Unknown - 15_Cat_In_A_Neon_Nightmare

“Ingenious,” I whisper in her pink-lined little ear. “The surveillance is done from a circular perimeter, in the round, so to speak.”

“Then it should have captured the woman falling from above.”

“Yes. But the police have taken those tapes by now. I believe they are recorded over every-so-many hours.”

“Phooey,” says Louise. “You are probably right, for once in your life.”

“Apparently I was right twice, or you would not be here,” I point out.

It takes her a minute to realize that this is probably a compliment and maybe even a concession, although nothing one could take to the People’s Court.

“There has got be someone else who saw something from one of the higher floors,” she hisses at me, “even if the police have hogged the surveillance tapes.”

“I would not call it ‘hogging.’ It is their job, after all.”

“Listen,” Miss Louise snarls as if I am the enemy when I am only an innocent, helpful dude who does not deserve snarls. “Mr. Matt was nice to me when I was new in town, as he was. He let me crash at his pad for a while. I am not about to let him swing for what has to be a frame-up.”

“Uh, they do not hang people nowadays.”

“Whatever! We need to figure out what floor the lady took a dive from, and find a witness who saw her go over.”

I shrug. I am sure the police have moved heaven and earth and a bunch of neon to figure out the same thing. We might be better off eavesdropping on the conversations of our nearest and dearest, except that I doubt that Lieutenant Molina will ever again obligingly stomp into the Circle Ritz and reveal much about the case, now that she has got Miss Temple’s wind up.

It is no big trick for us to reach the regular-size door, tease it open, and duck out. We are the same color as most of the decor in the surveillance chamber.

After we dart down a nondescript hall or two and through a door, we are back in the hotel’s public areas, no one the wiser, including us.

As we pause to catch up to our breaths, I note the obvious. “From the shape shattered into the glass, the victim did fall facedown onto the surface. That bespeaks a suicide as much as a homicide.”

“You are saying that after a dalliance with Mr. Matt the lady in question would rather dive than live?”

I regard Louise’s incredulous expression and realize that she is another female who has fallen under the influence of Miss Temple’s favorite path not taken.

“He could have pushed her.”

“Why?”

“Maybe he did not want any witnesses to his fall from grace.”

“He was not the one who fell!”

“Not literally. I am merely thinking like a human. So sue me.”

“I never want to see your sorry hide on the People’s Court again.”

“We did win, after all.”

“After a lot of embarrassing revelations.”

“I do not know what is embarrassing about being abducted by a Hollywood has-been starlet who sends me for unnecessary surgery because she erroneously believes I got her precious Persian princess, the Divine Yvette, in the family way.”

“The name of the game nowadays is ‘blame the victim.’ Besides, it seems to me that you go out of your way even when not in court to deny paternity. Methinks thou dost protest too much.”

“Do not quote Shakespeare at me, Louise. What does he know about it? He never had any kits, and may not have had any plays, to hear the scholars debate the, er, issue.”

But Miss Louise is busy eyeing the elevators, already dismissing my notorious day in court. “There must be someone with an open eye on the upper levels. I am going up and will scout around.”

Of course I am obligated to accompany her. And of course my superior height and strength are called upon to summon the elevator.

I bound up to press the call button, then groom the hairs between my toes, which are a continuing problem for an older guy. They grow like weeds, or Andy Rooney’s eyebrows!

Luckily the car that whisks to answer our summons is empty. The hour is before dinner and after cocktails, so the people are either ensconced in the lounges or up in their rooms debating how to dine.

We get off, arbitrarily (that is to say at Miss Louise’s suggestion) on floor twenty.

It is a nice round number and I waft up to the railing to gaze down on the killing field below. Oops! It is a lot harder balancing like a window-washer on the twentieth floor railing than the fifth. Given my druthers, I would take the fifth.

I feel a jerk on my extremity. Louise has taken a tiger by the tail under the guise of preventing a domestic accident. A domestic feline accident.

“Do not be dumb, Popster! At your age you could lose your balance and fall.”

I am not interested in demeaning speculations on the part of my upstart partner. I have spotted a witness, dead ahead about 350 feet, its claws clutching the opposite railing about as desperately as mine own. And this bird speaks!

I jump down, nearly flattening my solicitous partner, and race around the soft angles that make up this central atrium.

“What?” she cries. “Have you gone nuts? What?”

I have no time to answer foolish questions; my quarrymight fly the coop, which it shows evidence of having done already.

In about four minutes of mad rush, I reach the opposite position and—Oh say can you see!—find my witness still there.

It is not quite a flag of red, white, and blue, but it is white and blue, with a touch of orange.

“Pretty boy,” it greets me warmly.

“You getting inappropriately personal, or referring to your self, I hope?” I ask.

“Pretty boy,” it repeats.

Louise eyes the stripes of black and blue on my discovery’s back. “Daddy Dimmest, this is a jailbird. You cannot trust a word he croaks out.”

“Pretty boy,” my new friend produces promptly after eye. ing Louise.

Obviously, he has indeed been in stir too long.

Still, I am encouraged by the encounter. He is a small chap, more white than blue and easily overlooked in the Goliath’s gaudy multistory atrium, which is crammed with luxurious greenery on the upper floors.

One cannot blame the fellow for thinking the place was freewheeling.

He is so naive it has not yet occurred to him that, were Louise and I not trained investigators, we would as soon eat him as listen to him.

“So how long have you been on the lam?” I inquire casually.

He tilts his head and gazes far below. “The night sky below has dimmed and blazed six times.”

I nod significantly at Louise. ‘Three moons ago.”

“Moons? You mean suns. ‘Days’ would make it even clearer, Hiawatha.”

“What are you doing up here all alone, son?” I say. Midnight Louise tries not to gag when she hears my avuncular “son.”

The little fellow tries to tuck his head under his wing. “Lost,” he mutters in a muffled but shrill tone.

“Aw, what shame. My partner and I specialize in missing persons.”

“I just wanted a glide around the Big Space.”

“Who can blame you? I myself have a yen for the open road.”

“What is a road?”

“A . . Big Space, only low, flat and narrow.”

“That does not make sense.” He wrinkles the down on his pale forehead.

I notice he has a yap on him that is horny and curved like a lobster claw. One would not wish to be this guy’s chew toy. And the claws on his unnatural two feet look pretty ragged too. Though he is small, he is no pushover.

“What is your name?” Louise is asking, grimacing to show her sharp front teeth.

He hides his head under his navy-blue vest again. “Blues Brother, tweetheart, and I do not want to hear any titters about that. My owner is a big film fan.”

“So how did you get out here in the Big Space, BB?” she asks.