Spuds stuck a gnawed yellow pencil behind his ear and escorted the two women to the front porch, away from the racket.
"Jilly says you got your hands full at the Crystal Phoenix," he told Temple when all three were gawking politely at the lake, trying not to be distracted by the hammering, yammering, sawing and off-key whistling drifting from inside the building behind them. "But if you get inspired about any ways to promote this little enterprise of mine, I'd be much obliged. And we Glory Hole Boys pay well."
"Nothing much is out here," Temple said, gazing at the lovely view. "Getting people to come here will be a trick. I like the name, though--not yours, the restaurant's. It's folksy but implies life after dark. How did you ever come up with it?"
"Simple." Spud's grin showed off impeccably bright false teeth. "I did what all clever entrepreneurs do: I borrowed it."
"Oh, dear." Temple prepared herself to explain the facts of commercial life. "Not from anything copyrighted or trade-marked, I hope."
"Not unless you call me a copy-cat." He pointed to a corner of the deck.
A large solid-black cat sat there, doing his nails.
Actually it was grooming its feet, toes spread, teeth pulling at the fine hairs between the pads. Temple had seen Midnight Louie do that a dozen times, and she was seeing it now.
''Louie! How did you get all the way out here?*'
The cat looked up, revealing his trademarked green eyes. He twitched a full set of whisker-white barbs, lifted his hindquarters from the planking, then sank into a belly-down stretch.
"How did my cat get out here?" Temple asked someone who would answer this time, namely Spuds Lonnigan.
"That's your cat? I don't see how that could be. This animal belonged to a war buddy of mine, who gave up the fishing business in Puget Sound and retired to Fiji. He wanted a good home on American soil for his old seagoing mascot, but near water. So I was elected. This here's Three O'Clock Louie."
''Are you sure." Temple demanded. "He's the spitting image of my cat. Midnight Louie."
"Old Wayne came through and handed him over not six weeks ago. Must be one of those Koppelgang situations."
"Doppelganger," Temple corrected absently.
The huge black cat had risen and was ambling over to inspect the visitors.
"What does he eat?"
"Every one of these dang goldfish they planted in the lake to entertain the tourists. I can't keep him away from 'em, not even with my best cooking. 'Course, Wayne did run a salmon trawler, so I guess this old boy's used to some pretty fancy fillets of fish."
By now the cat in question was rubbing itself against Temple's calves as if they were old friends, purring like a motor-boat.
"It certainly does like you," Jill noted. "I see what you mean about a resemblance to Midnight Louie, but this must be a different cat."
"You know Louie?"
"Sure. From the Phoenix."
Temple squatted down to scratch the animal's chin. The green eyes slitted, just like Louie's, but close up his muzzle looked dipped in milk.
''No, it can't be Louie, The muzzle is grizzled."
"Just like us," Spuds said, chuckling as he ran a palm over the pale stubble dotting his jaw.
"Been working day and night on this barn, no time to shave."
"Never had much time for it in the desert, either," Jill added fondly.
"Don't have ladies calling often. Think you can do something for me and Three O'Clock Louie, Miss Temple?"
"Sure. We can hatch some plans later, when the renovations are done. In the meantime, I think I better get back to the Crystal Phoenix, pronto."
"Why the hurry?" Jill asked, sounding anxious. "There's plenty to discuss here."
Temple suddenly saw through Jill like she was plate glass. This expedition to Temple Bar had been planned to distract Temple Barr herself from the ugly business at the Phoenix. But it hadn't worked; seeing Three O'Clock Louie in the flesh and fur had fixed that.
"I've got to get back and make sure Midnight Louie is in carp heaven and all's right with the world, for one thing."
"And for another?" Jill pressed her.
"For another, I better defend my skit from the forces of law and order, evil and Crawford Buchanan."
At her feet. Three O'Clock Louie seconded her announcement with a piercing meow of approval.
Chapter 24
The Good Father
Matt left ConTact preoccupied, his ears ringing with the multi-voiced, remote misery of the phone lines.
The drug overdose was all right; Matt had heard the ambulance siren wailing to a stop on the line's other end.
The suicide was another matter. Like alcoholics, suicide prone people promised reformation, then recanted barely after the telephone was hung up. They were also addicted to sudden terminations of calls, and of counseling: volatile, tortured people craving both attention and the numbing safety of anonymity.
How easy. Matt reflected, to deal with woe in a generic sense, to label people by their maladies. The distance of a counseling line worked both ways. It kept the caller from revealing too much, committing too much. It kept the counselor from feeling too much, bleeding too much.
No matter how specific the caller's anguish, it always fit into a universal mold, seen and shaken out onto the table to study a thousand times before: the suicide; the addict; the alcoholic.
Matt smiled wryly.
The Shoe Freak.
At least she fit a one-and-only mold, God-only-knew what size. Her obsessive documentation of the downfall of women's feet through the ages via the fiendish agency of high heels made for welcome comic relief. He must consult Temple about some of the Shoe Freak's complaints. Did she exaggerate, in the way of all obsessives, or was there a grain of truth, stubborn as a grain of sand rolling around inside a shoe, to her mania?
Only the sound of his footsteps interrupted the faint night music, the sawing-wing-work of cicadas and the gliding passage of unseen cars a block or two away.
But . . . Matt's shoes had rubber soles, he shouldn't be hearing the faint, gritty scrape of leather soles on sidewalk.
He mentally shrugged off his reverie, reflecting that he would rather be trailed by a stranger in a car than a stranger on a street.
The man in a car was visibly dependent on the accoutrements of civilization--tires and car keys, gas pumps and street lights. The man on foot seemed a more sinister figure, a throwback: the stalker, the hunter, convinced he needed nothing against the night but himself, and what he could carry. What would he carry?
Yet . . . someone as innocent as Matt could also be out: walking. At three-fifteen a.m?
Matt thrust his hands into his pants pockets--to imply he: carried something else in them beside his fists and some small change, and turned.
A man scuffed along the street fifty feet behind him, moving purposefully, a man in a suit, oddly formal apparel for this deserted shopping area at this time of night. Lauds.
Still, a suit was better than more Gothic garb, say a cowled monk's robe.
Matt grimaced at his religion-ridden imagination and turned, unwilling to have a stranger gaining on him along this lonely street, loath to challenge or to flee.
Instead, he drifted closer to the dark storefronts, until he reached an expanse of plate glass that was bathed in a reflected streetlight.
Now Matt himself was the Gothic figure, with the strong overhead light washing his features in skeletal shadows.
In the makeshift mirror of a dry cleaning establishment Matt watched the figure appear in the window's far corner, move within ten feet, and stop.
Oh, Lord. Matt turned to look, suspicious but not unduly alarmed . . . yet. The suit could be a decade old, and the man could be a homeless panhandler. He certainly wasn't a gang member.
"You're pretty hard to track down," the man said.
The particular vocal timbre plucked a long-unused string of Mattes memory.