Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In A Crimson Haze

Soon sixteen flutes filled sixteen hands. Van presented Nicky with the last empty flute for filling.

He frowned as he eyed the assembly. ''Mine's already on the desk, thanks anyway, Van. I guess you ordered an extra glass.''

She shook her champagne blond head without speaking.

''It's for Midnight Louie?" Nicky asked.

She shook her head again, mysteriously. "Maybe it's for our host."

"Oh." Nicky looked embarrassed as he filled the last flute to the brim.

Van carried it carefully to the small, cabriolet-legged end table between a pair of upholstered chairs, and set it down.

Everyone observed this gesture in silence, either touched ... or shocked.

"If anything of Jersey Joe Jackson remains, beyond his actual remains," Eightball said out of the wild blue, "that glass won't stay full for long."

"Amen." Nicky lifted his champagne flute. "And now a toast, to--"

"To the Crystal Phoenix's newest entrepreneurial mastermind," Van broke in. "To Temple for envisioning a future Phoenix that will bring our hotel into the twenty-first century, via the nineteenth and twentieth. Your underground theme park plans are stunning!"

Temple, regarding the uplifted flutes and faces turned her way, smiled her edgy pleasure.

"It's only logical--"

"And," Nicky added, "to Temple for cleverly writing the capture of a gang of crooks into her script so that no breath of scandal will touch the Crystal Phoenix. That could have been our cash collection chamber that got knocked over, with the robbers escaping the underground tunnels via the Goliath, and no one the wiser."

"Even Lieutenant Molina couldn't complain this time," Matt added with a smile at Temple.

"Yes." Van frowned in memory. ''What did the lieutenant say when she visited you backstage?"

''It wasn't her case, you know," Temple said quickly. "She was just an onlooker like everybody else, although she still does suspect that"--she glanced at Matt--"the dead man in the Phoenix ceiling was a scout for the gang. I'm not so sure--" Temple straightened her shoulders and looked around. "Hurry up and drink; I don't get any until the next toast."

Under the cover of their obedient sips and laughter. Matt walked over to touch glass rims with Temple . . . and to ask a discreet question.

"We need to talk about that . . . dead man. Why do you think that Lieutenant Molina's suspicions aren't history, like this champagne?"

"Because," Temple said under her breath, eyeing the crowd to ensure no one was listening,

"Molina came up to congratulate me on the skit . . . and to say that the scheme of setting up the Phoenix as a diversion, the hitting the Goliath smacked of 'stage illusion.' She said that she wouldn't have been surprised to see the Mystifying Max come out of that UFO, and maybe he did, in the guise of Midnight Louie! I was supposed to think she was kidding. Molina kid?"

"What did you say?" Matt asked.

"I said the only person left lurking in the UFO was you, and that I doubted you were Max in disguise."

"And?"

"She said, I quote, that she 'would have to look into that interesting theory' since I was such a canny crime-solver, but that she was 'glad I seemed to know the difference."

"Merow." Matt winced. "She doesn't let a subject go, does she?"

"Not when he's missing in action. Maybe I should let her think that Max is a shapechanger and that Louie is a magician in pussycat's clothing."

They turned to the lounging cat. His eyes had drowsed almost shut, but a faint green glimmer betrayed the fact that his cat nap was a very light sleep.

"Midnight Louie," Van said fondly, "deserves the next toast."

''Hear, hear!" Johnny Diamond's glass was already raised. ''The best surprise entrance I've ever seen. Just when it looked like not even a gnat could exit that clown car of a UFO, Midnight Louie jumps down from the top into the spotlights. An inspired moment."

Eightball added a postscript. "Don't just make a speech, buster. Give the old boy some of that French soda-water. Van, here's an empty ashtray. Jersey Joe wouldn't mind, believe me."

Nicky poured a couple ounces in a big glass ashtray while his brothers watched possessively, then Van bent to place it on the floor near the sofa.

Before Louie could perform the proper preparatory-to-moving ritual: yawning, stretching, examining his nails and rising as slowly as bread dough, Caviar had leaped up to lap the sparkling wine.

Louie pounded to the floor, tail switching. After a feline stare-down. Caviar edged back to let Louie have a sip.

"That cat's been spending a lot of time at the Phoenix," Van said. "Who does it belong to?"

"Me," Matt said, "by default. Caviar's a Humane Society stray Temple brought home from the cat show."

Van regarded Caviar with almost-maternal fondness. "She's like a little, thin, female version of Louie. Seeing her around the hotel has reminded me of Louie, and of my arrival at the Crystal Phoenix,"

"And of meeting me, no doubt," Nicky put in.

"And your whole family," Van added with a sigh. "Caviar is cute, but I think we should take Temple's cue and rename her Midnight Louise."

Everybody who had not yet heard the name laughed at the idea.

Louie looked up from his champagne with a baleful glare, but Caviar only rolled over on the carpet and stretched luxuriously.

A knock at the door was barely heard over the hilarity, so Temple ran to answer it.

The winsome au pair girl stood there holding Cinnamon, who was swathed in a yellow flannel jumpsuit. "Madame said to bring the infant if she was awake."

"Oh, she's adorable!" Jill Diamond crooned, running to take the baby. "I haven't seen her for a month."

Once on the scene. Cinnamon became the star of the party. Even the brothers gathered around, Ralph asking Van when she was going to have Cinnamon's ears pierced.

"Not until she makes me," Van answered sternly, eyeing Ralph's swinging cannon earbob with disbelief. "Perhaps age fifteen or sixteen."

Cinnamon passed from person to person, gurgling until she began fussing.

"Put her down," Van suggested.

Once on the rug, the baby began practicing her crawl to oohs and aahs of praise. She crawled right over to Midnight Louie and grabbed his tail in one chubby hand.

A sudden gasp stirred the crowd.

Louie edged sideways, twitched his tail free and resumed lapping champagne. Cinnamon watched him for a moment, then spotted the newly named Midnight Louise. She crawled the two feet between them at top speed, then reached out for the cat.

Midnight Louise sat up and leaned her face toward the baby.

Van edged nervously nearer, the au pair girl behind her.

Cinnamon fell back on the cushion of her diaper, much to her own surprise, flailing an arm toward the cat. Midnight Louise sniffed the baby's hand, then stepped closer.

Cat and child were nose to nose, silent and curious. Midnight Louise delicately sniffed the baby's face, no doubt detecting milk. Cinnamon turned to gaze up at her mother with an expression of vacant delight.

''She likes her!" Van said, although who was ''she" and who was "her" remained uncertain.

Van turned to Matt, some of that wide-eyed babyish joy still brightening her expression. "I shouldn't ask this, but if you got the cat by default-- ''

"You're welcome to her," Matt said quickly, "If she wants to stay. I work nights, and I haven't been home much days lately," He glanced nervously at Temple, as if he had revealed a clue she might pursue. ''It's not fair to the cat."

Van watched cat and baby absorbed in each other, while Midnight Louie finished the last of the champagne. She picked up Cinnamon and handed her to the nanny. ''Enough excitement for now. It appears that the Crystal Phoenix has a new house kitty, if Midnight Louise deigns to stay."