Douglas, Nelson - Cat in a Flamingo Fedora

. . . early yesterday."

"Forget the cat! Nobody knew where you were. We could have been wondering into next week if anything had happened."

"It didn't. Not really."

"I'll be right over."

He hung up as abruptly as Molina.

Temple flopped open the huge Las Vegas telephone book and hunted through the White and Yellow Pages until she finally found the animal facility listed under "Animal Shelters."

The animal pound, after what seemed like twenty-nine rings and a voice-mail program with a roster of innumerable numbers to describe and hit, finally took her recorded message of Louie's description and her address and phone number.

Temple sighed, and called Matt.

"Sorry to bother you on your afternoon off."

"No problem."

"I wondered if you'd seen Louie anywhere around the place? He's been missing for almost thirty-six hours--"

"Cats roam, and you do let him out. I'm sure he's fine and will be back in no time."

"Oh, dear. I'm not. Anyway, I have some new information on the Cooke case that's very puzzling, given that you've heard from your famous sex-addict client since Cooke's death.

"I talked to Darren's illegitimate daughter, the one who's been sending him the hate mail.

And she says she came to his room at midnight Sunday night, just like you heard on the phone, only it can't be her you heard arriving, or him you were talking to, since that man is still calling you, and Cooke's dead. Unless he's a ghost. Or could she be one?"

"I'll be right down." Matt hung up the phone as abruptly as Molina.

They all had hangupitis, Temple concluded, sighing again. She felt so terribly, terribly tired, and wasn't thinking too clearly. But she understood that was because she'd had to deal with a deranged personality for a long time all by herself.

What really worried her was not what she had just been through, but the empty, undented space on her coverlet that testified to Midnight Louie's even longer absence.

The doorbell rang.

Listlessly, she got up to answer it.

"Temple, you're not making sense."

Matt backed her into the room and actually pressed the back of his hand to her forehead as if she were an ailing child. Then he pushed her gently onto the sofa.

"Yes, I am," she answered. "In my way. You of all people should understand how taxing it is to talk to a compulsive, especially when you're trying to outthink one and you have no grasp of the real picture."

"You mentioned Cooke's daughter. You found her?"

"Right in the family circle, so to speak. His personal assistant. She's the one who marked my card and slipped it into the recipe file. I figured she wanted to protect her boss's reputation as a ladies' man, so no one would think he killed himself for impotence or something. But the real motive was quite the reverse. She wanted to ruin him, and didn't care who she used to do it."

"Card? Recipe file. And this daughter came to his room at midnight? But on the phone I heard a man welcoming a woman who had obviously come to sleep with him."

"Yeah. Well. That fits."

"Temple, you are really ragged out. You're not making sense. You implied that Cooke's secret daughter came to sleep with him."

Temple nodded. "Which she did, and then told him who she was and that she wanted all his money on top of it. No wonder he killed himself."

Matt literally drew back. "That's . . . horrible. She must be completely demented."

"No, not as much as before, maybe. I mean, when she went for that pewter letter opener, I thought I was dead meat. But I remembered what you said about an attacker having already chosen his or her--I suppose I should use that weasely phrase here--weapon, but that I had a choice of anything in the area. It really helped. She was no problem, really. At the end. I just took all the evidence, walked out and left her. You would have been proud of me."

"Proud of you? I'm appalled. Where did all of this happen? What made you think you could go off alone and confront her?"

He had grabbed her shoulders, but Temple just stared confusedly into his shocked face. She thought she was being admirably coherent considering how she had spent the last couple of hours.

"The office was on Charleston," Max said, stepping in from the patio behind them. "And we'd both been there the night before."

Matt's hands loosened. This time he drew back with edgy caution. Temple blinked and looked away. Now the cat was out of the bag.

"Why are you wasting your time asking questions?" Max continued. "Temple's obviously shocked and exhausted. Where's the medicinal brandy? Same old place?" He eyed Temple for a response she was incapable of making, then vanished into the kitchen.

Matt stared at Temple as if he'd seen a ghost.

She shrugged. "I had to let him know, seeing as he broke us into the office in the first place."

"Broke you in?" Matt whispered in disbelief. "This entire . . . scenario is nuts."

"I agree." Temple leaned against the sofa back, feeling too lethargic to sit up. "I wish I knew where Louie was."

Max had returned with a juice glass full of something clear, no ice.

Temple squinted at the blue grass, from a set colored in various jewel tones. "What's in there? Amber or white?"

"Just drink." Max knelt beside her to chime the glass against her teeth.

All this solicitation was most uncomfortable.

Matt, still sitting beside her, watched in disapproval. "Temple doesn't need alcohol right now. She needs to talk out her severe emotional strain."

"Nothing cures 'severe emotional strain' better than a bolt of booze."

"This stuff tastes like rubbing alcohol!" Temple protested after one swallow, pushing it away.

"That's what you get for buying cheap vodka," Max said. "I've told you time and again."

"It's always mixed with something else. Who could tell? Unless they were forced to chugalug it straight. Listen, guys." She looked left and she looked right. "I appreciate you both being so concerned, but I'm all right. I called Lieutenant Molina like a good citizen, and the police are sending someone over to get the goods, and will probably pick up Alison Darby for her own safety. Maybe suicide runs in the family. I wouldn't want her to kill herself because she told me the truth. Now I just wish someone could help me find Midnight Louie."

Blatantly, in front of her, Matt and Max exchanged a glance of complete harmony: she was not herself. Temple had flipped.

Before she could protest this outrageous collusion among rivals, someone knocked on the door. This time, everyone exchanged glances.

"I'll get it," Matt said, since he was the only one who really could.

After he opened the door there was a moment's silence.

"Good afternoon, Lieutenant," Matt said loudly.

Max eeled out the patio doors so quickly he seemed like merely a passing s un shadow.

Temple sneaked another swallow of the awful vodka, then Matt led Molina into the room.

"I never dreamed you'd come yourself," Temple said, pulling herself together. "How nice you're worried about Midnight Louie too."

The lieutenant and Matt exchanged a significant glance.

Temple could have screamed, but she didn't want to be mistaken for a crazy woman, although it was a little late to worry about that.

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

"I should have called you in the first place," Temple told Electra when Molina had left, and Matt had left and Temple had finally called someone who was fascinated instead of appalled by her story.

"You just go to bed, dear. Gracious, talking to that poor girl would have been like watchin g five years of soap-opera plots on fast-forward. Such a lurid tale! And so interesting."

"But what about Louie?"

"You're right. It's not like the big black bozo to be off so long. Do you have the phone numbers of the people connected with the film commercial anywhere? Maybe he returned to the places they were working. You know Louie, always likes to be at the scene of the action."