Midnight Louie 14 - Cat in a Midnight Choir (28 page)

“Temple knows where her ring is now. Your ring.”

“Ring?”

It was Matt’s turn to look smug. How could Kinsella have forgotten Temple’s almost-engagement ring? “How many have you given Temple? The one the magician swiped. Sha-nah-nah or whatever.”

Max reclaimed the newspaper section and folded it into crisp thirds as if trying to bury something inside it. “The ring? Where is it? Who found it? When?”

“I don’t know when. I guess we could figure it out if we tried.”

“Why should we?”

“Because Molina has it. In a plastic evidence baggie. She’s had it for some time but just showed it to Temple a couple of days ago, along with a warning that it tied you to yet another murder and that Temple had better ditch you fast.”

“Another murder? How?”

“I’m not too sure, but Temple sure didn’t like the connection.”

“Where did Molina find it?”

“It’s evidence from the case of that woman killed in a church parking lot about the same time as Molina found the other poor woman’s body in the Blue Dahlia parking lot. I’m not sure why Molina’s so convinced the ring’s being found there links you to the murder. We all saw the ring taken by a third party.”

“Seeing things with her own eyes wouldn’t change Molina’s mind about me,” Kinsella said absently. “She’s like Kathleen, absolutely blinded by her wacked sense of political correctness. That dead woman in the church parking lot had been a magician’s assistant years ago. That’s the connection Molina sees. And she probably believes I got that ring back the night it disappeared because I got Temple and Midnight Louie back. She probably figures I palmed it and then dropped it while strangling Gloria Fuentes. That was the dead woman’s name. She used to be quite well known in magical circles in this town.”

“I’m sorry.” Matt Kinsella’s bleakness when speaking of the dead woman made it seem as if he had known her. Not good if he had. It only bolstered Molina’s theory.

“Magic is dead,” Kinsella pronounced with finality, the way Matt had heard some people chant “God is dead” twenty years ago. “There’s more profit in debunking it.”

“You could say the same thing about religion.”

“So you could. We invested in the wrong careers for the times, didn’t we? But you’re still trying to save souls on the radio and I’m still trying to save lives with magic tricks.”

“At least we’re trying.”

“Very trying.” Kinsella grinned, unfolding the newspaper into a tattered patchwork that Matt took dazed custody of when Max put the car into gear. “Especially you. You must drive Kathleen nuts, as if she needed any help in that direction. Want to hop in the back again?”

“Not really.” Max opened the passenger door to admit a wave of pure dry heat. It felt clean. “What are you going to do?”

“What I’ve always done: my Invisible Man act, try to control everything and be seen nowhere. As for your question, sure, give Molina the portrait of Kathleen. I’d appreciate it if she’d get off on persecuting someone else for a while.”

“Can anyone actually persecute a psychopath, even if they’re the police?”

“I could. If I could find her.”

“Looks like you and Kathleen are at an impasse.”

“I think we have been for almost twenty years. So don’t sweat Miss Kitty. I outrank you.”

Matt dropped the magically savaged newspaper on the passenger seat as he moved to his place of concealment in the back.

Men in Motion

Matt rang the Circle Ritz penthouse doorbell, feeling oddly nervous.

He hadn’t seen his landlady, Electra Lark, in so long that he felt like a fraud to be calling on her for a favor. A menial favor at that.

And he still hadn’t thought up a good excuse for asking her to do it. Kitty O’Connor had driven him to the point that the truth was only a method of last resort.

The door swung open.

“Matt! I was just thinking about you.”

“Why?”

“I get these sort of premonitions.” She dimpled like a teenager. Not bad for a sixty-something. Electra and her apparel, the usual blooming Hawaiian muumuu that more often seemed to wear her, stepped back to admit him into the tiny octagonal entry hall that was covered in vertical Mylar-faced blinds.

It was like walking inside one of those spinning mirrored balls that hover like UFOs over scenes of mass ballroom dancing.

“Gracious, you haven’t taken up wallpaper sales on the side, have you, dear?”

Matt lofted the cardboard tube he held like a clumsy sword. “No, this is why I came up. I was wondering if you could mail it for me. It’s awkward for me to do it myself, I can’t quite explain why —”

“If you were going to be late with your rent I’d need an explanation. If you need a favor, I’m not about to demand one.”

Being a good guilt-ridden Catholic, Matt gave her one anyway. “It’s a poster.” A Wanted poster, in its fashion. “I taped an envelope to the top; what’s inside should cover the postage.”

Electra waggled plump fingers of dismissal at his scrupulous accounting. “Listen, Matt, I’m so pleased to have a media celebrity residing at my modest little residence I’d probably send a hundred-pound box of Ethel M for you gratis.”

“A hundred pounds of Ethel M candy? That would be overkill.”

She took the cardboard tube and leaned it against the doorjamb. “This is a featherweight. I’ll mail it this afternoon. Can you come in for a minute?”

“Sure.” Matt didn’t like to beg and run. Besides, he was curious to see the penthouse.

“I keep things rather dim up here,” Electra warned, preceding him through a split in the mirroring blinds.

The large room beyond was indeed bathed in eternal dusk, thanks to more vertical blinds, although these were a lot less flashy.

“I grew up with furniture like this.” Matt eyed the sprawling, overupholstered forms that grazed on the dark wood floor like baby elephants.

“It that a complaint or a compliment?”

“I don’t complain. It becomes chronic.”

“That’s for sure. Especially in my age group. If it isn’t ‘my aching angina’ or ‘my inflamed tendon’ or my ‘inverted intestine’ or whatever, it’s a marathon discussion of doctors and HMOs and prepaid burial plans. No thanks!”

Electra plopped down on a long, dark sofa shaped like a ’40s Ford. Matt tried a ’50s sling chair.

“So why did you paint my Probe white?” she asked. “It looks like a bathtub on wheels. I know the pink was a little sun-faded, but you could have gone for something zippier.”

“White is the most practical color in this climate; reflects sunlight, keeps the interior cooler. And its high visibility makes it the safest color to drive. You’re less likely to blend into anything and get hit.”

“Oh, don’t sound like a spokesman for the automotive council. I know all that, but a car isn’t just a safety cradle. It should be fun.”

“I have the Hesketh Vampire for that,” Matt said.

“Which you hardly use. If it weren’t for my Elvismobile and that new red Miata I’ve spotted in the parking lot just recently, the Circle Ritz would have to be renamed the Circle Ho-hum.”

“The Miata is Temple’s,” Matt said, happy to divert Electra’s wide-ranging curiosity from his choice of vehicle color, which was a defensive move, not an option.

“Well, at least you know what she’s up to these days. Where on earth is Max?”

Matt was tempted to answer, “Out at Area fifty-one,” but refrained from paraphrasing Bob Dylan’s early landmark line “out on Highway 61.” Temple had assured him Highway 61 actually had been a major Minnesota highway to Dylan’s Iron Range hometown of Hibbing back in the ’60s. Like a lot of major fabled highways, including the iconic Highway 66, 61 was mostly history now.

And now was Matt’s turn to pump Electra. “You mean you haven’t seen Max around here? I’ve been so busy working nights and giving out-of-town talks that I didn’t realize he was doing another disappearing act.”

“I worry about Temple. She waited around months for him to show up once, and now she’s waiting around again.”

“Oh, Temple’s pretty resilient. I wouldn’t worry about her.”

Electra patted her short white hair, which was au naturelle today instead of being sprayed to match her floral-print muumuu. “Maybe you wouldn’t, but I would. It’s no fun waiting to see when a significant other is going to bow back into your life. That’s why I had to lose number three.”

“Husband number three?”

“Well, I’m not talking about gerbils.”

Matt blinked, because just then he had seen paired pinpoints of red flashing between Electra’s well-planted ankles. Did she have…rodents in the place?

“Do you keep gerbils?” he asked.

“No! And I didn’t keep husband number three either. Those kids were such a happy couple when they moved in here. I just hate to see that go the way of all relationships.”

“If all relationships deteriorate, Electra, it was just a matter of time.”

“Maybe, but I marry ’em in the Love Knot chapel downstairs and I like to think some of them do better than I did. You aren’t going to be in the market for a JP anytime soon, are you?”

“Me? No. I don’t exactly have a social life with my work hours.”

“Then get a different job.”

“I don’t see myself doing this radio shrink work forever, but —”

Electra leaned forward, hands fisted on her flowered knees, pewter eyes sharper than honed steel. “You never know, Matt. You never know when something will take life away just like
that
. Like a bolt of lightning. You don’t want to be so absorbed in making a living that you don’t live.”

Between her slightly swollen ankles, the baleful red eyes regarded him as intently as she did.

“What makes you think I’m in danger of losing anything?”

“We always do, as life goes on. And I hate to see you young people so absorbed in running to this obligation here and galloping to that event there. You’re just rushing your lives away.”

Matt relaxed into the canvas sling. Electra was only bemoaning the up-tempo pace of modern cell-phone, belt-beeper, jet-speed, overbooked life. She didn’t have any special insight into any of their lives, only that they seemed more isolated than her generation had.

And of course she had no idea of the secret waltz they were all doing to survive the fixed attention of one elusive psychopath.

He was glad that Electra was safe, then wondered if she was.

“I’ve still got time to worry about dating later,” he said, hoping that Kitty had bugged the penthouse too, and her jealous spleen had heard his landlady bemoaning his lack of social life.

Maybe it was Kitty’s eyes glowing ember-red beneath the sofa. Like a rat, she could probably gnaw her way in anywhere.

He excused himself, fought his way out of the chair, and left with one last glance at the innocuous cardboard tube in Electra’s entry hall.

He hoped Molina could get further with that sketch than they had.

Max called Temple at four in the afternoon, when her shoes were off, her bare feet were tucked under her on the office chair, and her computer screen was blank because she had run out of words. Or thoughts. Or energy.

“What’s up?” she asked, trying to sound upbeat.

“Short notice.”

“Is that some kind of sneaky personal slur?”

“Never. I was hoping you could dine with me tonight at the Crystal Phoenix.”

“The Phoenix, why?”

“Because all your grand remodeling plans are now open to the public.”

“How nice of you to remember.”

“It wasn’t hard. They made all the papers.”

“Well, six.”

“Including
USA Today
and the
Washington Post
.”

“They both happened to be planning a Vegas update travel story. The timing was right. How did you know about the
Post
?”

“Web search.
‘Crystal Phoenix. Fabulous show. Brilliant PR woman.’
Just type in the right key words and the Web will take you anywhere.”

“Just murmur the right words and I’ll go anywhere. How dressy?”

“Very.”

“Hmmm. We must be going to Nicky’s place at the top.”

“It’s a surprise.”

“It always is when you feel you can afford to appear in public.”