cat in a crimson haze

by Carole Nelson Douglas

  He shook his head. ''That would have been almost easier to overcome."

  ''Easier. Dear Lord, Matt, what? My ignorance paralyzes me. I was your teacher. I was so proud when I learned you'd entered the priesthood, and now you tell me that decision was an escape that had begun to form when I knew you as a little boy. What had I failed to see?"

  "Don't blame yourself. Catholics always blame themselves too much. I told you that none of us even saw our own situations then. Remember Mary Lou Zyskowski?"

  "Oh, that impossible red-headed girl! Always in trouble and so sullen and stubborn about learning."

  "I ran into her again--at a therapy group. She was sexually abused by her older male cousins all through grade school."

  Sister Seraphina was too numb to wince. She just shook her head.

  "None of us noticed, student or teacher," Matt assured her. "She didn't even understand then what was wrong herself."

  "We never dreamed families could go so wrong back then. And the Family, the Father, was sacred. You didn't ... meddle."

  "Too many people still feel that way. She remembers you kindly, by the way."

  "Me? How did I come up in a therapy session?"

  "You nagged her into going to the convent for summer reading lessons after sixth grade, remember? She screamed and kicked all the way, but says now that if she hadn't gotten good enough at reading to survive in high school, she would have never made it."

  "Well, we tried. Sometimes we gave extra attention to kids from large families who were ignored, or railed at. And I suppose even we suspected some unbearably ugly truth beneath the facade. Some children were accident prone, always bruised, always bruising themselves. One did wonder and try to be as kind as possible."

  "What about the kids who never showed anything," Matt went on, "whose parents were too cagey to paste them in the mouths? The kids who feel impelled to protect their parents from the physical evidence that these mothers and fathers don't know how to love? Then, when the kids finally recognize and admit the abuse, they are disbelieved. They have become their own worst witnesses."

  "Kids can live amazingly bitter lives and say nothing, can seem to be paragons of behavior,"

  Seraphina said, nodding her head. "Who would think that Mary Lou Zyskowski appreciated those lessons she came to with dragging feet and sour temper? And the child can go in an opposite direction, pretend to a perfect life. In fact, one would almost think--"

  She looked at Matt, really looked at him.

  He had come here to learn something from Sister Seraphina that she didn't know. Instead, she had discovered something she had always known, and never acknowledged. Her hands covered her mouth even as she spoke, as if hoping to deny the words, the understanding, so long in coming.

  ''Oh, dear God--now I see what I never could bear to face then. Dear God."

  No doubt about it. Matt thought with the kind of wry relief honesty between friends always brings. He had the makings of a good priest, but a lousy detective.

  Chapter 7

  Koi Sera, Sera

  There are those who claim that they never forget a face.

  In my business, faces come and go. I never forget a place.

  So I am strolling again through the ersatz tropical gardens of the Crystal Phoenix Hotel, surrounded by such an aura of nostalgia that you could bottle it and sell it to passenger pigeons, (if there were still any passenger pigeons around; I understand that these unusually useful birds are now extinct. I--I am happy to say--had nothing to do with It, and the carp population seems firmly prolific.)

  Ah, carp. It is a homely little word of one syllable, but sweet to me. Whether one says "carp"

  or uses the fancy Oriental term of "koi," they are both goldfish to my mind, and splendid eating.

  I circle the pond where I was once wont to wander and wonder, as lonely as a clod. My Walden. My wellspring. My floating buffet.

  No one can accuse me of picking on the helpless. Some of these colorful fish are the size of pit-bull pups. When they are nudging fins at the waterline while jousting for gobbets of Tender Vittle-Iike treats you can see how muscular these fish are.

  For Midnight Louie to land such a beauty is similar to a millionaire snagging a blue marlin off Florida. And I always eat my tasty prey, rather than tastelessly exhibiting it on my walls. I picture Miss Temple Barr's reaction were I to return home with a glittering trophy skin of my fishing prowess. She would shudder at the least, and accuse me of depraved appetites, but then, it is not the first time that I have stood so charged and it will not be the last, if I have anything to say about it. Depraved appetites are the last to go, being the most fun.

  A soft desert breeze riffles the big, shiny leaves on the canna lilies that surround the pond. I am reminded of harem fans swishing gently to and fro, not that I have ever been in a harem, but a dude can have aspirations.

  At my feet, a large blue-and-white carp executes a swishy turn and flays my toes with a lash of water drops. Uppity fish, these Imperial koi.

  I settle quietly under the shade of canna lily leaves. Let them cavort like the orca act at Marine World. I have heard the merfish singing, and It Is for my supper, not their own.

  But supper is a long way off and I can afford to wait. I drowse to the accompaniment of a circling bomber-bee high above. Even the shrieks of gamboling children in the distant pool do not disturb my contemplative frame of mind. My nose imbibes the odor of recently sprinkled dirt and the slight fishy bouquet of the carp next door.

  Then a shadow crosses my face. My eyes flash open as round and wide as a green traffic light. Go!

  The shadow is still there, moving languidly between me and my carp pond. All serenity shatters as I draw my lounging form into an irritated huddle that any sensible being would know better than to irritate.

  But the interloper is no sensible being. It is the girl upstairs known as Caviar.

  "What are you doing here?" I hiss.

  "The same thing that you are," she answers calmly, brazen enough to come nose-sniffing close. "Enjoying the view." She arches her neat little head to gaze into the trembling waters.

  "Overripe," she sniffs. "These fish are all flash and no flavor. The best carp should be no longer than a bobcat tail."

  "Since when are you the expert?"

  She shrugs, a gesture that emphasizes her well-honed shoulder blades. This kid could use a decent meal, but if she is too hoity-toity for well-fed fish, it is her problem.

  "What are you doing here?" I ask, showing my teeth.

  "I could ask you the same thing. As it happens, I heard that my so-called father used to hang around this place."

  I gulp. "Why are you looking for him?"

  "Oh ..." She stretches lazily, arching her lithe belly to the flagstones and hoisting her pert hindquarters in the air.

  This display would be a lot more enticing did I not immediately notice a certain absence of scent in the petite Caviar. You might say that she has an "altered" air about her. Since we last met, she has been transported to the House of Dr. Death for a spaying operation.

  I sigh in tribute to things not to be. I tell you, in this day and age it is getting downright difficult to encounter members of the opposite sex who have retained any gender at all. I am all for preventing unwanted kits, but it does look like the simple act of reproduction is getting a lot more difficult to indulge nowadays.

  "He looks a lot like you."

  Her considering tone flashes past me like the performing cleaver of a Japanese chef and my blood runs as cold as it can when the temperature Is eighty degrees in the shade.

  "So do a lot of dudes," I growl.

  She blinks bored carp-gold eyes. "Oh, do not worry, Gramps. You are too old and out-of-shape to be my rotten, kit-deserting father. My mother was still sweet on the bounder and described him to ail us kits ad nauseam: black coat shiny as tar on a long, muscular frame; white whiskers and eyebrows, not from age but birth; grass-green eyes; sharp, clean white teeth. A Hunk of the Month, a
pparently. I am sure that this smooth operator did not have to descend to removing aged fish too slow to flash a fin from hotel ponds."

  I do not know whether to be relieved at her error, or furious at her reasoning. Going by Caviar's youth, my assignation with her mother had transpired only a year ago. A dude does not deteriorate to such an extent in a mere year. Obviously, Caviar's opinion of yours truly differs greatly from that of her older, wiser mother.

  "Where is your mother these days?" I inquire. Perhaps I should look the old girl up.

  Caviar snicks out her shivs and dabbles them in the fish-filled water. I swear I can see her smile as they flounder away, slapping fins and making waves.

  "I heard she got picked up by the animal control patrol, so she is either dead, or domesticated."

  I shake my head. Either fate is ugly. If she is domesticated, she is also "fixed." What do they mean about practicing "safe sex" (not that I need any practice whatsoever in this department) when "no sex" is rapidly becoming the order of the day for dudes of my disposition? I hate to contemplate how long it has been since I have had an assignation of an amorous nature. In fact, I even remember my last partner, but that is because this encounter was more than mere kiss-and-skedaddle. A mental image of the Divine Yvette pussyfoots through my memory. Now there is a lady as loving as she is lovely. Next to her, Caviar is . . . dog meat. Not that I would suffer one of my next-of-kins to meet such a fate. Still, the girl needs to learn to respect her elders.

  "I will find him," she says, the gold coinage of her eyes narrowing to edgewise slits of metallic hardness.

  "I do not doubt it," I say hastily, since she already has. "What will you do then?"

  "I will tell him what I think of him."

  "That sounds most therapeutic, according to what I hear on my favorite daytime television shows, Phil and Oprah and Sally Jessy. Geraldo was a great dude, but they banished him to the evening hours because of adult subject matter when Miss Temple is watching the TV, so I never see him anymore. Miss Temple Barr has many good points, but she is utterly uninterested in educational TV. She will not even tune In 'Inside Edition' unless I get my mitts on the remote.

  Then she thinks my preferences are 'cute' and changes the channel on me."

  "I am not interested in your relationship with your keeper," Caviar snaps. (I mean it; she really snaps, flashing her choppers at a carp so bold to stick its kisser out of the water looking for food. This Caviar has possibilities, if she w6uld forget her obsession with finding her birth father.

  I have no such hang-ups.)

  "Miss Temple Barr is not my keeper, but my roommate," I correct her calmly. Age has its advantages. "And what of your new situation with Mr. Matt Devine?"

  "Oh, he is quite undemanding, except for talking to me now and then and the occasional condescending head pat. At least I have managed to arrange for the same bathroom-window privileges that you enjoy."

  I nod. Caviar is a street-kit, like her old man, may she never discover his identity. She can probably worm her way out of any hole as wide as her cheekbones and worm her way into any human heart around, if it takes her fancy. Mr. Matt Devine, when it comes to females of any stripe whatsoever, and even of solid color, does not stand a chance.

  "So what are you doing here?" she asks me.

  "Taking the sun," I say."Miss Temple Barr is conferring with the hotel owners inside. She is up for a big job here."

  "At least she cracked me out of that crummy cage," Caviar says. "It is too bad you were already in residence. I am sure that I could wind your roommate around my whiskers."

  "Perhaps. But everyone tends to underestimate Miss Temple Barr, from Lieutenant Molina to one or two murderers now incarcerated."

  I fan the fingernails on my right mitt to admire the faint crimson glint of blood through their pearly length. I cannot understand why Miss Temple Barr paints her personal shivs with opaque lacquers that hide the quick. And lately she has been using an anemic rosy-pink tint that does nothing for me, unlike the blood-red that so becomes her and underlines her bright red coat, scant as it is.

  Caviar yawns. "Well, if you hear anything of a good-looking black dude that has been seen hereabouts in the last year, let me know. I will be on my way. I have work to do."

  The last jibe is not lost on me as I watch her turn tail and undulate away. What a waste! Not only the veterinary procedure, but a close relative to boot!

  Neither is it lost upon me that little Miss Caviar thinks I am not good-looking enough to be her father. Kits these days! They have a lot to learn. I just hope that one of the things she learns in her explorations is not our kinship.

  As for me, my father never hung around to see me get my first nose-scratch, but I bear him no distain. Dudes of our ilk do not take to domestic responsibilities. We are better off leaving the scene of the crime before we are forced to do the time in the nursery.

  So I remain in my special spot, my enjoyment of thrashing carp strangely muted after my encounter with my own flesh-and-blood. Despite my Impressive size, I am not easily noticed when I sit still, and especially when I concentrate on blending with my background.

  From my vantage point, I watch Chef Song, meat cleaver in hand and apron dotted with substances of a ruddy nature that encourage much speculation on my part, make his daily afternoon head count of the carp. This ritual owes itself to my frequent presence, I am proud to say. I am not so proud to say that today he gives a steely-eyed nod of satisfaction and vanishes back into the hotel.

  Caviar's presence and disturbing mission has done the unthinkable: affected my appetite.

  I remain indisposed, sourly watching carp cavort unchallenged, until the shadows begin to fall and I should think of heading home. Miss Temple may be worried, and I do not like to unsettle a meal ticket.

  It is then that I notice two tall dudes of a nefarious nature tiptoeing through the canna lilies.

  "Maybe we should behead all the carp," one suggests.

  I stiffen, taking instant umbrage. I need no assistance in my hunting technique.

  "That would unhinge the lady manager, I bet," the other says.

  "Not to mention the early-morning guests coming out to wet their tootsies in the pool tomorrow. Hey, we could put the bodies in the whirlpool!"

  "Dead fish is dead fish," the other sneers. "We do not need to mess with such dirty work yet.

  We are professionals. Let us case the rest of the joint and come up with something real ugly."

  "If anybody can, you can, Vito."

  From my unseen post, I agree. Vito's mother came up with something really ugly a long time ago.

  I want to growl to myself, but know better than to tip these bozos off to my presence.

  It never fails. Apparently Miss Temple Barr has once again placed herself dead center in a scene of forthcoming skullduggery. Luckily, Midnight Louie has come home to the Crystal Phoenix just in time to save the day. Again.

  It is a pity that Miss Caviar is so oblivious to my possibilities, but then so are these thugs. I will just have to earn my kit's respect by showing her what a crime fighting kingpin her old man is.

  Chapter 8

  Phoning Home Phony

  Matt stared at his bedroom phone, the cheapest model Centel offered. The huge push-buttons and numbers made it an almost perversely ugly object. Like the cheapest casket in a funeral home showroom, this phone was designed to repel rather than attract. It was made to be rejected, to force the customer to up the ante. Everything in Las Vegas was intended to sever the sucker from his money.

  The homely phone suited him. Matt's background had made him invulnerable to consumerism. So far. That background also made him invulnerable to much that was taken for granted in late-twentieth-century lifestyles.

  No matter their looks or lack of them, phones were his friends . . . almost an extension of his senses now, an artificial limb he was used to donning. No headphones here at home, though, just the naked ear against the cold, bare receiver, that beige plastic fist
that reminded him of Sister Mary Monica's hearing aids.

  No wonder his palms sweated. He wasn't waiting for a call to come in now, he was waiting to make one. He was working up the nerve to lie, not easy for one of his inclination and training.

  Worse, he was going to have to call the diocesan office to implement his lie. Lies. One lie always begat another, like Biblical patriarchs founding lines of limitless, off spring.

  Matt straightened the fresh stenographer's notebook on his tiny nightstand. He appreciated the blank page, its paper tinted green to ease eye strain, its thin blue lines designed to keep his jottings on the straight and narrow, unlike his intent.

  He picked up the felt-tip pen, chosen because it would flow more smoothly over the paper than a ballpoint. He would have to pinch the cumbersome receiver between head and shoulder while he took notes and steadied the notebook with his left hand. Maybe he should get a home headset. Yes, Devine, you do plan to lie on that scale, don't you? Again and again.

  Matt leaned over to stare at the massive Las Vegas phone book on the bare floor, splayed open to the white pages. He squinted and dialed simultaneously, his eyes darting back and forth from the phone book's minuscule numbers to the reassuringly large buttons.

  "Diocese of Reno-Las Vegas," a crisp female voice announced.

  "Hello," Matt said, sounding remarkably calm. The black pen lay diagonally across the notebook, like a miniature fencing foil waiting to be picked up for a practice session. Matt's right hand curled into the rough fabric of his pants leg. "I wonder if you can direct me to the proper person. I'm, uh, a parishioner at Our Lady of Guadalupe--"

  ''Oh, yes." The voice had softened, like hot apple crisp, now that he had identified himself as one of the faithful.