Carole douglas - Cat on a Hyacinth Hunt

"Thanks."

Leaning on the upholstered trellis of Electra's out-of-focus muumuu-clad body, Temple limped back onto the parking lot asphalt and toward the building.

"Oh, Electra!" She stopped.

"What, dear? Where does it hurt?"

"Key ring. Under the van."

"We'll get it later."

"No. Might remember, come back for it before us."

"Oh." Electra suddenly shared Temple's vision of a man like that with the keys to a female tenant's apartment. She scurried to retrieve them.

Temple smiled to picture the bland beige van being accosted by the fiery floral energy of an Electra Lark muumuuu. Or she tried to smile; it didn't feel right. She touched her teeth trying to see if they moved. Sure hurt. The back of her head throbbed too. And the bloody spit was mounting in her mouth again. Hurry, Electra!

He might come back. Temple might pass out. She might have dental problems that not even the Tooth Fairy could compensate for.

"I don't know how James Bond does it," she muttered crossly when Electra returned, keys jingling.

"I brought your tote bag too. How James Bond does what?"

"Takes a licking and keeps on ticking."

"Men get used to being injured in school athletics. Besides, real men don't feel pain."

"James Bond isn't a real man. Ooooh."

"You need to see a doctor. Listen! We're in the parking lot. What am I thinking? I'll take you to the emergency room in my car right now."

"No! Just help me back to my place. Not being able to see clearly is my worst problem."

"You're not seeing clearly in more ways than one. Why are you being such a macho woman?"

"Because I was the youngest of five, with a fistful of older brothers. You should have seen me after that toboggan trip down Suicide Hill." And she had to think about what had happened, and why, and who she would tell about it. Lieutenant C. R. Molina was not among the who.

Electra had taken Temple's arm and was guiding her up the sin-gle step into the Circle Ritz's side door. She leaned so close that Temple could see the concern curdling her amiable features.

"Electra, all I need ... is an ice pack, a heating pad, pain-reliever and some peace and quiet."

"Hmmm."

But Electra didn't argue further and Temple finally tottered through her own front door.

Hearing the heavy mahogany shut behind her made her feel like a relieved pioneer, as if a barred wooden door would keep out the wilderness and every feral creature in it, man most of all.

Electra led her directly to the bedroom, and Temple didn't object.

On the zebra-striped coverlet, the sleeping Midnight Louie cast a velvet-black shadow. He stirred as Temple's side of the bed sank under her weight. Ever since Max had been gone, she had kept to "her" side; probably just because it was close to the alarm clock and the telephone, or maybe just because hope keeps habits alive.

Seeing the cat's vague outline was oddly comforting. So was hearing Electra bustling around in the other rooms, digging the heating pad out of the guest bedroom-office closet, banging icecube trays in the kitchen. Temple half-reclined against the piled pillows as Louie stretched all his limbs straight out, then lumbered up to her side.

"Hello, Mr. Midnight." She stroked his velvet-napped head while he arranged himself against her hip. "Had a rough day at the office? I sure did."

Electra was hovering again, armed with fire and ice and a tepid glass of tap water to wash down a couple pills.

"Tylenol. Two pills shouldn't interfere with anything stronger you might get later. Where's your dentist's number?"

Relieved that Electra was no longer dwelling on the hospital, Temple let herself be packed with hot and cold: ice to the face and lower legs; the heating pad--and Midnight Louie's furred warmth--to her midsection.

Safe in bed, and buttressed into place with pillows and home remedies, Temple allowed herself to drift into the alternate state of injury. Shock blunted the pain, even when Electra pulled her shoes off.

"Are my Via Spiga patent-leather heels okay?" Temple asked, straining to lift her head and see. "No scrapes, no dings?"

"I can't say as much about your legs." Electra moved towel-covered rocks of ice against her ankles. "We should get your knit top off, but I don't want to pull it over your poor face."

"Leave it," Temple murmured, feeling a strange indifference. She just wanted to be left alone, to lay here and recover, maybe for a few days.

Amazingly, she soon drifted into sleep, without even wondering what dreams would come, and who would be in them.

Chapter 3

Nightmare in Red

Temple must have edged into the Twilight Zone .

She had a sense of not quite losing consciousness, but of losing track of time, and perhaps space.

She could still hear Electra rustling in the kitchen of her unit, but she felt suspended somewhere else, between two opposite poles, one as fiery and relaxing as hot wax, one icy and full of frozen tension.

Her oddest delusion was that Midnight Louie had swelled in size, as perhaps her face was doing. His warm length had stretched along her right side until he seemed to match her height.

Cats will do that, and Louie could twist himself like a licorice rope to an impossible length, front and back limbs flung to their farthest extremes.

But Louie wasn't panther-size the last time she looked.

So she looked again, cautiously, through her uncorrected vision.

Louie's fuzzy (thanks to her deficient eyes, not his sufficient hair) tail dangled off the California queen-size bed's edge, and his heating-pad-abetted body heat ran alongside her all the way to the top of her head on its mound of pillows.

Louie was large and flexible, but not that large and flexible. Not unless he was doing magic tricks these days.

Temple turned her head--far too quickly and far too far for her condition--and squinted into the green eyes that looked as large as saucers in her unfocused gaze.

"Midnight. . . Max! How did you get here?"

Before he could answer, Electra hallooed from the next room. "If you've got everything you need, dear, I'm leaving now."

"Fine. Thanks," Temple managed to mumble.

She heard the landlady's key turn in her door, locking her in, with Max.

His fingers played with her hair, startling her. Seeing through a veil, palely, made even the lightest touch threatening.

"Poor baby. I found your old glasses in the medicine cabinet. Will they help?"

"Yes!" Temple grabbed at the blur dangling from the invisible hand at the end of a black sleeve and shoved them at her face like a mask.

"Ooh!" Even lightweight plastic hurt as it touched the bridge of her nose and curled behind her ears. But at least she could see. Max was clad in magician's black from neck to toe, lying alongside her pillow- and ice-packed body like a human breakwater.

"What are you doing here? How did--?"

"Electra wisely called for reinforcements, especially when you refused to go to an emergency room. I gave her my number when I came back. She was terribly worried, said you had hit your head."

"Something hit my head. Mainly I got slapped."

She lifted her left hand to her cheek and winced. Why did one have to probe a hurt to make sure it was real? "Ouch!"

"Don't mess with it." Max captured her hand and held it. Her fingers felt icy in his warm grasp, but maybe that was from touching the ice packs alongside her face and neck.

"Temple," he said, "I understand why you want to avoid a medical record on this, but I'm not sure it's wise. It's not the mouth cut and the black eye. You could have a concussion; that's what worried Electra too."

"Black eye! Where?"

"Where they usually are. How are you feeling? Sleepy?"

"No. Just . . . numb. All this ice--" She started to push the packs away, but Max stopped her hand again.