Cat in an Aqua Storm Read online

  “What’s the story on this murder at the Goliath? Why are you so...”

  “Excited by it? Simple. You see, I could have had that strippers’ convention PR job, only I turned it down. Not Crawford Buchanan. He’s too greedy to reject any sure thing. So it could have been me and not Crawford Buchanan who’s up to his neck in a murderous mess. If I’d stumbled onto a body a second time, you can bet that Lieutenant Molina would have put me in thumbscrews.”

  “That homicide detective! He sounds like a terror, or a throwback to the days of brass knuckles.”

  Temple chewed crab salad and her impulses, then forbore telling Matt that her bête noir of the law was female. It made her look less in need of sympathy.

  “Why did you turn the convention down?” he asked.

  “This is one of the few times when I can grandly say, ‘principle.’ All that flesh on parade makes me uneasy, the notion of teasing a bunch of paying customers. Even regular working women are sometimes tempted into acting or looking like bimbos to get male attention.”

  “Aren’t there men strippers now, too?”

  “Oh, sure, but it’s the same thing. Besides, they’re all overblown plastic musclemen, about as attractive as steroid robots.”

  “Then you don’t like them because you don’t find their type attractive?”

  “And stripping seems demeaning. On the other hand, I guess they make a lot of money doing it, so who can blame them?”

  “You can. You blame Crawford Buchanan for being greedy.”

  “Don’t make me sound like a prude or a pauper. What upsets me is that I came closer than I want to think about to getting tangled in another murder. Which explains my unholy glee.”

  “You had a hand in solving the last one. What’s wrong with that?”

  “That’s not my job. My job is getting good publicity for my clients. I hate messes, and murder makes a mess you wouldn’t believe. But this time it’s in Crawford’s lap, not mine.”

  “I’ll drink to that.” Matt lifted his glass. “What’s the story on this Crawford guy?”

  “The bane of my life since I got to Vegas. Goes everywhere. Writes a sleazy woman-chasing column about the nightlife for the Las Vegas Scoop. Has no sense of shame or ethics. Would steal a client from the Pope.”

  Matt choked on his wine at her heated description.

  “Really, Matt! He’s the most slimy, sexist, smug, smarmy... PR person to pollute a press club.” Temple settled back for a sip of her own wine. “I shouldn’t let him get to me.”

  “Is he getting to you, or the murder?”

  “You keep asking these pointed questions.”

  Matt smiled. “That’s my job.”

  “You’re good at it. I always seem to need to explain my motives to you.”

  “That’s not the idea. My questions are supposed to help you explain your motives to yourself.”

  “You’re a model counselor,” she admitted more seriously before rising to dash into the kitchen for the crème de menthe chocolate mousse that would crown their plain supper. Temple was adept with desserts if nothing else edible. “A lot of people wouldn’t understand why Buchanan infuriates me,” she said when she came back and sat down after placing the dessert dishes.

  Matt nodded. “It’s the injustice of it all, of Buchanan’s golden survival while he breaks every rule. In a way, you envy him.”

  “I do not!” Temple meditated over her parti-colored mousse, dipping tiny spoonfuls from the deep narrow dessert glass and then letting them melt on her tongue. “Maybe I do envy his chutzpah.”

  “We all envy the insensitive people of the world. They suffer less.”

  “True.” Temple had noticed Matt’s wry tone on the last comment. “You must talk to a lot of suffering people.”

  “You mean in my job?”

  “You’re saying the sufferers are all around us. They are us.” He ate his mousse as methodically as she, in silence. “The ones who call you, though,” she said finally, “must be doubly desperate.”

  “They don’t call me. They call the hot line. They call a distant, nonjudgmental voice. Someone who can’t see them, find them, accuse them. A disembodied conscience or savior.”

  “Doesn’t it ever get to you? Dealing with all that misery?”

  He shrugged almost imperceptibly. “Sometimes you help.”

  “You can never know how much, though. Some callers you’ve given up on may have saved themselves. Some you’re sure will make it, won’t.”

  The wine bottle tilted in Matt’s hand as it bowed deeply to Temple’s glass. That’s when she realized that they had drunk a lot, that her cheeks were flushed even as she felt suddenly sober, unbuoyed by bubbles, thinking about life and death. He was slow to answer.

  “No, you can never really know what happens to the voices on the line when they hang up. Some you hear from again after a long silence. Some just vanish.”

  Temple swallowed hard. “Not knowing must be the worst thing on earth,” she said fiercely.

  Matt’s warm brown eyes met hers, broke the polite barrier they always erected, penetrated hers like burning swords. “No. The worst thing is knowing.”

  5

  Sick to Death

  Temple sat alone on her patio as the sun weltered slowly in the west behind the Circle Ritz. A grillwork of anonymous, elongated shadows overlay the pool area. In the distance, the Mirage Hotel’s artificial volcano belched its preprogrammed flames with a roar that mimicked the uncivil growls of distant wild beasts.

  Matt had left early, by seven-thirty, to go to his night shift at the hot line. Temple was musing on her glimpse of a hidden intensity in Matt Devine, one that pulsed behind his air of amused neutrality at her own energetic opinions.

  Footsteps scraped the concrete below, so she rose to inspect the grounds. A darker shadow stirred in the pooled shade of tree and building.

  “Louie!” The rebuking tone couldn’t quite conceal her relief.

  The cat, hunched over something, didn’t look up.

  While she frowned down at this mystery, a man’s figure stepped from the palm shadow. “It’s hard to see from all this far, but you wouldn’t be Miss Temple Barr?”

  From this height, the speaker looked like an out-of-focus Charlie Chaplin.

  “Who’s asking?” Temple returned.

  The man squatted beside Louie, but continued to look up at Temple. “No one famous. Just Nostradamus.”

  For a moment she was speechless, then recovered herself. “Excuse me, but Nostradamus was a pretty famous fellow a few centuries ago.”

  “I’m a namesake forsaken,” he said. “No offense taken.” He laid something from his pocket before Louie, who gobbled it with catlike concentration.

  “What are you feeding him?”

  “Just some bits of leftover lunch meat. He acts as if he’s had nothing to eat.”

  “ ‘Acts’ is right. That scoundrel has ignored bowls full of the best cat food money can buy: Free-to-Be-Feline.”

  “It wouldn’t take a good detective,” Nostradamus said with a sage nod, “to figure out why he’s so selective.”

  “Stale lunch meat can’t be good for him. Stop feeding him that junk and I’ll be down to collect him.”

  She didn’t wait for an answer but headed downstairs, barefoot.

  When she arrived, both cat and man were in the same position, doing the same thing: Nostradamus feeding, Louie eating.

  “Corned beef!” Temple identified the dry flakes in Nostradamus’s hand at a glance even in the waning light. “Riddled with fat and sodium! I wouldn’t feed that stuff even to a human.”

  “All right, lady, I’ll heed your wishes.” The man rose, stuffing the white butcher paper back into his pocket. “Louie really favors goldfishes.”

  “The only thing fishy here is you,” Temple said sharply. “Why are you slinking around the grounds?”

  “So help me it’s true: I’m just looking for you. A mutual friend in trouble told me to find you on the
double.”

  “Who would I have in common with you?”

  “You’ll find your man in Crawford Buchanan.”

  “Oh, he’s common, all right.” Temple bent to hoist Louie. A twenty-four-hour absence had not impaired his heft. “Come into the lobby air-conditioning, such as it is, and tell me about it.”

  Once she had Louie firmly indoors, she pulled the side door closed and turned to examine the so-called Nostradamus in the lurid light of the outdated ceiling fixture high above.

  She inspected a narrow, small man of indeterminate age dressed in a green plaid short-sleeved shirt with a yellow bow tie at his stringy throat.

  “You’re a friend of Crawford Buchanan’s?” She sounded a bit more incredulous than she intended.

  The man sighed mightily. “That’s not exactly the whole cookie. I’m really, actually just his... bookie.”

  “Oh. Well, what’s the message?”

  “Crawford’s sick, and gettin’ sicker.”

  “He sent you here to tell me he’s got the flu?”

  “Not flu. A faulty ticker.” Nostradamus pounded his concave chest and looked in danger of pushing himself over.

  “Heart trouble? I didn’t know Crawford had one.”

  “He wants you to visit room eight-oh-three—”

  “Visit him? Me?”

  “In the medical center of the university.”

  “Gee,” said Temple, waffling. “Is it serious?”

  “His heart or his request?”

  “Both, I guess.”

  “Neither one is any jest.” Nostradamus tipped his battered straw fedora with the paisley band, opened the door, and ebbed into the now-opaque darkness.

  A large puddle of interior darkness—Louie—hunched uncooperatively on the pale, ice-cold marble floor and gazed at Temple with accusing green eyes.

  “All right! I might have some low-fat turkey slices in the refrigerator. Come on up and you can take a vacation from Free-to-Be-Feline.”

  He rose, stretched until his hindquarters and tail pointed ceilingward, then ambled down the hallway to the elevator.

  Once Temple had let them both into her apartment and plied Louie with Louis Rich turkey slices (which she broke into pieces over the untouched Free-to-Be-Feline), she called the medical center. Crawford Buchanan was indeed out of intensive care and occupying room 803. He could have visitors until 9 p.m.

  She should let the stinker stew in his own IVs.

  Temple checked her watch—just eight—then went to make herself presentable for a visit to a sick enemy.

  6

  No Love Lost

  Alone at last! No sooner has Miss Temple Barr torn out of the apartment on an errand of mercy than I take the opportunity of eating the sliced turkey off the top of my tasteless pile of pet food, a veritable Everest of rabbit pellets.

  My next task is to find a suitable spot for intense cogitation. After exploring the familiar terrain, I find that my hasty roommate has left an emerald silk dress flung across the bed in her flurry to find attire appropriate to the hospital.

  First I pat the dress into the proper formation with my mitts, a task I manage without much resorting to my crudely clipped nails from the vet’s. Then I turn around on it precisely six times. Those of my particular breed are superstitious about numbers. Perhaps it comes of having nine lives, but we tend to do things in multiples of three.

  Once the garment is nicely crumpled so the night-light reflects faintly off its subtle shades of green (the virtual twin to my own eye color), I allow my footsore nineteen-plus pounds to press the material into its new, nestlike shape.

  Now I can think. And I have much to contemplate. While Miss Temple Barr's obnoxious new cuisine is most off-putting, it alone is not enough to drive a dude to a binge away from home. I am long used to feeding myself quite well without the intervention of a can opener, however convenient such a labor-saving device may be. When it comes to handouts, Midnight Louie is no slouch.

  Monday morning, even before Miss Temple Barr arises, I returned to cruising the streets. I am not afraid of work if it is amiable. Within my first hour away from home I collect a sixth of a Big Mac, a melted Dairy Queen in a plastic lid and four olives.

  It is while wandering from way station to way station that I pass the Thrill 'n' Quill Bookstore, its windows thronging with murderous tomes and one sleeping tom of my acquaintance.

  By stretching full length I can tap the plate glass right where Ingram’s pale pink nose is pressing. He starts awake as if bee-stung, ears askew and rabies tags clashing at his collar line. When he recognizes me, he shows his teeth in a less than cordial welcome.

  This cuts no ice with Miss Maeveleen Pearl, proprietress of the Thrill 'n' Quill. She bustles over to let the poor sot out. “Oh, Ingram,” I hear her croon as the door opens. (Miss Maeveleen Pearl never speaks but in a syrupy tone that would glue most people’s lips together.) “Your little friend has come calling again. Isn’t that sweet? Besides, I wanted to arrange Baker and Taylor in that window anyway. There you go."

  Ingram, out the door in a jiffy, is still growling when I approach him. He sits on the concrete stoop and angrily boxes his muzzle with his mitts. This ritual of keeping his nose clean seems more along the lines of slapping some sense into himself, which he could use, in my opinion.

  He is in no mood to thank me for his sudden furlough, but watches the display window sourly as Miss Maeveleen Pearl sets about arranging a pair of stuffed Scottish fold-type felines amongst the books.

  Her devotion to these inert bozos, Ingram tells me, borders on the psychotic.

  “A human must have her hobby," I reply, reaching out to give Ingram’s rabies tags a jingle. "Now quit whining and tell me what is happening in this town of late."

  Ingram is the scholarly sort who thinks nothing of drifting off over the entertainment section of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. It is amazing what he can commit to memory without even trying.

  Well, he says, spreading his toes so as to count off on his six digits (Ingram’s forebears are prone to quirky genetic modifications), the Cat’s Meow shop across from the Sands has quite a few layabouts on the premises, but the word is the proprietor is kind of a Carrie Nation teetotaler.

  This is bad news. While I have no time for Scottish folds, in the flesh or the fabric, I am partial to a touch of scotch in my milk now and again.

  "What kind of Carrie Nation is she?” I inquire. There is a cute kitten or two at the Cat’s Meow I have my eye on.

  “She is a crusader, and not the rabbit kind,” Ingram replies. He tells me certain dudes of an uninhibited nature have been disappearing from the alley behind the Cat’s Meow and when they show up again, they are singing soprano. Not, Ingram adds snootily, that there is anything wrong with a higher register.

  He is one to talk, having long since sacrificed his masculine prowess to the dubious joys of being a kept cat.

  "Dudes are being swept off the street and returned minus their operative parts?” I demand in horror and something of a Magnum PI falsetto. My imagination is hitting the roof too.

  Ingram nods sagely, his old-gold eyes glimmering. It is true, he says, so help him, Havana Brown. The atrocities, he goes on, are part of a pet population control program.

  “If they want to control the pet population,” I growl, “why do they not stick to pets, instead of snatching innocent dudes off the street and abstracting their oysters? Have you any news that will not turn my stomach?"

  Kitty City, says he, is offering a new revue of naked talent.

  I report that I am not interested in transfeline entertainment.

  Too bad, says he. Then you will not be interested in the fact that the Goliath Hotel is hosting a competition of striptease artists of all sexes including questionable.

  “Why should I be?" I reply.

  Here Ingram looks unbearably sly and runs his barbed pink tongue over his scanty whiskers. He hears, he goes on, that Miss Savannah Ashleigh, the film star, will help judge t
he action at the striptease competition. Is not this the same Savannah Ashleigh who visited my old stomping grounds, the Crystal Phoenix Hotel and Casino, in palmier days, along with her companion, a foxy number of the female persuasion named Yvette?

  I stare at Ingram as if seeing him for the first time. The name “Yvette” hits my ears like a bouncer’s fists. Yvette. The Divine Yvette. I hear again her subtle throaty voice, see the infinitely changing kaleidoscope of her baby blue-greens, feel sable-tipped silver fur brushing against my broad shoulders....

  The Divine Yvette is back in town.

  Wait, Ingram yodels in his scratchy voice as I rocket down the street, headed for the Goliath Hotel, do you not wish to learn about the exotic goldfish display at the Mirage—?

  I pay no mind. If there is any force on earth that can distract me from the pursuit of food, it is the Divine Yvette.

  In fact, even thinking of her in retrospect as I lounge here in silken comfort in the lap of Miss Temple Barr’s luxury almost makes me forget the shocking events of the past twelve hours, in which I have slipped the gentle bonds of my little doll’s attentions. I doze off, dreaming of crystal ashtrays brimming with champagne, catnip caviar and a world-class lady friend with whom to share them.

  7

  The Cookie Crumbles

  Overhead fluorescent lights lent Crawford Buchanan’s normally pasty complexion a sallow tinge. The breath-mint-green hospital gown did nothing for him, either, except to tinge his silver hair yellow. Temple rebelled at expressing false sentiments, so her “Gosh, Crawford, you look... tired” avoided coming out “awful” only by a hair.

  He lay in the industrial-strength hospital bed, puny and pathetic. Temple unconsciously lowered her voice to a genuinely solicitous level. “How are you feeling? Is it... serious?”

  “The heart attack? I’ll live.” His voice was still a surprisingly deep basso he played like a cello. “The murder? If they nail me for it, I may not live,” he added gloomily.