Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In An Alphabet Endgame

As I am musing on the quaint ways of humans when it comes to winning and losing the mating game, I sense a sudden impending doom.

A fourth Fontana brother out of nowhere bends down from behind to sweep me into the open maw of the zebra-striped carrier.

So with a parting hiss at the vanished Crawford Buchanan, I gently go into that dark night. I am sure such a prominent member of the wedding as the Ring Bearer will be feted at the Crystal Phoenix reception.

27

Lofty Endings

The church was empty and silent. The choir loft organ was silenced. The organist en route to the reception. Only one person lingered in front of the huge organ, brushing the keys as if debating playing.

“You can come out now,” the hesitant organist said. The sing-song tone used in kiddie games of Hide and Seek sounded come-hither in Lieutenant C. R. Molina’s rich contralto voice.

Max swept a red velvet curtain aside as if tossing off a cloak and let it fall back behind him.

“All in black,” Molina observed. “For a funeral, not a wedding? You look like a cat burglar matador. I’ve been wondering whether you’re the ‘something old’ or ‘something blue’ for our recent bride.”

“I’m not singing the blues like you do, believe me.”

“I seldom do believe you.”

She, meanwhile, finished hiking up her long crimson velvet skirt to pull a compact pistol from her ankle holster, clasped above a forties-style magenta platform sandal.

Max owed his shoe sense to living with Temple, so he felt like he was eyeing the cover of a dime pulp detective novel, except the gun was a sleek modern Walther.

The ankle wasn’t bad either, escaping its usual prison of navy or khaki boot-cut slacks.

Eyebrows could use plucking, according to Temple as well.

“Your voice on the wedding march was in even better form the second time,” Max said, stepping away from the convenient red velvet curtains bracketing the church organ, now no longer the stage for a feline love-in howl. “You have the alto undercurrent to make that Dylan song rock.”

He ran a hand over the curve of the organ’s side as he came around it into view. “What a magnificent instrument,” he said. “Phenomenal wood-carving and brass pipes to die for, speaking of your voice as well.”

“And speaking of your ‘brass’…” She slipped the weapon into her sequined envelop purse from the forties. “Going next to the reception, are we?”

“You think I should?”

“It was a shame I was stuck up here in the choir loft when you pulled your bride-napping stunt up at the altar at the fake rehearsal yesterday. Frank Bucek neglected to forewarn me. You almost had me fooled. It flashed through my mind that I should plug you for Matt Devine’s sake. It’s risky to leave the one person always armed out of the loop.”

“That was a risk,” he admitted. “A last-minute distraction I suggested to Bucek.”

Max grinned. “The way you rushed the loft railing, braced your hands on it, aimed at me and shouted, ‘This is not happening on my watch’ was so authentic, the attending bad guys fell for my bride-swiping act at once.”

“Only on TV.” She looked at the deserted scene of decorous ceremony below, a candlelit still life. “I believed you’d do it. Swing down like Tarzan and then swing the bride up and away, Quasimodo whisking Esmeralda the Gypsy girl to the top tower of Notre Dame. You always had that corny movie swashbuckler air.”

“Thank you.” Max gave a small, mannered European bow.

“And shouting that you’d recovered your memory, that Temple mustn’t marry Matt. Really Vegas Strip encore quality.”

“Rather riveting, if I say so myself.”

“The faux Temple seemed actually stunned, stunned into inaction as you’d planned, as you swooped her away from the oncoming thieves on a hope and a bungee cord. The famous The Graduate movie climax all over again. ‘Cli max ’, get it?”

“Sadly, yes. Dustin Hoffman snatching bride Katherine Ross from the altar. They used a bus, though.”

“Definitely too pedestrian. Too bad Merry Su wasn’t Temple Barr, but I bet you could get a date with Detective Su now. You knew Temple would hear it up here, of course.”

“I’d promised Temple that if I ever recovered my memory, our memories, I’d tell her at once.”

“So have you?”

“Told her anything more or recovered my memories? No. And I was too busy with thugs after getting her safely into your ex-squeeze’s arms off stage. Rafi’s a good man in a pinch. You should be nicer to him.”

“Don’t distract me.”

“Distract you?” Max stepped closer. “I never thought of that. You might have a concealed holster elsewhere under that floor-length gown.”

“And no desire to arrest you now. For what? To ruin so many decent people’s sense of ordinary happiness?”

She slapped lightly at his shoulder. He was six-four. She was maybe five-ten and now wearing vintage five-inch platform heels to be visible in the choir loft. They were well matched for wrestling. And she was maybe enjoying playing the femme fatale off the nightclub stage for once. For real.

Max stepped away, suddenly. “If I had anything to report for reasons other than a desperate ruse, it would be for me to tell Temple and only Temple. And I’d be a cad to do that even if I did recover my memories of our relationship. So…that’s for me to know and you to find out, as they say, in whatever way you can use. Lieutenant. Or Carmen.”

She laughed, then clapped a hand over her mouth, remembering the serious vows recently said below.

“If you don’t want to be the ghost at the real wedding, Mr. Kinsella, I suggest you’ve seen enough, and should leave before somebody lingering from the happy departing wedding party spots you.”

“Just wanted to recognize your stunning vocal performance.” He looked one last time over the railing, as if to memorize the scene. “The perfect preface to a wedding, a hidden treasure found under the altar. Symbolic somehow.”

“Could be Fool’s Gold. It will take a while to total how much is there. I don’t know how long. I’m just a humble wedding singer.”

“It was generous to do that for Temple and Matt. And just think, from what I hear, your enormously talented daughter is growing up and getting ready to sing at your wedding.”

“Life moves on,” she said, tilting her head.

He nodded. “We all have to leave our pasts like a train of flowers and tears trailing behind us. Best to gather up the petals and leave the rest behind.”

And then Max Kinsella was gone, just as she’d opened her mouth to reply, because his words, unintentionally, reminded her she’d never had a wedding of her own, nor ever expected to—

And the pang of that realization cut deeper than she’d ever dreamed, and she heard the microphone-magnified vows drift up again. I, Temple, take thee, Matthias…. Father Hernandez would use the full formal disciple’s name, Old Latin-mass-saying stick-in-the-mud. Perhaps, sooner than she’d think, she’d be here like this for Mariah.

And, sadly, it had felt like Molina was losing a welcome thorn in her side, and gaining another daughter as her eyes became a wavering screen.

It was a wedding, dammit, and people, even cops, were entitled to get mushy.

“Mom?”

Mariah, sweetly attired in a violet dress halfway between teen and Grammy fashion maven, stood at the top of the choir loft stairs. “Rafi’s waiting to drive us home.”

She would never call him “Dad”, thanks to the past and the limited role her mother had allowed him in their lives.