Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In A Sapphire Slipper

The helmet-haired hostess actually breathed a word that caught a cop’s interest.

“Former Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss has opened a Laundromat in Pahrump, Nevada,” the woman announced as if hailing the Second Coming. “It’s called Dirty Laundry and is a prelude to her breaking ground for the first chicken ranch for women, also in Pahrump.”

“Just what I need!” Carmen moaned. Would women really run with the wolves and flock to a joint with men for sale? Not in her jurisdiction anyway, but this was yet another sad sign of the coming Apocalypse in Vegas and environs.

On the breathless news went: “This gender-breaking establishment was originally titled the Rooster Ranch, but will now be called the Stud Farm.”

Carmen patted the rumpled covers, desperately seeking the remote control. If she never heard about another Nevada chicken ranch it would be far too soon.

Once the TV was off, she could hear her distant doorbell ring. Great. She had no hope of getting there before the ringer had left, and risked irritating her stitches into a fevered snit.

She lay back, huffing with effort more than sighing. Sighing hurt. No way could she pretend to normal movement at work for a few more days. Luckily, Morrie Alch was so straight-arrow that the brass would believe him if he swore the Pope was Mormon. If he said she had the flu bad, it stuck.

The doorbell was silent now. Who had to bother hapless housewives at midday anyway?

She was trying to shift to a more comfortable position when her bedroom door opened. Someone was in the house! Someone unauthorized. The front door had been locked.

She patted the covers for her ankle piece, the small Colt semiautomatic. A cop on her back who’s been attacked by an unknown person does not tumble into a sickbed with just a TV remote.

Her heart was beating hard enough to tear out her stitches as she aimed at the tall shadow against the hall light. “Morrie?” she said hopefully.

“I figured he was in on it,” the shadow answered.

“Larry?” She wasn’t exactly relieved.

“Yeah.”

“Who said you could break and enter at my place?”

“No breaking. I have a key, remember?”

She didn’t, but she couldn’t remember a lot on Vicodin. Her mind tended to wander. One minute she’s hearing about Dirty Laundry, and then Dirty Larry shows up at her door. That was the undercover cop’s nickname. He’d bullied his way into the edges of her professional and private life in the past few weeks, but now that he knew she’d mangled the law, she found him less amusing and more alarming.

His turning up at Kinsella’s house just after she’d been knifed by an intruder in the dark had turned on her suspicions. The intruder could be anyone, including Dirty Larry. Why? She had no idea, but she was finding it harder to believe that he’d pursued her lately just because she was so darn cute.

“You’re not telling anyone about this.” Her words were an order.

“Of course not, but I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“I hurt like hell, I’m on enough painkillers to get busted if I didn’t have a doctor’s prescription, and I don’t feel like talking.”

“Whoa! Got it. Didn’t mean to scare you.” His shrewd eyes glanced at the Colt, still in her hand.

“I wasn’t scared,” she said. “Just cautious. And you know better than to walk in on a cornered cop.”

“Right. Now you know what it feels like to have something to hide, just like an undercover operative. Can’t ever tell anyone the truth. Can’t ever stop watching your back. Can’t ever trust anyone.”

“Larry—” His litany of undercover problems had sounded more like a subtle threat than an expression of sympathy. But she could very well be paranoid about everyone now.

“I’ll lock the door on the way out,” he promised, “so your kid won’t even know I was here.”

The bedroom door shut. Carmen risked a small sigh that ended with a hiss of pain.

Larry had a hard-bitten manner; that’s why the bad guys so readily took him for one of them. Now she had to wonder if he was one of them and if he’d tried to sucker her, maybe even stabbed her, in the dark. If he was more stalker than suitor.

One thing was certain: she was still in the dark.

Hen Party

So there I am in the hall, trying to avoid the stomp of boots and high heels from twenty champagne-sipping human females milling around.

Do they glance down at the carpet to see if there is any stray resident around? No. Speaking of stray residents, I have seen no trace of Mr. Matt, which is a big relief. Nor do I see Mr. Nicky Fontana lounging about either. Although I think Mr. Nicky would be better at hiding out in a bordello than Mr. Matt.

Miss Temple will have my hide if her fiancé is found in a compromising position in this house of the rising libido.

Meanwhile, it is all one big chicken ranch party up here. The Fontana bridesmaids are oohing and aahing at the settings and accoutrements of the cathouse trade.

I finally am spotted, of course, but they are all so wrapped up in French ticklers and the like than I am taken for the house cat, Satin. People are just not very observant when it comes to presumed domestic slaves like us. This blind spot is very useful to the undercover investigator.

I am just glad Miss Midnight Louise is not in on this gig. I know she would take the strongest exception to the harmless fun the girls are having as two very different worlds of feminine wiles cross trails momentarily.

“No offense, ladies,” says one girlfriend. “The boys were not supposed to come here. They were going to be driven to an Elvis impersonation, with a teenage-bride Priscilla popping out of a cake. Lots of rock ‘n’ roll music and that one tame peekaboo bit.”

The residents hoot it up. “Really? You are kidding! Well, we will take the night off, since you have paid for it, and you have the run of our facilities,” says Gigi. (I have a photographic sniffer and can match each hooker with her perfume from the roll call in the parlor.)

Another now tipsy bridesmaid confides to a girl in blue, “I know the bride-to-be did not want her fiance kicking up his heels or anything else interesting tonight, but the groomsmen are fair game.”

“Pretty game, I think,” Angela says, “from their expressions and certain other signs.”

“They are all single!” a bridesmaid says, pouting. “Why should they not have fun at a bachelor party? As long as it is with us, their loyal girlfriends.”

“You really hope to get them to commit after tonight?”

“Who thought Aldo would ever get married? Now he is all grins and domesticity. If one can fall, so can the others.”

Not this “other.”

Midnight Louie does not get ’napped, trapped, and whapped with a wedding ring. Never. No way. If the formerly freedom-loving Fontanas want to be sucker-bait, fine. It is nice to see Satin again, and know she is off the streets and safe, but I am not throwing my ruff in the ring for her paw in perpetuity.

The plan for the evening seems pretty clear at this point. The bound-but-not-gagged—and certainly at this point not terribly resisting—Fontana boys are going to have a prenuptial honeymoon in whatever setting their particular girlfriend chooses.

Macho Mario is going to be kept prisoner in the parlor, surrounded by a bevy of beauties who have no interest in catering to his needs or druthers, along with the madam, with whom he seems to have a nodding, but not intimate acquaintance.

Satin and I will have lots of time to catch up on old times.

And Mr. Nicky and Mr. Matt will continue to hide out, as emerging now would be rather embarrassing.

One good thing: given the amount of champagne being consumed by the bridesmaids, I am guessing that the festivities will end in a snoozer long before daylight blinks its eyes open over the desert and shows us all where the heck we are.