Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In A Topaz Tango

Her cell phone rang and rang, and there was no answer.

He punched the number again. He was feeling drained. No kidding.

The phone rang and rang and there was no answer.

Again.

Again.

Matt’s head was throbbing. Adrenaline, blood loss. He’d seen a finger cut sop an entire terry cloth bath sheet with blood. This was way more serious.

Then a faint voice, as if from heaven.

“Louie! Where are you?”

Temple’s voice. She wasn’t talking to Matt, though, but to the cat in the room.

“You must be really hard up, cozying up to a cell phone I left on vibrate. It’s not a purring pussycat in heat. It’s just a damn midnight solicitation—”

“Temple!” Matt called into his phone. His voice was half the usual loudness. “Temple, it’s Matt.”

“Matt? I thought you were going to get all the sleep you could after your radio show, given the early-morning rehearsals.”

“I’m here already.”

“Here?”

“The dance set. ‘Zorro’ just tried to slice me to ribbons.”

“Oh, my God. Matt!’

She was moving. Her voice stuttered like a strobe light. He could hear her pounding on a door.

“Rafi! Matt’s in the hotel. He’s been attacked on the dance set. He’s bleeding. Call your guys pronto!”

The phone sounded as if it was being dropped.

“Yeah, Lieutenant. I know your daughter is sleeping. Matt’s been attacked on the dance show set. Rafi’s gone to—God, that’s a big gun! Do you sleep with that thing? Yeah, I’ll watch Mariah. But—”

Matt was surprised to find himself sliding slowly over a metal landscape of toggle switches on a tide of slippery syrup. Couldn’t pass out. His tormenter was probably coming to by now, and velvet curtains weren’t iron manacles . . . .

Lights blazed on in the audience area. House lights.

Footsteps came pounding. Someone grabbed Matt and propped him up against the light board console.

“God, look at the blood. Looks like the left arm.”

“Tourniquet, quick. Belt will do.”

“We found him, sir,” a youthful tenor male voice crowed from what seemed like a half-block away.

“Get the hotel doctor immediately,” Sir ordered in an urgent basso Matt didn’t recognize.

“Matt!” Temple cried, her slightly raspy alto voice soprano with anxiety, her warm palm soothing the side of his face. And then, said to someone behind him, “I’m watching her! She’s with me, all right? I wasn’t staying behind to babysit.”

“I don’t need babysitting.” He recognized Mariah’s light soprano, scared and defiant. “Is he all right? Mom? He’s supposed to take me to the school dance.”

Ah, Matt thought, feeling oddly buoyed by the young’s assumptions. The thoughtless egotism of the tweenager . . . he’d be happy to go to that dance now.

“Attacker’s gone, but the sword isn’t.” A male voice from a distance. “Skewered in the curtain. Maybe we’ll get fingerprints.”

“Wearing gloves,” Matt croaked.

“Damn!” The dark mezzo of Carmen Molina had the last word, as always, and sang the same old song.

“Rafi, get your guys locking down this whole area pronto while I call forensics. Everybody else in this damn-fool party—you know who you are—get up to the”—a very pregnant pause—“Zoe Chloe Ozone suite. Now! Mariah Molina and EK, your shadow, that means you.”

Fighting Form

Of course no one recognizes that were it not for my extreme sensitivity to vibes of both a physical and psychic nature, no one would know Mr. Matt Devine was suffering from duel fatigue and blood loss deep in the deserted part of the hotel.

Even my Miss Temple did not suspect I was fresh from clawing my way up the silent butler shaft from the high-roller suite service area two floors below, which includes a fully staffed kitchen as well as twenty-four-hour maid, bar, and concierge services. It pays to be rich in Vegas.

So it just looks like I was idly sleeping on her vibrating cell phone when in fact I had just arrived there, panting and not much better off than Mr. Matt Devine himself at the moment. But I knew he would be phoning her if he could manage it, and I had to make sure our joint Sleeping Beauty would hear it.

This may seem a desperate and frantic ploy, but I am not Lassie. I could run howling through the casino and no one would heed and follow me, except to boot me out onto the Strip.

I have done what I could through this whole awful nightmare of lethal surprise attack.

I have no doubt that both the masked attempted murderer and our own Mr. Matt have the impression that they were dueling mano a mano all over the Dancing With the Celebs set. And quite a thrilling, but lamentably unfilmed, contest that was.

But no, the contention was mano a gato in some respects. (“Gato” is the Spanish word for cat.)

I keep a keen eye on all the Circle Ritz folks at this shindig and happened to be sniffing around the company buffet table backstage during the very wee morning hours, hunting clues about the mishap involving Mr. Keith Salter. Okay, he ate separately, but you never know. Not that I was copping a free meal, although I was not loath to lap up any unclaimed crumbs from said spread for a Midnight mid-night nosh.

Be that as it may, or may not, my sharp olfactory senses can pick up what humans overlook even without a supersensitive canine nose. I did find crumbs of things I would rather die than eat, such as cranberry muffins, but nothing that I could die from if I ate it.

So it is the wee-est hours on the deserted set when I hear footsteps and decide to widen my area of inquiry.

I am there when Mr. Matt blunders in, searching for Miss Tatyana.

Any other investigative dude would suspect him of making an unlawful romantic rendezvous. I, however, know Mr. Matt is already uneasy enough about his unsanctified hanky-panky with his own fiancée and my dear sweet roommate, so I doubt he would be canoodling with a hot-tempered Russian fireball.

At that point, I am as innocent of suspecting lurking menace as he is and am merely curious about this after-hours rehearsal. Perhaps Miss Tatyana thinks she can draw out more of his secret Latin soul with late-night sessions. He was not Antonio Banderas material until he did that righteous paso doble the other night.

I myself, on the other hand, was born with dark, Latin good looks, masculine grace, and cojones (and I kept them despite now being politically correct for my species in the reproduction department).

As I was saying, I was born with the brunet swagger to stomp and slither about the stage intimidating the ladies into swooning at my feet. All four of them. Feet, I mean, not ladies. Though I am not averse to social quintets.

I expected to have some merriment watching Mr. Matt trying to go Latin lover again in the tango, and then Zorro shows up.

I see instantly that Mr. Matt is outmatched.

I see instantly that the only dude here who can fight Hispanic fire with Hispanic fire is a longtime alley shivmeister.

So while Mr. Matt does his best to sidestep the unexpected weapon, I am playing the cape in this lethal pasodoble for dudes.

This means I must hurl my much outweighed self into the fray.

Alas, the cameras are not rolling.

They would see my agile, unbooted toes doing a fierce flamenco with the unnamed dude in black’s high-heeled boots. Any stomp that I failed to elude would break all my shivs, not to mention my toes.

It is very close. Only my lithe full-body twists keep me from death by stomping.

The dark dude is as fast as his rapier work. I dodge both boots and sword-point, seeking two vital goals. One is keeping Mr. Zorro from spearing my roommate’s current beloved (okay, I cannot yet forget Mr. Max, who is a dude after my own parts). The other is attempting to mark the masked man’s hide with my four-on-the-floor: the wide track of my shivs that will identify him later if I can but manage to install a full house of claws to the epidermis.