Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In A Quicksilver Caper

“He doesn’t have the slightest notion,” Danny added.

“About what?”

“Anything, my dear one.” He leaned close, voice lowered. “I’ve brought him kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century as far as decor goes. Someone else will have to drag him in the rest of the way. Not my type, if you know what I mean.”

Temple did, and tried not to blush. “So, what worked?”

“You.”

Oh. She’d hoped Danny didn’t know about that.

“What a little motivator you are.” He took her arm, walked her farther out into the parking lot.

“I’m engaged,” Temple said. Firmly.

“You’re between engagements, as far as I can tell. Honestly, Munchkin. You know he’s—well, divine. He needs guidance. Be still, my . . . heart. You’re lucky I’m bereaved, or I wouldn’t answer for myself here. And, he’s depressingly straight. What’s holding you back?”

“You know.” Temple couldn’t quite keep her voice even.

“I know even you can’t keep up the pretense that you’re sufficiently spoken for to keep the strings of your heart from zinging in another direction.”

“Danny! This is none of your business.”

“It’s all the business I have left.”

Temple couldn’t meet the blaze of anger and loss in his eyes. Nor could she argue with his accurate diagnosis. Still, she said, “I am not your matchmaker project. Not even if it would . . . ease something for you right now.”

“Matt has become my project. Such a dear boy. Reminds me of myself before I dared come out, even to myself. There are such standards for a boy, Temple. Being manly. Being hard and callous. Being tough. Being a braggart about women, even if they’re not your thing. Demeaning everything honest and soft and true for fear you’ll show a weakness some boy who’s even more uncertain than you will kick a hole through, just to prove he’s all right.”

She felt tears sting her eyes. Danny was talking universals. She remembered how girls had to hide too, pretend to be blithe and uncaring in the face of relentless bitchiness. To pretend when your heart was breaking.

“Awful years,” she said, thinking that pretending and heartbreaking could track one for many years afterward.

“No argument. We must speed him through them.”

“We?”

“It’ll take both of us. Now, I’ve civilized him in the decor department. It would help if you would . . . bless my efforts with your approval.”

“Just how much approval are we talking here?”

“Follow your heart and your healthy libido. At least back up my efforts.”

“You make a very odd advocate,” Temple said.

“I’m only following the path you trail-blazed. That red suede Kagan couch is to die for.”

“It’s a Goodwill find.”

“I can guess who found it. And you let him have it?” Danny frowned playfully. “You were caving even then. I’m afraid my domestic improvements have been more upscale. Was that naughty of me?”

Maybe frowns were catching because Temple was doing it now. Despite the grisly crisis she had to hie back to at the New Millennium, she was dying to see Matt’s new “home improvements.” She would also die before asking him to show her personally. Maybe she could talk Electra into a private preview . . .

“I see it was,” Danny said. His thoughtful expression had turned bleak again.

“Oh, dammit, Danny! I’ll, ah, say . . . I don’t know what I’ll say.”

“I already said it. I told him he needs a woman’s touch for the final fillips. Linens, silk flowers—nothing allergy prone in the bedroom and none of those beastly throw rugs you women are always having underfoot.”

Temple thought of the faux goat hair rug under her coffee table and winced.

“You don’t! ” Danny sighed. “I see I must offer my discerning services in your quarters next. A girl who would let somebody else have a fifties Vladimir Kagan couch! Tsk . You are an angel on earth.”

Danny donned his sunglasses, bussed her cheeks with Italian film star gusto, and left in the silver Spyder convertible that made her Miata look like a Barbie car.

Louie’s Choice

Of course, I am lounging under the oleander bushes circling the parking lot when my Miss Temple and Mr. Danny Dove have their little tête-à-tête, as we Francophiles call it. (I had thought Francophiles had something to do with 1930s Spain, but apparently not. Those French do get around.)

I confess that I am deeply worried about my usually reliable roommate. It is those female hormones that produce that unreliable state called “heat.”

At least in my species it is a come-and-go sort of thing (much to my regret). However, human females have a 24/7 case of it, which is appropriate to Las Vegas. Perhaps it is only in Las Vegas that this condition occurs, as in other aberrations of the human species.

I can usually find some way to assist my Miss Temple in matters of crime and apprehension but now my apprehension is directed at the fact that I do not know how to handle this pesky situation.

It appears that I need female advice. The dedicated operative is never too proud to consult experts no matter how uppity they might be. I decide to make the rounds of my acquaintanceship. So, while Miss Temple is safely on the job at the New Millennium, I vow to scour the city for useful suggestions.

First, I go to the empty lot opposite Maylord’s Fine Furniture, which is looking a little seedy since the shocking events at its opening revealed a business plan that involved discrimination, harassment, felony, and murder.

The lot is empty of everything but trash, so I know Ma Barker and her clan have left and are working their way toward the Circle Ritz, as I had advised.

Now, I only have to find out how far they have gotten.

This is like tracking a tribe of Paiutes on the move on the wild Mojave Desert in the nineteenth century. It requires that I think like a scavenger rather than a sophisticated dude about town. So, I hopscotch northwest back toward the Circle Ritz, eyeing Dump-ster environs and the empty concrete corridors behind strip shopping centers. I am not talking about the big boys and girls—Strip Shopping Centers—here, just the small fringe one-story layouts that surround the flash, glitter, and cash of Las Vegas Boulevard, to use the Strip’s formal moniker.

If my Miss Temple knew how I was sanding my pads to the bone for her wayward heart . . . !

I catch up with the crew behind the Shanghai Noon all-you-can-eat buffet. They are dozing unseen, natch, in the noonday sun, but Ma Barker has posted two goons on guard in case any mad dogs or Englishmen show up.

“Hey, it is just me!” I say as Tiger and Tom jump out of nowhere, fangs bared and whiskers and nostrils flared. “I need to check with Ma Barker.”

“Ah, he needs his mommy,” Tiger snarls, his tone dripping mockery.

“Not to teach you manners,” I reply as I box the sneer off his mustachios. “C’mon, Tigue. I need a morning workout.”

The way I work it out is I duck as Tiger lunges, and Tom ends up giving Tiger another facial with his shivs. Heh-heh.

My mental comment is echoed by two short meows behind my back.

The lady in question has been roused by our set-to. In this case, this is no lady, it is my mother, my esteemed dam, my . . . ow!

She has boxed my ears. “That is for making jackasses of my guards.” She boxes the guards’ ears. “That is for being taken in by a smooth operator. Now.” She turns to me.

“What can I do for you besides rearrange your silly mug?”

No one can accuse Ma Barker of being anything but even pawed.

“This is private,” I tell her.

She jerks her head over her black-like-me shoulder and leads me to an overturned hounds-tooth-pattern loveseat that looks as if it last served as a rat condominium.