Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In An Alphabet Endgame

“Enchanted,” he said, with a bow. “We have the LeBron James edition extra-stretch limo for that.”

“Electra,” Matt asked, “will you be a real doll—” he winked and everyone laughed, “—and give Temple a ride back to the Circle Ritz? The groom-to-be must do a trifling but vital errand.”

He answered Temple’s inquiring look with a raised hand. “Top secret. Not for the bride-to-be’s ears, eyes, or marvelously nosy nose.”

Temple pulled him aside. “Now I understand what you’ve been secretly working on. Our wedding as a thief trap. I can’t believe everyone was in on this, even Frank Bucek.”

“Everyone except Louie.”

“Apparently, he had a scheme of his own, but no, how could he have done anything? He was at home unaware an officer of the law would be coming to fetch him here to play his usual walk-on part.”

“What about the cat oratorio?” Matt wondered.

“I’ve heard somewhere about that phenomenon. The area must be crawling with cats because many of the late Blandina Tyler’s hoarded cats found new neighborhood homes. The church is always open, and the area behind the red velvet curtains must be a favorite hidden snoozing spot when the church isn’t in use.”

“It sure was this evening.”

“You heard Louie yowl when the ‘supposed me’ was whisked away into thin air. That must have roused the sleeping cats. Homeless and feral cats are way more bonded than most people know.”

Father Hernandez put a hand on each of their shoulders to join their tête-à-tête. “We have not one mouse or rat in the church or schools, thanks to Peter and Paul and the neighborhood cats. And you must remember, Miss Barr, that you brought your black cat to the Blessing of the Animals I performed. I must be a very effective priest.”

“So you are,” Matt said. “There might be some reclamation money due the church for the Binion stash.”

“And that notorious, long-dead gangster is the source of the gold bullion I glimpsed?”

Matt nodded. “It should be the last of the millions he hid around Las Vegas. About four were missing.”

“We remodeled the lower church in the mid-eighties,” Father Hernandez said, “when the gangsters were supposed to have been banished. It’s amazing some have remained to this day.”

“Binion was still alive then,” Matt pointed out.

“We created meeting rooms and a small chapel to St. Jude in the lower church, just below the main altar here.”

“The Saint of the Impossible,” Matt explained to Temple. “St. Jude sure came through for you, Father, and us today.”

“The drive had raised extra funds, amazing for a poor parish, to commission a grand stone altar with the symbolic turquoise central image of Quetzalcoatl from the ancient Aztec tradition and the carnelian insets of the fish from the ancient Christian community on either side.”

“The turquoise serpent portrays the endless coils of eternity,” Temple said, “and the carnelian fish the enduring faith of the present worshipers.”

“Not a bad interpretation for a UU,” Matt said.

Once Father Hernandez had laughed, patted their shoulders, and advised rest until the “real” ceremony twenty-four hours hence, Temple returned to her cross-examination of Matt.

“One last thing you have to tell me right now. You okayed Max’s special appearance?”

“Reluctantly, believe me. I didn’t know he was going to say anything. Bucek and Molina needed something to distract the intruders’ attention upwards and away from the bridal party hostages on the ground as their peripheral armed forces slipped in through the side aisles to get behind the action. The Graduate film’s iconic wedding crasher scene with Dustin Hoffman running off with the bride came to mind.”

“Max is hardly Dustin Hoffman, and he’s communing with Molina these days?”

“Who doesn’t?” he said good-naturedly. “It was all I could do to get Molina to let you and me and a few others into the choir loft behind police bodyguards.”

“I nearly had a heart attack. Detective Su could have been killed.”

“Or Max,” Matt said. “It’s not every bride who gets another marriage proposal at the altar,” he noted shrewdly. “How does that feel? Do you think that it’s true?”

“What?”

“That Max has regained his memories.”

“I hope so,” Temple said, “but I have more to make, with you. Golly, this was close. You’re going to have a lot more to explain to me.”

“I do, I do,” he promised. “But my work here is not done. My last task won’t take long. And then you’ll know all.”

Matt galloped down the loft steps.

He clicked off the alarm on the Jag at a run. Nobody was going to do an “intervention” on him this time.

The main parking lot held cop cars and evidence vans, but the bush-shrouded side parking area that concealed the wedding participants’ and stagers’ vehicles had been church-lot peaceful until his “blip” disturbed the evening air. Taking his low-profile old car from the Circle Ritz would be better for where he was going, but Matt didn’t want to lose time.

As he’d expected, when all those creepy white balaclavas were stripped off, the heads beneath them were white, gray or bald. The masks were camouflage, not a quaint bow to the wedding rehearsal the wearers disrupted.

Matt was missing the only two persons he’d expected to be among the treasure-hunting thugs from the long-dead past, and one he’d be deeply glad to see among the guilty.

The Jag made the trip smooth and fast. Matt parked three houses down from his target. A low-rider with throbbing exhaust pipes gargled its way past as Matt got out and thumbed on the alarm, the driver rubber-necking backward. If it weren’t not quite dark yet…

But it was, though Matt didn’t have time for worrying about his wheels’ security.

He loped down the uneven sidewalk toward the familiar sagging front porch, passing a curbside mattress wearing a map of tears and blood that sagged even more than the porch, waiting for a garbage pick up or a passing dog to piss it deader.

No car was parked in front of Woodrow Wetherly’s house or in its crumbling driveway.

Matt eyed the front door. Closed like an indifferent eye.

He peered down the cluttered five feet holding litter and one ancient lawn mower between the house and the freestanding garage, unusual in Vegas, where carports had been king until the housing booms, and busts, of recent decades.

He bent to grab the garage door’s hot metal handle, jerking upward fast and hard, so he could pull back before his palm burned.

The rattling mechanism could have been announcing a train outward bound at high speed.

In the quiet, derelict neighborhood, it was as loud as a five-alarm alert.

Yet nothing happened, nobody reacted.

Matt felt the heat wetting the underarms of his borrowed blazer, suitable for church, for a wedding rehearsal.

He should have borrowed a Beretta from a passing Fontana brother, maybe Julio, back at the church instead of a jacket. Not even Molina would have called them on their firearms there and then. Maybe especially not Molina. The brothers were the only civilians who had risked their skins to be on call during that charade. Temple’s aunt had married one of them. Matt smiled. Maybe the “Iron Maiden of the Metro Police” would be the next to do so.

The whisper of that smile lasted until Matt jimmied the feeble wire fastening on the old Chevy’s trunk open for the second time. Empty except for an oil-stained piece of canvas and several dented and spent Dos Equis cans.

Matt walked around the car and found a side door garage entrance. A skinny door on painted-out hinges. He pushed it ajar, saw some broken-down steps and a side door to the house. Tight. Getting between the garage and the house felt like squeezing through a mystery pipe. You didn’t know where it began, or ended. He heard the faint whine of a power tool.