Cat In A Quicksilver Caper

Foreplay

“So,” Miss Midnight Louise asks in her most scathing tone, “is there a reason we are out clubbing at Neon Nightmare when everything that can go wrong has gone wrong at the New Millennium?”

“Say what?” I growl as loudly as I can over the pounding, thumping sound system. I would not dignify this noxious noise with the term “music.”

“You understood me, Pop. You just did not want to answer because you do not really know why we are here.”

“Here,” is under the end of the long black Plexiglas bar. Above us the cadre of bartenders are slamming piña colada martinis down with lightning speed. Below us, the reflective black floor makes our usual ebony coats blend in with the decor. Those of our kind are generally considered inappropriate customers at such establishments, but most of the people here are too dazed in a pharmaceutical sense to notice our presence. We could come in white rabbit suits and still be ignored. Actually, we might be hit on for illegal substances in that guise.

“Not everything has gone wrong. I checked the New Millennium out earlier. The Czar Alexander scepter is back in place.”

“Yeah, and what kind of thief would do that?” she asks.

“I have my suspicions,” I say. I do not rat out a born second-story dude like myself, ever. Besides, that is the kind of ambiguous statement that usually shuts up all but the female of the species.

“Your suspicions? Such as—?”

Miss Louise is always a stickler for embarrassing specifics, like how much one weighs or what one thinks one is thinking.

I could tell her “none of your business,” but unfortunately these days her business is our business, i.e., Midnight Inc. Investigations, so I figure it is time to let her in on my brilliant deduction.

“You know about this Phantom Mage guy?”

“Appears twice nightly, yeah. That is better than your Miss Temple has been getting from Mr. Max Kinsella lately.”

“Exactly my point, Louise.”

She does not miss a beat now that I have given her a big, fat clue.

“You think this Phantom Mage is Mr. Max in disguise?”

Before I can repeat my “I have my suspicions” mantra she hopscotches right over me. If we were playing a game of checkers, she would be King.

“Oh. And you think he is the one who stole the Czar Alexander scepter. I admit it smacks of a Mr. Max operation. But why? He is ordinarily a law-abiding dude.”

“There has been nothing ordinary about this White Russian exhibition. It has had my Miss Temple’s brain in a bow tie since she started working on it. Nothing but trouble.”

“Rather like Mr. Max himself.”

“That is not fair, Louise. Much as I do not want him encroaching on my quilt time, he has only tried to help Miss Temple in her various enterprises and escapades. He has saved her life almost as often as I have.”

She snorts. That is not a very ladylike reaction, but I forbear to tell her. Louise does not take direction well. I do not either but that is different.

“That is what you get,” she says, “for entering into a mixed relationship. You will always be a third wheel when it comes to nocturnal territory.”

She is, alas, right. Humans do not abide by the simplest rules of territory: what smells like me is mine; where I sleep I am king; where I eat I am emperor; who I adopt is my loyal subject forever.

Maybe that should be “whom” I adopt. I am sure glad I did not say that aloud, for Miss Midnight Louise is also a fierce grammarian, as well as a dedicated carnivore and feminist of the first water, which means that she will mark any territory she can ahead of me. I am lucky that she regards Miss Temple’s digs as out of bounds or we would be knee-deep in trouble. Even without murderers and thieves around.

Speaking of adopting, Miss Midnight Louise would do well to consider that I have informally done her the honor. Granted it took a little prodding of a needle-sharp shiv on her part.

She has moved on, however, to consider my brilliant deduction, and is staring up hard at the dark apex of the internal pyramid that is the Neon Nightmare nightclub, as if searching for prey.

“I,” she points out (literally, by tapping me on the shoulder with a four-flush of extended shivs), “have no territorial disputes with Mr. Max. If he is the scepter thief, he must have more reason then mere material gain.”

“You think so? They do not call it ‘filthy lucre’ for nothing. Our kind has a hard time comprehending the sin of Greed.”

“Unless it involves food,” she says with a sly sideways glance at me.

“Then it is called Gluttony. And do not deny that you lap up every gourmet tidbit that Chef Song puts in your rice bowl at the Crystal Phoenix.”

Miss Louise remains fixated on the ceiling, from which the Phantom Mage is soon scheduled to descend in a sizzling display of pyrotechnics and acrobatic daring. Of course it is Mr. Max! But why?

“He must be undercover,” Louise hums softly to herself. “But why?”

“Miss Lieutenant C. R. Molina is making things too hot for him?”

“She has been for ages. There must be another motive.”

“Maybe he just misses his regular job.”

Louise’s gold eyes shine like twin suns. I bask in her approval. “You are so right. One cannot discount that with humans, especially performers. But he has always had two jobs, from what you have told me: as entertainer and as secret agent. He fought international terrorists even before this new breed entered the scene.”

“Right,” I say. “The IRA. I must admit I do not get it, this endless enmity between the orange and the green. Our kind has no trouble with those colors in both coat and eyes. Though you and I survive only by a miracle, given the human weakness for superstition and ignorance. Witches’ familiars indeed. Black is beautiful! That is why we are so prevalent. One wishes people had been born color-blind, as we are.”

“I do not know about you but I see some colors, although faintly. Humans have an aura, have you not noticed that?”

“Uh, this is getting very Karma, Louise. I thought you scorned that New Age stuff.”

“I scorn nothing that makes sense, and I can tell you that Mr. Max’s aura is green. Miss Temple’s is red. Mr. Matt’s is gold. And Miss Lieutenant Carmen Molina’s is blue.”

“Speaking of auras,” I say, “I have just spotted a gray one.”

She follows my glance to Mr. Rafi Nadir, obviously working security for Neon Nightmare. He wears all black, like Mr. Max, but it is harsh where Mr. Max’s wardrobe is smooth. He wears black denim jeans and jacket and a T-shirt with a death’s head on the front. It is probably for some rock band. They are all very depressed sorts in my observation.

“His aura,” Louise corrects me (Louise lives to correct me), “is silver.”

I admit I am taken aback. Silver is way too nice an aura for Mr. Rafi Nadir, ex–cop, ex–Carmen Molina live-in, all too not-ex father of little Mariah, who is no longer so little.

Nor am I happy to have two such dudes on different sides of the law inhabiting the same space, albeit unknown to each other. Mr. Max is unofficially a good guy, and Mr. Rafi is officially a fallen good guy.

But I am here to observe and learn and test theories, not tail sinister characters around Las Vegas. Although I have gleaned that my Miss Temple is highly upset with Miss Lieutenant C. R. Molina and that it would be fun to sic Rafi Nadir on that woman’s tail just to get back at her sins against my nearest and dearest.

However, Midnight Louie is not petty.

I am here to decide whether the Phantom Mage is Mr. Max, and, if so, why. And what that means for my Miss Temple’s peace of mind.

And my hereditary claim to one-third of the bed.