cat in a crimson haze

by Carole Nelson Douglas

  Either a nest of rattlesnakes is holding a limbo contest over the next rise of rock, or I have come upon a contretemps between two of my own kind.

  I bound atop the ridged red rock, lashing my tail to announce that someone to reckon with is on the scene.

  I am not a split-second too early.

  Were I not prepared for the event, I would think I was seeing double.

  Two black cats circle on the barren soil below, backs humped, tails spiked like cactus, heads hunkered down beneath predatory shoulder blades.

  Low moans and growls echo from the surrounding rocks. This is either an embarrassing private moment or a rumble, of the first order; with my kind such distinctions are sometimes hard to make. Each stalks slightly sideways, the better to keep an evil eye on the other. Neither gives ground, nor growl, nor glance to my arrival.

  The piquant Caviar I have seen in full battle fluff before. She is petite by virtue of her gender and her tender age, but manages to swell to the impressive size of a sheared beaver muff.

  The dude who has commandeered a portion of my name (and I really think there ought to be a law against such trespassing) is altogether a huskier sort, as one would expect of the male of the species. In full battle bristle, he is the size of a tumbleweed and has command of an impressive array of snarls, wails, belly-whines and cat curses.

  I cannot help feeling a pang of anxiety for the well-being of my impudent offspring. She may have strange modern ideas; she may not respect her elders as she should, especially me; she may be in the mood to commit patricide, but she also may be my own flesh, fur and blood. I am proud of her for facing off this seasoned dude three times her size.

  Everyone knows better than to interfere between two felines in a state of such savage fury, but Midnight Louie makes his own rules, and his path is clear. I must preserve from harm the innocent dude who is about to be turned into instant sushi merely for being mistaken for yours truly and the sire of the lion-hearted little minx below. I must also spare this idiotic offspring of mine the fruits of her misguided vengeance, which could be a fatal dose of the cactus known as

  "catclaw."

  I dart down the rocks, adding my own guttural wail to the proceedings.

  I have forgotten the impact of sudden movement on an eclectic lunch, and pause. To burp.

  Luckily, the contestants do not appear to hear this decidedly unwarlike sound.

  With a bound, I flare my own magnificent coat into a state resembling Phyllis Diller's coiffure and land dead center of the quarreling cats.

  Furious at having their unshakable glares so rudely disrupted, they snap their eyes to me, theirs hisses reaching an apex of hysteria.

  I turn slowly, as a martial arts master surrounded by uppity students.

  I speak even more slowly, selecting my syllables carefully, choosing a hypnotic lower register to disarm the combatants.

  "You must. . . control yourselves," I suggest in my deepest baritone, a combination of a purr and a growl.

  "Who do you think you are?" the purported daughter demands in a raspy voice. "Kitty Kong?"

  I bow. I am not the figure purported to rule all cats, but I will masquerade as anyone to avoid a tragedy.

  "Listen, layabout," she adds in the disdainful tone that is native to her. "Get out of the way.

  This is a family matter, a blood feud. I do not need any overage hotel hang-around telling me what to do. This dude is my runaway father."

  She scowls at the individual beyond me, whom I confront next.

  Well. He is a large son of a bitch. (I am not using bad language here, as this is a breeding term among the canine species, and this dude is larger than your average lapdog!) His bile-green eyes spit figurative sparks at me while his mouth makes with the real spitballs.

  "Listen, whippersnapper," he snarls. "Get out of the way. I was baldly attacked by this back-alley scrapper, and no one keeps Three O'clock Louie from administering a well-deserved licking."

  I whirl to confront Caviar. "You see? His name is Three 0'Clock Louie, not Midnight Louie.

  This is the wrong dude."

  "He could have changed his name," she spits, not a single hair going limp. I would like to know the name of her grooming products. "He might have heard I was looking for him. One thing was sure, he wasn't hanging out around the Crystal Phoenix any more."

  "Crystal Phoenix?" Three O'Clock sounds confused. "What is that, a glass bird?"

  "Sure, play innocent," Caviar says. "No doubt that is how you ensnared my poor deluded mother not a year ago. She may not be here to call you what you are, but I spit upon your whiskers! You are a faithless, irresponsible, dog-livered layabout I would be so ashamed to call my father that it Is better to wipe you off the face of the planet."

  "Mother? Father?" Three O'Clock lets one dog-eared ear lift a little. "Am I hearing this right, young lady? You think I am the poor bloke who fathered you?"

  "I expected you to deny it," she growls.

  Three O'Clock shakes his massive head. I notice a scar running down his cheekbone. His muzzle is grizzled with years of knocking around an arbitrary world.

  "I am not the dude you wish to denude."

  "Your name is Louie!"

  "True, and it always has been."

  "But not . . . Midnight?"

  He shakes his head again. "Nope. Midnight has never been my best hour. Besides, Miss, I could not be your much-hated sire. A year ago I was not even in Nevada."

  "Prove it."

  He sits down on his haunches. "That would be difficult. I would have to extract testimony from Mr. Spuds Lonnigan, the owner of Three O'Clock Louie's, and humans are decidedly dense when it comes to answering feline-cross-examinations."

  "Then you are history, mister."

  "What made you think I am your father?" he asks.

  "I was named Midnight Louise when I was born, and my mother said I was the spitting image of my father. I figure him to be Midnight Louie, and such a personage is notorious around Las Vegas for begging a free meal, chasing every fluffball that came along and consorting with humans."

  "Hmm." Three O'Clock relaxes enough to lift a paw and give it a considering lick. "Not a bad life. But who is this interloper who has dared to come between us?"

  Caviar lets the gold of her glance flick over me. "Some has-been no-account house kitty.

  Harmless if a bit meddlesome."

  I am so speechless I cannot even muster a decent spit. Here I leap where wildcats fear to go, between two battle-mad combatants, and neither thinks much of my intervention, or myself!

  "Listen--" Sister, I am about to say, but that is not quite correct under the circumstances.

  "Listen, you little lynx. If you had half the brains of your old man you would not be here accosting the wrong dude. You would have figured out already that I am Midnight Louie!

  Midnight Louise indeed. Your mama was sadly mistaken. You have not got the class for such a name."

  "You!" She looks me up and down and back and forth as if she had never seen me before.

  "You are just some overweight, would-be gumshoe with pretensions of grandeur. My father is a heavy dude. My father is the terror of the back alleys. My father is a rat, but he saved the Crystal Phoenix! and Johnny Diamond's life--"

  "And fingered the ABA killer, and saved Baker and Taylor--the corporate kitties--even though they do have crumpled ears and awful accents, and nailed the stripper competition killer. There is a lot that has happened since your mama and I have parted ways."

  "Parted ways! You deserted her, and all us kits."

  "She wanted it that way. Said she did not like the hours I kept, or the danger of my job. Said she and the kits would be safer on their own. Would she have named you after me if she hated the sight of me?"

  "She ... did not know what was best for her."

  "Apparently you do. Listen, kit. My old man ran out on us kits, too. That is just the way it is.

  It is better for everybody. I am not looking for him. I hold
no rancor. In fact, I know where he is, and should I choose to be snarly about it, I could hunt him down and hand him a few swipes myself. After all, he is leading the sweet life on a Pacific Northwest salmon trawler, living on the high seas, sucking all the tuna and salmon and shrimp he could want, without a thought for me and my siblings, or you and yours. But do I blame the guy? No. We must all do what we must do."

  All of a sudden I feel a tremendous swipe on my shoulder. I turn around, my temper ripe for a fight. I am saving this dude's neck, torso and toes, and he has to attack me from behind?

  "What is your problem?" I ask.

  Three O'clock tilts his big, battered head and gives me the green eye. "Just saying hello.

  Son."

  Chapter 32

  Confidence Man

  Matt sat staring at his phone. He had to consider the case of Father Hernandez closed, but another matter was not. He knew he was avoiding a last, unpleasant call in a life that was now half-lived on the telephone.

  The number looked so innocuous, written in his compulsively legible grade-school hand on a mini legal pad. Blue ball point on pale yellow. Yellow pretty much described his mood of the moment.

  He picked up the receiver, punched in the numbers. A soothing computerized female voice instructed him to punch more buttons to route his call. Matt usually used the phone to deal with raw human anguish. To him, voice mail was obscenely remote and cheerful, especially considering that many callers of this particular number would be far more anxious than he was at the moment, to say the least.

  When he finally got a human voice, he asked for Lieutenant Molina. He was not relieved to be promptly transferred.

  He gave her his name, which earned an infinitesimal pause.

  ''What can I do for you?" she asked.

  ''I need an appointment. There's something you should know."

  ''There is lots I should know, Mr. Devine. What about right now?"

  "Fine." Now he felt relief; it would soon be over. "Are you ... is the police department located downtown?"

  "Right. But you're calling from the Circle Ritz?"

  "Yes."

  "I'll come there. Fifteen minutes."

  "I'll meet you by the back door."

  "Why the back?"

  "To avoid the late afternoon crush at the wedding chapel up front."

  "That's right, Electra Lark's cottage industry, 'The Lovers' Knot.' I forgot. Back door, fifteen minutes."

  She hung up, leaving Matt smiling ruefully at her brusque efficiency. She wasn't going to make this easy, but then, he supposed, that wasn't her job.

  Matt went down by the pool to wait. That was one reason he loved the Circle Ritz, this peaceful pool area hedged by greenery. Maybe it reminded him of a monastery.

  In a few minutes, he heard Molina's car idle up to the parking area outside the fence and went to open the gate.

  She was wearing her usual casually formal outfit, solid-color A-line skirt and blazer, buff today, with a cream camp shirt. Matt wondered if she realized her mode of dress resembled a Catholic girls' high school uniform, except for the pale colors needed in hot climates.

  Molina's emphatic eyebrows lifted as she viewed the scenery. "Shangri-La on the Strip."

  "Let's sit here." Matt headed for the white plastic chairs planted on the shaded concrete.

  Molina didn't budge. "I'd rather talk inside. What's wrong with your place?"

  "This is just as private." Her eyebrows lilted again.

  "And--" Matt produced the smile he used when he wanted to be disarmingly honest ''--in my former . . . profession, my room was the only private place I had. I guess I still feel that way."

  "Too bad." She reluctantly moved to one of the molded chairs. "I prefer to see people's surroundings."

  "I spend more time out here than in my rooms. Frankly, I don't have much there to see."

  She looked away, to the pool, embarrassed. ''You swim?"

  "Thirty laps every day. Terrific form of meditation."

  She nodded, relaxing her posture in the chair. Matt blessed his institutional instincts. Molina used her brusque antisocial manner to maintain control. This pool party atmosphere would soften her hard edges and make it easier to tell her something he didn't want to tell anyone in the world, least of all the authorities. And, he saw now, she was madly curious about him.

  She eyed the round, black marble bunker that was the Circle Ritz. "This place is quintessential Las Vegas! Neon and instant weddings out front; out back, the round residential building that's run like a zoning department's nightmare, half apartment, half condominium."

  "I love the building. They still built quality in the fifties. And I'm lucky that Electra's flexible enough to take renters."

  "Not to mention the interesting neighbors," Molina added laconically.

  "This has nothing to do with Temple," he said quickly.

  "Why so touchy?"

  "You and Temple seem to have trouble relating."

  "Trouble relating.' That's counselor talk for you. She has trouble telling me everything she knows about Mr. Mystifying Max, and I have trouble relating to that."

  "I think she's told you everything that she feels is relevant."

  "Police work thrives on what most people consider irrelevant, Mr. Devine. They aren't allowed to be the judge of that."

  "They can be the judge of what they consider private."

  "Like rooms? You know you've made me curious."

  "Maybe you don't realize how touchy Temple is about Kinsella's disappearance,"

  "Do you?" Her tone was challenging.

  Matt realized that she was beginning to enjoy herself.

  ''She hasn't said much about him," he admitted.

  ''When a woman is mum about the former man in her life, she's interested in the man she's with. Beware, Father Matt."

  He closed his eyes at her mocking tone, at her reminder of his special status, his former life.

  "Sorry. That was . . . tacky." Her voice was brusque again, as she flicked a red thread from her skirt. "But I see you strolling in where devils fear to tread. I couldn't help noticing that you and Miss Barr were fairly cozy at the Blue Dahlia the other night. From the way she acts when I bring up Max Kinsella, he's a hard act to follow'. I don't know if you're up to it."

  "I don't know if I'm in the running."

  "Oh, she likes you."

  "And I like her, but I don't know if I want to be in the running in the way you mean."

  Molina shrugged. Clearly, she didn't believe him.

  "You're a wonderful vocalist, by the way," he said.

  "I sing a little."

  "What you do isn't just singing, it's art."

  "Thanks, but I don't have much time to rehearse and less time to perform. Most people don't know I do it,"

  "Not even one of your co-workers?"

  Molina's laugh was as rich as her contralto singing voice. "Cops could not care less about scat and all that jazz. The Blue Dahlia is the one place they'd never find me. But you've changed the subject, very smoothly. Since you're dictating the place for this interview, I'll direct the subject."

  "What subject have I changed?"

  "What it's like to be an ex-priest."

  "That has nothing to do with this meeting,"

  "Maybe not. But I'm the judge, remember? And I like to know milieus,"

  "While keeping your own secret."

  "Investigator's privilege"

  "You grew up Catholic; you can guess what it's like."

  "Guesses don't cut it in my game."

  "Why are you so curious? It's almost personal."

  Molina looked down, twisted the ring on her right hand. Matt noticed that it was the only jewelry she wore, that it was large and a trifle garish, though genuine gold. A class ring, meant to announce a school affiliation to all and sundry. Why was it so important to her?

  "I'm divorced," she said abruptly. ''You know what that means. A failure. The Catholic Church doesn't allow for failures."

&
nbsp; "And I'm a failed priest? Sorry, but I don't feel that way. God called me to the priesthood and God called me to leave. When I left, it was with laicization, if you know what that means."

  "No. I never heard much about leaving religious vocations in grade school, only about entering."

  Matt smiled. "Me neither. Laicization means that I was officially freed of my promises. I didn't just walk away one day. I went through the paperwork as well as the angst. Most ex-priests can't qualify to do that. They feel driven out, in a sense. I don't."

  "Then you're bound only by what the average Catholic is?"

  "Isn't that enough?"

  "A joke." Molina noted his humor, but her smile was pale. "Not for me. I've got Mariah to think of. My ex-husband was a jerk. We're well rid of him. But to the church we're an irregular family."

  "Are you so sure? Is anyone at OLG bringing it up to you?"

  "No. No one except Pilar, the parish housekeeper. But my family is, in spades. You know how it is in ethnic Catholic communities, the parishioners pride themselves on being holier than the Pope. Every large family--and every family is large if they aren't using birth control--is supposed to provide at least one child for a religious vocation, a nun or a priest. In turn, all their married kids will be fruitful and multiply like lemmings. And stayed married."

  "Supposed to's can strangle a person. Sure, I know what you're talking about. Irish, Polish, Hispanic, the dynamic is the same, I don't suppose"--Matt smiled at his inadvertent use of the word in question--"we'll ever see families like we grew up in again. I can't claim that I'm the child tithed to the church, because I was an only child."

  "Why?" she asked in surprise.

  "My father died when I was an infant."

  Matt was treading close to the real point of this meeting, but for now he preferred to play counselor, to learn Molina's mental milieu, so to speak.

  He wondered if she knew the tables had turned, if she realized that she was casting him in the role of priest, and herself as troubled parishioner. He could see that someone in her position could hardly unburden herself to her pastor, especially when that pastor was the starchy Father Hernandez.