I must admit that my reception at the Circle Ritz is all that I hoped for.
“Ah, Louie,” Miss Temple Barr murmurs in dulcet, rapt tones, much as Leslie Caron must have chirped off camera to my (some say) handsome human soul mate, Louis (pronounced “Louie”) Jourdan, in the movie Gigi in their fifties heydays.
Miss Temple Barr clasps me to her bosom. She fondles my head and cradles my weary body—it is a long trot from the Crystal Phoenix to the Circle Ritz.
She wafts me to the kitchen and casts slightly stale refrigerated tuna before my nostrils. She reconsiders and opens a fresh can of room-temperature sockeye salmon. This chick has possibilities.
She strokes me from dome to Gehenna and back again. I am one purrin' kitten. Also, lately I have been pondering the advantages of acquiring a retirement condo far from the Strip’s hurly-burly (mostly burly, when one considers the local “muscle").
Anyone can see it is clearly to my advantage to take an interest in the doings of Miss Temple Barr. I do not wish to gain an undeserved reputation for becoming a sentimental slob in my old age, but I am, as the top dogs at the Crystal Phoenix say not eight hours earlier, free to come and go.
And I foresee that matters of a mysterious nature will come and go around Miss Temple Barr for some time. She is, if I may be allowed to say so, as curious as a cat, but shockingly näive and in desperate need of seasoned guidance. Like mine.
And she smells good.
11
Catastrophe . . .
Temple awoke to find the black cat sleeping on her feet. This gesture of affection was wasted in the hot afterglow of a long, tossing Las Vegas summer night.
Midnight Louie, however welcome back, was hot, hairy and heavy, about eighteen pounds. Come to think of it, Temple had only to add a zero to Louie’s avoirdupois and she’d have a pretty good description of the nocturnal presence of the Mystifying Max.
“Bastard!” Temple growled at the morning and Louie, following this undeleted expletive with an unexplained shiver.
“Guess what I’m going to do at work today,” she told the cat, extracting her feet from its warm underbelly. “I’m going to find out more about Pennyroyal Press and the late Chester Royal—just for the heck of it.”
The cat apparently approved of her resolve. He ate his seven-ounce can of spring-water-packed albacore tuna, from a fishery that abided by the new Geneva conventions for the preservation of dolphins. Then he freshened his whiskers and was waiting, sleek and expectant, by the door when Temple charged out of her bedroom dressed and ready for battle.
“Why not?” she asked nobody rather pugnaciously. “The convention center has thousands more square feet than the Crystal Phoenix, even if none of it’s that upscale. You can rule the roost—and the rats to boot. Come on.”
She was not surprised when the cat trotted out after her like a dog. Midnight Louie was obviously a feline of great enterprise and intelligence. First she stopped at Electra’s penthouse apartment one floor up to collect the surprise package that had been a-borning all night.
Electra, an insomniac who welcomed nocturnal projects, was baggy-eyed but not too worn to fail to admire Midnight Louie rubbing demandingly at her ankles. Apparently she had no objections to his presence. Readily abandoning his new fan, the cat followed Temple to the car.
After Temple had stuffed Electra’s huge paper sack in the Geo’s rear area, Louie hopped into the front passenger seat and braced his huge front paws on the dashboard like a pro. The Storm whipped through Vegas’s sparse morning traffic. Folks who’d been up until two and three in the morning weren’t out puttering around at 7:30 a.m.
When Temple and Louie slipped into the nondescript rear employee entrance to the mammoth convention center, Lloyd pushed his cap back on his balding cranium and narrowed his eyes to miniblind slits.
“Look, Lloyd. Midnight Louie’s a VIP around here now. Famous detective cat. You read it in the paper. He can come and go as he likes.”
“That official?”
“It will be as soon as I talk to Bud.”
“Humph.”
“Humph is right! If the Crystal Phoenix can have a house cat, we can have one, too. He might become a valuable convention center mascot, like Baker and Taylor. Any news of the missing duo?”
Lloyd shook his head as he inspected the contents of the huge paper bag Temple carried. His eyebrows lifted almost to the brim of his ebbing cap.
“I swear that there are no hidden explosives, Lloyd. Terrorists wouldn’t pick Vegas to make a statement and there aren’t any incendiary books out this year, except maybe the new Pee Wee Scouts kiddie title. The one a couple seasons back that told kids there was no Santa Claus raised more of a ruckus than Salman Rushdie.”
When Lloyd finally nodded her in, Temple, bag and cat obliged him.
The office was still empty, but Temple made a quick call to Cyrus Bent, the security head, and told him her needs. Within twenty minutes she was meeting him at the Baker & Taylor booths. Within five they had managed a semiofficial break-in to the cat castle. Within eight they were out of there with an empty paper bag, mission accomplished.
“I hope those people appreciate your efforts,” was Cyrus Bent’s parting sentiment. Most men in private security were like stateside leftovers celebrated in song during World War II: either too young or too old. Bent was on the old side of that statistic, which meant that he knew that good security included being secure enough to bend a rule.
“Hope so,” said Temple, saluting him as she raced down the long exhibition floor toward the offices.
Once there she showed Louie his food bowls in the storage room—a source of much interest—and a new permanent site for the previously floating workplace litter box—a source of great disdain. She left the storeroom door open as a sign of Louie’s new status.
When Valerie came in, Temple’s word processor was chuckling with rapid-fire releases. Her messages would have to wait a little longer. By the time Bud Dubbs arrived at 9 a.m., Louie had selected Crawford Buchanan’s desk as the most congenial resting spot. Buchanan scowled in at 10:30; by then Louie’s presence was fait accompli and Buchanan was in serious danger of being supplanted as the office layabout.
“Get that monster off my desk!”
“Why?” Temple asked. “Every time he switches his tail he clears off two months of outdated clutter.”
“I hate cats!”
“You would.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It takes a certain discrimination to appreciate a cat like Midnight Louie. Gosh, that’s a great name—I’d wish I’d known it before the Review-Journal article ran.”
“A disgusting name, surpassed only by its possessor,” Buchanan snarled. He was in a vile mood.
Just then Emily Adcock from Baker & Taylor came charging in with an exultant look.
“You found the cats!” Valerie guessed.
“Not quite. It’s either the most astounding thing... or—” Emily Adcock focused on Temple, who had not said a word or moved a muscle—“you did it! What a wonderful idea!”
“I didn’t do it personally,” Temple said.
“It certainly takes us off the hook and makes the setup look intentional.”
“What is this wonder?” Bud Dubbs asked on his way from the coffee maker.