Cat In An Alphabet Soup (Catnap)

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Midnight Louie, P.I.

I have a nose for news and pause at nothing. That is why I always find the body.

This time it is one dead dude tucked at the back of one among three thousand booths cramming the half-million-square-foot East Exhibition Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center.

As usual, my presence on the scene—not to mention my proximity to the corpse—puts me in a delicate position. For one thing, my unappetizing discovery is made in the wee hours of morning. Security with a capital s is blissfully unaware of my presence among the aisles of merchandise on display, which is the way I like it.

Now Las Vegas is a twenty-four-hour town and I am a twenty-four-hour kind of guy. That is why they call me Midnight Louie.

It is in my veins, Vegas. I know every back alley and every gawdy-awful over-electrified Strip sign. Vegas is people on the take, people on the make, people just out to have a good time—to win a little, maybe lose a lot. There are times I might be wiser to skip town (I am no angel), but I stay and even try to go straight.

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