Carole Douglas - Cat in a Red Hot Rage

One thing he loved about working nights—and there were a lot of things he didn't—was having uncrowded daytime access to things that normally would be unpleasantly crowded. There were usually seven or eight after-work visitors to the pool. Now he had it all to himself.

He'd come here late at night too, before or after his "Midnight Hour" stint, which was now two hours and no longer accurately titled. Temple had recently confessed to watching him then, sometimes. That innocent little voyeuristic admission had been wildly . . . stimulating. But so was everything she said and did these giddy, sexy engagement days and nights.

He was smiling as he swam to the side to pull himself up on the pool's tile edge when he heard the cell phone "ring." Templehad helped him program the call signal, a paid-for download of Bob Dylan's "Forever Young." He liked the way the song echoed the New Testament Beatitudes. Once a priest, always a sucker for biblical phrasing.

Not a lot of people called him. His agent. His immediate boss at WCOO radio. Temple.

So he raced for the cell phone, dripping on the hot concrete, snatching it up from the towel, and sitting on the lounge chair. "Yes?"

“Matt! I'm so glad I reached you.”

He lay back in the soothing sunlight, letting his skin and the sunscreen protecting it soak up rays. "Me too."

“I mean now.”

There was more than banter under her words. Matt sat up again. "What's happened?"

“Everything! I'm at the Crystal Phoenix. They're holding a huge convention here, and they almost were holding Electra for murder. I just got back from the Circle Ritz talking to her around two. You weren't there."

“Just got back now myself, in time to slip in some laps before the five o'clock crowd hits the pool."

“Oooh, what are you wearing besides a light tan?”

“Light tan swim trunks."

“Are you alone?"

“Yeah, apparently."

“Could I get you to take them off?"

“Hardly!"

“Phone sex is something we haven't tried yet."

“I can wait."

“Oh, don't mind lascivious me. I'm just trying to take my mind off all the really terrible things that have happened already today."

“Electra, under suspicion of murder? What on earth is that about?"

“It's too hard to explain over the phone: hundreds of women in red hats, some of them in pink hats. One strangled with a Red Hat lady scarf. Electra found her dead, and the victim happens to be the vixen who stole her third husband thirty years ago.”

“I am not following this."

“You don't have to. I'm on it. The Fontana brothers are on it. Our old friends Alch and Su are on it. What's really wigging me out right now, selfish as it is, isn't Electra's and the Crystal Phoenix's PR troubles. It's . . . oh, dammit, Matt. It's Max.”

He'd really, really hoped to hear as little of that name as possible.

“I needed to talk to somebody about it, and I know you're the last person I should, but Electra's in no state to deal with my petty problems—"

“I'm the first person you should come to. Always. About anything."

“I know. And I love you for it. Here's the thing. Aldo Fontana, who's dating my aunt Kit, believe it or not, drove me out to Max's top-secret house location this morning."

“I could have done that."

“It just came up. I haven't been able to reach Max by phone for three days. I just wanted to say . . . you know, about us. Sony, good-bye, and good luck. It seemed the decent thing to do."

“I agree." Of course he'd hoped she'd never see Max Kin- sella again, that she'd never want to, but that was totally unrealistic.

“Matt, the house was gone!”

“Gone?"

“Not physically, just all the furniture, everything that was so `Max' about it. This floozy named French opened the door.

She'd bought it at a terrific price a few days ago, she said; moved right in. All her ugly condo unit stuff was everywhere."

“You said he'd been acting . . . distant lately."

“And now Electra just told me that he'd visited the Circle hRitz four or five days ago, but I wasn't here. And then he, e—" Matt waited for her to battle back tears. His heart was sinking like the Titanic. Damn Max Kinsella! He always managedto draw the spotlight, create a scene, make Temple's tender heart ache.

“He . . . took Electra.”

Matt waited.

“For a ride.”

He waited, not guessing the next line.

“On the Vampire. Way out on the highway, really fast. That was supposed to be me, Matt. But Electra got that last ride. It's as if he was saying good-bye to the Circle Ritz, to the Vampire, to me. And now he's really, really, missing. Not like before, just for a while. And I missed saying good-bye.”

Matt waited, but Temple didn't say anything else. Probably couldn't. Okay, Counselor Guy, what do you say to the woman you love and adore when she's cracking up over your rival?

You say to yourself: she came to you with this. And that's a very important thing.

“I'm sorry, Temple. Everything's crashing down all at once for you. But I'm not. I'm here. I'll help you. I'll do whatever it takes to find out what happened to him, if you can't."

“I'm sorry for laying this on you. I've got to go back out here and play perky PR woman with everything in hand, and get Electra off the hot plate on the side. What do you think, though, Matt? Why is Max doing this to me?"

“I think Max is doing what he has to, for those undercover reasons nobody has a need-to-know about. I do think he'd given up on being able to offer you the open commitment you needed. I picked that up from him, lately, you know, an ebbing away. I think he foresaw that we would happen if he stepped out of the picture. I think he let that happen.

“Temple, if you don't mind having Max Kinsella for a matchmaker, I sure don't. Trust the man. You always have." She laughed, shakily. "Thanks. I told you breaking up was hard to do, I just wish I could do it. Formally. I'll see you, later?"

“Later."

“Sorry to be such a weak sister. I'm lucky I didn't short- circuit this stupid cell phone."

“You can come home and short-circuit me anytime.”

She laughed. "Thanks for the motivation. Back to the hubbub and the funny, tragic, lethal human circus."

“Love you."

“Love you too, Matt," she whispered back.

It was some comfort that she'd used his name

Chapter 18

Vanishing Powder

"It was bad," Miss Midnight Louise says, "very bad.”

Well, these girls. Always exaggerating. I cannot believe that Miss Midnight Louise, usually as hard as nails, is even a tad breathless as she reports back to me.

Then again, she has hightailed it from Mr. Max's home on the city fringes back to the Circle Ritz by means of sneaking into the six inches of space behind the passenger seat in Aldo Fontana's Viper.

am not sure whether it was the squeeze or the speed that put a kink in Miss Midnight Louise's tail. I do know that I am not going to yank her chain farther by asking which.

Either way, she has returned to the Crystal Phoenix agitated and expecting me to do something about it. She does not even care that I have been nosing around her turf in a criminal matter.

We have rendezvoused under the tropical greenery edging the lobby bar.

“Listen," I tell Louise. "The scene of the crime as far as we're concerned is now here at Crystal Phoenix Central. Midnight Inc. Investigations can no longer afford to have you gallivanting from the Neon Nightmare club to former residences of former MissTemple squeezes when our beloved landlady's reputation and freedom are at stake."

“You mean your MissTemple's and your landlady. I live here at the Phoenix, thank you. So you are willing to give up on investigating Mr. Max's whereabouts and condition–or lack of living condition–after the terrible impact he made on the Neon Nightmare side wall?”