“None, thank God,” Mr. Nicky says.
“Are you sure?”
Mr. Nicky is looking a little worried, but not too worried to jibe his brother. “And…’Carmen’ Molina, huh? She does not give out that first name for public consumption, bro. Is the Iron Maiden of the Vegas police force moving from Mexican to Italian cuisine?”
“Not drastically, but she is definitely weary of black cats cluttering up her crime scenes. Why are these two together? The big guy usually hangs at the Circle Ritz.”
“And our dainty house cat does not leave the premises.”
(Little does he know.)
We listen to the brotherly byplay and keep mum. We are the strong, silent types.
Unlike dogs, we do not have to yip, gurgle, scratch, whine or paw to make our druthers known. We just stare straight at them until the people figure it out. Maybe it is some secret power known only to Bast, but if we wait long enough, and stare long enough, we will get what we need or want.
“You know,” Julio says, nervously jiggling his car keys. “Maybe I better get Midnight Louie back to the Circle Ritz.”
Midnight Louise finally stirs. She nestles her shoulder against mine—ugh, and blinks her short black lashes.
“She wants to go with?” Julio asks his brother. “I thought she was fixed.”
“Sure is, so no harm done. Just make sure you bring her back after the visit.”
“So I am chauffeuring a cat? Crazier things have happened in Vegas.”
“And stayed in Vegas,” Mr. Nicky adds. “I wonder what got into these two? They nailed a pickpocket at the hotel recently, so we better let them do what they seem to want.”
Louise and I have minded our manners and ridden on the Tesla Roadster’s black floor carpeting, not the leather seats, in case a claw should snag. When released in the Circle Ritz parking lot, we scamper for the surrounding oleander bushes, leaving Julio scratching his head as Miss Electra, happening to exit her own car, jumps as if she had just seen a ghost. (The electric-powered Tesla arrives as silently as a stalking lion and tends to startle people, which the Fontana brothers appear to enjoy doing.)
Among the oleanders, Ma Barker awaits us with a voice as sharp as her claws.
“About time,” she growls. “I have stationed all the shades and patterns of brown and gray from the clowder around the building in question. That’s the best camouflage color inside and out, and the police seem to have it in for us black cats lately.”
“So no Black Cat Ninja Brigade?” I ask. Browns and grays are, well, pedestrian.
“This is a dead scene,” Ma answers. “The crime has been committed and the forensic team has recorded and dusted and scanned the place from asphalt to attic. As you suggested, Louie, people have come lurking around. Perhaps word of suspicion falling on your clowder leader at the Circle Ritz has disturbed her charges.”
(I should point out here that Ma Barker is feral to her fingernails and not attuned to human social structures. Since she is the female leader of the pack, she considers Miss Electra Lark as an equal, and considers Miss Electra’s human residents as both Miss Electra’s underlings and responsibility.
That is not much different from my position inside the Circle Ritz, or indeed, any of our breed’s. We all have underlings and thus responsibilities.)
Louise and I hustle around to the other side of the Circle Ritz, strolling by the half-occupied shopfronts to the huge abandoned building where Jay Edgar’s body was found. The police are keeping the COD top secret. That means Cause of Death, not Cash On Delivery. Although, it could have been a hired hit, who knows?
Even now Ma is pacing toward the banned building, strutting under the yellow crime scene tape like she was queen. It is a cakewalk for us to survey and sniff the perimeter, then slink inside through a sloppily boarded-up back door.
“Hmm,” Ma pauses to note, wiggling her skimpy black whiskers. “A rodent-rich environment. I see why people find this a desirable property.”
Louise and I exchange head rolls. Ma is a product of her times. She even thinks the cages of the Trap, Neuter, Return groups are alien UFOs landing to abduct our kind and her gang to some distant planet. She will complain about not seeing a clowder member for a day or so. Then sniffing alcohol on him or her (or should I say, the new “It” cat?)—after said abductee returns dazed and unsteady, she will accuse the poor soul of cozying up to a human out on a binge.
Still, no one has better scouting instincts than Ma Barker. We follow her somewhat bent tail. Ma has paced far down the long corridor between the first floor stalls. The place is reminiscent, if not redolent, of a horse stable.
At last we reach a point where the floor grunge has changed from a patina of dust into a carpet of actual refuse and dirt.
“Hmm,” Ma opines. “Some homeless humans had a clambake here.” She sniffs the area, between sneezes. “Only the usual street filth ground into shoe soles. Unfortunately, humans do not lick those clean.”
“Meeuw,” Louise comments in disgust. She follows the disturbed filth to the edge.
I have an idea inspired by my out-of-body mind experience here. “These marks in the grit. Reminds me of old-time ballrooms, when humans shuffled around on soap powder they dribbled on the floor.”
“You are an old-style gigolo, all right,” she accuses me. “You know what I mean.”
“This could just be the usual CSI: Las Vegas shuffle, Louise, but what puzzles me is that I detect no smell of blood.”
“But why is the floor disturbed here in the middle of things?” Louise has moved to the first step of the central staircase. She gazes farther up. “Was the victim pushed down these stairs, and therefore the fatal injuries were internal?”
“This mountain is made of steps.” Ma Barker sounds puzzled.
I have forgotten the only Vegas structure Ma has ever entered was when I recently smuggled her into the Crystal Phoenix. As a life-long feral, she has encountered curbs, and even perhaps a back step or two, but an entire one-story flight is utterly foreign.
“You want to watch yourself, Ma,” I warn. “Those boards may be shaky.”
“Hah. I have excavated Dumpsters the size of boxcars in my day, sonny.”
I still worry, because she is creeping up the outer edges of the steps, quite a balancing act for one of her years.
“Louise,” I hiss under my breath. “Go up and shadow the old dame so she does not fall.”
“Fall?” Louise’s burning look singes me. “She is preserving the crime scene evidence. Even from here I can see that many footsteps have been dancing up and down those stairs.”
I take another squint and am shocked. My standing as primo private eye is about to be eradicated by dames of two different generations. How could I miss the faint disturbances on the steps? Rats! I mean, I took them for rat and mouse scratchings.
After giving a backwards sneer, Louise has obeyed me and is following Ma’s trail. I take the other far side of the stairs and shoot up it like a rocket, arriving up top first, at least.