Carole Douglas - Cat in an Alphabet Soup

“Midnight Louie is not a ‘pet,’ ” Temple announced loftily. “He is his own person, free to come and go, as I was informed today. And I guess he’s gone—from my life, anyway.”

“Maybe you could get another cat. Mrs. La—Electra— seems something of a pushover.”

“You noticed that, huh? No, I work such long hours sometimes it really wouldn’t be fair. All’s for the best. I should be glad my brilliant idea for an article not only cooled the ABA murder, but got M.L.—as my associate Crawford Buchanan would say—back home.”

“Too bad about the murder. I don’t blame you for getting down about it.” Matt’s brown eyes narrowed against the surrounding sunlight. “An ugly thing: one human being feeling such hatred toward another that he—or she—would actually end the other person’s life. Have the police any theories?”

“They don’t exactly consult me, although I spent half the day in the custody of Lieutenant Molina of LVMPD Sex and Homicide.”

“Why was he bothering with you?”

Temple smiled. Matt Devine’s laudable care with the gender of the possible murderer had fallen victim to the automatic assumption that a sex and homicide detective must be male—but then, maybe C. R. Molina was, in a way.

“Lieutenant Molina needed a tour guide to the American Booksellers Association convention. I learned more today about publishing than I want to know—and discovered even more reasons why an author might want to ax an editor than the ordinary reader would ever suspect. Remind me never to get the book-writing bug.”

“You’re not getting seriously caught up in the case?”

“No, I’m a definite fringe element, but I can’t help noticing things.”

“Leave it to the police; noticing too much might get dangerous.”

“Yeah, but it’s that communications major of mine. I have this insatiable need to know—and tell. Besides, people naturally seem to confide in me.”

“Not always an easy position to be in.”

“No.” Temple thought of Mavis Davis mauling her cocktail napkin not two hours before. “No.”

S he couldn’t sleepthat night. First she’d had a hot idea—she was always getting hot ideas after hours—and had consulted with Electra, who’d been only too happy to volunteer her talented fingers for a worthy project.

Then Temple had returned to her apartment and a sultry night alone. Visions of Matt Devine backing up Bob Dylan on an organ, wearing nothing but a pair of bathing trunks, revved her active imagination, along with scenes of Midnight Louie’s presumed triumphal welcome back into the bosom of the Crystal Phoenix.

And then there were the trio of authors she met that day. She hadn’t had a chance to talk to Lanyard Hunter, but he was scheduled for an interview tomorrow—today—and she probably could catch him then....

Could Mavis Davis really have smitten down Chester Royal? She was a sturdy-looking woman. A nurse would know how to manhandle large, inert bodies—and Chester Royal had been small-statured. Like Owen Tharp. No wonder they got along! Was Royal as controlling of Hunter as he was of Mavis Davis? Was it because she was a woman; or did Royal keep all his authors terminally insecure?

Temple had seen stage directors like that: men (and they always were; few women directed even nowadays) who used their entree to the artistic ego to twist it, to find and manipulate the self-doubting child that lurks in every adult. Such men were vicious egotists who claimed credit for their victims’ talent even while bending it past the breaking point.

No passion was more terrible than that of an artist who has given all and been betrayed. Temple had seen normally rational theater people ready to kill a klutzy critic for an undeserved insensitive review—could writers be any less intolerant of meddling with their words?

Temple shivered in her hot, limp sheets, under the lazy breeze of the ceiling fan’s Plexiglas blades. It clicked ever so slightly as it turned, sounding like the snap of distantly chewed gum.

The night was warm—Temple tried to keep utility bills down by running the air conditioner on “tepid” after the sun went down—and somehow sexy. God, but she missed Max sometimes! He’d left enough of his things behind to haunt Temple: a foot-wide swath of his clothes now huddled in the dark against the closet’s most inaccessible wall. In the linen closet, a box of magician’s implements—handcuffs, trick boxes and lurid chiffon scarves—gathered dust and would convince any stranger who stumbled across it that Temple favored kinky sexual practices. Speaking of which, Temple hadn’t yet had the heart to sweep the Vangelis CD’s off the bedroom shelves—Max had liked to make long, lingering love to those slow, swelling organlike chords....

Molina’s questions had evoked a new, terrifying scenario today. Max was gone because he was dead? No. Not Max. He was definitely not a victim—of anything, including too nice a conscience. Whatever Molina thought, Temple’s ego was not so in need of soothing that it would console her to know that Max had left—had left her—because he literally couldn’t come back.

That led Temple into her favorite bedtime fantasy. Max coming back. What Max would say, how he could possibly explain—and if anyone could, Max could. What Temple would say. What Max would do. What Temple would do. Oh, holy... Shalimar!

Lord. She’d forgotten the cat box, such as it was, in the bathroom. Had to get rid of that. In the morning. Which should soon be here. Great, another night down the tubes.

And then—what? A sound. A... soft, rasping sound. At her window. Noticing too much might get dangerous. The latches in this place were a joke. Nobody’d been worried about personal security in the fifties; besides, Superman—the comfortable old George Reeves rerun one—could always fly to the black-and-white TV rescue.

She listened. Silence. And then that determined brush, a motion repeated again and again. Deliberately. Against the shell of Temple’s apartment. Brush , brush, brush . No trees or branches lay against the windows or walls. Las Vegas had zip for trees or bushes unless they were expensively watered, and Electra could only afford to nurse the greenery around the pool.

Temple’s bare feet touched the bedroom floor. The wood parquet did nothing to cool their burning soles. She moved softly through the familiar demidark, wishing for a weapon, wishing for Max, who’d always been a two-edged sword.

In the living room, the handsome rank of French doors leading to the patio looked like nothing but glass and frame and flimsy struts. Had she even locked the doors for the night? Sometimes she felt so safe, she forgot.

Brush, brush, brush.

Stop.

Nothing.

She had moved. She had been heard.

Her breathing resumed. She could hear her lungs expanding. Brush, brush, brush . Too regular to be inanimate.

Maybe it was Max. Coming back. Be just like him, a surreptitious entry in the night. Surprise.

Brush, brush, brush.

Temple plucked an Art Deco-style ceramic peacock from an end table. The tail would make quite a bludgeon. She hushed toward the doors, feeling naked in her thin T-shirt, feeling cold in the warm, still room.

Brush, brush, brush.

The patio was terra incognita, a distorted landscape of folding chair and prickly pear. The sound was just outside the third door.

Temple edged nearer. She had to see.

A bit of shadow broke off from the night. She had to know. An insane—inane?—need to know.