Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In A White Tie And Tails

“Sir. Ma’am.” The security cop was slightly breathless. “What’s in that bag? Anything valuable?”

“Just a former À La Cat spokescat,” Temple said.

“Just a cat ?” was the next question.

“Midnight Louie is not ‘just a cat,’” Temple said. “He’s a particularly clever cat. He has been seen on major electronic media. He is well known in Las Vegas. He is—”

“Heavy,” Matt said.

“Yes, he is a very substantial cat,” Temple agreed. “A cat of substance in a trivial world.”

The officer frowned. “But he’s not, like, valuable?”

“To me, us, he is priceless.”

“My point, ma’am, is that given the private car waiting and the flashy bag and the way you hung on to it, the thief probably thought you were carrying valuable jewelry. Some celebrities will insist on carrying valuables and arrange for a private security check, then trot the jewelry out of the airport afterwards in their designer bags. Opportunistic thieves will try to hoist it. I’ve called in the incident and the security staff stationed along all the exit doors are on the lookout for that black trench coat. Meanwhile, I’ll escort your party to the car.”

She eyed Temple. “I might advise carrying a less high-profile bag in future, ma’am.”

She turned to Matt. “That was a lucky save, sir, but the thief could have been armed. I don’t advise personal intervention in incidents like this. Let’s move on before another opportunist preys on you.”

Temple looked around hard as they did just what the guard suggested.

She hoped none of Matt’s fans had seen all the trouble, not to mention risk, his “personal assistant” and her purse pussycat had gotten him into.

But, an upside! At least the thief had the good taste not to mistake her for a personal assistant. Her modestly priced vintage fashion sense had totally remade her into Someone Worth Ripping Off.

Chapter 5

Second City Kitty

Well, I made it here, but I am not sure I would want to make it anywhere other than Vegas after that clumsy snatch attempt in the Chicago airport.

What can you expect of a city where the airport is named after a wildlife creature whose vaunted speed cannot obscure that it is prey?

“O’Hare.” O lunch.

Of course I do not need to play the predator game anymore since I have reformed and converted to canned food and tracking human subjects, namely moved up to crooks.

Meanwhile, I am reclining on a cushy silk shantung fabric on a down-feathered sofa in the living room of a fancy hotel suite.

My Miss Temple and Mr. Matt are discussing our busy social schedule in between waxing anxious over my close call as a kidnap victim.

“That security guard was right,” Mr. Matt is saying. “This jet-set treatment is making me … and now us … into targets. If this is a taste of what’s coming if I accept a talk show role, I will call it all off right now.”

He stands poised at one of the four telephones in the suite, which includes one I most appreciate: the one in the large marble-paved bathroom, because of the litter box installed there. I also like to be accessible at all times.

I am very much aware that the network vice presidents are eager to show Mr. Matt that they can offer him plenty of deal sweeteners and they realize that my druthers are an important element in his personal life, along with my Miss Temple. One never knows when À La Cat may call. Reviving my commercial career as a spokescat would extend Mr. Matt’s “platform.”

“No, Matt.” Miss Temple is wisely talking him out of dumping the career opportunity, but his regard for my safety speaks well of him. “Do not do anything rash. It is my fault for buying Louie a high-end, high-profile carrier.”

What? I should be carted into the heart of the world-famous Chicago Loop in a burlap bag? Besides, I had the situation well in hand. Actually, well in fang. I had already worked a front canine (the tooth variety) into the handy hole at the top of the zipper pull-tag. I have unzipped myself from feeble human attempts to confine my breed in cheesy carriers so often in my career that I am the Houdini of my kind. That napper would have soon found himself holding the empty bag … and me affixed to his face with all sixteen shivs operating in plastic surgeon mode.

And, baby, as gravity pulled my solid twenty pounds down, I would make quite a lasting impression on the crook’s epidermis.

“Maybe you should have left Louie at home,” Mr. Matt suggests. “Vegas is pretty sleepy once off the Strip, but Chicago is a massive urban jungle where unaccompanied domestic pets have to scavenge.”

“Of course I am not letting Louie loose on the town,” she answers. “It would not be ready to cope with him. And now that we have had this close call at the airport, I am keeping tabs on him twenty-four seven.”

This does not sound promising, but we are thirty-seven stories up and I have no immediate plans to leave my Miss Temple’s side. From what I have overheard, Mr. Matt’s circle of Polish relatives are old-fashioned and extremely religious.

Normally I understand the shock and awe that keeps one of any religion treading lightly when it comes to a godhead. If you have seen a statue of Bast, worshipped the world over for around five thousand years by those of the feline persuasion, you have seen a stern and demanding deity frozen in time and eternity, possessor of untold lives.

We nine-lifers of today are pipsqueaks.

However, I cannot understand supposedly modern folks who would frown on my Miss Temple as a suitable partner for any dude. Mr. Matt withdrew from the priesthood with all the right papers signed and sealed, from what I have heard. It might be iffier because he was the offspring of an unsanctioned match. His mama was one of these unwed individuals you read about, especially in Hollywood.

So is mine and no one would dare hold that fact up to my old lady, Ma Barker, leader of the pack. Unwed mothers, and fathers, go back into the n th generation all the way to Bast, a female deity. I can assure you that the ring in her one ear is not a wedding band.

I must admit that I will approach Mr. Matt’s Chicago clan with my ears down and shivs sharpened. Any attempt to make my Miss Temple feel bad will be swiftly punished.

So, no. I am not leaving her side, as much as she thinks that she is not leaving mine. We have shared a bed for a long time and I dare anyone who would call ours an unsanctioned relationship to stand up on their hind feet and fight.

So there.

Chapter 6

Fast Food 4 Thought

Max Kinsella brought home many memorabilia from his tour of the Circle Ritz, a full slide show in his mind. The first was a recaptured memory of the building’s quaint wood-paneled elevator cars, small enough to be elegant coffin.

Okay.

Click to an image less morose.

He envisioned the triangular patios at the “corners” of the four outermost units on each of the five floors. Electra had not let him tour any occupied premises, of course, especially not Temple and Matt’s, which were above each other, his on top.

Okay.

Click the laboriously operated memory to something less … personal.

Electra did guide him to the attached wedding chapel with its soft sculpture figures in the pews. Nope. Still personal.