Cat In An Aqua Storm

23

Nursery Crimes

It was a good thing Temple was not a Supreme Court Justice.

She had advised the Gold Dust Twins to see a counselor together, and then consider family counseling. Not a judgment of Solomon that cleaved to the heart of the matter, but a waffling, trendy modem way to deal with a form of human grief as old as Sophocles and Oedipus. She had then left.

“I thought you were headed home an hour ago.”

At the words, Temple came to a dead, guilty halt while skirting the Goliath’s Caravanserai Lounge on the way out. Molina’s voice was right behind her, the law’s long arm apparently had at last extended its reach beyond the ballroom.

She turned. “Ah, I needed a drink first.”

“You’d have been better off if you’d actually had one,” Molina noted sourly. “Don’t you know when to quit?”

“I was just leaving now. Honest.”

“Good. Rest assured that I will call you,” Molina added with sweet sarcasm, “in case there are any major breaks in the case that you should know about. Now get outa here.”

Temple hated to turn tail, but her energy was at its end. A chorus of aches and pains from her eyebrows to her knees had reached fever pitch.

Still, she felt like an AWOL from the French Foreign Legion as she dragged herself and her heavy tote bag through the clustered tables. Besides, the ambience had choked her. The color and confusion of readying a show made her homesick for the theater. She hated it when frailties kept her from the thick of things. Imagine how many clues were floating around this mob, just waiting for an agile intelligence to pick them up....

The sound of intense voices broke into her reverie. Two women stood at the cocktail tables that had been drafted as the competition’s field desk while the ballroom was unavailable. One of the women was Lindy, scanning a sheet of paper and smoking up a storm. A second woman, whose black iridescent hair matched her iridescent black-leather motorcycle jacket, was giving her the hard sell.

“—just blew into town,” the woman, who looked quite ordinary to Temple among this crowd, was saying. She hadn’t removed her sunglasses. Temple wondered if she had any unsightly bruises to hide.

“It’s awfully late to enter,” Lindy objected.

“Any rules against it?”

“Not exactly—”

“Not exactly means no. When can I get into the rehearsal room?”

“That depends on the police.”

“Say, hotel security is getting awful tight.”

“It’s not that,” Lindy said, saying no more.

Temple trudged past the pair, amazed by contestants who would stop at nothing and even pay for the privilege of baring their bottoms. The bizarre conversation followed her like faint and argumentative rap music.

“Your stage pretty strong?” the new contestant was asking.

“You don’t weigh that much, honey.”

“Thanks, but it’s not me. It’s my bike.”

“You use a bike in your act? I suppose that’s encouraging to over-sixty types.”

“Not that kind of bike,” was the contemptuous answer. “Mine’s a real bike. Weighs a thousand pounds.”

“A... motorcycle?”

Not only Lindy was incredulous. Temple, almost out of earshot, stopped cold. She turned slowly to study the over-the-hill Hell’s Angel.

“Listen,” Lindy was telling her, “we’ve had grand pianos and baby elephants on our stages. I think we can handle one overweight motorcycle.”

“Okay. There’s my money. Count me in.” The motorcycle moll moved on.

Temple backtracked, catching Lindy about to slip the entrant’s sheet into a red manila folder. “Who was that masked woman?”

“The one in the sunglasses? I don’t know. Never heard of or saw her before. That’s not odd. She’s in the Over-Sexty division.”

“What did she put down on her form?”

Lindy pouted in concentration. “This has gotta be only her stage name. That’s all we require.”

“Which is—?”

“ ‘Moll Philanders.’ I don’t get it.”

“I do! Any address?” Temple twisted to read it upside down. Then she cased the cocktail area, looking for a figure that reminded her of Elton John in drag.

The phantom contestant had settled at the Four Hunks’ table. Temple’s jaw dropped. The woman finally whipped off her seventies wraparound sunglasses to reveal green, snakeskin-patterned eyelids outlined in black glitter. The Fab Four obviously found the effect awesome. They were hooting and laughing and nodding their trendily styled heads.

While they were thus diverted, Electra Lark looked coolly in Temple’s direction and winked.

Temple turned again and hobbled out—yes, limping now, and so tired she thought that she saw a black cat dash from the shadow of one table-underside to another. Why .just “a” black cat. Why not...?

“Et tu, Louie?” she muttered darkly. She had been naive to think he would meekly go home just because he’d been discovered. Had she, when Molina had told her to? At least the lissome Yvette was zipped up tight for the night.

She sat in the Storm after she finally pulled into the Circle Ritz lot and turned off the motor, sensing the temperature change as the icy interior air slowly warmed to the hot sun.

Her face felt like an aching mask, her body like it wore an iron cast. She hated to give the Mother Machree of the LVMPD any credit, but she did indeed need a rest.

Temple extracted herself from the car, free to groan now that no one could hear, and stumbled inside. No one joined her on the elevator or passed her in the hall, but that was typical. Most residents had nine-to-five jobs that kept them away for predictable hours.

At the turn of a key she was home again. The condo was empty, cool, serene. She stood motionless beside the door, trying to sense any intruder. Then she slipped off her shoes and peeked into the office and the bedroom in turn, but the condo was secure. Hers alone. Sometimes that unplanned solitariness wasn’t too bad.

After rummaging in the refrigerator, she came up with a bacon-bit, tomato, lettuce and tuna sandwich. Had to polish off the open tuna can left over from—hah!—breakfast. A generous mound of Free-to-Be-Feline sat in the bowl, untouched.

She bent to haul the half-liter bottle of Blush Light from the bottom cabinet and pried off its metallic collar with her long, strong fingernails. Lacking the energy to stretch up for the wineglasses on the highest shelf, she paused. Inside the lower cupboard she found an odd, root-beer mug, filled it with ice and poured in the pale coral wine.

“So it’s crass to have wine over ice,” she told her ever-present Invisible Critic. “I am home alone, and I’m going to relax and enjoy it.”

She headed for the bedroom, dragging her tote bag over the crook of one arm, her hands full of tuna sandwich and a frosty mug of wine.

One high heel was left high and dry in the living room. The other was walked out of, left standing solitary in the bedroom doorway. The moment the tote hit the unmade bed, Temple pulled out the day’s notes. Cheyenne’s card fell to the coverlet. Did he do massages? Prob-ab-lee. She dropped the card on the nightstand and laid her glasses atop it.

The tiled bathroom awaited like a Big White Set from a thirties Astaire/Rogers movie—sleek, moderne and ready to reverberate. The elderly white porcelain tub was long, deep enough to drown in and had a divinely wide, old-fashioned rim.

She turned the faucets to the position where hot and cold blended into a pulsing stream of pure nirvana, set her sandwich and mug on the tub edge, and began peeling off her clothes—slowly, not like a stripper, but like someone whose muscles screamed at every motion.

For once Temple was grateful that the fifties bathroom did not, repeat, did not sport a full-length mirror. Temple leaned over the pedestal sink to check her face in the mirror-fronted medicine cabinet mounted above it. Thanks to the would-be Westmore brothers’ impromptu facial behind the Goliath, she could skip eye shadow for several days. Technicolor bruises tinted the skin around her eyes, and now were turning a rotten-banana yellow along the edges. Yellow Was a sign of healing, but also too ugly to disguise as a heavy hand with the magenta and purple eyeshadow.

She stood on tiptoe to peek at the bruises on her torso. Still at the blue-plum stage in size and color, ugly and deep. Temple winced to realize that, despite their best efforts, those men hadn’t really gotten around to seriously hurting her.

From the now-muffled rush of the faucet, she sensed that the bathwater was rising. She dipped in a toe, then climbed over the high edge and sat gingerly, her skin twitching at the sudden lap of hot water before settling into it like a nervous cat into a petting hand. Aaah. She lay back, munched some sandwich, sat up to chugalug a little wine.

She thought of Electra going undercover at a strippers’ convention, and laughed. Moll Philanders, indeed! Crazy old girl. And was Louie really still on the premises, or had she hallucinated him? Not to worry, not with two prime crime solvers like Louie and Electra on the scene in her stead. Sure.

Temple sighed as a sense of slow draining dripped down her arms like an IV of molasses-thick wine. Tension and worry were siphoning down her fingertips into the warm water. The tub was deep and long enough to float in when it was filled to the top. It would be, because she had bought this plastic thingamajig that sealed off the overflow drain, just so she could float like she had when she was a kid. The advantage of being petite.

So Temple drifted in the soapless, clear water like a fetus in amniotic fluid, detached, isolated, the seeds of future thoughts spinning disconnectedly around her.

This is Wednesday. The contest is Saturday, when Daddy Gold Dust is in for a big surprise. Three more days to get through before it’s all over. And it is all over for Dorothy and Kitty. Kitty. Another “y”-ending name. Had Kitty been the birthday girl on the cake? Was her real name Katharine? Sure. Katharine, that was what she had been called in grade school, the name that the scared kid peeking out from the costume niche had used. Kitty had come later, Kitty for short. Kitty was tougher, Kitty had reason to be. Poor kids. One dead on Monday, one on Tuesday.

Temple sat up with a splash. Monday’s death, and Tuesday’s. And Monday’s child is fair of face, but Tuesday’s child is... far to go? No. Works for a living? No. Monday’s child is fair of face, and Tuesday’s child is... all space. Ace. Mace. Place. Is bace/dace/face/gace/ hace/jace/case/lace! Is lavender and lace? Mace/nace/pace/ race/tace—trace/brace/grace. Grace.

Tuesday’s child is full of grace! Not anymore.

She leaned forward to jerk the faucets shut, then stopped, grabbing the porcelain tub grips, dripping onto her sandwich as she stepped down to the bath mat and pulled the towel off the chrome bar behind her.

The hotel-size Turkish towel swaddled her like a graceless sari. At six-four, Max couldn’t stand squinky towels. She waddled, wet and enervated, into the bedroom to dial the Goliath. Still knew the main switchboard number by heart.

She asked for Lieutenant Molina, and finally got her. Then she told her the theory.

Silence. “You think the killer is following this nursery rhyme?” Molina asked. “Just because you linked the two victims to the first couple lines?”

“Maybe! But that’s not the important thing. If the murderer is following the rhyme, there’ll be more deaths—or attempted ones.”

“You know the next lines?”

“No, but I could call the library. I wanted to tell you first.”

“Commendable, but the, ah, ordeal you went through could throw off your emotional equilibrium. You’re liable to see shadows behind every bush for a while.”

“And serial killers in every nursery rhyme?”

“I didn’t say that, but your theory is thin, to say the least. Anyone could twist the rhymes to apply to most of the women here. They’re all ‘fair of face and full of grace,’ or could pass for it on a cloudy day. Sorry. Get some rest, and leave the detection to the pros.”

Temple sat and dripped on her bedspread after Molina had hung up. She called the library anyway and jotted down the eight lines the librarian looked up. Wednesday’s child was full of woe. According to the tales she had heard about the strippers' pasts and private lives, that was probably another universal truth.

WOE. That was the name of the organization Ruth Morris belonged to. Was Ruth in danger? When had she been born? But no: she wasn’t a stripper. Far from it. What came next? Thursday’s child, she saw, scanning ahead, “has far to go.”

So do we all, she agreed with Molina. So do we all. Too bad Electra was at the Goliath, or Temple would try her theory out on her. Or on Matt.

But she didn’t have his number, she was too tired to go up to his apartment and she was probably all wet anyway.

She read ahead to Friday’s child. Loving and giving. Saturday’s child “has to work for its living.”

And Saturday all these children turned sex icons would be doing just that, gyrating for dollars. And for other, less tangible rewards that had their roots in the past.

She must have fallen asleep on the bed, wrapped in the damp towel. The room dripped with blinds-drawn, deep afternoon lethargy when she awoke to the sound of jangling. Not jangling, ding-donging. Her glorious doorbell.

She stumbled to the light switch, then blinked at her watch until she could read it. Six-something. She rushed for the door, tripping over her discarded shoes.

Luckily, she had not been too exhausted to use her chain lock. Turning the deadbolt seemed more than her aching arm could handle, but she finally edged the door open enough to peer out.

“Oh, Matt! I was thinking of you. I mean, I was thinking of you just before I fell asleep—” No, that wasn’t cool, might as well cut to the gory chase. “There’s been another murder at the Goliath!”

He took her non sequiturs with Matt-style equanimity. “I’d like to hear about it, but can I come in first?”

“Yes, but I’m not dressed. I’ll be right back out.”

She undid the chain and left it swaying while she retreated to the bedroom. Not that the huge towel wasn’t perfectly modest. It just made her look like a resuscitated mummy, and walk like one too.

In the bedroom, Temple threw on her handy wraparound dress and low-heeled mules, then checked herself in the bathroom mirror. Nothing makeup could do for her now. The tuna sandwich had gotten soggy absorbing the hot water, and the ice had melted in the glass mug, creating an unappetizing liquid the color of pink lemonade.

She opened the tub drain to let the water gurgle out, grabbed the paper by the phone on which she had scribbled down the rhymes, and hustled into the living room.

Matt was standing by the French doors, arms folded and legs braced. From the back he was well built enough to pass for a Newd Dude, but less intimidatingly muscular. Self-absorbed bodybuilders were likely total losses as romantic interests, anyway.

He turned. “I didn’t mean to wake you. I just stopped in to see how you’re doing.”

“Okay. I spent two-thirds of the day at the Goliath and was more tired than I knew.”

“I stopped at the penthouse to ask Electra to keep an eye on you, but there’s no answer.”

“Oh, Electra... she might be doing errands, riding around. You know.”

“No, I don’t. She usually sticks close to the Circle Ritz in case an impromptu wedding party shows up and she has to officiate.”

“I’m sure she’ll be back later.” Temple felt it was Electra’s business to tell anyone what she was up to. And she was sure the landlady had a backup JP to cover the Lover’s Knot wedding chapel attached to the Circle Ritz building.

Matt rotated his lightly tanned wrist to check his Timex. Temple saw a thin white line where it had shifted. None of the strippers, female or male, had tans with unwanted white lines, she would bet. She’d heard the women chattering of tan booths and untimely burns. Too bad they didn’t know that a touch of reality is so much more inciting to the imagination than premeditated perfection.

“I just thought of something,” she said.

“Yes?” Ever-helpful Matt, ever ready to listen.

“I’ve been spending so much time among the strippers, and something about the men strippers just struck me.” She paused. It was probably a dumb question. “Maybe you’d know, being into physical fitness.”

“Wait a minute. I like to swim and I’ve studied martial arts since high school. That’s not ‘being into physical fitness.’ ”

“Well, being a man, then.” He couldn’t object to that. “These guys are really Arnold Jrs., overbuilt, if you ask me. But none of them have hair on their chest—and not much body hair anywhere else that shows. Is it because they take steroids, or what? Or do men who have no body hair become strippers? Fascinating, isn’t it?”

Matt smiled. “I have to answer a lot of difficult questions at the hot line, but I’ve never gotten one like that. It could be steroids, Temple. And I’d guess that if they went to all the trouble to build that muscle, they wouldn’t want anything obscuring it. I’ve heard some guys who wrestle shave their chests, and even their legs.”

“Their legs! You mean these big, macho guys go through the same rigmarole as women?”

“So I’ve heard.”

“Maybe they get it waxed,” Temple mused. “That would last longer than shaving such big areas. Can you picture these guys lined up in a salon covered in hot wax?”

“No, but evidently you can.” Matt was laughing. “You don’t miss anything, do you?”

“I’m just curious about people, and being around so many professionally pretty people is mind-blowing. I wonder if men really find women who work at being that calculatedly ‘female’ attractive? Frankly, the guys’ overinflated muscles and bulging veins and jeans turn me off instead of on. It’s all too-too. Is that terrible of me? Am I not with it?”

“Just sounds to me like you know what you like.”

“Real people,” she said promptly and firmly.

He was quiet for a moment, his eyes sobering. “Then the magician’s disappearance must have been quite a shock.”

“Oh, yeah. But then, who is real? As I get to know these women strippers a little, I see their toughness and their tragedies, and I like them. They may be selling a perfect fantasy, but they’re far from perfect, and they know it. I don’t understand if the skin game is kicky and liberating, or a symptom of repression and oppression and obsession and all those other big words. Maybe I don’t understand it because I never qualified for it.”

“What do you mean? You’re attractive.”

“I’m okay. I like me. Some men like me. But I’m nothing to stop traffic, and I don’t try to be. A few of these women were born with breasts the size of watermelons, and otherwise slim. What are they going to do for a living in this society? I can see how they got there. It’s realistic, but at some time they must have suffered for being a different kid. And now their semi-freakdom makes them mucho moolah. Others... were made, not born, formed by abuse, yet stripping seems to free some of them, and to further degrade others. I’m confused. I don’t have a strong moral or philosophical position on the state of the art. Or even know if it is an art.”

“At least you try. You question. Have you ever considered that black guys who are tall and can shoot baskets face the same problems? Should they use their natural advantages, make money young, and forget about whether they’re being exploited until they’re older?”

“No. I never compared Playboy centerfolds, say, with big-money student athletes. But you’re right. They’ve both got something they can sell: being young and in shape. I should judge: I never had those temptations.”

“Why not?”

“Look at me! I looked twelve until I was past twenty, and now that I’m approaching thirty, I look twenty. Well? Don’t I?”

He looked her over, so much more thoroughly than he ever had before that Temple regretted her impulsive challenge. Why draw anyone's attention to your perceived deficits? Bad PR.

“What’s wrong with that?” Matt asked at last. “They sell expensive creams to get the same effect. Someday you’ll be seventy and look fifty.”

“But I’m never taken seriously! Everybody’s always saying I’m too young or too small. They think that my brain matches my stature. They think I’m cute!” she snarled. “They especially think I’m cute when I’m mad.”

He put up his hands. “Not me. Listen, Temple, I understand your frustration.”

“Why? I’m sure everybody takes you very seriously. Face it, you’re one of the born-beautiful people, and you don’t even work at it.”

Tactful, calm Matt Devine suddenly tensed. He turned away, hands in his pockets. “You say you don’t find the perfect bodies in a strip show real. What about the other way around? What if ‘perfect people’ never find anyone else real?”

“Oh. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have personalized it. You know what I’ve been working against.”

“You hate being typecast by your size. I hate my so-called looks. I don’t think of myself that way, but everybody else does. I have to wonder if they’re fooling themselves, and if they’re fooling me.”

“I suppose,” Temple ventured, “that women have chased you since Day One.”

He nodded, not happy at the memory. Was that how the women with big boobs felt? Valued for their outsides and not their insides? You could get cynical and use it. Or you could be honest and come to hate it.

“Well,” she said, clearing her throat, “I might be tempted to try myself, except that I’m recovering from my own emotional Waterloo.”

He turned back with a smile that would melt an igloo. “Why try? You have all those physical handicaps, remember?”

“I am ‘cute.’ Some people find that appealing.”

“And you’re fated to hate the ones who do.”

She nodded. “Are you fated to hate the ones who are attracted to you?”

“I hope not,” he said, just lightly enough that she knew the heavy stuff was over. For now. “Saddest of all are the people who hate themselves.” Matt glanced at his watch face, frowning.

“Is something wrong?” Temple asked.

He went to sit on the sofa arm, then rubbed his neck. Maybe Cheyenne would come out to the Circle Ritz and give him a back massage.

“I’m punchy from switching shifts,” he admitted. “And I didn’t remember until this afternoon that I have a regular caller who missed me last night when I was here instead.”

“Oh. I’m sorry that I—”

“It’s not your fault. She was on the brink in her personal situation—cutting it close, that’s all. Abusive boyfriend or husband, never said which. I’ll be at the phone again in half an hour, and she never calls until evening.” He paused, concern still puckering his face. “I just checked with my substitute, but she didn’t call at all yesterday.”

“Maybe when she heard you weren’t in she rang off without leaving her name.”

“We don’t use names, not even the counselors, only invented “handles,” like CBers. Sometimes they’re pretty revealing anyway.”

Temple nodded. “Like stripper names. Pseudonyms say a lot. Can’t you reach her somewhere, somehow?”

He shook his head. “Anonymity is the heart and soul of a hot line. I can’t find her, she can’t find me.” He sighed. “She’s probably all right. Just like you.”

“Yeah.”

“So tell me about the second murder?”

Temple sat on the matching arm. “Terrible. I know now how you must feel about your clients, because I met this girl last night just before I left the Goliath and had my head-on with the Goon Squad. She was in a bad way, but I thought I’d cheered her up. This morning, she was found dead. Strangled with her cat’s tail.”

“Her what?”

“She was costumed as Catwoman. Someone ripped off the tail and strangled her.”

“That’s a lot kinkier than the ABA murder.”

“Maybe book people are better at writing and reading about murder than doing it.”

“Crawford Buchanan handed you a hot potato, after all.”

“Don’t remind me! But I did get a crazy idea, at least Lieutenant Molina thinks it’s crazy.”

“How crazy?”

“That the murderer is following that old rhyme about ‘Monday’s child is fair of face.’ Monday’s victim had a face to die for. The girl yesterday was a magnificent gymnast—‘full of grace.’ ”

“You think that there’ll be more murders?”

“Molina doesn’t. She says that everybody over there is fair of face and full of grace, even the men.”

“Lieutenant Molina doesn’t look like the type to be grading men.”

“I added that part, all right? But no men have been killed. Yet.”

“Just what you don’t need, Temple, all that sensational publicity when you’re recovering from your own troubles.” Matt shook his head. “You could have knocked me over with a feather when Lieutenant Molina came up to us in the emergency room. From what you said, I pictured some beefy veteran who liked throwing his overweight around against defenseless solid citizens like you.”

“Don’t let the navy-blue pants suits fool you. She may dress like a nun, but I bet Molina can be meaner than a K-9 attack dog.”

“Not to you?”

“She doesn’t cut anyone much slack.”

“That’s not her job. You and I can afford to be bleeding hearts. We’re removed from the misery and danger out there. I’ve got my phone line and—when you’re not stumbling over bodies-—your work concentrates on good news, not bad.”

“Not lately,” Temple said glumly.

Matt stood and yawned. “I’d feel better about leaving for work if Electra were here.”

“There are other tenants.”

“But none who know what you’ve been through. Here.” He reached in his shirt pocket and pulled out a card.

Must be her lucky day, Temple thought. This card had no name on it, just a number, a 731 exchange, and a word: “ConTact: Crisis Intervention for the Nineties.”

“What kind of callers do you get?”

“Everything imaginable. Rape victims. Physical-and sexual-abuse victims. Alcoholics. The suicidal. Compulsive drug addicts and gamblers. The mentally distressed.”

“How awful to hear so much grief.”

“It can get intense, but the counselors are insulated by the phone, and by the anonymity. We hold the fort until we can put them in touch with the community agency that can help them in the long term.”

“You said every kind of caller imaginable. That include obscene callers?”

“Not yet, but we get some pranksters, kids killing time. They don’t fool us. It’s hard to mimic real misery.”

“Amen,” Temple said, accompanying him to the door. “Maybe I should lighten your load and give you a naughty call now and then.”

She had meant it as a joke. Like a lot of jokes it struck closer to home than was meant.

Matt’s ears reddened suddenly. Temple could see that even from behind. Wow, she thought. For some reason, that comment had pushed his buttons.

By the time they reached the door, the moment had passed. He held it open for her to pass through.

“Oh, by the way,” she said, smiling. He looked perfectly collected. Too bad. “Thanks for fixing the shoe. I felt like Cinderella when I found it in the morning.”

“Shoes are easy to fix. Souls are harder.”

“Matt, I hope she calls. I hope she’s all right.”

“And I hope that your theory about the murder pattern predicting more deaths is wrong, but you have an uncanny sixth sense about these things.”

“Molina says I’m crazy and now you say I’m psychic. I’m not sure which is worse” was Temple’s mock-glum comment as she closed the door.

At least he was laughing when he left. And so was Temple, until she remembered that Lieutenant Molina, her own personal Rumplestiltskin, was stopping by at seven o’clock to collect what Temple had promised.