Cat In An Alphabet Soup (Catnap)

That touched a nerve. “I’m not competing with her; I’m just doing my job. At least it started that way.”

Temple remembered that the onerous duty of ransoming Baker and Taylor would occur first thing on the next day’s agenda. She either had to be up early—or up all night....

The waiter had slipped a salver, bearing the usual coy bill peeking out of a leatherette folder, next to Lanyard Hunter. Hunter’s forearms rested on the table as he leaned closer for the kill. His compelling eyes fixed on Temple with a flattering, unmistakable intent. At the same time, his expansive elbow had unobtrusively nudged the check tray to her side of the table.

Temple blinked, feeling like a robin who had been hypnotized by the world’s largest worm. The rat was going to take her at her word, stick her with the check and seduce her into the bargain, if he could! Lanyard Hunter was the Total Con Man. All of his promise and promises, especially romantic ones, were bogus. He could even be the murderer. No thanks.

“Speaking of my job,” Temple segued as smoothly as a con lady, “I’d better get you back to your hotel. You must be exhausted after two days of the ABA.”

“The night is only postadolescent,” he suggested in a baritone that could have seduced a Barbie doll.

Temple smiled. She was small but not that small. Or desperate. And not born yesterday. “My internal clock is on senescence,” she answered blithely. “I’ve had a long day, and I need my duty sleep.”

On that note the evening ended. Hunter never tried to beat Temple to the check. In no time flat she was pulling the Storm under the Las Vegas Hilton’s scintillating entrance canopy.

“Would you like to come in for a nightcap?” he asked.

“The only nightcap I want is flannel and at my apartment,” she said firmly.

“Are you sure?” Lanyard Hunter’s well-manicured hand had materialized warmly on Temple’s knee.

“Thanks, but I live with someone who might not understand.”

“Oh, who?”

“He’s a... big black dude. Some people think he throws a lot of weight around in this town.”

The hand vanished. Its opposite number was fumbling with the door latch.

“An enjoyable evening,” Hunter said as he hastily left the vehicle. “Thanks, and give my regards to your, er, friend.”

“Oh, I will,” Temple promised with a perky goodbye wave. The Storm took off like a hot aqua bat out of hell.

The moment Temple unlocked her big front door, the apartment felt wrong.

One thing was the heat. It prowled the darkened rooms like an invisible black panther. Its hot breath caressed her face first, then lapped down to her feet.

Even after the tepid air-conditioning of the Circle Ritz’s common areas, the marble-faced lobby and the wood-paneled hallway, this hothouse atmosphere felt unnatural, or rather, as natural as all outdoors. Far too hot for 80; more like a sizzling 90 degrees.

Temple waited while the unfamiliar hulking shapes turned back into her furniture. She slipped out of one high heel, bracing herself on the kitchen divider wall, then another. The shoes toppled onto bare parquet with a soft snick. She’d been meaning to get an entry area rug and now it was too late. Now she’d be murdered in her own apartment!

Maybe not.

She was alarmed, no denying that. The more you took a place for granted, the more you noticed when it altered, even slightly. Why would her air-conditioning have gone off—and hours before, to judge by the temperature now?

The pink neon clock on the black-and-white kitchen wall, so bland by day, broadcast an eerie Miami Vice glow over the counters. It reflected rosily, like a frivolous vigil light, on the living room’s sculpted white ceiling. A vigil light betokened a presence. Temple wondered whose.

She debated retreating. Yet the place was so still. Empty. Utterly empty. The parquet felt warm under her silent stocking feet as she skated across it, afraid of slipping.

The living room opened up before her, a book too dimly lit to read aright. A gap in the French doors was instantly evident, like a dog-eared page. One of the doors was ajar on an acute angle, admitting the heat of the night, and a grinding chorus of distant cicadas that she hadn’t noticed at first.

A heavy scent of jasmine and gardenia also rolled in like fog from the patio. Temple paused at the living room wall, her fingers reading the Braille of the thermostat’s raised plastic letters. The tiny marker was parked in the Off zone—but what burglar would turn air-conditioning off?

She shuffled further into the living room. Then she stopped. Something was missing. The cat should have sensed her presence by now. Louie should be stalking from some favorite retreat, or thumping down from atop the refrigerator, merowing for food. He should be wreathing her ankles, even in the dark, no challenge for his superior night vision. Where was the cat?