Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In A Crimson Haze

After the crowd has galloped down the tunnel, I pause a moment in the contemplation that so becomes my kind. We are not about to bestir ourselves to no avail. Perhaps I would better serve my beleaguered roomie by following the tunnel forward to whence these villains have come. I could then lead the forces of law and order--who are no doubt well aware of the missing cash cart, if not this underground escape route--after me ... and the crooks, thus saving my little lady's hairless skin yet once again.

Or I could follow the evil-doers and Harry their arrears, but the fact is that, though I possess the heart of a tiger and the liver of a lion, I am slightly outnumbered here, not to mention outweighed, despite my finest efforts in the eating department.

Clearly my superior brain is the best means of insuring that all ends well.

Now that I have selected my weapon of choice, I am all action.

I rise, carefully concealing my razor-sharp shivs about my person, and race down the tunnel after the absconding dramatis personae . I am not so over-concerned for the safety of my little doll, for she is light on her feet and quick with a kick, thanks to lessons from Mr. Matt Divine.

However, she is not bullet-proof. I see my mission as insuring that no lead poisoning pollutes the air around my little doll and the Crystal Phoenix. Given my superior bursts of speed owing to a Cheetah strain a few thousand years ago, I am but a whisker behind the perpetrators by the time they wrestle their way through the costume curtain into the full light of the Phoenix basement. I am relieved to see no sign of my lovely assistant in crime, assuming that she has maintained her lead in this race of life and death.

When I cautiously peek my snout out from under a white feather ruffle, I am rudely battered about the head and face. I was not expecting thugs and draw back with a snarl.

"Pantywaist!" a too-familiar female voice hisses. I view the sour little kisser of the supine Miss C. "Why are you slinking along in the rear guard? Is that the best you can manage? What are we going to do about those gangsters?"

It is, of course, my darling daughter, here to cheer on her old man. I peer out and down the hall.

"Leave it to me," I inform Miss Caviar in no uncertain fashion, giving her a love tap on the nose. "I have a plan."

"And?"

I eye the disappearing heels of six thugs of unknown identity pounding after the .fleeing forms of Mr. Matt Devine and Miss Temple Barr. At least my poor roommate is not alone during her hour of need. The company of Messrs. Derringer, Colt and Beretta would no doubt be even sweeter comfort, and while Mr. Matt Devine brandishes a flashlight, I doubt that he is packing blue steel.

However, I do see a hardware factory on the horizon in the personages of Fontana Freres , who are gaping in surprised indecision at the foot of the stairs.

This must stop.

"Run when I do," I growl at my errant apparent offspring, "and stay down."

I take off down the center of the hall, hoping that Miss Caviar is on my tail.

"Hey," opines a brother Fontana in an aggrieved tone, "that looks like Midnight Louie.

Louies. Am I seeing double?"

"Something is up," another brother concludes. "Could it be that all the action is not at the Goliath? Let us go."

They do, hallelujah!

I sprint after the bad guys and arrive in time to see them hurtling into the silver-painted UFO

that has been built with much expense for Miss Temple Barr's Gridiron skit.

"Under the ramp, kid," I order my offspring.

We leap into the shadow and soon are panting in the welcome shade while thundering black patent leather loafers pound up the ramp.

"You seem to spend a lot of time under decks," Miss Caviar notes.

I do not pause to answer, but romp up the ramp behind the last Fontana and bound at the open door, thus sealing one and all. inside the UFO. It is true that I have shut my foxy lady in with her hounds, but I figure that being confined in the dark will confuse these bozos enough to allow the good guys to get the upper hand.

There is a flaw in my reasoning, and that is that it depends on the Fontana brothers doing the right thing at the right time.

I strut down the ramp, well aware that I look particularly awesome against a silver metallic background.

Little Miss Carp-spurner is waiting at the bottom.

"Now that you have canned them all like sardines, what will you do? Send in the boiling oil?"

I hear gears grinding and sense an imminent upheaval.

"Off the ramp," I order gruffly, "unless you want to be trampled by a herd of human hoofers."

The floor beneath us rises like a piston. She jumps off and makes a perfect four-point landing on the basement concrete. The platform on which I stand is now five feet about basement level, and rising.

"What is the scam?" she demands. "What are you up to?"

"About six feet now. Too high for a youngster like you to jump back aboard. I am off to see the stars and give my regards to Broadway. See you later."

She is dwindling to a small, uncertain figure as I levitate like a legendary god into the black sky of a darkened stage. I could get used to such dramatic exits, not to mention the forthcoming surprising entrance.

An eerie orchestration of computerized music is swelling above me. I run up to the ramp's highest point, then scale the UFO's silver-bubble top with a trio of well-chosen leaps. I now sit atop the vessel, with a 360-degree view of everything, which at the moment is a lot of nothing.

High above me sabers of blue, red and green light stab the darkness and a rising cloud of stage mist--dry ice by the bucket. When the UFO jolts to a stop, and it does, a stream of happy hoofers flows from the wings under the fog cover and ankles up the ramp on tiptoe. Unseen at the back of the ramp wait the number's surprise packages, which I am privileged to preview before the audience. I gaze down on a ludicrous trio of headdresses incorporating elements of the town's latest theme hotels, the Luxor, the MGM Grand and the Treasure Island.

There is not room enough for me and two ersatz pussycats up here, I think, eager to pounce on the likenesses of the Sphinx and the Leo the Lion. We will see whose stuffing will fly in such a set-to. But I control my temper, well aware of the boiling temperaments that must be erupting within this plywood prison.

As the stage lights come up, the ramp vibrates to the tapping of two dozen size six-to-nines equipped with silver metal soles and heels. From the audience on whom this spectacle is slowly dawning, I hear gasps, then laughter and smatterings of surprised applause.

Ah, if only Miss Temple were present to hear this! Well, she is present, but not within hearing range.

I wait with interest, bending my attention to the UFO door that I have shut. It occurs to me that if the people inside were able to open it they would have done so already, so that part of my plan is proceeding nicely.

By now the tapping chorus is singing a parody of "It's a Small World After All."

The ladies caparisoned as the featured hotels strut their stuff at the front of the UFO, each earning thunderous applause mixed with uproarious hoots.

I lash my tail. With all the fireworks, no one has noticed me. Of course my coloration blends into the black velvet curtain backdrop, but that is no excuse. One would think a modern audience who was forewarned by numerous national touring companies of CATS! would be more discerning.

Two actors on the fog-choked ground to whom this UFO has appeared approach our happy, dancing little craft crammed with surprises.

"Ah," says one in a stagy mike-amplified voice reminiscent of the fake Wizard of Oz, "I was right. These are the latest out-of-state investors in Las Vegas."