Cat in an Alphabet Soup Read online

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Back cover

  About the Midnight Louie Mysteries

  Start Book

  About the Author

  Also by Carole Nelson Douglas

  CHAPTERS

  Prologue: Midnight Louie, P.I.

  Chapter 1:

  Chester’s Last Chapter

  Chapter 2: An Editor Edited

  Chapter 3: Nothing but a Pack of Flacks

  Chapter 4: New Boy in Town

  Chapter 5:

  The Fall Guy

  Chapter 6: Authors on Parade

  Chapter 7: Writers Anonymous

  Chapter 8: Feline Follies

  Chapter 9: Lost and Found

  Chapter 10: A Little Night Music

  Chapter 11: Catastrophe...

  Chapter 12: ...And Apostrophe

  Chapter 13: Enter Ingram

  Chapter 14: Behind the Eight Ball

  Chapter 15: Hunter on the Prowl

  Chapter 16: The Ultimate Sacrifice

  Chapter 17: Missing Purrsons

  Chapter 18: A Mavis in Flight

  Chapter 19: Doctor, Lawyer, Indian Thief

  Chapter 20: Midnight Louie, Dead Matter

  Chapter 21: Alone at Last

  Chapter 22: Temple on Ice

  Chapter 23: Cool Hand Louie

  Chapter 24: The Name of the Game is... Murder

  Chapter 25: Killer Exit

  Chapter 26: Louie’s Last Meow

  Tailpiece: Midnight Louie Bites the Hand that Feeds Him

  . Carole Nelson Douglas Strikes Back

  Excerpt: Cat in an Aqua Storm, book 2

  “TO PARAPHRASE THE COOL CAT DETECTIVE INTRODUCED IN THIS SCINTILLATING NEW MYSTERY, Carole Nelson Douglas is on a roll. After garnering considerable acclaim for her delicious Irene Adler historical adventures, Ms. D. reveals yet another brilliant facet of her amazing versatility in this equally delightful contemporary puzzler.”

  —Melinda Heifer, RT Book Reviews

  CAT IN AN ALPHABET SOUP

  (formerly titled Catnap)

  THE MIDNIGHT LOUIE ALPHABET SAGA BEGINS . . .

  from this novel, move on to A to Z

  AUTHOR’S NOTE: Since Midnight Louie’s mystery adventures began in 1992, the series offers a Time Travel experience. It’s a retro-modern saga that portrays twenty-five years of amazing Las Vegas Strip reinvention from the early 1990s to today. Yet, the foreground story only covers two years in the characters’ lives. Think of the old movies that filmed a couple walking on a treadmill against a constantly changing background.

  So be warned: you will see “dead people” in the pop culture references, and also see how the Las Vegas Strip, cell phones, and recent technologies evolved through the series as it happened.

  The MIDNIGHT LOUIE Feline PI series

  Cat in an Alphabet Soup... Cat in an Aqua Storm... Cat on a Blue Monday... Cat in a Crimson Haze... Cat in a Diamond Dazzle... Cat with an Emerald Eye... Cat in a Flamingo Fedora... Cat in a Golden Garland... Cat on a Hyacinth Hunt... Cat in an Indigo Mood... Cat in a Jeweled Jumpsuit... Cat in a Kiwi Con... Cat in a Leopard Spot... Cat in a Midnight Choir... Cat in a Neon Nightmare... Cat in an Orange Twist... Cat in a Hot Pink Pursuit... Cat in a Quicksilver Caper... Cat in a Red Hot Rage... Cat in a Topaz Tango... Cat in a Sapphire Slipper... Cat in an Ultramarine Scheme... Cat in a Vegas Gold Vendetta... Cat in a White Tie and Tails... Cat in an Alien X-Ray... Cat in a Yellow Peril... Cat in a Zebra Zoot Suit

  Praise for CAT IN AN ALPHABET SOUP from Primates:

  “[Perhaps] there should be only two categories of mysteries: those with cats and those without. This is a ‘with’, big time. Midnight Louie [is] one of my favorite hep cats. Douglas has always written strong women characters and has always been before her time... Several thumbs up.”

  —Mystery News

  “AMONG THE MANY APPEALING FELINES ON THE MYSTERY SCENE, MIDNIGHT LOUIE STANDS OUT AS THE COOLEST CAT OF ALL. You don’t have to be a cat lover to appreciate his savoir faire as he strolls the streets of Las Vegas, not to mention his sleek looks and keen intelligence. No doubt about it, CND has hit the jackpot again with her nifty new sleuth and his intrepid investigations.”

  —Melinda Heifer, RT Book Reviews

  ATTENTION! ALL YOU AILUROPHILES ADDICTED TO LILIAN JACKSON BRAUN’S The Cat who... mysteries can latch onto a new purrivate eye: Midnight Louie... slinking an sleuthing on his own á la Mike Hammer.”

  —Fort Worth Star-Telegram

  “Carole Nelson Douglas takes anthropomorphism to elegant heights as Midnight Louie, a tom who’s a private dick, harries Las Vegas malefactors.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “THE READER WILL ABSOLUTELY LOVE MIDNIGHT LOUIE and his feline friends in this hilarious satire of the American publishing industry at work.”

  —Andrew M. Greeley

  And Praise from Felines:

  “MIDNIGHT LOUIE IS ONE HEAVY DUDE. Gourmand, ladies’ man and world-class dog-baiter, this feline detective attacks crime tooth and nail. But if he lays a paw on my lasagna, he’ll tangle with a real heavyweight.”

  —Garfield, as told to Jim Davis

  “A felony against felines has been purrpetrated! As corporate mascots, catnapping is something we enjoy, but not when we are the catnapees! The fur flies as this furmidable feline detective gets inside the book publishing scene to solve the mystery and save our tails. Midnight Louie is one cool cat!”

  —Baker and Taylor, mascots of Baker & Taylor Book Distributors

  The adventures of Baker and Taylor—the cats—as depicted in Midnight Louie’s memoirs are purely fictional.

  COPYRIGHT

  Cat in an Alphabet Soup

  First Kindle edition Copyright October 2013 Carole Nelson Douglas

  Previously published and copyrighted as Catnap Copyright March 1992

  Proofreader: Pat Martin

  Images Copyright iStock.com

  Cover and interior book design Copyright Carole Nelson Douglas

  Author photo Copyright Sam Douglas

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  A Wishlist Book

  www.wishlistpublishing.com

  CAT IN AN

  ALPHABET SOUP

  THE FIRST

  MIDNIGHT LOUIE MYSTERY

  by

  CAROLE NELSON DOUGLAS

  For the real and original Midnight Louie, nine lives weren’t enough

  Prologue

  Midnight Louie, P.I.

  I have a nose for news and pause at nothing. That is why I always find the body.

  This time it is one dead dude tucked at the back of one among three thousand booths cramming the half-million-square-foot East Exhibition Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center.

  As usual, my presence on the scene—not to mention my proximity to the corpse—puts me in a delicate position. For one thing, my unappetizing discovery is made in the wee hours of morning. Security with a capital s is blissfully unaware of my presence among the aisles of merchandise on display, which is the way I like it.

  Now Las Vegas is a twenty-four-hour town and I am a twenty-four-hour kind of guy. That is why they call me Midnight Louie.

  It is in my veins, Vegas. I know every back alley and every gawdy-awful over-electrified Strip sign. Vegas is people on the take, people on the make, people just out to have a good time—to win a little, maybe lose a lot. There are times I might be wiser to skip town (I am no angel), but I stay and even try to go straight.

  Yet it does no
t pay to know too much in this town, not that the tourists ever suspect half the stuff that goes on. Naw, to them Las Vegas is just a three-day round-trip junket of blackjack, singing slot machines and free drinks with more paper umbrellas than booze in ’em.

  Some say that Las Vegas is no longer the hotsy-totsy town that it was back when Bugsy Siegel hung out the first resort hotel-casino sign in the forties. Some even say that a certain Family has loosed its hairy-knuckled grasp on the profits from gambling, girls, and anything that gives the folks any illicit fun, including substances of a pharmaceutical nature. (Drugs are not my vice of choice, let me make clear, though I do take a wee nip now and then.)

  Still, it does not behoove a retiring soul like myself to admit to knowing too much. My habits are quiet, my profile low and, while I have a certain rep in this town, it is among a choice acquaintanceship, most of whom are like-minded about discretion always being the better part of discovering dead bodies.

  Death broadcasts an unmistakable whiff. No lurid pools of blood need apply to advertise the fact. All five senses recoil from lifelessness, whether in the remains of a mouse or a man. I never met a corpse I liked, but the feeling would be mutual, I suspect. In a philosophical moment, I muse on how the late, possibly lamented (nothing is a sure thing in this town), would view being discovered by the likes of myself, for the fact is that among some circles I am known as something of a rambler, if not a gambler.

  So I stand over the corpus delicti in flagrante delicto and consider the fragile nature of life and death in Las Vegas and my propensity for scenting the scene of the crime. It is dark except for the fluorescent glow of distant security lights, but I see well enough to observe no visible signs of violence on the body—no guarantee of natural causes, not even in this town, which can cause fatal shocks to the pocketbook, if not the system.

  I picture explaining my presence to the local constabulary, a ludicrous scene for the simple reason that I always keep my lips buttoned tighter than a flasher’s London Fog when he finds himself in custody. Midnight Louie does not talk—ever. I have my ways of getting the word out, however, and I review options. I am not one to pussyfoot around a problem.

  First and most important, the Las Vegas Convention Center is far from my normal purview. How I got here is like this: I am undercover house detective at the Crystal Phoenix, the classiest little hotel and casino to flash its name in neon on the Strip. This is a tasteful, if not tasty, sign with a mythical beast of an avian nature exploding its pinfeathers in blue-and-magenta neon with a dash of emerald green; in other words, a first cousin to the NBC peacock, another mythical beast of more recent manufacture.

  Some around town find it unusual that a dude with my, shall we say, pinstriped, if not actually checkered, past would snag a responsible job like unofficial house detective. I owe it to the Crystal Phoenix’s founder, Nicky Fontana, a sweetheart of a guy and the only one in his large Family to go as straight as the Las Vegas Strip itself.

  Nicky inherited eight million in legitimate dough from his grandma's pasta factory in Venice (California, that is). So he throws this considerable yeast into remodeling an abandoned hotel into a showpiece of what Vegas could be if the whole town had the taste to employ a marzipan little doll like Van von Rhine to manage the joint.

  This pint-size doll also managed to marry Nicky, and therein lies the source of my present disenchantment. The union, while profitable to the hotel, has produced an offspring. The Crystal Phoenix, an around-the-clock palace of high-stakes poker tables, glitter, glitz and free food, now knows the Patter of Little Feet.

  Time was when my little feet were the only ones welcome in the establishment, from the chorus girls’ dressing room to the owners’ penthouse. However, the newcomer—who has no obvious attractions other than the dubious ability to scream like a harem of Siamese in heat at odd hours of the night—is the center of an epidemic of cooing that leaves myself cold.

  I express my distaste by strolling far from my now- unpleasant turf to the Las Vegas Convention Center, which I see by the local rags is hosting the ABA, aka the American Booksellers Association.

  I figure on perusing a booth or two, since I always was a bookish sort, having nodded off over many great tomes—including the collected works of Dickens. I like nothing better than curling up on a good book. And I personally know a literary figure or two, the most famous of which—besides Boss Banana, whose memoirs sold quite a few guys upriver—is my hard-shelled pal, archy the cockroach, whose nightly tap dance on the typewriter keys (he is an old-fashioned kind of guy) brought much fun and profit.

  So I decide to broaden my horizons, no easy thing to do in Vegas, which is all horizon, and hotfoot over to the convention center.

  I plan to scout the rear service areas, normally deserted at my namesake hour, except for the presence of a few local cats in search of tidbits among the refuse. Even Vegas has its homeless these days, in addition to the usual shirtless.

  There are a thousand ways to get into a locked building, especially if you are a stealthy but wiry little guy, and Midnight Louie knows every one. Soon I am ambling through a maze of booths, gazing at piles of books, posters and plastic bags bannered with pictures of every description.

  I am vaguely in search of the Baker & Taylor concession, where I am given to understand that a pair of famous felines are on display. Apparently any live acts at a book convention are newsworthy. This duo made all the papers, being official library cats at a little town in the West.

  From their mug shots, Baker is a white, gray and what-have-you feline of no distinguished ancestry, and Taylor is likewise. Neither has much to speak of in the way of ears, which gives them a constantly frowning expression. As for tail, I cannot say as I am always the gentleman. Still, a celebrity cat—much less two—is something to see, there being few around since Rhubarb, the long-gone marmalade tom of motion-picture fame. Of course someone has scrammed with both Baker and Taylor for the night; the booth offers nothing but vacant director’s chairs and slick catalogs. I sniff out the area and am in the process of withdrawing—perhaps the sole individual in history to leave the ABA without a free book—when my nose for news fastens on the dreadful truth that the stale atmosphere is not the only thing dead about this place.

  I poke my puss through a curtain, clamber over an Everest of disheveled cartons, dodge several empty Big Gulp-size paper cups and a Big Mac wrapper that has been sucked clean—and find myself nose to nose with a white male sixty-some years of age with specs as thick as the lens at Mount Palomar and no more earthly use for them.

  He is supine among the effluvia and deader than a stripper’s Monday afternoon audience at the Lace ’n’ Lust downtown. I trot around front to catch the booth number. The booth itself is fairly unmistakable, being blazoned with illustrations of assorted bodies in a similar if more spectacular condition of permanent paralysis than the current corpse. There are also depictions of such sinister implements as hypodermic needles dripping blood and embossed silver scalpels lethal-looking enough for Lizzie Borden to be alive and well and using them to practice medicine without a license.

  I commit the name on the above-booth banner to memory—Pennyroyal Press—and retreat to more pleasant venues to await morning and an opportunity to acquaint the authorities with my discovery in a way that will do my duty as a citizen and leave my name off any list of suspects.

  1

  Chester’s Last Chapter

  “Some cat’s cutting loose on the convention floor,” the guard grumbled, heading for the office coffeepot. “Thought we were supposed to be on the lookout for international terrorists.”

  “A cat!” Temple’s head whipped to attention, abandoning her computer screen. “Where?”

  The guard shook his own head, which was decorated by a wilted lei of gray hair, and donned his cap. Caffeine piddled from the spigot until foam lapped the rim of his Styrofoam cup. “Kitty Kong. Some terrorist.”

  “Listen, Lloyd, a very valuable cat happens to be missing fro
m an exhibit this morning—two, in fact. We need to corral them before we open the floor to the exhibitors. Where was it seen?”

  Lloyd scratched his scalp, almost dethroning his cap. “You office girls are all cat crazy.”

  Temple made her full five feet zero as she stood, slamming the oversize glasses atop her head to the bridge of her nose.

  “I’m not an ‘office girl.’ I’m liaison for local PR for this convention, and I don’t give a flying fandango about pussycats on the job unless they’re relevant to public relations, so you can bet that corporate mascots like Baker and Taylor are bloody vital to the American Booksellers Convention. Baker and Taylor happens to be one of the country’s top book wholesalers.”

  Temple paused, breathlessly, to dive under her desk and withdraw a formidable canvas bag emblazoned with the words “Temporus Vitae Libri." A freebie from Time-Life Books.

  She edged around the desk, frowning. “Now where is this rogue feline? If he’s beneath your notice, I’ll bag him personally.”

  Lloyd examined her three-inch heels, her elephant-bladder-size bag and her implacably determined face. She didn’t look a day over twenty-one—despite being in imminent danger of pushing thirty, well, twenty-eight, and regretted it bitterly. July was her natal month and this was the cusp of May and June.

  Lloyd’s head jerked over his shoulder. “Somewhere near the sequined zebra on the stick.”

  “Zebra on a stick? Oh, you mean the Zebra Books carousel. Damnation”—Temple eyed the silver-dollar-size watch face that obscured her wrist—“the doors open at nine. Good thing book people sleep late. Probably up reading all night.”