Cat In An Ultramarine Scheme

Their well-worn clothes told the tale of the Glory Hole Gang’s obscure, last-but-not-best decades living in a ghost town until drawn into Vegas by another, earlier search for Jersey Joe Jackson’s silver hoards.

The first Glory Hole Gang member out of the kitchen wasn’t one.

Santiago bustled through.

He looked flustered to see her, but no more than she to see him.

“Ah, Miss Barr,” he said. “You have caught me. The sublime scents of the test kitchen penetrate to my suite next door, and I cannot control myself. Thanks to my neighbors, I’m indulging a fascination with genuine western barbecue.” He lifted a blue-and-white-checkered linen towel that added a smoky, spicy tang to the air, which had Temple’s stomach ready to growl. “Not my usual fare. They are going to call it Smokin’ Smothered Sirloin on the menu. Gentlemen, as usual, my gratitude and compliments to the chefs. Miss Barr.”

With a bow, he was out the door. He must be a barbecue fanatic to eat it in that white suit. Temple smirked to have seen a smudge of deep burgundy sauce on the edge of his pristine white sleeve cuff. Simply Santiago was simply … a freeloader.

“He’s been in and out like a boarder with a tapeworm,” Pitchblende complained, “slinging those fancy compliments like they were hash. I think he was afraid our fixin’s for the new restaurant would not be tony enough for his high-tech ‘installation.’ But we use the best aged beef, and those South Americans know prime steak when they taste it.”

“Howdy, Miss Temple!” The next kitchen émigré was Wild Blue Pike. The old man had the face of an aging angel, amazingly unwrinkled and pale. Maybe he was into Oil of Olay. He would have looked innocent in any lineup, with his lush white hair and distance-focused blue eyes.

Spuds Lonnigan came clunking out, wiping his wet hands on another checkered linen towel. Cranky Ferguson was munching on one of those flaky French pastries too delicate to put down, but he carried a saucer under it to catch crumbs.

Eightball O’Rourke exited the kitchen last. Whoops! He was not the last. A large black cat, not Midnight Louie, ambled out, tongue working some dropped morsel out of his long white whiskers.

“Three O’Clock has moved in?” Temple asked, pleased. “I thought he wouldn’t let you guys near him when you left the restaurant at Temple Bar.”

“Ah, he jest visits for the chow train,” Cranky said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “He’s like your house cat, a will-o’-the-wisp.”

“Not in girth,” Temple said.

“None of us are wispy these days,” Spuds said, “ ’cept Wild Blue and Eightball.”

“And our Miss Temple,” Eightball loyally pointed out. “I noticed,” he added, “you been admiring our footwear. There a reason you want our feet all in a campfire circle?”

Eightball was not a man to be fooled.

“Absolutely,” Temple said. “I confess. I was sizing up your feet.”

“And … ?”

“You’ve always worn cowboy boots?”

“Hell, yes,” said Wild Blue, “even in my flying days.”

“We don’t say ‘hell’ in front of ladies,” Cranky warned him.

“It’s okay now,” Temple countered. “I’m here to examine your boots, which is not a very ladylike pursuit.”

“Phew,” Pitchblende said. “You shore don’t want us to take ’em off before suppertime.”

“Sit down and make yourself at home,” Eightball urged. “You can eyeball our foot-leather better close-up.”

Temple smiled and pulled a folder out of her ever-present tote bag.

“I’m trying to solve the identity of the Three O’Clock Louie’s once-submerged corpse.”

Wild Blue winced. “Poor guy who was et away almost down to his anklebones? Those Lake Mean carp were hungry suckers, even when our restaurant was still going. Hate to think what they did before there were piles of tourists to feed ’em.”

“More like piranha,” Spuds agreed. “Say, we could serve catfish and call it something like Cannibal Catfish.”

“So you saw that TV news piece. How about Capone’s Catch of the Day?” Temple suggested.

“More refined and Frenchlike,” Eightball agreed. “But how come our boots are suspects? Forgive me, Miss Temple, but even we can’t string out a pair of boots for more ’n twenty years’ wear. That Lake Mead dead guy musta passed back in the glory days of the forties and fifties, because as Las Vegas heated up as a tourist destination, you did not wanta pollute the wonders of nature they could be bussed out to, or have an indiscretion caught on a boat anchor and causing consternation.”

“Gotta give whoever dumped that body in concrete booties credit,” Cranky added morosely. “Didn’t get found until Mother Nature sucked all that H-two-oh outta the lake.”

“You guys go back that far, along with Jersey Joe?”

“Yes, ma’am, ’cept we are all still alive. Living out in the desert keeps all that carbon monoxide from the Strip out of a man’s lungs,” Pitchblende said.

“Did Jersey Joe get too big for his boots when he stole all those silver dollars you all found? Did he dress like a dude?”

“ ’Course he did.” Eightball snorted.