Cat In A Neon Nightmare Part 32

A woman was waiting by the one lit parking light. Matt felt his heart stop again, although his feet kept on trudging.

There was no running away from ghosts, he'd learned that much in Las Vegas.

This one stepped forward in female form, hair black as tar, skin pale, lips rosy, eyes unreadable in this bogus light. "Hi," she said, shy and not shy. "You're Mr. Midnight, aren't you?"

He nodded, not bothering to deny the hokey handle. A "handle" was an air name, he had learned since working at WCOO. We Care Only for Others. Yeah, right. And ad revenue.

She offered the night a breathy laugh as an apology. "I'm sorry for botherin' you, but I didn't know how else to reach you."

"Knowing how to 'reach' people is always a problem," he said.

"I know. I do . . . outreach work myself. Kind of what you do, but face-to-face. Sorry." She stepped forward, thrust out a hand. "My name is Deborah Walker. Deborah Ann Tucker Walker, to be specific."

He looked at her outstretched hand, heard her stretched-out name, and couldn't help smiling, especially at the soft, Southern grit in her voice. Deborah Ann Tucker Walker could not be put off, not politely, anyway.

"Mr. Midnight," he said, shaking hands. Her palm was soft as dough, but his own palm detected the small calluses of the dedicated housewife or craftswoman.

"You don't have to give your real name," she a.s.sured him. "I give mine only because I have so dang many of them. Not to my credit or shame. Just fact. Married twice,once too long. I got past that, and then I tried to help other women who couldn't. Not too different from what you do."

"Not different at all. What do you need?"

"Your time. And I think you might need me, rather than vice versa." She smiled, widely. "I'm not used to dealing with celebrities. Not too many of them came through Al abama, exceptin' Jimmy Buffet."

"What are you doing here? I mean, in Las Vegas?"

"My second husband moved here to follow his job.

'Whither thou goest' and all. I was a Quaker for quite a while, but I do believe in my Scriptures."

"A Quaker? For a while?" Matt couldn't help sounding intrigued.

She grinned. "I'd like to talk to you about a mutual friend. If I tell you about being a Quaker, would you tell me about being a Roman Catholic priest?"

He paused. The station sometimes broadcast his past as a program hook, usually in press releases, but not on the air. Not every night for the world to tune in on. They liked Mr. Midnight to be a nondenominational man of mystery.

A mini-me for the ma.s.ses.

"Only thing open is fast-food joints," he warned. "Shoot. I like slow food. But I can adapt to anything."

"I bet you can. Where's your car? You can follow me to Tinker Bell or Ronald Colman Donald or Warren Bur ger King."

"Tinker Bell would be good. I always liked to eat fairy mushrooms."

"Right."

He got into the Probe, keyed up the motor, and waited for her car, a Honda Civic he had mistaken for Mike's of all things, to pull in behind him.

What was it about the WCOO parking lot? Central Cast ing Central? A seance site for the Las Vegas universe? An alternate Elvis nexus? Did everyone show up here, at least once? For their fifteen minutes of fame? Too bad his had lasted so long.

"Thing is," she said, sucking on the straw in her chocolate malted milk, "it was the best success I'd ever had, and the worst."

"Va.s.sar," he repeated, to make certain.

"Right. Va.s.sar."

"You called in the song for her on Ambrosia's show! How did you know her?"

Deborah frowned. "Do you ever really know someone like Va.s.sar?"

"I didn't," Matt confessed. Confessed. He knew what that word really meant. Sacramentally. He didn't fool around with it. He didn't expect a former Quaker to get it.

But she did.

"Well, I didn't really know her either, even though we talked a lot. Who could?"

"I only saw her the once."

"I saw her several times, but I wasn't gettin' anywhere."

"Anywhere . . . where?"

"Well, I was like the AA buddy you don't want."

She tilted her head as if posing for a Glamour Shot mall picture. Matt had to remind himself that Southern courtesy was real, even if it had been parodied so much that it looked phony.

"Va.s.sar didn't want you in her life," he said.

"No, sir. Not at all. Oh, she did ... and sometimes she didn't. I just tried to be there for her, all the time."

"Some people are fragile," he agreed. Wrong again.

"No, Va.s.sar wasn't fragile, exactly. She was . . . spooked? That the word? So tough, some ways. I envied her. I really did. But we Southern women are like willows. We bend. Too much, too long. I don't much know how to deal with Blue Northers, I admit it. You know what a Blue Norther is?"

"No-"

"Well, it's a storm, you see. Comes out of nowhere, but usually the North. It's blue like a Yankee uniform. Dark, sudden, sweeps everythin' away before it. Don't look so worried. I'm not a reactionary. I'm a modern woman. I've been up, and down, and up again. Anyway, it's unpredictable, but you know when it's there, a Blue Norther."

Maybe that Norther had swept Kathleen O'Connor away before it, Matt thought. She was from Northern Ireland, a Norther kind of woman, icy, sudden, unpredictable. Dead.

"Anyway," Deborah Ann said, that being a favorite in troductory word, "I've been volunteerin' for an outreach program for fallen women. Only we don't call them that to their faces. For vertically challenged women, if you get my drift. Oh, you're finally smiling, Mr. Sober Face. I don't blame you. Listenin' to Other People's Troubles is the opposite to usin' Other People's Money. No fun."

"So you made contact with Va.s.sar. Knew her."

"Contact! That's somethin' that electrical outlets do. People get to know each other. Va.s.sar wasn't easy, but she was . . . innerestin'."

"A hard case."

Deborah laughed, softly, like she did everything but think. "You could put it that way. Not easy to reach. Defensive, the shrinks would say."

"What would you say?"

"Hurt some. Not about to be disappointed again. Like you? Like me? I reckon we all have been hurt some."

"Did you know what hurt Va.s.sar, why she'd do what she did for a living?"

"No. I've learned what it must have been like. She'd tell me about her clients sometimes. They didn't sound much different from the guys you could end up marrying. Some guys were sweet and lonely, she said. Some thought they could own you. A lot just wanted no-strings stimulation and release, one step up from a blow-up doll."

"Blow-up doll?"

"You don't know what that is?"

"Would I ask otherwise?"

"Don't get testy! And if you don't know, I'm not gonna tell you. I can see why Va.s.sar liked you."

"If you won't tell me about a blow-up doll, why are you telling me about her?"

"Because you knew her."

"Not much. Not for long."

"Doesn't matter. How long. How much. What matters is, how . . . real. Anyway, I was tryin' to be her phone buddy. I'd get her on the line-she always called me, and hung up on me too, when she was done for the time bein'. She'd get me on the line and dribble out the teeniest bit of a question. Need. Want. Aggressive, she was. About what she was doin'. But not really."

"Do you know what I was seeing her for?"

"No, sir. I imagine you were a client, is all."

Is all. A client. Of a call girl. Matt tried not to hear himself described in the terms that applied.

"Anyway-"

Matt thought that he would strangle the next person to use that opening expression.

"I was gettin' nowhere with Va.s.sar. I mean, what do I know about fancy northeastern schools? She'd been there. Hadn't been happy there, but she'd been there. Had a chance to be everythin' upscale: northern, snooty, ed-ucat-ed"-just there she'd sounded like Leticia-"so-phisti-cat-ed. A natural woman. Only it didn't really feel natural, and Monday night she called me. She phoned home, bless her, my little ET. I can't tell you how happy I was to see her need me for the first time. Call it an addiction, but it's my kind of happy. I like to be of service, is that so wrong? I like to help people rather than harm them. Now that is not cool in an MTV world. That seems to be ... embarra.s.sin', in some way, don't you think? No, you don't, you like to do the same thing, don't you?"

"No," Matt said automatically, embarra.s.sed. Then he listened for the c.o.c.k to crow. "Yes."

"Yes. Of course. Here's the thing. She called me from some fancy hotel. What hotel in this town isn't fancy, right? It was ... oh, the wee hours of Tuesday."

"Early Tuesday? What time?"

"I don't know, exactly. Her call woke me up. Whatever you might be thinkin', I'm a decent woman and in bed before midnight."

"Then you don't listen to my show. Program."

She looked really embarra.s.sed. Almost blushed. "No, sir. I'd never heard of you or your ... program, until Va.s.sar mentioned it during that call."

"She knew who I was?"

"She was a fan! Before and ... um, after the fact." Matt winced to consider what the "fact" Deborah Ann referred to so blithely might be.

"Anyway ... that's when she told me all about you. She was so excited."

"She was?"

"Oh, yes. You were a celebrity, but, best of all, you listened to her. I'd never gotten to Page One with her, but you put her on Page Eighteen. She couldn't wait to see me the next day. She'd made up her mind. She'd start raging in the middle of being ecstatic. Said her last client before you was a p.r.i.c.k. A real pig. But you weren't. That showed her something. You showed her something. She was going to do something with her life. She wasn't sure just what, but somethin'. She was going to leave."

"Leave? Las Vegas?"

"No! The Life. You know. Hookin'. She was lookin' at it in a whole new way. Something you said. Lotta somethin's you said. I couldn't get everythin' she was sayin'. She talked so fast. My, but she was hyped. I'd never heard her so excited."

"Happy? Are you saying she was happy?"

Deborah Ann sat back to consider, then sipped on her straw. "Don't know any other way to describe it."

"She wasn't in despair?"

Deborah stared at him. " 'Despair'? Honey, that girl was so high she must have been wearin' platform mattress springs. I'd never been able to get beyond that worldly wise att.i.tude of hers. So teenage, really. Anyway-"

"Yes, anyway?" Matt was getting impatient. Blue Norther impatient.

Deborah Ann leaned into the table, closer, so only he could hear her, as if anyone would eavesdrop on them at a Taco Bell.

"It doesn't make sense. No, sir. The woman I talked to was a happy camper. I don't see her ... killing herself, that's all."

"And then what happened?"

"Well, we were cut off."

"Cut off?"

"Right. Or cut out. Cell phones will do that to you, you know. You have a cell phone?"

"No. I probably should have."

"You should. A very handy sort of thing."

"But you had one, and Va.s.sar had one, and the line was cut."

"It's not a line, I don't think. More like . . . air. There was a lot of echo while we talked, and then . . . She was gone, that's all."

"Never said good-bye?"

"No."

"Never said anything more?"