Cat On A Hyacinth Hunt

Chapter 24

Hunting Hyacinth

I am astounded.

I express my minor annoyance with Miss Temple's altered domestic arrangements by steering clear of her for a few hours, and not only does she not notice my dereliction, but she ends up suspected of murder.

Some people simply cannot be left to go through this world unshepherded.

Although I had hopes of muscling in on Mr. Matt Devine's bachelor pad whilst I was expressing my severe disapproval of Miss Temple's new nocturnal habits, he is pretty much a bust too.

As soon as the roommate formerly known as mine skedaddles the premises, Mr. Matt Devine makes a face and heads for the bathroom. I follow, as he needs to learn to leave the window open at least seven inches so I can come and go as I please.

But he does not go to the spare bathroom on the building's outer wall, but to the master bathroom, which has no window. It does not even have a litter box yet, and if Mr. Matt does not tumble to opening my usual window, he had better tumble to a litter box, or he will step into a significant surprise on his bathroom floor in the morning.

But while he does not seem inclined to consider my needs, I am fascinated by his. For when he strips off his bulky sweater (and I know Miss Temple would love to be here to see this, even if she is dallying with the competition), I find that he is either wearing one of those new-fangled wide-body cat harnesses, or a half-mummy wrap.

When he strips the item off (and I do not think this part would interest Miss Temple), I see that he has been in a cat spat and slashed by a critter either the size of one of Siegfried and Roy's six hundred-pound white tigers, or by a human with artificial shivs.

I am no sissy and have nursed my share of festering nicks, scratches and punctures without medical attention in my career, but I do cringe at the sight of this nasty gash, taped together as if by Dr. Frankenstein in the dark.

Right now two of the significant others in my life are bearing marks of another's antipathy. I pause to muse that it is too bad Mr. Max Kinsella has not received his licks, so far as I know, but an attack on him might backfire and engender Miss Temple's ever-ready sympathy. This is the only reason he and I did not go mano-a-mano in her bedchamber the other night. Also, I consider it tacky to get blood on the bed linens.

I also note that the lines of communication between the humans of my acquaintance are getting tangled and dangled and mangled. They are so busy hiding things from each other that they will never find anything out.

I see it is up to me, and I will begin by tracking down the mysterious meaning of "hyacinth."

To do so, I will have to leave. I tell Mr. Matt Devine so.

"What? Food? Out? You'd better go back down to Temple, who knows what you want."

If she knew what I wanted, the magician would never darken her door, and vice versa, again.

Mr. Matt sighs and leads me to the front door. "You want to leave?"

I rub on his legs twice before I go, hoping that public display of affection will encourage him to run out and purchase a litter box and a better class of cat food than Miss Temple keeps on hand below. But my hopes are faint. Mr. Matt Devine is not tuned into the animal world and will take much patient educating before he knows how to offer the proper tender, loving care.

Once in the hallway, I am stuck, being barred from Miss Temple's place and my easy exit to the outside world. I will just have to deal with the inside world.

I trot for the stairs and shove a shoulder into the swinging door. It opens just enough, long enough to allow my body and most of my--ouch!--tail through. Then I take the stairs to the penthouse.

Hyacinth Lane, indeed.

That is too easy. There must be a dozen other hyacinths in Las Vegas, and I intend to find every one, by every means available.

But first I must figure out a way to break into Karma's joint from inside. I am used to being an outside operator. Inside is nothing but hallways full of door knobs. Now I know how these door knobs work, and I am certainly big and strong enough to reach one. I just do not carry the proper equipment to move the silly thing.

So I resort to the ancient technique of my kind, which I have mentioned before. The Stare.

The Stare is usually more effective if there is a human within sight, and up here on the penthouse level I do not stand a chance of even being spotted by a helpful tenant.

No, all I have is the solid mahogany wall of Miss Electra Lark's door, the only one in the place that is not numbered.

But I have faith, if not hope and charity. I sit and give the door the Stare. I just pretend that there is one tasty mouse behind that door and that eventually something will have to come out of it.

"Eventually" is not as long as I fear it will be.

The door opens and I lift my head. I expect to be looking Miss Electra Lark in the kisser, but there is no one there.

Chagrined, I lower my gaze to my own level.

Sure enough, Karma herself is sitting there, doing the compulsive washing bit with the white gloves on her forelimbs.

"What do you want, Louie?"

"Two things: a way outta this place, like your patio, and a lead on something in this town called 'hyacinth.'"

'The first part is simple, Louie. I am always ready to show you the door. The second is complicated. A hyacinth is a flower. There may be thousands of them in Las Vegas and neighboring communities. And that is just counting by the plant, not the individual bloom."

"Enough with this blooming conversation! I am not looking for your ordinary posy. The hyacinth I am hunting has something to do with a murder and with my Miss Temple."

"My, my. You certainly do like to push a big paw into business that is none of yours, do you not, Louie? Well, as long as your crude powers roused me from a nap, come in. Miss Electra is out, fortunately. I will think about hyacinth as other than the obvious flower while we make our way to the patio doors. It will be up to you to open them; I used my current energy reserves to unlock and open the front door just now. You certainly are a bother."

"You certainly are a bother," I mouth behind her long fluffy tail as it fans back and forth before me on the way to the patio.

Once there, Karma turns, sits, and allows her baby blues to go slightly cross-eyed.

"Hyacinth." She begins to purr. Actually, it is a sort of hum. Actually, it sounds a lot like that phoney baloney eastern meditation chant: "Om." Most of our kind are content with a simple, down-to-earth purr. We need not do it in a foreign accent.

However, since all of Karma's creamy hairs began to stand out in a disheveled halo, and since for a second it seems to me that she is, er, elevated slightly off the floor (although that may have been a misleading side effect of the sudden Static Attack), I am not about to mention my skepticism to her.

"Oooom," she purrs. The ear with the gold ring twitches. (My ear would twitch on cue too, if it were pierced by some alien object.) "Hyacinth. I detect an odor."

"Why not? Flowers do stink."

"Fragrance, Louie. Flowers have fragrance. That is your key problem in this life, Louie: you do not discern the difference between scent and stink."

"I know when I smell a rat, and that is all that matters in my business. And I not only smelled this stinko rat, I saw it."

"I see that you must, as usual, deal with the crudest element first. Very well. So shall I."

"Weill," she hums, purrs. "Shallll."

I shrug. You have to put up with a lot from sources, sometimes, in my business.

"I smell water. Rats indeed. Death by drowning. Bastet watches with her ancient eyes."

My own ancient eyes blink. Take away the falderal, and Karma the Kute is describing the scene of the crime pretty darn well.

'The mummy bears a hyacinth in his dead, bound hands, but he knows not what he harbors.

And you are not alone, Louie. I glimpse a softer, feminine side. Is it possible?"

"Nix on that. And if you are referring to my alleged daughter, Louise, you would know she has got the soft, feminine side of a buzz saw."

"I see you are proud of her, Louis."

"Louie! And she is no spawn of mine."

Karma hums. Karma purrs.

"I smell a house of flowers, not too far away. Such an outpouring of blossoms. Quite, quite profligate. Even sinister."

"Profligate? Hey, I do not do that anymore!"

"Poor Louie. The subtle is lost upon you."

"So what else does Your Worshipfulness sniff?"

"I smell... the scent of a woman."

"Human female?"

"That is .. . debatable. Feline, certainly, but of more than one species, I believe. Magic. I smell magic at all four corners of this sphere."

Oy, boy. What a bunch of gobbledygook.

'The magician pulls a bouquet of . . . hyacinth from a long, flowing sleeve."

I have never seen Mr. Max Kinsella in long, flowing sleeves, but then I have never seen him perform professionally. Only as an amateur, and very amorous indeed, on Miss Temple Barr's living room sofa and more recently on her California queen-size bed (which allows me plenty of room at the foot to stretch out). It does occur to me, with a wince, that the reason Miss Temple has one of these extra-long but not excessively wide beds is because of her once (and possibly future) relationship with the attenuated Mr. Max. I am ashamed to admit that yours truly may be benefiting from being an afterthought.

"Beware the sorcerer, Louie! Beware the dead man whose pale face rises wreathed in hyacinth blossom. Beware she who bears thorns. Beware the alchemist! I see dying petals on a whirlpool. I see blue eyes. Not mine. Beware, Louie, beware."

Ho-hum. Ho-omm. More vague predilections. I should have known better than to come to Karma for real enlightenment. I see my only course is to consult my encyclopedic stooge. Just show me the exit, honey, and I will be outa this joint and back in the real world.

"I see you are as blind as always, Louie. Go. Seek your fate. The patio and the palm tree await."

Just to show her, I crack the French door with two precisely placed bounds. The lever snaps open. I jump up and depress it. The door pops ajar, and I am out in the crisp winter air, inhaling a scent of... polyurethane. Trust Miss Electra's patio furniture to clear a guy's head of metaphysical mumbo-jumbo.

I leap to the overweening palm tree and then ratchet down its length, claws out. We are talking murder most foul here. We are talking death by dread. We are talking much bigger stuff than a few fishy smells on the whiskers of a Sacred Cat of Burma!

There is one place that can answer all my questions: the Thrill 'n' Quill bookstore, overseen by its tiresome mascot, a feline who is long on book-learning and short on sense. I head off down the street, trying to figure out how I will roust Ingram after hours.