Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In A Quicksilver Caper

Besides, I have retired from the predator biz. Now, I track them.

“Oooh,” breathe the people above us and all around us.

“Aaaah,” they sigh.

And then the flying man plunges to the ground, the invisible leash not tightening and jerking him back into the upper air.

Louise howls. People scream and scatter. Rafi Nadir’s motorcycle boots crack hard across black Plexiglas, which shatters as if he wore seven-league boots made of lead.

And the Phantom Mage swings full-frontal-first into a wall of concrete sheathed in mirrors and neon.

Rafi Nadir is defending the perimeter. He sometimes works security here.

He has already dialed 911 with his cell phone. Now he fights to keep hysterical people from rushing the fallen form with a mad conjoined instinct of horror, compassion, and curiosity.

That leaves room for Miss Midnight Louise and me to slink in close.

“Bast!” Louise breathes in my ear. “Is he dead? Let me smell.”

“Back, kit. I know his scent better than you.” I push my nostrils toward the hidden neck, searching not only for scent, but for the telltale mouse-like flutter of a pulse. I pick up a trace of Brut, sweat, sulphur, and rosin. And my Miss Temple’s perfume, called “Delicious.” I sense no movement at all.

My heart sinks but I cannot let Louise see that.

Her vibrissae mingle with mine despite my holding her back. “Is it he?” she asks with laudable grammar.

“Maybe.”

“Is he . . . dead?

“Maybe.”

By now, Mr. Rafi Nadir is turning back to the . . . body.

We retreat into our color-coordinated darkness. No one notices us, then or later.

In three minutes, the emergency techs come, lean over the Phantom Mage, shout orders, load the body on a gurney and roll it out over the sleek black floor.

Suddenly, the canned music starts up but people crowd the bar, not the dance floor. A long black cord hangs down limp, like a string from a bare lightbulb, but there is no light at the top of the pyramid, only darkness. The cord swings a bit in the air-conditioning blowers, its ragged end just missing the floor.

Louise and I hunker down again at the end of the bar. I could use a hit of nip myself.

“What will we do?” she asks with a shiver I can feel.

I look up. “The police will be all over this place all too soon. I intend to claw my way up there and scour the place before they mess it up with their fingerprint powders and such.”

“This whole place is as shiny as a chrome scratching post. How will we get up?”

I do not correct her on that “we.” I could really use Nose E., but we cannot spare the time to fetch the little bomb-sniffing Maltese, and we can climb better than any canine on the planet, even if the surface is plastic.

“We will just have to use our built-in pitons,” I tell her, glad of company on this sad detail. “It will have to be you and me, kit.”

“If Mr. Max got up there, we can do it.”

“Right. And if Mr. Max got up there and someone messed with his rigging, they could get up there too. We may only have feline noses, but they will have to do. If there has been sabotage afoot, Midnight Inc. Investigations will find out and track the perpetrators to whatever hole they have to hide in.”

“And lock them in and call in the dogs.”

“You know any dog packs?”

“The Thirteenth Street Bonepickers.”

“They will do. Bast grant me the power to console my Miss Temple.”

Miss Midnight Louise is already trotting along the sidelines of the dance floor, ignoring any who might spot her. I rush to catch up.

“You console. I am going to kick major butt.”

Midnight Louie Mourns

the Status Quo Vadis

The decent thing would have been to warn me that the human misbehavior in this book would erupt to such an extent that it would threaten my happy home.

My Miss Temple and I have had a mutually agreeable working and living arrangement: I was the alpha male on her premises, but would allow her SO, Mr. Max Kinsella, visiting privileges if he did not hog too much of the California king size. I would tolerate off-campus activities with Mr. Matt Devine if my Miss Temple could ever get him off the celibacy shtick.

But I would remain first and foremost in her domestic sphere, i.e., our shared digs at the Circle Ritz.

I cannot honestly say I enjoyed Mr. Max’s midnight visits. They disturbed my beauty sleep, but I did recognize that he was here first, even though he blew his residency by going AWOL before I ever came on the scene.

Nor did I mind my Miss Temple consoling herself for Mr. Max’s growing absence and distance with the far more reliable and nearby Mr. Matt.

But now I have heard this Awful Word bandied about: marriage. What is wrong with unofficial cohabitation? It has served my species well for thousands of years. This official monogamy that humans keep trying has all sorts of evil offshoots.

It causes the couple to contemplate shared quarters. Will it be his? Hers? A new place entirely?

Do you see a comfy niche for Midnight Louie, Esq., in this rush to unification? I thought not. Oh, I am sure I would be accorded some ratty old pillow in a corner of some other bedroom somewhere.

But what if Mr. Matt, being the late-blooming sort, objects to witnesses in the bedroom, even if they are the silent type? I do not cede territory to any male without a fight.

What am I to do at this late date? Move in with dear old dad on Lake Mead? Go begging like a homeless old duffer for quarters back at the Crystal Phoenix from my apparent daughter, Midnight Louise? I would rather be fish bait! Koi, come and get me!

I am not about to throw myself on the mercy of my collaborator either. If she cared a fig or a flying flamingo about me she would not have let these unruly characters mess up my life (not to mention theirs) so much.

What is the use of being an author if you cannot control characters and events? I have long felt the literary game was a sham and a delusion and now that I am in danger of becoming homeless again, I am certain of it.

I just did not expect my very own partner in crime to sell me out to raging hormones.

(Of course, I cannot really say how I feel about all this for publication. I have an image to project . . . I mean protect, and I may also harbor some secret, soul-stirring issues that I cannot share with anyone, not even my Miss Temple, not even my Miss Carole.)

You, Dear Readers, however, are an exception. Yet we can only communicate through the cryptic means of literature. Litterature in my case. The moving finger, or claw, writes. On the wall or in the sand. And moves on. And on.

Surely things cannot be as dire as they look! Not if I have anything to write about it.

Midnight Louie, Esq.

If you’d like information about Midnight Louie’s free Scratching Post-Intelligencer newsletter and/or T-shirt and other cool things, contact him at P.O. Box 33155, Fort Worth, TX 76163-1555 or www.carolenelsondouglas.comor at cdouglas@catwriter.com.

Carole Nelson Douglas

Professes Innocence, or

Maybe Just Ignorance

I didn’t know they were going to do it, Louie. Honest.

Oh, I knew they were capable of almost anything, including laughing at my attempts to produce some logical behavior on their parts. The problem is, this is fiction. And even in Real Life, people are lamentably unpredictable. Not cats. Never cats. That’s why I surround myself with them.

That’s why you and I have had a monogamous relationship for thirty-three years, Louie. Thirty-three years. Not bad for my species, and downright metaphysical for yours.

Well, what can we do? We have invested a lot of time, love, and hope in these people. We will just have to have faith.