Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In An Alien X-Ray

Not law enforcement.

Some new player in the game.

Max stuck his hands in his black denim jeans and fell into step where he belonged … behind everybody.

* * *

Max Kinsella watched the dawn come up on the desert. He’d driven east after his long night of surveillance. It wasn’t hard to leave Las Vegas if you drove east or west.

Kathleen had lost them in the Treasure Island’s tropical greenery. Not Max, but by then he’d been more curious about who was following her than where she went. There was always tomorrow night to track down Kitty the Cutter.

The other guy was either an amateur or aware of Max on his tail and not minding it. He not only lost Kathleen, but he did nothing to lose Max. Maybe he didn’t know Max was behind him all the way to his home ground.

Max’s suspicions were uncertain as to his exact identity, but the possibilities gave him a chill. In fact, what he was concluding was impossible. Isn’t it?

No way he could throw out this new development for speculation on Temple’s round table of crime. This was even more shocking, to him personally, than Matt Devine’s hookup with Kathleen O’Connor.

Chapter 43

Cat Tails

I pause in a shadow made by the slight instep rise on Goliath’s left sandal.

One of the wonders of the ancient world was the Colossus of Rhodes, a mighty 110-foot statue of a giant man guarding that Grecian island’s harbor before the turn of the first century.

Naturally, this is just the thing to re-create in the Mojave desert.

When Las Vegas hosts a hotel named the Goliath, one can be sure the several-story statue of the biblical giant David toppled with a slingshot will be even taller, if less tasteful, than the Old World inspiration.

Essentially, every man, woman, and child who enters the Goliath Hotel and casino must walk under the figure’s skirt. Perhaps I should describe it as a battle kilt. Those Greek and Roman gods and men were not ashamed of showing a lot of knee and thigh.

Call it statutory gape.

Anyway, I would not normally pause under a landmark of such vulgarity, but I am a wee bit weary and the hour is even more wee. My quarry has gone to ground inside the Goliath, and it is now nigh on four o’clock in the morning. I have been on the prowl since before midnight, being carried concealed during two car rides and now wondering what to do.

People still stagger in and out, under and even around Goliath’s mighty legs. Perhaps I should give up the quest. I yawn and glance around the mostly empty driveway.

A flash of neon light attracts my fatigued gaze to Goliath’s other sandal. It appears something gaudy is glittering beneath it. Hmm. I only recently uncovered a ruby earring under a bridal hem. I scan the area, then slink fast and silent to the other sandal, nosing into the shadow.

Whomp! I have run face-first into a thornbush, or a bee, or a porcupine.

As my eyes adjust to the change from dark to light to dark, I realize what drew me was the green reflection at the back of a golden eye.

“Louise! What are you doing here and why are you whacking me?” I stroke a mitt across my kisser, feeling the slight sting of four claws to the chops.

“This is my temporary territory,” she announces. “When did you show up?”

“I was here first. I had staked out the other sandal while my prey vanished inside.”

“Really? I was here first, but my prey has performed the same dirty trick as yours.”

“It is diabolical when these humans escape into pigeon coops with three thousand cubicles. Perhaps we are tailing the same individual?” I suggest.

“You say first.”

I am reluctant to commit. Discretion is a professional responsibility. “I came from the south,” I concede.

“I came from the northeast.”

We settle down to sit and mull that information.

“You are not tailing your roommate, as is your wont?” she asks.

“Nope. Not my want right now.”

“Then you are tailing Mr. Matt Devine. The Circle Ritz is south of here.”

“And I suppose you, Louise, are on the trail of your crush, Mr. Max Kinsella.”

“Ridiculous charge! I merely keep an eye on him because he is always after someone who is up to no good.”

“ Hmm. I am here because I fear Mr. Matt is up to no good.”

“Maybe he is whom Mr. Max is tailing?”

“That is not good.” I sit half-up, senses sharpened. “Mr. Matt is leaving.”

“Poor man. He looks very downcast and … furtive.”

“My poor Miss Temple!”

“ Aha! You are an idiot if I say so myself. Your Miss Temple is following him out on her high heels.”

“My Miss Temple is home in bed, where she should be, and I should be there with her.”

“I am sure your devotion goes over well with Mr. Matt.”

“None of your business! And are you blind? That is not Miss Temple. She does not wear high heels of that instep-mangling height. That woman wears true stilettos.”

“Sharp,” Louise purrs admiringly.

Meanwhile, I am frowning. Mr. Matt is hunching his way to the side parking lot, but this woman wears a black trench coat and hat. Hot for Vegas, but hot fashion items nowadays. She is clicking away in the opposite direction, face obscured.

“We will have to split up,” I decree. “Louise, you follow Mr. Matt. If you hurry, you can slip into the backseat of the Jaguar when he opens the door. I will take on the strange woman in black who seemed to follow him out.”

Miss Midnight Louise pulses her shivs in and out on the pavement while she considers.

“Midnight Investigations, Inc., has only one motto, Louise. Divide and conquer. Go!”

I give her an encouraging pat on the back, and she shoots out into the open, spitting her farewell as I flex my shivs. It is tit for tat. She must dash away without dawdling to escape the blinding entry area lights and catch up to Mr. Matt.

I turn to follow the well-heeled mystery woman. Then the soft scrape of a shoe on stone makes me pause.

Now I see whom Louise has followed here. Mr. Max Kinsella. His height and recovered stride gives him away despite the fedora he wears like an old-time PI.

Since he is heading in the direction of the woman in question, I pad into the line behind him … just in time to spot a heavyset man in a fedora step out from an idle hotel van and follow the woman on the long walk to the parking areas behind the hotel.

The adventuresome individual can find unlikely paths through and around and beyond the tourist-frequented areas of the massive hotel-casino buildings.

I am wishing I had the stride length of the long-left-behind Goliath statue by the time the woman cuts through some thick parking lot foliage and the man following her veers off the trail.

So does Mr. Max.

Now I shadow two men, until the first heads into the looming shadow of a parking ramp behind the usual mega-looming shadow of a major strip hotel. I must say Mr. Max’s walking ability is back to normal and making tracks.