That is when I begin my alphabet, with the B in Cat on a Blue Monday. From then on, the color word in the title is in alphabetical order up to the current volume, Cat in a Leopard Spot.
Since I associate with a multifarious and nefarious crew of human beings, and since Las Vegas is littered with guidebooks as well as bodies, I wish to provide a guide to the local landmarks on my particular map of the world. A cast of characters, so to speak:
To wit, my lovely roommate and high-heel devotee, freelance PR ace Miss Temple Barr, who has reunited with her only love…
the once missing-in-action magician Mr. Max Kinsella, who has good reason for invisibility: years of international counterterrorism work after his cousin Sean died in a bomb attack in Ireland during a post-high-school jaunt to the Old Sod…
but Mr. Max is sought by another dame, homicide lieutenant C. R. Molina, who is the mother of preteen Mariah…
and the good friend of Miss Temple’s recent good friend, Mr. Matt Devine, a radio talk-show shrink who not long ago was a Roman Catholic priest and has tracked down his abusive stepfather, Mr. Cliff Effinger…
which did not delight Matt’s mother in Chicago, who is emerging from her unhappy past and desperately seeking Matt’s real father, purportedly long dead in Vietnam.
Speaking of untimely pasts, Lieutenant Carmen Molina is not thrilled that her former flame, Mr. Rafi Nadir, the unsuspecting father of Mariah, is in Las Vegas taking on shady muscle jobs after blowing his career on the LAPD…
or that Mr. Max Kinsella is hunting Rafi himself because the lieutenant blackmailed him into tailing her ex. While so engaged, Mr. Max’s attempted rescue of a pathetic young stripper soon found her dead…and Mr. Rafi Nadir looks like the prime suspect.
Meanwhile, Mr. Matt has drawn a stalker, the local girl that young Max and his cousin Sean boyishly competed for in that long-ago Ireland…
one Kathleen O’Connor, for years an IRA operative who seduced rich men for guns and roses for the cause. She is deservedly christened by Temple as Kitty the Cutter…
and—finding Max impossible to trace—has settled for harassing with tooth and claw the nearest innocent bystander, Mr. Matt Devine…
while he tries to recover from his crush on Miss Temple, his neighbor at the Circle Ritz condominiums, when Mr. Max was AWOL by not very boldly seeking new women, all of whom are now in danger from said Kitty the Cutter.
This human stuff is all very complex, but luckily my life is much simpler, revolving around a quest for union with…
the Divine Yvette, a shaded silver Persian beauty I filmed some cat food commercials with before being wrongfully named in a paternity suit by her airhead actress mistress…
Miss Savannah Ashleigh, whose brutal measures against me resulted in a lawsuit filed by my dear roommate Miss Temple…
who is unaware that my unacknowledged daughter…
Miss Midnight Louise, has been insinuating herself into my cases, along with the professional drug- and bomb-sniffing Maltese dog, Nose E., or—when he is not available—most unsuitable substitutes…
or that I have had a running battle of wits with the evil Siamese Hyacinth, first met as the onstage assistant to the mysterious lady magician…
Shangri-La, who made off with Miss Temple’s semiengagement ring from Mr. Max during an onstage trick and who has not been seen since except in sinister glimpses…
just like the Synth, an ancient cabal of magicians that may take contemporary credit for the ambiguous death of Mr. Max’s mentor in magic, the Great Gandolph, and the GG’s former lady assistant, not to mention a professor of the metaphysical killed in cultlike surroundings among strange symbols, Jefferson Mangel.
Well, there you have it. The usual human stew, all mixed up and at odds with each other and within themselves. Obviously, it is up to me to solve all their mysteries and nail a few crooks along the way. Like Las Vegas, the City That Never Sleeps, Midnight Louie, private eye, also has a sobriquet: the Kitty That Never Sleeps.
With this crew, who could?
Prologue
Caged Heat
The big cat kneaded, kneaded, kneaded its clipped claws into a huge pillow covered in plush leopard print.
Its long, spotted body lay in leafy shadow, blending with the dried mesquite leaves beneath its splayed hind legs.
Distant security lights cast urine yellow puddles on the varying terrain the big cat called home. Like walls, sheer slick stucco cliffs enclosed areas of thick, glossy tropical greenery, rocks where mini-waterfalls plashed into deep and drinkable pools, and desert scrub with ready-made dirt wallows where the sun would heat earth and fur into one harmonious purring, simmering mass.
He lived alone, the big cat, except for the birds of passage that paused in the higher branches of his compound, but he answered to the name of Osiris. It was called by those who fed him and played with him and took him away every nightfall to a vast, confusing place where he performed tricks in other, cooler pools of light.
Osiris’s sharp shoulder blades shifted as he bent to groom one massive paw, huge canine teeth gnawing matted tufts of hair between the pads. He knew this life and accepted it. Sometimes he would meet others of his kind who performed the same rituals he did. They understood each other and walked softly around their scents and space, except for an occasional growling match. They too had clipped or even missing claws on their forepaws, and were more likely to hit than slash.
The big cat rolled over, stretching long and lithe. His neat ears flicked backward. Did he hear the brush of a footfall on a dry leaf, a rustle in the night? He turned, his expanded pupils studying shades of gray, most of them familiar.
He twisted and vaulted to his feet. Something came.
A warning growl warmed his throat, soft but escalating.
Something moved. He moved as swiftly.
And felt a sting in his shoulder, sharp as a cactus thorn, but with a burn that didn’t ease after first prick. No, this pain dug in deeper and wider, until his whole big frame felt as soft as the pillow he had been pummeling. He collapsed bonelessly beside it like a litter mate, lost to the night and his own senses. Dead to the world.
Chapter 1
Caged
At 2:00 A.M. Matt Devine stepped outside the radio station, glad to find the parking lot deserted for once. What a guilty, if rare, pleasure. Staying an hour after his radio show ended meant that the loyal fans who gathered to greet him at 1:00 A.M. had given up and gone away.
He took a deep, liberating breath. Signing photos for fans in the wee hours was not a favorite part of his radio-shrink job.
Only four vehicles squatted on the otherwise empty parking lot. Each hugged a light pole, parked by staff members who knew they’d be the last to leave and wanted as much light as possible against the dangers of the lonely night.