Unknown - 15_Cat_In_A_Neon_Nightmare

“You’ve got a lot on your mind—”

“No. I’ve always had you on my mind, first and foremost. On how to keep my damnable past from hurting you, our future. Maybe I had no right to contemplate a future.”

“You more than anybody, Max. After that woman tried to taint it forever. We’ve got to be happy, just to piss off Kathleen O’Connor.”

He laughed then. “You always do that. Turn my black Irish depression inside out. I admit I’m jealous of your neighbor. Our neighbor.” He smiled at the surroundings, claiming them again. Claiming her because she’d told him to.

“And now … irony of ironies.” Max sighed theatrically. “We’ve become coconspirators, Devine and I, as Sean and I never had a chance to be. She divides and conquers, Miss Kitty O’Connor, but, like all extremists, she also unites where she doesn’t intend to.”

“Amen!” Temple said. “She’s united us here and now. Max, I hate what she’s done to you, and I hate what’s she’s done to me. We’ve got to stop her.”

They sealed the vow with a cranberry juice toast.

Chapter 10

Peeping Tomcat

I must admit that it sometimes comes in handy to have a minion.

I mean, a minor partner. Junior partner? Maybe Junior Miss partner better describes it.

Whatever you want to call it, Midnight, Inc. makes a most auspicious debut at the Goliath Hotel and Casino, as Miss Midnight Louise and I embark on our first intentional venture as a crime-fighting team.

We enter the premises by my favorite route: the hotel kitchens.

It is not only the plenteous foodstuffs that attract the seasoned senses of Midnight Louie. What pulls my chain is not calories, but confusion.

You see, I have never encountered a commercial kitchen that was not in a constant state of chaos. Where there is chaos, there is opportunity for the canny operative.

When large numbers of people are running around like fish with their heads cut off (in fact, large numbers of fish are lying around here with their heads cut off), it is easierfor those of Louise’s and my stripe (even though we are solid color) to tiptoe unseen through the blizzard of discarded meat wrappers, flying greens, and peevishly hurled chefs’ hats.

I particularly like the chefs’ hats. They are as big and puffy as giant souffles and are just the thing to duck and take cover under. The ritzier the establishment the kitchen serves, the more likelihood of errant chefs’ hats.

In fact, Louise and I are inching along under two of the same when she smothers a squeak of outrage. It seems a runaway lobster has pinched her tail.

We are in a protected corner of the kitchen, crouched between a huge trash can and a stainless steel steam table. I am not averse to a little lobster now and then, but this is not a little lobster and it is in a distressingly lively condition.

It is all I can do to pry its bony claws off my partner’s posterior. I consider asking it a question or two, but after studying those beady little eyes on their creepy stalks I decide that the creature’s brain is as little and creepy as the rest of it, and prod Louise on. Pinching an inch really gets her moving now.

We dash under the steam table and make our way to the constantly swinging door to the dining room. Getting through this aperture is like dashing through the blades of a fan set on high. And then there are the flying feet that dominate the space for the few seconds the door is open.

“Talk about Scylla and Charybdis,” I mutter.

“Friends of yours?” Miss Louise asks.

There is no use explaining a classical education to a classless street cat, so I tell her to follow me when ready and hitch a ride on a pair of thick-soled sneakers. I take it on the chin a few times, but the busy waiter mistakes my hide for some floor flotsam unworthy of glancing at, so I am soon concealed under a tray stand in the restaurant proper.

I watch the swinging door. Nothing but footwear comes through.

Is it possible that Midnight Louise does not have the nerve her old man—I mean, her senior partner—was born with?

While one part of me is feeling smug, the other part is feeling disappointed. I hate to be torn between two emotions. In fact, I hate emotion. It is the enemy of the effective operative.

While I am dueling my own mind, something large falls past my vision to the floor. It is Midnight Louise!

“How did you get out here?” I ask. “I had my eyes on the door the whole time.”

“Maybe so, Pop, but you probably had them glued to the floor. I opted for the over-the-pole route.”

“Huh?”

“Why walk when you can fly? They had some sort of fluffy dessert the size of a Himalayan chocolate-point under this nice shiny stainless steel dome. I ditched the dessert and took its place. Baked Alaska, they called it. Apparently it was rare and expensive, but I cannot see why. It was mostly air. Though it was chilly.”

Miss Midnight Louise gives a theatrical little shudder. “And the waiter did not find you a bit heavy for one of these airy desserts?”

“Of course, and I wanted him to. All I had to do was wiggle a bit after we were safely through the door. He dropped the platter and its dome faster than you can say `Baked Alaska,’ and I was away and out of sight before you could say ‘Bananas Foster.’ “

“I would never say any of those obnoxious phrases. ‘Bananas Foster’ sounds like he should have been in partnership with Bugsy Siegel. Let us leave this high-priced dessert haven and head for the parts of the joint where we can pick up some scuttlebutt.”

Louise pauses only to lick a bit of Alaska snow from her formerly jet-black whiskers. Then she joins me in a game of hide-and-seek through the restaurant and out into the vast noisy area of the Goliath casinos.

Here everybody’s eye is on the cards or the dice or the spinning cherries. As long as we do not work at attractingattention, we can go as unnoticed as a pair of deuces next to the makings of a royal flush.

I sit under an unoccupied slot machine stool to gaze at the ersatz heaven above, a neon night sky that overarches the gaming area like a stained-glass ceiling.

“That is where the little doll landed,” I tell Louise. “It is a false ceiling. We need to get up there and check it out.” Louise makes a face.

“You would look pretty funny if your whiskers froze in that position,” I tell her.

“You mean that we will have to get ‘down’ there, Pop. That means taking an elevator up. We are not exactly routine riders.”

“Tut tut. Nothing is routine in Las Vegas. Follow me.”

I dart and dash my way around the floor until I spy an elevator. This is tough, as it is disguised as a pagan temple door, the Goliath’s decorative theme being biblical. The floor is a piece of cake, though, maybe even Baked Alaska. Las Vegas hotels know better than most that bright, busy carpet designs will hide a lot of spills for a long time. Maybe the killer, if there is one, thought that a lot of neon would hide a high-class call girl’s body.

Anyway, Louise and I blend into the carpet’s black background fronting the Mardi Gras of carnival colors and no one so much as spots us.

I dive behind the convenient cylinder of sand meant for dousing cigarettes. It is right next to the elevator door. Louise has to make do with sheltering under a potted palm.

A few people come and go, taking the elevator. I wait. I want a crowd. Finally a knot of tourists toting Aladdin DESERT PASSAGE shopping bags ankles along and I ankle right after them through the open elevator doors. Those extended claws I hear ripping carpet behind me are Midnight Louise’s dainty little shivs.

She gets with the program faster than she did on her acceleration, though, and hops into a shopping bag. The owner glares at the man beside her, as if he had brushed her precious bag.