Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In A Sapphire Slipper

All in all, this is a very disturbing and sinister mime act.

Beyond the fussy parlor, I glimpse an empty bar area with the usual clubby look, carpet and leather chairs, mirror and bottle glass. I suggest we remain in this “debriefing” room in our guise of helpless domestic pets.

My description is not half wrong. The masked thugs stripping the Fontana brothers of their weapons are also making unwarranted searches of their underwear.

“Oof!” Emilio objects, avoiding an illegal forward pass with a swiveling hip movement that would do any running back proud. “There is nothing resembling lead there.”

I bite my tongue. The nature of this disarming is suddenly all too evident to my super feline senses. The “gangsters” are all of the female persuasion.

I spot the long nailed hands under the leather gloves and watch them add another Beretta to the impressive pile, and shudder. Wait until the boys discover they have been disarmed by women. That is not a macho position to be in.

“The gangsters have very agile and clever claws,” Miss Satin allows.

That is the thing. This gang of masked women have high-end manicures and their claws are all utterly false, the glue-on kind adapted in envy of my kind.

Why do these dames need these guys disarmed and dangerous?

I am detecting a certain barely veiled lust.

I must admit that I am used to that reaction among the female faction, as are the Fontana boys. It is just that we are not used to being disabled because of it. I do not know how to convey these ugly realities to poor little Satin.

While I dither, so uncharacteristically, she is coming to her own conclusions from her years in the brothel.

“These women do not want hostages,” she merows in my ear.

“They want mates.”

This wafts a vibrissa too close to our own once-upon-a-time relationship.

I huff up my collar into an impressive ruff and growl.

No one notices.

“All right,” one of the masked and clawed dames (you would think she was the homicidal Hyacinth, a Siamese of my acquaintance) snarls. Yes, she snarled, just as you and I would, if we were both feline.

“You boys can settle down here now that your claws are clipped. Sit down. Look and do not touch. Say nothing. We will let you know what comes next.”

Puzzled and disarmed, the Fontana boys sit gingerly on the froufrou pieces of furniture. I understand their conflict. A macho guy doesn’t do blue satin, but neither does a gentleman poleax a lady, not even an armed and dangerous gang of them.

“Now see here,” Macho Mario says, not moving a muscle.

“You do not know who you are tangling with.”

“It is you who are ignorant of the fury of your opponents,” one dame says in a credible baritone growl.

“Sit. Don’t move. We have business elsewhere in the establishment, but are leaving guards at each archway.”

A gentleman does not poleax a lady, but Macho Mario’s expression as he drops his weight into a pale blue velvet upholstered Victorian chair indicates he may now be willing to make an exception.

After the gang presence withdraws, I notice that Mr. Nicky Fontana, the youngest and only married brother, and the only CEO among them, is missing.

So I inform Miss Satin, sotto voce. (This is an operatic term meaning under my tuna breath.)

After she reels away, she comes up with a rejoinder. “Why would they single out your Mr. Nicky?”

“I do not think they did. They are interested in the bachelor party. He is not a bachelor and thus escaped their notice, like my Mr. Matt.”

“Tell me again about ‘your Mr. Matt.’ “

“He is the only cream in the all-black flock, also not a Fontana. He was just along for the ride.”

“So were you,” she points out.

“So, they got a couple of ringers in the bunch. Let us remain in the parlor and see what the Fontana boys and the ladies of the house have to say to one another.”

While we creep farther into this Suite in Blue, we see the house ladies sitting up straighter than the Teetotaler Ladies Tea Society on one side and the Fontana boys staring at their polished shoe tips and their buffed nails on the other, with a couple of the black-clad posse in between.

Aldo is checking the ticking old-fashioned mantel clock every thirty seconds. He is calculating that this was supposed to be a boys’ night out, an all-nighter. No one will miss them until at least one P.M. tomorrow, Tuesday, give or take a hangover or twelve.

I see that the gang has removed all of their Rolexes as well as the Italian hardware. So is profit the motive, or something more personal?

“You know who these women are?” Aldo asks the madam.

“We do not usually entertain women.”

“You recognize any of them?”

There is a rustle of taffeta and tulle. My nails itch for a good rip, but I hold back.

A girl done up like the Blue Angel speaks hesitantly. “I recognized one voice.”

“Yes?” the madam encourages the damsel in question.

“I think she called a couple days ago, inquiring about our . . . hours.”

The madam barks out a laugh. “Pretty much twenty-four seven, like the rest of Las Vegas. What did she think?”

“She asked if we . . . handled . . . groups.”

“And—?” The madam was frowning now.

“I said we can do groups up to twenty, and she booked us for tonight for a twenty-four-hour exclusive.”

“Shii . . . take mushrooms,” Aldo explodes, suddenly mindful of the female company. A Fontana boy is always the soul of courtesy. “That means no one else is going to show up here until tomorrow night. Why’d the gang need that much time?”

“Scary,” Emilio says mournfully. “I do not even slot in my best girlfriend for a full twenty-four exclusive.”

“Have you had such a booking before?” Rico asks the madam.

She shakes her lavender-blue tinted head.

“I thought it was a corporate inquiry,” the angel-baby in blue woman says in defense. “The woman who called sounded like an executive assistant. I thought it was one of the big hotels going all out for a celebrity high roller and his posse.”

“She was an executive thief,” Emilio grumbles. “They have got a hundred thou in our Rolexes alone. Rolexi?”

“You never were any good in Latin class in high school,” Rico says.

“Who needs more Latin than ’veni, vidi, vici’? ”

The madam, who must have had high school Latin too and learned Caesar’s boast: “I came, I saw, I conquered,” laughs again.

“Not tonight, boys. Besides, surely the Fontana brothers can disarm an army of men in tights.”

That is just it. The madam has not had a close look at our captors. These are not men in tights, but girls in guns, an even uglier thought. Those delicate ladyfingers are not used to packing trigger-sensitive iron. They could break a nail and spray the room with bullets without even meaning to.

“It sounds,” says the madam, “like we all will be here for a while. We should introduce ourselves. I am Miss Kitty.”

Satin and I exchange a glance. It is sad how often our kind’s various nicknames are borrowed for ladies of the night and shady activities. The ancient Egyptians stuck to a simple “Meow” when naming us.

The ladies give their first names in turn. There is an Angela, Babette, Crystal, Deedee, Fifi, Gigi, Heather, Inez, Jazz, Kiki, Lili, Niki, and Zazu.

Satin hisses into my ear. “Only thirteen are working tonight, a bad sign. The reservation was for that number.”

Meanwhile, I am doing some math of my own. There are the ten Fontana brothers, Mr. Matt, and Uncle Mario, the big kahuna, who has been detained, bound, in the archway to the barroom. That is twelve. “Who is the thirteenth of these ladies for?” I wonder.