Douglas, Nelson - Midnight Louie 05-Cat in a Diamond Dazzle

"No, she didn't."

"What do you mean?"

"This stepfather of yours did the usual bad stepfather things, didn't he?"

Matt felt his muscles stiffen even as he maintained his relaxed posture. Had Temple told Max--?

Kinsella went on as if unaware of Matt's hesitation. "At least he did if he was Cliff Effinger. I asked around. Effinger left his happy hometown for Vegas, drank, gambled, got arrested for all sorts of lowlife offenses that don't add up to much jail time, but do comprise a long, documented trail. Look, Devine. Cliff Effinger left his fingerprints all over this town. Why did this Ms. Molina need you to schlepp on down to the morgue and stare at the copper pennies on his eyes?"

Kinsella's eyes--disconcertingly Midnight-Louie green-- focused on Matt like quizzical laser beams. Confused, Matt clutched at any nearby floating assumptions.

"I'm sure Lieutenant Molina had a reason--"

"So am I," Kinsella put in, with feeling. He leaned forward on the little chair, propping his forearms on his thighs. "Think about it. There was no reason to put you through that charade."

"Sometimes," Matt answered slowly, "women like that want you to confront yourself."

"She's that mean?"

"Not mean. Just in a position of authority with a benign sense of mission." He remembered Sister Seraphina prodding him into performing an anointing of the sick on Miss Tyler. The elderly nun had wanted him to face the fact that his former priesthood was always with him. Maybe Molina had wanted him to face his stepfather's death and his own hatred of the man. But she was a police detective, not a therapist. Besides, she couldn't have known about Effinger's family abuse, unless Temple had told her, and Temple was hardly on speaking terms with either Molina or Kinsella these days.

Speak of the devil. He looked up again to find Kinsella studying him. Except for the eyes, Max Kinsella was not a mesmerizingly handsome man. His face was angular and intelligent, his features so mobile that one glimpsed many men behind the frequently exchanged masks. Matt had encountered such chimerical personalities before; everyone had concealed a secret and insecure core. Every one could have charmed the snake off the Tree of All Knowledge in Eden.

"You're right," Matt admitted, wondering why he hated that fact so much, hated it almost as much as being virtually naked before a man in a Hawaiian shirt. "Having me identify a man with a police record doesn't make sense. I was so... confused at the time, that never dawned on me."

"Trust the police to confuse you. So you hadn't seen your stepfather in years?"

Matt nodded.

"And did it do you any good?"

"Did what?"

"Seeing him dead?"

"No."

"Hmmm. You weren't surprised by his manner of death, though?"

"He left home when I was sixteen."

"Voluntarily?"

Matt shrugged. He wasn't going to perform a post mortem on his family life for the benefit of the Mystifying Max.

"Maybe you don't care what he was up to all those years since then. I do, though."

"Why?"

The man stared at him as Midnight Louie was wont to do: an expression impassive, yet superior, and even vaguely prodding. An unspoken "Well?"

Matt saw the light, and didn't like it. "You're not sure Cliff Eftuv ger is dead, are you?"

"Look at me. The rumors of my demise were false."

Matt forgot Kinsella for once, plunging again into the cool, shifting ocean of the past. "I'd like to know for sure, for my mother's sake," he admitted despite himself.

"For your mother's sake." Repeated sardonically. "Well, then." Kinsella clapped flat palms to the tabletop. The gesture should have hurt. He grinned. "I'd say that we have more than one common interest. Let's forget our unflattering assumptions about each other and look into our pair of dead men."

"You're a loner. Why the buddy act?"

"I'm also supposed to be missing. I try to keep my personal appearances to a bare minimum."

Matt winced at the expression.

"Besides," Kinsella said, "it's better for Temple if most of the folk out there still think so. I could use a front man."

Matt laughed. "Another magic act, with me as the distraction. What do I get out of this?"

"You may find out who killed your stepfather, and why. Or . . . you may find out that he still needs killing."

"And why would I care?"

"Because, trust me, you do," Kinsella said, rising. "You can't help it."

Chapter 9

Spray for Rain

Although I dare not enter the Crystal Phoenix until I can check out the whereabouts and mood of my ungrateful offspring, Midnight Louise, I can lurk outside. This I do, for two good reasons. I am determined to rekindle the relationship between me and Miss Savannah Ashleigh's purebred pride and joy, the Divine Yvette. I am also not averse to keeping an eye on my other little doll, for it has not been lost upon me that she is somewhat at loose ends, what with one thing and another. Frankly, I fear for her sanity.

So there I am, keeping unobtrusive watch for any comings and goings of an intriguing nature. That is how I come to see a certain party of three exiting the Crystal Phoenix Hotel and Casino. For those unfamiliar with my usual turf, the Phoenix is a modest establishment more noted for class than crass.

Once I pick up the trio's trail, I recognize two of the subjects at once: Miss Temple Barr and Miss Electra Lark, for the simple reason that neither of them are unknown to me.

The third is a puzzler, though in some ways a riper version of Miss Temple. Anyway, they link arms and amble down the Strip, laughing and talking like old friends. This is suspicious in itself, for I have never laid eyes on the new doll, who looks old enough to be Miss Temple's mother or Miss Electra's sister. Could she be both? Anything is possible in the Naked City. (Some call the Big Crabapple of New York the Naked City, but Las Vegas is better qualified for that nickname, whether you count half-naked chorus girls or stripped-bare gamblers who leave this town in little more than suspenders and a barrel.) Midnight Louie does not require the presence of an unexplained person to realize that something is up. Miss Temple and Miss Electra have skipped out on the Circle Ritz far too abruptly to evade my whisker-trigger suspicions. I hope that this outing will enlighten me. I have little trouble tailing them along the Strip, which is crowded with foot traffic. I am always well beneath notice among foot traffic.

Certain advantages pertain to being the little guy.

The ladies' path heads south. I watch the Luxor's obelisk steadily swell at the Strip's southern end. It spikes the brilliant blue autumn sky like a giant's upside down thumbtack. Meanwhile, I keep a profile lower than a craps player on a losing streak, darting from one island of landscaping to the other, as if chasing butterflies. Such subterfuge hardly seems necessary. Most folks afoot in Las Vegas are gawking up at towering hotels and signs. That is why a slack-jawed jaywalker perishes every three days in this town, that and maybe all the free drinks at the casinos and not enough brain cells to bet on something other than traffic flow. These jaywalkers are a mystery anyway. I cannot see any advantage in it. You will not catch Midnight Louie walking a jay across the Strip during rush hour--not even a trained cockatoo Anyway, there I am crouching in the petunias before I hop into the next nest of marigolds or what have you. And so on. In a matter of blocks (and blocks along the Las Vegas Strip are on the gargantuan side, on both sides!) it becomes apparent where the ladies three are heading: only one hotel stands head and maned shoulders above the others this side of the Strip: the MGM Grand. This sweeping structure of green glass is reminiscent not so much of the Emerald City in Oz as it is of a tidal wave halted in mid-crash. The MGM Grand's 5005 rooms make it the world's largest hotel. It takes its calculated leisure in an architectural sprawl that covers twice the acreage of the other Strip behemoths.