Cat In An Alphabet Endgame

1

Five-Alarm Fire Power

The onrushing yodel of a police car siren cut through Temple’s dreams like a hot knife through custard pudding. Instead of fading, like a nightmare, the nagging alternating yowls frayed and snapped her nerves.

She was on her feet by the bed, hands to ears, watching her peaceful arched white ceiling become rinsed by lurid forms of red and blue as if as awash in patriotic stingrays.

The red LED lights on her bedside clock read 1:09 a.m. Matt wouldn’t be off the air until 2 a.m. She was on her own. At least no intruder had broken into her unit, not the case ten days ago.

Her sleep T-shirt was short, her feet were bare and she needed to get outside to see what was happening.

Even as another siren came bowling toward the usually grave-silent Circle Ritz apartment and condominium building, she saw Midnight Louie’s black silhouette stretching up to reach and pull down the French doors’ levered handles to the small balcony outside.

“So that’s how you make your escape,” she muttered, burrowing into the “winter” side of her closet for a velvety micro-fleece jogging suit she slept in on cold desert nights. She’d have awakened an icicle wearing them in her native Minnesota, but in a Las Vegas July they were more of a sweat suit.

Temple didn’t own a flip-flop—cursed backdrop for hammertoes and other unlovely foot maladies—but she did have a pair of fuzzy skunk slippers, child size. She stuffed her size-five feet in them and opened a door to follow the big black cat, now balancing on the railing, out into warm, noisy night. Below, other owners and tenants were milling, half dressed, around the slice of parking lot and pool visible from her second-floor perch.

She craned her neck to the balcony above, Matt’s place, but it wasn’t an object of police interest either.

Time to go down and see what the neighbors knew. Louie had opted to go up, his sharp nails snagging the bark of the single venerable palm tree that overarched the five-story building.

Skunk slippers don’t climb well, so Temple grabbed her cell phone and unit key and headed for the seventy-year-old elevator. Since the fifties-era Circle Ritz was actually round, she had to trot halfway around the central mechanical core to wait for the car.

The small lobby was abuzz with people as hastily (if not as absurdly) attired as she. Outside, more of the same awaited her.

Some words from the murmuring neighbors hung like audible billboards far above the rest. “Burglar… Shot… Three squad cars… Ambulance… Taken away.”

Obviously the stir centered around the farther part of the building, which overlooked the pool house pavilion. Temple edged through the neighbors, nodding at some she knew. Then she heard someone behind her say, “No, not Max Kinsella. He moved out a couple years ago, but, yeah, he used to be a famous magician…”

This bit of discussion coincided with her sighting a tall, dark man talking with a police officer who was shaking his head “No”, even as he took notes.

Yes, it was “No”. Mr. Tall, Dark and Confident was not Temple’s former significant other. The Milan-styled beige summer suit he wore, now also wearing the strafes of red and blue lights that bathed everybody out here, was one of an uncommon but plural Vegas Genus of Gentleman Gangster, a Fontana brother.

How somebody as squat and chubby as Macho Maria Fontana had ten nephews as sleek and politely formidable as the Berettas they carried under their thirteen-hundred-dollar suit coats, Temple would never know. And only two of them married yet, the youngest and the eldest.

If she ever had time to write a blockbuster novel, the lives, loves, and deeds of Clan Fontana was a natural subject.

Identifying individual Fontana brothers was an art form, even for Temple, who worked for the white sheep of the family. Married Nicky Fontana owned the Crystal Phoenix Hotel and Casino and carried an impeccably honest reputation. Of the current bachelor Fontana crew, one wore a Roman glass ring. One an earring.

“Officer,” probably Ernesto was saying, “it is obviously an instance of self-defense.”

“Well, Mr. Fontana, then you can obviously hire a lawyer to prove that.”

Ernesto was under arrest? Perish the thought that the gelato-pale, Italian summer-weight wool suit should pass a night in the slammer.

“Maybe, Officer…” Temple butted in. Being young and petite, no one listened to her unless she took action. “You might want to notify Lieutenant Molina about this incident.”

The uniformed policeman wasn’t Fontana-tall, but he could certainly look down on her. “Who voted you old enough to vote?”

“My driver’s license.” She was going to tell him right out that homicide Lt. C.R. Molina was currently seeing Julio Fontana. Or so it seemed. It was hard to tell what was what with the deadpan lady lieutenant.

“The lieutenant is off this shift,” the officer said. “Besides, it’s all over. The vic is in an ambulance heading to the ER and the shooter is going in for questioning.” He nodded to the squad car and someone with red-white-and-blue hair in rollers was peering out the backseat window.

“That’s our landlady!” Temple said. “Our elderly landlady.”

“So they tell me.” The officer nodded at the crowd of tenants who’d followed her to the scene.

“What is she charged with?”

“None of your business, Miss. Read about it in the paper tomorrow. Or you can inquire at headquarters in the morning. Or wake up Lieutenant Molina if you want to risk losing an inch or two of height, which it doesn’t look like you can spare. Hey, Dan, let’s get rolling.”

As he hopped into the squad car’s passenger seat the headache band lights went off. Electra Lark was a passing flash of plain white hair and a paper-white face in the back window as the vehicle slowly pulled away from the frowning crowd. Murmurs of dismay ebbed into departing shuffles.

“Don’t worry,” Ernesto told Temple. “I passed her some legal advice before they swept her away.”

“Legal advice?”

“Say nothing until the Fontana Family lawyer gets her out in the morning. She’s only being held for questioning. So far.”

“Questioning for what?”

Ernesto shrugged a well-padded shoulder. Whether it was the fine tailoring or a gun holster or just awesome muscle, Temple didn’t know. Now that she was an official fiancée she chose not to speculate further.

“My dear lady,” Ernesto said. “The dude trundled away in the ambulance was a common burglar. Miss Electra found him in her penthouse quarters. What would you do? She approached the alarming sounds with her trusty semiautomatic and took a shot in the dark. Well, several. He fell out of the French doors to the balcony and had the ill luck to fall even farther over the railing to the ground.”

Ernesto led her to a crushed landscape of Hedgehog, Prickly Pear and hooked spine Cat Claw cactus.

“Ouch. No bed of roses. Five stories, and he’s alive?”

“So far.”

“I can’t believe Electra shot at him more than once,” Temple said.

“You are not an older lady who lives alone.”

“I’m thinking any jury, including grand ones, would be sympathetic to that factor.”

“Sympathetic, yes indeed. However.” Ernesto folded his slender hands prayerfully. “In Miss Electra’s case she has already been that targeted ‘person of interest’ in a previous death. A very recent and intimate previous death. Police procedure is not always precise, but they can hardly fail to notice that. Once may be understandable. Twice might look excessive.”

“So, what really happened here?”

“I’m inclined to believe that even the police don’t know yet. That’s when they get their most official and clam up.”

Temple nodded glumly.

“I’m also inclined to believe that this was no ordinary second-story man, given your own recent home invasion also. If you want my opinion, you had better assemble what allies of whatever ilk you have to stop more ‘senseless’ assaults that may in reality be quite specific.”

Temple narrowed her eyes. How much did Fontana, Inc. know about the amassed IRA donations gathered for years internationally, that were rumored to be so valuable and hidden somewhere in Vegas?

“Rest assured, Miss Temple,” Ernesto said. “We at Gangsters hotel-casino and vehicle rental service will always be available to help in any small, or large, amusing way.”

“Thank you, Ernesto,” she answered as formally. “Rest assured, we appreciate your skill and finesse in certain areas and will always be grateful.”

A rustle in the palm fronds high above shook the papery spikes like a small tornado.

Ernesto looked up. “All your allies of whatever ilk.”

“I totally agree.”