Cat In An Aqua Storm

“Ike Wetzel,” he introduced himself. “Lindy said you were good at your job, but I might as well tell you I woulda got along with Buchanan better. I see enough of broads all day in my work.”

“What is your work?” Temple asked, knowing that a self-directed question turneth away wrath, or at least sour preconceptions.

“I run Kitty City.”

She looked blank.

“On Paradise Road.”

“Oh, the topless place. You’ve got the sign showing cats in anatomically incorrect positions.”

“Right.” His muddy brown eyes flicked her up and down, an unconscious gesture designed either to take in what she was wearing, or to mentally take it off. “I’m cosponsoring this competition thing. A lot of my girls have their hopes pinned on it. I don’t want this murder messing up their chances.”

“It sounds to me like the only person this murder has messed up so far is the victim.”

“Let’s keep it that way,” Wetzel suggested. He frowned, an expression that came easy to the permanent furrow between his dark brows even when he was trying to look genial, which he wasn’t at the moment. “It’s bad enough that we got cops all over the premises. Your job is to get the attention off the corpse and back on the corpuscles—on what every red-blooded guy wants to know about the greatest strippers in the world.”

“I understand,” Temple said, “but aren’t men competing, too?”

“Yeah, a few.” Wetzel snorted his opinion of that trend. “Separately, though. Concentrate on the gals. They draw the real dough. Male strippers are a passing fancy, except in the gay clubs. And even in the straight clubs, broads don’t tip as good as guys do.”

“Maybe women don’t get the same service,” Temple answered coolly, recognizing a moment too late that she had let herself in for any number of double entendres.

Not to worry. Ike Wetzel wouldn’t recognize an opening for a double entendre if it parlay-vouzed Français with a Milwaukee accent and asked him to dance. Down-the-middle-of-the-bowling-lane kind of guys don’t notice linguistic detours.

“Women’s hearts just aren’t in it,” he commented disdainfully. “Watching guys strip is good for a giggle when they’re out in a gaggle, but they’re not connoisseurs of the art.” He pronounced it “con-no-sirs.”

“So lay off the guys and the old dames. Stick to the foxy chicks.”

“Any other advice?” Temple’s temper simmered behind her most professional facade. Ike Wetzel seemed as impervious to veiled indignation as he was to treading on professional toes.

“Well-—” He no doubt intended his knowing smirk to be a confidential grin. “Off the record, put your time in on my girls. They do real well at these things. If you’re nice to me, I might even be able to tip you off early who’s gonna win.”

“Mr. Wetzel, if my job included being nice to everybody, I wouldn’t get anything done.”

“Just letting you in on who’s who around here. Buchanan knew the score.”

“Exactly what did Buchanan know?” a new voice asked sharply. The voice was low, an excellent thing in a woman, but hardly soft and gentle, and that was an even more excellent thing in a Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department homicide lieutenant.

Wetzel turned, his eye whites widening as he found C. R. Molina regarding him with an expression even more perfectly deadpan than his own.

“Buchanan knew—knows—the clubs, the scene,” he sputtered. “You know what I mean, Lieutenant.”

“I hope so.” Lieutenant Molina turned deliberately to Temple, her blue eyes narrowing. “You homesick for the ABA, or what?”

“ ’Scuse me,” Wetzel said, eager to be off. “I gotta take care of some things.”

The women watched him leave in mutual silence, then returned to the business of fencing each other.

Molina hadn’t changed a bit, Temple saw. She was wearing one of her nondescript neutral-tone poplin suits, even in July—navy, this time. She hadn’t shrunk by so much as one of her imposing five-foot-ten inches. She hadn’t loosened her by-the-book manner one tiny turn of the screw. And she hadn’t plucked one forceful hair from her luxurious black eyebrows.

“I’m filling in for Crawford Buchanan on publicity,” Temple told the policewoman, finally answering her ABA jibe.

“Since when does Barr race to the rescue of Buchanan?”

Temple wished that high heels elevated her to more than a scant five-foot-four. “He's had a heart attack," she said with high dignity.

“I’m aware of that. It happened during my interrogation. I repeat: since when do you run to Buchanan's rescue?"

“I know he's a creep, but..."

Molina raised her formidable eyebrows, obviously not about to be convinced by the quality of mercy.

Temple shifted her weight to her other heel, and her defense to fiscal issues everybody understands, presumably even police personnel. “The job pays well," she said in steely tones.

“Make up your mind, are you here in the cause of guilt or greed?"

“Maybe I just know how it feels to stumble over a dead body when you're the one who's supposed to keep things running smoothly."