"Midnight Louise," Temple corrected him. "I think it's kinda cute."
"I wonder if Louie does." Matt regarded the cat, who blinked solemnly at his scrutiny. ''He's one Zen dude; we'll never know what he's thinking. Maybe he's here reclaiming territory a foreign cat had tainted, or maybe he just knew I had a particularly rough day."
Matt bent to put Louie on his own four feet again.
''Cats can be comforting, when they want to be," Temple agreed. "You want me to take him back to my place?"
"No." Matt had straightened again and so had his expression.
Temple watched Louie stalk around the sparsely furnished living room, sniffing this and that.
She was trying not to feel flustered and failing miserably.
For one thing, she and Matt were both so undressed, and not ready for it. She had rushed up to see Louie barefoot, wearing a terrycloth romper. Matt had obviously been in bed when Louie arrived, and had time to pull on only trousers in honor of her imminent arrival.
Why hadn't he pulled on a t-shirt while he was at it?
Sure, she had seen him in swim trunks by the pool, but that was outdoors and public. This was indoors and . . . intimate.
It didn't help that Matt looked so good without clothes.
Louie jumped on the sofa and began sniffing all the corners, no doubt discerning the traces of his new namesake. Temple wished she could smell motivations as easily.
Matt went over to evict him then turned back to Temple. "I know it's late, but I thought we needed to talk."
"Sure." Talk was cheap, if nothing else in human relationships was.
Temple edged over to the couch. They both stood awkwardly before it. At night, with the room so bare and the overhead light so bald, Matt's living room felt like an empty bus station, impersonal and chilly.
"Sit down." Matt followed his own advice and sat first.
Temple perched on the adjacent cushion. Lord, she was acting like an idiot!
"I went to the morgue today," Matt began. He laughed at his own opening line. "You're a bad influence. I never used to get involved in such macabre matters. Anyway, I wanted to make sure that the dead man they found at the Phoenix was my stepfather."
''And?" Temple was relieved that things were back to normal and they were discussing less stressful things like bodies and murder, even if the body in question was related to Matt.
He shook his head. ''I expected sheet-covered gurneys or stainless steel drawers, like in a horror movie. Instead, they have this Viewing room,' a cubicle actually. It's about as homey as the visitors' room at the jail. Beige walls and a picture window with a short drape over it. They pull the curtain and the star of the matinee is lying before you, actually several feet below, on a gurney, covered by a sheet to the neck, like he was sleeping. It's the oddest feeling in the world to look down on the dead."
''Especially on someone you knew."
Matt eyed her intently. "That's just it. I don't know if I knew him."
"What do you mean? Wasn't that why you went to the: morgue, to settle this once and for all?"
"Yes. But I should have known better. He's escaped me again."
"You mean the corpse isn't Cliff Effinger's? Molina will have a cow."
"Hold on, Molina already knows about this."
"She does? This changes the whole complexion of the Goliath heist."
"No, it doesn't. I said I don't know if it's Effinger. . .That means I can't tell. I can't identify him."
"Of course you can. This is the man who made you and your mother's life hell for years. How can you forget a face like that?"
"Temple, you don't realize how death changes people, especially their faces. I should have known better. I've anointed the sick at the instant of death, after all. Our faces, our features, they're merely muscular . . . masks. When the attitudes and tensions that form them leave the body, so does the familiarity. In death, the face elongates, and gravity pulls the skin, even the eyes, to the side. It's instant and impressive. Life is gone, as if the Master Puppeteer had loosened all the strings at once. The more the strains of life have distorted the face, the greater the change."
"Gruesome! Most of the dead people I've seen, except for funeral home visitations, have been people I didn't know when they were alive. And all those people on television shows waltz in and identify the body just like that."
"You see my problem? I was so focused on finding Effinger I forgot about morbid transformation. And I haven't seen him for seventeen years. I didn't have a prayer of making a credible identification. Close the curtain and call it quits."
''It's like with Max," Temple said slowly. ''You'll never know." Only Matt was facing lost hate, not love.
Matt shrugged. "Maybe that's better. Maybe that's God's punishment for my unforgiving need for vengeance."
" Max's disappearance isn't punishment for anything. Maybe God isn't that interested in you.
Sorry, is that blasphemy?"
Matt's laugh carried only a touch of rue. "No, that's good old secular reality, and I deserved it. This theological angst of mine must be wearing. I can't stop looking for my stepfather, and if I have to start with a stranger's body, I mean to find out who he-was and why he carried Effinger's I.D. I've discovered you can't drop unfinished business. That's why I wanted to talk to you tonight."
Temple waited, still nervous, while Louie prowled the perimeter.
Matt angled himself to face her more directly, so their knees--hers bare, his not--almost touched. His arm lay behind her along the top of the sofa's back cushions. She felt a little surrounded, by his seriousness as much as his position. Now she understood the lack of a shirt.
Baring his body was an unconscious metaphor for baring his soul. She wished she had a seatbelt; she had a feeling this was going to be a Bette-Davis-style bumpy ride.
"A lot has happened in the past twenty-four hours, but I realized something," he said, "when I was standing there in that bizarre cubicle yesterday afternoon looking down on that , dead body."
''About yourself?"
''That, and about you."
"Oh, great. I better get a different perfume. That's not the sort of ambiance it's supposed to evoke." Temple's fingernail was nervously tapping her teeth before she realized it.
"I know it's macabre, but you're not exactly unconnected with that scene." Matt's smile was self-mocking again. "What I realized is that I've been using my personal crises to avoid you, just the opposite of what I told you, and told myself."
"Yup. That 'Poison' has got to go. And I love the bottle, too."
"You're hiding behind humor again," he accused mildly, ' "but that's one of your most charming habits."
"Really? You think I'm charming?" Temple was pleased, even if she didn't think she was charming.
"I think more than that. I've been thinking a lot about that night on the desert, a lot about you, about . . . touching you again."
Here it is. Temple thought with despair, her nails picking at the lettuce-edged hem of her shorts, the moment I've been hoping for, and I'm going to sit here paralyzed with pleasure and fear, then say something dumb, or semi-funny, or say nothing at all, which will be the worst thing of all to do. Charming old me.
But this wasn't her scene; Matt was directing this one. She realized suddenly that playing stage manager gave her a sense-of control she needed to function. Here, she couldn't be sure where Matt was heading--he wanted her madly; he was giving her up for Lent. This was her big opening night, the possible beginning of a real relationship with Matt, and she had a bad case of stage fright.
"Am I scaring you?" he asked.
Temple shook her head forced herself to speak. "No. Never. I'm scaring me. I do it all the time."
"Funny. I never noticed. Too busy being me. Temple, I know you've gotten a few clues, but I'm kind of a mess. You're the bravest woman I know, but are you sure you want rush in where even archangels fear to tread?"