Cat In A Leopard Spot

Midnight Louise sits down on the cushion of her fluffy tail and begins one of those obnoxious, discouraging lists that dames are always going on about.

“We are not going to hot-foot our way through this case on pedal power this time. From what you have told me of your Mr. Max, he would be impossible for a bloodhound to trail. You do not even have a clue as to where he hangs his brass knuckles. Also, from what you tell me, he is not some amiable associate like your wire-haired so-called roommate, who will let us tag along in her motorcar. Hell’s bells, Daddio, he does not even use the same car from day to day. Nor would he be an easy dude to let us hitch a ride unnoticed, as we did in Mr. Matt Devine’s motorcycle pouches. And even that vehicle was originally owned by Mr. Max Kinsella, so I do not see how we are going to get anywhere trying to follow the likes of him.”

“I suppose I could call Nose E. in on the case. There must be plenty of essence de Max Kinsella lingering around my roomie’s domicile. And she is not ‘wire-haired’ like a terrier, but blessed with soft, flowing waves like an Irish setter.”

“Please spare me your paeans to human hair. It holds all the attractions of the lint trap in a clothes dryer for me. And speaking of hairy little individuals, I am not going to baby-sit the inside of an Oreo cookie again. Nose E. indeed! The Maltese flatfoot. I thought it was my assistance you required. Now you are inviting everybody but the kidnappers in on the investigation.”

“I suppose,” I say meekly, “you have a suggestion?”

“Why must we follow the human investigators? I say we forge our own trail and get there first.”

Midnight Louise nods as she strips the excess hairs from between her long and razor-sharp shivs.

And I am worried about a mythological beast named Hyacinth.

Chapter 7

A PR in PI Clothing

“I need,” Max said, gazing deeply into Temple’s eyes through his green contact lenses, “a clever shill who doesn’t know too much.”

“Great. What part of that is supposed to win me over? Not ‘shill.’ Not ‘not knowing too much.’”

“Clever,” Max pointed out.

“If I were really clever, I couldn’t be talked into being a shill.”

“I meant a convincing shill.”

“Clever and convincing. I suppose I could live with that.”

Max had arrived that morning by one of his literal second-story-man entrances to her, formerly their, condominium. He had entered, attired as usual in cat-burglar black from head to foot, by the patio French doors like a missing husband in a French farce, just in time for breakfast.

Temple had reciprocated this act of home invasion by popping two frozen waffles in the toaster. She and Max were now cosied up to the kitchen eating island on bar stools, applying bits of waffle to their blackberry preserves, pools of butter pockmarking the waffle grids amid the surrounding moats of maple syrup.

“Nutritionally, this is the pits,” Temple noted.

“I don’t come here for good nutrition,” Max commented.

“So now I’m empty calories.”

He shrugged, and ate.

“What do you want me to do?”

“Nothing much. Just buy a big cat.”

Temple stopped sopping up waffle long enough to look pointedly at Midnight Louie lounging on the adjacent kitchen countertop, managing to look both bored and hopeful. “Got one.”

“Bigger.”

Temple was too busy chewing to speak with more than her raised eyebrows.

“That new attraction at the Crystal Phoenix is on the verge of opening, isn’t it?” Max asked, switching from syrup to coffee. “I’ve been hearing and reading nothing in the local media lately but squibs about the new Action Jackson subterranean virtual-reality mine ride and the Domingo flamingo farango—whatever performance-art installation and the children’s petting zoo.”

“Mmphhank ouuu!” Temple got out before she could finish mashing waffle.

Nothing paid tribute to a public relations person’s expertise more than a host of well-planted news items. You had to nibble the public to death to make an impression: repeated, needling mentions, rather like piranha love bites.

“So you’re perfect for the job,” Max went on.

“Of buying a big cat.”

“I don’t expect you to tote one home in your U-Haul. Just to…go shopping.”

“You can shop for lions, and tigers, and bears?”

“Unfortunately, yes. Of course it’s highly illegal.”

“Illegal.” Temple polished off the last swipe of waffle and reached for her morning multivitamin pill, which was almost bigger than she was. “I love to do illegal.”

Max grinned. “Yes, you do. I had no idea when I ran into you in Minnesota—”

“You ran into a ficus tree while looking at me.”

“You ran into a drinking fountain while looking at me.”

“At least we didn’t damage the greenery and the water supply.”

“No, they damaged us.”

“Then did we damage us?”

He sobered instantly. “No, fate and the past damaged us. Not too badly, I hope.” She shrugged it off good-naturedly, but he went on. “I often wonder if you would have been better off, safer and saner anyway, if I’d just stayed lost.”

“You would have never come back? Why did you?”