Unknown - Cat_In_A_Midnight_Choir-spaces_ru

Gayla’s faced screwed into such exaggerated concentration that she winced when her muscles hurt from it. “Gum, I guess.”

“Gum?”

“Gum.”

Molina chewed on that. Neither suspect was what she’d call a gum-chewing man. Unless he’d drunk something that often flavored gum.

“The scent. Was it cinnamon? Spearmint? Fruity?”

“I don’t know. For just a second I thought…maybe spicy, I don’t know.”

Spicy. Did they put cinnamon sticks in anything besides hot Christmas punch? Or maybe it was breath mints! Any scents similar? Check it out. Check out every damn breath mint on the market.

“But you didn’t see anything?” Molina pressed.

“I told you, no!”

“Did you sense how tall the man might be? He was behind you. He choked you, forced you down. Did he feel like a shadow of yourself? Not much taller, but stronger? Or did he come from above, like a tree, bearing down?”

“Gee. I don’t know.” Her vacant, pale eyes, no color to speak of, like her opinions, her testimony, blinked rapidly. “I can’t say. It was like a…spike, driving me down. I just gave, without thinking about it. It was so sudden, I didn’t know anything else to do.”

Molina looked at this frail young woman. She was a willow, this girl. She would bend to any will stronger than hers, and every will was stronger than hers. That was why the attacker had picked her. He knew a beaten-down soul when he saw it. It was so unfair! Those whom life had already battered gave like reeds and took more battering.

Molina reached to cover Gayla’s hand on the thin hospital blanket. “I’m sorry. We’re going to find the man who did this. Stop him.”

Gayla nodded, looked like she believed her. Smiled a little. Sadly.

“There’s always another, though,” she said. For the first time during the interview, she sounded very, very certain about something.

Molina’s flashback faded, leaving her back in the Las Vegas night, standing alone on Paradise, not certain about anything except that she had to catch an elusive killer.

Too bad that arresting either of the two leading candidates for the honor would be disastrous for either her career or her personal life. Or both.

Asian Persuasion

It turns out that I need an interpreter with the Big Boys. By allowing Miss Louise to check out their circumstances at the canned hunt club first, I have encouraged them to bond with her, not me.

You would think that male solidarity would overcome a little exercise in charity like visiting the imprisoned, but no such luck. Mr. Lucky, the black panther, and Osiris, the leopard, now think that Miss Midnight Louie is the cat’s meow, and I am merely a tolerated hanger-on.

At least I am allowed to eavesdrop.

“So how plush a pad is this?” she asks.

“Like the cemeteryscape up front,” Mr. Lucky says,“this is a fine and private place.”

I do not think that he means to paraphrase a poet, especially a Cavalier poet, but he does. I refrain from pointing it out. This is not a poetry crowd.

“You will get used to the funereal facade,” Osiris assures his new roommate. “It is a security dodge that protects all our hides, including that of our esteemed sponsor, the Cloaked Conjuror.”

“An artful dodge,” I put in with admiration. “Hiding behind a cemetery is what you might call ironic, as his life is always in danger because his act reveals the ploys behind some of the most famous magical illusions of all time. That is why the Cloaked Conjuror must disguise his face and voice even on stage. Of course he makes enough moolah at it to challenge that casino known as The Mint for the title.”

“I do not know about him,” Mr. Lucky replies with a hackle twitch. “That creepy leopard-spotted mask is insulting to the real thing, and his voice sounds like he is gargling rattlesnakes. I liked the Man in Black who stole us back from the ranch better.”

“Mr. Max,” Mr. Lucky purrs in basso agreement. “I have heard of him often on the Big Cat circuit. It is a shame that he has retired from the magician trade nowadays. He was the best. We guys in black are pretty hard to beat.”

“Hear, hear!” I put in, but am ignored, except by Miss Louise, who corrects me. “Gals in black, too.”

“Speaking of gals in black,” I put in, hoping to be heeded for once,“I hear you two big guys are going to be working with a new female magician. How is that going?”

“How does a pipsqueak like you know about our secret sessions?” Osiris growls.

“I hear things others do not. It is my job. I am a private investigator.”

“She does not wear black,” Osiris says,“this new lady. At least not all the time, although I commend the truly long fingernails she wears. As long as some human females’ high heels. Four inches, I would say.”

“Awesome,” purrs Mr. Lucky, cleaning between his own four inch shivs.

I try not to shudder, knowing that the evil Shangri-La and her light-fingered mandarin stage-shivs stole my Miss Temple’s ring as part of her so-called act three months ago. Besides, it is more important to know what Shangri-La is up to now.

“So Miss Shangri-La is indeed joining the Cloaked Conjuror’s act?” I say idly.

“And that kitten of hers.” Mr. Lucky lifts a paw the size of a catcher’s mitt and licks it cleaner than home plate.

“You mean” — my breath catches in my lungs like a two-pound koi in the throat — “a piece of fluff about the size and weight of Miss Midnight Louise here, only pale of coat?”

“She is a funny-looking feline,” Mr. Lucky says,“not a symphony in monotone like Miss Midnight Louise. Her eyes are an unnatural blue shade, her body is the pale liverish color of the pablum I am given when I am sick and off my feed —”

“Baby food,” Osiris sneers. “They give you human baby food, buckets of it.”

Mr. Lucky ignores the attempted ignominy, as I would do in his position. “And her extremities appear to have been dipped in some sort of mud. They are all dirty brown.”

I chortle to hear the hated Hyacinth cut down to size by the Big Cats. My every encounter with her so far has ended with me caged or drugged, not a sterling record for a street-smart shamus. But even she would not dare to challenge these big dudes.

Midnight Louise is not amused. She never is.

“I have seen the cat in question. She is a lilac-point Siamese and is supposed to look like that, including the blue eyes, which are highly prized by humans. The only thing unnatural about her is the colored enamel on her claws, and that is perpetrated by her mistress, who presents a rather gaudy stage presence herself.”

I cannot believe that Miss Louise has beaten me here to lay eyes on my bête not-noir in her new lair before I have! To lay eyes on both of them, in fact, Shangri-La and her hairy familiar.

“I need to check these babes out,” I say.

“I bet you do,” Mr. Lucky says with a wink. “I must say you get around for a little guy.”

I fluff my ruff, but Midnight Louise is not impressed. “I have got the whole layout down cold. Come on along and I will show you.’Bye, boys.”

There is little left for me to do but to sashay after Louise like she is cheese and I am a rat. When I catch up with her, I decide to assert my age and experience.

And then I get a brilliant idea. These dames are big on family trees, and have I got a claw off the old cactus for her!

“Say, Louise.”

“Miss Louise to you, since we are not related, as you keep reminding me.”

“It is funny you should mention that. Before I came here I ran into a rather large piece of auld lang syne.”

“Huh?” She stops and twitches her tail. “I am a Scottish fold, ye dinna hae ta speak Scots to me.”