Douglas Nelson - Cat On A Blue Monday

"Hi, hon," Electra greeted her when the penthouse door opened.

Temple winced. Electra was wearing neon-lime legging stopped by a glitzy neon oversized T-shirt. Her white hair was accented with lime-green spray.

"Matt told me you'd had another unfortunate encounter with a felon, only he said that this time you won. But you look a bit bedraggled, if you don't mind my saying so."

Temple glanced down at her well-bruised bare legs, and winced.

"I would say you should see the other guy, but none of us has seen him. Molina is being mum about the identity of the cat-hating, nun-baiting creep who tried to burn down Blandina Tyler's house."

"I'm lost," Electra confessed, "not having been in on the case. I still say you look as if someone frazzled your fringes."

"Actually, most of the damage done to me last night was accomplished by a little old nun."

"You've got to watch us senior citizens," Electra agreed with a chortle.

"Listen, Electra, can you do me a big favor?"

"Anything, dear girl--what is it? Another undercover gig? Maybe as a nun this time? With a habit and everything?"

Electra was getting enthused. "That would be a piquant change of pace from stripper Moll Philander. I could be . . . Sister Merry Maybelline."

"No, Electra, nothing like that. I need a home for a sweet, lovely little cat who was headed for the gas chamber. Her name is Caviar and she's--"

"Oh, no, dear. I absolutely could not."

"But she's wonderful. I'll pay for her spaying. Louie doesn't seem too fond of interlopers, and--"

"No, cats generally aren't."

"Have you been talking to Matt about that, too?" Temple asked suspiciously.

"No. This I know. I can't take your cat. Absolutely not." Electra's tones indicated that the sky would fall in such a circumstance. "I don't care if you have two, but no, I can't have it."

"Louie cares, apparently. And why not, Electra? You've got room. You like Louie."

"I'm, um, allergic to cats." Electra did not quite look Temple in the eye. "Can't breathe around them too long."

Sorry, Temple, but it's out of the question."

Temple had superb instincts. She could tell when she was being subjected to a verbal song-and-dance, and this was one of those tap-dancing occasions. Whatever Electra's real reasons for changing from the world's most accommodating landlady into a firm non-cat fancier, Temple knew she had not heard them.

Temple pondered. "Maybe Matt--"

"Yes. Ask Matt." Electra hushed her huge door shut, leaving Temple staring at the coffered mahogany panels.

Noon. The poor man should be up by now. At least he hadn't had to go back to work. Temple trudged down the back stairs to the lower floor, regretting that she'd worn her sequined tennis shoes. She didn't relish feeling short today, but was too tired yet to get up on her usual high horse.

Matt opened the door to her ring, wearing his gi, and broke into a sunny-day grin. "Here she is, Taekwondo Tessie.

You look as if you could use some caffeine straight up." Temple nodded, encouraged by his greeting. "Given all the job and sleep disruption you've had lately--mostly my fault--I'm surprised that you're mobile."

"No mea culpa' s ," he said. When Temple looked puzzled, he beat a loose fist thrice on his chest. "'Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. ' Catholic talk. Latin for 'my fault, my fault, my most grievous fault.' We used to get guilt in great big gulps in the church, but it's eased up lately. No sense in your clinging to the same outmoded behavior."

"Guilt has no denomination," Temple said, sitting on a seat of piled boxes and accepting the mug Matt offered her. "And it never goes out of style."

She sipped, then lifted her eyebrows with the coy surprise of a lady in a coffee commercial. "This is good."

"The real stuff. I had some before I went down to the pool and did my tai chi. Figure that: Western wired and Eastern tranquilized."

"Contradiction doesn't go out of style, either." Temple smiled. "Say, Matt, I've been thinking. Your place could use a few homey touches."

"Amen. Do you decorate, too?"

"No . . . but I match-make."

This time he sipped and raised noncommittal blond eye-brows at her, like a man in a coffee commercial. My, they were good at being arch.

"How would you like an undemanding companion?"

He looked leery. "How undemanding, and what kind of companion?"

"Caviar," she said sheepishly.

"Louie isn't having any of it, huh?"

"She's so much smaller; it's not fair to leave her to duke it out with that big lug."

Matt, smiling, shook his head. "Didn't you get proof positive last night that size doesn't always matter in a set-to? It's spirit--and, in a way, say the Eastern masters, spirituality."

"With cats, its claws out, and spirituality is just so much spit and hiss. Besides, I don't know the actual size of my attacker. Lieutenant C.R.--Can't Relate--Molina wouldn't tell us who he was."

"We have no official need to know." Matt also looked like he didn't want to know.

"I do!" Temple said. "Louie was nearly turned into a tacked-up poster boy by that creep. Not to mention that he set fire to a truly fine, vintage dressing table."

"I don't think Molina has a reasonable motive yet--and she doesn't know if Miss Tyler was murdered or not, and if so, by her suspect, who may be . . . insane and unprosecutable."

"Despite this grim scenario, and our unspoken suspicions, you seem fairly cheerful this morning."

His answering smile was warm. "Why not? My prize--and only--pupil has come through a field test with flying colors." Matt glanced at her fingers wrapped around the mug. "Except for some nicks in her manicure. And . . . the mission that Sister Seraphina called me to is over, no matter how unhappily. I doubt that Sister Mary Monica will get any more unintelligible, obscene phone calls."

"Well, then," said Temple, "if everything is hunky-dory except for the usual human tragedies, how about celebrating by taking a nice new friend into your life?"

"I've already got a nice new friend in my life."

The import of that statement almost derailed Temple from her mission to place a homeless cat. She smiled over her coffee mug and said nothing for a full five seconds.

"You should share your good fortune with the less fortunate," she said gently.

"Guilt again?"

"Always." Temple shrugged. "It works."

But they still smiled at each other.

The phone rang, and they jumped, guiltily.

Matt went to pick up the white receiver from the kitchen counter.

Temple let her eyes inventory the apartment. No color scheme yet. Caviar would fit in elegantly no matter what Matt did.

Matt turned with the phone pressed against his face like a compress, his expression serious.

"Two o'clock," he said. "Downtown."

Temple assumed a questioning expression.

"No . . . she's here."

Another pause. Who was calling? Electra?

"I'm sure she'll come." A pause. "Right. Good-bye."

He hung up, then eyed Temple.

"Two o'clock. Downtown. The police station. I think Lieutenant Molina is going to spill her guts, or at least try to get us to."

"Downtown!" Temple was thrilled. It sounded so official.

"You? And me? Why us?"

"I doubt it's only us. I suspect it's the whole Our Lady of Guadalupe crew. Molina was very cryptic, very Charlie Chan. I think this is 'the suspects gathered in the parlor' routine."

"But we're not suspects. She's got the perp."

"Maybe."

Temple sipped the last of her truly well-brewed coffee and stood up. "What did Molina say when you told her I was here?"

"Nothing, for about ten seconds." Matt grinned. "Now that she knows about my past, I can hear her wheels turning.