Cat in an
Ultramarine
Scheme
By Carole Nelson Douglas from Tom Doherty Associates
MYSTERY
MIDNIGHT LOUIE MYSTERIES
Catnap
Pussyfoot
Cat on a Blue Monday
Cat in a Crimson Haze
Cat in a Diamond Dazzle
Cat with an Emerald Eye
Cat in a Flamingo Fedora
Cat in a Golden Garland
Cat on a Hyacinth Hunt
Cat in an Indigo Mood
Cat in a Jeweled Jumpsuit
Cat in a Kiwi Con
Cat in a Leopard Spot
Cat in a Midnight Choir
Cat in a Neon Nightmare
Cat in an Orange Twist
Cat in a Hot Pink Pursuit
Cat in a Quicksilver Caper
Cat in a Red Hot Rage
Cat in a Sapphire Slipper
Cat in a Topaz Tango
Cat in an Ultramarine Scheme
Midnight Louie’s Pet Detectives
(anthology)
IRENE ADLER ADVENTURES
Good Night, Mr. Holmes
The Adventuress* (Good Morning, Irene)
A Soul of Steel* (Irene at Large)
Another Scandal in Bohemia* (Irene’s Last Waltz)
Chapel Noir
Castle Rouge
Femme Fatale
Spider Dance
Marilyn: Shades of Blonde (anthology)
HISTORICAL ROMANCE
Amberleigh†
Lady Rogue†
Fair Wind, Fiery Star
SCIENCE FICTION
Probe†
Counterprobe†
FANTASY
TALISWOMAN
Cup of Clay
Seed Upon the Wind
SWORD AND CIRCLET
Six of Swords
Exiles of the Rynth
Keepers of Edanvant
Heir of Rengarth
Seven of Swords
† Also mystery
Cat in an Ultramarine Scheme
A MIDNIGHT LOUIE MYSTERY
Carole Nelson Douglas
A Tom Doherty Associates Book
New York
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
CAT IN AN ULTRAMARINE SCHEME
Copyright © 2010 by Carole Nelson Douglas
All rights reserved.
A Forge Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
www.tor-forge.com
Forge® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
ISBN 978-0-7653-1863-3
First Edition: August 2010
Printed in the United States of America
0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Janet Berliner,
a magical writer, editor, and friend,
and, most of all, survivor
Contents
Previously in Midnight Louie’s Lives and Times . . .
Chapter 1: Magic Carpet
Chapter 2: How Green Was My Valley
Chapter 3: Broke New World
Chapter 4: Where Louie Used To . . .
Chapter 5: Simply . . . Artisto
Chapter 6: Temptations of Temple Bar
Chapter 7: Lights, Action
Chapter 8: Lake Mean
Chapter 9: Ganged Up
Chapter 10: Spooky Suite
Chapter 11: Merciless Tenders
Chapter 12: Meow Mix
Chapter 13: Dem Old Bones
Chapter 14: Media Draw
Chapter 15: The Guggenheim of Gangsters
Chapter 16: A Rat in Time Saves Nine Lives
Chapter 17: Love Connection
Chapter 18: Whose Vault Is It?
Chapter 19: Road to Ruin
Chapter 20: Hoopla and Homicide
Chapter 21: When a Body Meets a Body
Chapter 22: Guess Who’s Come to Dinner?
Chapter 23: Bahr Bones
Chapter 24: Synth You’ve Been Gone
Chapter 25: A Ghost of a Clue
Chapter 26: Motorpsycho Nightmare
Chapter 27: Silent Partner
Chapter 28: An Inspector Calls
Chapter 29: Ringing Issues
Chapter 30: Breakfast of Champions
Chapter 31: The Vegas Cat Pack!
Chapter 32: Bottoming Out
Chapter 33: Synthesized
Chapter 34: Dalai Lama Eyes
Chapter 35: Room Disservice
Chapter 36: Ladies’ Neon Night Out
Chapter 37: Playing It Koi
Chapter 38: Drinkin’ Bitter Beer
Chapter 39: Guy Wire
Chapter 40: Guns and Gravy
Chapter 41: Getting Their Irish Up
Chapter 42: Armed and Dead
Chapter 43: Murder in 3-D
Chapter 44: On Thin Ice
Chapter 45: Da Denouement, Dudes
Chapter 46: Closing Call
Chapter 47: Moving Issues
Tailpiece: Midnight Louie Decries Sex and Gore
Tailpiece: Carole Nelson Douglas Meditates on Mobs
Cat in an
Ultramarine
Scheme
Midnight Louie’s Lives and Times . . .
Ah, me. Here I live and work in the world’s biggest and glitziest adult playground, and somebody has gone and turned off the water, lights, and heat.
Well, not literally.
Still, much jazz and razzamatazz has left this jumpin’ joint in the Mojave Desert since the economic angst shut down Las Vegas’s mad, mad, mad building boom. I am not speaking of any of my old joints shutting down, mind you.
Only a couple of years ago the Strip used to be a high-wire act in “construction plaid.” What do I mean by “plaid,” besides that dead men do not wear it?
Picture this. For months the usual burning blue Vegas sky framed tall, thin, vertical condo towers—“every room with a view”—rising thanks to the high, wide, and horizontal lines of construction cranes.
They are both still there, mind you. Just dormant, sort of like me taking an ultralong Sunday nap.
This halted construction “plaid” has ruined the town’s once-so-dramatic helicopter-sweep vista, if you ask me. CSI: Las Vegas shows use old stock film when the scripts call for an aerial pan up Las Vegas Boulevard, aka the famous Strip. And the last venerable hotels that would be imploding to make way for the latest multibillion-dollar construction project are still standing proud and being marketed as bargains now that “exclusive” and “expensive” are looking mighty “expendable” in a lot of folks’ budgets.
You can get some great deals in Vegas nowadays, and not just at the casino tables.
Ah, almost forty million tourists each year and constant camera crews . . . flashy new hotels rising over the fleshy, seamy side of the Strip. There used to be a lot of fat cats in Vegas.
And one would be me.
I have always kept a low profile for a Las Vegas institution.
You do not hear about me on the nightly news. That is the way I like it. That is the way any primo PI would like it. The name is Louie, Midnight Louie. I am a noir kind of guy, inside and out. I like my nightlife shaken, not stirred.
Being short, dark, and handsome—really short—gets me overlooked and underestimated, which is what the savvy operative wants anyway. I am your perfect undercover guy. I also like to hunker down under the covers with my little doll.
Miss Temple Barr and I make perfect roomies. She tolerates my wandering ways. I look after her without getting in her way. Call me Muscle in Midnight Black. We share a well-honed sense of justice and long, sharp fingernails and have cracked some cases too tough for the local fuzz. She is, after all, a freelance public-relations specialist, and Las Vegas is full of public relations of all stripes and legalities.
None can deny that the Las Vegas crime scene is big-time, and I have been treading these mean neon streets for twenty-two books now. I am an “alphacat.” Since I debuted in Catnap and Pussyfoot, I commenced a title sequence that is as sweet and simple as B to Z.
My alphabet begins with the B in Cat on a Blue Monday. After that, the titles’ “color” words are in alphabetical order up to the, ahem, current volume, Cat in an Ultramarine Scheme.
Since Las Vegas is littered with guidebooks as well as bodies, I wish to provide a rundown of the local landmarks on my particular map of the world. A cast of characters, so to speak:
To wit, my lovely roommate and high-heel devotee, “Miss Nancy Drew” on killer spikes, freelance PR ace Miss Temple Barr, who had reunited with her elusive love . . .
. . . The once-again-missing-in-action magician Mr. Max Kinsella, who has good reason for invisibility. After his cousin Sean died in a bomb attack during a post–high-school jaunt to Ireland, he joined his mentor, Gandolph the Great, in undercover counterterrorism work.
Meanwhile, Mr. Max has been sought on suspicion of murder by another dame, Las Vegas homicide detective Lieutenant C.R. Molina, single mother of teenage Mariah.
Mama Molina is also the good friend of Miss Temple’s freshly minted fiancé, Mr. Matt Devine, a radio talk-show shrink and former Roman Catholic priest, who came to Vegas to track down his abusive stepfather and ended up becoming a local celebrity.
Speaking of unhappy pasts, Miss Lieutenant Carmen Regina Molina is not thrilled that her former flame, Mr. Rafi Nadir, the father of Mariah, is living and working in Las Vegas after blowing his career at the LAPD. . . .
Meanwhile, Mr. Matt drew a stalker, the local lass that Max and his cousin Sean boyishly competed for in that long-ago Ireland . . .
. . . one Miss Kathleen O’Connor, deservedly christened Kitty the Cutter by Miss Temple. Finding Mr. Max as impossible to trace as Lieutenant Molina did, Kitty the C settled for harassing with tooth and claw the nearest innocent bystander, Mr. Matt Devine.
Now that Miss Kathleen O’Connor has self-destructed and is dead and buried, things are shaking up at the Circle Ritz. Mr. Max Kinsella is again MIA. In fact, I saw him hit the wall of the Neon Nightmare club while in the guise of a bungee-jumping magician, the Phantom Mage. Neither I nor Las Vegas has seen him since.
That this possible tragedy coincides with my ever-lovin’ roommate going over to the Light Side (our handsome blond upstairs neighbor, Mr. Matt Devine) in her romantic life only adds to the angst and confusion.
However, things are seldom what they seem, and almost never in Las Vegas. A magician can have as many lives as a cat, in my humble estimation, and events seem to bear me out. Meanwhile, Miss Lieutenant C. R. Molina’s domestic issues past and present are on a collision course as she deals with two circling mystery men of her own, Mr. Rafi Nadir and Mr. Dirty Larry Podesta, an undercover narc who has wormed his way into her personal and professional crusades.
Such surprising developments do not surprise me. Everything is always up for grabs in Las Vegas 24/7: guilt, innocence, money, power, love, loss, death, and significant others.
All this human sex and violence makes me glad that I have a simpler social life, such as just trying to get along with my unacknowledged daughter . . .
. . . Miss Midnight Louise, who insinuated herself into my cases until I was forced to set up shop with her as Midnight Investigations, Inc. . . .
. . . and needing to unearth more about the Synth, a cabal of magicians that may be responsible for a lot of murderous cold cases in town, now the object of growing international interest.
So, there you have it, the usual human stew—folks good, bad, and hardly indifferent—all mixed-up and at odds with one another and within themselves. Obviously, it is up to me to solve all their mysteries and nail some crooks along the way.
Like Las Vegas, the City That Never Sleeps, Midnight Louie, private eye, also has a sobriquet: the Kitty That Never Sleeps.
With this crew, who could?
Magic Carpet
“Danny Dove really gave you a great view from your bed,” Temple told Matt, snuggling into his shoulder. “I didn’t realize that, seeing this room from the outside in.”
“I’m glad we’re both seeing it from the inside out too,” he answered. “Sorry we have to do the ‘Early Show’ routine, though.”
“With cable and DVDs, what does it matter? Dinner at eight, movie at nine, and you’re on your way to WCOO-FM for your Midnight Hour show at eleven.”
“Leaving you alone to creep downstairs to your unit, and only a cat for company.”
“Don’t let Louie hear you describing him as ‘only a cat’!”
“Somebody needs to trim his overgrown feline ego. I have to admit that his shenanigans have inadvertently helped save your life, for which I’m thankful.”
Matt expressed his gratitude by kissing her thoroughly enough to make her toes curl. “He’s welcome to leave black hairs on Danny’s precious damask coverlet up here anytime.”
“Not necessary,” Temple said. “Louie considers the bed downstairs his.”
“You mean, when we marry, we’ll have to take that California king-size bed along to our new joint residence?”
Temple understood that the bed she’d shared with Louie—and Max Kinsella—might not make a terrific house warming item.
“Maybe I’ll just take the zebra-pattern coverlet Louie loves and looks so good on.”
“I doubt Danny would approve.”
“Danny may have updated your monk’s cell to an Architectural Digest playboy pad, but he’s not going to be sleeping in our future house. Have you thought where you’d like to move? Golf course view?” Matt made a face. “Mountainside or Strip view?” He shook his head. “Water view?”
“Wasteful in this climate.”
“Church view, like Molina’s place?”
“No.” He was laughing. “We need to think of other things than moving first.”
“Like what?”
“For starters, I have some news.”
“News!” Temple muted the movie and sat up in bed.
“Easy, ex-newshound. It’s nothing major. It’s actually a bit annoying for a newly engaged woman. I have a week of vacation coming up—”
“And you didn’t tell me? We could join Kit and Aldo in Italy!”
“I’m not intruding on someone’s honeymoon.”
“I’m sure most of the honeymooning must be done by now. They’re coming home in a week or so.”
“Temple, I can’t go to Italy. I can’t go anywhere with you. This was set up before we were us.”
“Oh? So it involves another woman?”
He grinned sheepishly. “As a matter of fact, it does.”
“Ah!” Temple inhaled in mock indignation.
“Several, in fact.”
“Beast!” She pounded just as mockingly on his shoulder and chest.
“But it might serve our larger purpose very well.”
“Larger purpose?”
“Holy matrimony.”
“Oh, that’s different. Go on. What did you have to keep so secret?”
“It’s not secret; I just forgot about it in the recent excitement.”
“This recent excitement?” Temple prodded.
Matt ran a hand through his tousled hair. “Not that recent. I mean the threats on our lives and our mad, impetuous engagement preceding them.”
“Ha! You’re about as impetuous as a tortoise, so I believe you when you say this me-less vacation was on the books for some time. Where are you going?”
“Chicago.”
“Ah. No doubt you’ll be breaking the news about me to the family?”
“Yes, but that’ll be the least of my worries.”
“ ‘Worries’? Marrying me is a worry?”
“Not you. The idea. My family saw me as a priest for almost half my life. And it’s taken my mother most of my whole life to recover from having me out of wedlock.”
“I would have you out of wedlock anytime,” Temple said soberly.
“You are,” he pointed out. “Am I glad I ran into that ex-priests’ group when I was helping you investigate one of those murders you feel compelled to help solve. They made me see the spirit of the canon law is more important than the letter of it.”
“I keep forgetting I’m a . . . ‘near occasion of sin’—isn’t that the terminology?”
Matt frowned, sounding stern. “You didn’t get that from me. Who told you that?”
“The Unitarian Universalist minister I consulted,” Temple admitted.
“You saw a minister, about me?”
“No, about me. I needed to know what my being modern about putting the honeymoon before the wedding would do to your conscience. So I’m very happy you’ll be seeing the old folks at home next week and preparing them. You didn’t have to keep that from me, Matt. I’ll understand if they want to reject me.”
“No one who knows you would want to reject you.”
There was a silence. Apparently, Temple thought, Max Kinsella had, or had at least vanished on her for the second time in their mysteriously interrupted three-year love affair.
“Not willingly,” Matt added.
“Remarkably generous concession,” Temple said.
He shrugged, which did great things for his swimmer’s-strength upper torso, upon which Temple snuggled again.
“Okay. You’re out of town for a week,” she concluded. “Fans of The Midnight Hour will be besieging the station phone lines begging for the voice of their favorite radio late-night shrink. Louie will be hogging the entire other half of my condo bed. You’ll be wrestling your large Polish family and pinning them down to offer you independence and support. We’ll cope.”
“I’m sure you will. I’ll also be doing a week of The Amanda Show live.”