Carole douglas - Cat on a Hyacinth Hunt

Temple could have sworn they were brooding.

Was she in a funk! Attributing her own downcast emotions to a pair of sunning pussycats.

"Well, feel free to come home whenever you feel like it, Louie."

A party of passing tourists stared at her.

Temple talked back in her mind: Hey, some of you people talk to dice! At least cats are sentient, and sometimes a whole lot more.

These cats were mostly indifferent to her. Temple left them, feeling deserted by Louie's return to the Crystal Phoenix.

********************

She got over the perfidy of cats by the time she stopped at the optometrist's, who had opened up briefly despite the holiday just so her "emergency" client could literally "see" New Year's Day in.

"The black eye's so much better now," noted the young woman sympathetically. "With these new lenses you won't be walking into open doors anymore because your glasses slipped down your nose and you nearly dropped your groceries. You'll see so much better with the exact prescription."

Temple underwent the icky process of peeling out the old lenses and putting in the new.

"Out with the old, in with the new" reminded her of the recent disastrous holiday celebration, only her personal motto could be: "in with the old, out with the new."

But... the optometrist was right. The glittering environment of the shop, including ranks of traditional glass frames, was in much sharper focus now.

Temple fingered the narrow brochure she had picked up on her first visit. "About these colored lenses."

"Ideal for someone with your mid-range correction."

"Yes, but . . . color." She would never have speculated on rotating eye color with a male optometrist.

"Green would be the obvious choice. Or a deeper blue."

"Not. . . violet."

"Well--"

"I've always thought violet eyes would be . . . electric."

"Whatever you like. The whole idea is to play with your image, right?"

Or maybe play with your identity, maybe fool someone hunting a redhead with light blue-grey eyes.

But Temple could tell that her favorite color, violet, didn't strike the optometrist as the most flattering disguise for her rampant coloring.

Max would tell her to do what she liked. Do what thou wilt . That was the motto of some long-dead magician, she remembered from her exploration of the profession during Halloween week. Alistair Crowley, that was his name. Only he had been more than a magician, more like the leader of some decadent cult. Something metaphysical and creepy and a little silly.

She thrust the brochure back into her tote bag.

Violet eyes.

Maybe another day.

Chapter 10

The Mysteries of Gandolpho

Louie was still boycotting the Circle Ritz when Temple greeted Max at the patio door at seven that evening. She had tried calling Matt earlier before he left for work at the hotline, but got no answer. She had an edgy feeling that he was taking Effinger's attack far harder than he had let her see the previous evening.

But tonight was Max's and she'd get really schizophrenic if she kept mentally bouncing between the two of them.

In honor of her New Year's Day's night with Max, she had donned loose knit pants and top, in burglar black, and tennis shoes.

Max seemed please to find her waiting, but glanced at her feet. "What are those?"

She looked down at her $7.88 discount- store black velvet tennies. "Stealth tennis shoes. I assume we'll need to slink into your house, as usual. Things are rough, Kinsella, when you have to break into your own place."

He looked around the condominium. "Yeah. I know."

An awkward caesura killed the chitchat. Midnight Louie wasn't even around to serve as a conversation piece.

Temple joined Max on the uncontested couch, offering him a mug of coffee. She expected this to be a long evening, one way or another. "So, seriously, what's at your place that's so fascinating, besides you?"

He lifted an eyebrow at her concession of interest. "I've been poking around Gandolph's computer files and his inventory of magical appliances."

" 'Magical appliances'? Sounds kinky."

"Magic has always had a kinky undercurrent, and a metaphysical one. Confinement, release.

Death, rebirth. But I'm running into traces of more than the usual baggage. Something . . .

sinister."

"Does it have anything to do with Gandolph's death?"

Max hesitated. "It could."

"Well, now that we're hyped up on caffeine, I suppose we're ready to face anything. As least I won't crash at ten p.m."

Max put her half-drunk coffee mug on the glass-topped table. His long fingers suddenly framed her naked face. The expression in his eyes was so intense she felt she was listening to the profession of a vow.

"No more 'crashes' for you. Not from that quarter. I doubt that Effinger will be anyone's problem very much longer."

She was afraid to ask him what he meant, just as she had been afraid to tell Matt what she meant to do with her personal life. It wasn't lost on her that Max would escort her to and from his house; she was not to be on the streets alone.

*******************

Max's house, previously occupied by the late Gary Randolph-- Max's magician mentor known professionally as Gandolph--and before that by the late Orson Welles, gave Temple the creeps. And it wasn't just the ghosts of the two dead men.

Maybe the house felt eerie because they were always having to creep up on it. Max wanted--needed--to conceal his residence there, so every entry was clandestine.

Temple was also intimidated by the house's heavy oriental furniture, especially Max's opium bed, a sort of fretwork pagoda, inlaid with cinnabar and mother-of-pearl. It exhaled the scents of exotic perfumes, forbidden substances and irresistibly unnatural acts.

Add to the house's outre appeal a spare bedroom crammed with Gandolph's and Max's magical paraphernalia, and now his computer cockpit, and you had a juxtaposition of the mystical and the technological that was positively bizarre.

Sneaking into the place was the usual blast.

Once inside, Max led her to the world-class kitchen.

Even here she was uneasy. It was so clinical--so stainless steel/wine cellar/walk-in freezer perfect--that it unnerved her. You could hide a body in that freezer, in that climatically controlled walk-in wine cellar. Maybe even in that microwave.

"You look better." Max brushed a thumb over her bruised cheek. "Or is it makeup again?"

"Light foundation. Cover Girl if you're interested in the brand."

"Don't talk so tough in your Material Girl way. None of it's real but the act."

"True. How real is your act?"

He leaned against the stainless-steel-fronted refrigerator to consider it. Temple remembered the poster that Lieutenant Molina had commandeered from the inside of her bedroom closet wall so many months ago. That preserved the Max of two years ago: big hair, laser/razor cut. All eyes, like a cat. Mystery his middle name. Sex appeal his secret code.

Today he was otter-sleek, simpler. Dark hair pulled back into the low-profile pony tail made his face all elegant bone and nerve. Lots of nerve, but not nervy, like a spooked horse.

He was stripped down, bereft of stage props, boiled down to muscle and bone and a hank of hair.

"Where were you when you were gone?" she asked.

He smiled. "Where do the politically awkward always go? Canada. I worked as a corporate magician."

"You? A company man?"

"My role was subversive. I was supposed to make people laugh, relax, screw the boss. It worked. Actually, I liked it a lot. Even Canadian companies are so structured ... I was a deconstructivist, and well paid for it, which is more than most real artists can say."

"You should have met Domingo."