Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In An Aqua Storm

“You hate being typecast by your size. I hate my so-called looks. I don’t think of myself that way, but everybody else does. I have to wonder if they’re fooling themselves, and if they’re fooling me.”

“I suppose,” Temple ventured, “that women have chased you since Day One.”

He nodded, not happy at the memory. Was that how the women with big boobs felt? Valued for their outsides and not their insides? You could get cynical and use it. Or you could be honest and come to hate it.

“Well,” she said, clearing her throat, “I might be tempted to try myself, except that I’m recovering from my own emotional Waterloo.”

He turned back with a smile that would melt an igloo. “Why try? You have all those physical handicaps, remember?”

“I am ‘cute.’ Some people find that appealing.”

“And you’re fated to hate the ones who do.”

She nodded. “Are you fated to hate the ones who are attracted to you?”

“I hope not,” he said, just lightly enough that she knew the heavy stuff was over. For now. “Saddest of all are the people who hate themselves.” Matt glanced at his watch face, frowning.

“Is something wrong?” Temple asked.

He went to sit on the sofa arm, then rubbed his neck. Maybe Cheyenne would come out to the Circle Ritz and give him a back massage.

“I’m punchy from switching shifts,” he admitted. “And I didn’t remember until this afternoon that I have a regular caller who missed me last night when I was here instead.”

“Oh. I’m sorry that I—”

“It’s not your fault. She was on the brink in her personal situation—cutting it close, that’s all. Abusive boyfriend or husband, never said which. I’ll be at the phone again in half an hour, and she never calls until evening.” He paused, concern still puckering his face. “I just checked with my substitute, but she didn’t call at all yesterday.”

“Maybe when she heard you weren’t in she rang off without leaving her name.”

“We don’t use names, not even the counselors, only invented “handles,” like CBers. Sometimes they’re pretty revealing anyway.”

Temple nodded. “Like stripper names. Pseudonyms say a lot. Can’t you reach her somewhere, somehow?”

He shook his head. “Anonymity is the heart and soul of a hot line. I can’t find her, she can’t find me.” He sighed. “She’s probably all right. Just like you.”

“Yeah.”

“So tell me about the second murder?”

Temple sat on the matching arm. “Terrible. I know now how you must feel about your clients, because I met this girl last night just before I left the Goliath and had my head-on with the Goon Squad. She was in a bad way, but I thought I’d cheered her up. This morning, she was found dead. Strangled with her cat’s tail.”

“Her what?”

“She was costumed as Catwoman. Someone ripped off the tail and strangled her.”

“That’s a lot kinkier than the ABA murder.”

“Maybe book people are better at writing and reading about murder than doing it.”

“Crawford Buchanan handed you a hot potato, after all.”

“Don’t remind me! But I did get a crazy idea, at least Lieutenant Molina thinks it’s crazy.”

“How crazy?”

“That the murderer is following that old rhyme about ‘Monday’s child is fair of face.’ Monday’s victim had a face to die for. The girl yesterday was a magnificent gymnast—‘full of grace.’ ”

“You think that there’ll be more murders?”

“Molina doesn’t. She says that everybody over there is fair of face and full of grace, even the men.”

“Lieutenant Molina doesn’t look like the type to be grading men.”

“I added that part, all right? But no men have been killed. Yet.”

“Just what you don’t need, Temple, all that sensational publicity when you’re recovering from your own troubles.” Matt shook his head. “You could have knocked me over with a feather when Lieutenant Molina came up to us in the emergency room. From what you said, I pictured some beefy veteran who liked throwing his overweight around against defenseless solid citizens like you.”

“Don’t let the navy-blue pants suits fool you. She may dress like a nun, but I bet Molina can be meaner than a K-9 attack dog.”

“Not to you?”

“She doesn’t cut anyone much slack.”

“That’s not her job. You and I can afford to be bleeding hearts. We’re removed from the misery and danger out there. I’ve got my phone line and—when you’re not stumbling over bodies-—your work concentrates on good news, not bad.”

“Not lately,” Temple said glumly.

Matt stood and yawned. “I’d feel better about leaving for work if Electra were here.”

“There are other tenants.”

“But none who know what you’ve been through. Here.” He reached in his shirt pocket and pulled out a card.

Must be her lucky day, Temple thought. This card had no name on it, just a number, a 731 exchange, and a word: “ConTact: Crisis Intervention for the Nineties.”

“What kind of callers do you get?”

“Everything imaginable. Rape victims. Physical-and sexual-abuse victims. Alcoholics. The suicidal. Compulsive drug addicts and gamblers. The mentally distressed.”

“How awful to hear so much grief.”

“It can get intense, but the counselors are insulated by the phone, and by the anonymity. We hold the fort until we can put them in touch with the community agency that can help them in the long term.”

“You said every kind of caller imaginable. That include obscene callers?”

“Not yet, but we get some pranksters, kids killing time. They don’t fool us. It’s hard to mimic real misery.”

“Amen,” Temple said, accompanying him to the door. “Maybe I should lighten your load and give you a naughty call now and then.”

She had meant it as a joke. Like a lot of jokes it struck closer to home than was meant.

Matt’s ears reddened suddenly. Temple could see that even from behind. Wow, she thought. For some reason, that comment had pushed his buttons.

By the time they reached the door, the moment had passed. He held it open for her to pass through.

“Oh, by the way,” she said, smiling. He looked perfectly collected. Too bad. “Thanks for fixing the shoe. I felt like Cinderella when I found it in the morning.”

“Shoes are easy to fix. Souls are harder.”

“Matt, I hope she calls. I hope she’s all right.”

“And I hope that your theory about the murder pattern predicting more deaths is wrong, but you have an uncanny sixth sense about these things.”

“Molina says I’m crazy and now you say I’m psychic. I’m not sure which is worse” was Temple’s mock-glum comment as she closed the door.

At least he was laughing when he left. And so was Temple, until she remembered that Lieutenant Molina, her own personal Rumplestiltskin, was stopping by at seven o’clock to collect what Temple had promised.

24

Poster Boy

M olina was righton time. She arrived about twenty minutes after Louie had lofted down from the bathroom window and stalked with bored, stiff-legged laissez-faire for the one piece of furniture upon which his black hair would leave the most obvious trail, the off-white living-room sofa.

Lord knew where Louie had been since the Goliath, but Molina must have come straight from the hotel or headquarters downtown. She was still wearing her dreaded pants suit, this one khaki. If Temple saw another unbecoming color on Molina, she’d scream.

“An unusual building,” Molina remarked when Temple opened the door to her ring. Molina’s routine glance around ricocheted off the interior angles of the pie-shaped rooms, off the subtly vaulted white plaster ceiling so soft and cool it seemed like the top of a sensuous silk tent.