Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In A Quicksilver Caper

“I was not about to, M. L.”

She is especially cute-with-a- Q when she is mad. “Tell me,” I ask again. “How do two black cat dudes, no matter how outsize, show up against all this black matte paint when they perform?”

She uses her elegantly pointed tail to indicate the doused stars in our artificial sky. “Pinpoint spots. Plus, their coats are dusted with iridescent powders. Kahlúa with black diamond, and Lucky with rainbow platinum.”

I nod. Such serious shimmer will keep all eyes on the cats while their human partners do-si-do with illusion and misdirection.

“What does Hyacinth do during the show?”

“Her personal brand of acrobatics. She even has a fur-colored harness and does several high dives from a bungee cord.”

If I could whistle, I would. Instead I manage a high-pitched wheeze. “That Hyacinth is no shy violet.”

Squeaker sighs. “Do not remind me. They want a stage name for me, even though, as a body double, I will get no credit in the program.”

“You mean that will be you bungee jumping your little heart out?”

“I hope not, Louie. It is more than possible that Hyacinth will be strong enough and will not require a substitute. But if she does, I need my heart right where it belongs when I do these stunts.”

I look down, eyes narrowed. Human workmen in white painters’ overalls blend with the pale travertine floor below.

“So, you’re the bungee cord expert up here?”

“Along with Shangri-La herself. She did not want to risk her treasured companion in rehearsal.”

“The Cloaked Conjuror?”

“Hyacinth.”

I should have known. “So what does CC do here?”

“Stays safe high above, on the platform. He has never been an acrobatic performer.”

No, not weighed down with those height-enhancing boots, that heavy face-concealing, voice-altering device that makes him into the magician in the iron mask.

“Wait a minute! Have you seen the whole act?”

“Of course not. None of us has. Only bits. It is secret until the grand opening.”

“Then maybe . . . just maybe, CC needed a secret body double himself. Maybe the double needed secret practice. Maybe that was the guy who got a little too friendly with a bungee cord coil and dove. And died.”

“Maybe.” Squeaker’s big blue marble eyes light up, even in the shadows up here. “So . . . CC might need a replacement. Who could he get on such short notice?”

I put a testing foot on the high wire again. Something in me would like to prove I could still give Death a run for my money. But I am older and out of practice.

I wonder if Mr. Max Kinsella faces the same dilemma.

Only one man—magician—in Vegas could step into the dead man’s shoes on short notice. That is a pun. Mr. Max Kinsella is six feet four of muscled tensile nerve. This would be a perfect way to secretly swing his way to a comeback if he wanted to.

And did someone else figure he could, and would, want to? Did someone want the incomparable Mystifying Max up here for some reason? Did CC’s body double, if he was one, die to make room for Mr. Max?

I look down. My poor Miss Temple’s common blond head is again on the scene with no idea that her faithful roommate is up here, above it all, watching her back and ruminating and contemplating risking his neck. Mr. Max Kinsella and I have way too much in common nowadays for me to be entirely comfortable with it.

“Louie?” S. Q. sounds sweetly uncertain, but she is another one being forced into a situation where risking her neck is the only way to save her hide.

“Yes?”

“What do you think of Fontana?”

“Which one?”

“ The one. For my performing name. ‘The Flying Fontana.’ ”

I am picturing the Flying Fontana Brothers as a trapeze act and work so hard to smother a laugh that I almost overbalance into instant oblivion. But this will be the only comic relief I will have for some time, I fear.

“Great,” I tell her. “Whatever makes you happy.”

What I have learned up here does not make me happy. I sigh and step back from the hypnotic highway of the upper air. No tightrope walking for Midnight Louie. I am here to stand on solid ground with the Big Cats, and find out who is playing fast and loose with illusions and fine lines and fine art and lives. Both human and feline.

A Moving Experience

Temple returned to the Circle Ritz parking lot from a long day of spinning press releases into gold only to find a huge furniture store truck blocking her favorite parking spot under the shade of the lone palm tree.

At least it wasn’t a Maylords truck, she thought, remembering her last PR assignment with a shudder. Not only had murder been involved, but one of the victims had been a good friend’s significant other.

And not only was the behemoth truck keeping her from preserving her brand-new red Miata from sun damage, but a trio of laboring men were preventing her from entering her own building.

Well, not her building. Electra Lark was the landlady.

Electra herself was standing in the parking lot just like Temple, blocked from entering by the humongous cardboard package the visiting apes were wrestling into the Circle Ritz’s narrow fifties-vintage back door.

“Quite some carton,” Temple said.

“Don’t tell me!” Electra said. “I have no idea how that box is going to get up there. The elevator’s a thimble and the service stairs turn more often than a corkscrew. And there are two more cartons: box spring and frame. I’m afraid you’re stuck in a holding pattern, dear.”

“I’m not in a hurry. What on earth is all this?”

Electra, a chubby, cheery figure in a flower-patterned muumuu, her white hair sprayed to match each vivid tropical tone, eyed Temple oddly.

“I can’t complain, I guess. He’s been such an ideal tenant. Not a speck of inconvenience to anyone. Like a ghost. Until now.”

“Who? Mr. Simpson on four?”

“No, Mr. Devine on two. Hold on to your pillbox hat, honey, that mammoth installation is going in right above you. I’d prepare for something going bump in the night, if I were you.”

“What do you mean? Matt’s above me.”

“Well, that’s his new bed, from what I can read on the boxes. And I tried to catch every word and number.”

“New . . . bed?”

Electra nodded. “I don’t know what’s gotten into him. He’s always been such a quiet tenant. The only significant piece of furniture he’s ever imported was that vintage red suede sofa you talked him into. You didn’t sweet-talk him into a huge new bed any time recently, did you?”

“Me? No!”

Electra turned at Temple’s vehement denial to eye her.

Temple had protested too much.

“Is it a waterbed?” she asked quickly to derail Electra’s curiosity.

“Nope. The old-fashioned kind. A waterbed would have been easier to lug up two floors, although the frame would be hefty. As far as I can tell, it’s the usual king size with some fancy bedstead that must have cost a fortune.”

“King size?”

Electra eyed her again. “None of my business, of course, as long as the woodwork isn’t damaged. But it’s a far cry from that funky old-fashioned twin Matt bought when he moved in.”

“A twin. How quaint.”

“Poor boy. Just out of the . . . you know, what they call those priest places. I’m glad to see his horizons are apparently expanding.”

“Big time,” Temple said. “Really, don’t worry about everything getting in. The building is old, but my . . . our . . . California king size made it in.”

“Of course Max would need a California king size,” Electra said. “Such an extravagantly tall fellow like him. And I suppose even Midnight Louie is a yard or more when he stretches out.”