"But. I can understand how she might have-I'm glad you stopped her."
"I just wish I could believe that she's glad, too."
"Oh, she is, or she will be."
**************
His last hurdle of the evening was an in-person encounter with Leticia. Ambrosia. Live and in person at WCOO. On site at the radio station.
She apparently had expected a letdown. She met him a majestic, calm demeanor and a sisterly lecture. "Now, tonight will be oh-so-natural. No bolt out of the blue. Just a normal Mr.
Midnight evening. Relax, bro. Think mellow. Soothe and smooth. Don't think about last night. if any callers refer to it, be vague. Turn the talk back on their problems, no matter how piddling.
The motto of this midnight, Mister, is 'Be cool, baby, be cool.' " On just such stream-of-consciousness calming she eased him into the studio and the forthcoming hour in front of the mike.
Matt's mind couldn't help turning a kaleidoscope of the women he'd talked to during the past few hours around and around in his head: the Three Graces of past, present, and future; his fairy godmothers; his bedeviling genies of the eternal and mysterious feminine.
His friends.
Chapter 38
Magic is Murder
Temple woke up kicking herself the next morning, which was better than waking up kicking Midnight Louie. He was lying docilely at her side again, or rather sprawled on her side of the bed on his back, curled legs in the air. looking like the ferocious king of the beasts on a tranquilizer dart.
"Well. and what are you dreaming of?" Temple tickled his tummy until he rolled over and regarded her with flattened ears and narrowed green eyes.
"Nothing nice, I guess. Crabby." She glanced at the bedside clock, a loud-red overlarge set of numbers. "Too early to call. Darn, I'll be wondering why I didn't think to ask what I didn't ask about until l can finally call and find out."
Wait until Max stayed over here some night and discovered that she talked to the animals, just like Dr. Doolittle, the fictional character (not Dr. Doolittle, the very nonfictional veterinarian, who tended Louie).
Louie appeared to find the logic of her monologue sadly lacking. He rolled back onto his spine and elevated all extremities again, all except for his tail, which he quirked to the side like a lazy question mark.
"Aren't you the coyest thing?" Temple asked rhetorically. "I should get my camera." She yawned, too sleepy to catch Louie's pose for posterity. All those wonderful Kodak cat moments, lost from here to eternity. Baaa, baaa, baaa.
"Those aren't the poor little lambs I had in mind," she muttered as the chorus of the Whiffenpoof Song faded from memory.
Temple sat up in bed and braced her aching head on her hands.
She knew what she should be doing: spending every free moment at the Crystal Phoenix as the jersey Joe Jackson Action Attraction she had envisioned came to pass. A lot of little details were being decided by construction crews, and possibly even Fontana Brothers, which was an even more horrific thought.
But.
So much else was going on.
Matt was on the brink of becoming a media phenomenon.
Lieutenant C. R. Molina was actually, though reluctantly. confiding in Temple the details of a real-live murder investigation.
And Max.
Temple sighed, shutting her eyes and seeing the angry red welt in his scalp.
Max was up to something she didn't totally know about--this time he acknowledged as much--and maybe, just maybe, he was in more danger than he knew or was ready to admit, from the mysterious Synth.
He was a rogue magician now, as well as a rogue counterterrorist. All this new-found roguishness had resulted from his attempt to live a normal life. For her. With her. He was trying to leave two professions that apparently frowned on voluntary withdrawal, and she was the reason for the danger he now faced on both Fronts.
So.
She had to fix that, as much as she could.
Her best lead was the Synth, through her connection to the motley crew of psychics and semi-magicians she had met at the Halloween seance three months ago.
She looked at the clock again. Two numbers had disappeared without her seeing them doing it. Presto change-o. She had a long wait before the hour was decent enough for a business call.
Maybe she would enter her thoughts about the murders and the three musketeers-----
Matt, Max, and Molina---on her computer.
Try to get a fix on the big picture.
What could she name the file? Now that Windows95 ruled the cyberspace world, with '98
on its tail, she Could give files long, nonsensical, Swiftian names. This one, she decided, would be: M-is-for-murder.wpd. Gee. Sounded like the title of a book. A mystery.
****************
"Yes." Professor Mangel greeted her earnest ten-o'clock-scholar call later that morning. "I hope the material on Gloria Fuentes proved useful."
"All too much so. I'm afraid Miss Fuentes is no more."
"Tragic. But I'll make a note of it for my files. You, ah, wouldn't object if I let the newspapers know her history? Her passing is worth noting."
"I'd check with Lieutenant C. R. Molina before l did that.
You'd better tell her you recognized the sketch in the paper. Don't let on that l had anything to do with it."
"Gotcha. The Invisible Woman. You have wonderful magic instincts."
"I do?" Temple felt complimented.
"Definitely."
"That may be, but I also have a rather slo-mo mind at times. I forgot to ask you some crucial information, such as, where I'd find the people from last fall's seance now. I can't even remember all their names."
"You won't have to. Didn't l tell you the reason for the exhibit being rushed to completion?
There's a meeting of para-psychological and magical artistes going on right now."
"A meeting?"
"A combination psychic fair and union confab. Anybody who's anybody in magic and illusion is at the Opium Den right now."
"All of them? Like D'Arlene--?"
"D'Arlene Hendrix; Agatha Walk; Oscar Grant, the television psychic phenom show host; Mynah Sigmund and her husband. what's-his-name."
"It's all coming back to me," Temple said in mock-sepulchral tones, "except the husband's name. Oh, well. he wasn't important."
"Poor man. l suppose you're going over there to view the bodies?"
"Probably. l want to find out more about the Synth."
"Anyone who really knows anything won't tell you."
"I know. That's how I'll know who might know something."
"Aren't you clever? If you learn anything interesting, do share with me. I'm just a humble academician; the professionals rarely tell me anything worth knowing. Even the psychics are close-mouthed about their precious practices."
"I'll tell you anything I can."
"And Temple."
"Yes."
"Be careful. Most of those people over there take this stuff very seriously indeed. You might be surprised to find out who is most . . . fierce about it."
"I hope I am, because that's the only way I'll learn anything."
Chapter 39
But Not For Me
"Ho-ly shit!"
Molina said it once, with feeling.
She followed it with "Excuse me, Detective Su. I didn't mean to soil the air with any expletives. Not because I need to spare your delicate ears, but because I have a preteen daughter at home and l don't want to fall into any bad habits that could be an excuse. You're sure about Your facts?"
"Absolutely, Lieutenant. And I agree. Holy shit."
"So. Strawberry Lady, our first victim, was a former nun. A Catholic nun."
Su consulted the narrow notebook that matched Molina's pocket version. "It took some backtracking. They don't exactly advertise the past. But until four years ago Monica Orth was Sister Mary Margaret of the Order of Our Lady of the Cross."