I let her get close enough to bend down with hand outstretched; then I hop away on three legs, with a pitiful look over my shoulder.
She plants those thin-soled shoes and trots after me like my own Miss Temple on a rescue mission.
“God,” the guy mutters from the sidewalk, but he has to commit to her quest and rushes after her.
It is like having a fish on the line. You must give them enough play and yet reel them in closer and closer. I am an old koi-catcher from my Crystal Phoenix house-detective days.
I give the silent meow and hobble away. I let her get near enough to almost grab me with one pounce … and spring away. Next time I limp even more.
“Oh, he is hurting himself,” she announces. She has now decided I am a boy. Dames always go for me; Mr. “Old Alley Cat” should never underestimate the competition.
“We are never going to catch that cat,” he grumbles.
You got it, bub.
“He must be at the end of his strength. Look. He is heading for those tumbled cement blocks. He will probably hunker down there for the night.”
Uh … no, but you will.
I settle on my haunches in front of the John Doe and look up at my gracious rescuer with a happy little cry, almost kittenish, although it is hard to make my voice small and wee.
She gives a happy little cry in answer.
“Holy jalapeños, baby. That is a dead guy he is cozying up to.”
“Oh. Do you think he killed him?”
Okay, not so much in the brains area, but her heart is pure.
They are much occupied in operating cell phones and calling 911 and fussing about if the police might question their condition.
“Don’t worry, baby,” is the last thing I hear the guy say. “I hate to say it, but we have been shocked sober.”
“I hope the poor kitty is all right.…”
Poor Kitty is hot-footing his tender pads off this wasteland and getting back to his devoted roommate and their condominium at the Circle Ritz.
I pause before vanishing into the foliage and grounds of the major Strip hotels to see the squad car’s headache rack casting bright colors over the arid scene. Ma Barker was right. This is our town. If something is wrong, we must do what we can to make it right.
But I can tell you one thing. I should get an Oscar nomination for my “poor kitty” act tonight.
* * *
I am all the way home and preparing to shiv the bark off my living staircase into the Circle Ritz—the old leaning palm tree trunk—when someone hisses, “Mission accomplished?” in my ear.
I turn, spitting mad, but I am only facing my almost spitting image and certainly my almost double when it comes to names.
“Midnight Louise, why are you not getting your beauty sleep at the Crystal Phoenix?”
“Ma Barker wanted me to report on your body-revealing efforts.”
“So you were there! And watching. And did not lift a claw sheath to help.”
“That was unnecessary,” she says.
“Quite right. I had the situation firmly in foot.”
“That limping act was … a tad predictable.”
“You try to get people to walk onto a rubble-strewn lot. When they finally came, Louise, I thought the fuzz was going to plant themselves on the site and grow there. And there will never be any credit to Ma Barker’s clowder and me for taking the graveyard shift to keep their precious body preserved in place.”
“If you expect gratitude from the human race at your venerable stage in life, Daddy Dumbest, I have a cat condo in Atlantis to sell you.”
Miss Midnight Louise cranks her head around to regard her fluffy train, which is covered in desert dust and who knows how many sand fleas, and gives it a mighty waft.
I cough in the downdraft, but cannot help bragging a bit. “Does Midnight Investigations, Inc., know how to preserve and reveal a crime scene, or what?”
“With you it is always ‘or what.’ What are you thinking of? Why are we here?”
“Not to answer eternal philosophical questions, for sure, Louise. Why do you think we are here?”
“Me? I am here to go back to Ma and report. You can rejoin your roommate and rest on your laurels, which you assure me you still have.”
Chapter 14
The Thin White Line
Kitty the Cutter stepped back, her bare arm making a sweeping welcome gesture with the straight razor. “Enter, stranger.”
Matt glimpsed himself, and her, in the floor-to-ceiling windows opposite the door. They looked like ghosts against the dark mirror of nighttime Las Vegas.
Kathleen O’Connor, Max Kinsella’s adolescent Irish love turned IRA fanatic and eternal enemy, was a petite woman, not so small as Temple, and shared Max Kinsella’s Black Irish looks. She was clearly obsessed with haunting Kinsella and anyone linked to him.
The first such person she crossed paths with, Max’s cousin Sean Kelly, had died at the age of seventeen years ago. Only months ago, Kathleen O’Connor had assaulted Matt on the street with a slash to the side—just for associating with Max’s significant other. With Temple now his fiancée, she had Matt at the razor’s edge again, threatening Temple if he didn’t play her sick head games. So he agreed to these creepy secret meetings at a place she may have murdered another victim, desperately trying to find some mental cutting edge that would disarm this severely damaged and damaging woman.
Primed to dodge any sudden move on her part, Matt was careful to amble inside as coolly as James Bond.
He moved into the opulent bedroom with burgundy carpet the color of welling blood, with its marble-topped furnishings. The immense brocaded bed was draped in insanely costly linens and various sized pillows so elaborately embroidered, they seemed to be wearing suits of metallic fabric armor.
He passed the hall’s choke point opposite the entrance to the bathroom, which was lined with marble and mirror, and approached the precipitous view of incandescent Las Vegas Strip laid out below.
“See any ghosts in the glass?” she asked.
One.
This was the same room where he’d come to lose the virginity Kathleen coveted, and ended up counseling the troubled call girl, Vassar, instead. He’d been in deep but unconfessed love with Temple by then and immune to other women. He knew he’d had nothing to do with Vassar’s fatal plunge off the balcony outside the room later that night, after he’d left. Except for being a suspect. He couldn’t say the same for Kathleen O’Connor.
“Ghosts,” he repeated. “No. You know I only believe in one spirit.”
“The Holy Ghost,” she mocked. “What a ludicrous concept. And he isn’t here.”
“The Holy Spirit is the spirit of truth. He is everywhere. Especially here.”
“Truth.” He heard a slashing sound and turned. Her razor had ripped open the seat of the upholstered desk chair.
Matt shrugged. “You rented the room. I didn’t.”
“I put your name on the reservation.” Her tone was childishly spiteful.
He eyed the destroyed property. “It can be repaired.”
“And you’ll pay for it.”
The glare in her blue green eyes was laser-intensive. Matt was reminded of the wicked queen in Snow White. Jealousy. Was that Kitty the Cutter’s prime motive? He’d smiled at Temple’s apt and quick-witted characterization of the demon haunting them all. Kitty the Cutter.