Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In An Alien X-Ray

Holy Madam Curie! Anyone addicted to that glowy stuff ever think about radium exposure? I suppose there are “trace” amounts, but for one of my build and size, that is a lot of “trace.” Perhaps they have a new safe potion for the same effect.

I gaze at the rows of slanty-eyed faces with the green visage of a seasick Siamese. I never noticed before that those big-eyed little gray men much resemble those furless fancy cats called the Sphinx breed.

I want to make tracks out of this madhouse, but instead dutifully thread my way around the occasional potentially lethal Klingon boot and plenty of flip-flops, looking for Miss Temple’s arrival. I know she will be here somewhere. She cannot resist trying to straighten out a public relations disaster of this size and momentum. Misguided loyalty is her main flaw. She responded to what seemed to be a nice old gent, and now he has got us all in the soup.

I have been suspicious of Mr. Silas T. Farnum since the first time I took a ride on the Wynn’s floating parasols to keep an eye on him. Now he has imported a masquerading mob that could disrupt any unfound evidence at the crime scene.

This makes the savvy operative suspicious that that whole scheme is a put-up deal for just such a purpose.

One purported to be far wiser than my kind, but also dead (so I still have the advantage), noted “Where do you hide a leaf? In a forest.” This melee is just the thing to put the murder case on the back burner of public interest.

Fortunately, I am beset by my breed’s hallmark curiosity. The minute I realized Miss Temple was being drawn to this site someone had settled on for a body dump, I put my nose into overtime.

It is not enough that I see the lay of the land. I must also sniff it. Of course, I am attracted to unfinished construction, which is a jungle gym to those with my athletic prowess. Ever since I could put one paw in front of the other, I was fond of heights. I can run along the business edge of a construction two-by-four like nobody’s business, except that it is my business, since I am a shamus or a private eye or what you will.

Imagine my surprise when I start to scale this lovely conglomeration of concrete and steel and wood and plastic sheeting, and I find I have to break and enter.

That is right, folks. I never am for a moment deceived about there not being a building on this site hidden by whatever string theory, Einstein premise, or difference engine thingamajiggy Mr. Silas T. Farnum has funded to create an illusion.

I will not believe it until I smell it, and what I smell here (fresh paint, carpeting, electrical wiring) tells me that spectacular spinning UFO is just a Big Brother to the floating parasols at the Wynn. I am guessing it is another revolving restaurant togged out as an alien ship.

You know that famous book and movie where Miss Dorothy Gale’s little dog, Toto, pulls the curtain aside and the Wizard of Oz is proved to be just a puppeteer?

Well, anything a dog can do, Midnight Louie can do better, and I am about to pull several stories of plastic sheeting down on this phony “third encounter of the weird kind” act.

I start climbing an exterior spiral staircase made of Plexiglas. The central core of this structure is the Guggenheim Museum in Manhattan turned inside out. How do I, a humble Vegas gumshoe, know about tony Frank Lloyd Wright classic designs in the Big Apple?

Simple as making Baked Alaska.

All things crass and cultured come to Vegas sometime. Thus I was able to stroll through the Guggenheim Hermitage Museum during its seven-year tenure at the Venetian Resort Hotel-Casino.

Naturally, my strolls were of the wee-hours variety, when I had a much less obstructed view of the treasures and minus human lower extremities in an odiferous array of vented and unvented footwear. That is to say, sandals and sweaty tennis shoes. It is hard to say which style is most repellent to the ankle-level nose.

Anyway, here I am now, making architectural connections and scaling this giant spiral shell under the cover of lots of canvas and plastic swaddling. I plan to reach the top and schuss down the unanchored billowing canvas so like a wooden ship’s sails.

I am pretty sure this act of derring-do will be the disruption that can break the spell of the stealth machine, which is the only real science fiction item on-site, and unveil the actual structure in one heroic, guaranteed viral media moment.

(I am miffed by my junior partner, Miss Midnight Louise, going viral first by hopping a ride on a Segway tour on the Las Vegas Strip not too long ago.)

This little stunt will put the V in “viral” and make the “Midnight” in “Midnight Investigations, Inc.,” a household name. Plus, it is a much better curtain-pulling-back act than any little black dog could manage. This is ten stories, folks, a small step for Las Vegas and mankind but a giant leap for Midnight Louie and catkind.

Like the movie stunt boys and girls do, I will land safely on several feet of piled canvas and plastic and my own legendary feet.

Uh-oh. I hear a strange whirring sound above. So does everyone present.

Great Bast’s Ghost! The entire doughnut-shaped revolving UFO restaurant is spiraling down on me like the head of a screw in the grip of a giant alien screwdriver.

Abandon mother ship!

I look down in horror as my nimble frame twists and plummets like Mr. Max Kinsella on a bungee cord.

I am not alone in this fall to earth.

A hitchhiking scene-stealer has crashed my act and is falling much less gracefully.

I am heading down at thirty miles an hour in the close company of some dude with a terminally dark George Hamilton tan who one-ups me as the main attraction, being both naked and dead.

Chapter 28

The Unusual Suspects

Molina stood with her back to Temple, boot-toed cowboy mules planted wide on the sandy soil, hands on hips. The stance reminded Temple of a gunfighter poised to draw, except, instead of carrying six-guns, she probably had a fancy foreign pistol stashed in a shoulder holster or tucked in the back of her pants or strapped to an ankle. Ruined the whole look.

Still, wearing her David Caruso CSI sunglasses as she turned sideways, Molina looked ready for a shoot-out in Miami, if not Las Vegas.

Temple saw another thing that ruined Molina’s whole Metro detective hard-nose look. She was interrogating the nervous dwarf at her side. Silas T. Farnum wore a gray-and-white-striped seersucker suit reminiscent of a convict’s outfit. His polka-dot tie also ruined the whole look.

“This has been a crime scene for more than forty-eight hours,” Temple heard Molina say, the words spit out like a Thompson submachine gun spraying bullets, actually. “You have had a concealed experimental scientific device on this site and did not report its presence? I don’t know how many charges an inspired assistant DA could string together, from violated city ordinances to one big mama of an illegal parking ticket.”

“But, Lieutenant. I’m an entrepren—”

“Now,” Molina went on at the same furious but controlled pace, “some poor soul who got caught up in your UFO fever scheme has plummeted to his death. Was it a construction worker? A tourist who glimpsed the shenanigans going on here and tried to climb his way to an answer? One of your so-called silent partners or fans or detractors? Homicide wants to know.”