Cat in an Orange Twist

by Carole Nelson Douglas

  “It looked so benign, Danny. I researched the whole thing: May-lords, Amelia Wong. Both ideals of American entrepreneurship. Wong has had death threats, a lot of them. I wonder how much the events at Maylords had to do with her.”

  “Simon would not be mistaken for Amelia Wong.”

  “But his death, and Beth Blanchard’s death, spoiled the Wong special appearance. Turned it into front-page news, and made her a footnote.”

  “You’re saying Simon was murdered as a distraction? That would be brutal to accept.”

  “I don’t know. Not yet. I need expert consultation.”

  “Mine? Dear heart, there is no dancing involved. Except to a funeral march.”

  “But there is a gay element, and I admit I’m at a loss there.”

  “You’ve never been at a loss with me.”

  “I’m talking about a whole, semisecret culture, not a person from it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Temple sensed a withdrawal in Danny, an Us-versus-Them realization.

  She was a PR person. A communicator. Somehow she would have to communicate across the unspoken. She would, like the Murano, have to be a new animal, a crossover vehicle. Did that have something to do with Simon’s death? Was he a “crossover vehicle” somehow? Is that why he had been killed?

  She decided, like a trial attorney, to sum up, even if it was premature.

  “Here is what I’ve learned about Maylords. It’s a mass of contradictions. It’s supposed to be a classy, artsy operation, but it raids competitors for employees.

  “It’s supposed to offer high-end furniture and service and it gives lip service to hiring the best employees in town and spending mucho money on training them for the opening . . . but on the other hand it tells them that they are all expendable. Management starts culling out employees from the full-pay orientation period on.

  “It has,” Temple said nervously, “an all-gay management structure, which looks way enlightened and realistic, given the environment.

  “But the management sexually harasses straight men, and some gay employees.”

  “Simon?”

  “I think so, but he was handling it.”

  “He never said anything.”

  “Women don’t say much either. And when they do, their initial silence is pointed out as a sign of lying. Who wants to admit to that kind of pressure? I wouldn’t. I’d be embarrassed. I’d think that people would believe I’d ‘asked for it’ somehow. I’d decide I had to handle it myself. It’s a male patriarchal world. Who’s going to believe women . . . or gays and lesbians? That’s how they cow us, isn’t it?”

  Danny stood. Wiped his forehead as if to erase wrinkles. “If it was that bad, Simon would have told me.”

  “Why? I wouldn’t have. I wouldn’t have told anyone. Stiff upper lip. Don’t cave. Running for help is the worst sign of weakness in an environment like that. How do you think I got to be Pepper-Spray Girl? I’m so afraid someone will take me for one—a girl—and take advantage of that vulnerability. Amazing how a whole gender is so worth denying. Not so amazing that gender preferences are worth denying too.”

  “But you said the management was gay friendly.”

  “I said it was gay dominated. Have you ever heard of a catfight? You must know Clare Booth Luce’s ’30s play, The Women, and the film? Being downtrodden doesn’t automatically mean you have empathy. Sometimes it means you have issues. Matt—you know this—used to be a priest. And he once told me, in view of all the instances of pedophile priests—and he wasn’t one, believe me—but he once said, trying to explain this utter betrayal of his religion and his profession, that three things contribute to sexual abuse: privilege and secrecy.”

  “That’s two.”

  “The third was patriarchy. But you could interpret that as merely power. Management. It struck me. Gay life has secrecy, it has privilege among the initiated, and, in the case of Maylords, it has management. Power.”

  Danny shook his head. “We’re a minority.”

  “Are minorities incapable of abuse of power? Or are they even more ready to do it when they finally get some?”

  “You’re talking human nature, not sexual preference.”

  “Exactly. Say the Maylords management was all African-American. Or Hispanic. Or all women. It would be an exclusive club, not possible most other places. The management ‘team’ would be grateful, and loyal. It would have privileges, and with that power comes the opportunity to abuse it.”

  “There are always hierarchies, Temple darling. And you’re right. There is often some underground sexual component.”

  “Power equals potential for abuse, and sexual abuse is the most demeaning. I’m not saying it was obvious, or even rampant. But it was a nasty little undercurrent.”

  “And nasty undercurrents escalate to murder?”

  Temple sipped the last of the delicate martini. “There’s the rub. I don’t think so. I think nasty undercurrents usually stay at that level, roiling around making people’s lives miserable. But that’s the point. It’s more fun to torment the living. Why kill anyone?”

  “Then you have no idea why Simon was killed, or even this annoying Blanchard woman?”

  “No proof, certainly. Danny, have you ever heard of a gay motorcycle gang?”

  His face puckered with confusion, then he burst out laughing. “No, but it’s a heck of a concept. Mind you, the ultrabutch has always been a gay-lesbian icon. Look at the Village People singing group and ‘Macho Man.’ ”

  “Straight people love that song too.”

  “It’s a great song.” Danny frowned. “But a real street biker gang? No. Why?”

  “They tried to cream me outside of a Chunk-a-Cheez restaurant.”

  “Tried?”

  “I greased their skids with the extra-virgin olive oil cooking spray in my tote bag.”

  Danny regarded the bag bunched at Temple’s ankles like a lapdog. “Awesome.”

  “So you’ve never heard of such an outfit?”

  “How did you know they were gay?”

  “I went by outright stereotype: pink and baby blue motorcycles, outrageous rider names on their helmets. It just seemed over the top.”

  “Gays don’t own that in Las Vegas.”

  “I know. So maybe somebody’s trying to give them a bad name.”

  “That’s redundant, kiddo.” Danny stared into the empty bottom of his vintage cocktail glass. “I’d hate to think Simon died because of stupid sexual politics. A hate crime.”

  “Well, I’ll just have to prove the motive was something else, then. You wanted me to investigate. You should get an outcome you like.”

  “When have I ever?”

  Temple didn’t like the bleak tone in Danny’s voice.

  “The truth is out there,” she said, parroting the catch phrase created by The X-Files TV show, now itself dead and gone.

  “Far out there,” he assured her. “Too far for most of us to catch up with it.”

  “Hey,” Temple said, sticking her size fives into his downcast range of vision. “Most of us don’t wear Timothy Hitsman running shoes.”

  Since Timothy Hitsman produced some of the most fashion-futuristic high heels on the block, that was a contradiction in terms.

  Danny regarded her iridescent snakeskin-pattern pumps with gilt coils for heels.

  He nodded. “Winged Mercury. You go, girl.”

  She did, shutting the door behind her on the way out, leaving Danny alone in the elegant silence that would always be Simon’s last dance.

  Ring of Fire

  I am a dirty dog.

  I have, for self-serving reasons, convinced my battle-worn mother, my old lady, that she was right to want to relocate her clan to Maylords territory.

  The police have combed the empty field across from the store for all evidence from the volley of automatic weapon fire. They found no weapons of mass destruction, only spent shells.

  Nothing is safer than the last place anyone looked fo
r anything, I tell her.

  What I do not tell her is that the northern gangland territories are no longer safe for her and hers. Or for me and mine, for that matter.

  Like all ulterior motives, mine is both noble and ignoble.

  I could use some trustworthy sharp night vision on the Maylords scene. Louise and I cannot do it all, even in split shifts, not with two murders already occurring on the premises and my Miss Temple mysteriously bereft of her main backup muscle, Mr. Max Kinsella.

  And her secondary main backup muscle, Mr. Matt Devine, already works the night shift elsewhere.

  Of course I am always and everywhere Miss Temple’s secret main muscle.

  Pardon me if I do not consider the Fontana littermates to be worth more than eye candy and comic relief. Sure, they are all armed, but I consider a handy shiv to be far more useful than a fancy Italian shooter anytime, be it weapon or wielder.

  Shivs are fast, silent, deadly, close-up and personal. What more could the effective operative want? And those Fontana boys have all that expensive custom tailoring to worry about, whereas we furred dudes have no such vanity issues . . . until after the fray, of course. And then we can lick ourselves into svelte shape again pronto.

  Besides I do not trust dudes who hail from litters that large. Nine is a very . . . doglike . . . number. It bespeaks a certain indiscrimination on the part of their mama.

  So I have convinced my own dear, obviously discriminating, ailing, old mama that what is good for me and mine is great for her and hers.

  I am a worm and no feline, but I truly do believe that this will all work out to everybody’s advantage.

  “You want to move Ma Barker now?” Miss Louise asks, snippily, when I propose my plan. “She is wounded, and no spring chicklet.”

  “We are talking a better neighborhood.”

  “Yeah . . . also a target for who knows what?”

  “That is our problem, Louise. We should know not only what but who by now. Midnight Inc. Investigations’s reputation is on the line.”

  “So is your mother.”

  “And your possible grandmère.”

  “Get off that Divine Yvette-speak, Cher Papa! You have never admitted paternity, to me or any other living thing, including the lowly cockroach. How is Ma Barker supposed to hoof it all those miles from the northern part of town?”

  “I was going to leave the logistics up to you.”

  “Right. When the tough get going, you get going in the other direction.”

  “I am wounded, Louise.”

  “Not as bad as your mama,” she spits. “I am only overseeing this stupid scheme of yours because I think the old dame deserves a better neighborhood. It is a damn shame that you will still be in it.”

  She can be very sharp, Louise. So can my mama.

  I have no doubt that I shall be called to answer in the maternal court once Ma Barker is up to full snuff and snort again.

  Still, I am pleased with myself. While Ma Barker’s gang keeps an eye on Maylords, I can keep an eye on Ma and the gang. And by irritating Miss Louise so predictably, I have ensured that she will be supervigilant in watching out for the old lady.

  This is called, by the diplomats, killing two birds with one stone, or, actually, saving two skins with one brilliant plan.

  I also have a plan on how to move the whole cat crew in one easy swoop. You might call it an attention-getting device. It takes a village to create a cat colony, and it takes a bus to move a herd. Or something like that.

  I have spied just the cushy ride we all need cruising the northern neighborhood, and have tracked it to a seedy warehouse lot. Now I round up the troops so we can be ready to pounce when the truck of my choice opens its double-wide back door to Ma Barker’s gang, thanks to my having stuffed a cleaning rag in one hinge when I spotted it unattended a few days ago.

  Miss Louise and I should be able to jimmy it open with our naked shivs and a bit of hit-and-run power from the heavier dudes in the gang: bang and enter, then ride home free. That is the motto for our exodus from bad neighborhood to new stomping grounds. We should arrive just in time for a midnight snack, when all the mice and rats are out.

  Now if only I had a brilliant plan for trapping the Maylords killer.

  But I do not. Yet. So I must keep a shiv-sharp eye out in case my Miss Temple figures out more than is good for her and somebody bad notices.

  Rafishy Doings

  Temple had discovered that despite all the exciting events in her life, she was doomed to spend Wednesday night alone.

  Max was distracted and obviously busy with projects other than hers.

  Matt had made his move, such as it was, and had moved on to his demanding schedule of nightly radio shows and out-of-town speaking gigs.

  Louie was off on errands of a peculiarly catlike nature, and was not talking.

  She was all alone by the telephone, so she was surprised when it rang.

  Her hopes ran high: in this order: Max. Matt. Matt. Max.

  She was hopeless! Maybe it was Electra. That was a step forward. Maybe . . . her mother. A step backward. Maybe a wrong number? A desperate step.

  “Hello?”

  “Yeah.”

  Gulp. Could it possibly be . . .

  “Something’s going down.”

  Her hopes, yes.

  “At Maylords.”

  “What do you expect me to do about it?” she asked Rafi Nadir, for she could recognize his voice over the phone now. Scary. She had inherited Molina’s nightmare, it seemed.

  “The police—and one member of the force in particular—aren’t going to listen to me. Maybe they would to you.”

  “What’s happening?”

  “The loading dock. Out back. There’s a shipment.”

  “Coming in, or going out?”

  “I can’t say. Well, I look forward to sampling your muffins too, Buffy baby. Here’s lookin’ at you.”

  He hung up.

  Temple blinked. She hoped his call had been interrupted by someone he had to put on an act for. She really, really hoped that.

  Rafi’s warning had arrived on the eve before Amelia Wong’s last night in town. Coincidence? Temple wondered. Or prior planning?

  Loading dock? Tonight? Alone? With Rafi Nadir? Maybe the moon was full and his Mr. Hyde personality was about to come out gibbering and slathering in unfettered lust. She just had his word that something fishy was happening at Maylords. What was she supposed to do about it? Call in reinforcements? Max was barely reachable. Matt was working. Heck, even Midnight Louie was off somewhere.

  Right. She’d been through that scenario about five seconds before. Feeling a teensy bit ignored, are we? Every formerly overprotective male of her acquaintance busy out and about?

  That left . . . little her.

  Temple sat up straighter. Nadir had called her. Apparently he thought that was enough. If the big bad wolf thought little Red Riding Hood was reinforcements . . . maybe she should whip the napkin off her basket and pull out an Uzi. Or a Plum, as in a Stephanie operation. Temple considered the zany mystery series, then got a damn skippy idea.

  Temple picked up her tote bag and went to the bedroom. For once the zebra-pattern coverlet had all its stripes on straight. But Temple’s pride in housekeeping paled in comparison to the fact that the only partner in crime fighting she had tonight was . . . Rafi Nadir?

  The tote bag hung heavier now, and it should. In it now reposed the small Colt Pocket Lite Max had bought her back in the days when he thought her salvation would be self-defense.

  Silly boy. Salvation was always a lot more complicated than firearms. Trust a woman to know that.

  Temple had decided that the more of a fashion victim she appeared, the more useful she would be.

  She marched in the front entrance of Maylords, looking so chic and confident that the society photographer for the Las Vegas Review-Journal shot her with a blinding strobe of light.

  This sudden new image was easy: she borrowed a page from Max.
All black. Black boot-cut spandex jeans; black clunky, flat-footed Asian Mary Janes; black jersey top with Renaissance-fluted sleeves; black fanny pack adhered with black chains that were crying in vain for a revealed belly button. Black Colt, weeping for concealment.

  Amelia Wong’s two boys in shades looked like cartoon cutouts in comparison.

  What had they done to protect anyone?

  Interesting question.

  Tonight.

  After the ceremonials.

  After the Wong was over.

  After all the hoopla.

  And the hopes.

  Meanwhile, the band played on for the 8:00-to-11:00 P.M. reception hastily assembled to celebrate Maylords new support of drunk driving issues. MADD delegates thanked the Maylords delegates for the generous donation. TV crews got their pallid sound bites and left. Hors d’oeuvres were eaten. The “wine” was ginger ale, in deference to MADD and the occasion. The celebrities left and the crowds thinned, leaving Temple little excuse for remaining.

  So she called an impromptu strategy meeting in the employee lunchroom.

  The banks of fluorescent fixtures highlighted the strain in everyone’s faces. Temple wondered if she looked ten years older too.

  “The police and the media have been very discreet,” she noted, “but we can’t expect that to go on forever. Give us one slow news day, and they’ll be all over the ‘Maylords curse.’ ”

  “What’ve you done to prevent that?” Mark Ainsworth asked, taking the lead.

  “Called in a few IOUs I’ve got with the media in this town.”

  “The coverage has been pretty low-key,” Kenny admitted, but his shoulders were slumped. “But everything’s gone wrong, from the Las Vegas Now! deal on.”

  “I don’t need this,” Amelia Wong put in. “Matt Drudge, well-named alternate media weasel, is doing a whole investigation of my ‘empire.’ Murder is the ginseng on the rice cake for him.”

  “Then maybe,” Temple said, “what we need most is a solution to the crimes.”

  “Yeah, right.” Ainsworth sneered. “I’ve got my crack security people right on the scene and they haven’t seen a thing.”