Cat on a Hyacinth Hunt

by Carole Nelson Douglas

  "Is this what I get for tracking down Effinger? Does justice always have a hidden price?"

  "Justice is usually damn well out of it."

  "But you . .. that's your job."

  "No. My job is many things. Justice is something separate. You see it sometime, you let me know."

  Matt watched Kinsella, amazed by his stamina. Temple had told him magicians were strong, but he had assumed that meant raw muscular power. It was intelligence, skill and heart, he saw, not brute strength. On those thin threads, on Max Kinsella's magician's instincts, Temple's life now hung.

  Another casket lost its tarpaulin. Molina held the flashlight now, quietly led Kinsella's search with its focused beam.

  Kinsella bent to pull the latest box from the wall, paused, looked up at them.

  "Heavy," he said.

  Matt had never suspected the word "hope" was spelled "heavy," but it was here and now.

  He and Molina rushed to pull and tug away the ebbing tarp, letting the maestro get to work.

  The casket's outside was smooth, unmarked, almost anonymous.

  That very smoothness seemed to frustrate Kinsella. His fingers slid over the entire surface, searching for hidden hinges and springs.

  He looked up, hopeful. "This is a demonic box. It must be it. And so heavy ..."

  He laid his ear against the polished wood, a guitar player tuning his instrument-. His fingers fretted the liquid sienna surface, hunting pressure points like an acupuncturist.

  Matt didn't know about Molina, but he held his breath, not wanting to impede Kinsella's sense by so much as an inhalation.

  At last Matt heard a tiny click, like a mechanical heartbeat.

  Kinsella's breath hushed over the rich veneer. Another click, then the entire top lifted like a grand piano wing. The box was lacquered black inside, with a yellow satin lining. Angled into the lining like a pry tearing it from the wood, was the heel of a magenta suede shoe.

  Chapter 46

  Panama Purple Haze

  Who would guess in their wildest dreams that Midnight Louie would ever wish to be a dog?

  Perhaps I should be more specific. I have not actually been wishing complete dogdom upon myself these past tense minutes since my own rescue. I am not that debased, not even in an emergency. Not even in a case of life and death.

  No, I merely feel a certain frustrated longing for the nose of the breed in question. They are superior at one act only: smelling. And often, I fear, smelling what is bad as well as what is good.

  So, in a certain sense, I am glad that any drug-sniffing dogs, such as they are, were pulled off the case in favor of Mr. Max Kinsella, much as I dislike owing my current freedom from the semi to him.

  What frustrates me most at the moment is my inability to aid in the discovery and rescue of my lost roommate.

  No matter how I sniff up and down and around these magical mystery caskets, I am unable to smell so much as a rat. This is unprecedented.

  Why? Why is my sniffer so deficient?

  Because all I can smell are three unforgettable scents: that of the demure flower known as hyacinth, that of the far-from-demure hellion from Siam, also known as Hyacinth, and that of the tart, heady aroma of Panama Purple.

  So when the Mystifying Max and Mr. Matt Devine pop the lid on a likely-looking casket, there I am, reeling around like Dopey the Dwarf without a hint of what we will find inside. My superior feline sense of smell is of no more use than a smudge pot of sensory confusion.

  I cannot sniff life or death or even the likelihood of the contents being human, much less the one particular human we all seek.

  I bury my useless nose in my mitts, and swear upon Bastet's right rear paw's left toenail that I will never again knowingly touch the substance called "Panama Purple."

  Chapter 47

  Found and Lost

  The two men stared at the shoe, immobilized as it was.

  To Molina, it looked like it was either jauntily hooked there for a fashion shoot. Or like it was impaled there in its owner's extremis.

  Molina's job was to know first which case fit the scenario. She stepped forward to aim the flashlight at the casket bottom, automatically using her body to block the others' view.

  No use letting the nearest and dearest view the situation first.

  The flashlight picked up the steel glint of handcuffs. Molina relaxed slightly. You don't handcuff a dead body. Then again, lack of air, a drug overdose . . . Her flashlight beam on the face produced squeezed- shut eyelids. Molina began to turn.

  But as if sensing her verdict, the men jerked into motion again, both reaching for the contents of the casket.

  Remarkably, they managed to work in concert. Kinsella pulled up Temple's shoulders; Devine picked up her ankles.

  In seconds she was sitting against the box that had confined her, woozy and blinded by the light.

  No one asked if she was all right. They simply watched her, trying to gauge her condition.

  Midnight Louie had no such inhibitions. He meowed in a forlorn tone and came stalking up to her, rubbing his side against her flexed knees, pushing his face into her arm.

  "Louie?"

  Temple's voice, always husky, was a dry desert rattle.

  "He came along for the ride too," Molina explained. "In his own carrier."

  " 'Carrier.' " Temple tried to laugh but it was hard to do with no sound effects. "Pretty good."

  Devine knelt beside her. "Water. Is there any way, any-where--?"

  "Gas station," Molina said. "On the way back."

  Kinsella also knelt beside her, picked up her handcuffed wrists as if they were Dresden china.

  He thrust the stubby file from the nail clipper into the mechanism. Presto changeo, the cuffs sprang open like Tiffany bracelets.

  Kinsella handed the implement back to Devine.

  Temple's wrists separated into a poignant, empty gesture, as if she'd begun it hours before and had been stalled from finishing it. The note of panic in her voice was heartbreaking.

  "Max. She took my ring. She never gave it back. It's gone."

  He gathered her against him as someone would a hurt child. "It's all right. There are other rings. Dozens and dozens of other rings."

  And only one Temple.

  The unspoken sentiment was echoed by Matt Devine's silence as he stood, stepped back, ebbed out of the picture.

  "Where are we?" Temple finally asked. "It was so dark and the box was jostled around so much . . . and they stuck me. My elbow."

  "Left?" Kinsella asked.

  "How'd you know?"

  "That's usually where right-handed people administer injections, and most people are right-handed." He held her inner elbow up to Molina's flashlight beam.

  "Ultrafine needle," she diagnosed. "Probably some of their 'hyasynth' in liquid form. She seems exhausted and disoriented, but not in the throes of an O.D."

  Kinsella nodded, a curt agreement.

  "Can she stand?" Molina asked.

  "Does it matter?" Kinsella's anger was as sudden and clean as a switchblade.

  "Yes," Molina said much more gently than she felt like saying. "See if you can get her upright."

  Temple rose on the support of his arm, shaky. "My shoe."

  "Here." Matt Devine had retrieved it. "But you better not wear it right now. Better give me the other one."

  He went down on one knee like Prince Charming while she balanced herself against Kinsella.

  The absence of the single shoe restored balance to her body. She leveled her shoulders, looked stronger, leaned less on Kinsella.

  "How did you find me?" she asked, looking at them all in turn.

  Her unspoken question was: what are you natural enemies all doing here, together?

  You, child. You.

  "Mr. Kinsella realized something was wrong when you disappeared," Molina began.

  " Before she disappeared," he corrected.

  She ignored him. "Mr. Devine noticed Mr. Kinsella was gone from his seat--"<
br />
  Temple looked at Matt, with a lucid and questioning gaze that made even Molina look away and hurry on. "Then I decided to explore the understage areas. Devine tailed me, I found Mr.

  Kin-sella shaking up empty prop boxes and a few empty-headed ninjas. We suspected that you were gone, and since the DEA was tailing the show's semitruck, which took off about when you did, they followed, I followed, your swains twain followed. I would say even Midnight Louie followed, except that he was already aboard in his own traveling compartment."

  Temple quirked a smile at her. Molina was actually, deeply, momentarily afraid she might have to like her.

  "Sounds like Keystone Kops." Temple put more weight on her hose-clad feet. "With accessories before and after the fact." She whispered like The Shadow from the old radio show.

  "So why do you want me upright, Lieutenant?"

  Goddamn, but she could be fast, even after an ordeal like this.

  "Let's go outside. Get some fresh desert air."

  Devine joined Molina. Kinsella brought up the rear with Temple.

  "How did you find me, really?" Temple was rasping like a sick child.

  "We followed the yellow brick squad-car light," Kinsella said in the tone of a long-time teller of fairy tales.

  Molina sighed. Matt Devine eyed her with some compassion. It should be the other way around, but at the moment she was willing to take what compassion she could find. She certainly couldn't give it. Not now.

  He jumped down off the truck bed before her and held up a hand to break her leap.

  Poor Matt. No lady fair but a lady lieutenant.

  She touched his fingers as a courtesy but landed without his help.

  Kinsella loomed over them, preparing to hand Temple down like an Egyptian mummy. Both of them reached up for her, broke the impact.

  Matt held out the shoes. "You'll need these on the sand, such as they are."

  Temple grabbed Molina's sleeve in one hand, and Devine's sleeve in the other then released each one in turn while she forced her feet into the dainty-toed slippers.

  Then she leaned close to Molina and whispered in her ear.

  Molina nodded at the men. "We're going around the trailer for a bit. Don't wander anywhere."

  Temple put a hand on the truck side and tottered around to the other side.

  "Are you sure there's no other choice?" she asked Molina.

  "Absolutely sure."

  "But I don't think I can."

  "You say you can't wait."

  "Yeah . . . but--"

  "Here's a handkerchief. I always carry one. Leave it when you're done."

  "But out here. In the dark. There might be snakes and spiders. I don't know."

  "Think of mountain streams," she advised, like any veteran mother.

  "Right," Temple croaked, grabbing the handkerchief from Molina's hand.

  She tottered into the darkness on her absurd shoes.

  Molina sighed again. Someday Mariah would be up to this. Soon.

  When they came back around the truck corner together, Kinsella and Devine had the uneasy look of men abandoned by women for reasons not clear.

  "What are you up to?" Kinsella, who had stripped off the latex gloves while they were gone, stepped forward to ask.

  "I've asked Miss Barr if she'd mind delaying her return to civilization for a few minutes. The DEA has a couple suspects in hand. I asked them to hold them for Miss Barr."

  "You had no idea that 'Miss Barr' was even here," Kinsella raged.

  "Ah, but I had you to look for her, didn't I? An expert hunter. And she was. And is. So I'd like her to stroll past the suspects and see if she recognizes anybody."

  "The men who grabbed me," Temple put in hoarsely, "... I think they were the masked ninjas. I didn't see any faces."

  "That may not be the question," Molina put in silkily. Her eyes stayed on Kinsella. He was the mastiff. "If Mr. Devine will help me escort you to the front of the truck, this could be over in a few minutes."

  "Something you don't want me to see, Lieutenant?" Kinsella jeered, already panicky at losing even temporary custody of Temple.

  She could almost sympathize.

  "Not something. Someone. Sit tight, magician."

  Matt Devine, like a good partner, had materialized on Temple's right.

  The two of them steered her over the shifting sand beside the road to the fire-breathing dragon-painted tractor.

  Two men stood against the upright bulk of steel, their hands cuffed behind their backs; four men in DEA gear watched them.

  Molina walked Temple close enough to see the mens faces in the lurid light of the pursuit-car headlights.

  Temple gasped, and sagged between them.

  Molina turned and guided her back down the trailer's Christmas-tree-lit length. Kinsella waited in the dark at the end of the overlit tunnel, like a gunfighter.

  "Those aren't the men," Temple tried to say.

  "Which men?"

  "I don't think so. Not the men who grabbed me tonight. But definitely the men from ..."

  She faltered, and it was Devine who held her up. "From the parking garage."

  She bent a distressed look on Molina. "Everyone said they were probably dead."

  "It's a good cover, isn't it?"

  "Max said they were dead."

  "Max isn't infallible, is he?"

  "He found me, didn't he? He opened my handcuffs."

  "But those are the two men who attacked you in the parking garage last summer?"

  "Yes. Yes, I recognize them." Temple leaned her head on Devine's shoulder.

  "Good. Good work. That gives us something to go on. Now I think we can drive back to Vegas, and then you can go home for some rest."

  "Home," Temple said, sounding not only hoarse, but rueful.

  Kinsella was waiting for her, but Molina wasn't done yet.

  "Wait." She raised a traffic-cop hand.

  He almost bulled right past it to reclaim Temple.

  "I need to ask you a few questions, Mr. Kinsella. And now, I think you owe me a few answers."

  He hesitated, like a trapeze artist on the brink of missing the crucial bar as it swung past.

  Then his shoulders relaxed. "Whatever you say, Lieutenant. Where do we talk?"

  "Down the trailer a bit."

  "I'm all yours." He cocked Temple a smile and turned to follow Molina into the bright dark.

  In the distance, the DEA officers loaded the rig's pair of drivers into their sole remaining van.

  The vehicle spurted into the distance until it was only a pair of red taillights, shrinking like bat's eyes in the night.

  Chapter 48

  Carmen Miranda Warning

  Matt watched Kinsella and Molina amble away like coconspirators.

  "What's this about?" He turned to Temple, seeing she was suddenly shivering.

  He whipped off his velvet jacket and wrapped her in his borrowed body heat. She still shook like an aspen leaf, and when he was about to say something, she silently threw her arms around him.

  He looked up the track. Molina and Kinsella moving away, tall and deliberate, their steps deceptively casual.

  Matt clasped Temple to him, covered the only reachable part of her with kisses, the hair on her head.

  "It was ... so awful," she said.

  He felt like he was holding a blender set at "grate," her shudders were so sudden and rough.

  "Temple. You're all right. Cold and scared, but all right."

  "What's she doing?" Temple asked, like a child caught in fretful fever. "What does she want?"

  "Answers. You heard her. That's her job."

  "I can't believe those men from last summer are here. I guess I'd wanted to believe that they were dead."

  "They hurt you. You wanted them to disappear. That's normal."

  "But I'm so disappointed that they're still alive. It's like Max promised--"

  "Max can't promise anything about other people's lives and deaths."

  "Oh, I don't kn
ow--"

  He crushed her closer. He didn't want to know what Kinsella could and could not do, in any arena--life and death, life and love.

  But he also knew these moments for a respite from reality. A few stolen moments. Molina was no accessory drawing Kinsella away, but a cop doing her job.

  Matt watched them talk with apprehension, Kinsella leaning against the trailer side. Easy, always easy for him. Molina moving left, then right. Their profiles backlit by the garish bulbs outlining the stalled tractor. Their words a mystery. Their momentary absence a blessing.

  Matt became aware of something sanding his trouser legs; looking down, he saw Midnight Louie rubbing back and forth, back and forth.

  "Poor Louie," Temple said. "He's had a terrible ordeal too. How did he end up in the same dead-end box I did? Who'd want to hurt a cat? Poor thing. I've upset him with my rotating residences." She was suddenly silent and then she stiffened as she pulled away from him. She let the jacket ebb down her shoulders like a shawl, then handed it back.

  She wasn't trembling any more.

  The two figures down the road were coming back, slowly, still talking.

  "Thanks," Temple said. "I'll pick up Louie and that'll keep me warm the rest of the way."

  Matt bent to lift the hefty cat into her arms.

  The tomcat actually honored Temple with a lick on the cheek and a burst of purring.

  "You'd better get in the car," Molina instructed Temple. "Yes, with the cat."

  The trio walked away toward Kinsella's Taurus like a mockery of the Holy Family: man, woman and cat.

  Matt watched them go.

  Molina still stood facing him, as if she had something to say.

  When he finally gave her his attention, she was staring past his shoulder. Her voice was the muted drone of an officer reading the suspect's Miranda rights.

  "Infatuation," she said in her best official monotone, "is a predictable chemical process. It floods the brain with feel-good serotonin. Gives a sense of overpowering optimism and shattering insecurity. It lasts about eighteen months at the outside. In primitive times this was long enough to beget a child and let it grow big enough to stay with its mother while both parties repeated the infatuation process elsewhere. Another heat wave, another inheritor of the race. The notion that love has anything to do with it is a medieval artificiality that has been elevated into an obsession in modern times."