Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In A Topaz Tango

An undercover operative like myself often ends up spending the most time on the shady and elite sides of the Strip. Crime tends to erupt at the extremes of the social scale. The happy middle is where passion and money tend to be on the mild and cheap scale. It is not surprising that Mr. Rafi Nadir could quickly rise to a second-in-command security position here, not to take anything away from his admirable reformation.

Apparently, discovering an unknown out-of-wedlock child can stabilize a man.

I cannot say that the discovery of my reputed offspring, Miss Midnight Louise, provided me with any impetus other than to run the other way. My impulse was intense, I will give the situation that. Miss Midnight Louise would be cranky that I am operating solo now, but purse pussies do not come in pairs, unlike shoes, or even gumshoes.

So I prowl the busy-patterned carpet underfoot, a mere shadow in the corner of everyone’s eye, busy educating myself to the scene of any crimes to come. For there will be at least one, with so much ill will already expressed in terms of death threats and the repeat appearance of the Barbie Doll Killer’s calling cards.

A Vegas hotel floor plan is like a small city to a guy my size. My walking tour would be hard on my pins were it not that I have discovered that this place houses something of deep personal interest, namely a dame.

She first appears to me on the back of a playing card that has fallen to the carpet. Now, this is a mortal sin, or at least a killing offense in Vegas, where every card being accounted for is a matter of life and death.

Loose cards imply dirty tricks, fixing, or worse.

So I nudge my find farther under the blackjack table, braving overexcited and milling human feet. The light is not so good here but I can still make out the lithe photographic form: sleek, asphalt-dark curves fast enough to derail a Porsche, legs that never end in black silk stockings, a flexible rear appendage long enough to derail a train, and the most unearthly, twenty-four-karat golden eyes I have ever seen.

These orbs—and, yes, that expression is okay, folks, because they are as round and brilliant as harvest moons—would hypnotize a Svengali.

Phew. I can hardly tear my gaze away already. I am so smitten I risk exposure to scale the table and eye the dealer’s shoe, which is not footwear, but a device for holding several decks of cards. Oh, my yes. Bingo! Every card slipped out of the shoe is a graphic tribute to this most sublime feline form.

“Hey!” some twenty-one happy gambler carps at my sudden presence. “I was just about to double down.”

I spit out the card I found on the floor so it falls to the green felt.

“Uh,” the loudmouth grunts. I found the card under his chair.

The dealer is frowning. “Stay right there, sir.”

“Damn cat!” the guy spits at me.

I snatch up the card and jump down. “Damn cat!” the dealer yells in parting. I can hear the crooked player chuckling to see the evidence vanishing with me.

I am not about to give up my card until I can find the model and have her personalize it.

There are two things I now need to locate: a pedigree pin-up book to pin down what breed of cat she is, and info around the hotel to find out who and where she is.

First I stash the card under a roulette table.

I cannot go wandering around a casino with a loose playing card clenched in my hot little black lips and sharp white teeth. Being an ace investigator, I know it is no coincidence that this hot, hairy little honey is backing every last darn Oasis playing card.

Pretty soon I am seeing those opulent gold eyes gazing soulfully down at me from posters and signs all over the hotel.

There she is, Miss American Beauty, curling into the Big O of Oasis over the show ticket booth, atop the registration desk on giveaway cards in Lucite boxes, six-feet-long lounging over the word “Theater” in the marquee to the nightly show.

Oh, no. I hope she is not literally a Big Cat. (There are some limits to even one of Midnight Louie’s romantic prowess.)

By now I am frantic.

I cannot believe that a dude of my discrimination and wide-ranging territory and nose for news all over Las Vegas has failed to notice the hot new girl in town! I must lay eyes on her, if nothing else.

It is while crossing the casino carpet, ignoring the hustle and bustle and jostle, that I at last catch her scent. It is sweet, earthy, musky, like expensive perfume. I immediately think of rare amber-gris. It may or may not be based in that treasured effusion of the sperm whale that the ancient Egyptians burned as incense—they worshiped cats, if you recall, so they were the smart sort—but it is music to my nose. It means that she is not “fixed,” that abomination of birth control perpetrated on my kind for its own good, but also for a major reduction in fun for me.

Now that I have a scent to follow, it is nose to the nap around the casino. In fact, I am so much the bloodhound on a trail that I bump into a table leg, face-to-face.

No! Not a table leg, but the leggy object of my search.

She is sitting there like a statue of regal Bast, the Egyptian cat goddess, only she is not eight feet tall, or even three feet tall like a Big Cat, but only a foot or so high and warm and satin-furred and I am lost.

I can see why I mistook her for Bast. She wears a collar and from it dangle glittering amber crystal teardrops. She looks like a billion bucks and I am just a two dollar bill. I am always falling for dames beyond my station.

“My apologies, miss. I was so hot on the trail I missed your presence.”

“What trail are you on, sir?”

Well, I cannot come right out and say it. That would be crass.

“Allow me to introduce myself,” I say, bowing so my luxurious black vibrissae blend tips with hers. (Vibrissae are known as whiskers to the commoner sort, such as humans.) “I am working undercover in this hotel. You may have heard of the Dancing With the Celebs event.”

“Then you are masquerading as a dancer?”

“No, I am masquerading as a celebrity mascot.”

“Oh! I am a mascot too!”

“What a coincidence. What are you a mascot of, or for?”

“This whole hotel. And your mascotery is—”

I am not about to identify myself as a “purse pussy.”

“I am a private detective by profession, Midnight Inc. Investigations, assigned to one of those currently popular teen pop tarts in the dance show, one Miss Zoe Chloe Ozone, as a personal pet. Only for appearances, I assure you. I am no one’s personal pet, although there are occasions when I would make an exception for the right little doll who could wrap me around her long supple tail.”

“You look like you have quite a long supple . . . tail yourself, Mr. Midnight.”

I am about ready to belie my words and do the happy dance.

“And how did you become a hotel mascot, may I ask?” I go on. “Other than sublime good looks, of course.”

She tilts her head adorably to the side and runs her little red tongue over her vibrissae, making them tremble, and me too.

“My mistress is a public events coordinator for this hotel.”

“What a coincidence! Miss Temple Barr, my current roommate, is a freelance version of same. She is a clever and comely and petite little doll to whom I am devoted.”

“How amazing. My Miss Tuesday Weldon answers to the same description and is devoted to me. I inspired her theme for the entire hotel.”

“What a coup for catkind. You are truly a pioneer.”

“I only assist my mistress. You are the first feline PI I have heard of. You must have carved a trail too.”

“This is top secret. I assist my roommate too. We are both undercover.”

“This is my hotel, Mr. Midnight. I deserve to know what danger assaults it.”