Unknown - 23_Cat_In_A_Vegas_Gold_Vendetta

Hah!

The night was my basinet and is now my beat and my business.

Some people barhop. I carhop. Not as in serving fast food to anybody but myself. I am a high-level low-ender. With my natural coat of cat-burglar black, I can enter pretty much any vehicle on the planet. Not to brag. So I got there with Miss Temple, but I felt no obligation to leave with her, even if she “brung” me, loathsome expression.

I had a quiet corner chat with the hiss-and-run combo of Caterina and Tabitha and arranged the artful chase that allowed me to literally point out that Dirty Larry has been skulking around crime scenes far too long for anyone’s good.

Some private dicks would dust off their trench coats and say, “My work here is done.”

Not Midnight Louie. Have coat, will travel. Or stay put. I got these feelings that put more than my neck hairs on parade salute. Tonight my hunches raised my hackles all the way down my spine to the end of my second-most-valuable member.

So I hunkered down during the farewells to settle into a quiet evening with Miss Lieutenant C. R. Molina and her two somewhat dim-witted rescue girls.

Not everybody can be the brains of the operation, and I do employ freelance assistants at Midnight Investigations, Inc., when necessary.

So not only did I get the chance to alert my Miss Temple and associates to the suspicious lurking behavior I have long observed in Dirty Larry—not that lurking is suspicious when I do it—but I got to see and hear Mr. Max Kinsella come along after my revelation and give the same warning, if at more tedious length. I am always short and to the point. I was born that way.

Moreover, I did not alert Larry to anyone’s being on guard about him, as Miss Lieutenant certainly chewed out Mr. Max for doing.

Plus, I overheard lots of juicy back-and-forth that would have had my Miss Temple salivating, could I but convey long narratives to her.

Let us just say I have more insights on all sorts of actions and reactions among the human sort. One cannot underestimate the usefulness of on-scene snoopery.

Miss Midnight Louise will be so burned up about what she missed.

Chapter 30

Boys’ Night Out

“I’m not sure if it’s a good idea to get to know each other,” Max Kinsella’s strong, familiar voice told Matt over the phone the next day, “but since I’m not sure of much of anything, including my past, I’ll have to take Temple’s word on it. And yours. You’re the professional shrink.”

“Not a shrink. A counselor, and I think it’s best we meet on neutral ground.”

“Not your place or my place, then?”

“No.” Matt couldn’t stomach seeing Max back at the Circle Ritz. And although Kinsella’s residence might reveal things the man himself wouldn’t say, Matt wasn’t curious enough, or stupid enough, to venture onto his territory.

“The Crystal Phoenix?” Max suggested.

Matt mentally rejected that idea. Too much “Temple” all over that place. He got a wicked idea, and it was out of his mouth before he could weigh it.

“How about a jazz club called the Blue Dahlia? The background music keeps conversations private without being strident.”

“What an intriguing name,” Kinsella said. “Let’s try it. Have I ever been there?”

“Not that I know of.”

“But you have?”

“A couple times. My WCOO producer took me out for a nightcap there. Actually, early this morning.”

“Male or female?”

“She also has her own syndicated show under the name Ambrosia.”

“Ah, the after-dark Siren of Sympathy and Schmaltz.”

“She helps a lot of people. You’ve heard her, so you must remember that?”

“You must remember this: I only remember trivial things from years ago and only a couple weeks in Europe from before I came back to Vegas. The house I … inherited here … is … empty.”

Matt held a pause that would be far too much “empty” airtime.

Of course, Matt thought. The man who’d owned that house and to whom Max owed so much was dead now. Kinsella must have been checking out The Midnight Hour and caught Ambrosia’s show, too.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Matt said. “And Ambrosia, she’s less siren than sister,” he added, “to everybody.”

Now Kinsella kept quiet for too long.

“Yeah,” he said finally. “It’s easy to be cynical if you haven’t suffered. I hope they serve cool drinks at the Blue Dahlia, along with the hot jazz.”

“Of course.”

“It’s six now. How about dinner at eight?”

Matt had his marching orders, as he imagined Kinsella did, so the connection was broken with mutual but gruff, “All right”s.

Except nothing was “all right,” Matt thought as he pocketed his cell phone.

And it was getting wronger by the minute. He’d checked his latest messages and recognized the several megs of a pictorial porn solicitation from RazorGrrl666@hitmail.com and deleted it. Again. He’d have to figure out how to block it. He wasn’t ready to declare that Kitty the Cutter was on his trail again, until he had better proof.

Maybe the Blue Dahlia wasn’t the best rendezvous site. Temple had mentioned that Max was drinking hard the night he came back, but he’d just run out on that homicidal mess in Belfast. He’d had his reasons.

Matt had some reasons, too.

What rotten timing that his talk-show career was going stratospheric just as Kinsella made his dramatic return. Max had pried Temple loose of Minneapolis and her family to follow him to Vegas. Did Matt have the moxie to pull Temple away from her new Vegas home to follow her man? Did he want to? He now had family “issues” in Chicago, and any new life for him and Temple—and Midnight Louie—would have to deal face-to-face with that mess.

That couldn’t be as bad as dealing face-to-face with the new Max. Tough for him, but really rough on Temple and her sympathetic soul. Matt had to forget his insecurities and do what was best for Temple.

First things first.

Matt agreed with Temple that all three needed to discuss their interlocking pasts and possible mutual enemies, and that he and Max needed to meet before she became involved.

Still, they hadn’t discussed bringing Molina into the case. Molina’d had a lot of family business on her mind and had stopped performing undercover as Carmen, the Blue Dahlia’s come-and-go torch singer.

Temple would be the first to swear that Matt didn’t have a mean bone in his body, but he felt a distinctly wicked tingle in his funny bone right now.

What if Molina showed up at the Blue Dahlia to sing for some insanely remote reason and saw her most elusive suspect sitting in the audience?

Now that would be a psychologically satisfying confrontation to mediate.

*

Matt pulled the Jag into the Blue Dahlia parking lot two hours later, wondering if a law-enforcement pro like Molina remembered, every time she arrived, the dead body found near her car here, many months ago. The words She left had even been painted on her Volvo. No wonder “Carmen” hadn’t been on the Blue Dahlia menu lately. Now Molina had “left.”

So she probably remembered, but with less of the sudden sadness that Matt felt. That killer had been caught. Her job was done on that case. Or maybe not.

He checked the parking lot for a car Kinsella might have driven, but spotted nothing in the Mystifying Max’s trademark black. Matt turned to punch the lock button and jumped, less at the sharp bleep the device made than at the voice so close behind him.

“Look who won the lottery.”

He turned to find Max looming, looking gaunter and therefore even taller than his six-four.

“How’d you recognize me if you don’t remember me?” Matt asked.