Douglas, Nelson - Cat in a Flamingo Fedora

"Miss Darby." Temple sat back in her uncomfortable chair, possessed of an insight. "Are you closing down his personal life before the lawyers and his wife have a chance to see any traces?"

"I... covering up?" Her laugh rode the razor's edge of amusement and distaste. "I hardly approved of his lifestyle, but he was my boss."

"And you hardly approve of what you're doing now, but you're doing it. He was your boss. Is it a little black book on computer you're erasing? Records of flowers and hotel rooms? What?"

Her breathing accelerated until the bodice of her conservative beige linen dress heaved like a trapped rabbit's body. Temple had caught her at something. Whether she told the truth about her purpose or not, it was at least clandestine.

"You have no right! I'm only doing my . . . job."

"I'm warning you. Cooke's death is a police matter, whether it's the suicide it appears to be, or something else."

"Something else?" She jumped up. "No. You saw more of him on Sunday than I did.

Everyone left after the brunch. He was alone. He must have become despondent for some reason. Maybe he drank. He could drink a lot, you know. Then ... it happened."

"Did he always keep a revolver in his hotel room?"

"Absolutely. This is Las Vegas; there's a criminal element that preys on tourists. In the dark they might mistake Mr. Cooke for just anybody, for a complete nobody. He took care of himself."

"Yes, I think he did. That's why suicide seems so unlikely."

"Don't say that! The police are perfectly content with their diagnosis. Their conclusions! No one has bothered us, until you."

"Us?"

"I mean, those of us associated with Darren. His wife, his friends, his staff. Why don't you just leave us alone!"

Temple glanced at the desktop computer, its screen filled with a complicated spreadsheet that looked like Sanskrit.

"Maybe I will. And maybe you should leave his office alone until the police are satisfied.

They're never perfectly content, you know, even if they let it appear that way."

" Who are you?"

Temple knew a great exit line when she heard it. "Someone who's well acquainted with the sins of the father."

Alison Darby blanched. She went as white as a sheet of Neenah bond paper. Her fingers clenched her beige linen skirt until the cords on her hands stood out in bas-relief and the skirt was irreparably wrinkled. Temple left.

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

She didn't think about that very odd interview until she was at home again. She pictured that unguarded computer, with the police too disinterested to investigate, and God-knows-what melting from its hard disks under the trembling fingertips of Alison Darby.

Then she eyed the open phone books covering her desk and decided to let her rock-steady fingers do the walking.

She needed to call a number so new to her computerized address list that she had to look it up. That's when she noticed that her own fingers had caught a bit of the Darby tremor.

Temple shut her eyes. This was business. She knew no one else who combined the necessary computer skills with the necessary nefarious-ness.

Still, calling this number felt clandestine. Even criminal.

All she wanted was some petty breaking and entering, both into a building and a machine. A magician was just the man to do it. Max Kinsella was the man to do it.

She knew why she hesitated. Asking Max for something, especially something slightly illegal, was handing him an edge in the tightrope act of their sundered relationship, and he never failed to use an edge. Turning to him meant she was turning away from Matt Devine, and perhaps the law-abiding side of society.

Come on , she told herself. Don't make a federal case out of petty snoopery. You re not committing yourself to a life of co- conspiracy. Max owes you, and he knows it.

Still, she held her breath as the phone rang.

It was answered with an uncompromising "Yes." No hint of question in the word. Just "Yes."

"Max," she said. He'd recognize the voice, just as he'd recognize the opportunity. "I've got a sick computer that needs a magic touch."

"Your place or mine?"

"Neither." Sternly. Flirting was more dangerous than felony for her right now. "And it'll take a magic touch just to get into it."

"You make about as much sense as ever."

"Thank you."

"Temple, is this worth the risk?"

"I don't know. I hope so."

"What are you looking for?"

"Something suspicious."

"Temple, Temple . . . when and where?"

She told him.

He told her that she should stay out of it.

She said she couldn't; only she would recognize what was wrong, if it were wrong.

He again complimented her incisive logic.

She again thanked him.

He told her to wear black.

She hung up, hyperventilating more than an apprentice cat burglar should.

It certainly had been a Gangster's kind of week, and it was promising to be a Gangster's kind of night.

Chapter 30

Could Louie Die for Love?

The life of a TV star is not to be envied.

Here I sit, still a bit wet behind the ears and between the toes after having given my coat a thorough tongue-lashing from stem to stern and from tip to tail. I do not believe that I have even been so wet in my entire vagabond life as I was when Yvette and I were dragged dripping from the Mirage lagoon.

Not that I have not been showered--(oops, wrong word)--provided with all the creature comforts.

Miss Temple Barr has ensconced me in the bed, heaping the covers around my recumbent form, and has moved my food from the kitchen and my litter box from the spare bathroom to the bed's foot. (As if I would set paw in makeshift indoor facilities, or sink a fang into a pile of unadorned Free-to-be-Feline if I did not have to.)

Although I sneeze now and then from my underwater outing, I am fine. People always think a wet dude is in need of succor. What he really needs is a bit of catnip to take the edge off.

So, once my little doll is out, I am up and stretching. Then I scratch in the box until I have removed enough litter to make a pretty sand painting on the carpet. I next walk through it in such a way as to leave a message: will be out until later. Read my feet. Unfortunately, humans are not used to interpreting messages spelled out in spilled litter, and they miss a lot that way.

Finally, I bury the Free-to-be-Feline with a few swift kicks of litter over the loathsome army-green pile. I am not being rude, just expressing myself in the most direct way I know.

Before you can burp up a cricket, I am climbing my favorite route to the spare-bathroom window and eeling out into the wide world. Within twenty minutes, I have leg-rubbed my way into the Goliath Hotel and taken a ride in a linen trolley up the freight elevator. Now I stand, dizzy but triumphant, outside the Divine Yvette's closed hotel-room door.

Here I must wait until some human or other decides to go in or out. (And they call my kind indecisive about which side of the door we wish to be on!) While waiting, I clean the litter from behind my nails and generally put the Ritz on my topcoat. A neat appearance does a lot for a gentleman with notions of a romantic nature. I figure that having played the hero and saved the Divine Yvette's life, she should be ready for a very hot reunion. And this time no Midnight Louise lurks to put the kibosh on love and the other facts of life.

At last a maid's cart clatters down the hall. I dash over while the maid is inside a room, and stow away behind stacks of extra toilet paper. As color goes, toilet paper is not the ideal hideaway for me, but it is also stored so low that the maids reach down for a roll without really looking.

I spend an idle hour or two on a slow boat to delight, batting toilet-paper rolls toward the maid's reaching hands, until we are back to Yvette's door. With the turn of a passkey, the maid is in. Behind her back, Midnight Louie is busted out and at large.