Unknown - 23_Cat_In_A_Vegas_Gold_Vendetta

They neared the sculpted hunk of high-end metal, and Matt murmured “Maybe not.”

The front driver’s side tire was flat, obviously … slashed. An ice pick lay beside it.

“N … ice. What a way to treat an artwork.” Leticia shook her beaded braids until they tsked. “How’d you ever afford this baby?”

“Didn’t. It was a … gift,” Matt said, sickened by the vandalism. He wasn’t a Material Guy but he appreciated beauty. “‘Cashew leather interior with truffle trim.’ So said the owner’s manual. Very fattening to the wallet. Obviously out of my class.”

“At least she didn’t key it.” Leticia was on her cell phone, reporting the vandalism to the station security service and requesting a night guard for what was left of it while Matt looked up the dealer service number. Apparently, Jaguars weren’t allowed to languish.

“They’ll fix it and have it back to your place pronto.”

“You’re sure?” Matt asked.

“Hon, you get a twenty-four-hour nanny with cars this classy. It looks like you’ll have to ride in my Elvis Beetle, then I’ll drop you off at home. Better this way. You can drink, and you need one right now more than I do. Good thing Vegas is a twenty-four-hour town.”

The guard’s car was already entering the parking lot, and the uniformed guard who exited it was the usual middle-aged and thirty pounds overweight.

“Whew,” she whistled when she saw the XJ and the flat. “Pure jealousy. I go off duty in four hours.”

“That’s okay.” Leticia fished her set of station keys from her humongous designer bag. “Personnel comes in at five A.M.”

“A shame,” the guard told Matt. “Looks brand new.”

“One day. Be careful,” he told her. “The person who did this may still be lurking and must have had a lot of anger, and strength.”

She patted the holster on her hip. “So do I, if necessary.”

*

Las Vegas thronged with corny bars and lounges all trying to live up to the Strip’s glamour.

Leticia didn’t take him to one of those but to a freestanding building with a vintage blue-and-magenta neon sign outside.

“The Blue Dahlia,” Matt said, sounding as surprised as he felt.

“You know it?” Leticia went on without pause. “Great little club. I like the jazz trio, and sometimes a kick-ass torch singer sits in with them. Really rocks good for a white girl.”

Matt beat back a smile. Molina would get a kick out of that “review.” But the sometimes singing cop known at the Blue Dahlia as Carmen hadn’t come out to add vocal riffs to the music lately, as far as he knew, and she’d never perform this late. She had someone to watch over—not her; she was unattached and always had been since he’d known her—but her teen daughter at home needed protection.

“We close at three,” the waiter warned.

“We only need one drink—his,” Leticia said, pointing.

Matt wanted this fast and simple, so he ordered Scotch on the rocks.

Leticia was even faster on the draw when it came to getting down to business.

“Okay, Matt. Who was that woman caller who abused our shows?”

“A psychopath.”

“Ya-uh. How’d she get to be your psychopath?”

“By proxy.” Matt leaned back as his drink arrived. “She was someone else’s psychopath first, only he was harder to find than I was.”

“This is really creepy. I’ll have a Doctor Pepper,” she told the departing waiter. “And what’s the supercreamy, polyester shiny, Eurotrash, über-cool car about?”

“I’d rather discuss the phone stalker.”

Leticia’s big brown eyes grew bigger. “Am I smelling bad news here? You said that car was a gift. I can’t imagine your redheaded girlfriend letting you take anything compromising from … Madonna, say.”

Matt had to smile. “You’re right, but I’m not sure I’m keeping it.”

“I saw the temporary license plate. Is it insured?”

“By the dealership right now.”

“’Cuz those tires are mondo pricey, Jag-boy. It’s not the free original investment, it’s the upkeep. So who’s giving you my salary in cars?”

“You know your syndication deal pulls down a lot more than mine. The car is … a bribe, maybe.”

“You, take a bribe?”

“There’s a possibility of a daytime talk show.”

“Oh, my sainted seat at Oprah’s last network show and all my loot! It’s amazing she gave out VW Beetles when I already have a cooler one. You were in Chicago to visit family and do your occasional Amanda Show gig. They want you to do a solo?”

“Try a solo. Yeah. With Oprah heading her OWN cable network, the legacy network talk-show feeding frenzy is on rolling boil. OWN, Oprah Winfrey Network. That takes chutzpah. I don’t know, Leticia. Do I have the hunger for it? It would turn my life upside down just as Temple and I are planning to get married.”

“Good timing. Marriage means changing cribs, maybe even baby cribs. Producers on the level you’re dealing with would move the world for you.”

“I could bomb.”

“Yup. But my money would be on you. You got the chops and the voice all honed on radio, the most demanding form of talk show. And you got the looks. Is that why this spoiler babe showed up, just to rain on your parade?”

“Of course not,” Matt said. He didn’t say the thought that zapped his mind: Of course! Max Kinsella is back and so is Kathleen O’Connor. Both back, back from the dead.

Leticia downed half of her freshly arrived Dr Pepper, dressed up in a tall, footed glass with a spring of mint.

“My advice?” she said. “Finish your Scotch and prepare to blast home to the Circle Ritz in my ‘Blue Suede’ Beetle-rocket. What a combo! The King and the Brit bug-boys who usurped him … for a while. Betcha that fiancée is waiting up to greet you on your first night back on The Midnight Hour. You two have a lot to talk about, much more than me and thee.”

“That’s the truth,” Matt said, toasting her before draining his lowball glass.

On the small stage behind a similarly small dance floor, two couples were slow-dancing. The trio was riffing on a melody that got more familiar with every note, “One for My Baby (and One More for the Road).” Set ’em up, Joe.

“It’s quarter to three,” Matt told Leticia. “I’ve got to be getting home.”

She nodded and produced cash from her bottomless bag, nodding at their empty glasses.

“I guess we had the ‘one’ for your psycho ‘baby’ and one more for the road. I just hope you’re not the one being set up.”

Chapter 26

Yves of Destruction

What do the letters YSL mean to you?

If you are a fashionista or keep abreast of au courant lists of Who’s Who in the world celebrity-name sweepstakes, you would promptly say, Yves Saint Laurent, of course, the twentieth century’s most celebrated high-fashion and therefore highfalutin French dress designer.

Alas, YSL died a couple years ago, although his fashion brand lives on.

But the YSL I am referring to is not a fancy label flaunted on a handbag. It is that immortal trio (besides the Three Musketeers) of Yvette, Solange, and Louie.

Of course we all have more than a single name. It is the Divine Yvette, the Sublime Solange, and Midnight Louie.

However, as I stare upon the startled faces and almost unrecognizable forms of the Divine and Sublime ones, I fear I am going to have to find new sobriquets for the darlings of the purebred Persian set … such as the Disheveled Yvette and the Shredded Solange.

“Yvette!” I yowl in disbelief. “Solange!”

“Louie!” they wail in echoing chorus.

The Persian formerly known as Divine turns her face from me. “I have not had my hair done in ages, Louie; you must avert your eyes.”