Kiwi Con Read online

  Cat in a Kiwi Con

  Prologue

  Give Me a Coffee Break ...!

  There she sits, sipping that loathsome beverage called coffee.

  For my charming roommate, Miss Temple Barr, it is just an ordinary morning here at the Circle Ritz apartments and condominiums, with attached wedding chapel out front.

  Come to think of it, it is never an ordinary morning in Las Vegas in general, and at the round, residential fifties-vintage Circle Ritz in particular.

  But we live here, and there is nothing we can do about it.

  I am in my accustomed spot atop the morning paper, absorbing the day's news and preparing to begin my own a.m. ritual, which fortunately does not involve imbibing a brew of bitter beans. (Or picking pecks of pickled peppers, either.) In a moment, my Miss Temple will focus enough to realize that I am reclining on her accustomed reading material.

  She will grab a thick corner and tug.

  My muscular twenty pounds will not move. The Las Vegas Review-Journal and I will slide together over the glass table-top like partnered Olympic skaters, but only a smidge.

  Miss Temple will sigh and lean forward.

  She will tug harder.

  By then her baby blue-grays will be a tad more open. A petite pair of parallel tracks will appear between her eyebrows.

  She has such an adorable expression when she wants something. Who could say no to those big appealing eyes, that fluffy fox-red hair, the annoyance-wrinkled little pink nose? It is no wonder that we fully furred dudes cannot resist these furless little dolls. And my Miss Temple is a particularly attractive example of the breed, if I do say so myself.

  Since we all have our dark sides (and since mine is built-in, as I am clothed in jet-black from nose to toe to tip of the tailbone), I must admit to a triumphal thrill to see those lacquered hot-pink nails clawing at my morning paper so ineffectively. They do not even retract. How pitiful ...

  so I subtly shift my weight and allow her to extract the quarter-inch-thick pad of fresh newsprint from beneath my torso.

  And then I hold my breath.

  I am not clamping down on the distribution of the morning newspaper just because I like to curl up on mattress pads made of newsprint and reeking of fresh ink. I am, as always, thinking of my Miss Temple. I have seen a bad omen in the morning paper, without even looking inside to read my horoscope. (I am an October 31-born Scorpio, naturally, the do-not-cross-me sign of the zodiac.)

  But Miss Temple scans the front-page headlines as she makes her first go-through, skipping right past the feature photo on the lower left front.

  It is an arresting photograph, featuring some of her species in particularly outre garb, but then I consider all garb outre.

  No, it is not the more bizarre manifestations of her species that sets the hair on my hackles on edge: It is the single and singular presence of a creature of my kind.

  For I recognize that long, narrow, masked face and lean predator's body even though it is accoutered with enough leather and chains to ride a Harley. The feral, feline, and ferocious Hyacinth is out of deep cover and making public appearances again. My Miss Temple has not given me time enough to peruse the photo's outline, but I skim the text when she has retreated behind the opened paper to cruise the news inside.

  I would recognize that incarnation of hot blood and cold heart anywhere, even when the owner is going by the alias of "Phsst, psychic Kir-khat of the Kohl Kompendium."

  Right. And I am "Tony the Tiger."

  Well, sometimes I am, in fact. I squint tigerishly at the small, sans-serif type in which they always set outlines so no one can read them but the photo-subjects' mothers, with magnifying glasses. I theorize, ignoring Miss Temple's gasp as she moves on to open yesterday morning's mail today.

  Hmmm. I receive an absent-minded pat on the pate. (I cannot help that my cogitating little nothings sound like a purr.) If the exotic Siamese Hyacinth is back in town, so might be her evil mistress, the disappearing magician Shangri-la. The last time Miss Temple and I saw them both, we ended up abducted and confined to coffins.

  I will have to hie over to (what humongous hostelry does the tiny type feature this time?) the New Millennium Hotel and Casino and find out what is going on among the alien set apparently taking over the joint.

  It looks like it is going to be a pulp-fiction kind of day for Midnight Louie. Maybe even a week.

  Chapter 1

  Wake-up Calls

  Carmen Molina brushed her heavy dark hair as if she were beating it, heaved a sigh at herself in the mirror, then slammed the brush down on the toilet tank top.

  The swamp cooler in the hall made the old house's air dank and faintly chill, and turned her usually straight thick hair into a fright-wig frizz. She scowled at her ungovernable mirror image.

  All the better to scare you with, you crooks! Who cared that a homicide lieutenant had split ends? Not she.

  Still, smearing a streak of Nearly Natural Rose lipstick over her mouth, which acted more as balm than cosmetic, she couldn't help noticing that her recent work schedule showed. Her half-Latina, light- olive skin always looked jaundiced when she was tired or sick. Her brilliant blue eyes only highlighted the tendency.

  "Thanks for the off-the-wall genes, Dad," she muttered to the mirror, fighting the tiny twist-off cap from a pot of the cream blush she used to simulate health. Then she dabbed some stuff the Penney's sales clerk had called concealer under her eyes. The fatigue smudges still leaked through, but less bruisingly. There. Reasonably presentable for another twelve-hour day.

  "Mariah!" she yelled into the house's other rooms. "Are you eating breakfast? We've got to get going this morning."

  "Yeah!" came the return yell. "Cereal and skim milk."

  "Good!" Carmen sighed again. Her resolve to lower the tone of domestic life by only talking when in the same room was not working out lately. "Be right in."

  "The cats want the cereal."

  "Let them get their own Special K!"

  Carmen rushed through the bedroom, grabbing essentials to stuff into blazer pockets: car keys, ID, wallet, change, file (a ragged nail would nag at her all day), pausing only to unlock the gun safe and move the .38 to her ankle holster. Some detectives-turned-desk-jockeys didn't carry, but she'd patrolled the streets of south L.A. for too long not to prepare for sudden violence anywhere, anytime.

  Tabitha and Catarina, the two half-grown tiger-striped cats, were indeed nosing the bowls of milk-drenched cold cereal on the kitchen table. Carmen swept into the room, swept the cats to the floor, and sat herself down.

  Mariah leaned against the countertop, slurping soggy cereal into the nooks and crannies of her braces. Off in another year, hallelujah!

  "You gonna be late again tonight?" her daughter managed between munches.

  "Probably. Why? Got a hot date?"

  "Fun-nee." Mariah made a revolted face that could have been inspired by either the cold breakfast or the maternal crack.

  Carmen started mashing her own cud, not too guilty about cold cereal as long as it was fortified with vitamins and fiber. Mariah was in that same mushy stage of development, her body amorphous with baby fat that might melt off (or might not), her glossy dark hair cut in a less-childish bob lately, her green-white-and-navy-plaid school-uniform jumper as loose and unrevealing as the sloppy T-shirts and baggy shorts the public school kids wore as their own uniform. At twelve-wanting-to-go-on-twenty, she was both intrigued and scared green by the boy-girl dance already rearing its princely head in the sixth grade.

  "What about the weekend?" Mariah asked.

  "My, I'm in sudden demand around here. What about the weekend?"

  "Moth-er. You promised. Will you be off?"

  "I don't know yet. What promise?"

  "Yo
u know."

  "Not anymore." Carmen chewed amiably, intercepting Catarina as she lofted onto the table top again, and placing the young cat firmly on her lap for a forcible petting.

  Mariah sighed, a much bigger and better public production than her mother's smothered private exhalations. "I don't see why I can't go alone."

  "Because you're not old enough," Carmen answered automatically, running her eyes over the front page. No new murders, yet. "Go where?"

  "How can you forget? The big con."

  "Con?" Carmen frowned. The word meant "scam" to her.

  "Convention. You know. At the new hotel. The biggest science fiction convention ever.

  Everyone will be there, Xena and Hercules and Buffy and those X-Files people you watch and a bunch of kids and actors and writers and artists. 'TitaniCon. The King of Cons.' "

  " King of cons? Oh, don't remind me. . . ." Carmen shook her head. At least he was out of her life. She'd avoided getting drawn into that wacko Elvis case, although she'd heard about it.

  "The biggest ever." Mariah was still young enough to believe that bigness alone was a convincing recommendation. A true child of Las Vegas.

  Carmen shoved aside the empty cereal bowl and crinkled newspaper, then pulled the coffee mug she'd microwaved before dashing into the bedroom, front and center. The contents were still steaming. Ah.

  "I'm sorry, honey. You did tell me something about this 'con thing. What is it again?"

  Now that she had the floor, words seemed to fail Mariah. "It's . . . everybody goes and some of them dress up, and it's for all the science fiction books and comics and TV shows and movies.

  You know."

  "Kids go?"

  "Sure. Who do you think reads and watches this stuff?"

  "Will there be adults present?"

  "Who do you think writes and acts in this stuff?"

  "But it's not supervised?"

  "Well, the hotel is supervising it, I guess."

  "That's not good enough. I'm not going to let a twelve-year-old wander alone through some kind of weird exhibition."

  "It's not weird, it's fun! And it's only this whole weekend. Ever. It's to open the New Millennium."

  Carmen shook her head, watching frustration evolve into loss on her daughter's face. "This weekend."

  "Starting Thursday. Through Monday. But Saturday and Sunday's the best time to go."

  "Mariah, I just can't promise anything in the next few days. You know how my work runs in frantic streaks. This is one of them."

  "Please!"

  And how many times had Carmen wailed that word into the impassive refusal of her mother's face? The two eternal one-word pleas of powerless childhood. iPor que? Why? And por favor. Please. She supposed that she even looked like her mother by now. Actually, those two words were as significant for adults, too.

  "Maybe," she said, wanting to bite her tongue already. "Maybe I can manage something. I'll see today what I can do."

  "But today's Tuesday! "

  Carmen stood, dislodging the purring cat. If only kids purred and asked for things with the silent meow. "We have until Thursday, right? Besides, you can't take off from school."

  "It's open in the evening."

  "And you're going to go over there in the evening? Solo? Not you, nina. Now. Did you do the cat box?"

  "Oh . . . right away." She turned and raced off to handle the chore, sure to be a model kid until she got what she wanted.

  Carmen Molina smiled. If only she had this TitaniCon to motivate her child every weekend.

  **************

  Matt Devine yawned and checked his watch, then glanced at the phone.

  He really should act on the small item in the morning paper. For some eerie reason, while checking out the "Lifestyles" section, his eye had snagged on a small-type name he knew. And that had reminded him of his "homework" assignment.

  Not really homework, but part of his journey of personal growth, he pointed out co himself, tongue-in-cheek. Personal growth. Matt winced at the expression. His mouth felt as if he had gargled cod liver oil.

  He yawned again. Just a nervous gesture. A delaying tactic.

  Swallow your medicine, he told himself. And do it fast, before you taste it.

  He picked up the tiny notepad that held the few business and personal phone numbers in the brave new universe of a thirty-something ex-priest-turned radio shrink who was wrestling with making a living, making friends, and making time for a social life, maybe even a sexual one.

  He paused to consider the bizarre array of phone numbers, another delaying tactic, but it provided a certain self-insight: his fellow-tenant Temple's number, number one. His landlady Electra's. ConTact, the hotline counseling service he had worked for full-time until recently.

  (Now he only needed to sub occasionally as an unpaid volunteer. He missed the gang, but he was part of another, smaller one.) Next the number for the radio station that paid him so handsomely he felt guilty, WCOO. Also the home phone number of Leticia Brown, his producer and the on-air personality known as Ambrosia. Tony Fortunato, his agent's number. Agent!

  Homicide lieutenant C. R. Molina's work number. His mother's number in Chicago. Frank's number at the FBI. The ex-priests' group contact number. The 1-800 number of the Amanda talk show.

  By their phone books ye shall know them.

  He laughed to and at himself. This freebie notepad advertising a local pharmacy felt too confining and informal for such a heavy load of whos and wheres and wherefores. Get thee to a stationery store and buy some slick address book.

  Or did single men not do that sort of organizing thing? Little black books, that's what bachelors had. Did men of the world keep track of business and pleasure separately: Rolodexes for work and the infamous little black book for play?

  Matt looked at the last number listed in his meager litany of friends and acquaintances made in the last year. The offbeat "business" number he was hesitating to punch in had been there for just two weeks.

  Might as well get it over with. Maybe no one would answer. Ten A.M. He was just rising after his midnight stint on the radio advice show, but most people would be out and about at this hour.

  So . . . chances were pretty good that he wouldn't connect this time.

  Nothing to do but try, no matter how half-heartedly. This would be good for him.

  He pressed the numerical sequence, realizing his throat had gone dry and his palms damp.

  On the third ring, someone answered.

  After the opening "hello" and "hi," he got to the nitty-gritty without preamble. An aftertaste of psychic cod liver oil hovered like halitosis over the mouthpiece.

  "I thought," Matt said, finally coming right out with it, "that we should get together."

  *************

  Max Kinsella contemplated the noble fir tree.

  Lots of noble fir trees.

  The University of Nevada at Las Vegas campus was infected with them. They cozied up to the bunker like architecture the desert climate inspired like arthritic great-aunts and great-uncles braced by the picnic tables at a family reunion. Their roof-high, time-twisted limbs and leaning trunks both depended on and buttressed the buildings. Like most people, they were part clinging vine and part stalwart support.

  Max loped along the endless walks between the scattered buildings, nimbly dodging the press of students ambling between classes, feeling the exhilaration of running an informal obstacle course. He didn't get out among crowds often but had always liked them, sensed them as a kinetic flow, himself as a random element avoiding collision and detection, almost as if he could remain invisible by avoiding the accidental contact, as he used to imagine when he had been a child. ... as he had faithfully practiced both personally and professionally since he had so suddenly become a man in northern Ireland, ages and instants ago.

  He always walked like a man in a hurry, unless he wanted to give a different impression; then, he seemed to move so slowly some people mistook him for indolent.

&nb
sp; Today he was eager to get where he was going; once there, he would power down into slow motion. A man six-feet-four always needed to make less of himself, especially in his profession.

  Although no longer a practicing magician, his biological clock was on performance-schedule time still. After years of late-night gigs, it seemed indecent to be out and about before eleven A.M.

  It was too easy to wander into academic buildings. Max found easy entry disappointing. It made him feel he was alone in the world, and the building did seem strangely deserted. He took the stairs two at a time, his rubber-soled shoes hardly making a sound in the echoing space.

  Arriving unannounced had become a habit.

  Chapter 2

  Syn Thesis

  Max followed the numbered doors down the empty hall until he arrived at the one he sought.

  He entered without knocking, not knowing if the room would be occupied or not. It didn't matter. Either way, he would come away with the information he sought. The only unknown was whether it would be given to him, or if he would take it.

  As quiet as the grave.

  Like any good break-in artist, Max first looked for another way out, and found it: a closed door leading to an adjoining room.

  Next he looked for signs of recent occupation: a cooling coffee mug, car keys splayed on the paperwork, an open briefcase, an uncapped pen or unretracted ballpoint.

  Despite a desktop buried beneath an arrangement of papers in the shape of an Aztec step -

  pyramid, the room seemed decently deserted.

  Max riffled through a few steps of the pyramid and scanned the bookshelves. All he found were student papers and dusty Ph.D. theses. The topics were intriguing, from Mayan magicians to shamans in Siberia and Tibet.

  But he wasn't interested in ancient magic.