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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 Louies 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* (Irenes 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

* These are the reissued editions.

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 authors 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 Louies 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 Whos Come to Dinner?

Chapter 23: Bahr Bones

Chapter 24: Synth Youve 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 Louies Lives and Times

Ah, me. Here I live and work in the worlds 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 Vegass 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 towersevery room with a viewrising 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 towns 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 handsomereally shortgets 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.