Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In An Alphabet Endgame

As soon as her white satin pumps touch tile, Miss Temple, with the piercing stare of a Medusa, her hair all crimson snakes lifted around her face by rapid motion, has slewed her precious train around to trip a falling intruder. Beside her, Mr. Matt has felled another man and knees him in the back as he bends to apply handcuffs to his wrists.

Who knew there were such kinky bridal accessories these days?

Father Hernandez raises his hands, but not for a blessing.

As I watch, he tosses the cape of his ceremonial satin chasuble over his shoulders and waves twin Glocks in his hands, covering faltering attackers, and ordering, “FBI, kiss floor and surrender.”

The shifted altar stands askew, revealing a dark vault beneath the polished stone with its carved serpentine symbol.

I look for where more members of the wedding party might be, but the front pews are occupied by stoic onlookers, unmoved and oddly…inert. Has a poison gas been emitted? I gasp. Just the wrong move to make, if so.

Uniformed officers swarm from the side aisles to gather the confused thugs into custody.

Glancing up to the choir loft, I see Miss Lieutenant C. R. Molina bracing her Glock-full hands on the railing, wincing while my wonderful a cappella choir finishes running riot over the organ keys.

My improvised Katzenklavier diversion has worked wonders, but what the heck is really going on?

“Louie, Louie, Louie,” my Miss Temple cries, rocketing out from the back of the church as the vanilla Balaclava Gang are marched out a side parking lot exit.

“They almost killed you. I was told you would be a stuffed cat in the Zebra carrier,” she says, stroking me.

Well, I was “stuffed” in.

“So sorry, Miss Barr,” this hovering FBI guy says. “He was sleeping so hard in this carrier at the Circle Ritz, we thought he was, well, stuffed.”

“Louie naps in the hated carrier?”

I hang my head with shame. It does hold in body heat pretty well.

“So,” she accuses, “he was grabbed and stowed right up here, by the altar. Forgotten,” she says. “Released into the hail of gunfire. Would you like a bullet up your left nostril? I am so tempted.”

“Ah, Agent Bucek,” the guy says. “Come here, please. Um, civilian and cat coming unglued.”

I am treated to the sight of silken priest’s garb under an ex-priest FBI face. “ Mea culpa ,” Agent Bucek mutters, “ mea maxima culpa , Miss Barr.”

“Okay, so long as he apologizes,” my Miss Temple says.

“We wanted to make it look authentic,” Mr. Frank Bucek says. “The planted gossip item in Crawford Buchanan’s column said that a cat in a zebra-print carrier wearing a white bow-tie collar would be the Ring Bearer.”

True, but I do not want these humiliating details bandied about. If I could get sleazy gossip-columnist Crawford Buchanan into my paws and claws, I would be giving his epidermis a custom tattoo. However, I have bigger guppies to fry right now.

Now that I am not looking at the world through black nylon mesh, I feel like Dorothy waking up back in Kansas again.

I can see clearly now that all the people at the front of the church are properly attired…imposters. Pews are filled with soft sculpture wedding guests imported from Miss Electra Lark’s charming Lover’s Knot wedding chapel. (“Every couple has a full house.”) I wink at Elvis in his wedding-white jumpsuit, but he does not wink back.

Mr. Matt, I now see, sports a pale blond mustache, like an officer at our neighborhood substation that is such a reliable food source for Ma Barker and her Cat Pack. The best man is not Frank Bucek, but Molina’s favorite detective, Morrie Alch.

And “Father Hernandez”, now expertly divesting himself of the many layers of an officiating Catholic priest’s robes, is really Mr. Matt’s mentor from seminary days, now an FBI guy. A two-gun-toting FBI guy, Frank Bucek.

Then the bride all dressed in white and a mangled train pulls off her veil and red wig and turns out to be petite detective Merry Su, holstering the gun hidden in her bridal bouquet.

“And they rolled away the stone,” intones an authoritative voice. The real Father Hernandez steps out from the sacristy and shakes his head to see the deep dark vault below the shifted altar.

The only person not unmasked and not now present is the bride-napping bungee cord jumper, Mr. Max Kinsella. I search the shadowy heights again. No trace.

Looking up at the choir loft, I see that any real civilians present are all now crowding to the safety rail, secure behind Molina and two uniformed officers. Mr. Matt, Miss Electra, Danny Dove, assorted Fontana Brothers…

Except for my Miss Temple, who is still embracing me…wait for it…the image of her racing down the red carpet toward me in slow motion, as if she could not be restrained from rushing to my side…perfect for our first commercial. Only she needs to be wearing her wedding gown and I am the dude in white tie and tails awaiting her at the altar.

It is a good thing I had my suspicions and employed the convent cats, Peter and Paul, to recruit local cats for me to train. They faithfully reported for duty at first sniff of any serious wedding action going down. Now they have run like rats from Hamlin down the two loft side staircases to the main floor and are even now vanishing into the neighborhood and back home.

Alas, I am caught alone in the limelight and a compromising position. Again.

As a final indignity, Miss Temple frees my bow-tie collar from the burden of the ring box and opens it.

Out pops the handful of Free-to-Be-Feline pellets the uniformed officer stuck inside.

She looks up at the guy in charge of my transport.

He shrugs. “I thought a little weight would give the ring box some verisimilitude.”

“Are you an aspiring actor, Officer?” she asks.

He shrugs modestly. “I did do a couple of walk-ons for CSI: Las Vegas.”

Honestly. Amateurs.

22

There Goes the Groom

The “real” cast of Wedding Rehearsal , the Continuing Serial, packed the choir loft, laughing and hugging and milling.

Midnight Louie, back in his carrier and sporting a hang-dog look, had the organ bench for a pedestal. Fontana brothers were slipping him fishy-scented treats the agent assigned to bring him had purchased to lure him into the carrier, which had proved unnecessary.

“At least,” Temple said, clinging to Matt, “we got a feel of how a real rehearsal would have gone. We’ll have to do it cold tomorrow for the real thing.”

“Naw.” Danny Dove waved a phone over his angelic blond curls as if tipping a top hat in a some jazzy tap dance. “Got it all recorded on my cell phone. Plus the choir loft was already wired and set up for filming weddings, so the police will have more than one bird’s-eye view to study. Their evidence team will be up all night emptying the hidden vault, but that altar should slip back into place with no problem.”

“And, Danny,” Electra added, “some of your chorus line dancers need to waltz my thirty soft-sculpture ‘guests’ back to their places in my wedding chapel.”