Midnight Louie 05-Cat in a Diamond Dazzle

by Douglas, Carole Nelson

  Kinsella unbent with a dancer's fluidity. Matt couldn't hear a knee creak, but hastened to rise with him, as if to keep them on the same level, despite the considerable height difference. His usual self-consciousness in situations like this had another, nastier overtone. With Temple it took the form of sexual shyness. Now, Matt felt insufficient in another way, in strength and size. He was eight years old again, and helpless against a man's height and anger. At almost six feet, he had pretty much shaken that inner shrinking sensation, but Kinsella was unusually tall.

  "You're quite an athlete," Kinsella commented as he turned a gaudy back on Matt to walk to the table and chairs Electra kept by the pool.

  "Not really. I swim some." Matt grimaced at his automatic self-deprecation, grabbed his towel from the foot of an ancient lounge chair and followed. "I don't consider the martial arts work athletics."

  "Discipline, then."

  Matt shrugged, not bothering to mention his favorite term, meditation.

  "I don't see that we have much to talk about," he said. Then he sat, dripping and dabbing at the rivulets sprinting down his face, wishing he could don his clothes.

  Kinsella's dubious look seemed practiced. A magician was an actor as much as anything.

  "We have something in common," Kinsella said. "Not," he added speedily as Matt maintained a cool so effective he could feel his face freezing, "Temple."

  "I wasn't thinking of Temple," Matt answered just as quickly.

  "Shame on you," Kinsella suggested smoothly. "She's worth thinking about. Even when she's on retreat."

  "Is she on retreat, or in retreat?"

  "Probably both. Not that I blame her. Look. You don't know me ... or, rather, you don't know anything about me that isn't misleading. But we have more than Temple in common."

  "Such as?"

  Matt suspected that he was watching a master of deception at work--on him. Kinsella must thrive on putting other people off balance and keeping them that way. Why had Temple taken off, leaving them--him--alone to confront each other? Matt suspected that she and Electra had skedaddled together, and knew he shouldn't begrudge her a temporary escape. But the last thing on earth he wanted to discuss with Max Kinsella was Temple, especially with their most recent and most intimate evening still lingering on his mind like an uncertain sin.

  "So what is our common bond?" Matt inquired, assuming his most nonjudgmental confessional tone but bracing for more surprises.

  "Dead men," Kinsella reported with gusto and a flash of cat-green eyes.

  "Dead men in general?" Matt asked, still wearing his parish priest mask, though Kinsella had no reason to know of its existence. "Or special dead men?"

  "How many dead men do you know?" Kinsella shot back.

  "A few. And I guess all dead men are special."

  "Hmm. You've heard about mine, I suppose."

  "I don't think so."

  "Temple didn't tell you about the man that was found dead in a custom cubby-hole in the ceiling above the Goliath gambling tables? Found dead the very night I vanished, never to be seen again ...

  until now?"

  "You may find your own disappearance astounding, but some of us don't."

  "I bore you. Pity. I'm out of practice, I see."

  "What did you do while you were missing in action?"

  "None of your business." With a charismatically mischievous grin.

  "Neither are my dead men."

  "There's where you may be wrong, boyo. I think our late unlamented' deaths may be connected."

  "How do you even know about the one that was related to me?"

  "Would the name Molina mean anything to you?"

  " She's talking to you?"

  "She?" Kinsella sounded startled.

  "She," Matt confirmed. "She wants to interrogate you in the worst way; you haven't obliged her?"

  "Not yet, but if she is a viable conduit of information, I'm back now. Shall we say that proximity is everything."

  "In that case, I can see why you're a suspect in the Goliath death."

  "Not that kind of proximity," Kinsella said. "Dead men." He tilted back until the white plastic chair balanced at a gravity-defying angle. "Think about it. Mine at the Goliath five months ago; yours at the Crystal Phoenix last week."

  "Mine? Yours? Death doesn't recognize the possessive."

  Kinsella let the chair's front legs snap to the concrete. "Figures of speech are relative. Your dead man is more yours than mine is mine. Yours was a relative."

  "How did you--?"

  "Temple dropped an allusion; I picked it up and followed it to the morgue."

  "Not technically a relative."

  "A lot of people we have to live with aren't technically relatives."

  "A ... stepfather."

  "Close enough to count. Stepparents can be sore points."

  "He wasn't a parent to anything but his own indulgences."

  Kinsella's quicksilver features hardened with some emotion. Perhaps it was chagrin. "Sorry. I didn't know the connection was that close."

  "It wasn't. I hadn't seen him in years."

  Kinsella nodded, no doubt calculating the unspoken facts and weighing whether to bring them up or not.

  "You never will see him again, as it turned out," he mused a bit morosely.

  "But I did. After his death. Maybe."

  Kinsella perked up like an Irish setter at the mention of quail. "Why 'maybe'?"

  "I hadn't seen the man in seventeen years. In fact, I couldn't really identify him. Time had been hard at work, and death finished the job. He seemed a ... stranger. Death had changed him, his face.

  Standing there in the morgue, in that ludicrously Spartan viewing room, I couldn't be sure who it was. "shed the job. He seemed a . . . stranger. Death had changed him, his face. Standing there in the morgue, in that ludicrously Spartan viewing room, I couldn't be sure who it was."

  Kinsella mulled that, his long fingers flexing on the shaded plastic table, as if miming a magic trick.

  "To be or not to be . . . Cliff Effinger. At least yours has a name and face."

  "You didn't know the dead man at the Goliath?"

  Kinsella shook his head.

  "You still could have killed him."

  A pause, then a nod.

  "Did you?"

  "No." With a slow, sad, sweet smile that acknowledged what such denials were worth on the open market. "Did you kill your stepfather?"

  "Unfortunately, no. I don't think so. And no one else is asking, anyway."

  Kinsella didn't pursue Matt's odd uncertainty. "What about this Lieutenant Molina?"

  "She doesn't give up. She'll still be looking for you."

  "Maybe."

  "What does that mean?"

  "Why did she ask you to identify the body?"

  "Because I finally confessed my . . . relationship to Effinger."

  "So?"

  "She had a dead man in the morgue and she needed someone to confirm his identity."

  "No, she didn't."

  "What do you mean?"

  "This stepfather of yours did the usual bad stepfather things, didn't he?"

  Matt felt his muscles stiffen even as he maintained his relaxed posture. Had Temple told Max--?

  Kinsella went on as if unaware of Matt's hesitation. "At least he did if he was Cliff Effinger. I asked around. Effinger left his happy hometown for Vegas, drank, gambled, got arrested for all sorts of lowlife offenses that don't add up to much jail time, but do comprise a long, documented trail. Look, Devine. Cliff Effinger left his fingerprints all over this town. Why did this Ms. Molina need you to schlepp on down to the morgue and stare at the copper pennies on his eyes?"

  Kinsella's eyes--disconcertingly Midnight-Louie green-- focused on Matt like quizzical laser beams. Confused, Matt clutched at any nearby floating assumptions.

  "I'm sure Lieutenant Molina had a reason--"

  "So am I," Kinsella put in, with feeling. He leaned forward on the little chair, propping his forearms on
his thighs. "Think about it. There was no reason to put you through that charade."

  "Sometimes," Matt answered slowly, "women like that want you to confront yourself."

  "She's that mean?"

  "Not mean. Just in a position of authority with a benign sense of mission." He remembered Sister Seraphina prodding him into performing an anointing of the sick on Miss Tyler. The elderly nun had wanted him to face the fact that his former priesthood was always with him. Maybe Molina had wanted him to face his stepfather's death and his own hatred of the man. But she was a police detective, not a therapist. Besides, she couldn't have known about Effinger's family abuse, unless Temple had told her, and Temple was hardly on speaking terms with either Molina or Kinsella these days.

  Speak of the devil. He looked up again to find Kinsella studying him. Except for the eyes, Max Kinsella was not a mesmerizingly handsome man. His face was angular and intelligent, his features so mobile that one glimpsed many men behind the frequently exchanged masks. Matt had encountered such chimerical personalities before; everyone had concealed a secret and insecure core. Every one could have charmed the snake off the Tree of All Knowledge in Eden.

  "You're right," Matt admitted, wondering why he hated that fact so much, hated it almost as much as being virtually naked before a man in a Hawaiian shirt. "Having me identify a man with a police record doesn't make sense. I was so... confused at the time, that never dawned on me."

  "Trust the police to confuse you. So you hadn't seen your stepfather in years?"

  Matt nodded.

  "And did it do you any good?"

  "Did what?"

  "Seeing him dead?"

  "No."

  "Hmmm. You weren't surprised by his manner of death, though?"

  "He left home when I was sixteen."

  "Voluntarily?"

  Matt shrugged. He wasn't going to perform a post mortem on his family life for the benefit of the Mystifying Max.

  "Maybe you don't care what he was up to all those years since then. I do, though."

  "Why?"

  The man stared at him as Midnight Louie was wont to do: an expression impassive, yet superior, and even vaguely prodding. An unspoken "Well?"

  Matt saw the light, and didn't like it. "You're not sure Cliff Eftuv ger is dead, are you?"

  "Look at me. The rumors of my demise were false."

  Matt forgot Kinsella for once, plunging again into the cool, shifting ocean of the past. "I'd like to know for sure, for my mother's sake," he admitted despite himself.

  "For your mother's sake." Repeated sardonically. "Well, then." Kinsella clapped flat palms to the tabletop. The gesture should have hurt. He grinned. "I'd say that we have more than one common interest. Let's forget our unflattering assumptions about each other and look into our pair of dead men."

  "You're a loner. Why the buddy act?"

  "I'm also supposed to be missing. I try to keep my personal appearances to a bare minimum."

  Matt winced at the expression.

  "Besides," Kinsella said, "it's better for Temple if most of the folk out there still think so. I could use a front man."

  Matt laughed. "Another magic act, with me as the distraction. What do I get out of this?"

  "You may find out who killed your stepfather, and why. Or . . . you may find out that he still needs killing."

  "And why would I care?"

  "Because, trust me, you do," Kinsella said, rising. "You can't help it."

  Chapter 9

  Spray for Rain

  Although I dare not enter the Crystal Phoenix until I can check out the whereabouts and mood of my ungrateful offspring, Midnight Louise, I can lurk outside. This I do, for two good reasons. I am determined to rekindle the relationship between me and Miss Savannah Ashleigh's purebred pride and joy, the Divine Yvette. I am also not averse to keeping an eye on my other little doll, for it has not been lost upon me that she is somewhat at loose ends, what with one thing and another. Frankly, I fear for her sanity.

  So there I am, keeping unobtrusive watch for any comings and goings of an intriguing nature. That is how I come to see a certain party of three exiting the Crystal Phoenix Hotel and Casino. For those unfamiliar with my usual turf, the Phoenix is a modest establishment more noted for class than crass.

  Once I pick up the trio's trail, I recognize two of the subjects at once: Miss Temple Barr and Miss Electra Lark, for the simple reason that neither of them are unknown to me.

  The third is a puzzler, though in some ways a riper version of Miss Temple. Anyway, they link arms and amble down the Strip, laughing and talking like old friends. This is suspicious in itself, for I have never laid eyes on the new doll, who looks old enough to be Miss Temple's mother or Miss Electra's sister. Could she be both? Anything is possible in the Naked City. (Some call the Big Crabapple of New York the Naked City, but Las Vegas is better qualified for that nickname, whether you count half-naked chorus girls or stripped-bare gamblers who leave this town in little more than suspenders and a barrel.) Midnight Louie does not require the presence of an unexplained person to realize that something is up. Miss Temple and Miss Electra have skipped out on the Circle Ritz far too abruptly to evade my whisker-trigger suspicions. I hope that this outing will enlighten me. I have little trouble tailing them along the Strip, which is crowded with foot traffic. I am always well beneath notice among foot traffic.

  Certain advantages pertain to being the little guy.

  The ladies' path heads south. I watch the Luxor's obelisk steadily swell at the Strip's southern end. It spikes the brilliant blue autumn sky like a giant's upside down thumbtack. Meanwhile, I keep a profile lower than a craps player on a losing streak, darting from one island of landscaping to the other, as if chasing butterflies. Such subterfuge hardly seems necessary. Most folks afoot in Las Vegas are gawking up at towering hotels and signs. That is why a slack-jawed jaywalker perishes every three days in this town, that and maybe all the free drinks at the casinos and not enough brain cells to bet on something other than traffic flow. These jaywalkers are a mystery anyway. I cannot see any advantage in it. You will not catch Midnight Louie walking a jay across the Strip during rush hour--not even a trained cockatoo Anyway, there I am crouching in the petunias before I hop into the next nest of marigolds or what have you. And so on. In a matter of blocks (and blocks along the Las Vegas Strip are on the gargantuan side, on both sides!) it becomes apparent where the ladies three are heading: only one hotel stands head and maned shoulders above the others this side of the Strip: the MGM Grand. This sweeping structure of green glass is reminiscent not so much of the Emerald City in Oz as it is of a tidal wave halted in mid-crash. The MGM Grand's 5005 rooms make it the world's largest hotel. It takes its calculated leisure in an architectural sprawl that covers twice the acreage of the other Strip behemoths.

  Naturally, it is completely fitting that the door dude to this mirrored Babylon on the Mojave should be a fellow with feline tendencies.

  Sure enough, Leo the lion's ocher stucco head soon dominates the horizon. These so-called Big Cats!

  They think they own everything they survey, simply because they are taller than the next guy. On the subject of true stature, I am shoulder to shoulder with Miss Temple Barr, figuratively speaking, of course.

  Figuratively speaking, though, this Leo is one impressive dude. Large but angular, with world-class green eyes the size of billboards. My subjects skirt Leo's muscular paws without a glance up at his lordly yet amiable face, so eager are they to pursue their mysterious mission. Then Miss Electra Lark stops dead. Tourists part like the Red Sea around her as she turns, looks back and points with a lack of politeness that only a tourist could get away with I do not pause to think, but spring for camouflage--

  right into the pansies and decorative cabbages sprouting at the base of Leo's immaculate pedicure. I have heard of cabbages and kings, and Leo is a self-proclaimed King of the beasts, but pansies? Really, Leo, what do we have here--L-a-a-ammm-bert, the Sheepish Lion?


  I am not surprised by the presence of this effete flora, but I am about to be shocked nearly out of my leather soles.

  Meanwhile, Miss Electra continues to wave her arm about like an undisciplined tail. Miss Temple and the stranger stop to gawk at what I discern to be the blue and red peaks of the Camelot Hotel and Casino's fools'-capped mock-Medieval towers, kitty-corner (sorry, Leo) from our location.

  The Camelot is old chapeau, pardon the expression. I have seen its pointy-hatted wizard glowering down from the Camelot drawbridge onto the Strip for several years now. I like to fancy that this maybe-Merlin has cast a spell on old Leo, dooming the big guy to eternal gate-keeping function at the opposite hostelry. Imagine sitting there day after day, able to do nothing more than light up the night with your big green eyes. This is definitely the downside of working as the house cat at a hotel.

  While I crouch and contemplate the sad state of feline pride in these latter days, hordes of human feet hoof into the MGM Grand's maw of brass-and-glass doors. A subtle hissing noise, like a chorus of cicadae, cranks up all around me. Although we are far from the open desert, this sound has a terrible, impending nature, like a thousand rattlesnakes about to strike.

  And then I am struck!

  A dozen sites on my body sting as I am pelted relentlessly. I leap out of the pansies, crying, "I am dying, Egypt, dying." (Oops. That line is more appropriate to the Sphinx in front of the Luxor down the Strip.) Anyway, I stagger from the flora like Jimmy Cagney hit by a machine gun. Those pansies were poisonous. And the hail of bullets continues. Except that they are wet.

  The awful truth triumphs. Leo, the MGM lion, has a spraying problem, and it's pretty pervasive. The pansies beam dewily through a fresh veil of waterdrops.

  I shake myself off, hoping to share my bounty with the passing mob. Then I nip through the row of doors with the huge brass doorpulls formed from an intertwined "O" and "Z" behind a Nikon of Japanese tourists clicking away like beetles.