Cat in a Topaz Tango Read online

  She was easy and giggled away on cue. “Stop that! I’m really ticklish!”

  He was no fun. He stopped, then frowned. “I really don’t know about committing to that charity fund-raiser for all of next week.”

  “You wouldn’t bow out?”

  “Ballroom dancing isn’t exactly in my résumé.”

  “Just why you need to brush up before we do the wedding waltz at our reception. Not to mention you’re committed to taking Mariah Molina to her freshman father-daughter dance in high school this fall.”

  Matt groaned at the reminder. “I have a lot of sympathy for single working moms rearing a teenage daughter, but who named me proxy daddy of the week? And Mariah’s in that embarrassing hero worship of older guys stage.”

  “Who’s more embarrassed, you or her?”

  “Me. Teen girls don’t get embarrassed, they embarrass everybody else. I’m already freaked. This Dancing With the Stars wanna-be show isn’t all wedding waltzes and dad-daughter shuffles. Those ballroom routines can be pretty risqué.”

  “You’re out of the priesthood, Matt. You can do risqué. And kids today want dads who can rock out in the school auditorium like cool dudes. Doesn’t Ambrosia think it’d be good for your radio career?”

  “Ambrosia’s in favor of anything that makes me a visual. She believes the world wants a Web presence, a Facebook profile, a YouTube persona, rather than just a voice in the night.”

  “Let’s face it. Ambrosia knows how to market radio today. You make a socko visual. Remember that billboard of you on the red suede couch? I sure do! Blond, handsome, and horizontal.”

  “Yeah, and all those screaming fan girls.” He made a face. It didn’t hurt his looks a bit.

  “Ambrosia’s your producer. Your ‘Midnight Hour’ is syndicated in a lot of major markets, but there are more to be won over. You can go farther than the usual radio shrink, maybe become the next Dr. Phil.”

  “Spare me.”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  “That’s what I get with an ace PR woman as a fiancée. P.T. Barr-num. Dr. Phil’s avuncular act is not only bullying, but superficial. I hope my ‘Midnight Hour’ digs a bit deeper.”

  “It does.” Temple’s voice lowered to a dramatic whisper. “You are the most insightful, sincere, and sexy guy on the airwaves. Dr. Phil should be quaking in his Big and Tall Man suits.”

  “Dr. Phil isn’t a dancing bear.”

  “You won’t be a dancing bear.”

  “I’ve been rehearsing already, so don’t bet on that.”

  “Ooh. Who’s your teacher?”

  Matt hesitated. “No six-feet-tall Strip chorus girls to steer around the floor, thank goodness. Most female proballet and ballroom dancers are petite. She’s a brunette.”

  “Should look dramatic with your fair coloring.”

  “She’s the dramatic type, all right, but she’s just the instructor. I’ll actually perform with the other celebrities.”

  “Don’t glower. Men are so afraid of a little social dancing. Look at all those macho athletes who aced Dancing With the Stars. Football players, Olympic skaters.”

  “Temple, my only ‘sport’ is swimming. Not exactly a couple’s pursuit. Besides. You overlook the sleaze factor. The winning ballroom dancers are all sexy.”

  “And you’re not?” she asked indignantly.

  “Not for a mass media audience.”

  “Nonsense! This will be good for you,” she decreed, “and good exposure for your show.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

  “You can practice your new steps with me. That’ll give you an edge. Extra rehearsal time.”

  “Sorry. All my free time must be devoted to rehearsal eight to ten hours a day with La Tatyana. Given my night-owl working sched, I’ll have no time or energy for fiancées.”

  “Tatyana?”

  “You can talk Dancing With the Stars, but you obviously don’t watch the show closely enough.”

  “Guilty,” Temple admitted. “I’m too busy to catch a weekly TV show, but I’ve seen clips.”

  “Most of the pro dancers are Russian. I guess the baton has passed and the great Russian dancers of today have gone from ballet to samba.”

  “So what’s Tat-yan-ah like?” Temple asked, deciding it was time to flex her possessiveness.

  Matt winced. “A Gestapo officer in rehearsal and a Lolita on stage.”

  “Heavily bipolar. Sounds more like a blue movie than a dance contest. I’ll have to come to the broadcast every night of the competition to act as bodyguard.”

  “I’m more worried about missing a step than any domineering sexpot.”

  “‘Domineering sexpot.’ Now there’s a role I could aspire to.”

  “Don’t even try.” Matt tousled her luxuriant red-gold curls. “Sexy sprite is my speed.”

  Temple laughed and snuggled into his arms, glad to have Matt in her life and a subdued version of her natural fiery red hair color back after having a blond bleach job foisted on her for an assignment.

  Into this premarital merriment a large black shadow descended.

  Midnight Louie lofted over the sofa back onto their semitwined laps, earning protests.

  “Louie! You weigh a ton,” Temple said. “Off!”

  Matt hefted the big cat with one hand under his belly and set him on a sofa arm. “He must be protesting being left out of the wedding plans.”

  “Oh,” Temple cooed, “Louie was so cute as the ring bearer wearing that black bow tie collar with the ring box attached.”

  “You could see he hated the bow tie as much as I would, but he did relish center stage, as usual.”

  “You’ll have to do ring bearer act again for our wedding, Louie,” Temple threatened her feline roommate.

  He showed his fangs but stifled a hiss of contempt and jumped down to the parquet floor.

  “I sometimes think he’s trying to come between us,” Matt said with a frown Temple found adorable.

  Matt must have driven women and girls crazy when he was in the priesthood, Temple thought, enjoying watching her beloved interact with her panther-personality alpha tomcat. He’d kill ’em on Dancing With the Celebs. He was classically good-looking in a blond, matinee-idol way. That he never used it made his charm even more devastating.

  But looks were deceiving, as usual. Matt’s unhappy childhood, first with a beaten-down unwed mother and then with an abusive stepfather, had driven him to become the perfect “Father Matt” he’d never had. He liked the anonymity of radio. She was hoping the dance competition would bring out his extroverted side.

  She wriggled her bare toes against his stomach, making him seize her feet to stop the teasing and eye her with unsanctioned intentions. He’d worked hard to overcome his sad early history and was more than ready to start making some promising fresh history with her, except for the occasional qualm about fornication without benefit of matrimony.

  She was a lucky girl. Temple sighed again, this time with an odd combination of contentment and excitement. She sure hoped trouble would stay out of their way until they could do something official to end these prenuptial nerves.

  Louie Left Out

  Ring bearer.

  Who do they think I am?

  Frodo?

  I am short and I do have hairy feet, but do I look like I eat seven meals a day?

  Well, maybe a wee bit.

  Anyway, it was bad enough I was shanghaied into my Miss Temple’s maternal aunt’s wedding party recently. After all, the event was over the top to begin with, just in having eight legendary Fontana brothers for groomsmen, not counting the eight good-looking bridesmaids they squired.

  And, granted, I got a little local publicity for being Johnny-on-the-spot, but I got no credit for outsmarting the murderous individual who almost ruined the wedding beforehand by taking out the maid of honor, my very own Miss Temple Barr.

  All this wedding talk and reminiscence is making me gloomy. My Miss Temple was “this far” from
being the matron of honor. The way a maid gets to be a matron is by marrying someone, as she and Mr. Matt Devine are discussing so often these days.

  I do so miss my previous rival for turf on the royal bedspread here at the Circle Ritz.

  Mr. Max Kinsella was the perfect boyfriend for my Miss Temple.

  He lived and slept somewhere secret off the premises.

  He customarily arrived discreetly by the patio doors, which is my usual modus operandi.

  Although he gave lip service to a future of marital bliss, he led two to three lives and his past career as a magician and undercover counterterrorist kept him on the run and single.

  He was so studly he could satisfy with a riveting personal appearance and then stay gone for whole days at a time. There were no nightly assignations to muss the bedspread and my territorial imperatives.

  He remained totally protective but at a discreet distance, leaving me to do the daily bodyguard work and also lie guard on said bedspread.

  In other words, for a significant other, he did not significantly get in my way. He exemplified the highest ideals of the Alley Cat Code: friendly, fierce when necessary, and fancy-free.

  Mr. Matt Devine, however, is a much more domestically inclined breed of cat. Having no secret missions of an international nature, he lays about the place, especially in my spots!

  He discusses “their” possible move to his apartment right above us on the third floor, no doubt hoping to erase all bedroom memories of Mr. Max Kinsella. I am not as young as I used to be. A three-story climb is much more demanding than a two-story climb. Show a little consideration for the aging frame.

  So move. Fine! I will continue to occupy Miss Temple’s rooms all on my lonesome then. I am happy to entertain guests of my ilk in complete privacy. I could use a bachelor pad as much as the next guy. Just because Mr. Matt Devine is from a churchy background and actually considers matrimony holy does not mean those of other denominations, such as myself—I am a devout follower of the Egyptian female cat deity, Bast—must live by his rules.

  But this is an empty threat. I have come to appreciate a feminine touch about the place, and also frequent ear stroking. The thought of being edged out of my Miss Temple’s bed if not her affections is most distressing.

  I fling myself through the flimsy patio doors that Mr. Max was always urging her to fortify, and scramble down the single old leaning palm tree that is my land bridge to the ground-floor parking lot.

  The asphalt is hot on my pads as I skitter across it to the hedge of oleander bushes. They are poisonous eating to critter kind, which is why Ma Barker, my long-lost mama, and her feral gang shelter in here for the time being. No wise street dog will disturb them here. I could use a friendly ear.

  Instead, one of my own ears is boxed as soon as I am in the safe shadows within.

  “Disappointing boy!” my venerable dam spits in that very now-ringing ear. “This is what you call a safe haven? With gourmet food and distilled water? We have seen nothing but aluminum pie tins full of those awful dried green rabbit droppings.”

  “I have been busy, Ma. I have not had time to train the human waitstaff on what to serve in which manner. They constantly involve me in the criminal community. And Free-to-Be-Feline is a prime New Age health food.”

  “Food! It is already in a condition to be eliminated before one can touch fang to its odious smell and texture. When can we expect something juicy and tasty that does not run away on four legs?”

  “Soon, Ma! The only crimes transpiring around the Circle Ritz these days are crimes of passion,” I add sourly. “As soon as I can interrupt these proceedings for a few minutes, I will get your needs tended to.”

  “You had better, son. We might just have to rumble nights in protest if you do not push these people into line. Free-to-Be Feline! If we were really free to be feline, we would run this town.”

  You would think I had led them into forty days and forty nights in the desert. Or was it years?

  I slink away, caught between the conflicting needs of my kind and my kind of girl.

  A Moses of my people I am not.

  House of Max

  When Matt got back to his empty but beautifully redone apartment—no thanks to himself, who’d lived contentedly for years with rectory furniture donations—his answering machine winked its low-tech red eyelash at him. Message waiting.

  Most of the few people he knew in Las Vegas reached him by cell phone. He sat down on his scarlet suede fifties couch, courtesy of Temple’s secondhand store expertise, to listen to it.

  A good thing he did.

  The call from homicide Lieutenant C. R. Molina was a shock. Her rich contralto voice was soft and low and secretive. The formidable policewoman wanted a clandestine rendezvous with him. Pronto.

  He was an almost married man, he wanted to protest to the recorded message. Still, romance was the last thing anyone would suspect was on the no-nonsense officer’s mind.

  And she didn’t want him to call her anywhere on any phone. She would meet him at her house at 7:15 P.M. Her house was in Our Lady of Guadalupe parish, near the iffy north Las Vegas neighborhoods. He would stay in the car. She’d come out.

  Hey, she didn’t want even her thirteen-year-old daughter and the two shelter cats to spot him? What was he, a pariah? Or did she want to avoid “talk” now that he and Temple were engaged?

  Oh, and erase her message from the answering machine.

  Matt did, wondering like crazy what was up.

  He looked up the address of the modest Mexican restaurant where she’d wanted to eat in the shiny new Vegas street guide he’d bought after coming to town eighteen months before. The place was in a north-of-downtown area even a Vegas newcomer like him knew was high crime.

  So he wasn’t about to take his silver Crossfire tonight. Expensive new automotive eye candy was susceptible to theft in that neighborhood. The Hesketh Vampire motorcycle in Electra’s back shed was built for fast getaways, but, again, was a vintage collectible with “steal me” written all over it.

  Matt had a feeling that the Vampire would have been appropriate for this sudden outing. It had originally belonged to Max Kinsella, as Temple had. Not that she’d ever belong to anyone, including him. Still, she and Max had been serious lovers, with marriage in the wings, even though Max had been absent for almost a year when Matt had first hit the Circle Ritz and met Temple.

  Matt, fresh out of the priesthood, had instantly fallen in love with Temple. Like many petite women, she made up for size with energy, spirit, and an Imelda Marcos– size high heel collection. Temple was smart, savvy, funny, and kind. As a freelance public relations person, she had to get along with all types of people to keep major events with casts of thousands running smoothly.

  Sometimes that included fending off bad publicity; sometimes that had come to include solving crimes, even murder, if they threatened the event. Temple always put her heart and soul and exotic soles into her work.

  Matt was smiling. He always did when he thought of Temple, even when he saw her at a distance, being Temple as only she could. His first flush of infatuation had nearly burned a hole in his soul and newly liberated libido, but he’d had to take cold showers and wait. Max came back.

  Max Kinsella.

  Molina despised this man without ever having met him. She’d pegged him as a murderer who had gotten away unscathed, thanks to a dead man at the Goliath Hotel and Casino. Temple loved Max with a fortitude Matt had thought would never flag. She knew he was innocent. After all, she’d finally learned he’d been an undercover counterterrorist since his teens as well as the world-class magician she’d met in her native Minneapolis and followed to Vegas.

  Max was a good guy, but Molina didn’t know that and wouldn’t believe it, even when Matt told her so. And Max would never deign to defend himself from her false impression. It was Pride and Prejudice all over again.

  Now Max was gone. Again. Disappeared without warning. Again. For good?

  Matt felt guil
ty about hoping so in his secret soul. He also knew that Temple would be better off knowing how, and why, the ex-magician had vanished, and if Max was alive or dead.

  Matt picked up his cell phone and speed-dialed the pent house number of their landlady, Electra Lark.

  “Hi, Electra, are you recovering okay from being a murder suspect? Who knew attending the big Red Hat Sisterhood convention in town would entangle you with ex-husbands and murdered bodies? All okay now? Good. Say, can I borrow my old Probe back tonight? No, I don’t want to be anonymous. I just don’t want my Crossfire ripped off. Yeah, it’s a pain owning a sexy car. Had I but known, I’d have bought a Prius, which is now an even hotter car. Can’t win. I’ll be right up for the keys.”

  Five hours later, Molina darted out of her house and into his idling white Probe like a fugitive.

  “Let’s get going.”

  The drive wasn’t far. Tio Julio’s was a much-added-onto ram-shackle wooden building, the kind of restaurant that has served really good food with no fuss and minimal atmosphere for three generations. It was so crowded you couldn’t tell waitperson from customer and they were all mostly Hispanic. Vegas ran on chutzpah and illegal aliens well mixed among the legal ones.

  Matt felt embarrassed by his Chicago Polish-pale face and blond hair that screamed “gringo” as he waited for Molina just inside the door while she visited the ladies’ room, wondering why the homicide lieutenant had picked such a busy venue.

  When Molina reclaimed him, it was literal. She slipped an arm through his and pulled him into the restaurant, machine-gunning Spanish at a passing hostess. They followed the young Latina through a noisy mélange of people sipping margaritas and Dos Equis, through a fragrant miasma of picante sauce and sizzling fajitas, into a smaller room as crowded and noisy.

  Molina was almost his height. She muscled him into place on a bench against the wall, so they sat side by side, with a 180-degree view of the room and its diners.

  Now he could see she was wearing some kind of sequined multicolored shawl. Her usual black bob had been roughened with gel and swept behind her ear on one side. She was sporting huge gold hoop earrings and, when she took off her sunglasses, enough eyeliner and eye shadow to pass as an aging Goth girl, a disguise assumed in the rest room.