Cat In A Sapphire Slipper

Endurance Vile

After all and sundry have had a couple days to recover from being cooped up together in a residence high on bedrooms and low on other creature comforts, I amble up the Strip to visit my partner in Midnight Inc. Investigations.

Miss Midnight Louise can be found by my old office area among the canna lilies, overlooking the koi pond at the Crystal Phoenix.

Although she professes to despise the way I do things, I notice that she enjoys the shade under the tall, spreading foliage, and the way the wet fish scales shimmer in the sunlight.

Since she is house detective here now, not I, I do not comment right off that she is tolerating riffraff in the pool area. At least three skinny dames in skinnier bikinis have designer carryall bags containing yappy purse pooches beside their lounges.

When I innocently observe that she is leaving the canine intruders unmolested, she just shrugs.

“They may expose themselves to dangerous sun rays if they wish. Besides, those are not dogs so much as animated purse lint.”

I sit to clean the hairs between my toes. In human circles this would be regarded as an uncouth pursuit, but among our kind it is considered good grooming.

“Are your split shivs recovering?” she inquires.

“Yes, thank you. They will be their old Ginsu-sharp selves in another week.”

“What brings you over here? The wedding is not for two days. I presume you plan to crash it, as you did the bachelor party.”

“Of course not. I am an invited guest.”

“Hmm.” Her brief purr is decidedly unimpressed.

“I have been busy about town sorting out the details and progress of the case.”

“And—?”

“I have it on the best authority—”

“Whose?”

“FBI agent Bucek’s.”

“Go on.”

Somehow I feel like a footman reporting to the queen when I am the kingpin here.

“He honored Miss Temple’s Circle Ritz and my abode with a visit and all the inside info he was free to spread around.”

“Who else was there?”

“Miss Kit Carlson and Mr. Matt Devine.”

“So he did not exclusively call on Miss Temple and you, but Miss Temple and her nearest and dearest, and you happened to be there coddling your claws.”

“Louise! I am as much a part of Miss Temple’s less formal investigative cases as those of Midnight Inc. Investigations.”

“Oh, stuff a catnip mouse in it, Daddy-o! You know you are just trying to appear all-wise and knowing. Can it. I am wise to you in a way you will never be wise to me.”

Those are fighting words. Louise is lucky my shivs are dull, but the back of my tongue is not.

“I can just leave you in the usual blissful ignorance,” I say, pausing to polish one of the shivs in question with the tongue in question. Then I shut up.

“All right, spill it.” She settles onto her haunches with a yawn that fools no one.

She is dying to hear who was really who and what was really what in the shenanigans at the Sapphire Slipper.

“First, the perp. He may be a nameless nebbish to us, and have made a really lame attempt at escape, but it turns out he has a murderous rap sheet as long as a kinkajou’s tail.”

“He is supposed to be what passes for a professional at this?”

“I share your amazement. Good hit men are hard to find in Las Vegas nowadays, I guess. This guy was from the East Coast mob.”

“And his inside contact was the lady known as Asiah?”

“No, she was his fortuitous outside contact, as my Miss Temple figured out. She set up the deal with him for the girlfriends, thinking he was just what he was masquerading as, a driver for Gangsters. She didn’t know he hitched a ride in the Rolls-Royce trunk, then hid in the garage until he snuck in later to fulfill his contract and kill Madonnah. Miss Asiah didn’t know until she saw the victim was strangled with one of her fishnet hose that he’d implicated her. Ma Barker found the second stocking in the peep room later. Miss Asiah knew to look for it in the bedroom and tossed it in there to put the blame on Mr. Matt.”

“Naughty! There must have been an inside contact.”

“Right. The Shoofly character took over as general factotum at the brothel about eight months ago.”

“Who is this General Fact-totem? Something to do with the military and the Indians?”

“Naw, it is just some general person useful for domestic slavery work.”

“It sounds like someone had this plan in mind for a while.”

“Right. Madonnah was really Norah Rudinsky. She got close to some drug-lord mobster and testified when he was caught. Just like we heard, she was in the Federal Witness Protection Program. They have been trying to kill her for three years.”

“Why now? The case is closed, surely, and her mobster boyfriend is upriver until his toenails grow long enough to decorate for Christmas.”

“Sure. But the mob needed to make an example of what happens to anyone who squeals on them. The fact that this opportunity would put a former rival like Macho Mario and kin in trouble just made revenge all the sweeter.”

“So Shoofly is likely to go to prison for quite a while?”

“As soon as they figure out what gender he or she is.”

Miss Midnight Louise licks her vibrissae with the tip of her dainty red tongue and considers.

“So they have the pseudonymous Gherken for murder one, and Shoofly and Asiah as accessories. Will the showgirl get big time?”

“Maybe not, but Ralph is through with her, although he was pretty upset about the trouble she got herself into. She did it for kicks really, not knowing something was up.”

“Not even when a woman was murdered?”

“Maybe then. She changed into pants when she came into the bordello for good, Gherken was lurking and smart enough to grab her discarded hose from the trunk for the murder weapon. Then she kept her mouth shut, not knowing how they’d turned up around Madonnah’s neck.”

“Is not one pair of fishnet hose like another?”

“Apparently not. Asiah’s were from Frederick’s of Hollywood, and they had a lurid little label on the back rear seam. They were the trashy, real thing. The other girls, including Madonna, had more fashionable seamless fishnet hose.”

“So the only one of the bachelor party to take a loss is Ralph?”

“Yeah, but a dame gone bad is worse than no dame at all. You hear anything on this end about how he and your other proteges here at the Crystal Phoenix are taking the girlfriends’ prank turned deadly?”

Miss Midnight Louise looks around, as if the fish have ears. “I know, Louie, that the male of the species does not like to listen to the idle speculation called gossip—”

“In this case,” I say quickly, “I will be idle.”

She rises to look around again, then bends my ear, quite literally, with a cupped paw.

“Wedding plans proceed apace, but the Fontana brothers are still mightily annoyed with their abducting girlfriends. The rumor is that they all have been fired as bridesmaids.”

“No! But who will they find to escort to the wedding on such short notice?”

“You think Giuseppe, Rico, Ernesto, Julio, Armando, Emilio, Eduardo, and Ralph cannot find alternate dates on the spin of a dime?”

“No, but there is the matter of the bridesmaids’ gowns. They are already altered to fit a bevy of lithe beauties.”

“Do not worry, Louie. Miss Van von Rhine and Miss Temple Barr would not permit Miss Kit Carlson’s nuptial moment to be tarnished by the actions of a flock of jealous and impulsive girlfriends, one of whom is currently in custody.”

“Of course not. So who will replace the eight bridesmaids?”

Miss Midnight manages to look both smug and coy.

“Let us just say that ‘something blue’ for the wedding is a set of eight garters and their wearers, out from Beatty way.”

I gasp. Yes. Literally. Like a fish, like the oh-mouthed koi crowding to the pond’s edge to mock me with their piscine kisses.

Midnight Louise goes on. “Miss Kit Carlson will wear the ninth garter as an honorary badge of courage for having her bridegroom held in durance vile at the Sapphire Slipper.”

I nod. There is a certain satin-smooth justice in the solution to the wedding party problem, for, of course, bridesmaids behaving badly must not be rewarded.