Douglas, Nelson - Cat with an Emerald Eye

Electra looked around like a lively white-haired robin. "Maybe the real Houdini was trying to take a shot at a lousy medium, and missed. So as far as phenomenon go, that only leaves the strange man we saw outside the windows unexplained."

"And the other smells," Jeff Mangel added. "The food, the wine--"

"The roses," Temple finished.

"Were you in on this?" Mynah suddenly demanded. "I always thought you were a treacherous bitch."

"No." D'Arlene answered for Temple with something very like righteous anger. "She honestly understood something the rest of us couldn't see, which makes her the only honorable medium in the room besides Agatha. You're projecting again, Mynah; you're trying to pass off your own dishonesty on someone else. It won't work anymore. Not after tonight. Word will get out. Here and Beyond. They don't call you the White Witch for nothing."

"I was going to say," Temple added, "that I've been called worse, but I don't think I have been. And it's true, I did think I saw someone outside the windows. I didn't get that word you all recognized from the likeness of Houdini, but from him, a tired old man, a kind of King Lear in a hat and cape."

"Maybe it was a prescient vision of Gandolph's spirit," Agatha said timidly. "I saw him too, and he looked much more like Gandolph than Houdini."

"So we've failed." Oscar Grant's voice was heavy. "I suppose tonight's footage was useless."

I'll take custody of that." Crawford stood and picked up Wayne's camera.

He almost dropped it again, being unaccustomed to the weight.

"What are you going to say about us, show about us on TV?" Mynah asked hysterically. "You can't believe a thing this so-called husband of mine says. Oscar is an utter fraud and Mangel's an academic fool and Agatha a neurotic and D'Arlene has pretensions of being some sort of head dorm-mother for helpless humanity--"

"You'll see. I may have something to sell to America's Most Wanted ."

Crawford headed for the door, camcorder clutched like a babe to his chest.

Oscar stood up to shout at his departing back. "But nobody killed Gandolph, can't you see?

He just died. Maybe his heart was bad; maybe he was allergic to chlorine, maybe he got blood poisoning from the ax? There's no crime here."

Crawford was gone, only the pounding of his footsteps down the stairs echoing up. Temple listened hard, hoping maybe she'd hear a crash.

"Well," Electra said. "Oscar is right. I don't see what we could report to the police ... if any of us felt we ought to report to the police. But I must say that I am disappointed in many of you.

I can't help thinking that the spirit world is too, and showed its disappointment in what we saw tonight. Temple, I think we should leave. It's been a very trying seance."

Temple stood, glad that her knees still supported her. Clearly, although Gandolph had died, no one had directly killed him, or had really meant to. She had arrived at the same conclusion as the police, much later, and after much more personal turmoil.

With all she had heard, there was something she couldn't get out of her mind. She had a confession to make too, about her part in the evening's events, but this was not the audience for it. Maybe the only audience for it was, as she had said before, not truly meaning it, "out there."

She meant that now.

Chapter 39

Ghostwriter in the Sky

Max's voice on the phone reverberates as from an echo chamber; it sounds like a communication from a ghost. Temple hasn't heard him on the phone for months. He sounds like a stranger again.

"You never did get to wear your prize shoes at the Crystal Ball at the Phoenix after the Halloween seance," he begins.

"No," she agrees. "But who told--?"

Max is a man less worried by who than by what. "Why don't you dig them out"--[he knows her closet]--"and well go out for dinner tonight?"

"But--"

"I can make out-of-the-way personal appearances, and I assume you're not a wanted woman . . . yet."

"Where can I wear such elaborate shoes?"

"Wherever you want to. You didn't worry about that before."

"I didn't have these shoes before. Max, I need to know where we're going so I know what else to wear."

"A classy little out-of-the-way place. Wear whatever goes with the shoes. I'll come by at seven."

Temple listens to the lull of the dial tone until the telephone wrangles at her to hang up.

Max is even more mysterious than before. She used to love his spur-of-the-moment social style.

It seemed spontaneous, fun. Now she understands that his sudden whimsical turns were dictated by grave considerations she never saw. Still, Max found the shoes; he deserves to celebrate his feat. Her feet. The Midnight Louie shoes.

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

Temple is ready by six-thirty and discovers that she can't sit down because Midnight Louie has left fine black hairs on every horizontal surface. She's wearing the ankle-length, stretch-velvet dress that never saw the lights of the Crystal Ball, and it's black anyway, but she doesn't want it to be furry too. Max isn't used to cat hair.

Tonight she's pinned a black enamel panther-head pin with emerald-green eyes a couple inches below the dress's soft turtleneck. Except for the Shoes, that's her only jewelry. She should be appropriately dressed for anything from Caesars Palace Court Continental restaurant to Three O'Clock Louie's at Temple Bar. She used to get so excited wondering where mysterious Max Kinsella would take her; now she's just worried. Should he be doing this? Is it safe? For him? For her?

He rings the doorbell, like a good lad.

She realizes she's never opened the door for him in this place. It does feel a little like prom night, only any flowers she'd get from Max would be paper.

He's wearing a matching black turtleneck, not velvet, and black blazer, slacks, shoes.

She can't help smiling. "We look like we're going to a mime's funeral."

"Except for your shoes." He looks down and she turns, the flared skirt swinging out.

"Spectacular, but I hope you don't think the real Midnight Louie should have a night out too."

"No. He's resting comfortably in the bedroom."

Max wanders in, looks toward the room under discussion. "I suppose he regards it as his territory now."

Temple thinks, and decides to leave that unanswered.

Max turns. "Ready?"

For what? "Sure."

She picks up her only evening bag, a silver minaudiere on a black satin string.

"Coat?"

"How cold can it get?" She holds out her arms in their wrist-length sleeves.

"You'll be all right."

She hopes so.

Locking the door behind her seems ostentatious, especially when she drops her key-heavy chain into the shallow black mouth of the tiny purse.

On the way down in the elevator Max leans against the polished wood. Temple wonders what kind of wheels he uses now.

It's cooler and darker outside than she had expected. In the parking lot, her aqua Storm is parked next to Electra's pink Probe; together they look like an ad for a Miami Vice rerun. Next to them sits a new Taurus that looks ... black.

Max opens the passenger door. "Gandolph's."

"Can you just use it?"

"I'm his heir," Max mentions after he gets in and pulls on the seat belt.

"Won't that be awkward? Won't you have to show up in court eventually?"

"No." Max doesn't explain further, and his voice, his profile don't encourage Temple to probe.

She stares ahead, thinking that the evening feels all wrong, that the Taurus isn't Max and it isn't her, it's a dead man's hearse. It's a dead relationship's hearse. The little purse sits on her lap like a dead thing, heavy and still. She curls her hands around it, not being used to carrying small purses, or sitting in a well-upholstered sedan with velour upholstery, or feeling like she's in a magazine ad for something.