Temple just nodded, slowly. “What about Red Russians?”
Volpe snorted and stubbed out his exotic cigarette. “Not much left for them these days but backpedaling. The economy is lame, the mobsters have emigrated from the U.S. to our shores, not literally, but their spirits have. A proud people who held off Napoleon and Hitler are now more noted for their shopping lines and vodka consumption than their technological or artistic achievements. Bah! I salute whoever took the scepter. He who has the nerve to claim it, deserves it. He is Russian.”
Temple blinked. She didn’t see Max as a White Russian icon, but stranger things had happened.
“He was hired, remember, in our theory? Even Red Russians can hire good help.”
“Touché!” Volpe laughed, then grew broody. “Of course they could be behind it, the uneasy alliance of bureaucrats and brigands that rules Russia today. Are you a police spy, Miss Barr?”
Temple gasped. “I . . . the local police know me from my PR business around Las Vegas, that’s all.”
The dark eyes narrowed like a needle, ripe for stabbing. “I have seen spies and stooges and tools before. They were not to be trusted. Are you to be trusted?”
“I want the exhibition to go smoothly. I want the scepter back. I want the person or persons who killed Andrei and Shangri-La caught and tried and punished. I want to do my job in a crime-free zone.”
“Your list of wants is ambitious and impressive. And what of your list of likelihoods?”
Temple stood, smoothing her skirt. “This is Las Vegas. I know it inside out. I figure my odds are at least fifty-fifty.”
Volpe did her the honor of paling.
Home, Sweet Homicide
I owe Miss Temple Barr the roof over my head, the litter box that I never use under the second bathroom sink, the copious treats of real fish over my Free-to-Be-Feline health pellets, several prime Circle Ritz lounging spots, including her lap and zebra-pattern comforter, and a lot of crime scenes that need tidying up and puzzles that need solving.
It is a pretty soft life, as Miss Midnight Louise would be the first to tell me, and I can even forgive the recent presence of Miss Temple’s maternal aunt on my living room sofa.
I mean “maternal” aunt in the sense that she is Miss Temple’s mother’s sister. (Whew! These human relationships are complex. To me, aunts and uncles are nonexistent and cousins are aliens. It is bad enough that I know my own father and mother—and do not think that I do not regret it every day!). Knowing a possible daughter is . . . bizarre in the extreme.
Anyway, my Miss Temple and I go pretty far back for both of our breeds, far enough that I feel for her in her pretty nasty state of perpetual heat with two equally persistent toms on her tail. In my circles, the female is not crazy about the urge to procreate but must submit to nature and a domineering dude. In my Miss Temple’s world, the choice is solely up to her, poor thing. Much too much stress for the female brain and delicate emotional structure. Obviously, Mr. Max Kinsella has been the top dude around here, but Mr. Matt Devine is coming up on the inside. Hmm. That sounds a little racy. Come what may, I am the dude in the middle . . . of the comforter and of my Miss Temple’s delicate emotional balance.
I must do something. Since I cannot compete head to head, or whatever, with these human dudes, I guess I have to help her out in the sleuth department without nailing her main man as a perp.
What a dilemma!
Miss Midnight Louise has no idea what a narrow ethical tightrope a righteous dude like myself must tread. . . .
So, I watch my Miss Temple come home, sigh, drop her heavy tote bag by the empty couch (Auntie Libido is out with the top Fontana male again), and turn to me for comfort.
“Louie.” Sigh. “Louie.” Sigh.
I began to think I am a squeaky toy. Whoosh. Whoosh. Wussy.
This will never do. I happen to be in possession of a lot of insight from my hours hanging up top with Squeaker and the other cats big and small, like Hyacinth, high above the New Millennium exhibit space. Time to share the riches, and I do not mean the Czar Alexander scepter, only the likely disposition of who did whom in to get it.
I understand the rules of the game: Mr. Max must not be nailed. Pity. I am beginning to think he deserves it for conduct unbecoming to a progenitor of the species.
I get up and swagger into the office off the living room.
“Louie,” she calls after me. (Dames are always calling after me.)
“It is too late to work. Come back here and settle down! I promise Aunt Kit won’t roll over on you again. Louie!”
Hah! Promises are cheap and my ribs are still sore. . . . Besides, I have something in mind, and something in store. Now. How to communicate with a professional communicator of the lesser species—? It will be a challenge, which is why I like hanging with my Miss Temple.
“Lou-ie!”
She is after me like a puma on catnip. What did I tell you? I got It.
By now I have hopped up on the bookshelf opposite her computer desk, having first dislodged a few annoying impediments.
“Louie!”
She is so cute when she sounds annoyed with me. Like I do not know she will come over forthwith and scratch my chin and tickle my tummy and tell me I am a bad, bad boy. I must admit that these humans have foreplay down cold.
“Louie.”
She is crooning now, in the palm of my paw. I stretch out a foreleg, casually, and let her hold my, er, hand.
“You naughty boy! Why do you have to knock everything off a shelf before you lie on it?”
Because I can! And I am not “lying,” I am telling a bigger truth than anyone has told you on this case. Read my lips. In this case, my hips, which have dislodged a big fat clue right onto the parquet floor. Read it and weep! Read it! Well, just notice it! And then think!
I tell you, leading these humans around by the nose hairs is a very fatiguing business. What? You say I am the one with nose hairs? I beg your pardon. These whiskers are vibrassae, a high-toned Latin-language accessory if there ever was one.
But, hush! My Miss Temple is noticing. And thinking. At last. Shhhh . . .
“Gosh.” She sits on her heels and pages through a few of the paperback tomes I have cast to the floor to make room for my luxuriating torso. “I remember reading these books way back when while waiting up for Max to do his last show at the Goliath and come home.”
Now she is sniveling! Not my desired reaction!
“Short stories by H. H. Munro, known as Saki.”
“Sake?” I did not want her to turn to the bottle, although I can understand why she might want to.
“And . . . oh, my goodness. My favorite Agatha Christie.”
Warm.
“I always loved the ones with exotic settings.”
Warmer.
“This was my favorite. Reminds me of a Russian blue cat, in a way.”
Skip the rival breed! I am an all-American alley cat. And black to the bone.
“A Russian blue is an exotic breed but basically . . . gray.”
She sits up as if she had borrowed a swordfish’s spine.
“Oh! That might be why . . . that might be it . . . that might be the answer!”
Duh!
The Murderer in the
Gray Flannel Suite
Temple breezed in to the New Millennium the next morning and asked Pete Wayans for the use of the gray flannel suite.
“We are way past planning sessions, Miss Barr. In case you haven’t noticed, our exhibition is ravaged, our magic show is compromised, and our joint credibility is zilch. It’s not your fault, but you were a major hire. C’est la vie.”