Cat In A Leopard Spot

“You wouldn’t need a portrait of a suspected loiterer. Or a drunk.”

“No. Are you willing to do it? ‘Rick’ works Monday through Saturday.”

“Even the bartender works under a nom de guerre? I can’t resist. Sleaze factor wins every time. Besides, I’m sure we’ll always have Paris. The regular rate?”

“A thirty percent sleaze bonus.”

“All right.”

Molina eyed the detectives’ reports again as she hung up. Although they had thoroughly grilled Secrets habitués and tracked Cher Smith’s ragged family background, her death still had unsolved written all over it. The cold facts: 78 percent of strippers are stalked by customers; 61 percent are assaulted by them. Add the usual late-night muggings in bad neighborhoods, and the odds grew longer than a lying Pinocchio’s nose in favor of whoever had killed Cher getting away clean as a wolf whistle.

This Vince character was the only missing piece in the puzzle. She hoped Janice—wry, solid, talented Janice—would piece enough of Vince together to give her detectives a face to find. A face that wasn’t Rafi Nadir’s. Ironic, how much she needed him to be not guilty this time.

Matt was surprised when his phone rang again so soon after he’d hung up. He jumped as if guilty of something, but the only possible offense was still feeling guilty about the call he’d made on that phone only half an hour ago. Guilt only goes around to come back and give the owners a good hard kick.

“Matt?” Her voice came breathless, unusual for Janice, and not at all like it had sounded a half hour ago when he had called. Before he could acknowledge that she had indeed reached him, she rushed on. “Listen, I don’t blame you for canceling our dinner tonight. That was pushing it. Inviting you here for dinner, I mean. Kiddies off. Home alone. Actually, you didn’t cancel it, you just didn’t accept it. I don’t blame you.”

“Janice, that isn’t it at all.”

“No? What else could it be? I feel like the Venus fly trap that failed.”

While Matt pondered an answer to that, she rushed on. Her anxiety to smooth over an apparent snag in their tentative relationship both aggravated his guilt and intrigued him. He was glad his late-life entry into the dating game was rattling someone else besides him.

“Just listen,” she was saying. “Right after you called, an identification job came up. Just now. I could do it tonight. But. The neighborhood’s not the best. Want to come along? I could use a bodyguard.”

“You don’t know how much. But it’s not me—”

“It could be fun. Well, okay. Interesting. Secrets. It’s a strip joint. I’ve got an uncooperative bartender to deal with. I feel like a gun-fighter strutting into a new saloon. Draw, partner, draw!”

Matt laughed. “Janice, where on earth did you get this assignment?”

“From your friend the homicide dick.”

“Molina sent you into that kind of a situation?”

“Why not? She’d go into it. Why shouldn’t a sensitive artist type like me soak up the scintillating ambiance too? Besides, she’s paying extra and I could use the money.”

“It’s not an environment I’d visit in a million years.”

A long pause. “I know. I’m asking too much. It might freak you out.”

He was feeling too guilty about saying no to dinner, at home alone, to let her go unescorted into a seedy situation like a strip club. He was already figuring a strategy to make sure that Kitty O’Connor knew nothing about it, or about Janice.

“Janice. Why’d you say yes?”

“I need the money. I could use something weird in my life. I’m trying my damnedest not to drive you away.”

Matt shook his head at the phone, where the gesture didn’t do any good. As Janice had caved in to Molina, he was about to cave in to her. Maybe life’s everyday plotline was constructed by a daisy chain of cowards. He couldn’t let her face a strip club alone. For the moment, Secrets sounded a lot more hazardous than Miss Kitty.

“I said yes to the job,” Janice admitted, “before I really thought about what it would mean.” Another pause. “And…you wouldn’t be trapped with me. Plenty of other female competition to think about.” She was still coaxing. “A dozen topless dancers will be our chaperons, honest.”

“I don’t feel trapped. At least not by you. I can see I’m going to have to explain myself, and I’d better do it in person. All right. I’m off work tonight. When do you want to do the dirty deed?”

They settled on what seemed a reasonable time, if there ever was a reasonable time for going to a strip joint. Matt hung up finally, pondering how to completely rearrange his life in a few short hours.

Living alone meant that the apartment was utterly silent when he was. He wasn’t used to solitary living. Rectory life bristled with people always coming and going, both residents and visitors.

He sat on the red sofa savoring the silence. And then he wondered if the place was bugged. He couldn’t underestimate Kitty O’Connor. Her uncanny way of knowing where he was, and when, was probably based on years of undercover experience.