Danny shook his head. “We’re a minority.”
“Are minorities incapable of abuse of power? Or are they even more ready to do it when they finally get some?” “You’re talking human nature, not sexual preference.”
“Exactly. Say the Maylords management was all African-American. Or Hispanic. Or all women. It would be an exclusive club, not possible most other places. The management `team’ would be grateful, and loyal. It would have privileges, and with that power comes the opportunity to abuse it.”
“There are always hierarchies, Temple darling. And you’re right. There is often some underground sexual component.”
“Power equals potential for abuse, and sexual abuse is the most demeaning. I’m not saying it was obvious, or even
rampant. But it was a nasty little undercurrent.”
“And nasty undercurrents escalate to murder?”
Temple sipped the last of the delicate martini. “There’s the rub. I don’t think so. I think nasty undercurrents usually stay at that level, roiling around making people’s lives miserable. But that’s the point. It’s more fun to torment the living. Why kill anyone?”
“Then you have no idea why Simon was killed, or even this annoying Blanchard woman?”
“No proof, certainly. Danny, have you ever heard of a gay motorcycle gang?”
His face puckered with confusion, then he burst out laughing. “No, but it’s a heck of a concept. Mind you, the ultrabutch has always been a gay-lesbian icon. Look at the Village People singing group and ‘Macho Man.’ “
“Straight people love that song too.”
“It’s a great song.” Danny frowned. “But a real street biker gang? No. Why?”
“They tried to cream me outside of a Chunk-a-Cheez restaurant.” “Tried?”
“I greased their skids with the extra-virgin olive oil cooking spray in my tote bag.”
Danny regarded the bag bunched at Temple’s ankles like a lapdog. “Awesome.”
“So you’ve never heard of such an outfit?”
“How did you know they were gay?”
“I went by outright stereotype: pink and baby blue motorcycles, outrageous rider names on their helmets. It just seemed
over the top.”
“Gays don’t own that in Las Vegas.”
“I know. So maybe somebody’s trying to give them a bad name.”
“That’s redundant, kiddo.” Danny stared into the empty bottom of his vintage cocktail glass. “I’d hate to think Simon died because of stupid sexual politics. A hate crime.”
“Well, I’ll just have to prove the motive was something else,then. You wanted me to investigate. You should get an outcome you like.”
“When have I ever?”
Temple didn’t like the bleak tone in Danny’s voice.
“The truth is out there,” she said, parroting the catch phrase created by The X-Files TV show, now itself dead and gone.
“Far out there,” he assured her. “Too far for most of us to catch up with it.”
“Hey,” Temple said, sticking her size fives into his downcast range of vision. “Most of us don’t wear Timothy Hitsman running shoes.”
Since Timothy Hitsman produced some of the most fashion-futuristic high heels on the block, that was a contradiction in terms.
Danny regarded her iridescent snakeskin-pattern pumps with gilt coils for heels.
He nodded. “Winged Mercury. You go, girl.”
She did, shutting the door behind her on the way out, leaving Danny alone in the elegant silence that would always be Simon’s last dance.
Chapter 50
Ring of Fire
I am a dirty dog.
I have, for self-serving reasons, convinced my battle-worn mother, my old lady, that she was right to want to relocate her
clan to Maylords territory.
The police have combed the empty field across from the store for all evidence from the volley of automatic weapon fire.
They found no weapons of mass destruction, only spent shells.
Nothing is safer than the last place anyone looked for anything, I tell her.
What I do not tell her is that the northern gangland territories are no longer safe for her and hers. Or for me and mine, for
that matter.
Like all ulterior motives, mine is both noble and ignoble.
I could use some trustworthy sharp night vision on the Maylords scene. Louise and I cannot do it all, even in split shifts, not with two murders already occurring on the premises and my Miss Temple mysteriously bereft of her main backup muscle, Mr. Max Kinsella.
And her secondary main backup muscle, Mr. Matt Devine, already works the night shift elsewhere.
Of course I am always and everywhere Miss Temple’s secret main muscle.
Pardon me if I do not consider the Fontana littermates to be worth more than eye candy and comic relief. Sure, they are all armed,
but I consider a handy shiv to be far more useful than a fancy Italian shooter anytime, be it weapon or wielder.
Shivs are fast, silent, deadly, close-up and personal. What more could the effective operative want? And those Fontana boys have
all that expensive custom tailoring to worry about, whereas we furred dudes have no such vanity issues … until after the fray, of course. And then we can lick ourselves into svelte shape again pronto.
Besides I do not trust dudes who hail from litters that large. Nine is a very … doglike … number. It bespeaks a certain
indiscrimination on the part of their mama.
So I have convinced my own dear, obviously discriminating, ailing, old mama that what is good for me and mine is great for her and
hers.
I am a worm and no feline, but I truly do believe that this will all work out to everybody’s advantage.
“You want to move Ma Barker now?” Miss Louise asks, snippily, when I propose my plan. “She is wounded, and no spring chicklet.”
“We are talking a better neighborhood.”
“Yeah … also a target for who knows what?”
‘That is our problem, Louise. We should know not only what but who by now. Midnight Inc. Investigations’s reputation is on the line.”
“So is your mother.”
“And your possible grandmere.”
“Get off that Divine Yvette-speak, Cher Papa! You have never admitted paternity, to me or any other living thing, including the lowly
cockroach. How is Ma Barker supposed to hoof it all those miles from the northern part of town?”
“I was going to leave the logistics up to you.”
“Right. When the tough get going, you get going in the other direction.”
“I am wounded, Louise
“Not as bad as your mama,” she spits. “I am only overseeing this stupid scheme of yours because I think the old dame
deserves a better neighborhood. It is a damn shame that you will still be in it.”
She can be very sharp, Louise. So can my mama.
I have no doubt that I shall be called to answer in the maternal court once Ma Barker is up to full snuff and snort again.
Still, I am pleased with myself. While Ma Barker’s gang keeps an eye on Maylords, I can keep an eye on Ma and the gang. And by irritating Miss Louise so predictably, I have ensured that she will be supervigilant in watching out for the old lady.
This is called, by the diplomats, killing two birds with one stone, or, actually, saving two skins with one brilliant plan.
I also have a plan on how to move the whole cat crew in one easy swoop. You might call it an attention-getting device. It takes a village to create a cat colony, and it takes a bus to move a herd. Or something like that.
I have spied just the cushy ride we all need cruising the northern neighborhood, and have tracked it to a seedy warehouse lot. Now I round up the troops so we can be ready to pounce when the truck of my choice opens its double-wide back door to Ma Barker’s gang, thanks to my having stuffed a cleaning rag in one hinge when I spotted it unattended a few days ago.
Miss Louise and I should be able to jimmy it open with our naked shivs and a bit of hit-and-run power from the heavier dudes in the gang: bang and enter, then ride home free. That is the motto for our exodus from bad neighborhood to new stomping grounds. We should arrive just in time for a midnight snack, when all the mice and rats are out.