Part 2 (1/2)

”Well, I'm glad she's out of your jurisdiction, then. She really was terribly bright. I'm politically incorrect enough to feel she could have had a better job, didn't have to be doing what she was doing, but she was having none of that. I was insulting her to question her profession. And myself.”

”Did you explain your particular situation?”

”Yeah. She was fascinated. Liked the idea of being the one to 'minister' to such a newbie. Acted like a shrink. Freaked me out.”

”So-?”

”Isn't there a name for this, Lieutenant? Prying into other people's intimate affairs?”

”Yeah. It's called 'need to know.' Trust me. I don't like this any better than you do. Cut to the chase. You ate, you talked, you took care of business, and then what?”

”I left. Left fifteen hundred-dollar bills on the marble shelf in the bathroom, fifteen feet long. The shelf, not the fifteen hundred-dollar bills. I was worried about underpaying, so I probably went overboard. Could have saved four or five hundred maybe. What do you think?”

”Don't sound so bitter. It doesn't become you. What time was it?”

”Too late? Oops. Bitter again. I don't know. I deliberately didn't wear a watch. Didn't want to know what time the c.o.c.k crowed. I went out through the casino to the Strip. It was still dark, but a stiletto of light outlined the mountains in the east. It made me think of those thin tall heels she wore, and the snakeskin thongs that held them on.”

”Snakeskin stilettos. Tools of the trade.”

”Yeah. She was a lovely girl. Bright. Beautiful. Va.s.sar-educated. Cultured. Victim of date rape. You see, Lieutenant, dig deep enough, even with a seasoned, fully cognizant pro, and you find a wound, maybe even if you just made it yourself.”

”Was?” Molina asked.

The way she said it, the accusing, probing way she said it, made Matt catch his breath.

For the first time, he feared for something more concrete than his soul.

Chapter 3.

Cat Haven I am lying on my back with my pins reaching for the sky, or ceiling. I am not surrendering, but airing out my underside.

I have commandeered the bottom half of the bed on a forty-five degree angle. This way I am able to stretch out to my full three feet toe-to-tail without touching a hair to anything solid except the zebra-striped comforter I recline upon.

There is no more blissful position in this world, especially when it is accompanied by the knowledge that my resident human, Miss Temple Barr, is curled up like a snail in what is left of her portion of the bed. She is so cute when she is sleeping in such a way as to accommodate yours truly. That is when I realize why I have deigned to share my life, my fortune, and my sacred self-sufficiency with her.

Poor little thing! She has had quite a stressful time lately, almost being strangled by the Stripper Killer, and her not meaning to play a decoy.

Luckily, I had realized her tonsils were imperiled and mustered a rescue party. I also managed to rescue-in the same night, mind you-my upstart supposed daughter (all the supposing is on her part), Midnight Louise, from durance vile in the Cloaked Conjuror's hidden estate behind a faux cemetery.

Is this Las Vegas, or what? You gotta love it.

While I am basking in my achievements of the damsel-saving sort I pause to wrinkle my brow. It is true that my upstart maybe-offspring took on the evil Siamese feline fatale Hyacinth all by her lonesome, thereby usurping my customary role of muscle man.

(However, since my long-term plans for the aforesaid Hyacinth may include an alliance of a romantic nature, perhaps it was best to let the little spitfire do the dirty work.) Speaking of dirty work, I lather my chest hair into a damp curly tangle that the dames love to run their nails through.

Apparently my was.h.i.+ng motions shake the bed, for my Miss Temple uncurls, sits up, squints at me as she does when her contact lenses are out, and says like this: ”Louie! Are you getting your nice smooth ruff all messed up again? Enough already with the compulsive grooming! I know that you were at Baby Doll's and wailed 'Sweet Tail-o'-Mine' or whatever along with your Pet Shop Quartet of alley-cat buddies to alert me to the lurking presence of the Stripper Killer. Thanks, but settle down now. I need my beauty sleep.”

At that she turns over and ignores me. So much for my irresistible chest hair. Sometimes dames can be unpredictable, but what the heck, that is why we love them.

So I sit upright, pounce down to the floor, and swagger into the main room, ruffled but unreformed.

Barely do I hit the living room than I am aware of a soft scritching sound on the French doors to our unique triangular patio.

There is nothing unique about that sound: a feline footpad is out and about and I think I know who.

I amble over to the gla.s.s framed between these frilled wooden rectangles. In the lowest one on the left of this particular door is featured the jet-black kisser of my erstwhiledaughter and new partner-in-crime-solving, Miss Midnight Louise.

Woe is me. I take her into the family enterprise last night and here she is at the crack of dawn making like an alarm clock. First rule of the experienced shamus: do not rise until 10 A.M. Noon is even better, but I do not want my moniker to be High Noon Louie, so I settle for ten o'clock, as in scholar. A self-employed dude cannot be too erudite in this town.

I jump up to unlatch the door and watch Miss Louise swish in. For an offspring of mine she is long in the fur, but I must say that it looks good on the female of the species. Any species. I do wish Miss Temple would let her curly red locks grow, but that does not seem to be her style.

”I am surprised you are up and about,” Miss Louise notes, pa.s.sing me with a half-hearted brush of greeting.

We may be partners in Midnight, Inc. Investigations, but she is as antsy about the alliance as I am.

”I am surprised that you are up already,” I return politely, ”given the hair-pulling match you got into with Miss Hyacinth last night.”

”That! That just smoothed the rough edges off my nails,” she says, sitting down to manicure the razor-sharp appendages in question.

”No curare, huh?”

”I am walking, am I not? You must not believe every public line a deadly dame will throw a private d.i.c.k, Daddykins. Curare on her nails? More like Cutex. Get real.”

”Cutex” means nothing to me, but I suppose it is some beauty product the ladies use on their nails. I try not to know too much about their little deceptions in the looks department. I like to be surprised.

”So why are you here?” I ask.

”Why not? We are partners now, n'est pas?”

I cringe. Louise is alley born and bred. She has no right to a.s.sume the adorable foreign habits of the Divine Yvette, mon amour.

”C'est yeah,” I reply loftily, ”but that does not mean you can take liberties and muscle in on my relations.h.i.+p with Miss Temple.”

”Muscling in? Who sez I am muscling in? If I were, you would know it, Daddy-o.” Miss Louise narrows her golden eyes. ”I thought you might be interested to know the fuzz is in the building.”

”The fuzz? You mean those martial arts ninjas from the Cloaked Conjuror's place? Havana Browns and Burmese, by their body types and buzz cuts. Ugly customers.”

”Not that kind of fuzz! The human sort. Lieutenant Molina is chitchatting with Matt Devine one story up.”

”So? It is his place. He can entertain whom he likes. And frankly, my dear, I am pleased that he is out of my Miss Temple's hair. I detest romantic triangles.”

”Dream on. Your human ginger cat is a meal ticket, and that is all. Besides, she has a human panther for a partner.”

I wrinkle my nose at mention of the Mystifying Max Kinsella, ex-magician but unfortunately not ex-significant other in my Miss Temple's life. He is not good enough for her, but neither is Mr. Matt. I would be, if I were about six-three and 180, instead of being a thirty-six long stretched out and eighteen going on twenty . . . pounds.