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  She ripped it off, then lifted the phone and dialed. Maybe going through the motions of anything--even survival---wasn't enough.

  Chapter 3

  A Hiss in the Night

  Midnight Louie was waiting for Matt Devine at the corner of the Strip and Charleston when he walked to work that evening.

  Matt always walked to work. First and foremost, he didn't own a car; second, his job was to sit still and listen to whatever misery poured out over the phone lines from seven at night to three in the morning. Those were the hours that Las Vegas glistened at its most garish, when the most angst overflowed lowball glasses and lonely hotel rooms and human psyches.

  Matt sometimes considered himself a silent butler, sweeping up the ashes of other people's lives.

  "Hey, Louie," he said in greeting.

  Not many black cats hung out in Las Vegas, which was a risky venue for a bad-luck symbol as old as superstition itself. Only one acted like he owned the place--any place he happened to be.

  Of course Midnight Louie wasn't waiting for him. The cat was a roamer by nature and their paths had happened to cross this one time. Still, Louie must have recognized Matt, for he began trotting along behind him as if in search of a treat.

  Matt glanced up at the cliff side of massive hotel facades set well back from the rush-hour Strip fl owing with eight lanes of hot, semi-stalled metal. He spotted the relatively modest outline of the Crystal Phoenix, its neon spray of the legendary bird glowing faint against a still sun washed sky.

  Matt turned clown a street, appropriately named Shadow, into thinning crowds. Louie kept pace with a businesslike trot more common to dogs than to cats, but then, Louie was an uncommon cat. At least he seemed to think so.

  "Temple will be worried to hear you were so far from home," Matt found himself telling the cat, as if it were a dog, as if people could really communicate with either species.

  Matt was used to living alone, having even a silent partner to talk to was a nice change.

  Down the block, a modest shopping center crouched only blocks behind the Strip's high-profile glitz. Matt sometimes thought the Las Vegas Strip was a gigantic Hollywood set, that all the hotel fronts were hollow behind, propped up by long aluminum poles, and that the people streaming into the lavish facades disappeared into a Twilight Zone where everything that happened was one long Technicolor, computer-enhanced hallucination.

  Where he was heading was no hallucination. A homemade sign reading "ConTact" covered what had been a dry cleaner's until eight months before.

  Louie was still running with him. Behind them, the sun burned Matt's shoulders even as it slipped beneath the rocky eleven-thousand-foot facade of Charleston Peak and its neighboring mountains. Maybe they were delusions, too. The desert was famous for mirages.

  Matt opened the door, felt the air-conditioned coolness hush out at him. Midnight Louie bent to sniff the threshold.

  "Corning in?"

  The cat stepped back, shook its foot, and remained outside.

  "Got company?" Sheila glanced up from her phone niche.

  "Just a cat," Matt let the vaguely smudged glass door close behind him on its slow automatic swing so like a sigh. Louie regarded him gravely through the glass, then turned and trotted away. "It belongs to one of my neighbors."

  "He lets it roam this far?" Sheila sounded surprised.

  "Temple doesn't have much to say about it. The cat adopted her and apparently is used to keeping his own hours."

  Sheila slid him a glance at the mention of "her." Matt had seen that look a thousand times before, the quick speculation whenever he mentioned a woman. And how did Sheila know how far away he lived?

  Sheila Pulanski. She had a master's in social work and a bland manner that did nothing to overcome a personality as dishwater-dull as her hair, her slightly pocked skin, her resigned, rain-puddle-gray eyes. Yet she still wanted to know what women Matt Devine knew, and how, and how many, and what "she"--or they--were to him.

  Those assessing glances always disappointed him, made him tense in some ancient form of defense, defense from what? Speculative glances? Women? Or just the damn predictability of it? He couldn't help what he looked like.

  He went quickly to his own phone niche. Like all nonprofit hotlines, ConTact was an ever-needy organization. When a local high school donated part of an outmoded language-lab setup, the board of directors had jumped at it. So the office didn't look like much, no more than a boiler room telephone sales operation, with each counselor drawing a chair up to a table sheltered by a three-sided barrier covered in white, sound-absorbent tiles drilled with ranks of small, dark holes.

  Matt pulled his chair close to the table and lifted his headset off the aluminum hook jammed into one of the convenient holes. The soft, gray-foam pads settled on his ears like a comforting muffler. He was connected to the night again, to the anonymous callers, to the surge and fall of need all around him, all around everyone if they would only listen for the constant, surf like hiss of agony pulling back and hurling forward in endless conflict: Help me. No, stay away! Just talk to me, please. No, don't tell me to leave, let go, escape, grow up, go to group. Help me.

  Matt found his lips quirk ed into the smile that he least liked, a resigned smile that tasted of spoiled milk. Temple, for all her spirit, had shown the same push-pull indecision this very afternoon: afraid to admit that she could be hurt; needing assurance that it wouldn't happen again. He tried to help-- here and there this afternoon--but he couldn't even help himself. Helping is another form of addiction, he reminded himself, only more socially acceptable than most. He ought to know; he'd made a career of it. Sheila's silver-salted, wren-brown permanent bristled around the edge of the barrier. "We're it tonight. Two of th e volunteers have some kind of fl u."

  He nodded. Six booths, three employees, three volunteers, Even the employees weren't paid much. Those in the helping professions aren't supposed to help themselves to much profi t, unless they're slick society shrinks or corporate consultants.

  Still it was more than he'd made at his last . . . job.

  The phone rang. I t, too, was donated, a humped, old fashioned model in Crayola flesh-color that felt stick ier than Silly Putty. As soon as Matt picked it up, he set the receiver on the makeshift rest o f a horizontal Rolodex fi le. All the calls here went through the earphones, misery in stereo.

  "Hel-hello?" The voice was elderly, anxious and female.

  "ConTact," Matt said. "Can I help you?" His voice, he knew, was Bing Crosby smooth and reassuringly male. He was used to reassuring everyone except himself.

  "I'm so worried."

  "About what, Ma'am?" He hated using the hackneyed address, but there was either Miss or Ma'am for women.

  "I fi nally had to do something."

  He waited. Usually people who reached the brink and actually dialed ConTact were like dam waters ready to over fl ow the concrete bunkers of convention that contained them. This woman still sounded uncertain, even regretful now.

  "I . . . I don't mean to bother anybody. I just mind my business and live alone. But--"

  "What's wrong?" he asked.

  "They're walking around my house, trying to get in."

  "Who?" Sharper,

  "I don't know. They come a l ot lately. I know they're there, though l don't keep a dog. I'm . . . afraid."

  "Ma'am, if it's intruders you're worried about , you'd better call nine-eleven. Or I can do it for you. What's your address?"

  "Not . . . really intruders. Someone, Something, Maybe the doctor is wrong, and I need a hearing aid. Maybe if I heard better, I'd know it was just the meter man."

  He listened hard, to her and to the background, trying to gauge if anything might be truly wrong, if her voice would suddenly sharpen into a shriek as the call became a human drama in action and he still didn't have the address. . . .

  "You can hear me just fi ne. Where do you live, Ma'am?"

  A pause, "I 'm not used to telling strangers that on the phone. Security, y
ou know--"

  "If someone is intruding, I need to know your address to send help."

  "Yes, I know you do. But maybe no one is there. I t's just that it's happened before . In the evening, I hear noises."

  "What kind of noises?"

  She was silent again, her obviously elderly voice stilled with fear and shame. Being old, being alone, made for a lot of fear, and then shame at the fact of that fear, Matt knew.

  Still, he wasn't ready for her answer when it came.

  "Hisses," she said at last, reluctantly. "Angry, seething hisses."

  Chapter 4

  Cat Burglar

  It is a terrible thing to be laid off, even if it is only from a self appointed position.

  While everyone else is relieved that the stripper competition at the Goliath Hotel-- and its murderous complications -- is over. I find myself with mixed feelings. Perhaps my uncharacteristic malaise is caused by the Divine Yvette's departure, though it is unlike me to get down in the whiskers over a dame, no matter how heavenly.

  Speaking of Devine, I am more than somewhat worried about our neighbor of that nomenclature. The Bard of Avon is almost as famous as Nostradamus for his rhyming couplets. and I recall something abou t "By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes."

  Now, I do not have these opposable appendages, although I understand that they are highly regarded in some circles. However, I have a highly versatile appendage of my own, plus a full set of fairly agile digits at the end of all my limbs. I do okay. But it anything pricks when something wicked comes this way, it is the hair at the base of my tail, just where I cannot reach with anythin g, no matter how acrobatic I am, and I am a natural contortionist, among other things.

  The base of my tail has been atwitter tor two days, and something tells me that Mr. Matt Devine will need my services in not too long a time.

  After seeing him to his place of employment, I decide It is not much t o look at, although from Miss Temple Barr's reaction. Mr. Matt Devine definitely is. I wil l have to take her word on this, because folks other kind all look alike to me, or at least fall into certain readily recognizable types.

  This is a little game I play . Miss Temple Barr, for instance, strikes me as a sprightly Somali named Cinnamon. (Somalis are long-haired Abyssinians ; besides a red-haired coat , they have a luxuriant foxy tail and are pretty foxy in other respects.) Mr. Matt Devine would be your cream Persian, pet rather than show quality. There is something effacing about Mr. Matt Devine that puzzles me. The Mystifying Max is not in the least effacing though I have never met the dude except via the poster Miss Temple Barr used to keep on the inside of her closet door. He is without doubt a Burmese. (This is a most mysterious breed, with sleek, dark chocolate-brown hai r and a hypnotic green gaze not dissimilar to my own.)

  As for me, I am bits and pieces of the best of everything; the only proof positive of my superior--and haphazard-breeding is my divinely developed sense of curiosity, Flight now that itch in arrears is running rampant. By the morning of the next day, my bra in has gone full circle. I sit i n the hot cement by the Circle R itz pool--a momentary shock f or certain unmentionable part s--and stare up at the pleasing, curved shape of th is landmark so dear to my heart, or rather to my stomach. I can see Miss Te mple Barr's third-floor terrace, its potted oleanders undulating leafy green fingers over the black wrought-iron railing rather like landlady Miss Electra Lark waving "toodle-oo."

  Speaking of which, I stare farther up. Two floors above my not-so-humble abode is Miss Electra L ark's penthouse, with a similar, though larger, terrace. Certain mysterious noises have emanated from the Landlady's premises since I consented to become Miss Temple's roommate two months ago. One can imagine how loud these bumps in the daytime--for I seldom hear them at night, which eliminates at least one theory, to Miss E l ectra Lark's credit--how loud these bumps must be to penetrate even my sensitive ears two floors below.

  At least there is one mystery I can poke my nose into, and I intend to do it right now quite literally.

  I bound to the ancient palm tree, whose curving trunk makes a long, gentle, beneficent arc over the Circle R itz. Forward motion, as the football commentators call it carries me up a bridge of super-tough bark, but these claws were made for climbing and that is what they are going to do. . . .

  Momentum swings me down on a delicate palm frond. For a moment I sway perilously, so far above ground than even my fabled tour-point landing style will not save me. Then I leap into thin air and p lummet safely onto the Circle Ritz roof, five stories above the Big Splat.

  I perch for a while, and preen while catching my breath, then loft idly down to Miss Electra Lark's patio. This is the most dangerous part of the venture. Her patio is crammed with bushes snipped into familiar-looking silhouettes, no doubt by an obsessive-compulsive with a large collection of manicure scissors . I land revoltingly near one silhouette teased into the shape of a poodle fresh from the groomer.

  Yet I have no time to waste in critiquing the topiary. I brush against the French doors, testing for an unlocked door. A low rattle as the portal bows to my superior force , not to ment ion my nineteen pounds, tells m e that I have a prayer. I stretch up----far up. I am a long dude, as well as a bit long in the tooth, and my forepaw curls around the lever. Then I jerk, herd. The door springs ajar to my expert touch. I drop down to nose it open, sticking my puss into a room shrouded in shade, every m ini - blind drawn tighter than a m iser's line of credit.

  I push into the soft, cool dark, lulled by the hum of the air conditioner that reminds me of my dear, departed mama. The open door admits a ba r of hot, bright light behind m e. It slants across an array of funky furniture that would do a garage sale proud. It reveals dust motes and sofa legs and vases so ugly they should be put in jail . It bounces off the lurid green glow of a watching eye from under the opposite sofa.

  Before I can do anything, my sharp ears flick at the sou nd of another door being opened, deep in the apartment's interior, by a key.

  Chapter 5

  Calling All Cats

  "Wait here in the entry, dear. I'll find that paper in a minute."

  "Won't you need light?" Temple called after Electra's vanishing figure, her forefinger poised on the light switch to the right of the double entry doors.

  Around her, in the fun-house glimmer of Mylar vertical blinds that lined the semicircular space and shimmied in the slow turn of a lazy ceiling fan, icicle-slices of her own image vibrated in the dim light.

  "No," came Electra's fruity voice from the shadowed depths of the penthouse. "It's right here."

  Temple was seriously tempted anyway. Electra's rooms were always kept dim, and darn few people saw them. One flick of her forefinger and she would satisfy a portion of her curiosity--at least about everything within range.

  She could always pretend she hadn't heard. Temple took the plunge.

  Nothing happened. Whatever light the switch had once controlled was gone, perhaps replaced by the ceiling fan, whose control box was on the other side of the door. Temple looked up. No light attachment, either. Double darn.

  So she stood politely waiting, trying to look innocent and wondering if her flick of the switch had turned on something else in the place -- m aybe a coffee maker, or an iron, w ouldn't it be her luck? And the minute she and Electra left, the accidentally turned-on item would start to burn down the whole Circle Ritz. Guilt was a terrible thing, Poor Raskolnikov. Maybe when Electra returned, she should just cave in and confess.

  Temple edged back to the wall and flicked the switch to its up position just as Electra's sandal-shod feet shuffled over the parquet floors.

  Dazzling light flooded the entry area, as narrow and glaring as a sky-sweeping spotlight.

  "Oops! Sorry," Temple said. How did a light switch that was off in the up position go on after being turned off again?

  "Argh!" Electra complained, bustling over to the switch in a muumuu almost as brilliant as the light. She switched the lever down and the glar
e vanished as obediently as one of the Mystifying Max's magical objects. "That's for dramatic effect. at night."

  "Where is it coming from?" Temple squinted against the sudden darkness. Her eyes fi nally followed Electra's pointing finger to an up light sitting on the floor.

  In the room beyond the break in the blinds, something glimmered. Marble- round and as lurid green as a laser beam. Temple heard a muf fled thump as Electra took her fi rm upper arm in hand and ushered her from the penthouse.

  Although the halls in the forty-year-old Circle Ritz building were not alleyways of illumination, the glow of wall sconces seemed daylight-bright compared to the secretive shadows in Electra's digs.

  "I thought l saw--" Temple began.

  "Oh, people are always thinking they see something in my place. It's all the junk I collect."

  "I thought I heard--"

  "This is an old building, dear, and the palm leaves scrape on the roof. Now here's the fl yer. I bet you can do something with this."

  "I bet not." Temple took the popsicle-pink sheet over to a wall sconce's pale light. First she had to dig her glasses out of the bronze tote bag over her shoulder before she could read the too-fine print. "Cat shows are as common as fleas, Electra. Every Civic Center in the country has 'em in alternating months. All the advance publicity you can get is a photo of a funny-looking cat in the paper, and any amateur could manage that. Besides, what can they pay me in? Cat litter? Louie almost never sullies his box at home."

  "Not this show; it's not common," Electra insisted, coming over to point a pudgy finger at various blocks of information, which gave Temple a chance to admire her Black Grape nail polish with silver stars arranged in various arcane constellations.