Кэрол Дуглас: Cat In An Alien X-Ray

(Obviously, a large dose of Weird has hit Sin City, the one blot on the map it is hard to out-weird. However, my breed is known for a mystical bent, not to mention reincarnation to the power of nine, so I am more than somewhat ready to tango with anything alien.)

Since Las Vegas is littered with guidebooks as well as bodies, I here provide a rundown of the local landmarks on my particular map of the world. A cast of characters, so to speak:

To wit, my lovely roommate and high-heel devotee, Miss Nancy Drew on killer spikes, freelance PR ace Miss Temple Barr, who had reunited with her elusive love …

… the once and future missing-in-action magician Mr. Max Kinsella, who has good reason for invisibility. After his cousin Sean died in an Irish Republican Army bomb attack during a post–high school jaunt to Ireland, Mr. Max joined the man who became his mentor, Garry Randolph, aka magician Gandolph the Great, in undercover counterterrorism work.

The elusive Mr. Max has also been sought—on suspicion of murder—by a hard-nosed dame, Las Vegas homicide detective Lieutenant C. R. Molina, single mother of teenage Mariah.…

Mama Molina is also the good friend of Miss Temple’s freshly minted fiancé, Mr. Matt Devine, aka Mr. Midnight, a radio talk show shrink on The Midnight Hour. This former Roman Catholic priest came to Vegas to track down his abusive stepfather and ended up becoming a syndicated radio celebrity.

Speaking of unhappy pasts, Miss Lieutenant Carmen Regina Molina is not thrilled that her former flame—Mr. Rafi Nadir, working in Las Vegas after blowing his career at the LAPD, and for years the unsuspecting father of Mariah—now knows what is what and who is whose.…

Meanwhile, Mr. Matt drew a stalker, the local lass that Max and his cousin Sean boyishly competed for in that long-ago Ireland …

… one Miss Kathleen O’Connor, deservedly christened Kitty the Cutter by Miss Temple. Finding Mr. Max as impossible to trace as Lieutenant Molina did, Kitty the C settled for harassing with tooth and claw the nearest innocent bystander, Mr. Matt Devine.…

Now that Miss Kathleen O’Connor’s sad, and later sadistic, history indicates she might not be dead and buried like all rotten elements, things are shaking up again for we who reside at a vintage round apartment building called the Circle Ritz. Ex-resident Mr. Max Kinsella is no longer MIA, although I saw him hit the wall of the Neon Nightmare club with lethal impact while in the guise of a bungee-jumping magician, the Phantom Mage.

That Mr. Max’s recent miraculous resurrection coincides with my ever-lovin’ roommate going over to the Light Side in her romantic life (our handsome blond upstairs neighbor, Mr. Matt Devine) only adds to the angst and confusion.

However, things are seldom what they seem, and almost never that in Las Vegas. A magician may have as many lives as a cat, in my humble estimation, and events now bear me out.

Meanwhile, any surprising developments do not surprise me. Everything is always up for grabs in Las Vegas 24/7: guilt, innocence, money, power, love, loss, death, and significant others.

All this human sex and violence makes me glad that I have a simpler social life, such as just trying to get along with my unacknowledged daughter …

… Miss Midnight Louise, who insinuated herself into my cases until I was forced to set up shop with her as Midnight Investigations, Inc.…

… and needing to unearth more about the Vaders and the Synth, a cabal of magicians that may be responsible for a lot of murderous cold cases in town, and are now the objects of growing international interest, but as MIA as Mr. Max has been lately.

So, there you have it, the usual human stew—folks good, bad, and hardly indifferent—totally mixed up and at odds with one another and within themselves. Obviously, it is left to me to solve all their mysteries and nail some crooks along the way.

Like Las Vegas, the City That Never Sleeps, Midnight Louie, private eye, also has a sobriquet: the Kitty That Never Sleeps.

With this crew, who could?

Chapter 1

Conduct Unbecoming

I am running ears-back, footpads flat-out down a dark alley.

This is not normally a problem for lithe ninja me. My skintight, full-body black catsuit is next to invisible in dark narrow spaces, and my hidden shivs are primed to scale any porous material I encounter, including the careless wandering person in my way.

The only thing in my way in this alley is a blank brick wall. I make a hard right, striking sparks off concrete with my rear brakes, and splitting enough nails to visit a pedicurist in the morning, were I a metrosexual sort of guy.

Which I decidedly am not.

Another blank and topless wall forces me left, and then right again. I sense my pursuers gaining on me, but I have no idea who—or what—they are. Or where we are. It feels like I have been running like this for blocks.

I spy a bright pinpoint at the end of my tunnel, put my paws to the pavement, and rocket toward it with my patented burst of cheetah-level speed. Midnight Louie is no easy catch.

I crash through the bright light like a circus tiger through a giant paper embroidery hoop.…

Only there is no sawdust to land on, just another inescapable tunnel, this one all spotlights and aurora borealis.

My pupils have slitted needle-thin, but the light is burning so bright, I am blind as I fall through empty air into apparent nothingness, my agile spine spiraling down like a drill bit.

“Louie,” a voice calls, echoes.

Wait! Stop the action. I am being called back from the brink of annihilation by a familiar voice. My Miss Temple needs me. I cannot go splat on an unseen surface. I must fight gravity. My limbs thrash.

Then something from behind grabs me, shakes me, rattles and rolls me.

Never have I been so helpless.

“Louie.”

Wait! The voice is not Miss Temple’s. It is female but from another species speaking through my roommate’s usual whispered little nothings.

Who has the nerve to come between a guy and his girl?

I am shaken more softly, and the light fades into the dark gray of a room without light.

I feel my pumping limbs slow and slacken. Around me are dim familiar forms, the most familiar—and acting like it—is indeed my Miss Temple.

“Louie, you are just dreaming. Nothing is chasing you but the Sandman. Wake up. You’re tattooing my thigh with your thrashing feet.”

She is slipping her hands around my cushy warm midsection to heave it upright, and me with it.

“Sorry, boy, but that stings. You are off the bed for the rest of the night.”

I am ushered to the edge of the zebra-print spread and nudged until I have no choice but to puddle down to the cool wood parquet floor.

What a way to be awakened! Tossed out on my ear, although it is actually my feet that hit solid ground first, thanks to my native athletic ability.

I sit up and wash these exiled ears of the unfriendly decree from my very own roommate, whose bacon and backside I have saved on numerous occasions.