Cat in an Alphabet Endgame: A Midnight Louie Mystery (The Midnight Louie Mysteries Book 28)

14

The Skype Hype

After she dropped Kit off at the Crystal Phoenix, Temple returned to the Circle Ritz, singing in the elevator and dancing down the hall. “I’m in love with a wonderful guy” from some musical soon morphed into “I’m in love with a wonderful dress”. Call her elated. She was just exuberant enough to commit to a bold move she’d planned to put in motion.

Waltzing from the living room into her office, she noticed Louie wasn’t in there either. He must be out and about via the neighboring bathroom’s partly open window.

Her business card lay near the desktop computer in her office It read Temple Barr, P.R., as in Public Relations. Friends, and even Matt when they’d first met, had joked she really should put “P.I.” as in Private Investigator on that card. She did have a knack for crime-solving.

Ordinarily, she worked casually around all the rooms, slouching on a chair or sofa or bed with her tablet or smart phone, but this was a delicate situation.

So she sat at her rarely used desktop, staring into the dark computer screen, sobering up fast. She was about to attempt the most dishonest, manipulative, necessary, and desperate “public relations” campaign of her career. Right now she was calling on every “knack” in her large tote bag of tricks and taking full, lavish advantage of an offer she couldn’t refuse.

Her top clients, Van and Nicky Fontana of the Crystal Phoenix hotel-casino, had called Temple into Van’s office as soon as they heard she had wedding plans waiting on Matt’s Chicago career options. Van was the executive. Nicky was the mob family white sheep who’d made a go of a “legit” enterprise in a Vegas gone (relatively) straight.

“Listen,” Nicky had said. “You’re one of our most valuable employees, even if we may lose you to Chicago. Your family wedding is our Family wedding. Tut.” He held up a well-manicured hand. Only Fontana brothers could make manicured fingernails sexy rather than an affectation. “My brothers tell me there may be flies in the ointment.” He glanced at his cool, contained blonde wife, Van von Rhyne, who nodded.

“There always are in this town,” Van said, rolling her baby-blues.

Nicky nodded. “That’s your business, Temple, and my bros’ business, yet I cannot help but think nine Fontana brothers will be useful as more than groomsmen for your nuptials if there are any bumps in the road.

“As for the costs of all involved, it’s on the house. Our house. Whomsoever you want to import for the occasion to stay in a private suite, for the reception and before and after parties, etcetera, etcetera. We will even tolerate random government agents, and local fuzz,” he said with a wink. “We are as clean as a toothpick at the Crystal Phoenix. Bring ’em on, all the conventional and unconventional guests. Just don’t get hurt. Capiche? And I hope you will include Van and I in the festivities, or riots, as it may be.”

Who could carp at that ungrammatical “whomsoever” and “I”? Nicky Fontana was a prince and Van his perfect princess partner. Words were Temple’s business, but elegant hospitality was theirs, and she was lucky to have the use of it.

“Yes, sir,” Temple said. “With pleasure.”

So since Temple had means, she had opportunity. She was going to be nervy and pitch some Very Important People to attend not only her and Matt’s wedding, but a surprise family get-together afterward. She figured it would only work if she contacted them in person. Enter Skype, the free video call computer face-to-face program, which Temple didn’t use much herself and which would be outright foreign to an older generation.

To do this, Temple felt she needed to sit upright in her desk chair and play a pilot at the controls. Her fingers had tapped a paper list of names and phone numbers on the desk’s right surface. Everything had to be concrete, firmly at hand.

She’d always been a tad leery of the digital. That was why she wore a round watch face as large as her slender left wrist, with a Big Hand and a Small Hand ticking off the exact second. It flashed some Austrian crystals, as did her big round sunglasses. As a tiny woman she wasn’t afraid to accessorize big. People remembered that, and remembered her. And trusted her to Think Big too.

Before she pressed the starter, engaged the ignition, and took off into the wild blue Internet, she skimmed the list once last time. She had to keep an eye on who was who and who was where. She could not afford to make a mistake.

She’d confronted a murderer or four, and a psychopath or two, but this head-to-head was even worse. It was Family. And even worse, OPF, not other people’s money, but families. That wasn’t public relations, but private relations.

She took a deep breath, dialed the first number, and lifted her chin, remembering this was going to be Skype and computer cameras always shot upward to provide the best double-chin angle, like at the police booking room or the driver’s license photo renewal set-up.

Not that she had a double chin.

Before she could take a second deep breath, she was looking at Max Kinsella, thirty years older, on the screen, full head of black hair graying in dramatic white swaths, but the eyes still piercing and demanding accounting.

This was the most delicate and volatile contact. Survive this and it just got easier.

“Miss Barr,” the older Max said, “I presume. This is a bizarre…method of contact and communication, but you say it involves our son.”

The woman beside him seemed petite, like her (oh, cra…ah, crepuscular moon!). Temple tried to swear, even to herself, as she did everything else, creatively. Don’t even think you reminded Max of his mother!

The man went on. “If this is some Internet scam, I assure you, young woman, we will prosecute you to the full extent of the—”

“Cat!” the woman exclaimed.

Temple gritted her teeth while maintaining her friendly smile, a PR professional necessity.

Midnight Louie’s big head had pushed over her shoulder, either recognizing a certain “Max” timbre in the man’s voice or a verbal threat from the screen.

“Louie,” Temple tried to shrug him out of view. “Butt out, there’s nothing to eat here.”

The woman advised her husband. “A con artist wouldn’t bring a cat along.”

He was not soothed. “We’ve heard very little from our son lately, scanty communication for years, in fact. That’s the only reason we agreed to this mad meeting over the ethernet.”

“I’m so glad you knew someone acquainted with Skype. I know you need to see me for myself, if not my cat. I work at home. Are the Kellys with you, as requested, Mr. Kinsella?”

Husband and wife exchanged consulting glances.

“Who hired you?” Kevin Kinsella barked.

“Nobody hired me. Your son would be very unhappy to know I’d contacted you and the Kellys.”

“Unhappy?” That one word from Max’s mother was a cry from the heart. “Is it something we did wrong all those years ago?”

It was something you failed to do right, Temple thought, but an ace PR woman couldn’t say that.

“It’s something you can do very right,” she said. “I’m a friend of…Michael’s, and he suffered a serious fall some time ago, during his magic act. It caused traumatic memory loss.” True. “His pride has taken a body blow from the accident. He was always so self-sufficient.”

Mrs. Kinsella reached for her husband’s arm off-camera, and his grimace showed the full force of her grip. “He’s mobile, he can communicate,” she begged. “He’s recovered?”

“All recovered, except for pieces of his memory of you and your husband and his best friend and cousin, brother really, Sean, whom he deeply mourns, and his aunt and uncle. The Kellys are there, as I so I hoped they would be?”

“Here, but dubious, as we are,” Max’s father said.

“May I speak to them?”

The couple parted sheepishly and a pair of very different features pushed through to stare at her, with hair red and curly as opposed to black and straight.

Temple could sense the couples’ discomfited body language at being forced to crowd together around a tiny screen, but they all were eager for more news. Finally.

“You don’t know me,” Temple said. “I hesitated to contact you, but I think it would help Michael’s memory so much, and help you to understand the long silence, perhaps between you all on your side of the generations too.”

Silence.

“I’ve contacted you because I’m getting married soon.”

“To Michael?” Eileen Kelly had spoken sharply. Temple understood why. Michael was getting married? Her dead son, Sean, never would.

“Oh, no,” Temple said. “I’m marrying another wonderful man, a man named Matt.” She appeared to think a moment. “But Michael will attend the wedding. We both think so highly of him, and thought that if you all could attend, it might break him loose from the prison of his amnesia.”

“Catholic, are you?” Patrick Kelly asked.

“I’ve been known to attend Our Lady of Guadalupe in Las Vegas.” True.

“Las Vegas!” Maura Kinsella was taken aback.

“Michael had performed here under another name until forced to take a sudden leave of absence.” True. “This amnesia has gone on for a long time.” Well, a few months.

“Hey, people. I would be the happiest bride on the planet if your families could come to my wedding. It might break the veil of Michael’s memory. I represent the Crystal Phoenix Hotel, the most tasteful boutique hotel in Las Vegas. The management will fly in anybody I think essential to my dream wedding, and include paid-for luxury suites and the reception.”

“Smells like one of those time-share vacation schemes,” Kevin Kinsella grumbled in the background.

“Got it on Google,” whispered a loud young male voice, presumably the nephew acquainted with Skype. “Hot Kardashian sundae, that place rocks!” A lad after Temple’s heart. “Five stars. On Yelp. That’s golden. Quit angsting, oldsters, and go for it.”

“I assure you,” Temple said, “it’s a five-star wedding gift to me, like Michael and his folks,” Temple said.

Temple didn’t need to say another word. She merely stared hopefully in a starry-eyed bride way, into the screen.

The saying went, “Never let them see you sweat.”

With Skype, that was possible.

Temple wiped her palms on her poplin capri-clad thighs and dialed again.

“Temple! This is such a treat. I can see you perfectly.” Matt’s mother’s welcoming face on the screen made Temple’s tensed shoulders loosen.

“That the mighty mite from Vegas?” Matt’s crushing young cousin popped her Goth post-punk face into the Skype view. Krys considered herself as an also-ran for the bride role.

“Kyrstyna,” Mira said, “is the only one I know who can get my computer to do this face-to-face trick. So we’re talking from Krys’s apartment, that we shared before I remarried. You remember it from your visit? It’s very warm in Las Vegas now, isn’t it? Not so much in Chicago.”

It was very warm on Skype with Temple about to invite Mira and her new husband and his brother and long-time wife to the wedding.

“What is so important that we have to Skype?” Mira asked.

“Matt and my wedding plans are on speed-drive all of a sudden,” Temple said. “Your new side of the family are invited, but it’s coming up fast. You’ll be flown in by the Crystal Phoenix, with luxury suites and the best wedding reception ever.”

“Am I a side of the family?” Krys stuck her face into camera range to ask.

Just the beefy one, Temple was tempted to answer.

Krys was all right. Not fat, but a “strapping” Polish girl who was hiding being twenty and awkward behind an aggressively hip look, and lots of lip. She’d had her heart set on cousin Matt since she turned teen. More so because he had been a priest then, which made him safely out of reach. Temple could understand, but not cater to, that.

Even nosy, possessive Krys didn’t know that Mira’s new-brother-in-law had been Matt’s father.

Temple wanted Matt’s unacknowledged father at their wedding in the worst way. This was not a duty call for Max, as she’d just done. This was trying to maneuver a secret duet from the heart, for his mother, Mira, and Matt to have a genuine entire “family” for one day, Temple’s wedding day, even if nobody knew it except the four of them.

Maybe it wasn’t strange that Matt had grown up wanting to be a priest. After all, his teenaged Polish mother and father from a privileged family had met at a Catholic church, lighting a candle to the Virgin Mary. Mira was a sensitive girl from a boisterous, large family. Jonathan was defying his family to enter the armed forces, and couldn’t admit to being frightened of a foreign war zone. It was love at first fragility. And Christmas, when lonely people longed for comfort.

The result was they never saw each other again, and Mira had Matt, named for the Disciple, Matthias. The boy’s family knew, and bought Mira a two-flat so she’d have a home and an income property and make no claims on the wealthy Winslows. Being an unwed mother in her Catholic milieu carried immense shame. Desperate to give Matt a father, she married Cliff Effinger, who’d coveted her income property.

Jonathan Winslow was never told Matt existed. Until Matt tracked him down and did the job.

Mira, by sheer stupid coincidence met his widowed brother at her restaurant hostess job, and did marry Philip Winslow. So the secret family farrago remained operative in Chicago.

For one day, Temple wanted Matt’s biological mother and father to share in his happiness, his success, secretly together in one big shared happy ending.

Secrets can be toxic, but secrets kept without rancor can heal.

This last Skype appointment would be a piece of wedding cake, Temple was sure.

“Hi, Mom! Guess what? The wedding’s on. I’ve got the date, the place and, of course, the man. Now I just have to settle a few details.”

“What?” her mother asked. “You’re doing this without me?”

“No, it’s just that circumstances, good circumstances I can’t announce yet, call for—”

“A quickie wedding in Las Vegas! Oh, Temple!”

“It’s in a church.”

“Whoopdedoo. I don’t care where it is, I want to know when-where so I can come down to help pick out the gown, the flowers, the reception menu… Surely there’ll be a groom’s dinner. Matt’s parents should plan that.”

“Uh, we’re kinda blending all that into one super-duper mega event. But you don’t have to worry about a thing, Mom. The Crystal Phoenix is handling all that. You’re all on vacation on their tab, including flying my four brothers and their wives and kids down. I’m their favorite employee.”

“And you’re my only daughter. What were you thinking?”

“That a surprise would be really cool for you?”

“Wrong. The surprise is for the guests, not the mother of the bride. How often am I going to get this chance? Once. I want to weigh in on the placement of every last spray of baby’s breath.”

Temple felt her buoyant Happy Balloon trickle air and develop worry lines.

“The Ladies’ Altar Society will take care of that. They’re used to that.”

“What am I? Chopped liver? And ‘Altar Society’! What church?”

“Our Lady of Guadalupe.”

“Of course it would be, with Matt. He’s a lovely young man, Temple. You’re thoughtful to honor his past priesthood, and I have no trouble doing that, but Catholics are very persnickety about their dogma and sacraments and ceremonials. They want to control everything.”

So, apparently, did mothers of the bride.

Temple rallied her most diplomatic tone and arguments. “I’m sure Father Hernandez will make major concessions.”

“On what?”

“You know, about a UU marrying a Catholic.”

“Your UU credentials are long lapsed.” Her mother was looking stern and frowning.

“Then I guess I qualify as a pagan,” Temple quipped, “but they’re okay with that.”

“Well, they’re always sending missionaries far and wide to get converts.”

“Mom, I don’t want to argue. I wanted to tell you the good news and get us all together down here for my wedding.”

“Temple.” Her mother folded her lips. “I guess I’m just shocked you’d leave me out of this. You know how I loved finding you the most beautiful little outfits as a baby.”

“And all through grade and high school. Did you know, Mom, when I was real young, that the boys would lie in wait to get me in a tussle and get my clothes torn and dirty.”

“No! My sons?”

“There’s a lot you wouldn’t know about your sons, unless you were their only baby sister.”

“So, that’s why…”

“They wanted to make me tougher, Mom. And they did. Inside, if not out. So you won both ways.” She didn’t go into the Mean Girls in high school.

“Temple. I never thought that treating you like the little doll you were was a…negative.”

“It wasn’t. I love being a clothes chameleon. You know I wanted to be a fashion or costume designer in high school. And I’m going to love doing that for my wedding. You gave me dreams, Mom. I’m going to dazzle everyone with them.”

Karen looked away from the screen. “Well, yes. I did give you a non-girly name at least. Much better than Tessa, which I first thought of.”

Temple quashed a wince.

“Okay Temple. Just tell me that you don’t want to marry in dungarees.”

“Promise. Van and Nicky, my bosses, you remember them?”

“Of course I do. Your father and I flew in and stayed overnight for Kit’s marriage. Another sweeping example of the generosity of the Crystal Phoenix and Fontana family. That’s the first time we met Matt and saw his stunning engagement ring on your finger.”

“Well, they’re sponsoring a private fashion show and fitting for our out-of-town bridal party members in the bridal suite for two days before the wedding. Including tux fittings for all the men.”

“Fittings?”

“Yes, for keeps. Dad will never again be able to say he can’t go to a formal outing you want to attend because he doesn’t own a tux.”

“My goodness, they must be fond of you. Am I going to be meeting any more of Nicky Fontana’s Italian gigolo brothers?”

“Aunt Kit’s husband, Aldo, recovering bachelor. And, yes, assorted tones and flavors of Fontana brothers. All yummy.”

“Oh.” She looked pleased. “That Kit, snatching up a confirmed bachelor at her age in life. I’m glad she’s no longer living alone and single in Manhattan.”

Karen made it sound like a spinster’s circle of Hell.

Temple thought Fun, fun, fun!

“Temple. You didn’t forget Kit. Is she coming?”

“Fontana brothers assemble in a flock. So I thought Kit could be Matron of Honor.”

“Matron.” Karen hooted. Sisterly rivalry showed its acerbic head. “She wouldn’t like that description.”

Temple didn’t know about that personally. “I’m thinking of lilac for her. But for your Mother of the Bride dress, there’s a shade of exquisite medium green that goes with our hair color.”

“Well, my and Kit’s hair color has faded.”

“Nothing about you is faded, Mom. The color I’m thinking of is close to jade green and is socko with the shade of the famous Tiffany blue gift box, a sort of soft turquoise, if you know what I mean?”

“I have seen a Tiffany gift box or two in my time, dear.”

Temple smiled. Matt’s mother would certainly be wearing the Virgin Mary blue topaz earrings he gave her. The women would recognize a tonal bond before they knew it. The subconscious was an awesome uniter.

“Now,” Karen mused, her eyes cast up, while Temple fidgeted and the Roman church burned. “I think you must ask one of your nephews to be ring bearer. Todd is six and adorable.”

“Louie is eight or so, and experienced.”

“None of your brothers have sons named Louis.”

“Louie is Midnight Louie. My roommate of the feline persuasion. He served as Ring Bearer when Matt’s widowed mother remarried here in Vegas.”

“But, Temple dear, using a cat as a Ring Bearer is just a joke.”

“So I should use a fidgeting six-year-old who is scratching his bum through the entire ceremony?”

“Well, at least Todd would not be switching his tail.”

“Speaking of that, I could use a flower girl.”

“Oh, oh, oh. Crescent, Tom’s girl, is seven and just precious, blonde curls, adorable in yellow with violet accents. Perhaps a dotted Swiss. No, organdy.”

“Oh, would you, Mom? Would you do her dress and a matching basket for petals? I’ll be wearing white, of course. You jade green, like leaves, and little Crescent’s yellow and Kit’s lilac will be the flower tones. Yellow goes so well with the gray tails and white tie the groom and groomsmen will wear, and Dad’s new designer black tux.”

“Well, of course.” Her mother’s eyes were already speculative, envisioning details. “I will do my best.”

“You’re always the best, Mom. After we sign off I can send you an image of my gown.”

Temple did as she’d promised and sat back with a sigh.

She did feel bad about leaving her mother out of this necessarily speedy wedding, but that was a Vegas specialty and seemed normal to Temple now.

Her computer tinged her.

Oh, my goodness, Temple, her mother’s email read. That is absolutely and uniquely “you”, and I now know my daughter is utterly grown up and her own self I could have never dreamed of when I held her as the tiniest of babies and for some reason named you Temple rather than Jane or Sue or Tessa, something ordinary.

Now, I would like to make one little suggestion. Ruffle-topped, white satin elbow gloves would be the perfect complement to the gown.

Temple glanced to the glove box on her desk. Ruffle-topped white satin elbow gloves.

That is the perfect last touch, Mom, she emailed back. You are the perfect Mom. See you soon. Love you!