cat in a crimson haze

by Carole Nelson Douglas

  "Crawford, are you saying someone's trying to close down the show because of my skit?

  Why? What's in it?"

  "Obviously it isn't very funny, which was what I told Dove, and now the powers that be have noticed that. So, stay away. That's what I'm going to do, until the coast, and the cast, are ' clear."

  He hung up without saying goodbye.

  Like maybe there was no point, like maybe she was dead already.

  Temple stared at her computer screen with its paltry sprinkle of words: 'The good times never stop at Three O'Clock Louie's."

  Underneath Crawford's usual bluster Temple had sensed genuine fear. In his own craven way, he was warning her to do as he was doing and desert the Gridiron.

  So. It was his project. So what if Danny Dove was left in the lurch? He'd get something mounted. And the Flying Fontana Brothers Security Syndicate was crawling and clambering all over the place. Johnny Diamond was set to sing Temple's medley of satirical show tunes, surely he'd be all right. Nobody would dare to mess with a big name like that. But what on earth could be so threatening about her skit?

  And if the accidents were intended to discourage the production, whoever was arranging them didn't know the old maxim that ''the show must go on." Troopers like Danny and Johnny and the eager semi-amateur cast weren't about to bow out because of some dubious accidents.

  Unless those "accidents" included the murder of the man in the ceiling, Matt's missing stepfather, Cliff Effinger.

  Temple saved the gibberish on her screen and gave it a name: 3Louie. No wonder she had mistaken the black cat at Temple , Bar for Midnight Louie; she'd seen so darn little of him lately that she'd forgotten exactly what he looked like. In fact, the last place she had seen her Louie was at the Phoenix. . . .

  Temple retreated to the DOS prompt, then turned computer and screen off. The last, small luminescent letters vanished.

  The same could not be said of the string of bright, pulsating question marks on the screen of Temple's mind.

  ******************

  Eightball O'Rourke's neighborhood was as shabby as ever.

  Temple glanced back at her aqua Storm poised at the curb like a brilliant blue butterfly that had just landed. She hated to leave it unattended, that shiny bluebird of happiness in this neighborhood of rusted-out heaps of trouble.

  She paused at the front door, then pushed the scabrous bell. Its surface was rough with coats of over painted green enamel.

  While she waited she studied the peeling paint patterns of the front forest-green screen door. Then she rang again.

  Should have phoned first, she told herself, but she hadn't even known where she was going when she left the Circle Ritz.

  A third ring was equally unable to stir the low stucco house with its gravel roof. The swamp cooler at its core grunted mechanically from the so-called peak of the shallow roof.

  The door was shaded by scrawny eaves-high bushes too insect-eaten to declare a type.

  Temple waited, shifting from one tennis shoe to the other, watching little red ants dance a conga line up the cracked sidewalk to her feet.

  The big wooden front door creaked, then gaped open.

  Eightball stood there in his undershirt, blinking.

  ''Should have phoned first," he said. ''I been working late, sleeping days. I'll get me a shirt."

  He vanished, leaving Temple to pull open the rickety screen door and edge inside.

  The house broadcast the same musty smell of her last visit, the deep-down halitosis of an old house. Eightball appeared, buttoning a short-sleeved polyester shirt of indeterminate color.

  Temple followed him down dim halls, through shadowy rooms into the same sparse office with the billiard-table-size desk and narrow band of windows under the ceiling.

  He flicked on an overhead light and sat at the desk. "So what's up?"

  Temple sat on the lumpy green leather chair, escapee from some fifties-vintage office--or dump--and tried to come up with a reasonable explanation of why she was there. "I visited Three O'Clock Louie's the other day." Eightball nodded, fussing to fasten the second-to-the-top button on his shirt. It was pale green.

  Undershirt, Temple thought. Who wore undershirts anymore, especially in a hot spot like Las Vegas? And this wasn't even your Sears Catalog model with the short sleeves and v-neck, but a tank-type sleeveless undershirt that smacked of pre-Clark Cable and It Happened Last Night innocence. That was Eightball and the Glory Hole Gang, all right--1930's kind of guys in a nineties world hung up on Calvin Klein's Obsession instead of old standbys like undershirts and B.O.

  Maybe, she thought, Crawford Buchanan wore pale yellow undershirts to match his cowardly streak.

  "What did you think of it?" Eightball asked. He lit a cigar that looked like a Doberman turd with gangrene.

  Temple restrained herself from fanning away the smoke; the smell was more lethal anyway.

  "Think of what? Oh, the restaurant! Interesting. Not a bad name. Needs a lot of work."

  Eightball nodded at each of her inane comments.

  Temple edged forward on the chair. ''It has a lot of possibilities. Especially . . . well, if I--you guys--drew on your Glory ' Hole background."

  He squinted as he exhaled a storm-blue thunderhead of smoke. ''You mean ... tie it in with the ghost town concession?"

  "Thematically, yes. Let's face it. You fellows are enough local color for a megacity like Los Angeles, much less Las Vegas. Just the name of the place: 'Three O'Clock Louie's.' It reeks of speakeasies and jazz, bathtub vodka and guys with shoulder holsters and cigarette holders, dolls with garters and I gats."

  "Bathtub gin."

  "Did I say something else? Sorry, I'm . . . distracted."

  "We were all just kids during Prohibition," Eightball said doubtfully.

  "Sure, but you were there. And wasn't Jersey Joe Jackson there too?"

  "That skunk." Eightball was so agitated that he stubbed out his cigar in the tray-size olive-green glass ashtray on his desk:

  Temple thanked whatever gods may be.

  "Skunks can be ver-ry colorful," she pointed out with singsong significance.

  ''If you like black-and-white, as in prison stripes."

  Temple beamed. "See what I mean? Convicts in stripes. You fellows are soooo colorful.

  About Jersey Joe Jackson--"

  "He's dead, and we ain't."

  "So much the better. We can ... er, exploit his, ah, colorful legend without treading on any living toes."

  "We?"

  "Well, think about it. Wasn't Jersey Joe an original member of the Glory Hole Gang?"

  "Yeah, sure . . . but not for long."

  "Why not?"

  "For one thing, he ran off with half the silver dollars we lifted off the train in that heist. Then he hid them around town--and Vegas was mostly brush and bobtail in the forties--in all his private little hidey-holes."

  "Didn't you Glory Hole guys bury what was left in the Mojave, so successfully that even you couldn't find the cache for forty years?"

  "Yeah, but that was because the terrain shifted. Desert will I do that, you know. Skitter around on you like a sidewinder rattler in a windstorm. Wind, gully-washers, they all scrape the.'

  face off the desert floor, the way time erodes people's faces. Look at mine. Can you even imagine what I looked like at your age, girlie?"

  Temple shook her head.

  Where did it come from, the seaming and searing? The eyes sinking like burned-out suns and the ears and nose growing wild. She thought of the sand-eaten features of the real sphinx and shivered a little at the notion of the cosmetically enhanced one at the Luxor. Behind Eightball's wizened visage, she glimpsed a muscular, wiry young fellow tanned the color of Corinthian leather in a white undershirt, sweating in a shipyard somewhere, working for Uncle Sam.

  "The thing is," she said, 'We're interested in your age. Your Age. A time when watches ticked and ladies' nylon stockings had seams and we all had a kinder, gentler view of everything.
When even shady ladies were classy and guys could shave with straight-edge razors and wear hats.

  Fedoras. That's the ticket. That's the ambiance. That's . . . jazz."

  "I don't get it? Why are you spouting this stuff to me?"

  "Because I want to pick your brain, Eightball. I want to bring back the Glory-Hole days. Out on Lake Mead at Temple Bar. Here in town, at the Crystal Phoenix." And I want to bring a boys'

  band to River City. Right here. Do you buy that tuba? How about a French horn? A PR person is always one dance step removed from a conman. Buy the sizzle, not the steak; the shining brass band, not the song; the surface cha-cha-cha, not the underlying instinct. The song-and-dance woman, not the amateur detective. . . .

  "You've got some scheme--" he began, sounding uncertain.

  ''Not a scheme ... a theme! For the Phoenix, for Temple Bar and Three O'Clock Louie's, even for the Glory Hole Ghost Town. And the link is . . . Jersey Joe Jackson."

  "A guy who gave sewer rats a bad name when he was alive!"

  "But he's dead now. We can use him with impunity. As he used you, as he made you poor fellows parboil in nowhere while he lived it up at the . . . what was the Phoenix called in the old days, before Nicky and Van revived it?"

  "The Joshua Tree," Eightball said with venom. "A common, stingy kind of cactus with big ideas and lots of stingers."

  "Joshua Tree." Temple shook her head in distaste. "If he named the place, he didn't have much flair."

  "Jersey Joe didn't have flair, he had nerve. That's what ended up on top in those days. Like Bugsy Siegel and the Flamingo. Nerve. We were kids. Spuds, Wild Blue, Encyclopedia and the rest. We were schmoes."

  "Schmoes?" Temple was lost.

  "Stand-up fools made to knock down. But schmoes always come back for more, bounce back, and we did, one more time; than Jersey Joe, in the end. In the end, that's all that matters."

  "Why was Jersey Joe such a successful con man? What did he have?''

  ''Besides nerve? He had half our silver dollars. Somehow he cashed them in to buy the land and put up the Joshua Tree and still bury this stash of silver dollars in his mattress. Can you believe it? The guy owned his own hotel on the Strip. He had his own suite in it, like a poor man's Howard Hughes, and he stashes a hoard of the stolen silver dollars in his mattress. Then he hangs on, and loses everything and the hotel is a wreck and a ruin and deserted, and he dies.

  And years later someone bounces on his broken-down mattress and out tumble a king's ransom in silver dollars,"

  ''No," said Temple quite sincerely. "I can't believe it. Why did he stay in those rooms when the hotel was such a wreck?"

  "He'd become a derelict, that's why. A derelict at the heart of his own lost empire. And--"

  Eightball lifted the butt of his cigar from the ashtray to regard it fondly, as an old friend that had died, and therefore, quite naturally, stank. "There were rumors."

  "Rumors?"

  "Guy like Jersey Joe always is better at rumors than reality. They say he was sitting on a gold mine. That the Joshua Tree was built on a hidden vein of glory-gold so thick and long and bright it would take you to Oz and back. They say the dirt and desert beneath the hotel is eaten away by earthworms. Tunnels. Secret passages. Gold for the taking, if you can find it. That useful?

  That suit your theme-scheme. Missy?"

  "Oh, yes," said Temple. "To a Tee and that rhymes with B to Z and that stands for Truth. Oh, yes, thank you very much."

  Temple shoved her tote bag back on her shoulder and stood.

  "By the way, who at the Circle Ritz is keeping you up past your bedtime these days?"

  Eightball picked up the dead cigar, flicked his Bic and sucked on it until the tip reddened in the steady flame. "You know that information is confidential," he offered on an exhalation of putrid smoke.

  Temple backed up, but not off. ''Nothing's confidential to a PR person but her client's business. I suppose the same is true of a P.I.?"

  Eightball nodded, still puffing away poisonously. The room was clogging with smudge.

  "Just tell me this," Temple pushed. ''Are you still working for someone at the Circle Ritz?"

  "Maybe not."

  "I guess you wouldn't be averse to helping Electra out in a jam," Temple suggested.

  "Guess not, but maybe not."

  She frowned. Eightball hadn't flickered an eyelash at mention of her landlady's name. Was that a sign of iron control, or of ignorance? Who else would employ him, if not her or Electra...?

  Temple recalled the phantom figure she had glimpsed at the Crystal Phoenix. An aura of Max was settling ever lower on this whole muddled landscape, from the Crystal Phoenix to the Circle Ritz.

  "It's not . . . couldn't be . . . Max ..." she thought aloud.

  Mention of that name alarmed Eightball as nothing else had.

  "No!" he said quickly. "Not him. Never laid eyes on the guy."

  Except that Eightball's emphasis had been on him.

  So he had been hired, not by Max, but by another "him" who was associated with the Circle Ritz.

  Temple nodded slowly.' 'Goodbye, and thanks for the information."

  Eightball watched her suspiciously, not sure to what "information" she referred, which was just the way Temple wanted it. Let him stew for a while.

  Temple wove her own way out of the house, bumping gently against dim walls. She was also beginning to see her way out of the current maze. Not him, but a he.

  Was it Matt, who had been so busy and distracted lately?

  Matt, who she had worried, was pulling away from her because she had been too pushy?

  Maybe Matt was simply pushing in another direction.

  Maybe not.

  Maybe they were both headed in the same direction from two different places. And maybe the collision point was the Crystal Phoenix.

  Chapter 27

  Lou Who?

  Although I am used to undercover operations, it is more than somewhat galling to be forced to slink around my former digs like a criminal.

  But this is exactly the lot that is mine at the Crystal Phoenix Hotel and Casino, now that Caviar, a.k.a. Midnight Louise, has taken over my turf. Normally, I would not sit still under the nearest topiary tree chewing my nails while some upstart usurps my territory.

  However, in this instance my tongue and tail are tied.

  This does not suit my larger goal of sniffing out what foul forces are afoot and endangering my devoted roommate, Miss Temple Barr, and her current project, the Gridiron show.

  Miss Caviar, In the meantime, shows no shyness whatsoever about swaggering around the grounds and hotel interior, gathering compliments for her resemblance to yours truly, albeit in a somewhat slimmer and younger form.

  The more the unsuspecting humans mention my name, the more they ensure that the relentless Caviar remains in the vicinity. I even spot her interrogating the occasional canine that lopes around the fringes of the hotel, hoping for some Dumpster dining.

  The first such ugly customer she broaches has me covering my eyes with my mitts as I lurk in the ever-convenient oleander clump near the service entrance.

  The browsing dog is a pit bull-shepherd mix, no type to trifle with, believe you me. My forbearance with the young upstart may have given her too high an opinion of herself, for she sashays up to this truly terrifying dingo without a qualm.

  "Pardon me, sir," I hear her say as he rips open a body bag with expert slashes of his canines.

  He looks up. One eye has a squint and the opposite ear is semi-chewed. "Get lost, cupcake. I will be ready for dessert soon and you would do nicely."

  "Funny you should mention 'lost,' bud," she replies without stiffening a single hair. "I am looking for someone who is apparently missing."

  "We are all missing in action, babe." His staple-gun jaws wrestle what's left of a t-bone steak out of its plastic wrapping.

  Caviar sits on her cute little tall and applies a prissy paw to her whiskers, no doubt offended by her subject's crude
dining habits. "The object of my search is somewhat notorious around here. Have you ever heard of Midnight Louie?"

  "Heard of him?" The dog spits out a few splinters of bone. "I am the first one in this town to pin his ears back. Has the big bully been bothering you, cupcake? I am the one to knock him into next week, even the next world, and if you tip me off when the goodies are about to hit the buffet table"--his scrawny tail bangs once on the Dumpster side--"I may even let you live a while longer."

  "That will not be necessary," says she. "I do my own knocking. So he is afraid of you. I thought he was big and tough."

  I cringe in the bushes, my tail beating up a cloud of dust. The reason this dingo dude squints is due to the number three shiv on my right mitt. Yet I am forced to grit my fangs while I hear him libel my battle prowess, not to mention my courage.

  "Big and tough," the dirty dog repeats with a growl. "Hearing news like that is what makes a hyena laugh. This Midnight Louie was a creampuff, cupcake. Big, maybe, but it was all lard and laziness. I for one am glad to hear that the old layabout is off the premises. It improves the neighborhood."

  As if this scrounger adds some elegance to the environment!

  Apparently Caviar is not buying this bozo's story. "Why would Midnight Louie leave such a cushy job if he is as lazy as you say? A position of house detective at a major Strip hotel does not open up every day. And the staff--with the understandable exception of Chef Song--seems fond of him. I have even heard him credited with rescuing the manager, Miss Van von Rhine, from a mob of musclemen."