Cat in an
Ultramarine
Scheme
By Carole Nelson Douglas from Tom Doherty Associates
MYSTERY
MIDNIGHT LOUIE MYSTERIES
Catnap
Pussyfoot
Cat on a Blue Monday
Cat in a Crimson Haze
Cat in a Diamond Dazzle
Cat with an Emerald Eye
Cat in a Flamingo Fedora
Cat in a Golden Garland
Cat on a Hyacinth Hunt
Cat in an Indigo Mood
Cat in a Jeweled Jumpsuit
Cat in a Kiwi Con
Cat in a Leopard Spot
Cat in a Midnight Choir
Cat in a Neon Nightmare
Cat in an Orange Twist
Cat in a Hot Pink Pursuit
Cat in a Quicksilver Caper
Cat in a Red Hot Rage
Cat in a Sapphire Slipper
Cat in a Topaz Tango
Cat in an Ultramarine Scheme
Midnight Louie’s Pet Detectives
(anthology)
IRENE ADLER ADVENTURES
Good Night, Mr. Holmes
The Adventuress* (Good Morning, Irene)
A Soul of Steel* (Irene at Large)
Another Scandal in Bohemia* (Irene’s Last Waltz)
Chapel Noir
Castle Rouge
Femme Fatale
Spider Dance
Marilyn: Shades of Blonde (anthology)
HISTORICAL ROMANCE
Amberleigh†
Lady Rogue†
Fair Wind, Fiery Star
SCIENCE FICTION
Probe†
Counterprobe†
FANTASY
TALISWOMAN
Cup of Clay
Seed Upon the Wind
SWORD AND CIRCLET
Six of Swords
Exiles of the Rynth
Keepers of Edanvant
Heir of Rengarth
Seven of Swords
* These are the reissued editions.
† Also mystery
Cat in an Ultramarine Scheme
A MIDNIGHT LOUIE MYSTERY
Carole Nelson Douglas
A Tom Doherty Associates Book
New York
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
CAT IN AN ULTRAMARINE SCHEME
Copyright © 2010 by Carole Nelson Douglas
All rights reserved.
A Forge Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
www.tor-forge.com
Forge® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
ISBN 978-0-7653-1863-3
First Edition: August 2010
Printed in the United States of America
0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Janet Berliner,
a magical writer, editor, and friend,
and, most of all, survivor
Contents
Previously in Midnight Louie’s Lives and Times …
Chapter 1: Magic Carpet
Chapter 2: How Green Was My Valley
Chapter 3: Broke New World
Chapter 4: Where Louie Used To …
Chapter 5: Simply … Artisto
Chapter 6: Temptations of Temple Bar
Chapter 7: Lights, Action
Chapter 8: Lake Mean
Chapter 9: Ganged Up
Chapter 10: Spooky Suite
Chapter 11: Merciless Tenders
Chapter 12: Meow Mix
Chapter 13: Dem Old Bones
Chapter 14: Media Draw
Chapter 15: The Guggenheim of Gangsters
Chapter 16: A Rat in Time Saves Nine Lives
Chapter 17: Love Connection
Chapter 18: Whose Vault Is It?
Chapter 19: Road to Ruin
Chapter 20: Hoopla and Homicide
Chapter 21: When a Body Meets a Body
Chapter 22: Guess Who’s Come to Dinner?
Chapter 23: Bahr Bones
Chapter 24: Synth You’ve Been Gone
Chapter 25: A Ghost of a Clue
Chapter 26: Motorpsycho Nightmare
Chapter 27: Silent Partner
Chapter 28: An Inspector Calls
Chapter 29: Ringing Issues
Chapter 30: Breakfast of Champions
Chapter 31: The Vegas Cat Pack!
Chapter 32: Bottoming Out
Chapter 33: Synthesized
Chapter 34: Dalai Lama Eyes
Chapter 35: Room Disservice
Chapter 36: Ladies’ Neon Night Out
Chapter 37: Playing It Koi
Chapter 38: Drinkin’ Bitter Beer
Chapter 39: Guy Wire
Chapter 40: Guns and Gravy
Chapter 41: Getting Their Irish Up
Chapter 42: Armed and Dead
Chapter 43: Murder in 3-D
Chapter 44: On Thin Ice
Chapter 45: Da Denouement, Dudes
Chapter 46: Closing Call
Chapter 47: Moving Issues
Tailpiece: Midnight Louie Decries Sex and Gore
Tailpiece: Carole Nelson Douglas Meditates on Mobs
Cat in an
Ultramarine
Scheme
Midnight Louie’s Lives and Times …
Ah, me. Here I live and work in the world’s biggest and glitziest adult playground, and somebody has gone and turned off the water, lights, and heat.
Well, not literally.
Still, much jazz and razzamatazz has left this jumpin’ joint in the Mojave Desert since the economic angst shut down Las Vegas’s mad, mad, mad building boom. I am not speaking of any of my old joints shutting down, mind you.
Only a couple of years ago the Strip used to be a high-wire act in “construction plaid.” What do I mean by “plaid,” besides that dead men do not wear it?
Picture this. For months the usual burning blue Vegas sky framed tall, thin, vertical condo towers—“every room with a view”—rising thanks to the high, wide, and horizontal lines of construction cranes.
They are both still there, mind you. Just dormant, sort of like me taking an ultralong Sunday nap.
This halted construction “plaid” has ruined the town’s once-so-dramatic helicopter-sweep vista, if you ask me. CSI: Las Vegas shows use old stock film when the scripts call for an aerial pan up Las Vegas Boulevard, aka the famous Strip. And the last venerable hotels that would be imploding to make way for the latest multibillion-dollar construction project are still standing proud and being marketed as bargains now that “exclusive” and “expensive” are looking mighty “expendable” in a lot of folks’ budgets.
You can get some great deals in Vegas nowadays, and not just at the casino tables.
Ah, almost forty million tourists each year and constant camera crews … flashy new hotels rising over the fleshy, seamy side of the Strip. There used to be a lot of fat cats in Vegas.
And one would be me.
I have always kept a low profile for a Las Vegas institution.
You do not hear about me on the nightly news. That is the way I like it. That is the way any primo PI would like it. The name is Louie, Midnight Louie. I am a noir kind of guy, inside and out. I like my nightlife shaken, not stirred.
Being short, dark, and handsome—really short—gets me overlooked and underestimated, which is what the savvy operative wants anyway. I am your perfect undercover guy. I also like to hunker down under the covers with my little doll.
Miss Temple Barr and I make perfect roomies. She tolerates my wandering ways. I look after her without getting in her way. Call me Muscle in Midnight Black. We share a well-honed sense of justice and long, sharp fingernails and have cracked some cases too tough for the local fuzz. She is, after all, a freelance public-relations specialist, and Las Vegas is full of public relations of all stripes and legalities.
None can deny that the Las Vegas crime scene is big-time, and I have been treading these mean neon streets for twenty-two books now. I am an “alphacat.” Since I debuted in Catnap and Pussyfoot, I commenced a title sequence that is as sweet and simple as B to Z.
My alphabet begins with the B in Cat on a Blue Monday. After that, the titles’ “color” words are in alphabetical order up to the, ahem, current volume, Cat in an Ultramarine Scheme.