Carole Douglas - Cat in a Red Hot Rage

I am indeed disturbed about that, but I am more concerned right now with restoring the Circle Ritz's landlady's reputation. I have just moved Ma Barker and her gang of feral felines to the Circle Ritz. There is not much sustenance around there unless the place's residents get on with the program. Miss Electra Lark is the best general for the job. Ergo, my task is to get her off the homicide hook.

So I answer Louise in a way to take her mind off the current obsession.

First, I reassure. "Mr. Max knows how to take care of himself and about six others at once, and always has," I say. "And he is forever doing things that are not what they seem. That is the magician's credo." Then I tempt her weakest spot, her curiosity. "Anyway, it does not look like his long frame will be jousting me for comforter space in the future. MissTemple has embraced the light."

“No! You mean Mr. Matt? He is the best-looking shaded golden human I have ever met, but I think you would dislike seeing a black alpha male unseated from the communal bed, even if you did knock toes and claws sometimes. When did this new set of sleeping arrangements happen?"

“Recently. They conducted their courtship off the premises, but there is a ring with enough carats to keep Bugs Bunny forlife and they almost forgot themselves on the zebra-striped comforter in MissTemple's boudoir the other day. With me in the next room, mind you."

“In the daytime! With you present! That is indeed serious," she agrees. "Mr. Matt is the most diligently serious human being I have ever seen. Does he not require papers and witnesses to take a mate?"

“Oh, they want 'papers' for everything these days, including us. Big Brother is watching even the cockroaches now. But I know how romance can turn a dude's head. And my MissTemple's head is pretty turned too. Frankly, Mr. Max was not making the scene often enough lately to preserve his territory."

“I am thankful I have been fixed to prevent such unpredictable periods of insanity," Louise sniffs.

Although I always aim to use the utmost courtesy with the females of any species, the chit does claim to be a descendant and has recently forced me into making our purely professional association formal. Midnight Inc. Investigations, of course, is mainly me.

I return to our most satisfying bone of contention.

“So you say that my MissTemple and Mr. Aldo Fontana paid a visit to the house formerly known as Mr. Max's. And so you saw that it was occupied by some foreign dame with a great figure. So what is new in Las Vegas? The city is all about great figures, on the stage and on the list of house gambling rules."

“That must have been a terrible shock for your roommate. It would be like your returning to the Circle Ritz and finding that no one you knew was there."

“With Miss Electra Lark suspected of murder, that could happen."

“Your MissTemple would be missing, her furniture gone."

“My living room sofa? The zebra-patterned comforter on the bed? My litter box under the sink in the second bathroom? No!"

“You are certainly the self-sacrificing sort, Pops. And you do not even deign to use the litter box in MissTemple's digs, which is a mighty inaccurate name for her unit, given your habits."

“Where I go is my business, and my business only."

“Thank goodness," she says, swiping a dainty claw over her eyebrow hairs. "Anyway, Mr. Footloose and Fancy Free, I am sure you have seen some pretty swift set changes on a Las Vegas hotel stage."

“For sure. And the ones at Mr. Max's magic shows, when he used to perform at the Goliath, were faster than a cardsharp's deal."

“Well, that is the way it was at that house of his. After I checked out the Neon Nightmare from top to bottom and learned some very interesting and alarming things, I nipped over to the house you had told me about."

“Only MissTemple is supposed to know that address.”

“And you? How did you manage that, then?"

“I make it my private business to know where my MissTemple goes."

“And you dropped mention of it to me."

“When?"

“Long ago, when you were thinking I was a stupid unrelated female and not listening."

“I did not do that!"

“What? Think I was a stupid, unrelated female?"

“No. That 'thinking you were not listening' part."

“Trust me, Daddio. If it were not for you dominant males forgetting to remember that we listen, half the stuff in the world would not happen, except thanks to us stupid unrelated females."

“Louise! I cannot follow your flawed logic, not to mention your Sin Tax."

“I know that Sin Tax is very big in Las Vegas," she answers, exposing her fangs in one of those so-called Cheshire Cat grins that toney Brit cats affect.

“Okay, kiddo," I say, knowing Louise hungers for acknowledgment as a relative of mine. "Tell me what you have learned on your little foray.”

Does she bend my ear! And whiskers.

I must admit that I am impressed. Wait! I do not have to admit it, and I do not. I just simply let her spill her guts, as girls will, and will figure out later if she is just dreaming or is really on to something.

It turns out the other half of Midnight Inc. Investigations is allhot and bothered by a whole lot of things I thought only I had discovered and was not worried about. Like, as we have discussed, the fact that the Neon Nightmare club is built like a pyramid-shaped hunk of Swiss cheese, with more hidden rooms and shafts than a pharaoh's funeral home in the Egyptian desert.

It makes sense. Las Vegas sits in the middle of the Mojave Desert. A lot of folks died here during the mob wars long ago. Bodies and treasure are buried in these forgotten sands of time.

And ... those secret areas were not just so the Phantom Mage could rappel down on bungee cords nightly. There are rooms occupied by a hidden coven of magicians with ambi- tions.

Maybe the kit is right. Maybe Midnight Louie had better take a break from murder one at the Red Hat Sisterhood convention and ankle on over to the Neon Nightmare tonight to see what Mr. Max's former confreres are up to now that the Phantom Mage is MIA too.

Chapter 19

Ding-Dong Daddy

Temple had convinced herself that letting Electra return to the literal scene of the crime was a good idea. An innocent woman would hold her head and hat up, and carry on.

And Detective Alch was okay with it. Simply finding a body was not a crime.

Of course all traces of the late Oleta Lark were gone, conveyed to the Las Vegas coroner. Still, Temple could tell from the subdued note of the lobby chatter that the news of her death was getting around, and hung like a purple-haze pall over the pre-opening activities.

It was most evident in the sidelong glances Electra attracted, even when surrounded by her welcoming Red-Hatted League chapter members. Noticing Detective Su cruisingnearby, it occurred to Temple that the police had okayed Electra's return because they wanted to watch her, and the reaction of everyone else to her. If so, she was letting Electra play right into their hands. Great! Temple believed in supporting her local police, but not in railroading her landlady for murder!

“Electra! You look great," Alice squealed, the first to spot their missing member. "We are on the trail around here like bloodhounds." Alice brushed back the bill of her purple-andred-checked deerstalker.

That assertion made Electra blink.

“Well," Phyll added, "bloodhounds are officially red, aren't they?”

Temple was glad to leave Electra in the friendly custody of her gal pals and be about her PR person's business, which was to clear the Crystal Phoenix of any taint, as well as firmly affix the murder rap on anyone other than Electra.

She still had to wear the cursed Pink Albatross (its brim span must have been as wide as that doom-bearing seabird's wingspan) to pass unchallenged in these main hotel areas now declared the Queendom of Hattitude.