Cat on a Hyacinth Hunt

Chapter 7

A Cup of Kindness Yet

Temple waited alone under the merciless neon glare of New York- New York's glitzy urban porte cochere, longing for sunglasses. It felt every minute of almost one o'clock in the morning.

She thought people kept looking at her, but maybe the drawing card wasn't her slightly cracked facial facade. Maybe it was her festively glittering dress and shoes. Still, she wished for the concealing offices of her usual eyeglass frames. Wearing contact lenses made her feel exposed. It didn't help that the new contacts, not to mention the blinding illumination all around her, made her eyes tear. She might have matched the surrounding glitz, but she felt like a Black Hole sucking all that light and energy into some vast, hidden and concentrated emptiness.

Matt had insisted she wait for him to bring the car around. His grim fury may have been on her behalf, but it sheathed her in icy isolation. Around her, people came and went, deliriously tipsy or well en route.

Even the hotel's cheery stretch limousines rebuked her. She watched anxiously for the Storm's impudent aqua silhouette among the upscale flock of precious-metal-colored Infinitis and Lexi.

At last the Storm swooped to the curb, the passenger door popping open simultaneously.

Temple got in, grateful for the privacy if not the continuing conversation. Matt's last, ironic comment still echoed inside the Black Hole: "Maybe you'll finally figure out that he isn't worth protecting."

Neither spoke until the entrance glare of New York-New York was a comet trail behind them, quickly shrinking against the vast inkiness of nighttime Las Vegas.

"I wish you'd told me," Matt said.

"So do I, but, then again, maybe not."

"I don't get it. Why you keep shielding that guy? He's brought thugs down on you for the second time."

"How could I have stopped what happened to me?"

"You couldn't. It's not your fault. But I'm with Molina. Why do you keep denying that Max Kinsella is nothing but trouble? You're just like my mother."

"That's it, isn't it? I'm your mother and Max is another face of Cliff Effinger. Having enemies may not be Max's fault."

"Letting you play sitting duck for them is."

"What can he do? Kill them?"

"Maybe he did. Lieutenant Molina tells me the first two goons haven't been seen since the parking garage incident."

Temple was silent in the face of that fact, wondering why Matt didn't see the obvious, other than the fact that the obvious is always as mysterious as the hand in front of your face, a magnified surface of such familiarity that it becomes foreign when confronted too closely.

Matt sighed, automatically navigating the traffic stream of the Strip.

"I guess all the martial arts exercise was useless."

"Not useless. But I was trapped between a van and my car with an armload of groceries. All he got in was one good wallop, really, but it knocked my glasses off and I hit my head on the van. Then it was messy while I tried to scramble over the Storm's hood to get away. Electra came to my rescue with a brass knuckle of keys. End of story."

"One guy, huh? And it wasn't either of the missing thugs?"

Temple shook her head. He still wasn't seeing that this attack was nothing like the first.

"They're getting bolder, though," Matt went on, "actually coming to the Circle Ritz. Why?

What did the man want? Did he say anything? Any clue why the great Kinsella's ex-girlfriend is being singled out for assault?"

"Could you pull over for a minute?"

"Here? Off the Strip?"

"Yeah. Anywhere."

"There's hardly anywhere convenient to stop. Why? What do you need?"

"Absence of motion, for one thing."

"You're getting carsick? Temple, have you seen a doctor? Don't tell me you pulled the same routine as last time, refusing to go to an emergency room? I can't believe Electra would let you be so foolish."

Temple gritted her teeth. "There's the Hacienda. Just pull into the parking lot."

As the car left the Strip, everything around them dimmed and quieted. Temple exhaled in relief.

"I don't mean to carp," Matt was saying, "but nausea could be a sign of concussion. I'm worried about you, Temple, and I'm worried that you'd still choose to lie to me rather than betray Max Kinsella. Isn't our relationship better than that?"

Temple sighed again. It was as if an internal gag order was in place. She could hardly bring herself to say the truth he was asking for, that his every assumption was goading her into revealing.

"I'm okay," she said. "The attack was two days ago; I'd hardly develop symptoms of a concussion now. I'm sorry. I tried not to ruin your celebration. I know what you've accomplished in the last few days is really important. But I can't have you blaming what happened to me on Max. It had nothing to do with him. Zero. Zilch."

"It was a garden variety mugging? Then why the big act? Were you afraid I'd feel my self-defense tutoring was inadequate? I think my ego can handle that."

"Oh, your ego can handle the truth. I'm just not sure your id can."

"Temple! Just tell me the truth. I don't know why women do this. Suppress and excuse in the name of other people's feelings. You've got to face reality."

"We're trained not to. Okay. My attacker wasn't a common garden variety mugger. He wasn't a mugger at all. And you're right, I do seem to be paying for my associations. It was Effinger. That reality enough for you?"

"Effinger? Cliff Effinger?"

Matt sounded stupefied. Temple had expected a major implosion.

"I ought to know," she added, "I saw the full-size portrait of him before he was memorialized in wallet-size."

"Effinger. Why? Why bother you?"

"Not because he was looking for Max, or you, that's for sure. He was angry because you'd forced him to see the police. He wanted you to know that if you could find him, he could find someone close to you."

"How on earth would he know--? We're not exactly a front page couple. I can't believe it."

"Maybe he had help. He seems afraid of someone or something. More afraid of whatever that is than he is of you, or the police. His message was, leave him alone."

"That creep! True to form; go for anybody weaker, a woman."

"It worked before. Threatening your mother."

"He's cunning enough to push all the old buttons."

"And desperate enough. You and Molina can do your worst to harass him; you'll never scare him more than who he's been working for."

Matt hardly heard her. He was back exploring some interior maze of memory and emotion.

"You see why I was a teeny bit reluctant to tell you," she said.

"No. I'm not a child to be kept in the dark. My mother thought she was doing that, protecting me, but kids need the truth even more than adults."

Temple debated jumping to the second level of Truth or Consequences. So far, Matt had not greeted her news with the storm she had expected. Still, his abstraction and withdrawal were a tad eerie. He had almost forgotten her.

"I wonder if that woman ..." he murmured.

"What woman?"

"Huh? Oh, somebody I ran into when I was hunting Effinger. I suppose he's moved by now."

"And he sure doesn't want to be found again, that I know."

"Why?" The question was not posed because he expected an answer.

Matt put the idling car into gear again. "I don't suppose you'd let me tell Molina about this."

"Molina? Why not? Better for her to meddle with Effinger, if he's going to take being tracked down so personally. But I'd appreciate a day or two more of recovery before I have to face her."

"She doesn't need to see the damage, just needs to know how he reacted. God, I never dreamed he'd hurt you."

"At least we know he's afraid of you."

"And what good is that if he lashes out at people I know? All I've done is make him more dangerous."

"Maybe you've made him expendable to his overlords. Maybe he's fighting for his life."

"You mean, my finding him could get him killed?"

Temple nodded.

Matt considered that. "So I might have accidentally played Judas. There's some justice in that."

The Circle Ritz parking lot looked deserted when the car turned into it, headlights flashing the darkness.

They exited the car warily, stopping, looking, listening for lurkers.

But it was fifty-some hours and a New Year later. Effinger was a ghost visible only in the hollows of Temple's face.

Matt herded her inside like a guard dog.

Waiting for the lobby elevator, Temple said suddenly, "I'm tired."

"Seeing the sofa can wait," he agreed, still abstracted, still fit-ting together the puzzle of Effinger and his shadowy associates.

He saw her to her door and insisted on searching the rooms before he left her.

"Take care of yourself," he said at the door before leaving, putting a palm to her face so lightly she barely felt the touch. He kissed the top of her head and was gone.

Temple locked the door, deflated.

Where were the funny hats and the streamers? Where had Matt's good mood gone? Why did she have a sense of having faced only half the music?

She moved slowly into the bedroom, taking the shoes off as she went.

And where was Midnight Louie? So far she hadn't seen him.

A shadow moved in the bathroom. He'd probably been sleeping in the tub again.

She went to greet him, but Max stepped out of the room on quiet cat feet instead.