Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In A Crimson Haze

"It's not him, Sunny, it's the principle of the thing. Although, when Crawford Buchanan's involved, principles usually have zilch to do with it." Temple sat back to view her truly awesome salad from a distance. She picked up a convoluted curl of kiwi. "Buchanan is incompetent, self-important, sexist, greedy and utterly thoughtless, hardly a candidate for Man of the Year."

"You've got no argument from me about the creep, but don't let him get to you."

. "I can't help it. He offends my sense of justice. Maybe it's what a friend suggested: I secretly envy him for getting away with being so useless. God knows what the subjects of this year's skits will be, much less the quality."

Sunny smiled. "Especially without your socko openers and I closers. You're a whiz at that."

"Thanks."

"I suppose you won't do your annual stint on stage either this year?"

"You mean if I even get asked? Will any of us WICAns be asked? Knowing Crawford, he'll recruit the night shift from the Lace 'n' Lust. I wouldn't appear in 'Crawford's Follies' for anything. I do hate to see a good tradition sink under the overweight ego of a featherweight like Buchanan."

Temple pushed away her untouched plate, kiwi curl and all. ''Anyway, I have bigger salmon to saute. I just presented the owners of this hotel, with a hot new scheme to pump up their popularity with the family traveler."

''Really? A whole concept? That's a big commission, Temple."

Television reporters seldom sounded impressed, even off the job, but Sunny did now.

Temple decided to let Crawford Buchanan crawl away into the back of her mind where he belonged, like a scorpion in the sun on a faraway wall where it couldn't hurt anyone.

"Yeah." She managed a smile now that she had digested the shocking Gridiron news, if nothing else. "I'll have my own show to stage-manage, if Nicky and Van go for it."

"That's the spirit!" Sunny's smile lived up to her name, then softened to a certain slyness as she leaned across the table and lowered her voice. "I told you what you wanted to know, however unpleasant. Now you tell me about that great-looking blond guy I saw you having dinner with a couple of weeks ago."

Temple ordinarily believed in a free exchange of information, but this subject was highly privileged.

"That," she said firmly, "is a story-in-progress and strictly confidential. Shall we ask for doggie bags?"

"Whatever will your heroic cat say about that?"

"Nothing complimentary." Temple eyed her exotic plate as she snapped her credit card to the tabletop. "Besides, Louie wouldn't deign to scrape kitty litter on this lettuce extravaganza if he were starving. And I doubt he is, because he was last seen today in the vicinity of the hotel koi pond."

Sunny broke tradition twice in one day and grimaced again. "Please. Not after lunch. I hate blood sports."

Chapter 6

Past Imperfect

''How'd you hear about me?" the old guy asked.

"A semi-satisfied client." Matt knew the smile that accompanied his statement would mystify the man, but Eightball O'Rourke was supposed to be a detective, wasn't he?

Let him figure it out.

''All clients are 'semi-satisfied,' "the guy riposted without pause. ''They think private dicks are fairy godmothers in a trenchcoat, that we wave a wand--or a gat--and whatever we dig up will stop or start a divorce, help them duck a gambling debt or a child support payment. Most people don't really want to know what I find out. You don't act too sure about wanting to find this 'missing person' yourself--"

O'Rourke glanced at the spiral-bound notebook on his pool-table-sized desk. The lined pages crinkled at the corners as if the pad had been forgotten in a drawer for thirty years.

Maybe it had.

''This person is missing only to me." Matt admitted.

Eight ball drew a box around the name on the note pad. ''All you've got on him is a history of coming to Vegas to gamble. Must be sixteen million guys who fit that profile over the past thirty years. You don't even know whether he uses his right name here. If he's ever welshed on a gambling debt, you can bet he doesn't,"

"Regulars get known around town."

"Maybe, but the casino personnel changes from year to year, sometimes from season to season. You know his hangout of choice?"

"No," Matt said.

"Any friends he might have here?"

"No."

"Hell, given the hot new gambling spots opening all over the whole U.S. of A. these days, he could have bid Vegas a fond farewell years ago."

"Anything is possible."

O'Rourke's ballpoint pen was drawing rings around the box that surrounded Cliff Effinger's name. "Parents sure liked 'f s,' didn't they? He have a nickname?"

Matt shrugged. "Not that I know of."

"You don't 'know of much, buddy. So all I got is a guy past sixty, lifelong gambler, from Chicago."

"That's all I have."

Eightball shook his head, which didn't disturb his haircut, because what little hair he had left was white and close-cropped. He looked more like a frankly bald cue ball than the black number-eight billiard ball of his nickname.

He was a stringy little guy sparring with seventy-something whose face was sandblasted by time and--Matt knew--a lifetime in the desert. That meant he had been isolated from the Strip during his fugitive years, so he'd be starting from scratch. That was all right with Matt. He wanted somebody low-profile for this job, and you couldn't get anybody more low-profile than Eightball O'Rourke.

"One thing," Matt said.

Eightball raised whitened eyebrows as extravagantly bushy as his hair was scant. Mother Nature grew whimsical with old men.

**I don't want Temple Barr to know about this."

"Listen, my cases are confidential."

"Sure, but if you didn't know my terms, you might let something slip."

Eight ball grinned. ''That little gal is damn good about getting folks to let something they want kept private slip, isn't she?"

''Amen," said Matt.

"She reminds me of my granddaughter Jill. When that much 'will' comes in a small package, it's the bottom line. You know about me and Jilly?" His nonchalant manner begged Matt to say no so that Eightball could fill him in.

"Some," Matt said.

"Well, do you know about me and the Glory Hole Gang and our cache of silver dollars?"

"Stolen silver dollars, weren't they?"

"Aw, we were young then, the boys and me. It was a lark. Spent our lives hiding in the desert when we didn't really have to. This house's the one my wife finally managed to buy for herself and our daughter."

He glanced around the plain room and up to its high, horizontal fifties windows with a nostalgia unrelated to its attractions, which were few.

"When the wife died, our daughter was already gone, so the: house went to Jilly, me being out of circulation. Jill gave me the place after the silver dollar thing was all cleared up. She didn't need it, not when she was married to Johnny Diamond--you know, the soupy-song singer at the Crystal Phoenix, but he makes lots of money at it." Eightball shook his head. "I don't know why grown men nowadays have to go around looking like Samson. Anyway, all the other Glory Hole boys live out at our ghost town attraction on Highway Ninety-five, except me. So my place is old, and the neighborhood is just this side of a trash dump, but it's the only house my family ever had. I like living here. I like being in a city with lots of people. I like having a job after all those hard-scrabble years hiding in the desert. I even like finding people, Mr. Devine, but I kind of like to know why."

''Maybe I don't know,'* Matt said carefully. ''Just see what you come up with, and we can go from there."

Eightball lifted the plain blue check on the desk in front of him. "It's your money."