Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In A Leopard Spot

“This is my aim exactly. I wish to keep the fresh meat from spoiling, namely us.”

Midnight Louise shakes her head as if to dislodge a flea in her ear: me.

“Look, Pops. Do not tell me it cannot be done, because I have already done it and anything I can do you can do better.”

“Darn tootin’,” say I before I can think. I am about to head out to the ranch on a chuck wagon with climate control with one setting: chilly.

“And,” Midnight Louise adds with a glance at our two canine partners, “I did not even have earmuffs for my trip to and fro.”

So it transpires that we all hunker down behind a Dumpster and wait until men pushing carts of raw meat come out of the building. They open the double doors at the truck’s rear and start loading. It is interesting that this delivery van only operates under dark of night. Miss Midnight Louise has scouted the delivery service for Rancho Exotica, decided that we need trackers, no matter how minute, and that we can rescue the leopard and clear it of murder with the mere use of our wits and the Yorkie’s miniature noses. I am not convinced of any of it.

“How do we get in the truck undetected?” I wonder in a soft growl.

“I will distract the men just before they finish loading. You three hop in and hide. I will come in last. On arrival they will unload and then take each cartful away. That is when we debark.”

“These two will never debark.” I jerk my head over my shoulder at the twins, who have been mum as ordered, but not without as much fidgeting as a human two-year-old would do.

It goes just like she wrote. Well, almost that way, not counting hitches. And there are plenty of hitches. When the last cart is almost unloaded, Midnight Louise creeps around to the front of the truck and there emits an unearthly scream. In other words, she sounds like a puma in heat. I thought she had been surgically prevented from engaging in such tasteless displays. So much for modern birth control methods.

The two men hesitate, scratch their heads, look around the side of the truck.

Miss Louise leaps atop the truck’s hood and we hear the sweet sounds of claws scratching painted metal.

The men run around to the front of the truck.

“Come on!” I order the twins. “Eats ahoy.”

I hear their tiny nails making mouse tracks behind me as we race to the truck’s gaping back doors.

I am ready to leap up into the icy heart of darkness when I hear an objecting squeak behind me.

“Mr. Midnight!”

I pause to regard the speaker: Golda. Or Groucho. They all look alike to me. “What?”

“We cannot leap that high.”

“Oh, for Bast’s sake…that is what you get for having pushpins for legs.”

Meanwhile, there is screaming and cursing coming from the front of the vehicle. Louise is doing the screaming. She is a strong girl, but I do not know how long she can hold the attention of two cursing teamsters without incurring severe bodily harm.

Nothing for it but lowering myself to their level.

I bend down, bare my incisors and canines, squint my eyes shut in distaste, and bite down on dog hair until I have pincered a scrawny bit of loose skin along with it.

I leap into the truck, one Yorkie dangling from my mouth like a mouse wearing a Brigitte Bardot wig. I deposit it behind a huge slab of meat.

I bound down, get another mouthful of Yorkie toupee and vault upward again, my pads kissing chill aluminum flooring. This one I hide behind a stack of semifrozen mackerels.

Then I lay me down to sleep behind what would be a standing rib roast, were it cooked, and prepare for a cold, bumpy ride, also waiting for Midnight Louise to pounce down beside me.

The sound of a few last items being tossed into the truck makes me cringe. It is dim enough in here that a few extra carcasses aren’t going to show much, but I do not want post-flattened Yorkie when we arrive at the ranch.

Suddenly it is as black as midnight. The double doors slam shut; the latches fall to.

Trapped until arrival.

And where is Louise?

Could something have happened to her?

Naw.

I am not going to worry about it.

I have enough to worry about.

A yip from one side of the area is echoed by a sneeze from the other.

Oh, great. Nasal congestion. Just what a sniffing-nose dog needs.

I may be riding on one nostril and a prayer tonight.

The truck jerks into gear. I try to sense if we roll over any impediments.

Naw.

Midnight Louise is one tough kitty-cat. She will be fine.

She will be high, dry, and dogless, safe in the city, while I roll toward the Great Nothing in the company of two toy terriers and a truckload of fresh meat designated for the gullets of seven-hundred-pound Big Cats.

The only thing that is going to eat Midnight Louise is knowing that she missed the boat to fun and adventure in greater Las Vegas.

Who has chosen the better part, I ask you?

I, ah, I ah…ask…ah…you…ask…as…ah CHOO!

Chapter 25

Guilt-Edged Invitation

When Max knocked on the scuffed apartment door he wasn’t surprised to hear a muffled radio or television blare through the hollow-core wood.

It was 3:00 A.M. and strippers would be just winding down, counting the night’s take, getting out of their thongs and tassels.

She opened the door the length of a gold safety chain, also scuffed.

“I’m not going to ask how you managed to ditch Raf and still follow me home,” Reno said. “You’re just like the horse to grandmother’s house, Vince. You know the way.”

“I’ve been here before,” he admitted.

“How do I know you didn’t kill Mandy?”

“Pretty dumb of me to come back.”

“Maybe.”

Her one eye that was visible though the door slit tilted to match the cynical slant of her head.

She shut the door, hard.

A moment later the chain latch slid and the door opened enough to admit him.

Max dove into the stuffy atmosphere of food, cosmetics, and kid odors.

“How’d you and Raf end up?”

“We had words.”

She nodded and went to the shabby upholstered sofa, sitting on the corner near a tilting end table.

Max followed. “You were worried about one of us?”

Reno shook her head. She slumped into the corner of the couch and lit a cigarette from a matchbook on the end table.

“Moxie’s,” the cover read. Max had never heard of it.

“So you’re Vince,” she said, narrowing her eyes through the veil of smoke she puffed out on her first draw.

He shrugged.

“I suppose that Mandy never noticed you were too bad to be true.”

“Mandy was too drunk to notice much.” Max looked around, removed a stack of folded kid’s clothing from an armchair seat, and sat there. “That’s why I ended up getting her home.”

Reno took another deep drag on her cigarette.

“Why am I too bad to be true?” Max asked.

She laughed. “Disappointed? Listen, I’ve been studying sleazy guys since I started stripping when I was fifteen. You’re just too perfect.”

Max tugged at his stretch velour V-neck shirt. “I shop in all the worst places.”

“That’s just it. To me, you’re a little too sleazy. But I’m an expert on sleazy guys, believe me. What are you? I don’t smell undercover cop.”

He shook his head. “I’m nobody official, even unofficially.”

She nodded, no longer interested in any particular label now that she’d pegged him. “So why’d you take Mandy home?”

“Nadir was hassling her, and she wasn’t as good as you at handling him back.”

“He’s all bark.”

“You don’t think he killed her?”

“Why?”

“I interrupted him. He doesn’t like to be interrupted. And…I had to knock him down. It was too dark for him to ID me, but he wouldn’t like that. He didn’t know who I was or where I was from, but Cher—”