Unknown - 16_Cat_In_An_Orange_Twist

“Simon,” she said. “It was Simon. I’ve been on the cell phone checking every few minutes with Kenny Maylord all the way over here. Everything was tried. At Maylords. In the ambulance. At the hospital. It was too late.”

Danny danced. He took Temple with him at arm’s length, in that inane, insane grade-school gym-class pace.

Temple felt her tears twirling away. Evaporated, in some Terpsichorean spin-dry cycle.

Danny finally stopped. Bent his head until their foreheads touched.

“Hospital. Everything tried.” He repeated her key words. “He’s dead.”

She nodded, feeling his head bob along with hers, like a puppet’s. What would she feel if she found out that was why Max hadn’t been contacting her? Too sad and confused and guilty to live.

“Gone.”

She nodded.

Danny’s hands were absolutely dry. They slowly released hers.

“Danny.”

He said nothing, never moved.

“You have to be ready.”

“I’ll never be ready again.”

“You have to be. I couldn’t tell a cause of death, but I’m thinking it was murder.” The word didn’t seem to register. “They’ll come asking you questions. The police.”

He dropped her hands. The dance had ended.

Danny shook his head. “They can’t ask anything more than I would. Than I do. Temple. You were the one with the guts to tell me. You’re going to have to be the one with the guts to help me. To help Simon.”

Chapter 23

L i f e w i t h M o t h e r

The sun is high in the sky as we work our way through tangled weeds and cactus.

Louise and I have returned to our thrilling days of yesterday, only that was like … yesterday two weeks ago, when Louise herself was in Code Red condition.

Today we are in another maze of stickers and thorns and brambles but far from the site of Louise’s last stand. I realize that Ma Barker’s gang has located its R&R facility pretty cannily.

Not even racoons would fancy clawing their way in here, much less dogs, who do not have much tolerance for pain, except

for the pit bulls.

All our coats are looking as if we were groomed by a wood chipper, but our leader is smart enough to weave a way through the maze so only a clumsy type will get snagged down to the skin.

I finally spot the rusted hulk of an abandoned abductor cell that has been dragged away from the area of operations into this forsaken urban junkyard.

It sits in the shadow of an upended La-Z-Boy recliner upholstered in turquoise Naugahyde dating to the late ’60s. Smart. The steel bars protect the occupant and the recliner acts as a day-long awning … although I would hate to try to snooze under a hundred pounds of sun-blistered Naugahyde, steel, and springs.

Talk about a rat trap: this is a potential cat trap.

Anyway, I glimpse a water-filled tuna can in a corner and a darker shadow in the opposite corner that resembles a black shag carpet roll from the same era as the recliner chair.

This does not look good. The others gather around the cage, silent.

“So there must be a way in,” says a voice behind me. Louise.

In answer, Tiger, a big guy in dingy prison stripes, leaps up against the door and hits it just so. The off-kilter gate pops open.

“If dogs were smart enough to do this,” Tiger notes, “she would not still be in here.”

The rickety latch reminds me of a castle portcullis that is about to plunge right down and impale the next individual to pass through. I have watched enough PBS reruns on the construction of the medieval castle to know about moats and porcullises and boiling oil and such.

But Midnight Louise-benighted street kit that she was, and is-trots right through the rickety door, tail held high.

Well, can Midnight Louie let a girl outclass him in the courage department? Never!

I am hot on her heels.

So there you have it, I realize with a sinking feeling. The entire possible Midnight clan, with the exception of my dear old dad, Three O’Clock Louie, are bottled up in a rickety cage in an unofficial dumping ground, surrounded by feral cats who would just as soon jump us as dump us.

Not a good move.

But Louise pays no attention to the looming dangers. She just hunkers down next to what is left of Ma Barker and begins

with the licking.

Dames! They always confuse cleanliness with good health.

I hate to tell the kit, but she is not going to raise anything from the dead with a few licks and a promise.

I shoulder Nurse Sandpaper aside and touch my tongue to Ma Barker’s nose. Hot and dry, like the desert all around. Not a

great sign.

I lift first one, front paw, then the other. Limp, but not broken.

I nose around her sides, sniffing dried blood. The tail is lifeless to my prodding touch. The back legs I cannot get near.

Miss Louise nudges into place behind me, purring.

This is the one thing humans do not get about our kind: the purr.

They think the purr is always a positive, happy thing. Like a human giggle or something. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it is

the opposite. A mother in labor will purr; it soothes the birth pains. An injured cat will purr, the same self-medication at work.

Meditation-medication, a New Age upstart like Louise might call it. She is into Oriental food and who knows what other mystical Asian hanky-panky. Maybe even feng shui.

All I can say is whatever Miss Louise is up to, it is catching. I find myself purring despite myself. Pretty soon I will be intoning Om and raking strange runic patterns into my litter box. Actually, I use my home facilities so little it might as well be an Oriental rock garden.

So anyway, I hum along despite myself.

Before you know it, little Gimpy’s wimpy tenor has joined in. And Snow Off-white’s raspy alto. And Tiger’s and Tom’s double-basso.

I, of course, am the basest basso of them all.

So we all sound like a choir of kazoos, except more melodious, and even the cage grill seems to be thrumming.

I fear imminent avalanche from the overhanging turquoise recliner.

What an ignominious end! MASHed to death. Mashed by not even real leather.

And then, in the darkness that surrounds us, black as the pit from hidey-hole to hidey-hole … I see light.

One eye has opened in the inky ruin of Ma Barker’s face. It is green and slitty and looking pretty pissed.

As we hold our conjoined breaths we hear a faint purring. Can it be from her?

No.

Oh, it is from her, all right, but it is not purring.

The sound escalates into an audible growl.

‘What is that bee-buzzing, mind-numbing racket?” she mutters. “It is interrupting my beauty sleep.” Then the eye narrows even farther, aiming at me.

“Is that you, Grasshopper?”

“Er, yes ‘um.” I hope to hell that Midnight Louise is too busy playing registered nurse to register this abominable nickname. Louise’s head lifts from her licking duty. Her eyes narrow.

I quickly change the subject. “Do you want anything?” I ask dutifully. “Do you want me to fetch Three O’Clock from

Temple Bar on Lake Mead?”

“That old sea-dog of a sorry excuse for a tomcat? I do not think so,” Ma Barker growls. Even louder. “Why would I want to see that no-good?” She rises up on her front paws, like a black, sand-blasted Sphinx.

Apparently me and dear old dad are excellent stimulants to the circulatory system.

I back off, ears flattened.

“Besides,” she adds in even stronger tones of disgust. “My hair is a mess.”

And that is when I know that Ma Barker will live to fight another day, and probably another racoon.

We are all hunkered down near the MASH unit.

Ma Barker is sleeping peacefully, her attentive maybe-granddaughter beside her.