Douglas, Nelson - Cat in a Flamingo Fedora

... by then she should be able to reach and unlock the door, get out into the street and daylight and--

"It never would have been me!"Alison buried her face in her hands. "Mama was just a pretty girl, she wasn't no French model. She wasn't good enough for him, even I knew that when I looked at her, later. We were a step up from white trash, that was all."

"You're better than that now, because you hated him," Temple pointed out.

"What?" Alison looked at her suspiciously, through wet fingers, like a difficult child.

"You made something of yourself, out of hatred. You can type, spell, use a computer, run an office, stand in a roomful of celebrities and come off as a sophisticated woman. You can get another job, just because you can do it. You can go somewhere."

"I had no place to go, ever, but here! Here to get him. And now I have, and it's nothing, like everything else. You are downright crazy, lady!"

"You can't be prosecuted for a man's suicide. You can't be prosecuted for incest. The blackmail isn't in the letters, as far as I saw. There's only your word on it, and why would you incriminate yourself?"

Alison took a deep, ragged breath.

"Oh, that's right. For vengeance, to expose him. But you say he was mad enough to hurt you, but didn't. He hurt himself instead. Maybe if you'd come at it another way, it wouldn't have been like this. I suppose you could humiliate his widow and child. They have a lot more than you, so maybe they deserve it. But they're just a Mama and her Baby alone now, trying to make a go of it. And sure, you could have taken the sleazy tabloid coverage if it had hurt him, but he's dead. He can't be hurt. Only the Mama and Baby he left behind. And you, you'll find that the tabloids leave you feeling dirty all over finally."

"So what should I do?" she asked quietly, like a child.

"Take some time. Think about it. You should talk to somebody about everything. A doctor or a shrink. There are women's centers with groups."

"I been alone on this."

"Maybe you don't have to be alone on the aftermath." Temple stood. "I'd better take the file box and the cards. What were you copying them for, anyway?"

"I was gonna give 'em to her, to Michelle." She hung her head. "But something's been bothering me, ever since he died on me. It's like I've lost a reason to go on. Like I been cheated. I don't care anymore. I been trying to go through the motions, thinkin' and schemin' and plannin'

how to make everyone pay. And I just don't care anymore. Maybe he was ... too easy."

Temple nodded. "Maybe you're better than he was." She got up, fetched the recipe box, with its syrupy floral paintings, and collected the loose cards by the copier.

Walking to the door made her feel like a target, but when she had opened it and turned, Alison was still sitting slumped on the desk, the letter opener impaled beside her. Hmm, like father, like daughter, perhaps.

Temple walked back and took it, wresting it from the Danish modern teakwood.

Molina would hate having Temple's fingerprints over everything, but Temple thought she'd better preserve the evidence, even though she doubted that there was a case to be made from it.

Chapter 34

Cut to the Quick

"Hey, dude. What are you in for?"

"I do not know," I answer the guy in the adjoining cage.

From what I can see, he is an orcaesque individual with white and black splotches all over, and I am in a new place I know too well: some veterinary facility.

"Bet it is the Big One," my cellmate says.

"What is the Big One?"

"Boy, are you wet behind the tail! Did not your mama tell you anything? You look old enough to know the score. You heard the song about what happens when those cotton balls get rotten: they pick 'em right off. You had your fuzzies plucked, right? So did I. It does not hurt too much, and it sure will make my people happier about my territory marking habits, but I will miss the good old days. Freedom of the city. Going to the fights now and then, especially when I was on the bill that night. Romancing a sweet young thing. Even visiting the road ladies. But it is better for the planet, so I cannot complain!"

"Well, I can!" I reply, appalled. "I am not remotely interested in the betterment of the planet, never having seen it. I believe this planetary good is a mythical entity invented to make poor dudes like us happy with our lots. Are you saying I will not be the dude I used to be?"

"Not if you were neutered."

"Neutered!" The word sears my soul. This is the end. I will yawn when I gaze at the Divine Yvette, and ask her to pass the saltpeter. I will lounge about the Circle Ritz, counting flies that land on the bird-bath. I will grow fat. Shall I wear my whiskers curled? Dare I eat a cockroach?

The carp will not swim for me. I will be a House It forever.

But how else to explain the pain in my posterior? The smell of anesthetic and my foggy memories of Miss Savannah Ashleigh's mad doctor? This is what she has done to avenge a crime that was not mine (though I certainly gave some thought to committing it). She has altered me forever! I will be fit for nothing but some light surveillance work. Who will protect Miss Temple Barr now?

Sadly, I lean back to try to gaze past my stomach to the area in question. Come to think of it, since I have been eating Yummy Tum-tum-tummy, it has been impossible to see anything but tummy in that vicinity. In fact, my usual fastidious grooming has not quite been able to reach the forbidden zone. Now there is nothing there to reach anyway.

What kind of street-smart detective has no balls, even if it is a girl? I know that mystery fiction features more oddball dudes and dudettes nowadays, with an admirable array of varying characteristics, including the occasional handicap. The handicap I could live with. Tear out a nail!

Go ahead. I will even wear glasses. But when has anyone ever heard of a eunuch P.I.?

I am so unutterably sad about this forced emasculation that I cannot even bestir myself to answer the cad in the next cell.

Midnight Louie as we know him is no more! Rest in peace. If only I knew where they were buried, I would visit them.

Chapter 35

Three's a Crowd

"I wish to hell," Molina said over the phone, "that you'd left the evidence, if it is such, in place."

"I called you the first moment I could."

"And you left her-- ?"

"Sitting in the Laughalot office on Charleston."

Temple herself was sitting on her bed, the recipe box and the letter opener beside her.

"I'll wait here for someone to collect these things. And, Lieutenant," Temple rushed on, detecting the preparatory rustle of an imminent hang-up. "I'm really worried about something.

Midnight Louie has been gone for over twenty-four hours. It's not like him. He always comes home, at least to eat. Since I started adding some Yummy Tum-tum-tummy over his Free-to-be-Feline he's been much better about eating at home too."

"The cat? Cats ... go places. Call the pound."

Temple sighed and cut off her side of the connection so she could do just that.

But first she called Max.

"You went back alone when you knew this woman was there?" he asked.

"I thought at the time that she had tried to implicate me in Darren Cooke's death to protect his reputation. I didn't realize she had caused it. His death, not his reputation."

"And you left her there alone?"

"I was hardly equipped to take her into custody. And lucky to get out of there, frankly."

"And you just called up Molina to tell her all about it?"

"Max, can you speak in something other than questions?"

"No. Are you all right? I mean, physically. I'm not so sure about the other."

"Well, I'm a little wobbly. And I'm worried about Midnight Louie. I've haven't seen him since