Cat In A Leopard Spot

“Only some of my crew. But come in outa the sun, folks. It’s already fixin’ to turn into summer on us.” Kirby turned to Temple with a grin. “Not that I haven’t housed an ape or two. Terrific fellas and gals.”

Inside, the building was functional with a capital S as in Spare: Concrete floor, discount office furniture, battered file cabinets and a lot of metal folding chairs sitting around.

Temple got the impression that not a lot of sitting around was done at the Animal Oasis.

“Have a seat.”

They took the only ones available, two folding chairs raked into a rough conversational angle. Kirby Grange leaned against a desk edge. Beer belly, jeans, and rolled-up faded denim shirtsleeves made him look like a ranch hand, and Temple supposed that was what he did.

“Why’d you rush off like that, Max? Not a word. And not that you weren’t paid up, but the birds just left downstairs at the Goliath.”

Max did something Temple had never seen him do before. He fidgeted with guilt.

“I had to leave town fast, Kirby. Personal matter.”

Kirby nodded, craggy face impassive but his blue eyes sparkling with speculation. “It was all right. Got a crew to disassemble the aviary and we moved the whole shooting match out here. You need the birds again?”

“No.” Max took a deep breath. “I’m out of the magic game.”

“Glad to hear it, because I’m out of the performing parrot game too.”

“They were cockatoos, and they didn’t really have to perform that much.”

For a moment tension hung between the two men like an invisible curtain, like the heat giving the desert air a permanent wave right before your eyes.

“For now,” Max went on, “I’m helping out a friend. Not her,” he added as Kirby automatically glanced at Temple.

“No.” Kirby grinned. “You don’t look like jest a friend, miss. Leastways I wouldn’t want it that way if I was twenty years younger.”

It was the kind of gallantry older men felt entitled to make to much younger women. Temple ignored it because it was so harmless in this instance, and because Max might need reminding.

He looked on benignly, as avuncular as Kirby now, as if he had somehow taken on the older man’s coloring like a chameleon.

Temple was shocked to realize that this was what Max did: he presented himself to people and fell into their patterns so completely and naturally that he could blend into any environment, any situation, any persona.

“What can I do for you?” Kirby asked, pleasantries over and business beginning.

“I’m looking into something for a magician friend,” Max said smoothly, seriously.

He was only half lying, Temple noted. The Cloaked Conjuror wasn’t a friend.

“His big cat’s gone missing. We’re thinking it might have been taken by someone who deals in illegal wildlife sales.”

Kirby’s friendly face hardened. “Got a few of those around. Worse varmints than anything on four feet or no feet. How can I help you?”

“First, let me take a stroll through your records. I know you keep tabs on some of the shady operations for the authorities. Then show my friend—” Max grinned and corrected himself. “My not-friend around your compound. And tell her how to spot a big cat that’s not at home.”

Kirby’s eyes played ping-pong between Max and Temple, their expression bouncing from surprise to worry before he fixed his attention on Temple. “Well, now, miss, showing you the Oasis would be a fine break for me.”

He went over to a file cabinet, jerked open a drawer, and eyed Max with much less pleasure. “You’ll find what you want under V. As in ‘vermin.’”

His boot heels clacked the concrete as he came to Temple. “Follow me. I hope you got shoes that can stand a cleaning. These animals don’t always use the bidet.”

She laughed and accompanied him out into the searing sunlight.

Behind them, Max was already shuffling papers. She saw him pull a small object from his jacket pocket and lift it to a page. Too big to be his mascara-size camera. What?

But Kirby Granger was drawling out a guidebook spiel to his animal kingdom. Temple trotted alongside him to the inner gates, to the animal Shangri-la beyond: big, looming wooden stockade gates, now that they had penetrated the electrified cyclone fence that defined the fringes.

Uh-oh. Maybe King Kong was on the menu after all. Or she was.

Chapter 8

Portrait

Molina thought Janice Flanders sounded oddly flustered on the phone.

“You have a job for me?”

“I know. The computer has made you obsolete,” Molina said, “but not in this case. I don’t trust eyewitness descriptions, particularly when they come from a bartender. I’m betting your fine Italian hand will get a better translation. Besides, he’s not exactly Mr. Cooperative.”

“A challenge?” Janice’s voice had perked up.

“And he works nights, and the only place he’ll consent to be debriefed is on the job.”

“Which is where?”

“Secrets strip club, on Paradise.”

“Oooh, Lieutenant, you do know how to appeal to the artistic soul. What do you suspect this unidentifiable guy of? I assume the suspect is a guy.”

“Oh, yes. Well, anything from loitering to public intoxication to murder.”