Carole Douglas - Cat in a Midnight Choir

“Thou” was right! It had already cost Matt eight hundred dollars to get this far, and the second stage of the evening was going to run at least another thousand.

Corruption cost, and in Las Vegas, corruption cost big-time.

Matt allowed himself a glance in the closet door mirrors.

He’d better up his estimate of costs incurred for this unconventional outing of his. His clothes were new too, bought in the brightly lit shops lining every hotel’s obligatory shopping arcade.

Big winners were expected to blow large wads in these places and they were crammed with designer labels and luxury goods Matt had never heard of.

He suspected some of the high-priced items might not be in the best of taste, but nowadays it was hard to tell highway robbery from high-class prices, especially in Las Vegas.

So he wore a two-hundred-dollar pair of slacks in his favorite khaki color, although the clerk had described it as “lukewarm café au lait.” His shirt was a cotton-and-silk blend in stone color. His blazer was a wool-silk blend a bit darker than camel, which the clerk had called “escargot.” Had Matt not known this was the French word for the humble and edible snail, or slug, he would have thought it was a synonym for calf-shit brown.

Still, even he, who hated mere appearances, had to admit these clothes had an easy feel and drape that evoked the hushed sound of eurodollars falling to new lows on the Aubusson carpets of the international exchange.

The least a man who was expecting a thousand-dollar whore could do was dress up to the lady’s level.

He immediately censored the word “whore.” That was the old puritan streak putting unpleasant labels on everything, and everybody.

She was a professional woman of the highest order. Like a well-paid motivational speaker, say. He could identify with that. He got an obscene amount of money for speaking engagements now, being a celibate ex-priest working as a semifamous radio shrink. What was the difference between selling a mind and a body?

Matt paced back to the window, suddenly worried if the “thou” in his unwelcome equation was going to show up. The hundred-dollar bill he’d passed as discreetly as he could to the bellman might be taken as a generous tip, instead of an order for some “classy entertainment.”

Matt winced at the phrase. He’d been coached, of course, by an expert. Well, Carmen Molina never would or could walk in his shoes, but she ought to know the routine.

So what happened if he was just being ripped off by the bellman? The six-hundred-dollar room, his seven-hundred dollar “casual” outfit, the crisp bulk of fresh hundreds in his new eelskin wallet (she would see that, of course, as well as his new underwear), his desperate gamble that one sleazy act paid for through the nose would liberate him from his demon stalker, what if nothing happened? And he was waiting. For nothing?

Then he’d be relieved. As much as he needed to do what he had set in motion, he most devoutly hoped that something would go wrong and it would never happen.

Baby Doll’s Brand-new Bag

I am only halfway across the Circle Ritz parking lot when I am accosted, if one can be accosted by an albino tumbleweed.

“ Oh-oh-oh-oh ,” my attacker says, hyperventilating.

“It is about time,” I say. “I cannot be about my business until I know what you have to say.”

“ Uh-uh-uh-uh .”

“Um, words would be nice.”

“ Huh-huh-huh-huh-huh .”

I sit down and prepare to wait, sweeping my posterior member back and forth like a cranky metronome.

“ I-I-I-I-I …

“ Ran …

“ All …

“ The …

“ Way .”

“Admirable devotion to duty. But you should have saved a couple breaths for your report.”

Frankly, I am impressed. But it never does to let underlings know when they have done well. Management by creative tension has always been the watchword of my breed. Keep ’em guessing, keep ’em on their toes, and keep ’em worrying about what I really think.

“So where did she go?” I finally ask.

“ Ba-ba-ba-ba —”

“Bally’s?”

“ Ba-ba-ba-ba —”

“The Ali Baba Room at the Alhambra?” Not exactly a strip club, unless you consider it a Las Vegas Strip club, but they do have belly dancers.

“Eee —”

E . Now what in Las Vegas begins with E , except E lvis?

“Duh-duh-duh.”

Duh is right!

“Catch your breath and show it who is boss. There, that is the ticket. Give the old brain case a good shake to free all the fleas in your ears. Now, from the top.”

“Bah-bee.”

“Bobby?”

“Duh-alls.”

“Bobby…Dulls.” Light strikes. “Baby Doll’s!”

My informant’s head nods like one of those idiotic toys with a spring for a neck and sawdust for brains.

What else can you expect from a mere dog but extreme panting and stupid facial tricks?

“Baby Doll’s,” I repeat, to make sure I heard the little bowhead correctly. Those cranial barrettes will cramp your cerebellum. “It is a strip club. That makes sense. And you ran all the way to and fro?” This is quite a hike for a three-pound floor-duster like a Maltese.

Nose E. nods his fuzzy little face from which the tongue has protruded like the tag on a zipper the whole time. “I could not…keep up.”

Some dogs love to chase cars, but this one’s legs are so short he should chase Hot Wheels. To be fair, tailing little dolls is not his bailiwick. The Nose Pose is his game and it has made him tops in his field of drug-and bomb-sniffing.

“Did my clever marking technique work?” I ask.

“Oh, yes, Mr. Midnight. The scent you, er, drizzled on the right rear tire was impossible to lose. Unbelievably rank. I have to say you cats have it all over dogs when it comes to the odiferous art. Although I soon lost sight of it — your Miss Temple drives like an Indy Five Hundred speed demon, I might say — I was able to track the Miata all the way to Baby Doll’s parking lot. That is not a very nice place, you know.”

“I know.”

“That was not a very nice thing to do to a human’s new car, either.”

“I know, but it was for her own good and, beside, humans have the nasal sensitivity of a stainless steel beak. So you left the Miata, and Miss Temple, at Baby Doll’s?”

“Yeth.”

Funny. I had never noticed that Nose E. lisped before. Why am I not surprised?

“Good work, half ounce. I will take it from here.”

He trails me, everything jiggling like a chorus girl’s…uh, pompoms: hair, head bow, tiny white whiskers that would look about right on a lab rat.

“Oh, Mr. Midnight. I hate to leave a job half-done. Let me go with you! I like to be in on the search and seizure.”

“Trouble is, the action is not going down at Baby Doll’s. I just wanted to make sure that my Miss Temple was safely out of harm’s way. So trot back to the Old Groove, or whatever it is called, used record store your human, Mr. Earl. E. Byrd, operates. You can rest easy in a job well done. Now it is time for your biggers to take over.”

“Oh! You are just like the Federales!”

“Huh? The only thing Mexican about me is any jumping beans I choose to carry.”

“The FBI and the NSA and all those Big-time Initial Guys. They always want me and Earl E. to bow out after I have identified the perp.”

“No doubt it is for your own safety. You are civilians, after all.”

“And you are not?”