Cat In An Alphabet Soup (Catnap)

“I’m interested in discussing an investigative job.”

The eyes looked her up, then down. The door swung open, baring more interior darkness.

Temple swallowed, then opened the rickety screen door. Entering houses in torrid climates was like plumbing the dark secrets of some ancient tomb. Windows were few and kept shaded. The visitor always blinked blindly on the threshold until the eyes adjusted to the abrupt dimness. In the meantime, E. P. O’Rourke could conk her on the head, rummage her tote bag and ravish her body.

Temple discounted her last foolish fear as her vision adjusted. E. P. O’Rourke was as stringy and desert-baked as beef jerky, with a shock of white hair and eyebrows in odd contrast to his seamed bronze skin.

“Come on in,” he said, turning.

Temple followed. Like most desert houses, this one offered a right-angle corkscrew of turning halls and boxy dim little rooms. In five steps she had lost the direction of the front door, which O’Rourke had shoved shut before preceding her into the house.

The air inside was hot and damp. She heard the drone of an old-fashioned water-cooling air-conditioning system—surprisingly efficient but invariably dank.

O’Rourke stopped in a room almost completely occupied by a huge slab of desktop. The surface was bare except for a black billiard ball that had been drilled into a pen rest and a free-form olive-green ashtray dusted with ash residue. No butts. He slipped into a battered leather office chair behind the desk and indicated a seat.

“What brung you here?”

“I read your entry in the phone book.”

“I mean, what problem?”

“First I should ask you your qualifications.”

O’Rourke shrugged. He was wearing a short-sleeved peach polyester shirt and, she thought, jeans and tennis shoes. At least no one would hear him coming, if his joints didn’t crack. Light filtered through the dusty blinds along one high, long window. O’Rourke’s hair was ethereally white in the hazy illumination, and his eyes gleamed baby-blue.

“I been in the merchant marines, but that was before you was born. I knocked around a bit. Been in business in Vegas for a few years. Been around, that’s about it. Now, what can I do for you, girlie?”

“You’re no relation to Chester Royal, I hope?”

“That dead ’un at the convention center? What’s this got to do with that? I don’t mess with homicide cases.”

“Nothing. This is cats.”

“Cats?” He spoke as if she’d named an alien being.

“Pet cats. Two are missing. What is your fee per hour?”

“Pet cats are missing all over the world. Nobody seeks professional help for it. Fifty dollars, plus expenses.”

“There wouldn’t be expenses. It’s a simple... drop.”

“Drop, missy? Where’d you get that lingo?”

“TV.”

“Don’t have one. Hasn’t been anything good on since Sid Caesar.”

“Before my time,” she shot back. “Are you bonded?”

“Are you kidding?” He paused to groom an unruly eyebrow with a forefinger, the way another man might stroke a mustache. She would have sworn he looked mischievous. “My word is my bond.”

“Are you kidding?” She shifted to rise and leave.

“Look. You don’t get a license unless the police say so.”

“You got a license?”

He pointed to the wall beside her, where a cheap black frame defined a document. Temple rose, got out her glasses and took her time deciphering the cursive script in the dim light.

“I don’t know, Mr. O’Rourke,” she said, resuming her seat, “there’s money involved.”

“Eightball,” he said.

“Huh?”

He gestured to the shiny black ball on his desk. “Eightball. It’s what everybody calls me.”

“Isn’t an eight ball supposed to be unlucky?”

“Only if you mess with it too early in the action. If it’s last on the table, the way it’s supposed to be, it’s lucky for the winner. I usually last to the end at whatever I do,” he said, with an emphasis both crisp and salacious.

Temple, surprised, laughed. She would bet that Eightball O’Rourke would be no one to tangle with in a barroom brawl if he had a broken bottle in hand, and as for his endurance in other pursuits, she wasn’t about to challenge it.

“How much money,” he asked genially, “and what’s involved?”

“It’s ransom money.”

“A kidnapping?” He whistled through teeth so white and even that they had to be false. “I don’t usually send folks to the cops, but even if it is only cats—”

“The ransom is five thousand dollars. That may not seem like much for a kidnapping.”

“That’s considerable for cats,” he admitted. “You want I should tail the napper when he picks up the cash?”

“I want you to drop off the cash so that I can tail the catnapper.”

“You got this backward, miss. Tailing’s the hard part. You could drop the cash and know it’s done and let me do the walking. That’s what you use the Yellow Pages for, isn’t it? ‘Let your fingers do the walking’?”

“If you think that’s best. We could meet before the... drop and I’d give you the ransom money then.”

“And give me my money, too. Then. Heck,” he said when she hesitated, “if you aren’t sharp enough to make sure I drop the dough, how were you gonna tail a kidnapper?”

“I was hoping it would be somebody I’d recognize.”