Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In A White Tie And Tails

“Work got intense.”

“Your after-hours, under-the-table investigations got intense, you mean.”

She held her tongue.

“You always were by the book, Carmen. We fought about that even in L.A. I’m no saint, never was, but I come here and find out you’re playing two iffy guys against each other, having them investigate each other. And me. What’s the matter? You don’t trust men, right? Especially men you’re attracted to.”

She drew on her patented laser-paralyzing, icy-hot blue glare. Worked on the job. “You sure you want to rattle my cage this badly, Rafi? Isn’t there a little something you want from me?”

“A little support and humanity would be nice. I’m sure Mariah would second me on that at the moment.”

Her head snapped back, her rarely worn, thin hoop earrings striking her neck. She’d trained herself to be impassive or aggressive, as called for by her job. That wasn’t working here, with Rafi, and it was no longer working at home, with Mariah. Her fingers twined around the other hand, clenched in a fist. It was a prayerful gesture, she realized, maybe even pleading.

“Give me time.”

“Thirteen years out of my daughter’s life is way more than enough ‘time.’ I will post your ‘debut’ on YouTube if you don’t ease up on Mariah.”

“That’s despicable.”

“Maybe that’s what you need to drive us both to where we need to be, Mariah and me.”

“All right,” she said, drawing a deep breath.

“‘All right,’ what?”

Rafi’s wary suspicion had insulted her at first, and then it had made her very, very sorry. For the first time she could take out and turn over and touch her regret for abandoning him on such an emotional impulse. Maybe the hormonal earthquakes of being unexpectedly pregnant had something … a lot … to do with it.

“It’s not a bad idea,” she said, stunned to hear herself sound so calm. “Instead of reading Mariah the riot act on her American Idol dreams, I’ll let her pursue them. Within limits.” Fierce again. “She … met you at the reality TV teen competition. I’ll let you, will suggest, you’ll work with her on her … aspirations. Within limits.”

“Okay.” He was smiling at her, she didn’t understand why, after all the empty years, but it made him look handsome and even kind. “Can I ask—within limits—if you’ll stand up and sing with the band tonight? Just a casual number. They’ve been glancing our way every sixty seconds. They miss you.”

She gave them another regretful glance. So much had been expendable in her life.

“And Carmen,” he said as she rose. “I’d suggest you start working up that oldie, ‘Begin the Beguine.’ That would get this place on the map.”

“And me?”

“On YouTube for sure.”

He laughed as she made a face and walked toward the guys in the band.

They were grinning like idiots and she had missed them and the music so much, she could scream. She guessed she’d sing instead.

Chapter 23

The Second Coming

Planning a triumphal return is where I excel, particularly when it is my own.

I have no doubt that consternation must be running amok, particularly on my Miss Temple’s part, when the residents and visitors to the apartment in Pulaski Park discover I am not merely hiding out in an insanely clever spot no human could discern with the naked eye or nose, but that I am totally gone … kit, caboodle, and carrier.

Knowing what dismay my kidnappers caused my nearest and dearest led me to annihilate them without mercy and to literally “nail” them. Street smarts now have led me into the proper neighborhood. Finding the exact address is no problem, since I am an … ahem … eidetic-savant.

Now, if Miss Midnight Louise were here, she would jump on that assertion, as well as my back. No, I did not mean “ idiot -savant.” That is a human stunted on all sorts of everyday knowledge but a genius in one particular area, usually music or mathematics. This eidetic-savant just never forgets a thing, especially my own scent and trail.

Anyone who knows me also knows that I do not much do mathematics past the number of fighting shivs on each foot. As for music, my nocturnal jazz riffs are as well known among the furred contingent of cultural cognoscenti as are the classic stylings of the singer known as Carmen at Vegas’s Blue Dahlia nightclub. Let us just say that crime-solving and caterwauling make good partners.

Meanwhile, I am marooned in Chicago, on the outside looking in.

My next trick is to enter this alien apartment building and get to the appropriate floor.

Were I in Las Vegas, I could accomplish my surprise return in a minute flat, since the round and layered Circle Ritz building is a piece of cake to scale and infiltrate. Here, not so much. I stroll around the brick exterior. The rear Dumpsters are not appetizing as a stepping-off place for a second-story assault. I have nothing against Dumpsters. They are to be admired for daily serving the homeless as well as the discriminating customer in search of a rare tidbit accidentally consigned to the scrap heap.

However, this is Chicago, folks. Here you find a trend to corned beef and cabbage, baked beans and bacon, sausage and dumplings, and other odiferous, gassy foods.

I am maybe the returning prodigal son; however, I do not really want the fatted calf, but only 99 percent lean. I decide that the velvet glove rather than the hooded claw is needed for the last leg of my epic journey.

So I groom my always elegant formal black suit to satin perfection, tame my prone-to-be-bushy eyebrows and whiskers with a patina of saliva, and go to sit patiently by the front entrance. This place is not high-hat enough to have a doorman, so I am looking for a female of the species. They have an inborn soft spot for dudes of my sort.

Luckily, in Chicago, a lot of them live in apartments.

“Well, well. You are a sleek, handsome fellah.”

When will men learn the lure of meticulous grooming? Too late. I am happy to fill the gap. Also, big tip here: The ladies adore soft furry ankle rubs. If you cannot afford to bestow faux fur-lined boots on your Chicago ladylove, grow a mustache and use fabric softener on it.

My figure-eight moves around this particular lady’s calves escort her to the elevator doors, never impeding her footsteps.

“Did you get left out of your home somehow? You are in far too fine condition to be a stray.”

Yes, frequent fishing expeditions in the Crystal Phoenix koi pond, marathons down the Las Vegas Strip avoiding overbuilt guard dogs, bouts of rappelling down the handy palm tree at the Circle Ritz. All this is fine “conditioning.”

I slip through the open elevator door with her. Her finger pauses over a floor button high above my head. “But where do you belong? I do not know every pet owner in the building.”

Hmm. I will have to come up with a Stupid Pet Trick to communicate with a stranger. What would David Letterman do … or applaud? I turn around. Once. Twice. Then sit and cock my head like Fido.

“Two? Floor two?”

I circle again, twice more.

“Four.”

Two more circles add up to …

“Six? Oh, pussycat, I must get off at five. I cannot send you up all alone in the elevator car. Who knows what might happen to you?”