Douglas, Nelson - Cat with an Emerald Eye

Seance tonight. That meant she had to arrange going to the site with Electra before she squeezed in some sleep and read through the Gandolph material.

Matt brought the steaming mugs to the coffee table and stood there waiting.

"What?"

"Coasters."

"Are you domesticated; definite headwaiter material! There are some water-absorbing stone ones decorated in Native American motifs, but I'm too tired to remember where they are.

If the mugs steam up the glass table top, so be it. Steam evaporates."

On the other hand, maybe it doesn't always, Temple thought, recalling certain moments from last night's research.

"Domesticated? Trained by parish housekeepers, anyway." Matt sat, almost as heavily as she had, and sipped the brew. "Pretty bad. I don't know the proportions."

"If it's hot, passes for coffee but won't keep me awake, I'll love it." She leaned forward for the mug and brought it to her lips. Just the steam curling up into her nose acted like an inhalation room, both energizing and relaxing her. "Ummmm."

"So. Did you learn who might have killed the magician?"

"Not yet. Or even if he was killed by somebody. Somebody living, anyway. He was writing a hell of a book, though. Documented expose on mediums who cheat confused people of their money and dignity. Guess it was a crusade for him; his mother was bilked like that."

Matt nodded. "You don't like to see your mother taken for a ride."

"Mine wouldn't go. She's much too cautious. She wouldn't let me cross a street alone until I was almost eight or something."

Her comment made some troubling emotion flicker in Matt's eyes. He was so dangerously readable unless he was playing counselor. He'd never learned to hide his reactions except for somebody else's sake.

Temple felt an internal conflict simmering. Max was like a volcano, unpredictable and exciting, but Matt made her feel so utterly secure it was... divine. Max was caffeine, Matt was...

chamomile tea. Max was edgy nerves, Matt was nirvana. She could have gone on for hours in this vein, she was that punchy, but stone-cold predictable Matt was showing signs of an imminent trembler.

"Temple, I shouldn't bother you with this at a time like now--"

"Bother," she ordered, being in the happy position of someone with her feet up, finally, and her hair down.

He hunkered over his steaming mug as if it were a wall he wanted to hide behind, or a fire he needed to warm himself at. His honey-brown eyes darkened with question. "I... think I saw Cliff Effinger this weekend."

"Your stepfather? Are you sure?"

"Absolutely not sure. The guy didn't look anything like Effinger, didn't dress anything like Effinger. He was crossing the Strip, though, and he walked like Effinger. Funny, I never noticed Effinger's walk when I knew him, but I saw it then."

"What did you do?"

"Tried to follow him, but I was on that damn motorcycle, and in the wrong lane to boot."

"Oooh, and on the Strip too. Not easy to move over and turn around."

"Easier with a motorcycle than a car. I doubled back but he was gone. If it was him, he sure had changed. Cowboy hat. Jeans and boots. Denim vest. All Western-duded up. Pretty ludicrous.

Like a late-life makeover."

"Or he was in disguise."

"Disguise?"

"Naked isn't the best disguise in Las Vegas, loud is. Seems to me this Novo-West guy who walked like Effinger is such a hundred' and-eighty-degree turn on the sleazily suited Midwestern man you used to know that the difference might be deliberate."

"But, then ... Effinger would know he was wanted for questioning. He'd be dodging the police, pretending to be dead."

Temple nodded, almost nodding off into her cup as well. "My point exactly, Dr. Watson."

"I have been stupid about this! Maybe the dead man at the Crystal Phoenix was supposed to make people think Effinger was dead. That means Effinger himself didn't want to leave Las Vegas, but couldn't stay here without seeming to have gone, one way or another. Why?"

"I don't know, but I'm sure you'll think of something. Lots of somethings." Temple yawned.

"I'm sorry. You need to sleep."

She nodded. Her eyes had closed and she didn't want to open them ever again. Thank goodness she had never been able to wear contact lenses.

Someone leaned near and took the cup from her fingers. "You want me to show you the way to San Jose?" a nicely deep, masculine voice asked.

Umhmmm.

She was pulled up, pointed and guided in some direction.

The best part was arriving where she could sit down on something soft and certifiably comfortable, her very own bed.

"You need anything?"

Just ten thousand years of deep, dreamless sleep. Oh, no ... can't. "Set the alarm," she mumbled.

"What time?"

"Three." Sounded good.

"I'll let Electra know she can call you after three."

Umhmmm.

"Here's the morning paper, in case you wake up later and want to escape to the real world."

"Thanks."

"Anything else?"

Just go 'way. But first...

She reached out into the gray nothing, found his arms, pulled, found his face, kissed him. "Thanks."

Then she slipped back, down, out cold, feeling warm anyway.

Something floated down over her like a cloud, like a spirit. She heard faint sounds that faded. Later, she felt another heavy plop beside her. Plop, plop, fizz, fizz, oh, what a relief it is...

Temple awoke in that drowsy, daytime-nap state of utter but strangely serene disorientation. She was wonderfully warm, thanks to the comforter from the other side being pulled over her and thanks to Midnight Louie warming one hip like a hirsute heating pad.

The drawn mini-blinds let in tiny split-seams of daylight, striping the room's dim atmosphere. Sleep never felt so good as after being awake too long. Waking up never felt so luxurious as in mid-afternoon. Temple squinted the clock's red-hot letters into temporary focus.

Two thirty-five. Three o'clock alarm, right, but she didn't have to worry about disarming it for a while yet.

Temple stretched and yawned. Midnight Louie protested the stretch and added his own yawn. Three O'Clock Louie. Another seance. Was she ready for this? Knew a lot more now; knew the mediums a lot better. Maybe Houdini would surprise them and slip into town a few days later. Maybe a murderer would surprise them and try again. But she could handle it. She plucked her glasses off the bedside table, turned her head Midnight Louie's way and wrinkled her nose at the solemn cat face so close and so closemouthed ... now.

Yawning, she pulled over the newspaper, scanning the front page. The headline was so small that only the word "seance" caught her drowsy attention, SEANCE DEATH RULED NATURAL CAUSES.

Wow! Temple squinted at the tiny body type. Body type, how appropriate. The medical examiner had decreed: Gandolph had died of a heart attack. Heart attack? In that getup, among those people, in that freaked-out haunted house? Temple should have been relieved. Max was off the hook; so was she, for that matter. Just a garden variety heart attack. Gandolph certainly was under pressure, given his masquerade, his book.

No. Maybe somebody had frightened Gandolph into the fatal heart attack. The new seance was more vital than ever. It was now or never. Prove a psychic had meddled with Gandolph's mental health and even if the case never came to court, all present would know who had been responsible for his passing. Max would never swallow a "natural causes" verdict, and neither would she.

"It's up to us, Louie," she told him, including him purely as a courtesy. "I won't believe that someone didn't kill Gandolph, somehow. And tonight I'll find out."

The cat's green eyes blinked and blinked again, almost like a cool feline variety of alarm.