“There was a small notice, but no follow-up. That’s the mysterious part. Witnesses saw him fall. He hit the wall, hard, when his bungee cord failed. An onlooker gave him CPR. Nine-eleven was called, then a pair of EMTs took him away in an ambulance, siren screaming. About four hundred shocked people witnessed it.”
Temple felt her knees turn to Jell-O. Molina must think this was Max. And she’d come here, to Temple’s home, to taunt her with the horrifying, gory details to make her give something away.
“You know,” Temple said, her voice shaking, “you’re a heartless bitch.”
“I did suggest you sit down.”
“I won’t suggest what I think you should do.”
“I still think you should sit down.”
“There’s more?”
“The onlookers were pretty shaken up. They started calling the police to inquire about the man’s fate or condition. Of course we had to look into it then.”
“And of course you couldn’t let a magician disappear on you again.”
“Or on you. Again.”
Temple swallowed, hard. That’s just what had happened.
“When we started investigating it,” Molina said, “we found out the magician had really, actually disappeared into thin air. No ambulance had reached any medical facility with an injured or dead man wearing a mask and a cloak. No ambulance service had made a hospital run that night at that time.
“The man who performed CPR never came forward, and never could be found. The only description was medium everything—height, weight, and age—in dark clothes.
“That’s when I became interested in the incident. I sent some detectives to the scene. The fatal bungee cord couldn’t be found. All the bungee cords hanging from the apex of the interior pyramid at the Neon Nightmare club were fine. Whole. Unbroken, and uncut. Everything was normal.
“It must have been an act, my detectives concluded. It must have been the magician’s spectacular exit from a job he’d tired of.
“No unclaimed bodies lie in the morgue. Sometimes, when illegal Mexican workers die, their friends and family stuff the body in a truck or a car trunk and race back into Mexico to bury him. Nobody official in the U.S. knows a thing about it. That could have happened here, except Mexicans are a short-statured people and everybody at Neon Nightmare agrees that the Phantom Mage was tall and imposing, a thrilling acrobat and illusionist. Really too good for a nightclub act at the Neon Nightmare. The crowd misses him. Maybe you do too.”
That was such a low blow that Temple wanted to shriek at the woman, but she wasn’t giving Molina a shred of information about Max, good, bad, or just damn scary. This might be the last chance she had to shield him from Molina’s obsessive desire to find him guilty of something.
She wouldn’t spill her hard-won speculations about Kathleen O’Connor and Shangri-La, which Molina would never take seriously anyway.
Most of all, she wouldn’t tell Molina about how Max’s very private, hidden house had changed, and changed hands, so supernaturally fast, and so finally.
“I’m not Max’s keeper,” Temple said. “I never was. Maybe he left town to get away from you. I sure would if I were a man.”
There! A low blow in return.
Molina stood. “So you won’t help me. You won’t say if you know where he is. Or even that he is.”
“I never did before.”
“No, you’ve been utterly consistent, if never utterly convincing. I can’t see for the life of me what he ever did to win your loyalty, but it’s first class, if blind.”
Temple didn’t trust herself to speak.
Molina turned and headed for the door.
“What are you going to do?” Temple called after her.
“What it takes,” she answered.
Molina was utterly consistent too.
Temple sat only after Molina had left. Sank would better describe the motion.
An elongated chirping sound distracted her, as Midnight Louie jumped up on the sofa beside her. The big black cat paced on the soft seat cushion, leaning into her shoulder to rub back and forth. He pushed his chin against hers and purred.
She wasn’t used to him being so lovey-dovey.
Things must be really bad.
It must be true. But then who had sold Max’s house, if he was dead? He’d always lived alone after he’d returned from his year’s disappearance. They’d never lived together in Las Vegas after that fabulous first year of loving dangerously at the Circle Ritz.
Max fell and had died, and no one had known?
No. Maybe Max fell. Hundreds saw it. But hundreds and thousands had seen Max fly, onstage. And had believed it.
Temple shook her head, surprised by a blur of blond at the edges of her eyes. That did it. As soon as this mess was over, she was going to get her hair back to its natural red shade. There had to be a hair wizard in Las Vegas that could put her hair back where it had been. Even if no one could put her world back where it had been.
And . . . Matt had briefly been under suspicion, thanks to her trying to put PR “spin” on a protest. And Electra still was. She had to concentrate on them. On those present. On the provable living.
Chapter 37
Electra Lite
The oleander bushes surrounding the Circle Ritz parking lot were doing a lot of blowing in the wind these days, Temple noticed as she stood on her balcony overlooking the parking lot.
Funny. The breeze wasn’t whipping her longer hair around; it was just stirring the oleander leaves far below.
If she hadn’t had so much on her mind—Max’s whereabouts, the new scenario she’d dreamed up for Kathleen O’Connor and her alter ego, Electra’s pending murder rap, talking marriage with Matt—she might have investigated.
But her mind was on huddling with Electra to get a handle on the two Red Hat Sisterhood convention incidents connected to her complicated past.
If there was anything unusual to see in the vicinity of the oleanders, it bypassed her attention.
* * *
The building’s small elevator was a wood-lined bundle of fifties charm the size of a confessional, but it sure could crawl up the wall at a snail’s pace. Make that a slug’s pace.
Temple’s pink low-heeled slides danced an impatient jig on the car’s parquet floor until it creaked to a stop at the penthouse level.
Ringing Electra’s doorbell produced the usual long wait. Temple finally pushed on the door. It wafted slightly open.
Pushing through, she found Electra’s pathologically shy cat, Karma, sitting on the threshold. The mirrored vertical blinds lining the octagonal entry hall reproduced a host of Karmas, cream-colored coat, white-tipped paws, and dark brown mask at her eyes.
“Electra?” Temple called.
Karma remained the usual inscrutable. Temple hated to cross into the cat’s territory without its mistress present. The animal broadcast an air both eerie and intimidating. Its heavenly blue eyes seemed transparent at times. At other times, Temple had seen them gleam red, like a demon’s.
“Electra?”
“Coming,” the landlady’s cheery voice caroled from deep within the shadowed rooms.
Electra kept the light out of her living area because of Karma’s shyness, Temple had been told. Now she wondered if Electra was simply used to living in the shadows of her own hazy past, and husbands.
“What’s happening, dear?”
“Elmore will survive and Matt is no longer a suspect in the attack.”
“That’s wonderful. About Matt, I mean. Who is suspected?”
“You knew him best, they say.”
“Not for years. Sit down. You look stumped.”
“I am. I don’t even know what was used on Elmore. Alch does, but he’ll only give me aggravating hints.”
“Oh, that charming detective. I should think you could coax more than hints out of him.”
“One would hope. But he’s raised a daughter; he’s personally dealt with a teenage girl. He is no longer suscep
tible to coaxing from females. He did admit that Elmore was poisoned.”
Electra gasped. “Oh! That’s a terrible way to die. Elmore was a lying creep, but he didn’t deserve death by poison. Maybe a jalapeño enema, but not poison.”
“Electra! Talk like that will not get you taken off the suspects list.”
“Why not? I’m not threatening any lethal damage, just a whole lot of pain.”
“The object is to look and sound as innocent as the early morning rain.”
“I am, Temple, that’s why I can afford to tell the truth about the bum. The world wouldn’t have missed him much. I never did. And that’s why I wouldn’t wait all this time and then try to kill the jerk.”
“The question is how the poison was administered. I’ve suggested every method I can think of to Alch. He just beams like Buddha and says I’m not even warm.”
“What did you strike out on?”
“A hip flask. Alcohol is strong enough to disguise a lot of lethal substances.”
“No.” Electra shook her purple-sprayed head. “He liked his liquor well enough but I wouldn’t see him as the hip flask sort.”
“I thought maybe nicotine, but he didn’t smoke.”
“No, never smoked.”
“You’re no help. Alch admitted, implied, that if it was something he carried in his back pocket, it could be metal like a cigarette case.” Temple kept silent for a moment, stumped. “Why would Alch say that Elmore wasn’t toasting his own health? He wouldn’t anyway, because he wasn’t a known drinker.”
“Toast. Now there was an Elmore Lark weakness. The man adored French toast. I had to make it every morning when we were married. Can’t stand it to this day.”
“Food? Food was Elmore’s poison? They must have examined the contents after the hospital pumped his stomach. You can’t stash a piece of French toast in a tight back jeans pocket. He could have had it for breakfast, and someone had doctored it. Maybe one of those middle-aged ladies he preys on now invited him to breakfast and, presto, poison powder sprinkled on his French toast like . . . powdered sugar! That would work!”
Temple jumped up.
Electra looked around as Temple glimpsed Karma’s fluffy tail vanishing under the sofa fringe.
“That must be it! What Alch meant.”
“Whatever you say, dear. But I left Elmore long ago. I don’t care who sprinkles his toast or anything else with what.”
“Don’t you see? Whoever attempted to kill him knew his habits, and used them. And must have known him after you did.”
“But the police won’t believe that. That’s a ‘someone’ and I’m right here to blame.”
“I’ll just have to find who did know his habits and used them to try to kill him.”
“That’s nice, dear. Now can you sit down and have some Crystal Light so poor Karma will be reassured that no one will be leaping up unseemly and shouting and she can gather her psychic thoughts and come out from under the sofa?”
Subdued, Temple complied, wondering all the while how she could nail a killer with a doctored powdered sugar theory. Maybe “Spoonful of Sugar Helps the Medicine Go Down” Mary Poppins could, but Temple wasn’t a magical English nanny. She was just a PR woman with a strong sense of protecting her friends.
Chapter 38
A Kick in the Karma
Usually I can count on my Miss Temple to lock up a case of murder in four days flat. Double murder, or second attempt. Five days flat.
But my esteemed associate (not Miss Midnight Louise) is not her usual razor-sharp self, partly because our beloved landlady is in the hot seat, but mostly because she herself is trying to be this human insanity called “faithful” to two tomcats. (Not to mention myself, who has always been her steady fella and only real roommate, night-in and night-out.My nights out, that is.)
It is so simple in the feline world, as I tell Miss Midnight Louise again and again. One hot young queen. Two potent neighborhood toms. You are talking a litter of adorable goldens and blacks, not a shabby combo for a mama of any species.
But, no. Humans have to make a pair out of a possible full house. Any gambler will tell you this: the more the players, the better the odds. And the more fun!
Still, I have cast my lot in life with my Miss Temple, and I generally have no complaints. I must admit, now that push has come to shove, that I am already missing the always-impending presence of Mr. Max. That guy knew how to build an audience’s expectations onstage, shatter them, and then show up behind them with an armful of tame doves. Yum-yum. I am talking about the doves, not Mr. Max.
But Mr. Matt is an okay guy. If you want sincerity with a Capital S, not to mention that smoldering sort of sex appeal that comes from a restrictive upbringing, my Miss Temple could do no better.
But, see, I have always thought that she could do herself the biggest favor with both. What is so wrong with that? It has been the feline way since before we bit the hands that fed us. Since before there were hands to feed us.
Speaking of which, I am standing in the Circle Ritz parking lot fretting about human behavior, when I am suddenly held up to dry on my own impeccable good intentions and behavior.
“You slug!” I hear hissed from the nearby oleander bushes.
Something snarled and black (and snarling) rushes into my face.
It is my purported mother, Ma Barker. Jeez, I wish she had a couple of consuming tomcats on her mind. But no. She has her whole damn litter of a gang on her mind.
“We are starving. You said down-Strip would be the Promised Land. Free food from gullible humans who would not try to trap us.”
“There are no traps.”
“There is nothing in our traps, either, fool! We have walked off all the spare fat our spare frames could spare.”
Okay. I could edit that sentence. Eliminate redundant “spares.” Okay. That would not be life affirming in this current situation.
“What about the Free-to-Be-Feline piles I have led you and the Chosen Felines to in my own domicile?” I ask.
“That stuff sucks, my son,” Ma Barker responds.
I cannot disagree.
“Okay,” I say. “But that is all I have for now. It will get better later, I promise.”
Ma Barker gets a bit dewy. “You sound just like your father.”
“I mean it! The head lady of this place is too busy to cook for the gang. She does not even know you are here yet. She is facing major murder charges.”
Ma Barker desists her howling and lays back into a purr. “This place is run by a head lady, human style?”
“Right.”
“And she is up on murder charges?”
“False, of course.”
“My kind of human. Except for the false part. So what are you going to do in the meantime, sonny?”
“I will . . . ah, consult the resident, um, goddess.”
“It is human or feline?”
“A bit of both, I fear. Just settle down here.”
“We no longer have the energy to climb that arch of rugged trunk for a few nuggets of dried green rabbit dung.”
“I agree! I will see about getting you something more succulent.”
“Succulents are watery cacti, son. Not nourishing.”
“I meant moist, meaty, thick, tasty.”
“Like lizard tongue.”
“Ah, more like a major cat food brand.”
“I prefer baby food.”
“That too,” I sigh, my work cut out for me.
I take the despised palm tree route to the Circle Ritz’s fourth floor, then claw my way up the exterior to the penthouse.
Panting outside the French doors, I finally see a ray of light. A scimitar of claw has pulled a door ajar.
Now, I suppose, I must do obeisance to the resident goddess, Karma.
I roll into the desirable shade inside, hearing the soothing wheeze of the air-conditioning device. The dimness is also soothing. I could have a nice nap.
“Slug!” I hear in dulcet sacred
Birman tones.
I bet the Dalai Lamas did not have to put up with this, but they are mostly extinct these days. As I may soon be.
Miss Karma is circling around me on her miraculously white-footed feet.
“Are you responsible for that low-end, homeless riffraff in the parking lot being here?”
“Yes,” I am forced to admit. “They were starving uptown.”
“What makes you think they will not starve downtown?”
“As soon as the human Circle Ritz denizens can get their attention off of your . . . roommate’s survival, I am sure they will all see the need around them and meet it.”
“Hmph. You are a lowly mixed breed.”
I hold my tongue. And teeth.
“You have served the lowest desires of both kinds.”
I hold my tongue, but it is hard.
“You have delusions of being a force-about-town.”
I hold my shivs.
“You hold to no guiding principle but self-interest.”
I growl.
“And that of a favored few humans of your acquaintance. No mystical human figure has blessed you with its favor.”
Well, there was Elvis. Or his ghost.
“No miracle has occurred to paint your outer coat to celebrate your inner courage.”
Okay, so these Birmans got their coloring centuries ago from dying to protect the Dalai Lama of their time. Did not work, did it? And the current Dalai Lama, cool dude as he is, may be the last of his kind, while their kind gets exhibited in fancy cat shows. Huh! They are all just hand-me-downs. I am one-of-a-kind, because I am no kind in particular.
“No miracle occurred for you, Louie?”
“No,” I say. But then, my just being here after having been abandoned in an alley is some kind of miracle to my way of thinking. Which is not divine. Or Birmanish.
“Very well. I will beseech Buddha for loaves and fishes for your wandering kin.”
Uh, that was the other guy.
Karma thrums her shivs on the carpeting. I think I hear a temple bell ring, but then I realize it is a microwave tinging.
“My obedient servant has left a warm meal for me. If your followers can get it, they are welcome to it.”
Cat in a Red Hot Rage Page 20