Still. Nothing put off the greedy optimism of the tireless stripper.
They came gyrating past, G-strings pulsating like neon. He spent dollar bills like a nickel-slot high-ballet. And got not a flicker of humanity back.
"You got a girl here, Mandy?: he asked one frost-haired bundle of edgy muscle, implant, and Collagen lips prominent enough to make Donald Duck envious.
"Mandy? 'Fraid not." She hip-swung away.
Max feared she meant that ' 'Fraid not' literally. A dead stripper was someone--something-
--no live stripper wanted to think or talk about.
He hadn't seen Raf Nadir, or the bartender who'd waited on him the other night.
Tonight he stuck to beer. Five-dollar beer as weak as rainwater. Suited his mood. From now on he'd stalk Nadir like a second skin. Find out where he'd been when, and where he was going to be. Even if Nadir wasn't guilty of the first two murders, he was a prime suspect for the third.
Molina didn't dare get too close for fear of giving herself away, but Max had no problems in that area. He was in it to the bitter end.
Chapter 65
Case Closed
The next morning before anybody is up, I sneak out my usual point of egress and hightail it to the scene of the crime. I must transfer to various transportation modes several times, but finally the neighboring bungalows are in sight, and I hasten my weary steps when I view a blur of white behind a certain window.
Miss Fanny Furbelow welcomes my appearance by sashaying back and forth against the glass, whipping her white plumy fantail from side to side in a most graceful and inciting manner.
What a shame that I will have to report that Wilfrid's death was just a hoax.
I mean, it is such a shame that I had to mislead her as to the state of his health.
But I had to hide the only witness to the killing next door, even to digging a false grave in the yard. (Luckily, Wilfrid had dispatched a rat in the house shortly before his mistress was killed, which added an aura of animal death to the premises. And the late rat admirably "filled in" for Wilfrid on the grave site.) Besides, I was not sure Wilfrid would recover from the murderers wallop, despite Miss Midnight Louise bathing his brow and dragging a McDonald's carton-bottom of water from the hose tap to keep him sprinkled, not to mention the unmentionables she dug up to keep him fed.
Miss Fanny is out of the window and through the front door faster than you can say "Sally Rand." Her white coat sparkles in the sunshine as she sidles down the steps like the showgirl she was.
Louie, I am so lonesome."
"Well, you will be lonesome no more."
She stops on a dime and pirouettes saucily to face me. "Oh?"
Hmmm. The widow appears nearly ready to ditch the weeds and go for the deeds.
"You have something to tell me, Louie?"
But a private eye is a private eye, and he has to adhere to code, just like an electrician. I sit down, and don my most serious expression.
"Are you ill, Louie?"
"No. But you will be unless you too sit down and take this like a, er, lady."
So I tell her of the deception I had engineered at her expense.
Her gold and blue eyes flash with anger and the tip of her fan flutters furiously, but she says nothing.
I describe Wilfrid's excellent home nursing care and his slow but steady recovery. I throw pride to the four winds and reveal how we used Nose E. to trail the distinctive odor of the killer and how I concluded what that devilishly elusive stuff that gave him away, at least to a connoisseurs nose, was: vanilla-pudding-scented pipe tobacco. I finish up with Wilfrid's triumphal attack on the man who killed his mistress and who tried to kill him. When I am done, I sit back and wait for the usual hysterics.
There are none.
"It was cruel of you, Louie, to leave me in the dark. I understand that you feared I would give away Wilfrid's true condition, but you forget that I was a performer in my youth. I could have been trusted." Her tones are distant and severe.
I feel my ears lowering, more in sorrow than in anger.
"But," she goes on, "you did as you thought best, and you have indeed rescued my darling Wilfrid. How soon do you think the police will let him go?"
"They may want to run his blood type; I saw the detective take some scrapings from his nails last night. Your mistress may have to identify him as the neighbor's cat. I do not believe you will be bothered to testify. The usual red tape."
She shakes her head and straightens her ruff. "So Wilfrid is a hero."
"Er, l suppose you could say that."
"He not only came to his mistress's defense, marking her attacker, but he returned from the dead to stalk, confront, and again claw the killer. What a magnificent fellow! And to think I thought he was only a domestic. He must have been working undercover the entire time."
"I think it is more a matter of being in the wrong place at the right time."
"Nonsense! Wilfrid obviously is far more than you or I ever dreamed he was. You must finish your assignment by seeing that the authorities return him here, and I will work upon my companion to bring him into our establishment."
"I cannot speak for the authorities. I do not think my Miss Temple would let them put Wilfrid into some shelter."
" 'Think!' Then there is a possibility they would separate us by such heinous means! You must go immediately and see to it. Your task is not done until my hero is home with met"
"But, gee, lady, you have not even paid me for the work I have done so far--"
"Paid you! What kind of ignoble opportunist are you? Have you so little interest in the law of the land that you would let a genuine American hero languish in a homeless shelter? Go on!
Find out what is to become of him immediately. Tell him Fanny will be waiting for him." I back away down the walk.
There is no reasoning with a dame bent on deluding herself. It looks like I am to be Wilfrid's keeper until l can dump him off at home for good and all. And the way she is carrying on, my role in the recent events have been reduced to a walk on, or a prop boy.
I was hoping for a tender, Casablanca-style parting scene before I produced the little wimp again, but no go.
So much for the movies. All deception, lies, and videotape.
Tailpiece:
Midnight Louie Frets About the Future
It is certainly not flattering, no matter how well intended.
Here I sit, the star of my own mystery series, my name on everybody's lips and e-mail and snail-mail list, and what do they want?
What do they want?
Do they want to know what mean streets l will be impressing with my stealthy footsteps in my next adventure?
No.
Do they worry about the sinister forces gathering on all fronts?
The magical Synth, the international terrorists, the lethal Siamese conspiracy?
No.
Do they worry if my midlife energies will be drained by the onslaught of my darling daughter (maybe), Midnight Louise, who seems bound and determined to elbow in on my detecting business?
No.
Do they worry if my human acquaintances will come out of the next episode with their respective epidermis intact?
No.
No, the inquiring public wants to know what only your hairdresser should know, and a private dick should be hired to find out, and then well paid to keep quiet about.
Who is steeping in whose bed.
This is not Goldilocks, folks. This is not even Puss in Boots. This ls My Life!
Can you imagine? There is even lascivious speculation about whether I will end up with the silver sweetheart, the Divine Yvette, or the Sublime Solange, her golden soul sister.
Granted, my amatory exploits would make a good book. Perhaps I will write it one day: Midnight Louie tells all, names names.