Unknown - 19_Cat_In_A_Red_Hot_Rage

“Then how did you end up at the Crystal Phoenix?” Su pounced.

Elmore Lark winced and fingered his cowboy hat on the tabletop. Sometimes even your props will let you down. “Oleta e-mailed me to come. Said she knew something of interest to me. About Electra. And I had other interests in town.”

Su and Alch sat back in their chairs as one.

It looked like the long-ago romantic triangle was still plenty alive and kicking … until someone had throttled Oleta.

At least there is another suspect on the scene besides Miss Electra Lark.

I hiss as much to Louise.

Below us, the humans are leaving the room.

“Why do you always refer to your human lady friends as Miss when some of them are actually Mrs.?” Louise asks in that annoyed tone females and relatives get when they have nothing better to do than pick on some innocent nearby dude.

“It is a courtesy title, Louise. I even use it with you, at times, though Bast knows you have given me little courtesy. All human females were ‘Misses’ at one time and I honor their eternally youthful origins by using that honorific. And, as you have seen and heard, these ‘Mrs.’ titles come and go nowadays.”

“Do you think that your MissTemple, now that she is about to become Mr. Matt’s MissTemple and maybe his Mrs., will soon be a ‘Miss’ again?”

“One never knows in this town,” I answer grimly. If my MissTemple does decide to reside in a state of holy matrimony, I would hope it would be permanent. I do not like to move from pillar to post office. “And you have made my point, Louise. Aman is always a ‘Mr.; no matter his marital status. Ergo, I do not see why a woman should not always remain a ‘Miss:”

“I get that, but who is this ‘Ergo’?”

“Merely an expression referring to some Latin lover type, no doubt. Speaking of which, it might behoove us to look up Mr. Aldo Fontana and his doings with MissTemple’s aunt. They are on the case too, and those Fontana brothers are very well–”

“Built?”

“Connected, I was going to suggest.”

But I admit I am disappointed that even the fiercely independent Miss Midnight Louise can fall prey to a tall, dark guy with a world-class tailor.

Chapter 22

Midnight Madness

Matt Devine sat behind the mike at WCOO-AM, listening to other people’s problems.

His own sounded miniature by comparison: a newfound long-lost father in his hometown of Chicago. A mother who wanted to run from a past too traumatic to remember, including an abusive ex-husband, except that Matt’s real father had been the only good thing in it. And now that Matt had found that man by happenstance and whatever saint presided over happy endings, she wanted to run from him.

Parents. Way overrated once you were past twenty-one.

But he was only four years past thirty, and way too many of those years had been spent as a dedicated Catholic priest. He didn’t regret those years, not even the celibacy. He’d donesome good. But time had made clear that he’d run to the priesthood in search of a more perfect father than his abusive stepfather, Cliff Effinger, even if he had to become that “Father” himself.

He’d come to Las Vegas to track down and confront Effinger, but the man he found was too small to fear or hate, and was dead now, anyway. Meanwhile, Matt had stumbled from hotline counseling into a radio shrink job that made “Mr. Midnight” a hot syndicated property.

He’d also met an empathetic, energetic fireball named Temple Barr who’d made him glad he’d waited seventeen years for her … and her heroic significant other, charismatic ex-magician Max Kinsella. Now the men’s roles had changed.

The Mystifying Max, as his stage name promised, had been in—and out—of Temple’s life for so long that the stifled attraction between her and Matt finally had flared. And how. Matt breathed hard each time he recalled every word, every kiss, every touch, every move. With more to come. He’d been infatuated with Temple since they met, but now the cat was out of the bag and it was ravenous.

And still his happiness didn’t feel guaranteed. Max was a powerful presence even when he went AWOL … and Matt?

It was past midnight in Las Vegas. Matt had a $48,000 vintage engagement ring in his coat pocket because his betrothed didn’t want to wear it “yet” and he couldn’t bear to inter it in the new floor safe in his newly redone bedroom … where he’d done and redone his betrothed even though that was against every rule for an ex-priest maybe on the road to becoming ex-Catholic.

Come to think of it, “Mr. Midnight,” on-air shrink extraordinaire, had plenty problems of his own.

And still freight cars full of free-floating anxiety and angst poured in from the featureless night. From phones in cheap motel rooms and in ticky-tacky box houses, at bars, in dark living rooms, dialed secretly.

“He/she is running around on me.”

“No one can know I’m pregnant.”

“No one can know I had an abortion/adoption/stillbirth.”

“Why does he hit me if he says he loves me?”

“Why doesn’t he boff me if he says he loves me?”

“Why does she run around with every dude on the block?”

“Should I marry him/her even if he/she is physically/sexually/verbally abusive?”

Sometimes, lately, Matt, the most levelheaded of men, wanted to scream, “How should I know?”

But they thought he did, so he tried to give them honest, supportive advice. Sometimes he hung up the oversize foam-padded earphones for the night feeling that he had.

Not tonight. He got into his Crossfire outside the station and drove back to the Circle Ritz on autopilot.

He needed to confront Temple about what wasn’t happening between them. Two-thirty in the morning was a lousy time to do it, but he needed to know.

Besides, he ached to see her again. He’d spent so long subduing all the crazy throbs and fevers of first love, and now it was combined with the wonders and passion of first sex. He was glad they’d been forced to be just friends so long, so they knew each other deep down. Now she’d become a drug he couldn’t get enough of, and that felt so right.

Matt stood in the dim hallway, wondering whether to knock.

He sure wasn’t about to ring the old-fashioned doorbell. That would wake the whole floor.

Max Kinsella, he knew, had made a habit of coming and going unannounced via the patio doors, an unpredictable and dazzling second-story man to the end.

Matt still felt he ought to knock, which was maybe a pretty bad sign. He pulled out his cell phone and dialed Temple’s number, feeling like a fool.

The ringing stopped. She sounded groggy, of course. “Yes?”

“It’s me.” Stupid line.

“Matt? Oh.” He could hear the rustle of sheets as she settled up against her pillows. “It’s been so crazy. I’m so glad to hear your voice.”

He could have admitted he’d been crazy too but that didn’t seem wise at the moment.

“Where are you?” she asked. “Just home?”

“Yeah. Just home.” He leaned against the wall. Her wall. “I’ve been running around all day at the Crystal Phoenix.”

“Still chaos there?”

“A convention of five thousand divided between the Phoenixand the Goliath? Yes. And … well, the usual, at the Phoenix, unfortunately. Listen, if you’re not too tired, and could come down for a while—?”

“I am down.”

“Down?”

“I’m at your door.”

“Oh.” There was a silence. Had he overstepped his bounds? “Oh! Well! Wait just a sec. I need to put something … off.” The cell phone died in his hand, but he’d definitely detected a perk in her interest level.

Two minutes later the door opened. Temple was wearing something long and red and filmy and dotted with rhinestones that was amazingly deficient at covering her breasts.