She looked at Matt, really looked at him.
He had come here to learn something from Sister Seraphina that she didn't know. Instead, she had discovered something she had always known, and never acknowledged. Her hands covered her mouth even as she spoke, as if hoping to deny the words, the understanding, so long in coming.
''Oh, dear God--now I see what I never could bear to face then. Dear God."
No doubt about it. Matt thought with the kind of wry relief honesty between friends always brings. He had the makings of a good priest, but a lousy detective.
Chapter 7
Koi Sera, Sera
There are those who claim that they never forget a face.
In my business, faces come and go. I never forget a place.
So I am strolling again through the ersatz tropical gardens of the Crystal Phoenix Hotel, surrounded by such an aura of nostalgia that you could bottle it and sell it to passenger pigeons, (if there were still any passenger pigeons around; I understand that these unusually useful birds are now extinct. I--I am happy to say--had nothing to do with It, and the carp population seems firmly prolific.)
Ah, carp. It is a homely little word of one syllable, but sweet to me. Whether one says "carp"
or uses the fancy Oriental term of "koi," they are both goldfish to my mind, and splendid eating.
I circle the pond where I was once wont to wander and wonder, as lonely as a clod. My Walden. My wellspring. My floating buffet.
No one can accuse me of picking on the helpless. Some of these colorful fish are the size of pit-bull pups. When they are nudging fins at the waterline while jousting for gobbets of Tender Vittle-Iike treats you can see how muscular these fish are.
For Midnight Louie to land such a beauty is similar to a millionaire snagging a blue marlin off Florida. And I always eat my tasty prey, rather than tastelessly exhibiting it on my walls. I picture Miss Temple Barr's reaction were I to return home with a glittering trophy skin of my fishing prowess. She would shudder at the least, and accuse me of depraved appetites, but then, it is not the first time that I have stood so charged and it will not be the last, if I have anything to say about it. Depraved appetites are the last to go, being the most fun.
A soft desert breeze riffles the big, shiny leaves on the canna lilies that surround the pond. I am reminded of harem fans swishing gently to and fro, not that I have ever been in a harem, but a dude can have aspirations.
At my feet, a large blue-and-white carp executes a swishy turn and flays my toes with a lash of water drops. Uppity fish, these Imperial koi.
I settle quietly under the shade of canna lily leaves. Let them cavort like the orca act at Marine World. I have heard the merfish singing, and It Is for my supper, not their own.
But supper is a long way off and I can afford to wait. I drowse to the accompaniment of a circling bomber-bee high above. Even the shrieks of gamboling children in the distant pool do not disturb my contemplative frame of mind. My nose imbibes the odor of recently sprinkled dirt and the slight fishy bouquet of the carp next door.
Then a shadow crosses my face. My eyes flash open as round and wide as a green traffic light. Go!
The shadow is still there, moving languidly between me and my carp pond. All serenity shatters as I draw my lounging form into an irritated huddle that any sensible being would know better than to irritate.
But the interloper is no sensible being. It is the girl upstairs known as Caviar.
"What are you doing here?" I hiss.
"The same thing that you are," she answers calmly, brazen enough to come nose-sniffing close. "Enjoying the view." She arches her neat little head to gaze into the trembling waters.
"Overripe," she sniffs. "These fish are all flash and no flavor. The best carp should be no longer than a bobcat tail."
"Since when are you the expert?"
She shrugs, a gesture that emphasizes her well-honed shoulder blades. This kid could use a decent meal, but if she is too hoity-toity for well-fed fish, it is her problem.
"What are you doing here?" I ask, showing my teeth.
"I could ask you the same thing. As it happens, I heard that my so-called father used to hang around this place."
I gulp. "Why are you looking for him?"
"Oh ..." She stretches lazily, arching her lithe belly to the flagstones and hoisting her pert hindquarters in the air.
This display would be a lot more enticing did I not immediately notice a certain absence of scent in the petite Caviar. You might say that she has an "altered" air about her. Since we last met, she has been transported to the House of Dr. Death for a spaying operation.
I sigh in tribute to things not to be. I tell you, in this day and age it is getting downright difficult to encounter members of the opposite sex who have retained any gender at all. I am all for preventing unwanted kits, but it does look like the simple act of reproduction is getting a lot more difficult to indulge nowadays.
"He looks a lot like you."
Her considering tone flashes past me like the performing cleaver of a Japanese chef and my blood runs as cold as it can when the temperature Is eighty degrees in the shade.
"So do a lot of dudes," I growl.
She blinks bored carp-gold eyes. "Oh, do not worry, Gramps. You are too old and out-of-shape to be my rotten, kit-deserting father. My mother was still sweet on the bounder and described him to ail us kits ad nauseam: black coat shiny as tar on a long, muscular frame; white whiskers and eyebrows, not from age but birth; grass-green eyes; sharp, clean white teeth. A Hunk of the Month, apparently. I am sure that this smooth operator did not have to descend to removing aged fish too slow to flash a fin from hotel ponds."
I do not know whether to be relieved at her error, or furious at her reasoning. Going by Caviar's youth, my assignation with her mother had transpired only a year ago. A dude does not deteriorate to such an extent in a mere year. Obviously, Caviar's opinion of yours truly differs greatly from that of her older, wiser mother.
"Where is your mother these days?" I inquire. Perhaps I should look the old girl up.
Caviar snicks out her shivs and dabbles them in the fish-filled water. I swear I can see her smile as they flounder away, slapping fins and making waves.
"I heard she got picked up by the animal control patrol, so she is either dead, or domesticated."
I shake my head. Either fate is ugly. If she is domesticated, she is also "fixed." What do they mean about practicing "safe sex" (not that I need any practice whatsoever in this department) when "no sex" is rapidly becoming the order of the day for dudes of my disposition? I hate to contemplate how long it has been since I have had an assignation of an amorous nature. In fact, I even remember my last partner, but that is because this encounter was more than mere kiss-and-skedaddle. A mental image of the Divine Yvette pussyfoots through my memory. Now there is a lady as loving as she is lovely. Next to her, Caviar is . . . dog meat. Not that I would suffer one of my next-of-kins to meet such a fate. Still, the girl needs to learn to respect her elders.
"I will find him," she says, the gold coinage of her eyes narrowing to edgewise slits of metallic hardness.
"I do not doubt it," I say hastily, since she already has. "What will you do then?"
"I will tell him what I think of him."
"That sounds most therapeutic, according to what I hear on my favorite daytime television shows, Phil and Oprah and Sally Jessy. Geraldo was a great dude, but they banished him to the evening hours because of adult subject matter when Miss Temple is watching the TV, so I never see him anymore. Miss Temple Barr has many good points, but she is utterly uninterested in educational TV. She will not even tune In 'Inside Edition' unless I get my mitts on the remote.