Cat On A Hyacinth Hunt

Chapter 28

A Forced Bulb

A lone security forty-watt lightbulb beams inside the Thrill 'n' Quill, Las Vegas' only bookshop devoted to the mystery and thriller novel, which also has an extensive section of used books on a variety of subjects.

Despite the tepid illumination, I can still spot the familiar but contemptible forms of the stuffed versions of Baker and Taylor, the eponymouse Scottish fold cats who represent a major book distributor also known as B & T. There is little Scottish about these so-called cats, though their tightly folded and crimped ears show a certain characteristic stinginess, like that of a pursed-mouth purse.

I am looking for another and more animated stuffed shirt, this one reputedly among the living: Ingram, the bookstore cat. This dude is one of my regular sources, to both of our regrets.

But the Danger Game makes for strange bedfellows. Ingram is of the domestic feline stripe, and far too domestic for my taste. He would not touch a tootsie to the mean streets to save Bastet herself from a mugging. Yet I must that admit that Ingram's bookish habits (he sleeps on them incessantly) come in handy at times, for he has absorbed much arcane knowledge.

I have never tried to roust him after hours, however, and am not sure he has the basic street smarts to open a locked door or to find another means of communication with a visiting client.

I scratch the display window glass, my sharp nails making the high-pitched screeching sound that humans associate with blackboards rubbed the wrong way. There is no way of rousing Miss Maeveleen Pearl, owner of the Thrill 'n' Quill. Unlike her official layabout Ingram, she never sleeps on the premises.

Pretty soon Ingram's tweedy little form is tiptoeing through the tomes. I study some of the mystery titles through which he must thread his circuitous way. One grouping requires mirror shades to take in: it is a neon-covered oasis of books in the new Florida noir genre, each cover boasting various shades of hot pink, slime green and Caribbean turquoise. Then there are the usual darkly dingy covers whose titles begin with "Death in" and "Murder at." And there is, I am happy to note, an attractive assemblage of four-footed sleuths: a rapidly spawning pile of books featuring furry friends from armadillo to zebra, no doubt, although I approve the predominance of my own species among them. Someday I will have to write a book, like Miss Kit and Mr. Max and Miss Temple.

Once he has navigated the window display's bookish obstacle course--and Ingram does not disturb a whisker or dislodge a book during his prissy pussyfooting approach--he sits opposite me and makes with the silent meow. The effect is like watching pheasant under glass yammer at you before you eat it.

So I go into my charade routine: walking to the front door, stalking back; leaping up at the door's glass inset; even disappearing around the corner as if visiting the back of the building.

Have you ever noticed that the most overeducated individuals are often the slowest on the uptake when it comes to deciphering real life? Ingram is one of these fogbound fellows, so wrapped up in his good opinion of himself that he would not wake up and smell the espresso if the entire supply of beans in Columbia erupted like a volcano right on top of the Thrill 'n' Quill.

But finally he manages, with an extremely complicated crick of his neck, to indicate that I might do well to go back and see about scaling the building's north face.

When I get back there, I am not enamored of his suggested entry route. I will have to go straight up a brick wall to get to a ventilation grille, which I will have to work off while clinging to the aforesaid sheer brick.

Well, what the hell. I have not had a good hangnail in weeks.

One would think that Ingram, being the visitee, could at least manage to kick the door open for the visitor, but I do not have much faith in Ingram's ingenuity quotient. That is what you get for being confined to quarters most of your natural life: stunted imagination.

So I baby-crawl my way up the mortar, and find my naked fangs can work out the cheesy aluminum vent that was installed up here a few years after the Flood. Then it is a dark, dusty crawl through a horizontal tunnel that abruptly turns vertical. Luckily, I am well padded and soon am butting one of those lightweight ceiling panels off its metal gridwork. I hop down atop a bookshelf and then down into the artistically cluttered interior of the bookstore.

Unfortunately, Ingram is part of the clutter.

"I hope you did not dislodge any spiders," is his greeting.

"Only a few snakes and lizards," I answer, just to watch his back twitch.

"I like to get a solid twelve hours shut-eye," he adds. "So tell me what you want now, and I will do my best to satisfy you and get back to my beauty sleep."

Twelve hours. What a nonlife!

"I need to know about anything called hyacinth."

"I did not know you were interested in horticulture, Louie. Are you perhaps developing some refined interests in view of your upcoming retirement years?"

"Gumshoes do not retire, especially for twelve hours at a stretch. No, I need this dope for a case I am working on."

Ingram shakes his head until his rabies tag chimes; then he leaps atop a desk, following it to another section of the store. I follow the leader, such as he is.

"Hyacinth is a flower, Louie, a lovely fragrant growth with massed blossoms of curling petals.

I always think of them as pale blue-purple, but they can be white or yellow as well. They are also of the interesting family of plants that develop from bulbs."

"They need light bulbs to bloom, like shrinking violets or something?"

"Your botanical knowledge is sadly primitive. No, they grow from bulbs, underground self-contained food-storage systems. Remarkable, really."

"What I am looking to find out about hyacinths is how they would figure in a murder."

"I cannot imagine that they would. A more delightful, benign flower cannot be found. But here is the plant section. Look for yourself."

I scan the shelves, seeing a lot of titles mentioning roses and violets. Only one title reads

"Bulbs," so I leap right for it and soon have it spread open on the floor.

First I run across a mug shot of the perp I am tracing: a closeup of a field of purple hyacinths on the loose in a garden. A handy rap sheet in the book's back lists the breed's salient characteristics: short (under one foot), partial to hanging out around gardens and rock gardens, sun worshipers, but can also be found in a potted state in ordinary homes. Blossoms from one-to-two inches, but some run over two inches, so these can be swell-headed types. Cocky, you might say. Known for a distinctive body odor.

By now I figure I would recognize one if I found it, but I am still in the dark.

"Other than a tendency to hang out in dark nightspots at certain times of the year, what would these bulb-type characters have to do with a murder? Are they toxic?"

"Not that I have heard, Louie. Your oleander is, of course, and all sorts of common yard and house plants. But I have never heard the hyacinth so described."

"Well, you got a poison how-to book in this place? I thought mystery readers went for that sort of thing."

"Mystery writers certainly do."

"So there are some local ones?"

"Some would-be local ones."

"Hmm. Maybe I could find a partner to write my memoirs with.

My roomie would ordinarily be right for the job, but she is lavishing her talents in another direction at the moment."

Ingram is uninterested in my domestic wrinkles. I secretly suspect that he does not approve of me living with an unmarried woman. He leads me back to the mystery section, but to a series of shelves weighed down with nonfiction. I peruse such titles as Deadly Doses, Preferred Poisons, Planted Evidence, Murderous Mushrooms, and the elegantly titled Spiders and Spitting Toads and Snakes, Oh, My!

Although I knock off several of these venomous guides, and although I learn that many innocuous plants are thoroughly poisonous, the hyacinth is not among them, although the hydrangea and the heliotrope are. Close, but no cigarette.

When I express my frustration, Ingram sniffs before replying.

"You certainly are a bloodthirsty fellow, Louie. I am afraid that your line of work leads you to look for the worst in everything and everybody. I for one am glad that the fragrant hyacinth has been cleared of wrongdoing despite your best efforts."

This sanctimonious speech is highly irritating. I desperately peruse the shelves one more time until the initials "AMA" leap out at me. We will see what the croakers have to say about this in their guide to "injurious" plants.

I hit pay dirt in the index at the rear. Several citations for hyacinth all lead to a startling conclusion: the hyacinth is not only poisonous, but every cell of it is lethal, and this occurs in a species called "Hyacinth-of-Peru." (To confuse matters, it seems that hyacinth is also referred to as jacinth in some places.) My roomie would ordinarily be right for the job, but she is lavishing her talents in another direction at the moment."

Ingram is uninterested in my domestic wrinkles. I secretly suspect that he does not approve of me living with an unmarried woman. He leads me back to the mystery section, but to a series of shelves weighed down with nonfiction. I peruse such titles as Deadly Doses, Preferred Poisons, Planted Evidence, Murderous Mushrooms, and the elegantly titled Spiders and Spitting Toads and Snakes, Oh, My!

Although I knock off several of these venomous guides, and although I learn that many innocuous plants are thoroughly poisonous, the hyacinth is not among them, although the hydrangea and the heliotrope are. Close, but no cigarette.

When I express my frustration, Ingram sniffs before replying.

"You certainly are a bloodthirsty fellow, Louie. I am afraid that your line of work leads you to look for the worst in everything and everybody. I for one am glad that the fragrant hyacinth has been cleared of wrongdoing despite your best efforts."

This sanctimonious speech is highly irritating. I desperately peruse the shelves one more time until the initials "AMA" leap out at me. We will see what the croakers have to say about this in their guide to "injurious" plants.

I hit pay dirt in the index at the rear. Several citations for hyacinth all lead to a startling conclusion: the hyacinth is not only poisonous, but every cell of it is lethal, and this occurs in a species called "Hyacinth-of-Peru." (To confuse matters, it seems that hyacinth is also referred to as jacinth in some places.)

What is not confusing is the particular toxin the plant dispenses when administered in sufficient quantity: digitalis. I am not a chemist, but it has not escaped me that digitalis is a drug of choice in simulating--or stimulating--heart attacks in victims.

I am not a medical examiner, either, but I would love to see the autopsy report on Mr. Cliff Effinger. Did he die of drowning, or did he die of cardiac arrest in anticipatory fear of drowning?

Did anyone look for traces of hyacinth digitalis in his system?

"Is there anything else on hyacinth in this bookstore?" I ask Ingram, letting the AMA book fall shut with a triumphal slap.

"Only a 'hyacinth glass,' which is a two-tiered bulbous bibulous vessel for containing and rooting hyacinth bulbs."

"I do not believe I am interested in 'two-tiered bulbous bibulous vessels,' which in my book are dim bulbs indeed."

I stare at Ingram so that he realizes I am obliquely referring to the biggest dim bulb of all, Ingram himself.

He clears his throat, confounded that my slapdash search has unearthed information he was not privy to.

"I can do no more for you," he concludes.

He is right, except for one thing. "You can find me the key to the front door. I do not plan on making like an earthworm and wiggling my way back up the ventilation shaft."

"You cannot unlock the door and then open it! And what will Miss Maeveleen say when she finds the shop unlocked tomorrow?"

"Watch me. And ... as to what she will say, maybe she will get a watchdog."

So I leave Ingram gibbering over his botanical texts. He reminds me of that famous mystery dude of old, Brother Caedfal. Ingram is not only celibate in the extreme, he is more at home flipping through the photographs of flowers than tiptoeing through the tulips in person. What a sad lot, who never stop to sniff the snapdragons.

Since Ingram claims he cannot remember where the door key is kept, I am forced to retrace my entry route. While writhing through the duct, I review what I have learned. Although the hyacinth/digitalis connection is interesting, I do not see what good this outpouring of information on flora large and small is going to do me. I amble toward the Strip, hoping that a little noise and naughtiness will clear my overburdened brain.

And then I look up and see it.

Right before my eyes. A billboard advertising a Downtown lounge show. The main attraction is some shady lady in a chiffon robe that looks as though it has been through an accountant's shredder on April 14. She is no doubt some piece of cheesecake worth lingering over if you are on a human diet, but my eyes are riveted by a smaller, furrier figure in a corner of the billboard.

This is an Oriental dish wearing a skintight custom-fitted catsuit of custard-colored velour, with lavender velvet gloves, racy hock-high hose and a kinky velvet mask covering her eyes and ears that matches the pronounced kink in her lilac-velvet tail. Her eyes, seen through the purple haze of her mask, are a piercing china blue and slitted thinner than the steel-blue of a straight-edge razor blade. She is obviously used to being in the bright lights.

Of course I have already read the words two feet high above the preening females of their respective species. This is what they say: Spice and spectacle! Take the risk and taste the magic Shangri-la and Hyacinth. Nightly at the Opium Den.

Here is a bit of Hyacinth any gumshoe worth his unfiltered Lucky Strikes will burn rubber to rush right over and investigate extremely closely: a lilac-point Siamese who moonlights as a lady magician's assistant. Is this babe up my alley, or what?