Cat in an Alien X-Ray: A Midnight Louie Mystery (Midnight Louie Mysteries Book 25)

by Carole Nelson Douglas

  Kathleen had lost them in the Treasure Island’s tropical greenery. Not Max, but by then he’d been more curious about who was following her than where she went. There was always tomorrow night to track down Kitty the Cutter.

  The other guy was either an amateur or aware of Max on his tail and not minding it. He not only lost Kathleen, but he did nothing to lose Max. Maybe he didn’t know Max was behind him all the way to his home ground.

  Max’s suspicions were uncertain as to his exact identity, but the possibilities gave him a chill. In fact, what he was concluding was impossible. Isn’t it?

  No way he could throw out this new development for speculation on Temple’s round table of crime. This was even more shocking, to him personally, than Matt Devine’s hookup with Kathleen O’Connor.

  Chapter 43

  Cat Tails

  I pause in a shadow made by the slight instep rise on Goliath’s left sandal.

  One of the wonders of the ancient world was the Colossus of Rhodes, a mighty 110-foot statue of a giant man guarding that Grecian island’s harbor before the turn of the first century.

  Naturally, this is just the thing to re-create in the Mojave desert.

  When Las Vegas hosts a hotel named the Goliath, one can be sure the several-story statue of the biblical giant David toppled with a slingshot will be even taller, if less tasteful, than the Old World inspiration.

  Essentially, every man, woman, and child who enters the Goliath Hotel and casino must walk under the figure’s skirt. Perhaps I should describe it as a battle kilt. Those Greek and Roman gods and men were not ashamed of showing a lot of knee and thigh.

  Call it statutory gape.

  Anyway, I would not normally pause under a landmark of such vulgarity, but I am a wee bit weary and the hour is even more wee. My quarry has gone to ground inside the Goliath, and it is now nigh on four o’clock in the morning. I have been on the prowl since before midnight, being carried concealed during two car rides and now wondering what to do.

  People still stagger in and out, under and even around Goliath’s mighty legs. Perhaps I should give up the quest. I yawn and glance around the mostly empty driveway.

  A flash of neon light attracts my fatigued gaze to Goliath’s other sandal. It appears something gaudy is glittering beneath it. Hmm. I only recently uncovered a ruby earring under a bridal hem. I scan the area, then slink fast and silent to the other sandal, nosing into the shadow.

  Whomp! I have run face-first into a thornbush, or a bee, or a porcupine.

  As my eyes adjust to the change from dark to light to dark, I realize what drew me was the green reflection at the back of a golden eye.

  “Louise! What are you doing here and why are you whacking me?” I stroke a mitt across my kisser, feeling the slight sting of four claws to the chops.

  “This is my temporary territory,” she announces. “When did you show up?”

  “I was here first. I had staked out the other sandal while my prey vanished inside.”

  “Really? I was here first, but my prey has performed the same dirty trick as yours.”

  “It is diabolical when these humans escape into pigeon coops with three thousand cubicles. Perhaps we are tailing the same individual?” I suggest.

  “You say first.”

  I am reluctant to commit. Discretion is a professional responsibility. “I came from the south,” I concede.

  “I came from the northeast.”

  We settle down to sit and mull that information.

  “You are not tailing your roommate, as is your wont?” she asks.

  “Nope. Not my want right now.”

  “Then you are tailing Mr. Matt Devine. The Circle Ritz is south of here.”

  “And I suppose you, Louise, are on the trail of your crush, Mr. Max Kinsella.”

  “Ridiculous charge! I merely keep an eye on him because he is always after someone who is up to no good.”

  “Hmm. I am here because I fear Mr. Matt is up to no good.”

  “Maybe he is whom Mr. Max is tailing?”

  “That is not good.” I sit half-up, senses sharpened. “Mr. Matt is leaving.”

  “Poor man. He looks very downcast and … furtive.”

  “My poor Miss Temple!”

  “Aha! You are an idiot if I say so myself. Your Miss Temple is following him out on her high heels.”

  “My Miss Temple is home in bed, where she should be, and I should be there with her.”

  “I am sure your devotion goes over well with Mr. Matt.”

  “None of your business! And are you blind? That is not Miss Temple. She does not wear high heels of that instep-mangling height. That woman wears true stilettos.”

  “Sharp,” Louise purrs admiringly.

  Meanwhile, I am frowning. Mr. Matt is hunching his way to the side parking lot, but this woman wears a black trench coat and hat. Hot for Vegas, but hot fashion items nowadays. She is clicking away in the opposite direction, face obscured.

  “We will have to split up,” I decree. “Louise, you follow Mr. Matt. If you hurry, you can slip into the backseat of the Jaguar when he opens the door. I will take on the strange woman in black who seemed to follow him out.”

  Miss Midnight Louise pulses her shivs in and out on the pavement while she considers.

  “Midnight Investigations, Inc., has only one motto, Louise. Divide and conquer. Go!”

  I give her an encouraging pat on the back, and she shoots out into the open, spitting her farewell as I flex my shivs. It is tit for tat. She must dash away without dawdling to escape the blinding entry area lights and catch up to Mr. Matt.

  I turn to follow the well-heeled mystery woman. Then the soft scrape of a shoe on stone makes me pause.

  Now I see whom Louise has followed here. Mr. Max Kinsella. His height and recovered stride gives him away despite the fedora he wears like an old-time PI.

  Since he is heading in the direction of the woman in question, I pad into the line behind him … just in time to spot a heavyset man in a fedora step out from an idle hotel van and follow the woman on the long walk to the parking areas behind the hotel.

  The adventuresome individual can find unlikely paths through and around and beyond the tourist-frequented areas of the massive hotel-casino buildings.

  I am wishing I had the stride length of the long-left-behind Goliath statue by the time the woman cuts through some thick parking lot foliage and the man following her veers off the trail.

  So does Mr. Max.

  Now I shadow two men, until the first heads into the looming shadow of a parking ramp behind the usual mega-looming shadow of a major strip hotel. I must say Mr. Max’s walking ability is back to normal and making tracks.

  Mr. Max follows him inside, but by the time I work my way into the parked cars, I hear footsteps heading my way. I dash under the nearest SUV. He is heading away from the hotel and I am in no mood to follow.

  My pads have been worn to nubs and all I want is to settle down where I am and enjoy a peaceful snooze. I wiggle my posterior farther under the vehicle … and feel I have backed into a cactus.

  “Yeowww!”

  “Quiet, Pops,” Louise mews contentedly. “I decided to tail you. It is a long hike back to our main bases. I say we head for Ma Barker’s territory at dawn and recruit some temporary tailers.”

  “We were two short,” I agree. “And if that is not Miss Kathleen O’Connor who has drawn all the male attention, I will eat her hat.”

  “You will eat your hat,” she has to correct me.

  “No, Louise, I will eat hers, and you can chow down on your Mr. Max’s fedora.”

  Chapter 44

  Cop Shop Talk

  “Hell yes, kid. In the old days, they’d jerk out your fingernails and force-feed ’em to your dog for good measure. They’d weld you into a drum and send you down the river. The Mexican cartels are just now revving up to that level of plain deviltry.”

  Molina had given Matt one crumb at the end of their meeting: contact
info for Woodrow Wetherly, a Metro cop who’d retired in the ’80s. That put him in his own eighties, and his skin looked every centimeter of it. He was as spotted as a hyena on face, hands, and forearms, further embellished by enough blue and black splotches to give a tattoo artist envy. It was all just sun damage.

  Matt resolved then and there to use the high-octane sunscreen Temple was always after him about. The three golden hairs left on Wetherly’s mostly bald head remained a permanent reminder of his original blond coloring, like Matt’s.

  “Call me Woody. I don’t get why the lady lieutenant would send a civilian to me for mob gossip. You write for one of those digital rags, Mr. Devine?”

  “No. Radio’s my medium.”

  “Radio.” Wetherly nodded and relaxed enough to light up a stogie that was waiting half-smoked in the big crystal ashtray on the table beside his lounger chair. “I did a lot of radio interviews in the 2000s. Nostalgia about the mob mostly, and how Metro and the FBI rid the city of all that jazz.

  “The end of the ’80s, that’s when they started imploding all those mob-financed hotels, and as they hit the dirt, so did the gangsters that laundered money through them. I’m thinking of writing a book,” he added, which sounded like a line he’d used for years. “Would you want me on your radio show to talk about all that stuff?”

  “Sure, someday.” Matt didn’t have Temple’s ease and maybe lack of conscience about jollying people along for his own purposes.

  “What’s the name of your show, sonny?”

  “The Midnight Hour.”

  Wetherly puffed on his cigar, releasing an odor of burning tires. “Sounds like a good tough crime show.”

  It did, so Matt just nodded.

  “What are you wanting to know about any of this stuff going on now?”

  “I wonder if there could be mob interest in illegally stockpiled money and guns. Something that had been accruing for a few years.”

  “‘Accruing.’” Wetherly laughed heartily until his aged tobacco mirth died off into a gagging cough. “Gang interest, for sure.” He hacked a bit more behind his spotted, hairy hand. “Punks. Criminals are just punks now. Mean, yes, and stupid. And greedy. Always greedy. But the mob. Those guys had organization. You worked your way up, like in a bank. You did okay with the little jobs, you got bigger ones, and you got bigger. And those guys didn’t talk. No jailhouse confessions from them. They went to the grave with their lips sealed, just like Jimmy Hoffa.”

  “But … he was a union bigwig the mob turned on.”

  “And he paid the price. But his death and the body never being found … that was old-time merciless mob boss stuff. No one ever found his body. Forever. That is mob vengeance.”

  “So a … flashy brutal killing?”

  “That’s mob too. That’s mob sending a message. Usually to shut up the troops. Making an example.”

  “They say the mob is out of Vegas.”

  “In a wholesale way like years ago, yeah. But there are still operations, like in other cities.”

  “So the survivors might be organized enough to … plan a heist, say?”

  “Heist? No. Nope. Nothing that obvious. Amateursville. Heists are the work of small-time grifters who think they’ll get away with it, and they never do. Vegas was always a town that did business under the table, not in the street, assault rifles blazing.”

  “But if the prize, the money or the guns, were someone else’s hidden stockpile, would traditional mobsters go after it?”

  A wheezing laugh sounded like it might do the old guy in for good. Matt sat forward, ready to catch him if he toppled.

  No risk. Wetherly slapped the arms of his faux-leather upholstery and leaned back so far, the footrest popped out with a metallic snap.

  Matt jumped.

  Woody laughed even harder. “Scared you some, didn’t it? This is one scary chair. Anyway, the answer is yes. I know a few old-timers who’d go after a secret stash. One in particularly.”

  Matt saw a story coming on and just nodded, something he couldn’t do on the radio to encourage a shy caller. Wetherly was too old to be shy.

  He leaned close enough for Matt to smell his cigar breath. “This is between you and me, not for the radio, right?”

  Matt nodded again, fighting not to pull back from the foul breath.

  Wetherly’s smile broadened, showing crowded yellow teeth. He leaned back. “There was this old kingpin. Jeez, he’d be in his nineties now. Or almost there. But back in the ’70s, he was big. We never could nail him for nothing, but pills, prostitution, protection—he was all over those rackets. Jack the Hammer, they called him.”

  “After Jack the Ripper?” Matt wondered.

  Wetherly shook his head from side to side with a tight-lipped smile. He leaned forward again, and Matt was too mesmerized to draw back.

  “Cross him, and he’d drive you far out into the desert, which wasn’t that far in the old days. There was always a construction site. There was always a compressor with a jackhammer.…” Wetherly grinned.

  “He killed people with a jackhammer?”

  “Not people, kid. Rivals, upstarts, petty crooks who got greedy. You’ll never see anything on him in all those mob museums, not old Giacchino Petrocelli, because they never caught him and nobody ever killed him.”

  “You’re sure he didn’t end up on the business end of his own jackhammer?”

  “Only God and the buzzards know, sonny.”

  “Jah-keen-o, how is that spelled?”

  “It’s Italian. The J names always start with G-i-a, then two c’s give you k pronunciation. G-i-a-c-c-h-i-n-o. You jottted that down right. And ‘Petrocelli’ is right too. Okay. So what you up to? You want to make a headstone for the old mobster?”

  “I might want to research him, for my show.”

  “I’d watch myself. My theory is Old Giacch-o is still out there, all alone and sitting on his millions. And maybe floating a few deals or corpses even today.”

  “Like that dead body of an old man that was dumped off Paradise behind the Strip a week ago?”

  “Never knew that guy was old. Who’d bother offing someone my age?” Wetherly wheezed out a laugh that neared a cackle. Then his narrowed eyes almost disappeared in the dunes of flesh surrounding them. “I see, sonny. You’re thinking it might be some old-time mob guy.”

  “Yeah,” Matt said. “Like that guy who was tied to the pirate ship prow after dark at the Oasis, and drowned with the ship when it sank.”

  “Ooh, that was a nasty do-in, wasn’t it? Buried in the paper, though.” Wetherly nodded sagely. “Just like that. I hadn’t thought of old Giaccho, but maybe he wanted to change his MO to keep the police away from the fact that he is maybe still out there somewhere.”

  The chair squealed as Wetherly slapped himself back into reclining position. He was still a big guy.

  “I slam back a few at the cop bars around town. That ‘victim,’ Effinger, was known as a bad lot. Ran errands for anything shady around town. But he never was big enough to merit a mob offing with full honors. Weird case.”

  “There’s a rumor Effinger knew something about the loot from an old heist.”

  “Rumors.” Wetherly had turned scoffing. “Effinger was a rat fink, a pathetic hanger-on scratching out a few bucks now and then. If Jack the Hammer is still out there, he would have rubbed him out on principle.”

  Wetherly’s contempt of his dead stepfather warmed Matt’s heart, not a very charitable reaction. It was always good, though, to learn his own opinion was shared by leaders in their field … in Effinger’s case, cops and crooks alike.

  Matt thanked the old cop, who actually rose to see him out.

  Wetherly whistled when he spotted the Jaguar at his curb. “Must have robbed a bank yourself.”

  Matt smiled modestly. “My show does all right.”

  “Keep it up,” the old man advised, “you’ll be seamed and freckled and useless like me before you know it.”

  “You’ve been really helpfu
l,” Matt assured him, surviving a crushing handshake before he finally got away.

  Old people liked to talk. He often had to hurry them along on the radio. This old guy, though, had given him some solid information.

  Maybe Molina would find the first dead guy at Area 54 had links to this Petrocelli character or his old-time operation.

  Meanwhile, he checked his cell phone. Temple had texted him to come home. Max had found some new evidence to review.

  Matt gunned the Jaguar away from the house, a rare expression of aggravation. Max Kinsella and his precious “evidence” could be abducted by aliens and never heard from again, as far as he was concerned.

  Chapter 45

  Murder Ménage III: The Thirteenth Sign

  Max finally had his magic moment. He looked at Temple and Matt to gather their attention as they sat at the round table.

  Then he produced the scrap of paper he’d rescued from the Professor Mangel magic exhibition at the University of Nevada campus here several days ago, saving it for this savoring moment, flourishing it between his fingers like a paper bouquet.

  “Voilà!”

  “You’re sounding very French lately,” Temple observed.

  “The language of love and mystery.” Max would not let guilt over his recent French connection deny him his ooh-la-la moment of revelation. “I found this inside a coin box, a magic trick box, at Professor Mangel’s exhibition on the university campus.”

  “A puzzle box?” Matt asked.

  “It’s a small box with hidden chambers.”

  “Kind of like the human heart,” Matt said.

  Max paused. “Exactly. Magicians meant it to be impenetrable by the average person, and I’ve seen the clever average person buy such puzzle boxes to hide pot from the police. I gamed the mechanism after a thorough inspection.”

  “Why did you tamper with the Mangel exhibition?” Temple asked.

  “Magician’s instinct. I psyched out where I’d hide something there. I figured if someone killed him and left his body in that Ophiuchus position, it must have been because he knew something about the Synth. Something dangerous to them.”