"Look, Craig. That cat looks like he knows where he is going. And what is he carrying in his mouth?"
"Probably a dead lizard. Or a long tongue. How can he know where he is going? Everyone knows that cats do not think. And I am not too sure about dogs, either."
Imagine crediting dogs with an evolutionary edge, however slight, over cats! Ridiculous.
Another sign of the jealous nature and weak-minded stance of those who disdain feline virtues.
Of course I do look rather silly with the object of my mission flapping from my mouth in the dry desert breeze, but I am singularly short of pockets in this skin-tight catsuit I wear (and the Mystifying Max thinks he invented black velvet Spandex for his act!).
I do not know if my Miss Temple (and I do consider her my Miss Temple even though she has developed a wandering eye of late) is still pursuing the floral angle on Hyacinth, but I think the feline angle in the angular person of Miss Hyacinth Curare-tips (and probably lips, for all I know) is a far more promising lead. At least it sniffs that way to me, but I may be a bit prejudiced. "Cherchez la femme" strikes me as stellar advice in all cases.
Do you know that I am also wondering if Miss Temple has perhaps had a bolt backed out in her brain since Mr. Cliff Effinger slapped her silly against a van side? Also, her conversion to contact lenses could account for her strange lack of vision in selecting her male companions lately. She should know from experience that I am always hot on the trail of evil-doing, and am also very cuddly and undemanding--except for my territory, which has been our bed, our bedroom and our suite of rooms all these past months, with visitors allowed at my discretion and with my approval.
I am not surprised when I get home that the bathroom window is ajar in welcome but the place is as bare as a stripper's bottom at the All-nite, All-nude Bar on Paradise and Flamingo, Las Vegas's least classy junction.
I sniff for unwanted scents and they are all over the place: Mr. Matt Devine, Mr. Max Kinsella, Lieutenant C. R. Molina ... the only one not present of late in my digs seems to be the late Mr. Elvis Presley. I even dig up the faintest sniff of hyacinth in bloom, which I recognize from sniffing the plant on Miss Shangri-La's dressing table, that Miss Hyacinth of Siam almost knocked to the floor in one of her frequent fits of peke. (That is another snot-nosed breed of dog I cannot stand, the Pekinese, and it is an Asian import to boot.)
Well, I drop my offering on Miss Temple's coffee table, which lately, according to my expert sniffer, has held only libations of a more bibulous nature. (I believe this bibulous liquid is something found in the Bible, as in admonitions to not get drunk. Liquor is a kick, but I only lap a little up at a time.)
I certainly hope Miss Temple's contact lenses can spot a clue as big as a brochure. But I have done all a little fellow like me can.
So I skedaddle and make my arduous way back downtown. Every instinct in my body tells me that the Opium Den is where all the action is in this case, and I do not think this solely because a sinuous lady with sapphire eyes and ruby-red claws awaits my return with bated breath.
Chapter 35
Mum's the Word
"Maybe this will be therapeutic," Temple suggested to Matt in her living room the next morning.
"You mean, my literally burying Effinger?"
She nodded.
Matt consulted a small notepad he'd brought down from his
place.
"I asked my mother about any relatives. She said she didn't know of any." He slapped the notepad against his knee. "Sad, isn't it? To be that isolated. Must have hated his family, for probably the same reasons I hated him. Sound like therapy to you?"
"Absolutely. So what can we say in the newspaper obituary?"
"Cliff Effinger. Lowlife around Las Vegas. No survivors, no mourners, no loss."
"Is 'bitter' therapeutic?"
"No, but it's fun. You're the press-release writer. Come up with something."
"Okay. Um." She commandeered the notepad and turned to a clean page. "Cliff Effinger, starting with the name is good. Died January second. Formerly of Chicago."
"That's good!" Matt encouraged her.
"Longtime Las Vegas resident."
He nodded.
"Ah . . . what can we say he did?"
"Small business man."
"Very small. Okay, put that in. And what you suggested. No survivors. Visitation at 1 p.m. at Sam's Funeral Home on Charleston Boulevard. Interment private."
"Fine. Good. I'm glad Electra knew someone with a funeral home. Now what?"
"Now we visit the funeral home, buy a suitably modest casket and decide what clothes to put on the corpse and all that fun stuff."
"I guess I've finally got control of the creep, haven't I? I could even have him burie'd in an Elvis jumpsuit."
Temple giggled. "Talk about a picture to remember. Just keep laughing. Think of this as theater, not burying someone."
"At least we can just cremate the body after this charade is over. Do you really believe it will lead to anything?"
"Somebody bothered to give Effinger a very public and outlandish death. Maybe they can't resist attending a good funeral. Maybe somebody hates him even more than you do. I wouldn't rule out that Elvis suit, if I were you."
*******************
Sam's Funeral Home was a typical Las Vegas operation. Its pillared white facade echoed the grandeur of Tara, the O'Hara plantation house. Inside, acres of plush pastel carpeting were discreetly marked by the shuffles of respectful feet, or at least of pallbearers weighed down by the usual sloughed-off mortal coils.
The hush, though, was deeper than that in the exclusive baccarat enclaves of the finest hotels. Death was in permanent residence here, and was more exacting of tribute than money.
Sam himself saw them in an office furnished tastefully in mahogany Queen Anne pieces with chorus-girl-curvy legs.
"So nice to meet friends of Electra's. My deepest condolences at this time of loss," he added in a voice that would pomade barbed wire.
His own hair had ebbed from the Gibralter of his pate, reduced to a silky fringe from ear to ear that ended in a fluster of pewter-colored curls, which gave his shiny pink-granite skull and face a jolly look.
"Who is the bereaved?" he asked gently.
"I suppose I am," Matt said.
Sam's eyebrows, a riot of overgrown gray curls alternated like weather fronts in extremes of high and low. Matt's waffling answer had plunged them to the depths of polite concern.
"Then the deceased has no close relatives."
"Not that we know of," Temple put in. "If one, or more, should turn up, we would be most interested in knowing."
"I understand. Now ... Mr. Devine. What about clothes for the deceased? Did you bring any to select from?"
"It's difficult." Matt exchanged a glance with Temple.
He was thinking of the Elvis jumpsuit and trying not to laugh. Laughing would not be taken lightly at a funeral parlor. And the rooms eerily recalled parlors from another era, reminding him that "in my Father's house there are many mansions." Funeral-home operators appeared to have taken that to heart, and to have spent much effort in preparing anterooms for mansions.
"We don't know his last place of residence," Matt explained. "So we don't know where his clothes might be, and I suppose the police kept what he was wearing when he died, as evidence."
"Oh, that kind of death, was it? Well, we have a fine selection of garments made specifically for such occasions. Well made, in excellent taste and yet reasonably priced."
"Where do you get this funeral-wear-to-go?" Temple wondered.
"There are businesses that solely supply clothes for such purposes."
Dressing the dead seemed an odd business, like making costumes for life-size dolls.
"These clothes," Sam added, "are designed for easy application and to be seen inside caskets."