Cat In An Ultramarine Scheme

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.