"Not yet. Probably wants me to squirm. Maybe I can pump her, but there is another way to find out how Effinger died."
"How?"
"Max."
"Keep him out of it. And don't tell him what happened to me."
"It might be important. Max knows a lot of... strange things. And Effinger is his business, too.
The first casino-ceiling death is what forced him to run and hide."
"Because he did it, or because he didn't?"
"Naturally, I assumed--"
"But has he said?"
"No. But I don't believe his involvement in these deaths is any deeper than knowing more than he should about them."
"While we don't know enough." Matt reached for the drawing. "But keep Miss Kitty out of this. She's my problem."
"Don't want to lose face with Max, huh?"
"This has nothing to do with him. But it's obvious that you still do."
A perfect opening, Temple thought, at the absolutely worst time. While she dithered over his comment, he left, and nothing had changed.
Chapter 30
Love Potion No. 9
I am not one to dilly or dally when a real dilly awaits me.
I hie over to the Opium Den to find that the eight p.m. show is still running, with an "adult"
eleven p.m. show up next. I assume the "adult" part is a human euphemism for female upper frontal nudity.
I cannot understand this human male obsession with mammary glands. In my species, the glands in question come in quadruplicate, span upper and lower torso and are of no particular interest to anyone but a litter of kits.
Ah, well, it takes all kinds to populate the planet, and fortunately, some of them are endangered species. I often think the human is the most endangered species of all.
Certainly, when it comes to murder, it is.
I slip backstage. How can I lose? The lights are dim; I am low and dark and soft-footed.
Luck is with me; Miss Shangri-La's dressing room door is indicated with her name over the image of a wing-extended bat. (The bat is not a figure of blood-sucking in Asian mythology, but one of good fortune. To this I say: good luck!)
I nudge my way within to find the usual dressing room. Among the strewn costumes and magical props I find the dressing table, and find upon it the remnants of a woman: false fingernails as long as staple guns, hanks of jet-black hair, hair picks sharp and long as daggers dangling decorations; open makeup tins.
And, among it all, extending long, red-painted nails to roll a tin makeup cover over the dressing table edge, is the lady of the billboard, said Hyacinth.
I manage to catch the tin circle before it hits the floor.
She is long, lean and lithe. Looks like she was painted by that cretin who got a Spanish nickname: El Greco. Someone has affixed pixels of purple glitter to the lilac-tinted mask surrounding her arctic-blue eyes.
She hisses at me. "Give that back! It belongs to me."
"It belongs to your mistress, the lovely Shangri-La."
"At least you can see. What are you doing here? We have bodyguards. They will break your bones and serve your tail to a monkey's bastard."
I blink. This lady is not like any I have met before.
"I take it that you are Hyacinth."
She sweeps a clatter of makeup tins off the dressing table with a swish of her angry, crooked tail. "I am also called Shanghai Showblossom and Blood Orchid. I have many names, for the line of my ancestors is long and noble and sometimes infamous. Who are you?"
"The name is Louie. Midnight Louie."
"This is it? What is your bloodline?"
"What is written in my shivs." These I flick out, fast. I do not normally flash my assets, but I feel it is important to impress this unimpressed but impressive lady.
She leaps to the floor like a falling cut-velvet scarf: half air, half illusion, all pussycat.
She is writhing around me, brushing the elegant buzzcut of her short fur against me. "I have not heard of you in this town before."
"How long have you been here?"
"Two weeks."
"Well, then. And I like to keep a low profile."
"A low profile is not always possible in Las Vegas."
"Particularly when you are a world-famous performer. I had no idea Siegfried and Roy's royal white tigers had such lissome competition."
"Have you seen me perform?" She is purring now. Flattery is a weapon too.
"Not on stage, Sister Showblossom, but I bet it is a treat."
"I can get you a free pass."
"All my passes are free."
"You are so bad." She flicks her tail-tip in my face.
I can tell she likes me, and try not to sneeze. Sneezing is not noir.
"Hyacinth is such an unusual name. How did you get it?"
She sits, wraps that warped tail around her slim ankles and eyes me from under glitter-dusted lashes. "Actually, it is only one of my names, and it is due to something naughty."
"I am always in the mood for something naughty."
Her purr intensifies. "A man was threatening my mistress. He did not know I was in the room, high atop a chiffonier."
I refrain from asking what a chiffonier is.
"I leap down upon him, all claws extended, screaming the battle cry of my kind. He died of a heart attack, but his face was a star sapphire of scratches. Since that time, my mistress continues to dip my nails in curare whenever she repaints them."
She flexes the blood-red shivs on her forefeet. Remind me not to encourage this tootsie to slap my face.
"I still do not understand how that admirable deed got you the name 'Hyacinth.'"
"It refers to an attribute of hyacinth to deal death that few know about."
I do not tip my hand. "The name suits you," I say. "How long have you assisted your mistress, on stage and off?"
"Since I was a tiny kit weaned from mother's milk onto bat's blood."
Yech! They eat some strange things in the Orient. In Asia, excuse me. Asia Minor and Major.
Yet who am I to sneer at a true carnivore? I used to be one myself when I did not know better or realize that ready-made food was to be gotten for the begging. I am sure that this dame would not eat Free-to-be-Feline to save her soul, if she had one.
"Your mistress is a magician. That is an unusual profession for a lady, and for a lady of the Asian persuasion."
"She is a most unusual lady. But you will meet her in a moment."
I turn. I am not sure I am ready to reveal my uninvited presence.
'There are no secrets between us," Hyacinth hisses behind me. "She will be most interested that I have attracted an admirer."
"That cannot be an unusual occurrence."
She purrs again, and boxes me on the face, curare-dipped claws in. I have managed to dodge just enough that her shivs only stir my whiskers.
"Louie. Midnight Louie. You are fast for one of your venerable age and weight."
"I am no sumu wrestler," say I modestly.
And then the dressing room door opens. Perhaps thunder and lightning drive it back against the wall. I cannot be sure.
A figure stands motionless in the doorway, but the diaphanous garments shrouding it like a ghost's cerements move constantly, as if in a wind.
The face is a demonic mask in the manner of a Chinese ghost: rice-powder pale complexion with rose-petal blush from cheeks to temples. The eyes and eyebrows are drawn in kohl, a stylized stage makeup that tilts these facial features into a piquant exaggeration.
Her lips are red, and her hands are tipped in scarlet-enameled mandarin nails a full four inches long.
Shangri-La. An ambiguous name. Not Chinese, not Japanese. Not Siamese, any more than Hyacinth is.
"A black cat," the lady magician declares, regarding me with pleasure. "And still alive, despite intruding. Hyacinth, you must introduce me to your new friend."
Hyacinth screams and leaps toward Shangri-La.