girl could use a good grooming, but my tongue is not for hire. I have enough square footage of my own to tend to.

  “These are wild,” she says vaguely in my direction.

  I hear a click and then the large silver ring on her forearm snicks open.

  All is forgiven! An armload of cat toys!

  I bound from the bed and leap into action, batting, snagging, toothing.

  “Louie! These are borrowed goods. Let go. No! Bad boy! Please!”

  That is Miss Temple’s idea of domestic discipline, all right. She wields the Carrot of Cajolery and the Big Stick of Superior Force in such rapid turns that a guy could commit sixteen felonies or hara kiri while she was making up her mind whether to slap or tickle him.

  She hangs my playthings on the top of the ajar closet door.

  “I agree,” she tells me, “that those skimpy string monokinis would make ideal cat toys, but I need them for my undercover work.”

  Perhaps she meant uncovered work.

  I decide right then that despite my misgivings about Miss Midnight Louise I had better keep an eye on Miss Temple and her midnight ramblings.

  So much for taking on a partner. Now I am stuck with a partner missing in action and the previous case of the stripper killer heating up and no one at hand to lend a mitt in either instance.

  Perhaps I shall have to hone my delegating skills further, first thing tomorrow.

  Meanwhile, Miss Temple has totally thrown off her undercover persona to slip under the covers with yours truly. It is while we are rubbing noses and murmuring sweet little nothings that I resolve to defy logic and physical science and pursue two cases at once.

  Did You Ever See a Dream Walking?

  Temple often thanked her checkered employment history for a brief detour into the thespian arts.

  That explained how she was able to call Molina the next morning, as innocent and bright as sunshine.

  “I’ve been thinking about what you said about Max,” she began.

  “Good.”

  “Maybe not.”

  “For you or for me?”

  “Well, the thing is” — Temple hated people who used “the thing is,” and hoped Molina did too; would bet that Molina did too — “the thing is, I need to know the exact time that Cher Smith was killed.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, it could be that I know where Max was, and was not, at that time.”

  “That night? You remember the timetable of that night?”

  “He told me about it the next day.”

  “The killing?” Molina sounded ready to leap through the phone.

  “Noooo. Just about meeting Cher. But if I knew the exact time that Cher Smith was accosted and killed the next night, I might be able to…make more sense of what I do know. You know?”

  The silence on the phone line said that Molina definitely did not know.

  Good. Temple wanted the homicide lieutenant’s frustration level high enough to override her better instincts.

  “Are you there?” Temple said. “Look, I’m not even sure I should be calling you.” Whined.

  “Me too,” Molina finally answered. “That’s privileged information. Time of death. Besides, it’s not an exact science.”

  “I know. I heard that on C.S.I. Isn’t that a cool show?”

  “No. Their depiction of forensic work is wildly improbable. Forensics people don’t play amateur detective and interview witnesses and suspects. We do that.”

  Temple relished being the object of that short, biting tone. The madder Molina got, the more disgusted, the more she’d play right into Temple’s hands. Or ears, in this case.

  “Well, I’m not asking for court evidence here. Just a time. An hour. You know. When? Elevenish? Twelvish? One-ish?”

  “How about two-ish,” Molina gritted through her teeth.

  Temple smiled like the Cheshire Cat. “Two-ish, it is. We would need a hyphen in that, though.”

  “Hyphen?”

  “Between two and ish. To look right.”

  “I don’t care how it looks, that’s the time Cher was attacked. So. Are you going to give Kinsella an alibi? Was he caressing your lily white body at the time?”

  “Lieutenant! That is soooo personal a question to ask. And pure speculation. You have no idea what shade my body is. There are always self-tanning lotions. Two A.M. I’ll have to check my diary to be sure.”

  “Is that just an expression, or do you really keep one?”

  “That’s for me to know an
d you to find out,” Temple said. “With a warrant,” she added in a throaty growl. “G’bye!” Snippy Weakest Link tone of voice.

  Whew! What a workout for an amateur actress.

  She stared at the notebook she always kept by her phone and compulsively doodled on while talking. The number 2 and the capital P.M. were prominent on the pages, outlined by the tilted, houselike shape of the constellation Ophiuchus.

  But the two things were not connected: the stripper killing and the Synth. Were they?

  Whatever the case, Temple knew more than she had, and more than Molina meant for her to know. That was one thing Temple had learned from Lindy last night: the exact time when Cher was accosted was very important. Now all Temple had to find out was who might have been crossing that parking lot at the same exact time, besides Max Kinsella, who she did soooo not want to be guilty. If Molina was out to see that Rafi Nadir would walk, Temple was determined to see him walking across the right “wrong” parking lot at 2:00 A.M.

  Even if the shoe, or glove, fits, you must not call it quits.

  Ritz Cracker

  “I can see,” says my dear Miss Temple, “why strippers are so eager to get out of these blasted outfits.”

  I can see a lot more of my dear Miss Temple than I am accustomed to, but I shut my eyes and try not to think of that noxious Egyptian hairless breed of my kind known as a sphinx. I suppose the Sphinx itself is hairless, probably due to endless sandblasting.

  I am sorry to say that even my Miss Temple, left alone with a ring of fifty strip-tease artists’ tools of the trade cannot resist slipping into a little nothing in front of her bedroom mirror.

  I suppose the most admirable and sensible female harbors a bit of unwholesome curiosity about how well she would pass as a femme fatale. I blame the media.

  Still, it is no pleasant task to recline upon our communal couch and watch her preen and pose with such ridiculous articles of nonclothing. Worst of all, she is wearing my shoes as an accessory to the crime!

  She turns the radio up to a deafening level. It is a rock oldies station playing something with a chorus of “She works hard for the money.”

  Miss Temple works hard to look like a stripper.

  I flatten my ears against the sight and the sound.

  At last she turns off the radio and sighs, which is more than I can manage.

  “Not even the Midnight Louie shoes can add any class to this outfit,” she admits. “I guess I am stuck being Miss Modesto of 1958.”

  With that she goes through what looks like a straitjacket escape act as she unwinds the assorted elastics before donning her usual underthings, which I find skimpy enough to begin with. What a relief. It is a good thing that I do not talk to humans on principle, as I could certainly shock Miss Temple Barr’s friends, coworkers, neighbors, lovers, and enemies with a breathless fashion report on her brief entry into exiting her clothes.

  Soon she has donned the long, yellow wig as one would a hat, were one human and had ears oddly placed in the center of one’s skull instead of proudly rampant at the top, like the lordly lions on a coat of arms.

  Outside our windows the sun is dyeing the day the luscious rosy-orange of a perfectly ripe peach, not that I would ever eat a fruit, but I can appreciate perfection in many forms. Perhaps it takes one to know one.

  “Well,” says Miss Temple, bending to kiss my ruffled brow, “at least I know that one of us will be safe at home tonight.”

  Uh-oh. This is a blatant confession that she will be out and up to no good.

  I can tail her, of course, but I am counting on an assistant a bit more reliable than Miss Midnight Louise to do the job.

  I will wait until apprised of Miss Temple’s destination before I hit the trail. So I allow myself to doze off on the zebra comforter that she has thoughtfully left crumpled into a wad in the middle of the bed so I am like Mohammed on top of his mountain, or perhaps the princess who finally got enough mattresses to forever kiss the pea good-bye.

  Whilst I nap, gently nodding, suddenly there comes a prodding, prodding at my dreamland’s door. Open here I fling my lashes, when with a sound like cymbal clashes, I hear a footstep on the floor. A creak and pause, and nothing more.

  Well, Midnight Louie is up and at ’em faster than a mongoose with snake pâté in store.

  I leap to the floor and then to the door. I peer through the crack as I plan my attack.

  Now I do not know whether to move in the model of “The Raven” or “The Night Before Christmas,” because what to my wandering eyes should appear…

  But a figure all in black.

  It could be a raven, a very large raven. It could be Santa, fresh from a shoot down the soot of a chimney.

  However, this is Miss Temple Barr’s home, sweet home, so if a large black object appears unannounced, it is likely Mr. Max Kinsella.

  This time he is not bearing gifts, like pizza, but is truly checking the place out, like a, ahem, cat burglar.

  Before I can pounce, he rushes the bedroom door and pushes it open.

  I can barely sidestep the inevitable black eye, which is never a noticeable condition in my case.

  “You!” he says, acknowledging my presence. “She must have gone already. Where?”

  At that he marches right in and begins searching the premises as if I was not there and to be reckoned with. He does not even pause to give me time to answer, although I admit that I would not.

  From the tumble of comforter he lifts the solitary monokini that Miss Temple had tried on in an inexplicable moment of craven feminine weakness. I cringe to have her minor moment of experimentation exposed to other eyes than my own.

  He finds the crushed K-Wigs bag on the closet floor.

  He stares at me as if he would like to wring an answer from my helpless esophagus (not knowing that he probably could), then turns and ransacks the rest of the apartment.

  I follow at a discreet distance.

  I fear no man, but I do recognize one at the limits of his patience. And I have seen the strength in Mr. Max Kinsella’s clever fingers. I would prefer for them not to be playing Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata on my epiglottis.

  So I tippy-toe after the human cyclone that Mr. Max has become.

  He has searched the kitchen and living room and is now in the second bedroom, aka the office.

  I hear a woman’s voice.

  Has Miss Temple returned for something she forgot, like me?

  No such luck. As I near the open door, I notice that the voice has a distant recorded quality. It is as husky as a bull walrus, but it is still a woman.

  “Temple, honey,” she is saying again, on rewind. “Lindy. Sorry to miss you. I was wrong about that guy you were asking about. He’s not going to be where I said he was. He’ll be at Secrets tonight. I hope this call isn’t too late. Give me a buzz when you have my message so I know you’re all right.”

  “Thanks, lady! All wrong, but at least she’s safe,” Mr. Max snarls at the answering machine as he bangs the button to stop the machine. “Temple, Temple, Temple…” He sighs before leaving.

  He does not even notice my presence in the room, although I have assumed a position under the desk that would be extremely difficult to notice.

  Still, he is the Mystifying Max, and one would hope he would be a little better than this.

  I cogitate a bit after he leaves. I am sure that this call came through while Miss Temple was making like Gypsy Rose LeVine to that awful hubbub on the radio. I distinctly heard her murmur “Baby Doll’s presents….” Mr. Max is heading in the wrong direction, yet I am sure the action at Secrets will be particularly vibrant tonight when he goes there to find out who Miss Temple had a hankering to follow. I am now a totally free agent, as now I know my roommate has gone off somewhere completely safe.

  I hop up on the desk. I have never gotten much into cyber-crime, but I am not ignorant of the possibilities. Besides, what I have in mind is more techno-crime. Thoughtfully, I rewind the message that Mr. Max so heedlessly l
eft unreeled.

  My big mitts suffer somewhat from what retired boxers call cauliflower ear. They have been bruised and battered by many months of hitting the pavement when I was a homeless dude. Still, these answering machine buttons are not beyond my manipulations. After some preliminary misdials and abrupt hangups, I manage to find and hit the autodial button that directs my call to Lieutenant C. R. Molina’s office at the LVMPD.

  When her voice answers — and I do not know if it is real or recorded — I hit replay and let the message Mr. Max heard transfer to the lieutenant’s end of the line.

  It will certainly be interesting to see who shows up at Secrets tonight. And when. And what they all do about it.

  Of course I am heading that way myself.

  Every catastrophe in the making deserves an impartial witness.

  I am so glad my Miss Temple was headed in a different, utterly safe direction before that — shall I say, fateful? — message came through.

  Diamonds or Dust

  In the dusk Matt walked to the Strip, then took a bus.

  He got off downtown and wandered the enclosed area, drifting into the open entries to raucous casinos, veering back onto the canopied concourse to gawk up at the sky-size Las Vegas version of a CineMax screen with the tourists. Images danced like the aurora borealis on crystal meth over them all. No one noticed him.

  He caught a cab near the Four Queens and took it to Bally’s. He ambled through the hotel to the monorail and took it to the MGM Grand.

  He walked through the miles of lobby and gaming areas there, then ducked out a side exit.

  Then he hiked to the Goliath.

  This was the night.

  Act or be acted upon forever.

  Do or die.

  He killed a half hour in the Goliath lobby before he even approached the front desk.

  He had seen no one who knew him.

  No one who looked like Kitty in disguise with diamonds, though he’d seen a lot of diamonds in the shopping area.

  Diamonds were made under immense pressure, built up for eons in the hidden center of the earth.