Midnight Louie 05-Cat in a Diamond Dazzle Read online

  Contents

  Prologue: Mine Eyes Dazzle . . .

  Chapter 1: Return of the Native

  Chapter 2: Still the Same Old Stow . . .

  Chapter 3: A Fight for Love and Glory . . .

  Chapter 4: Yvette to Be Alone

  Chapter 5: A Really Big Shoe-down

  Chaplet 6: Little Cat. Feet

  Chapter 7: Boys Town

  Chapter 8: Deep Water

  Chapter 9: Spray for Rain

  Chapter 10; Pirates Ahoy!

  Chapter 11: Blue Dahlia Bogey Boogie

  Chapter 11: Hearse and Rehearsal

  Chapter U: Murder on the Hoof

  Chapter 1-1: Every Little Breeze. . .

  Chapter 15: Hocus Focus

  Interlude: Ah, Sweet Mystery of Hystery

  Chapter 16: Bugged Out

  Chapter 17: ... Seems to Whisper Louise

  Chapter 18: Every Large Breezy . . .

  Chapter 19: Ship of Jewels

  Chapter 20: Long John Louie

  Chapter 21: Opening Knights

  Chapter 22: Morning, Moon and Molina

  Chapter 23: Catfood vs. Dogmeat

  Chapter 24: Jake of All Trades

  Chapter 25: True Confessions

  Chapter 26: Another Opening, Another Shoe

  Chapter 27: Witch Switch

  Chapter 28: Romantic Rendezvous

  Chapter 29: Four Queens Get the Boot

  Interlude: It's Hystery!

  Chapter 30: Undressed Rehearsal

  Chapter 31: Murderous Suspicions

  Chapter 32: Interview with the Executioner

  Chapter 33: A Clue to Chew On

  Chapter 34: Last Act

  Chapter 35: Love in Vein

  Chapter 36: Swept Away

  Chapter 37: Confess

  Chapter 38: Checkmate

  Tailpiece: Midnight Louie Celebrates

  "No mask like open truth to cover lies, As to go naked is the best disguise."

  --Congreve, The Double Dealer (1694)

  Prologue

  Mine Eyes Dazzle

  Well, knock me over with a wolverine and suck me up with a second-hand Hoover.

  I could not be more surprised had Mr. Elvis Presley himself materialized in Miss Temple Barr's living room, although I doubt that even the King would have the gall to wear a Hawaiian shirt of such particularly lurid design.

  This last item of apparel is so electrifyingly florid that I am forced to squint my eyes semi-shut. A pity. That delays my analysis of the individual who has committed the taste-defying act of wearing such a garment.

  Miss Temple Barr, however, is not one to be distracted by an aura of rotting flora when there is an intruder in the house.

  And there is no doubt that the gentleman who has been kind enough to fetch her sunglasses from the patio is an intruder, although he is apparently known to her. He is vaguely familiar to me as well, though it pains me to admit acquaintance with one so deficient in wardrobe coordination skills.

  In fact, as mine eyes adjust to the pineapple/passion fruit dazzle, I manage to study this trespasser from head to toe. This is a time-consuming job, given the dude's impressive height, but luckily I am lying down, so it is not a physical strain.

  Here are the facts: the intruder is a thirty-something Caucasian male, six-feet-something in height, whip-snake-narrow in width, with a head of thick black hair that is almost as shiny and well-tended as mine.

  I must say I approve of the hair, if little else.

  But I am not an ace detective for naught, and am as able to draw an inference as an inside straight. Despite the lurid gasoline-spill tinted sunglasses that shade this dude's eyes, I would bet that they are as green as string beans. Maybe greener, since most of the string beans of my acquaintance have been overcooked to an unappetizing avocado color.

  This is not a dagger I see before me but something almost as dangerous to the status quo: the missing Mr. Mystifying Max. As you may well imagine, the two main characters in this sudden encounter are too busy eyeing each other to spare a glance for little me.

  As you may also imagine, I do not intend to take the unauthorized re-entry of a former resident of the premises lying down, even if he is considerably bigger than I.

  But you do not have to imagine: Midnight Louie is on the scene to describe the encounter in living color, with Vistavision, sound effects and even Smellorama.

  Right now my keen sniffer is absorbing the scents of ozone-crackling tension along with a delicate undercurrent of pheromone. If anyone could bottle this stuff, we all would have something to write home about. Meanwhile, the world at large can only rely upon the sage instincts and keen observational skills of its humble on-the-scene reporter, yours truly.

  Stay tuned.

  Chapter 1

  Return of the Native

  Max Kinsella looked like a surreal figure lost in a garishly vacant Dali landscape. Temple couldn't believe her eyes.

  Nor could her mind assemble several clear but alien impressions into a recognizable image . . .

  neon-storm, carnival-midway Hawaiian shirt. Oil-slick rainbow sunshades . . . dark, virtual-reality lenses locking the wearer into an intimated vast but hidden world. Height like the Eiffel Tower: familiar but looming larger than memory.

  She was viewing not Max Kinsella, but Max Headroom, some berserk computer-image accident and traveling freak show. Kaleidoscopic Technicolor Hologram Man. Unreal, man. Unreal.

  The seashore roared in Temple's ears. She sensed her own space, time and particular place in such sharp but distant clarity that it too had become a dislocated Dali landscape, seen but not felt. Not truly comprehended.

  Well-corseted Victorian ladies, she guessed, would have swooned by now. The only buttressing piece of clothing holding Temple together at the moment was the soft sash of her martial arts gi, and it was no excuse for suffering an attack of the vapors.

  She became aware of her bare feet planted on the fuzzy com-fort of her fake goat-hair rug. At the same instant, she became even more alert to her hatred of ever being seen at such a childish disadvantage.

  And then, despite the ludicrous shock of Max's reappearance, and his appearance, reality shattered her Technicolor daze like a fist smashing a stained-glass window.

  She heard the eternal, prosaic hum of the air conditioner, and began to recognize again the bland familiarity of her domestic terrain. She even began to recall Max being as normal a part of this interior decor as she was. She began to believe he was there, as she still was. That this time it was really, really Max. That he was . . . alive.

  A thrum of relief overrode numb disbelief.

  Then another emotion came roaring out from the icebox of time-frozen emotions in which she had stored Max with the wistful care of someone preserving a prom-night corsage.

  A muscular emotion, part fire and part tempered steel, it had a hot, coal-fire heart and a one-track mind. Its long-dampered engine began racing, chug-chugging with impatience, building up a head of steam in countertime to the shock-slowed beat of her heart.

  The memory engine was gathering speed and sweeping her into its impetuous train. She saw the past--their past--glide by in stately panorama.

  Meeting at the Guthrie Theatre. That night's magic show-- prestidigitation in the heart of darkness--the stage a velvet-black hole lit by the spotlights' cyclic fireworks. Walking beside the lamplight-dappled water in Loring Park in a lukewarm summer night. Leaving Minneapolis. Landing in Las Vegas so lost in each other they were like shell-shocked aliens on terra infirma. Electra, the Circle Ritz, the Goliath and more magic shows in the dark, more days in the light, more nights in black sa
tin and falling stars afloat on water.. .. Azure days, quicksilver nights.

  Temple was now a mere passenger aboard the locomotive of her own emotions, drawn along by one particular, as-yet unnameable sensation. She leaned out the train window and tilted her head to read the passing sign: the town of Joy in the state of Disbelief. Utter, driving, unstoppable joy.

  The train steamed forward, sure of itself, carving a path through space and time, back to the future, escaping the past and tearing into the present. Everything else slipped away like air. The engine was climbing the steepest grade o{ incredulity, penetrating the darkest tunnel of doubt, ready to huff and puff across the widest chasm of uncertainty, ready to overleap any chasm, whether a bridge stretched beneath it or not. . . .

  "Max--" Temple heard her voice whisper. You're alive, her mind shouted.

  Max didn't seem to hear either his spoken name or her nameless emotions. Maybe the pistons of her joy were pounding too loudly. Then he spoke, too.

  "Who's the blond?"

  Temple frowned at words as indecipherable as vernacular Martian. Nonsense syllables. Why would Max speak gobbledegook at such a moment?

  "You're alive," she whispered, still lagging behind real time.

  Who's the blond? What blond? Some woman he wanted to saw in half, some blonde magician's assistant? Christie Brinkley? Huh?

  Then the present reasserted itself in flash cards of detail. Temple saw herself passing through the past twenty-four hours as if watching a secret videotape of her every movement. Then she understood.

  The parquet floor of her apartment shuddered and became so solid it hurt. Sunlight lancing through the open French door that framed Max's bizarre silhouette made her eyes water.

  Her train of joy derailed with a sickening crash, a jack-knifing, twisting tangle of each car in its long train. Passengers named Trust and Hope and Love were cast out upon the surreal countryside like so many dice gone awry.

  Yet everything collapsed in slow motion, like all disasters both physical and psychic. She had one split second to mourn the ruined scene, to count the dead and to inspect the walking wounded, particularly herself. Then her strange travelog of emotion ended with her at home.

  She studied Max's Technicolor facade, knowing the man be-hind it, inside it, and not knowing him at all. With one cold question, he had cast himself again into the farthest, protective deep freeze of her emotions. Fresh damage smashed Temple's train wreck of joy into smaller pieces. His words, so distant, so judging, struck her heart to the hilt, a long, Arthurian sword thrust so deep it might never be drawn out. If only she were stone . ..

  A new emotion surfaced through an ocean of hurt, and it struck back.

  "Are your eyes really green?" she said, just as flatly.

  So there they stood, after all this time, asking idiot questions that could only be answered with anger and self-justification.

  Max stood unmoving, as he in turn struggled to decode her remark. Then he took off his sunglasses, folded and hung them from the dreadful shirt's breast pocket.

  His eyes were still green, Temple saw, but were they really? He wasn't saying, was he? Just showing. Magicians were very good at dodging the issues, any issue. They would show, but not tell.

  "You've been watching me," she said. Accused.

  "Had to. For your sake as well as mine."

  Her theatrical ear listened for the trace of a brogue, and the sword in her heart (stupid but inescapable cliche) twisted. Trust was in terminal condition and growing weaker every second. Hope was declared dead. Love was in a coma and would probably linger there for life, such as it was.

  Still, "your sake" implied something.

  "Max--!" She shoved her fingers into her hair.

  He put a shushing finger to his lips, his (maybe green) eyes warning silence.

  She glanced quickly around the room. Was it bugged?

  Max, reading her concern, shook his head. "No one's listening to us but us, and that's two too many."

  He moved further into the room, in a smooth big-cat glide meant to soothe. Max had the seamless, gravity-defying, sight-deceiving motion of a master mime. He stopped four feet away, behind the sofa.

  "He's new."

  Who? Temple was still moving in four-four time in a sixteenth-note world. She followed Max's feline-green glance to the sofa seat.

  Oh. Louie.

  "A stray cat I found at the Convention Center."

  Max extended a cautious arm, the dark hairs on it gleaming as satin as Louie's well-licked coat.

  His fingers stroked Louie's head.

  The cat growled, deep and long.

  Max didn't jerk his hand away, as most people would. "He likes it here."

  "Why shouldn't he? He gets food and affection, and comes and goes as he pleases."

  An awkward silence prevailed, as certain personal parallels were drawn by both parties.

  Max stepped cautiously around the sofa, nodding at Temple. "That's something new."

  "My gi?" Goodness, she sounded casual, Temple thought. She lifted a tail of the flour-sack-pale sash. "I'm learning self-defense." Studying the yet-alien garb, she added, "Matt's my teacher."

  How easily Max had moved from direct route to circuitous, just like a cat mincing around a foreign object. Here she was answering his very first question, whether she wanted to or not. Who's the blond? "Matt Devine. New neighbor."

  "Self-defense is an admirable art." Max was noncommittal. He smiled then, that Max smile that could charm china birds off jade-bejeweled trees. "But I don't think that outfit does you justice."

  Temple's shoulders dropped as her eyes winced shut. "In other words, I look like Dopey the dwarf."

  In that unguarded instant, Max took his opening. Temple heard nothing, no movement. Yet she felt his hands under her elbows, then he was lifting her up, as before, until her face was level with his. Temple forced herself not to wince again.

  He lifted her higher this time, so she was looking down on him, as if they were in bed. She stared into his hypnotically green eyes--warm, amused, probing--and their traitorous color stopped her cold again.

  "You look adorable," he said. "You always underestimate yourself, Temple." His light tone changed. "Don't underestimate me."

  The betraying, inevitable tears hung like isinglass curtains before her vision, frozen from falling.

  "Max . . . why?"

  "I can't say."

  "Then why do you expect me to spill my guts?"

  He lowered her to the floor so swiftly she felt she'd been on a carnival ride. "I have a lot of unreasonable expectations." He looked around. Temple was shocked to see that his hair had grown so long it was gathered into a pony tail. "Like expecting things to stay the same. But they don't, do they?"

  "Some things do." Like her hairstyle. "Look, why don't we start over, sit down and talk?"

  "Aren't you expected somewhere?" He eyed the gi.

  "This." She tightened the sash as if wringing her hands instead of cotton ties. "I'll run down and say that something came up."

  Max grinned. "Considering my method of arrival, that's not only apt, but precisely truthful."

  "You climbed up the outside? Like Louie? Why?"

  "The cat climbs up the outside, too?" Max glanced at the animal, not necessarily pleased to note a similarity. "I imagine we slink around for the same reasons."

  "Hunting?" Temple asked.

  "Or hiding." Max reached for the sunglasses again. "But don't call off your lesson. I'll come down and watch."

  "Max, no! I'd feel. .. dumb. And if you are hiding--"

  "Not too seriously at the moment, or I wouldn't be here."

  Temple shook her head. "At least explain the Easter-egg shirt."

  "Authentic fifties-vintage Goodwill."

  "I know what it is, I want to know why you're wearing it."

  "Why? Can't you tell? Naked isn't the best disguise, Temple. In Las Vegas, loud is."

  She couldn't help laughing, which was better than crying. Tr
ying to convince Max not to go where he was not wanted was always hopeless. She shrugged, picked up her keys and her sunglasses and left the apartment.

  Max followed, on silent cat feet.

  Her last glimpse of Midnight Louie showed that he remained sprawled like a sultan on her sofa, but his eyes were narrowed, both possessive . . . and suspicious.

  Chapter 2

  Still the Same Old Story...

  Temple felt like she was being escorted to her execution. Here she was, wearing some jailhouse set of baggy pajamas, in custody of a guard of sorts, leaving the shady security of the Circle Ritz for the brutal sunlight of the execution yard.

  All she had to do was whip off the sash of her gi and tie it over her eyes. She wished she could, because then she wouldn't see Matt Devine's pale figure waiting under the soaring palm tree.

  The military beat of some lines by Kipling even ran through her head, slightly amended: " Matt is Matt and Max is Max, and never the twain shall meet. "

  Didn't she just wish! Didn't she just wish a sudden exit to China would open up before her feet?

  Didn't she just wish the Wizard of Oz would swoop down in a balloon gondola to whisk her away, only she wasn't wearing the proper shoes for leaving Oz and how could she go home to Kansas when this--

  however bizarre--was it?

  The dolorous convict shuffle of her slip-on jute sandals over concrete made her glance down. A fate worse than death: facing the music in tacky footwear. Mata Hari would have hung her well-hatted head in shame if she had lived to see this.

  Matt had been warming up with Oriental shadow boxing on the blue vinyl practice mats under the palm tree. He straightened at Temple's approach, looking beyond her with an expression of polite puzzlement.

  Damn Max, here he was playing the professional magician again, the man holding all the cards, while other people tried to guess what number and suit was on them.

  "Ready?" By now Matt sounded puzzled as well as looked it.