Cat in a Quicksilver Caper

by Carole Nelson Douglas

  “No one! No one was there. No one saw. No one heard.”

  “And if you investigated every case, every dead body lying there in a parking lot, from that supposition, how far would you and your detectives ever get? Lieutenant?”

  There must be someone. That was the investigative motto. Canvas the neighborhood, roust the winos, savage the Dumpsters, check the surveillance cameras within a five-mile circumference. Dumpster dive. Find someone who had seen, heard.

  “Not at Secrets’s,” she said. She’d been there. The lot had been deserted. As empty as emotion.

  He shrugged, that irritating I-don’t-care gesture that jerked her chain.

  “Mamacita!” The front door banged open. Mariah. Home straight from school for once.

  Max Kinsella shrugged again, genuinely apologetic for the first time.

  The bastard had probably seen her car in the driveway, left and watched for Mariah to leave school, made sure the kid was heading for home, then just beat her here.

  Molina resisted glancing over her shoulder. She heard herself shouting at her own child, “Freeze!”

  The schoolgirl scuffles came on. Molina had to risk a direct look, a direct order. “Stop. Drop. Stay back!”

  And in that split second, the magician . . . split.

  Leaving her hands trembling on the brink of firing. They lowered the gun.

  He hadn’t needed a weapon.

  Molina swarmed her prone daughter, who hadn’t even had time to notice that anyone else was on the premises. “Good girl. It’s okay. I thought someone was in the house. You did right, chica. We’re okay.”

  Unless Kinsella hadn’t been her stalker.

  Impossible! It was him. She couldn’t shoot a man in front of her daughter, but she could sure wish that she had. Maybe a kneecap, then he’d be the one cowering on the floor, not Mariah.

  Someone else was stalking her? Ridiculous! No one had been in that parking lot but rows of empty cars and pickups and vans. Not a human moving among them. Not even a drifting palm frond blown by the wind.

  No one.

  So why had Max, aka the “Invisible Man” Kinsella, risked coming here to suggest otherwise?

  A huckster unwilling to give up a last con?

  A player leaving the stage with everyone hoodwinked?

  A deceptive magician taking one last bow?

  An innocent man?

  Come on!

  Foreplay

  “So,” Miss Midnight Louise asks in her most scathing tone, “is there a reason we are out clubbing at Neon Nightmare when everything that can go wrong has gone wrong at the New Millennium?”

  “Say what?” I growl as loudly as I can over the pounding, thumping sound system. I would not dignify this noxious noise with the term “music.”

  “You understood me, Pop. You just did not want to answer because you do not really know why we are here.”

  “Here,” is under the end of the long black Plexiglas bar. Above us the cadre of bartenders are slamming piña colada martinis down with lightning speed. Below us, the reflective black floor makes our usual ebony coats blend in with the decor. Those of our kind are generally considered inappropriate customers at such establishments, but most of the people here are too dazed in a pharmaceutical sense to notice our presence. We could come in white rabbit suits and still be ignored. Actually, we might be hit on for illegal substances in that guise.

  “Not everything has gone wrong. I checked the New Millennium out earlier. The Czar Alexander scepter is back in place.”

  “Yeah, and what kind of thief would do that?” she asks.

  “I have my suspicions,” I say. I do not rat out a born second-story dude like myself, ever. Besides, that is the kind of ambiguous statement that usually shuts up all but the female of the species.

  “Your suspicions? Such as—?”

  Miss Louise is always a stickler for embarrassing specifics, like how much one weighs or what one thinks one is thinking.

  I could tell her “none of your business,” but unfortunately these days her business is our business, i.e., Midnight Inc. Investigations, so I figure it is time to let her in on my brilliant deduction.

  “You know about this Phantom Mage guy?”

  “Appears twice nightly, yeah. That is better than your Miss Temple has been getting from Mr. Max Kinsella lately.”

  “Exactly my point, Louise.”

  She does not miss a beat now that I have given her a big, fat clue.

  “You think this Phantom Mage is Mr. Max in disguise?”

  Before I can repeat my “I have my suspicions” mantra she hopscotches right over me. If we were playing a game of checkers, she would be King.

  “Oh. And you think he is the one who stole the Czar Alexander scepter. I admit it smacks of a Mr. Max operation. But why? He is ordinarily a law-abiding dude.”

  “There has been nothing ordinary about this White Russian exhibition. It has had my Miss Temple’s brain in a bow tie since she started working on it. Nothing but trouble.”

  “Rather like Mr. Max himself.”

  “That is not fair, Louise. Much as I do not want him encroaching on my quilt time, he has only tried to help Miss Temple in her various enterprises and escapades. He has saved her life almost as often as I have.”

  She snorts. That is not a very ladylike reaction, but I forbear to tell her. Louise does not take direction well. I do not either but that is different.

  “That is what you get,” she says, “for entering into a mixed relationship. You will always be a third wheel when it comes to nocturnal territory.”

  She is, alas, right. Humans do not abide by the simplest rules of territory: what smells like me is mine; where I sleep I am king; where I eat I am emperor; who I adopt is my loyal subject forever.

  Maybe that should be “whom” I adopt. I am sure glad I did not say that aloud, for Miss Midnight Louise is also a fierce grammarian, as well as a dedicated carnivore and feminist of the first water, which means that she will mark any territory she can ahead of me. I am lucky that she regards Miss Temple’s digs as out of bounds or we would be knee-deep in trouble. Even without murderers and thieves around.

  Speaking of adopting, Miss Midnight Louise would do well to consider that I have informally done her the honor. Granted it took a little prodding of a needle-sharp shiv on her part.

  She has moved on, however, to consider my brilliant deduction, and is staring up hard at the dark apex of the internal pyramid that is the Neon Nightmare nightclub, as if searching for prey.

  “I,” she points out (literally, by tapping me on the shoulder with a four-flush of extended shivs), “have no territorial disputes with Mr. Max. If he is the scepter thief, he must have more reason then mere material gain.”

  “You think so? They do not call it ‘filthy lucre’ for nothing. Our kind has a hard time comprehending the sin of Greed.”

  “Unless it involves food,” she says with a sly sideways glance at me.

  “Then it is called Gluttony. And do not deny that you lap up every gourmet tidbit that Chef Song puts in your rice bowl at the Crystal Phoenix.”

  Miss Louise remains fixated on the ceiling, from which the Phantom Mage is soon scheduled to descend in a sizzling display of pyrotechnics and acrobatic daring. Of course it is Mr. Max! But why?

  “He must be undercover,” Louise hums softly to herself. “But why?”

  “Miss Lieutenant C. R. Molina is making things too hot for him?”

  “She has been for ages. There must be another motive.”

  “Maybe he just misses his regular job.”

  Louise’s gold eyes shine like twin suns. I bask in her approval. “You are so right. One cannot discount that with humans, especially performers. But he has always had two jobs, from what you have told me: as entertainer and as secret agent. He fought international terrorists even before this new breed entered the scene.”

  “Right,” I say. “The IRA. I must admit I do not get it, this endless enmity between
the orange and the green. Our kind has no trouble with those colors in both coat and eyes. Though you and I survive only by a miracle, given the human weakness for superstition and ignorance. Witches’ familiars indeed. Black is beautiful! That is why we are so prevalent. One wishes people had been born color-blind, as we are.”

  “I do not know about you but I see some colors, although faintly. Humans have an aura, have you not noticed that?”

  “Uh, this is getting very Karma, Louise. I thought you scorned that New Age stuff.”

  “I scorn nothing that makes sense, and I can tell you that Mr. Max’s aura is green. Miss Temple’s is red. Mr. Matt’s is gold. And Miss Lieutenant Carmen Molina’s is blue.”

  “Speaking of auras,” I say, “I have just spotted a gray one.”

  She follows my glance to Mr. Rafi Nadir, obviously working security for Neon Nightmare. He wears all black, like Mr. Max, but it is harsh where Mr. Max’s wardrobe is smooth. He wears black denim jeans and jacket and a T-shirt with a death’s head on the front. It is probably for some rock band. They are all very depressed sorts in my observation.

  “His aura,” Louise corrects me (Louise lives to correct me), “is silver.”

  I admit I am taken aback. Silver is way too nice an aura for Mr. Rafi Nadir, ex–cop, ex–Carmen Molina live-in, all too not-ex father of little Mariah, who is no longer so little.

  Nor am I happy to have two such dudes on different sides of the law inhabiting the same space, albeit unknown to each other. Mr. Max is unofficially a good guy, and Mr. Rafi is officially a fallen good guy.

  But I am here to observe and learn and test theories, not tail sinister characters around Las Vegas. Although I have gleaned that my Miss Temple is highly upset with Miss Lieutenant C. R. Molina and that it would be fun to sic Rafi Nadir on that woman’s tail just to get back at her sins against my nearest and dearest.

  However, Midnight Louie is not petty.

  I am here to decide whether the Phantom Mage is Mr. Max, and, if so, why. And what that means for my Miss Temple’s peace of mind.

  And my hereditary claim to one-third of the bed.

  Crystal Shoe Persuasion

  “I thought and I thought about where to go,” Matt said, looking around the elegant dining room. “I know you’ve been through a lot lately at the New Millennium. So I decided this place might have the most resonance for you.”

  Matt had insisted (he was doing a lot of that lately) on taking Temple out to celebrate when he telephoned and heard that the Czar Alexander scepter had been restored to its proper place (unlike her significant other of long standing).

  Temple had swallowed that pang and passed on more happy news to Matt.

  “Not only is the scepter back, but I scored a Vanity Fair piece, maybe even by Dominic Dunne, on the disappearing and reappearing scepter, the sad death of the little Chinese defector girl, and the would-be greedy Russian thieves and thugs. The exhibition deaths have made the Las Vegas papers and are going to dog the exhibition anyway, so I figured a Big Negative can equal a Positive sometimes in the publicity business. Everyone went for it. It lends, they said, ‘mystique’ to the collection.”

  “Not to mention the mystique of all those dead Romanovs. Gore sells, I guess.”

  “Especially if you can add some glitz. A sad reality of the media biz.”

  “Enough sad reality! This Vanity Fair thing is big?”

  “This is huge! The New Millennium’s paying me a bonus.”

  “Then we’ll really have lots to celebrate.”

  It was only after Matt hung up that Temple wondered what else they would be celebrating.

  Kit was out again with Aldo that night, so much for a related buffer zone, and Temple was both angry and sad about Max’s midnight descent into hail and farewell, so she’d agreed.

  This was what Max wanted, right? She’d pulled out her purple prom dress/Crossfire hood ornament dress, again dusted off her Midnight Louie shoes—even he had seemed to desert her lately—and decided to celebrate by letting herself wallow in everything about Matt she liked, which was a lot.

  Now, Temple gazed around the glittering Crystal Phoenix dining room. When Matt had asked her out to dinner, she’d been too distracted by recent events to wonder why, or even where he’d take her.

  “The Phoenix is sort of home base for me,” she said, “although not lately.” Lately, nothing was. “But I’ve never eaten in this restaurant before.”

  “Good. I’d like to dedicate this evening to things never done before.”

  Temple couldn’t stop the heat from rising to her face. There was One Big Thing neither had ever done before: Temple with Matt, Matt with anybody else in the whole wide world.

  The waiter chose that perfect cue to arrive with a silver-plated champagne stand and a bottle of Perrier-Jouët.

  “Perrier-Jouët! I should have worn something better than my old prom dress.”

  “You look good in purple.”

  “Even as a bottle blonde?”

  “Even as whatever color your hair happens to be.”

  Temple glanced down at the now-vintage taffeta gown with its halter top and huge, blooming skirt. She did love it. “This is my desert-dancing dress.”

  She knew she evoked their most romantic moments, even as her heart twisted for other times, other places.

  Matt lifted his glass of champagne in a toast. “To desert dancing then.”

  Temple raised her glass, feeling suddenly bold. “To . . . moonlighting as a hood ornament on a Crossfire.”

  It was his turn to color, but it was only a faint, passing flush on his fair Polish skin slightly toasted by a Las Vegas tan. Matt was getting way too hard to embarrass, Temple decided. Which was both intriguing and worrisome.

  “Did you have designs on a desert ride for dessert?” she asked.

  “No. All the dessert I want is right here.”

  Oh. “You have something to tell me?”

  “More like ask you.”

  Oh.

  Thank God. The waiter swooped away their salad plates and assured them their main courses would be “up” very soon.

  “Would you like to dance?” he asked.

  Oh. That. Sure. She’d taught him the name of that tune, after all.

  The dance floor was a tiny peninsula of parquet off the bandstand. The band was mellow, soothing, dedicated to old standards: gonna take a Sentimental Journey into a Canadian Sunset. Corny. Safe.

  Temple put her left hand on the shoulder of the brandy velvet dinner jacket she had talked Matt into buying many moons ago.

  Thinking of which, the full moon hung like a Christmas tree ornament outside the sweep of windows framing the night. Pale, huge, opaque but gleaming. The full moon always looked like Bing Crosby’s crooning face to her. Ba-ba-ba-ba-boo. Boo! Was a surprise on the menu tonight?

  Her right hand folded into Matt’s as they swayed together with a half dozen other couples, some silver haired, some . . . good grief! . . . with gelled hair spikes and visible tattoos.

  What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Who comes to Vegas, is part of Vegas.

  “Frank Bucek told me about your takedown at the New Millennium,” Matt said.

  “Oh. That. It was the Fontana brothers’ takedown.”

  Matt nodded.

  Temple felt the gesture to the bottom of her soles. Solid.

  They were close, not tentative, and she liked it.

  “He gave me some advice,” Matt added a minute later.

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah. He said ex-priests were hard on their wives.”

  “Oh. Really? How?”

  Matt shrugged. Temple shivered. “We’ve been little tin gods in our parishes or wherever. Catered to. By housekeepers. Soccer moms. Looked up to by kids. We can be a tad self-centered, never meaning to be.”

  “All in the name of serving mankind?”

  “Right. The grandiose big picture, not the intimate small picture. I wouldn’t want to be that way.”

&nbs
p; “Of course not. What does Frank’s wife do?”

  “Keeps him down to earth.”

  “Sounds like . . . fun.”

  “And then there’s . . . you know, sex.”

  “Oh. I suppose that would be an issue for anyone who’s been celibate for a long time.”

  “Right. We tend to be overly . . . intense.”

  “Really?”

  He nodded, which brought her cheek in contact with his cheek.

  Matt led her back to their table before the heat of his hand had quite branded itself onto her taffeta-clad back.

  How many years since her high school prom night? Twelve. Was it possible? Thirty-one looming? And just yesterday she’d been sweet, dumb sixteen, before high school kids had even thought of “friends with benefits.”

  “You can dance on wood as well as sand,” she said approvingly as he pulled out her chair so she could gather the full skirt under herself and sit. Sometimes vintage was awkward.

  A lot of times life was awkward.

  Matt sat opposite her. The Crystal Phoenix avoided the usual flickering candle under glass on its table. Instead a Murano blown-glass phoenix spread its tail feathers in a series of fairy-size floating flames.

  The flickering uplight made every man and woman look like a soft-spotlit movie star. Matt was a floating, glittering image of himself. Temple hoped she was too. No wrinkles. No worry, just radiant points of light.

  The waiter wafted plates before them as if presenting canna lily leaves bearing manna from Fairyland. Divine scents lilted upward.

  “How wonderful,” Temple said. “Chef Song has outdone himself.”

  “Even Louie might approve,” Matt said, eyeing her.

  Even Louie might approve . . . what? The menu? A delicate fish dish for her, medallions of beef for Matt? The two of them together, dining at Louie’s old stomping grounds, the Crystal Phoenix? The chef? The place? The atmosphere? The pheromones?

  They were silent during dinner, every bite of which was . . . divine.

  Temple patted her lips with the heavy linen napkin, thinking about when to refresh her pale lipstick, thinking about the beaded lipstick holder in her teeny-tiny purse on the tabletop. About whether to excuse herself and flee to the ladies’ room. Or to reapply her going-out mouth at the table, as etiquette said one could, in front of one’s escort.