Midnight Louie 05-Cat in a Diamond Dazzle

by Douglas, Carole Nelson

  Some pirate crew horseplay had splashed the front-row occupants with a whiplash of water.

  Under cover of squeals and claps, Temple darted down two rows and sank down right before the pirate treasure.

  She clasped her hands like a princess bride, hardly believing she was now front-row center, staring at the object of her outing. The temptingly ajar lid looked permanently glued into place. She would have to get on her knees and peer into its shadowed mouth, perhaps even pry it open more, if possible. A good thing she wasn't wearing pantyhose, she thought, as she knee-walked into position and twisted to peer inside the lid. Something pale and glittering as a shark's tooth tickled her eye. She craned her head closer to the chest, hearing distant shouts and laughter.

  Was it a crystal-encrusted toe? Or a ... a fork tine? And stainless steel at that? What kind of pirate treasure were these yahoos passing off here--?

  A strong hand clasped her elbow and jerked her upright.

  Temple gasped and turned. The frowning first mate was leering at her, his trusty rubber dagger clenched in his impeccably white, even teeth.

  "Aha!" he said so broadly that Temple thought he could walk the plank on his villainous tone alone.

  "Another meddling but comely lass. Booty for below."

  Another pirate came swinging down like Tarzan to alight beside them. "We'll take her aboard," her captor decreed, pulling Temple nearer in his sweaty embrace to stage-whisper, "Just hang on and put your feet on the knot. You'll be fine."

  Even as he spoke he grabbed a passing cable and stepped up on the heavy knot, holding Temple with only one arm.

  Before she could blink, they were sailing over the lagoon like blind mice clinging to the pendulum of a grandfather clock. Temple's feet flailed for the advertised knot, but she was too short to reach it, so she clung to the sailor and the rope, watching the blurred world shoot past like running water colors.

  Somewhere in that sea of smudged faces were Electra and Kit.

  The first mate landed with a jolt on an upper deck, letting the rope swing back across the water.

  "That's what you get for lusting after pirate treasure," he announced to Temple and the world at large, thanks to the wonders of portable mikes and modern sound systems.

  "Oh, please, sir," she pled prettily, "I must return to my aged and ill grandmother and great-aunt."

  The microphones hidden about the scene bounced her voice from waterline to rooftop.

  Something else bounced: the poop deck as the pirate captain swung jauntily to deck, where he engaged the first mate in a bit of choreographed swordplay. What was not choreographed was Temple's presence. She had no refuge but cowering against the mast while the pretend pirates traded steel and corny lines.

  The audience, safe in their seats across what looked like a hundred feet of cold water (it was October and the nights grew chill), laughed at her plight.

  At last the first mate dropped his sword to the deck and performed three backward flips to elude the captain's vengeful blade.

  "Worry not," the victor announced, grinning beneath his red bandana, "I will return you safe and sound to yon shore."

  With that he seized Temple in one arm and the convenient rope in another.

  "Oh, no," she protested, "I'd rather swim."

  "That can be arranged!" The first mate was charging them, dagger at the ready, as the captain shoved off with a booted foot.

  Once again Temple was airborn with a strange man (very strange), swinging at a tummy-twisting speed over the water wide to the pier.

  They landed with only an instant to debark before the rope swung back. The captain escorted her to an empty seat with a bow ... which a mutinous crewman took advantage of, hitting the red bandana with a belaying pin.

  While the captain kissed concrete, the first mate swung over to recapture the real fair maiden, who hopped aboard the rope like a pro, protesting all the while.

  Temple slumped in her seat, her head spinning from the motion, the noise, the uncertainty. She sat still for the rest of the show, and applauded when the last "Avast, ye cowardly dogs!" had been shouted and the last crewman had taken a watery dive.

  So she remained while Kit and Electra edged toward her as the audience filed out of the amphitheater.

  "Are you all right?"

  Either Kit or Electra had asked that question, and Temple didn't care which.

  "Right as rum," she declared, standing and swaying slightly, as if still aboard a rope. "Except I think I'm seasick."

  "You looked so cute swinging back and forth," Electra said. "Much cuter than that other girl."

  " That other girl' is a gymnast," Temple pointed out. "I'm not. If I looked cute, I must seek more opportunities for sheer terror, then, and have my picture taken." Her usually gritty voice had been scared into a growl. "I should sue those swashbuckling goons."

  She stiffened as one of the offenders bounded over: the first mate, his sword tabled and his grin more friendly than fiendish this time.

  "Say, you did okay. I figured you would. We're supposed to interact with the audience, and you made a great target, sneaking a peak into our treasure chest. I hope you didn't mind the ride. It's pretty safe."

  "Pretty?"

  "And so are you," he said with a bow.

  Smarmy talk would get him nowhere. Temple didn't respond.

  "Why were you so interested in the chest, anyway?" he asked.

  "Well." Temple paused. Her last attempt to explain a complicated situation had gathered a gaping crowd at the wedding chapel. Somehow she didn't think rhinestone cat shoes would fly here, even if she had. "I'm a high school drama teacher," she said, lying through her pirate-white teeth. "We're putting on The Merchant of Venice. I wanted some ideas for doing the three suitors' chests for the play."

  "Cool." The first mate nodded, his long blond hair going along for the ride. He smiled dutifully at Kit and Electra, then bounded to wherever pirate scum go to wait for the next show.

  "No shoes, huh?" Electra joined Kit in staring at the abandoned treasure chest.

  "Nothing but some plastic pearls and a tin fork." Temple brightened. "Maybe I don't think big enough."

  "This is a pretty big chest," Kit pointed out.

  "Not the chest! The site. Where we need to try next is the Treasure Island Hotel. That place must be crawling with treasure chests."

  "Not us," Electra said. "Our aged grandmotherly hearts can't take watching you swing from a poop deck."

  "Also our aging great-auntly hearts," Kit added.

  "Come on, I had to say something to earn audience sympathy!"

  "Too bad you didn't get ours," Electra said.

  "We need to get back to our duties at the convention." Kit looked speculatively at Electra. "Maybe we can find our own manly dope-on-a-rope who has a scissors phobia and a serious case of myopia." She and Kit turned to join the people shuffling out of the amphitheater. One was not shuffling. One had stopped by the entrance, hat in hand, to grin at the oncoming trio.

  "Eightball! What are you doing here?" Temple asked.

  "No need to ask what you're up to, is there? Thinking of joining the Big Top?" He gestured with his dapper straw fedora to the ship's mast-tops. "Circus Circus might have an opening. I know the security head there."

  "I intend to keep my feet on the ground from now on," Temple said with grim determination.

  "And I intend to make sure that she does," Electra added.

  Eightball offered her a nod and a tight smile. Then he clamped the hat on his balding head and asked Electra, "That Hesketh Vampire still running smooth as polished steel?"

  "Absolutely, when I've got time to take her out for a howl."

  "Noticed you were away from the Ritz," he said.

  "Did you?" Electra sounded unaccountably pleased. "How did that happen?"

  Eightball's toe stubbed the damp concrete, which had been baptized by the buccaneers' shenanigans.

  "Went to say hello to Matt. He mentioned that you and Miss Barr had
headed for the hills. Didn't know where."

  "Didn't he? I guess we should be pleased that he noticed we were gone." Electra winked at Temple.

  "Well, I'm going to school at the Crystal Phoenix, and Temple is there to make sure that I crack the books."

  "School at the Phoenix?" Eightball dislodged the hat to scratch his head. "This lady the schoolmarm?"

  He nodded at Kit, who had been patiently waiting for an introduction.

  "Kit Carlson." She extended her hand for a businesslike shake. "Mr.... Eightball."

  "Heck, Eightball's my handle. Last name is O'Rourke."

  "Eightball is a private detective," Temple put in helpfully.

  Kit arched her eyebrows. "Really? Maybe you could drop by our romance convention. A lot of romance writers are moving into mystery and intrigue. You'd be a great visiting expert."

  "No way, ladies. I don't have nothing to do with those books."

  Mention of romance had Eightball backing away as if he had seen a snake. With a parting nod and an edgy adjustment of his hat, Eightball O'Rourke joined the crowds ambling through the theme park.

  "You see what I mean," Kit said with a sigh.

  Temple nodded. "Even the word 'romance' is poison to some men."

  "They're just afraid to admit their romantic feelings," Electra added. "It's not macho."

  "Except for The Bridges of Madison County," Temple said. "Maybe Clint Eastwood playing the lead made romantic love manly again."

  "Don't mention that dirty rotten book!" Kit's face flushed with feeling. "One man writes a hasty, three-hanky romance glorifying adultery. Give it a nonromance title and it's suddenly respectable.

  Booksellers who sneer at paperback romance fiction can't push it at their clients fast enough. It becomes a major bestseller. Hundreds of women have written romances celebrating monogamy and female empowerment, but they're chopped liver, even the megasellers, when it comes to respect. Besides, everyone thinks that silly Francesca was so noble to stay with her husband and kids after her fling with the traveling photographer ... but what happened after the f-stop was over and Mr. Snapshot packed up his light meters and moved on? She lived a lie with her own family for the rest of her life, presumably."

  "Easy, easy." Electra patted Kit's shoulder. "The reviewers didn't much care for Waller either.

  Speaking for myself, I can hardly wait to get back to the hotel and start my contest romance. But, say,"

  she added, guiding Kit into the slipstream of tourists, "maybe I should consider using a male pseudonym now--"

  Temple trailed them, momentarily immune to such issues as men and romance and money-making schemes. She was pondering where she should search for the Midnight Louie shoes next.

  One woman's passion is another woman's feet.

  Chapter 11

  Blue Dahlia Bogey Boogie

  Lieutenant Molina wouldn't have housed a homicide suspect in it, but Carmen loved her tacky dressing room at the Blue Dahlia.

  It was only a large storage closet that the management had dedicated to her use. She had furnished it with a battered '30s Goodwill dressing table, the film-noir kind with a big round mirror centered between two low pillars of drawers. The maintenance man had scrounged a couple strips of makeup lights to act as sconces on either side.

  A matching bench was too low for her height, and the lighting looked better than it lit, but the forties nightclub dressing-room ambiance tickled her fantasy. When she got out the Carmen paraphernalia, she felt like a big girl playing a little girl playing dress up.

  The act of singing under a spotlight, however tiny the stage, the ritual of assuming another persona and then losing herself in the lyrical landscapes of the great old songs, these were all creation and recreation to her. She never changed clothes and left right after a performance. Instead, she sat and drank the whiskey and soda Rudy always had waiting on the blue-mirrored glass atop the dressing table.

  She hummed some Gershwin, thought of nothing and everything, and replayed the music in her mind.

  She was lucky to have this romantic escape from the realities of her profession.

  She studied herself in the mirror. Lieutenant Molina didn't look in mirrors, but Carmen could, being a creature of smoke and illusion. Matt Devine's comment that her Carmen persona provided a playground for a policewoman's sensual side floated to the forefront of her thoughts.

  Her mirror image rolled her eyes. How weird for an ex-priest to express such an intimate insight!

  Even now she felt slightly embarrassed, whether by the remark's source or its truth, she wasn't sure. But Devine had used the dry, dispassionate tones of a trained counselor, and his perception was probably true.

  Some women who went into police work, especially on the patrol level, reveled in the ultra-feminine: long nails, bleached hair, hard-edged makeup. That only reinforced any innate chauvinism and made the men's wives uneasy. Women hankering after careers rather than personal attention kept a rigorously neutral profile. Sure, they were called tough bitches and lezzies for it, but in time the lack of nonsense won out and won over.

  So successful had C. R. Molina been at this form of defensive coloration that her showy alter ego had become something of a risk. If word of Carmen got out now, she would not like it.

  She touched the signature blue dahlia, pulling a loose bobby pin from her hair and dropping it into a top drawer. The drawers, cramped and cheaply made, tended to slide awry. She bent her attention on making the drawer shut and only accomplished it with a bang.

  When she looked up, she was no longer alone in the room, or the broom closet, rather.

  The closed door framed a man's figure, as if he were painted on it. A professional description leaped into her mind: six-three or -four, 180 pounds, black slacks, black turtleneck sweater, black hair. Eyes indeterminate. Of course she hadn't heard or seen him come in; Michael Aloysius Xavier Kinsella was a magician, wasn't he? At least sometimes.

  If his unconventional entrance was supposed to surprise or alarm her, he wasn't counting on the steadiest nerves in the LVMPD. Who did he think she was, anyway, and why was he here?

  "Thanks for knocking." She lowered her eyes to the dressing table as if searching for something among the sparse accoutrements and didn't have to worry about watching him at all.

  She looked up again when he pushed himself away from the door with a gymnast's ultra-controlled ease. "The situation didn't seem to call for formalities."

  "What situation? Are you a fan?"

  His smile was slight, and slightly mischievous. "Only since tonight."

  "A new customer. Still, you could knock. We're not that hard up."

  "Not if I wanted to enter unseen."

  "Don't tell me. A deranged fan. I've always wanted one."

  "I've always wanted an explanation."

  "Of what?"

  "Yourself."

  "I don't see why."

  "You should, Lieutenant."

  "As you should know that I want an explanation of my own. But not here. I believe the expression is

  'downtown.''

  "I believe you have to take what you can get."

  She didn't answer, never having settled for that, but well aware that he had chosen this time and place to suit his purpose.

  She spun around on the bench to face him in something other than the deceptive, reflective glass-made-mirror by a dark, poisonous cloud of silver nitrate.

  "So what brought you back, Kinsella, after all this time?" she asked in her usual flat, professional tones, empty even of curiosity.

  "Apparently you have nothing better to do than harass Temple."

  She felt humor flare when she least wanted it, but had no time to veil the impulse. "I would say that the case is just the opposite."

  "You don't appear very harrassable."

  "Let's say that Miss Barr has a talent for getting underfoot at the scene of a crime. Since she has never been very forthcoming about your past, present and future whereabouts, I make a point of
asking whenever the occasion presents itself."

  "Apparently an occasion presented itself to produce my class photo from Interpol."

  She leaned back against the dressing table, resting her head in her hand, and smiled. "You know, it really is rather intriguing to be the interrogatee for a change. Is this what you did for the IRA?"

  His head shook in wry disgust. "That old bureaucratic snafu means nothing, except to Temple."

  "They say love is blind, but I guess it's not color-blind." She stood slowly, and tilted her head again.

  "Let's see, are they green, or blue?"

  "Nobody's business," Kinsella said tightly. "I had no idea the police were so interested in professional illusions. That Interpol alert was a farce when it was issued seventeen years ago, and its unconscionable ancient history now. Why brandish it in front of Temple?"

  "Good psychology." She sat again, preferring to appear more casually in control. "Her idiotic loyalty to you made her a hostile witness. I needed to wake her up to the fact that I had good reason to be interested in you and your whereabouts."

  "So you had to unmask me as some sort of imposter."

  She shrugged. "Aren't you? I'm not one of your admiring audience, Kinsella. I'm not a gullible little girl from the Heartland. Don't expect me to buy for a moment the notion that you abandoned a lucrative performing career on an inexplicable whim. And where is all that money you made performing, anyway?

  Miss Barr often struggles to pay her mortgage and monthly maintenance on her own income. Why sign her up as a co-owner if you had planned to skip out so soon?"

  "Does your job allow you to sling suspicions at any passing stranger?"

  "Do you think you can vanish just as a dead body is discovered on your turf and not stir up interest?"

  "The Goliath is a big place, Lieutenant. That's why it's called the Goliath. The employees alone number in the thousands, not to mention guests and gamblers. Why should I have anything at all to do with that dead body of yours?"

  "Because all of a sudden, you weren't there."

  "My contract with the hotel had ended; there was no reason for me to stay."