Cat In An Alphabet Soup (Catnap)

21

Alone at Last

ABA attendees were streaming from the convention center’s front entry as if five-thirty p.m. were a Cinderella deadline when Temple cruised the Storm past the Rotunda’s flying-saucer-shaped dome. She always expected the robotic Gort from The Day the Earth Stood Still to issue from the entrance, but only ordinary earthlings ever did. She had to credit the ABA-goers for being a well-ordered, obedient crowd—with the single, startling exception of murder.

Even the rear employee parking lot was a checkerboard of empty spaces. The Storm’s air-conditioning fan whooshed full blast as Temple pulled into a slot, blowing the short red curls off her damp forehead.

Bud Dubbs bustled out the back door into the 100-plus, his seersucker sport coat hooked over a finger.

“ Where’ve you been, Temple? That Lieutenant Molina called for you several times.”

“I’ve been trailing the elusive Baker and Taylor. Any message from an Eightball O’Rourke? What about Midnight Louie, anybody see him?”

Bud did a dime stop and a double take. “Not that I know of. Eightball O’Rourke? You playing the horses these days? Valerie might have taken a message from O’Rourke. Forget that stray cat. Check your desk. God, it’s hot. See you tomorrow.”

Bud dived into the front seat of his Celica and punched on his air conditioner.

An uncommon quiet inhabited the center’s back halls. Most of the exhibitors must have cut out on the stroke of five-thirty, too. Temple quickened her pace. The security people wanted as few staff as possible around after closing. If she didn’t decamp by six, there’d be only one exit door that wasn’t on the alarm system, and that would be guarded.

Bud had been right; Temple’s desk was pocked with yellow memo forms. “While you were out—” they told her, she had missed calls from everyone but Midnight Louie, it seemed... P. E. O’Rourke, Lieutenant Molina, Emily Adcock, Lorna Fennick.

She tried O’Rourke first, and got only a ringing phone. After she hung up, Temple stared at her cluttered desk. From under the fresh messages Pennyroyal Press’s metallic-copper folder winked like an evil eye.

Bud’s advice to the contrary, she couldn’t forget about stray cats. Louie’s continuing absence had become something she simply couldn’t let go of.

She hefted the phone book from her lowest desk drawer, grunting, and looked up the City entries. “Animal Pound” led the listings. As she dialed, she eyed her watch with a surge of panic. It was nearly six. Maybe the pound was closed.

The phone rang time after time. Maybe someone was feeding the animals and would take a while to respond. Temple hung on, not really expecting to find Louie there, not really expecting an answer.

“Yeah?”

“Ah, I’m looking for a cat.”

“We’re closed, lady. I’m just cleaning up.”

Cleaning up? From what? The daily executions? “It’s important! This cat I’m looking for is... famous.”

“Yeah?” The voice sounded supremely indifferent. “Look, there’s procedures. Call back tomorrow morning.”

“It might be too late. He’s been missing for over twenty- four hours.”

“We hold ’em three days. Lady, I gotta go.”

“Wait! Maybe you noticed him. He’s a big black cat—I mean, really big, like almost twenty pounds.”

“Yeah, could be.”

“You have him!”

“Maybe. It’s not my job—”

“When can I get him?”

“Tomorrow, I told you.”

“But what if—”

“We got a lot of cats here; you lost him. You take your chances.”

Temple got suddenly desperate. “Listen, he’s a material witness. If I get the police—”

“We’re not a police agency. We got our own rules. I gotta go.”

“You’re not... killing any animals tonight?”

“Lady, we kill ’em when their time’s up, when we get the time to do it. I don’t know anything. You’re wasting my time. Look, I’ll be here until seven. I’ll let you take a look-see if you get here before I leave. But that’s it.”

The line buzzed dead.

Temple’s mouth was grim. News stories about “pets” being killed by mistake at the pound floated in her mind’s eye. She had to know that Louie was safe, but she had too damn many vital things to take care of here to go gallivanting across town in rush hour. She riffled through the memos to find Molina’s number. She might be able to tell the homicide detective a thing or two about the Royal murder, but first she wanted a squad car to go to the so-called animal shelter and make sure that Midnight Louie wasn’t there and wasn’t being executed... and if Molina wouldn’t do it, Temple would go herself, murder case be damned—! Temple found Molina’s number, right on top of another message—typed—that was much more urgent.

“GOT THE DOUGH, IF YOU WANT THOSE CATS, COME TO THE BAKER & TAYLOR SETUP AT 6:30 P.M. TONIGHT. YOU BETTER BE ALONE.”

When had this arrived? Temple wondered. Had someone slipped it among her messages after everyone had left? How did the first one arrive, for that matter? Someone here, at the ABA, had left it, that was obvious.

Temple’s heart was pounding. She had to leave, to make sure that Louie was not at the shelter, or that he was safe there. Yet her first obligation was to her job, to keep the ABA free of unnecessary bad press. Rescuing Baker and Taylor had become part of that agenda. Why was the kidnapper using her for a conduit again? Keeping her occupied, away from the Royal case, maybe. Keeping her from rescuing Midnight Louie, certainly.

Temple eyed her watch as dubiously as she would an egg timer. She’d never been a fan of deadlines. Six-thirty was forty minutes away. She dialed the center security office. No answer, as expected. Cyrus Dent went home at five like everybody else. Sure, guards patrolled, but not many. Conventions hired local private security forces to police their exhibitions. The building itself was another matter, and nobody much messed with a convention center except passing graffiti artists.

So there were guards around, but where in the vast building? And she could dash out to check on Louie, but what if she didn’t get back in time to collect Baker and Taylor? Kidnappers were notoriously impatient. Once the guards had let her out after hours, they wouldn’t waltz her back in, not without explanations and interference... and that could foul up the return of Baker and Taylor.

But Louie! Temple worried more about him than Baker and Taylor. If the kidnapper was returning them, they were fine. It made sense to bring them back to the scene of the crime; the napper knew the exhibit area, or he’d never have nipped them so successfully in the first place.

Temple’s watch showed thirty minutes left to six-thirty. The phone rang.

She stared at it for a moment. Who’d be calling after hours? The catnapper? Molina?

When she lifted the receiver, she heard an open line. It forced her to say “Hello?”

“Miss Barr?”

She didn’t recognize the male voice. “Yes?”

“Eightball O’Rourke. Got some dope on who picked up the ransom.”

“I’d been wondering where you were.”

“Out trying to nail down the identity of who’s got your friend’s money. It’s taking me longer than I expected.”

“You’ll be paid for it,” Temple reassured him, wondering how much her American Express card would cover. “What happened?”

“The package stayed there for a while. Then a party comes along that acts nervous. Sure enough, one bend and the bait is gone. The trail led to the Last Vegas Hilton.”

“You saw the person who picked up the money? That’s worth every penny! Who?”

“That’s the trouble. The Las Vegas Hilton is the third-largest hotel in the world. It ain’t easy getting a make on one person scooting through their doors.”

“But you saw the person.”

“They was wearing disguising clothing.”

“How disguising can it be?”

“Hat, sunglasses. You’d be surprised how hard it is to identify somebody by their clothes.”

“Not Electra,” Temple mumbled.

“What’s wrong with your electricity?”

“Nothing. So you don’t know exactly who picked up the money, just that it was picked up.”

“Yeah. I been leaning on the Hilton staff, but so far no one can identify her.”

“Her?”

“A woman, yeah. Big hat, big gauzy scarf, big dress, not a little woman like you, kinda... big. A chubby, middle-aged woman.”

“Do you know how many women in Las Vegas fit that description?” Temple demanded, mentally making her own private list. Lorna Fennick, Mavis Davis, Rowena Novak. Electra Lark, for that matter.

“So I’m working on it. Unless you want me to stop.”

“No. I guess the kitty can underwrite a few more hours of detection.” The word “kitty” reminded Temple of her immediate dilemma.

“By the way,” she said, deciding to tell Eightball that Baker and Taylor would be back by six-thirty. Eightball could check on Louie while Temple was stuck here waiting for the B & T express to arrive!

The line died without so much as a drone.

Temple stared at the receiver incredulously. Did Eightball just hang up once he figured the conversation was over, or had someone... cut... them off? She held down the disconnect button, then let it up again. Dead silence. How would someone pull the plug on a phone system? Where was the switchboard? Just how well did the catnapper know the building?

Better than you, Temple told herself. This was her first convention center job; most of the massive structure remained a mystery to her. She sat back; her stomach felt like a hollow-core door. It was not a pleasant sensation.

At six twenty-five Temple rose from her chair. She dared not show up early for her appointment with Baker and Taylor. Catching the catnapper in the act of restoration would be dangerous.

She hefted her tote bag over her shoulder and moved briskly out of the office. The high-rise heels of her shoes, a snappy pair of Weitzman sandals with multicolored straps, snapped on the hard-surface floor like firecrackers at her steps.

No sense in discretion at this late date, she told herself.

A few fluorescents shone high in the East Exhibition Hall rafters; otherwise, the exhibition floor was darkened. Booths and displays resembled huge, hunkering bears—regularly spaced but rough-silhouetted. Unpredictable.

The zebra-striped carousel figure leaped out of the darkness as she passed and the wan light tangled in its glitter-strewn mane.

Temple didn’t scream but her heart was pounding faster than her shoes. What if she got there and Baker and Taylor weren’t there? What if the catnapper had defaulted?

Or if she arrived and the catnapper was still there? Or if the catnapper was the murderer? Well, why not? She could think of no reason why he—she—should be, but Royal had been stabbed with a knitting needle—a woman’s weapon. Now a woman had picked up the ransom money.

Baker and Taylor and bears. Baker and Taylor and bears. Baker and Taylor and—uh! Temple breathed again. She backed away from a life-size cutout of Mel Gibson that promoted a series of Mad Max novels. She remembered now. Only an apocalyptic cardboard man.

The Baker & Taylor booth was just ahead. Temple stepped more measuredly, crossing onto the carpeting that defined the B & T area as soon as possible.

The silence was stunning. Her steps had hailed on the hard floor. Now, not even an echo rattled in the steel rafters above. Light reflected from the Plexiglas sides of the Baker & Taylor cat house. Temple saw indistinguishable humps within—real, or Electra’s handiwork? She edged closer, hoping, really hoping.

It was too dim to tell; her own reflection jeered back at her, an out-of-focus doppelganger. Temple leaned her face against the transparent plastic. Come on, Baker, shake a leg! All right, Taylor, do something. Twitch a whisker or wash an ear....

No. Nothing but a pair of pillows. A flicker of motion in the murky Plexiglas mirror. Something behind her—

Temple whirled. Something struck her, pushed her into the display case so hard she would have fallen if it hadn’t been there. Her stomach hurt, possibly because her bulky tote bag had knocked into her ribs with tremendous force. She couldn’t catch her breath, and then it exploded free.

Temple scrambled away, around the booth. She saw no one now, but remembered a presence caroming by, definitely human, not feline.

The carpet continued for the length of a half-dozen booths. Temple edged along on it until she could duck behind another display piece, an island of Formica in an uncertain sea of darkness and silence and danger.

She pulled off one high heel, then another, and jammed them in her tote bag. Her hand brushed the bag’s outside and stopped. Something was wrong. There was a hole in the front surface of the bag. Her fingertip circled it in the dark, the jagged place where the tough fabric had given. It was a Goldilocks kind of hole, too small for a bullet and too large for a moth, but just right for... a knitting needle!

Temple dug a shoe from the bag and held it by its toe. Its heel made a better weapon than wishful thinking.

She slowly pushed herself upright against the display unit. Playing hide-and-seek as a kid, she recalled, she’d panic as the seeker passed within inches of her hiding place. She’d also believed that if she said “invisible, disappear” often enough, fast enough, she would.

Not here.

Here she’d have to find a way out. Here she’d have to gamble on where would be safe and the best route to get there.

First, no phones on the exhibit floor. Her office? Known to whoever had left the notes. The guards? Somewhere, but where at this exact minute?

All the while thinking, Temple had been creeping in her stocking feet, tote bag over her shoulder and clutched to her side like the shield it had become, her shoe heel a sharp exclamation point in her fist.

She heard nothing but her own unavoidable rustles; the rasp of her breathing. Perhaps the person had gone. But why? She was still helpless, alone, in the dark. Only not quite alone, as Chester Royal had been not quite alone just four days ago.

He had not struggled. Perhaps he hadn’t expected a blow. Temple expected one every second. Knowledge is power, but this was a paralyzing knowledge, a knowledge of terror. Temple forced herself to keep moving into uncertainty.

She avoided the rear service areas. She would be expected there. As she plunged deeper into the dark of the convention center she rifled her mind for any memory of a way out. There was always the Rotunda reception area, but it offered no concealment.

A poster flapped not far away. Someone’s passage had stirred it. Did he see her? Was it a he? Irrelevant. The person she sensed brushing against her had seemed large, but everyone did to her. The blow had been strong, though. Tightening the grip on her tote bag, Temple’s fingertips worried the ragged interruption in the fabric. It was like picking at a scab. She could picture a thin steel needle piercing her flesh and angling up to her heart.

And then she confronted a choice. Stay here in the vast outer limits of the hall, or take the corridor that had just opened up beside her. Trap or escape route? Time would tell.

Temple put her left shoulder to the corridor wall and ran along it, feet shuffling along the floor. No slips. No sounds. No panic. Delete that. No more panic. No, stet that. Panic!

A soft sound, gentle as a muffled cough, came from behind her. The corridor offered a left turn. She took it. Where was she, damn it!

She looked back, seeing only dim shapes, and her hip collided with an obstacle. A drinking fountain by the cool, smooth stainless steel under her hands. Temple’s mouth was parched. Her tongue was sticking to her upper palate; her lips adhered to her teeth,

She moved around the fountain, then clung to the wall again. Looked back and saw a shadow growing, looked ahead to run—and saw it! The escape hatch she’d hoped for... a box on the wall.

She ran, her tote bag slapping noisily against her side. The glass door yanked open more easily than she expected. The big red bar—she had no time to squint at the instructions and get it right—was stiff, harder to move than she thought, and she had only one hand because the other held the shoe uplifted.

An overtaking shadow engulfed her just as the lever hit the backplate with a bang. Something was pressing Temple to the wall by her neck. Blood swelled and thickened to pudding in her ears. A horrible muffled clanging exploded all around. The Weitzman heel hammered down into flesh.

Footsteps were slapping in between the constant clangs. The floor throbbed. The wall behind Temple throbbed. Her head and heart throbbed in ponderous four-four time.

Then Temple was alone with the unholy clamor of the fire-alarm box, and someone wearing a billed cap was running down the hall toward her swearing vigorously.

They were the sweetest four-letter words she’d ever heard.

“I’m sorry, Miss Barr. I thought it was a prank.”

Temple sat on a chair in the convention center offices while the same guard who had insulted her ancestry for several generations and in several anatomically inventive ways offered Temple a Styrofoam cup brimming with nice cold water. And ice even.

“I wondered where the guards were hiding,” she croaked after a sip of glorious coolness. Her larynx sounded as if it had been operated on by a hacksaw.

Temple swung her bare feet; they never quite touched the floor no matter the chair. She stopped swinging them when C. R. Molina came in with a uniformed officer.

Sweet jumping Charles Jourdans, that had been Molina Temple had glimpsed during the chaos when the police had arrived (along with the fire department) only minutes after the guard had found her!

She’d taken it for a post-throttling mirage, the Black Dahlia of Death or something come to carry her home, but no, here was Molina in the flesh, poured into an ebony crepe street-length number with a sweetheart neckline and copper sequins festooning opposite hip and shoulder like tarnished orchids. A vintage cocktail dress? C. R. Molina? Lieutenant Molina? On a date? The mind boggled, even if the throat was still sufficiently froggled to force her to keep mum momentarily. Temple sighed, punchy and knowing it.

“So you’re the fire. I should have known.” The lieutenant sounded as crisply disapproving as ever.

“How... how’d you get here? So fast, I mean?” Temple knew how George Burns must feel talking after about fifteen stogies. She tried to glimpse Molina’s shoes but couldn’t crane her neck without wincing.

“You oughta know,” Molina said. “You rang. I was off duty.”

“I... see.”

“Apparently you set off the fire alarm.”

Temple nodded.

“Apparently someone attacked you.”

Temple nodded.

“You’ll have to talk.”

“But how did you—?”

“It’s not important, but when the alarm came in the fire department notified key convention center staff. Bud Dubbs immediately reported seeing you entering the building late. The police dispatcher rounded me up since this smelled of more dirty deeds at the center.”

“All that hullabaloo outside was just to rescue me?” Temple was flattered.

Not even the guard had been able to restrain her from peeking out front where five squad cars had squalled up under the overhead racket of a police helicopter. That had been only minutes before. Even as they spoke, the convention center and environs were getting a good going-over.

“I’m amazed myself,” Molina admitted with a wry glance from under one dusky eyebrow that still could use plucking. “Apparently you really did need rescuing.”

“Apparently?” Indignation lifted Temple’s raw voice into an almost inaudible soprano.

Molina eyed the adjacent desktops and finally hoisted an empty manila envelope. And something else.

“Hey,” Temple protested. “Those are my best summer Stuart Weitzmans!”

“Evidence,” Molina pronounced with visible pleasure. She studied the dainty shoes as a German Shepherd fancier might regard a Yorkshire Terrier, with amazed disdain. “We need to do lab work on the blood and hair on the heel. You’ll get ’em back. Sometime.” She jammed the shoes into the envelope.

“You don’t need both of them.”

“What are you going to do with one high-heeled shoe?”

“Well, don’t scuff ’em.”

“Now”—Molina sat on the desk beside Temple—“it’s time we had a serious interrogation here.”

Temple summoned her huskiest Kathleen Turner voice. “Not a word. Not a syllable. Not until I get to the pound and see if Midnight Louie’s there and all right.”

“The cat?”

“I think he’s at the pound, but it’s closed for the night. The attendant is leaving at seven, and they might accidentally kill him. It’s happened! I won’t cooperate otherwise.”

“We can take you into protective custody and take you downtown.”

“Why? You won’t get a word that way, either. The pound.”

“This is ridiculous.”

“It’s my cat—kind of. Besides, he’s a material witness.”

“You’re more material. You can talk. And you don’t even know the damn cat’s there.”

“I don’t know he isn’t—and until I do I don’t tell you so much as my Social Security number.”

Molina’s eyes narrowed to cobalt slits. “You won’t have any social security if you give the police a hard time.”

“What hard time? I’ll tell you everything I know on the way there.”

“I’d rather get it downtown, where it can be recorded.”

Temple smiled. “Then we’d better hurry to the pound before my short-term memory starts fading out from stress.”

The guard and the cop, both wearing billed caps with shiny reassuring badges on them, regarded Molina expectantly. Temple, sure of victory, took the opportunity to check out Molina’s shoes—black suede pumps that didn’t disgrace the vintage dress, with two-and-a-half-inch heels! The nerve of some tall women!

Molina stood, looming even higher above Temple. Despite her civilized appearance, she spoke in her usual professional monotone—flat as a stiff’s EKG. “This case has been an operetta since you and that damn cat did a pas de deux with the body on the convention floor. Might as well end it with a wild-goose chase.”

Temple rose, barefoot. That made Molina tower like a redwood. She consulted her watch—only 6:53, could you believe it?—and slit her eyes to match Molina’s steely blue stare.

“I want to get there by seven, Lieutenant.”

“Rawson,” Molina instructed the uniformed officer with weary resignation. “We’ll use the siren.”