Cat in a hot pink Pursuit

to Louie probably.
    He pulled out his slim high-intensity flashlight. The coffee table looked normal, including its clutter of scattered newspaper sections. Temple, an ex-newsie, was lost without newsprint nearby. None of the stories laid face up seemed relevant to anything: long security lines at Mc-Carran Airport; one hotel mega-conglomerate offering billions for another; a reality TV show setting up shop in a deserted Vegas mansion. The usual nonsense that had made Las Vegas famous.
    Max ran the light around the floorboards but no Louie lurked. Either crashing on the king-size bed or out to play while his mistress was away.
    The bedroom would tell the tale of the trip. Max paused in the doorway, then shut the door and turned on the light.
    Temple had definitely left in a hurry. Louie was not lounging on the bedspread because it was carpeted with clutter. Clothes, underclothes, and shoes were scattered everywhere. Everything but pantyhose. Temple hated hot, sticky hose. Never wore them. An admirable habit.
    Empty thin plastic shopping bags also dotted the landscape, bearing names Max had never seen here before, like the Icing and Marvella’s Marvelous Wigs.
    Temple needed a wig to visit her sick father? Max started a serious search of the closet. Was she on some crazy undercover crusade again? All of her seriously dressy heels were still here. Her summer slides were scattered over the parquet floor, obviously tried on and stepped out of, but never put away.
    She’d been in a hurry. She’d put a wardrobe together in a flurry. At the dresser by the wall, a drawer had been plundered and left open, shutting askew and sticking, and then abandoned.
    Max smiled to imagine Temple’s hasty explosion of creative swearing. She never cursed with common expressions when a wacky euphemism was at hand.
    The offending drawer was Temple’s Sacrosanct Scarf Drawer, holder of every maternal Christmas present that had been found wanting, along with rosy purchases that soon proved completely wrong. All the things she didn’t use but couldn’t bear to throw out for one reason or another.
    Max realized he missed the intriguing and amusing clutter of a female housemate. He missed Temple’s clothes and sound and smell. He went over to set the drawer on its proper track, to stuff the colorful, gauzy scarves that refused to knot and tie properly for her back into their place of exile. As a magician, he had a far better way with scarves than she did. Maybe he’d make a bouquet of all her rejects and surprise her with it when she got back. From... wherever.
    A tiny round box caught his eye, the cover off and something winking at him from inside it.
    What winked was a ring, an inexpensive sterling gilt and cubic zirconia ring. The bottom of the box still had its adhesive price tag, thirty-eight dollars. One step above a Cracker Jack box trinket. Yet uncannily like the Tiffany opal and diamond ring he’d given Temple last Christmas when he’d come out of hiding and entered her life again. The ring that had been taken from her by a renegade magician named Shangri-La and had ended up in an evidence baggie in Lieutenant Molina’s gloating custody.
    Temple had spotted this cheap substitute somewhere and had bought it. Not worn it. Bought it. To remind her of the real one, and then tuck it away like something shameful.
    Max could have strangled Molina if she’d been there. Could have kicked himself. He’d only learned what had happened to the ring recently. He should have gotten Temple another one ASAP, not left it to her to comfort herself with a substitute.
    Not left it to her to comfort herself with a substitute. The echo of that phrase sounded suddenly sinister.
    He sat on the bed and stared at the ring, then glanced at one of the abandoned shoes and picked it up. It lay on his large, strong hand like a curio. A curve of red silk-covered sole, a slender heel, a bejeweled band across the instep. Size five. Cinderella accessory, hands, and shoes, down. Made for a foot fit for a prince. One who actually showed up for balls.
    Max put the shoe back down. He put the cover back on the box because he couldn’t bear to look at the ring. Temple didn’t wear her heart on her sleeve, or her disappointments on her finger. Obviously, his ring and its loss meant more to her than she’d allow to show. As had the promise he’d given with the ring that someday he’d be free to be a real boy, with a real girl for a wife and a public career again