"Molina? You mean 'that bozo' who didn't believe me when I said I didn't know where you were? You were planning to deal with Molina?"
He shrugged, looked away. "It was an idea. But more than that, Temple." He'd forgotten about the screen and its secret flow of information at last. He was looking at her now, convincing her, selling her. "Maybe, maybe I can unravel this business that's been dogging me for half my life. Maybe I can do it without having to vanish and run."
He wanted her to believe him, as she had once done. As it might be so easy to do again.
She sighed as she smiled. "It's your life, Max. I can tell you what I think, but I can't tell you what to do, or where to go, or not to go.
"I want you to tell me what you feel."
Oh, so many things, none of them quite entirely trustworthy yet, just like Max Kinsella, computer whiz kid.
"Hungry," she said.
Chapter 34
Tripping the Lights Fantastic
This is not an easy climb but I make it in forty seconds flat, even though it is the dark of night. I have been keeping a low profile for the past couple of days, for good reason.
It is not every day that a fellow learns he is the likely object of an assassination attempt. It is even unlikelier that said fellow learns of this conspiracy from the mouth of a dead cat. Actually, I prefer to think that the shade of the late Maurice was really an animated former life, say one through eight, rather than the actual corpus.
I mean, I would not like to be hauled out of my own Endless Sleep to make forced personal appearances before unwilling observers dressed in the same tacky old fur I had taken to the grave with me. I am told that human ghosts almost invariably appear clothed. I think such decency could extend to feline ghosts in death, if not in life. What would one wear? I assume anything is possible.
I myself would look dashing in a Cavalier outfit, a la Puss of the fancy footwear fame, i.e., Boots. Miss Temple Barr is not the only one who can obsess over elaborate accessories. A scarlet lining for my swashbucklers would contrast nicely with my coat color and symbolize my long career as a famed hunter and detective. I can forego the floppy hat (I saw entirely enough floppy hats at the last seance to last me at least three lifetimes), but a crimson ostrich plume would be nice. Especially if the ostrich went with it, yum yum. (I understand that ostrich is a delicate, chicken-like dish with a commendably low fat content. On the other hand, I do not know if low-fat cuisine counts for much on the Other Side, where hopefully we can all cavort, indulging in everything that is bad for us and the planet without limitation. That is my idea of cat heaven.) Right now I am climbing up hard and fast to get into Cat Hell.
I am over the last barrier in a flash. Still panting, I tackle the door. After one swipe of my powerful mitt, the latch cries for mercy and throws the door into my path. It is open only an inch, but an inch is always enough for a second-story man of my skill. I paw that door open and crash through into the dark beyond. I do not care who hears me. I am tired of the psychic, the subtle and the disembodied. I am mortal yet and I do not mind who knows it.
My quarry is cringing under the sofa, but I reach right in and make a lethal swipe, nails cocked.
I am rewarded by a startled growl from the dark underworld beyond the sofa fringe.
This changes into a glowing green scowl of two anger-slanted eyes. I snag said swaying fringe--a Fifties-vintage twine of cocoa and gilt--with one shiv and rip.
"No!" comes a horrified shriek. "Madame Electra adores every twisted strand on that fringe."
"I am not interested in Madame Electra's twisted strands. Come out here and face me like a physical being, or I will unstring this fringe from here to Hoover Dam. I will wrap the Circle Ritz up in it like a Christmas present. I will pull out all these gilt threads and give them to the flamingos at the zoo for nesting material--"
But my threats have worked. Karma slithers out from under the sofa, not a graceful move since she is too big-boned for such narrow spaces.
"I was napping," she sniffs, "and Madame Electra is sleeping, as every person of good will is at this time of night. What are you doing, barging into my temple at this hour?"
'Temple!" I snort. "I live with a Temple and that is all decent, law-abiding cats need. And I am not a person of good will at the moment. I am an injured party."
"You look unhurt to me."
"You above all ought to know that there are more than mortal wounds. You sent me off into a pretty pickle. Not only did I have to encounter a full program of human spooks, but when I was a good sport and went back to the haunted house for a private feline seance, what am I confronted with but a vengeful spirit of the feline kind."
"Oh. Perhaps your sins have come home to roost, Louie. That is what we of a more spiritual bent call karma. With a small 'k.'"
"Lose that smug smirk, sister! This was Karma with a capital 'K,' but not yours. Mine! The vengeful dude has no grudge against me, but he does expect me to make his killer pay. This puts me in the middle. I feel like that poor Danish dude, Hamlet, about to become somebody's scrambled-eggs-and-ham omelet. But I do not intend to let some woebegone wraith who is not even a relative spook me! I will not worry myself into a frazzle, lose myself in amateur theatrics and then end up in a mass duel of death. And given my upcoming contract for a television commercial and my rivalry with the reputed murderer of Maurice I, his body double, Maurice II, the scenario is looking awfully similar."
By now Karma has recovered her aplomb, particularly in the tail area, which she is grooming into a creamy plume that would look well upon the end of a quill pen. "I doubt that anyone would mistake you for Hamlet, Louie, or that this murderous Maurice II will get the better of you."
"He got the better of Maurice I, let me tell you. A sorrier dude I have never seen. I just want to know what was the big idea? Why did you have to whip me out on Halloween to all these eerie events. I have been subjected to seeing a whole slew of hangers-on from Elvis to Amelia Airheart. Now I have been commissioned by the dead of my own kind to confront a murderer. I am not a vigilante, but neither am I playing the patsy for anybody, not Maurice II and not you!"
"Louie, Louie, Louie. Calm down. Obviously you have psychic sensitivities well beyond the ken of mortal men, and even immortal ones. Elvis, you said? An actual sighting? Did you get an autograph?"
"No ... although that would not have been a bad idea--"
"And Miss Earhart, now there is a coup. Did she say anything?"
"I did not ask anything."
"For shame! Opportunities to gather information from Beyond are rare. You must not be intimidated by the famous phantom."
"I am intimidated by nobody! I am just mad."
"Mad is not useful in these matters. You must have a plan. Frankly, from what I see, my advice for you to go forth and confront the psychic world proved very profitable. Were you not on the scene of a mysterious human death?"
"Yes, but nobody listened to me, not even when I tried to catch their attention about Elvis."
"Have you hot been warned from Beyond about a sinister associate who may wish you harm?"
"Yes ... but warning does not do much good, as I am not about to commit feline felony merely to forestall a possible attack on my person."
"Still, it is better to know where the stone may fall than not to see the stone at all."
"Stones have nothing to do with this, lady. A fat TV spokescat contract is what is at the bottom of murder past and possibly future. As for the dead dude/dame at the Halloween seance, I will let Miss Temple tend to her kind; I have troubles enough with my own. I will tell you what I am tired of seeing, and it is not stones. It is your glowing little astral-projected self pushing me from pillar to post and most likely from moderate to major risk of my life and sanity.
"Midnight Louie is not your errand boy anymore, get it? You can flash your emergency lights all you like, but I am not Pavlov's Puss. This cat is tuned to Here and Now. I have had it. Keep your pure-white Sacred Cat of Burma mitts o
ut of my life, and out of my mind. Get it? Good."
With that I shake myself all over so I look a third bigger than usual and stalk out of the room.
From the bedroom I hear Miss Electra Lark stir and then call, "Karma, are you having a bad vision, sweetie?"
I am the Bad Vision in question, sweetie. I must admit that it is nice to be the nightmare in somebody else's life for a change. Maurice II had better watch his Free-to-be-Feline.
Chapter 35
Piece-a-Pie
The pizza had cooled enough to require oven-warming.
Max went around opening cupboards until he found some heavy pottery plates, and a couple forks.
"No dried red peppers," he announced, spinning a spice rack.
"This is an awesome kitchen. It's as big as most people's living rooms. Whatever possessed you to buy a house with a kitchen like this?"
He stopped playing host long enough to stand still and consider it. "I never really asked myself that. Welles, of course, was a gourmand.
Not a mere gourmet, a true gourmand. He ate well."
"And often."
Max nodded. "And it showed. Like a lot of creative people he was at odds with himself. He adored the filmed image, but loved his food too well to keep his image svelte on film. As for me, I suppose ... I suppose, with the vagabond life I had to lead, a kitchen says stability. A big kitchen says you're there to stay."
"And a small dollhouse kitchen in the Circle Ritz says?"
"You've found a girl just like the girl who married dear old dad; she hates to cook."
"Really? Your mother hated to cook too?" Temple was pleased-- not only to hear that he was used to noncooking females, but because she'd never heard Max talk about his family and hadn't known she'd missed that until now.
"You don't hate to cook; you just haven't done it with someone who likes to." He came over to her, which, in that kitchen, was a fairly big commitment. "This house was leased when we arrived in Las Vegas. If I'd been alone, I'd have stayed with Gary."
"So you bought another place you didn't need?"
"Such Midwestern indignation," he said, teasing. "You wanted to have the fun of looking, and the Ritz is a jewel. You still like living there, don't you?"
"Love it."
He seemed about to add something, then stopped himself, glancing at the countertop instead. "You've hardly touched your wine and it's almost as expensive as some of your shoes."
"You know I get most of those on sale."
"Extravagance in specialized areas is permitted. Though. .." He looked down at her legs like Crawford Buchanan, but with interest sans leer. "That's a very attractive outfit."
"My tea-leaf reader said I might have a dangerous romantic encounter, so I dressed for it."
"Really?"
"Actually, she said I'd have a dangerous encounter and a romantic encounter, but I thought it would be more economical to combine them."
"The ever-practical Temple. I don't know how you stand on those heels on hard floors like this, though."
"You get used to it. Like one gets used to rocketing around on an overpowered eggbeater."
"Extravagance in specialized areas is permitted. So is sitting."
He lifted her atop the central island, a forbidding travertine-topped stainless-steel-sheathed block that screamed "human sacrifice" in very high style.
All the countertops were above normal height to relieve back strain. That meant that Temple perching and Max standing put them on a very similar level. She remembered sitting on the Storm fender with Matt on their desert "Prom Night." This was not Matt and this was not Prom Night. Temple swung a foot against the block.
"I feel like an Island virgin."
"You haven't touched your wine," he said again, reaching over for the glass and bringing it to her lips.
His hand was at the back of her head as she tilted her chin to take a sip, and when the glass was gone his mouth was there instead.
This was not Prom Night.
It could have been one kiss and it could have been sixteen; whatever, it was just an introduction. A reintroduction. Max ended it and spun her around so she sat facing the island's long way, then lifted her legs up and laid her down and that could have been the start of something that had to finish ...
Only he stepped back and leaned down near her head and rested his chin on his crooked elbow.
"I've been thinking," he said, smiling into her face, "while I was away. I've never worked with a lady assistant, but if I made a comeback, and if I was to do so, you are perfect for the job."
She raised an eyebrow, that being about all she could manage when under the erotic spell of a master magician.
He straightened and spun her around on the smooth marble as if they were on a stage and he was explicating an illusion for an audience. Temple was also part of that audience.
He stepped back from the kitchen island to address that invisible audience who was Temple.
"I could, for instance, work a variation on the lady-sawed-in-half illusion. Always a tacky thing to do to a perfectly lovely lady, don't you think? I could put that tradition in less lethal terms, and you are the ideal size for all sorts of illusions."
Temple rolled onto her side and braced her head on her elbow. "I've experienced an illusion or two in my time."
"Ah, but those were hasty, improvised affairs. I'm talking an entire act here, from conception to climax." He leaned down again, laying his elbows along the travertine, so they were face-to-face. He still wore his suave magician's mask, but his eyes were dancing. "Houdini worked for many years with his wife, did you know?"
Temple didn't know, and didn't know what to say. What was Max saying? He didn't have to propose marriage to make love to her. And her deep-down female-nesting hope for stability never had any strings on it.
Before any more could come of this intriguing idea, the stage manager stepped in to jerk them both offstage. The oven buzzer shrilled, making them jump. Temple sat upright, heart pounding, Max flew to the scene of the crime to turn the bloody thing off, and the moment was not about to be warmed up by any amount of extra oven-time.
Max turned ruefully from the stove, bearing the steaming pizza on its slightly singed cardboard circle. "Still hungry?"
Temple nodded and jumped down to the quarry tile. "Very."
They spent the night at the computer.
Exquisite wine in iridescent glasses had given way to cans of Classic Coke.
Forbidden files had segued into Gandolph's files, for his investigation, for his book.
Apache dances on kitchen islands had been replaced by weary sparring sessions with a computer keyboard.
"I found a file," Max began, hunting two-fingered over the keys.
"You really need a touch-typing course."
"Later. Anyway, this was not intended for the book, but for himself. It was a diary he began keeping fifteen years ago. Rather sad."
"A diary."
"About his mother. Explains everything, in a way... there it is. I'll print it out for you."
Temple leaned into the screen to read the beginning. "He must have been into computers early."
"Yep. Before he retired. The other magicians thought he was cracked, but I can certainly see the attraction now. Poor Gary. He never discussed this with me, and we were pretty good friends."
"I'll read it on-screen. I couldn't focus on typed pages now to save my soul."
"And a very pretty little sole it is too." Max leaned back to eye her bare feet under the desk.
"Thank you, Mephistopheles, but I'm keeping mine for a while." She scrolled down a few pages, reading, then frowned. "I see why you think this might be important. Gandolph's mother was addicted to psychics, it sounds like."
"And you haven't seen the financial records. Apparently, Gary hadn't either. He found out just how much when his mother died. Thousands."
Temple questioned him mutely.
"It wasn't the money she spent on them that enraged Gary. He had suffic
ient unto his needs.
It was the idea of her vulnerabilities being used to bilk her."
"She lost a child at an early age."
"There's nothing worse, they tell me," Max said, his voice bleak.
Temple eyed him sharply, but he was rising to retrieve the print out. He'd spent most of the night crouched beside her, showing her the way through Gandolph's labyrinth of files.
"This book of his would have really blown things open, wouldn't it?" she asked Max when he came back to drop a fat pile of printouts onto her lap.
He nodded. "In the paranormal community, yes. And it will still do it. There's nothing here I can't finish."
"Writers do have a reputation for being reclusive."
"It's something I can do that Gary would want. I have to admire him as both man and magician. To pull off this long-running impersonation of Edwina Mayfair, in drag yet! If you had known the man, you'd appreciate that he was as straight as General Eisenhower. No one could have imagined him doing this, which was why his investigation was so effective. He must have been fanatically determined to unmask them; as he writes, he did it not simply for the sake of his mother, but for all the people whose grief over lost loved ones has been exploited."
"I've been jumping ahead to skim the mother file. Max, she apparently skimped on her simplest needs, even her prescribed medications, to finance her quest among the psychics."
He nodded. "I never took that ghost-hunting stuff seriously. I used to consider us all brothers and sisters under the skin, players in a wonderful show. After reading Gary's story, and about the other bilked poor souls he found and championed, I understand him a lot better. I appreciate him more. If he was killed, Temple, it was part of a very dirty and secret war. We've got to expose his killer."
"How?"
"I don't know yet. Maybe when you read all your homework, you'll put the key clue into focus, and I'll trap the killer by some clever illusion. Then we'll let Lieutenant Molina nab the perp and all the credit."
Cat with an Emerald Eye Page 30
