Unknown - 23_Cat_In_A_Vegas_Gold_Vendetta

“You know ‘the past is present’ in all police work.”

“In Shakespeare, too,” she said. “Don’t get fancy on me. So where were the boys earlier this evening? From the time it got dark?”

“As assistant security chief at the Oasis Hotel, Nadir gets assigned mostly night shifts.”

“So he was there?”

“No. He alternates from the three-to-eleven-P.M. shift to the eleven-P.M-to-seven-A.M. turn. He went out for dinner about eight.”

“Not at the Oasis? He’d get comped.”

“Nope. Nice restaurant in Henderson. Offers this fancy fondue of several courses, steak to strawberries.”

“I know the place.”

“Then you know the spread takes a couple hours or more to eat.”

“Rafi has an alibi. How nice for him. Still, was he alone?”

“Nope.”

She waited for him to say more, but he didn’t, and she wasn’t going to ask, man or woman? They both knew Nadir was her ex, ex-live-in anyway, and the last thing she wanted to look like in front of Max Kinsella was insecure. If you’re going to be a rattlesnake handler, don’t blink.

“What about Dirty Larry?” she asked.

“Love that street name. He’s more interesting than Nadir in another way. I got on him as soon as Rafi was settled down with his appetizer course of exotic dipping vegetables, rutabagas, and snow peas.”

“That sounds so disgusting,” she said.

“The place is all the rage. Lots of couples get engaged there.”

Molina bit her lip. Was Rafi courting some … woman? Good! Maybe he’d forget his shared custody hopes for Mariah. Not likely on second thought. He’d have better luck if he was settled and married. Unlike a working mother with a demanding 24/7 job.

“Dirty Larry was another story,” Kinsella went on. “As soon as Rafi was snuggled in with his flame-melted cheeses and chilled wine courses, I looked up Podesta. He has a police radio in his car, which was sitting on the fringes of that mall parking lot when you pulled into it after the uniforms had answered the alarm.

“He has a police radio in his personal vehicle?”

“Yeah. Big old Impala. Kinda cool. Almost Barracuuudah.”

“Only to overage juvenile delinquents.” She peered toward the street. “What are you driving now?”

“You’ll never see it. Ditto Nadir and Podesta. Isn’t that what you hired me for? To be an unseen man of mystery?”

“I hired you to report without any fancy frills. So Larry was on the crime scene before I got there? For how long?”

“Long enough to have done the deed and faded into the wings until you saw him arrive later.”

“But you were there at the same time, too.”

“Ay, there’s the rub.”

“Not Shakespeare again.”

“Appropriate for the tragic death tonight.”

“Yes. It is all about the victim. Wait! Are you leaving?” The dark near her seemed less dense.

“I’m going home,” his voice said, fading, “to put Elvis on the sound system.”

“You listen to Elvis?”

“‘Suspicious Minds,’” Max Kinsella said. “Classic.”

Chapter 23

Break Dancing

Imagine my surprise to see myself mirrored in the window.

Not exactly mirrored.

The dude is the same species and gender as me, but his vibrissae are black and his brown tabby coat is longer than mine, forming a lionlike mane around his face. His eyes are as narrowed and his pupils as dark as mine.

If I had wanted to have a mirror-go-round, I could not do to better to come up with a worthy opponent. So imagine my surprise when he lays a set of hooked claws on the window crank inside and makes it do the boogie-woogie.

In an instant a wave of fully feline occupation wafts into my sensitive black nostrils as the window swings outward. We are talking clowder here, and indoor.

“Let me in by the hairs of my chinny-chin-chin,” I order. “You need outside help. Something very dark and dirty is going down here, and only I—”

“Cat burglar!” my doorman screeches. “Black as sin and hanging by his dewclaws from our doorway.”

Immediately there commences such a caterwauling as has not been heard outside a Disney animation.

The inner watchcat rolls out the window sideways, so I am almost knocked four feet back and eight feet down on my keister.

It is only by the scrabbling of my claws that I am able to dodge the opening window and to eel inside, not without plummeting down two feet to a countertop.

“Reach for the cupboard handles and identify yourself, stranger,” the big hairy dude demands. “Maverick is my name and guardian is my game.”

“Louie, Midnight Louie. Founder of Midnight Investigations, Inc.”

Immediately, hordes of housebound kitties loft up to greet me, eager for news of the outer world.

“So you are a detective? Detect. Where is our wonderful Mister Pedro?” they mew plaintively. “He always brought us Fiesta Feline bits and tended to the indoor plumbing.”

“We miss him,” a quartet of calico kittens croon. “He was our schnooky-wooky, hunny-bunny, daily-waily do-the-doo-doo kinda kind and special dude.”

“I hate to break the news, crew.” I crawl atop a cookie jar for a podium. “Your daily-waily guy-to-go-to is gone, a victim of what may be Mother Nature—as are we all—or the all-too-common Foul Play.”

The wails turn into boos and boo-hoos.

“I am here,” I howl, to overcome the winsome kitten choruses, “to make things right. But I need your cooperation and testimony.”

Several males shrink at my mention of the last word.

Maverick stares them down. “Miss Violet has always seen us properly tended, so there would be no untoward breeding. We are all righteous dudes. You do not come in unless you are litter-free. Right, cat burglar?”

I am not about to admit to this politically correct crowd that I have an escape clause, namely my involuntary vasectomy. It is too big a word for them, anyway. It is too big a word for me, too. I am not much excited about having something to do with a pansy container like a “vase.”

Wouldn’t you know that Miss Midnight Louise picks this moment to finally claw her way onto the windowsill and into my persuasive pitch?

“He and me, his essential partner in Midnight Investigations, Inc., are litter-free,” she announces, making all the female ears in the area, which are numerous, perk up. “Midnight Louise is the name.”

The females inside commence to caterwaul themselves hoarse, since they always stick together, much to male detriment. Or they do not like competition. Although I do not admit the kit-chit is an offspring, I must admit she got a share of my striking good looks from somewhere very close to me. The motives of the female of the species, any species, are always multiple and subtle.

“Maverick,” I howl, “I rely on your guidance.”

Having thus named my inside man, I leap to the kitchen floor.

Ook! It is covered with niblets of dry kibble and maybe dingleberries and ear wax. Despite the best intentions of humans and civic animal-control acts, there may indeed be “too many cats” here for one indoor clowder.

My poor Miss Temple! She is fighting a losing battle. Unless we organize these cats to protect their helpless defender and keep Miss Violet alive, we will not be able to prevent her losing her feline friends to the merciless disposition of the law, and, even worse, whatever friends and family she has who want the whole kit and caboodle … by which I mean money, not formerly feral furs.

While the resident mob gathers to look us over, I convey all my concerns to Miss Midnight Louise through soft whispers and body language.

“None of that here!” a tortoiseshell of size says, boxing my ears.