Cat in an Orange Twist

by Carole Nelson Douglas

  He rebounded in the spotlight, the drums echoing his accelerated heartbeat. His booted feet touched one side of the pyramid, then bounced off the other, the rhythm quickening to the drumbeat until he was banging back and forth at the pyramid’s narrow apex like a human Ping-Pong ball.

  The applause was deafening, even up here.

  All eyes focused on him as he dropped thirty feet and began walking on air in the blinking images of strobe lights.

  His hands rained glittering tubes of light on the revelers below, who donned them like Mardi Gras necklaces.

  This hokey idea was a hit!

  Now the audience was an eerily lit part of the show.

  Max glanced to the dark tinted glass that hid the high, overlooking balconies from the dancers below.

  Were the people inside impressed? Did they accept him as what he claimed to be? A performer irritated at the trend of outing time-honored magic-act trickery. An old-style magician with a bone to pick.

  And a compelling illusionist in his own right.

  Right.

  He couldn’t help thinking how Temple would cheer him on, if she only knew. How much she hated that he’d been forced to abandon his livelihood, his art, for the shadowy world of the undercover operative.

  She’d fought Molina like a tiger to defend him while he was gone, knowing nothing of the facts involved in his disappearance.

  Loyalty like that was unheard of in the double-agent world of espionage. You couldn’t buy it, you couldn’t bully it. You couldn’t live without it once you’d had it.

  The hoots and whistles and the applause rang hollow, after all.

  There was only one person he wanted to see him do this, now, who would bring the joy of his achievement home to him.

  He could climb the interior of a modern pyramid like a human fly, but he couldn’t manage to spend the time he needed with the woman he loved.

  And who still loved him. He hoped.

  Cheesy Decor

  Temple’s spur-of-the-moment choice of an assignation site came from her utter ignorance of the inside of a Chunk-a-Cheez Pizza restaurant just past high noon on a Monday.

  She figured it would be loud in both design elements and clientele.

  She hadn’t figured on outright pandemonium. That is what one got for having a cat instead of a child. Cats liked to play couch potato. Kids liked couch destruction as play, with the sound track on movie-theater maximum high.

  She wondered how she would interview Jerome in here without shouting secrets to the whole wide world of junior Spy Kids.

  Through the pandemonium she at last saw Jerome scanning the continuous action reminiscent of a Jackie Chan fight scene.

  He finally spotted her sitting alone at the table for four crammed against the back wall, as far from the speaker system as possible, and headed her way. That meant sidling crablike to avoid bumping into any bumptious kids, frazzled parents, crammed tables, or servers swooping huge trays of pizzas and tall plastic soft drinks over everybody’s heads.

  “G-good choice.” He sat and gulped from the unclaimed water glass opposite her. “Nobody from Maylords would be caught dead here.”

  He flinched when he realized how that sounded, under the circumstances. “Should we eat something so we don’t arouse suspicion?”

  Temple suffocated her smile. Arousing suspicion did not seem something that came naturally to Jerome Johnson. He suffered from such a terminal case of “nice” that he was likely to vanish altogether.

  “I think we better order. What we do with it afterward is up to our consciences.”

  “What about my conscience?” he asked, stricken.

  Jeez. “I’m sure you have a very nice one, but right now I’m interested in what you have to say about Maylords. If you have reservations—”

  He gazed up at the lip-pierced teen waitress who had paused by their table with pencil poised, her baby face looking both bored and impatient.

  Temple decided leadership was called for here. “A cheese and tomato pizza.”

  “Super, Gigantic, or the Incredible Hulk?”

  “Uh, what size is the ‘Incredible Hulk’?”

  “Same as the Gigantic, except it has green peppers all over it.”

  Temple interrogated Jerome with her eyebrows.

  “The last thing,” he said. Nervously.

  “Drinks?” the waitress demanded.

  “Water will be fine,” Temple said.

  It was not fine with the waitress. She bit her collagen-plump lip, then released it so the steel ring flipped them an unfond farewell, and slouched away.

  “Cheez,” Temple said, “you’d think we’d spurned their liquor license, and they don’t even sell the stuff.”

  “This is perfect for security,” Jerome mouthed, leaning over the table so she could hear him.

  “Glad you approve. I ordered plain so we didn’t get anything you hated.”

  “I don’t hate much,” he said with a shrug.

  “How about Beth Blanchard?”

  “She isn’t worth hating. A deeply insecure woman.”

  “Nice of you to be so generous. I wouldn’t.”

  “I’ve seen worse.”

  “Where?”

  He didn’t answer. Instead, he surgically removed the paper wrapper from his straw. Then rolled the thin paper into a mote the size of a spitball for Mickey Mouse. Then dropped it in the obligatory glass ashtray on the table.

  “You’re a friend of Matt’s,” Temple said, remembering that much from the Maylords opening night.

  Jerome shrugged. “A schoolmate, more like it.”

  “In Chicago?”

  He looked surprised. “No. In Indiana. At St. Vincent’s.”

  That name rang a bell in the temple of her memory. But she was a Unitarian Universalist by birth, and they didn’t sling saints’ names on every place of worship. Maybe they thought it was devisive, pitting one holy figure against another.

  “The seminary,” Jerome said, noticing her confusion.

  Well, confuse her some more. She knew it was where priests and ministers-in-training went before they were ordained. Yet the word always reminded her of female seminaries, the genteel nineteenth-century academies that made girls into ladies. Call her Incongruous. It fit.

  “You’re not Catholic, are you?” Jerome smiled for the first time. “I assumed wrong.”

  “I’m not even religious.”

  “Wow.”

  “Wow?”

  “I’m surprised Matt has escaped the religious culture so completely. You seem to be a good friend of his.”

  “Pretty good,” she said, wary.

  “Look. I’ve heard enough around Maylords to know you’re trying to put two and two together about the operation, and Simon. Well, you can’t.”

  “I can’t?”

  He smiled again, looking more relaxed, looking more like someone human she wouldn’t mind spending time with.

  “Maylords doesn’t add up to four. It adds up to three. Or five.”

  “Jerome, you’re losing me.”

  “Oh, I was lost a long time ago. Back at St. Vincent’s. I don’t know how much you suspect, or how much you even want to suspect.”

  “Here’s what you need to know about me, Jerome. Simon is dead. I’d just met him, but he meant the world to a friend who means a lot to me. I have this . . . affinity for figuring out things. Maybe I can help. That’s why I need to know what you know.”

  “I don’t want to betray Matt’s confidence.”

  “Neither do I.”

  “How much do you know about him?”

  “How much does anybody?”

  He nodded. “Right answer. Matt’s reticence is understandable. Flunk out of Catholic school, and you go into life minus a high school diploma. Flunk out of seminary, and you go out scarred for life.”

  “I don’t believe that. Matt’s pretty okay, except he’s a little obsessive-compulsive about right and wrong. That’s better than the other extreme, which is the
Hell’s Angels.”

  “He’s got nothing to be worried about; you’re right. Me, that’s a different story, and I don’t know how to tell it.”

  “For starters, why didn’t you want to talk to me at Maylords?”

  Jerome looked at her as if she was finally demonstrating her complete state of nuttiness. “The place is bugged.”

  “Bugged? Like where?”

  “Like the employee’s ‘lounge.’ And ears are everywhere. That layout is a maze and you never know who’s unseen, one vignette over, hanging on everything you say, everything you might think about saying. Everyone will know you and Beth Blanchard had a spat Sunday by four P.M. today.”

  “So what did ‘everyone’ know about Simon?”

  Jerome sucked air and then water through his straw. Around them the din cranked up.

  “Simon was there and not there. He had a celebrity boyfriend. He was untouchable . . . and more vulnerable at one and the same time.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You ever been anyplace that encourages a secret society?”

  She thought of the Synth, the supposedly ancient conspiracy of magicians, but that was Max’s area of expertise. She knew next to nothing about it.

  “I’ve been where some people are underhanded, but that’s any workplace . . . a theater, a TV station. That’s why I like working for myself.”

  Jerome shook his head at her, assuming a strange superiority. “I don’t know how much I should tell you, how much I dare tell you.”

  “Someone at Maylords will be out to get you if you do?”

  “Matt won’t like it.”

  “Matt? He has nothing to do with Maylords. Except he . . . knows a couple employees. Me and”—Temple bit back her reluctance—“Janice Flanders.”

  “You’re temporary at Maylords,” Jerome said quickly. Dismissively. “Janice too. It’s not a game women can play.”

  “What? The old ‘golf’ excuse? Women can’t move up in management because they don’t play golf and they can’t play golf because the most exclusive clubs deny them membership?”

  “This is a way bigger barrier than golf.”

  Temple opened her mouth to object to that clearly sexist assumption, just as Miss Pierced Pout arrived to slam a steaming tray of tomato sauce-spattered cheese down between them.

  “Incredible Hulk,” she announced. “Peppers? Parmesan?”

  “Uh, sure,” Temple said, eager for her to leave. “The works.”

  A curtain of steam and heat rose between her and Jerome. This was hardly the environment Temple would have chosen for a confidential conversation, but it was the only place she would learn what she needed to hear.

  Glass-bottomed containers hit the table like automatic rifle fire. Hot sauce, dried red peppers, milled Parmesan, and other uncertain condiments.

  Though the server was soon gone, the question remained, and Temple asked it.

  “Why can’t women play the Maylords game? Most of the interior designers are women. Granted, the sales force and management are almost all male, now that I think about it.”

  “It’s seminary all over again! All men, and a few women who aren’t ever going to get anywhere and will move on without knowing why.”

  “What about Beth Blanchard? She doesn’t look like someone who’d move on if a semi came at her head-on. I’m surprised she wasn’t found dead in that crossover SUV. Why does management put up with her abusiveness? Why do you?”

  Jerome tried to pull a triangle of pizza free of the gooey strings of cheese that held it captive to the tin. Without much success.

  While he struggled he eyed her uneasily. “You’re more than a friend of Matt’s.” It was a question, despite lacking an upswing in tone.

  “Sure. We’re neighbors.”

  He shrugged his disbelief. “How long has he known Janice?”

  “I don’t know.” Temple carved a pizza slab free with her fork edge while she calculated. “Since early last fall sometime.”

  “Is it serious, do you think?”

  “Gee, I should ask you that. You’re the one who works with Janice. And I’ve hardly seen Matt at all lately, he’s been so busy.”

  “Yeah. I could see you and Janice hadn’t expected to encounter each other at the Maylords opening.”

  They chewed in silence for a while, Temple glad she didn’t wear dentures. A Chunk-a-Cheez pizza would have extracted them with a single attempted bite.

  “Why are you so interested?” she finally asked.

  Jerome flushed a little, but the pizza was still steaming.

  “We were in seminary together, and both left. I just wondered how much Matt has . . . resocialized.”

  “Well, I know Janice is a divorced single mother, but she’s not Catholic, is she? From what I can figure out, Catholics can’t marry each other if they’re divorced, but since marriages among non-Catholics don’t count, they can marry any old divorced Protestant, or Muslim, or Mormon, or atheist they want to. As long as they do it in a Catholic ceremony.”

  Jerome’s deepening flush matched the dried red peppers Temple sprinkled on her congealing cheese.

  “That’s not exactly the way I’d put it.”

  “You’ll have to excuse me. I’m an unwashed Unitarian.”

  “Unitarianism. I hesitate to call it a religion . . . more like a social philosophy.”

  “Do you hesitate to call it a religion because it’s light on fiats and proscriptions?”

  “Well, no. I mean, obviously it’s not very demanding.”

  “You mean it’s way too tolerant of human needs and weaknesses, like Jesus in the New Testament?”

  “Hey, Miss Barr, I didn’t mean to put down your religion.”

  “Actually, I don’t really, you know, attend services anymore.”

  “It sounds like you haven’t left the fold, though.”

  “Philosophy is a little harder to leave behind than ritual,” she agreed as she gave up on the fork and Bucky Beavered a sheet of cheese free with her two front teeth. All she wanted for Christmas was a buzz saw for this pizza.

  “I guess we shouldn’t talk about religion,” he said. “It gets tense.”

  “I wish talking about Simon’s murder would get a little more tense. I have no idea what motive the police are exploring, but I don’t see how or why it happened. And Danny Dove is expecting me to come up with some explanation.”

  “Can’t you let the police do it?”

  “If I, a PR person by trade, can’t get to first base about the corporate climate at Maylords, how are the police going to do it?”

  Jerome stabbed his fork into the pizza crust with enough fervor to snap a piece into two parts.

  “Nobody’s going to do it,” he said. “I don’t know why Simon died, and I don’t care. He was another one of those golden boys who coast through life. He had a rich boyfriend. Why was he even working at Maylords anyway?”

  “I have a rich boyfriend. It doesn’t mean I don’t need or want to work for a living. Maybe that makes it even more vital that I support myself.”

  “Then I guess everybody’s a winner and nobody thinks about what the losers go through. I’m sorry I came.” Jerome stood up and threw two crumpled bills on the table.

  In moments he was weaving through the boisterous crowd and soon swallowed by it.

  Temple was left to chip away at the cold, congealed cheese on her plate. It was about as cooperative as Jerome, who apparently had some chips on his shoulders the size of the cow variety.

  Well, heavens to Elsie! It seemed like he had come here more to pump her about Matt’s love—or like—life than to feed her info on the Maylords management structure.

  He was also way behind the financial times. Temple scooped up the bills. A pair of fives, which were worth as much toward an Incredible Hulk pizza at Chunk-a-Cheez as they would be in a poker game. Didn’t this breast-beating loser know how much a super-sized pizza went for these days?”

  Probably not. Temple didn�
��t think they ordered much pizza in at a seminary. She bullied two tens from her tote bag and left them on the table, not daring to skimp on a tip for a lady with a ring in her lip.

  Virgin Sacrifice

  The parking lot outside was both quieter and hotter than inside the pizza joint. Summer was coming up fast on Vegas, aching to escalate from prolonged simmer to roaring broil.

  Temple started toward the Miata, wondering if red was the best car color choice for a Sunbelt state.

  Something roared in her ears . . . not noise pollution left over from Chunk-a-Cheez but something moving.

  She turned, sensing personal danger.

  A rainbow coalition of Harley hogs was powering into the lot . . . a couple as black as your worst nightmare, others that were hot red, green, purple, baby blue . . . and one Elvis number that was solid pink. Six, seven in all.

  They circled Temple, cutting her off from the Miata. Their engines made the deep-throated growls of mechanical Dobermans.

  What was it with sinister motorcyclists in this town? And what had she done lately to tick off a whole motorcycle club?

  Their helmets, visored with smoked Plexiglas that hid features and expression, didn’t answer her unspoken question.

  Those helmets were emblazoned with names:

  “Peter Rabid” on a black model, “Little Drummer Boy” on the baby blue one, “Psycho Punk” on the pink, “Killer Tomato” on the red, “Hot Femalie” on neon yellow, “Marilyn Manson-Dixon Line” atop purple, and “Audrey Junior” on the lima-bean green one. For all their Technicolor exteriors, they acted as facelessly menacing as any biker gang.

  Temple turned to keep each machine and rider in her sights, getting dizzy.

  Her car keys bristled in her hand, but what good were they against leather-clad men at a distance? What was she going to do with them, scratch their paint jobs as the bikes circled closer and closer, the riders’ lavish cowboy boots scraping ground to keep them upright on the tight turns?

  “Get out of the store, lady,” one voice yelled in eerie imitation of Beth Blanchard’s command to Temple in Maylords one morning.

  BB, the Wicked Witch at Maylords, had a multiflavored motorcycle gang at her command? The Las Vegas, post-Oz version of Flying Monkeys? It all felt unreal, like a comic-book-turned-movie.