Douglas Nelson - Cat On A Blue Monday

"But I'm taking the car ."

"That's okay. I'll hitch a ride with the boys. You must have some sort of wheels, right?" Her glance interrogated the circle of oldsters, who nodded as if they'd never heard of restricted licenses.

"I can always take yo u for a spin in my biplane," W ild Blue offered with a grin, "Out to Lost Camel rock."

This last reference caused everyone to laugh, leaving Tem ple in the dark, Must be a notorious Lover's Lane for the over-sixty set she thought. Probably they all parked out there and played Lawrence Welk tapes on their car audio systems and picked their false teeth in four-four time. On the other hand, given the way age stereotypes were collapsing nowadays, who could say what the zesty set was up to? Probably a lot more than she was these days.

The sound system kicked in with brass, spit and no polish. Temple back ed away from the companionable table-----folk s looking at each other instead of the stage, imagine that--waved good-bye to Lindy, and made fast tracks for the door. This was one time she couldn't hear the committed clip of her high heels.

Outside , in the glaring su nshine, a prickly wave of1oneliness fl ooded her. Nothing to do but go back to an empty apartment and call a woman she didn't know about some- thing she di dn't want to know about: a rinky -dink cat show and callers that hiss in the night. No rendezvous with the long-gone Max to contemplate, no one she loved waiting in the apartment she loved. Even Midnight Louie had vanished for the day on some feline mission or other.

Was Matt right? She wondered as she clicked toward the Storm's sleek metallic aqua sides, though not even that jaunty sight could lift her sudden malaise. Was she getting hooked on the odd nearby murder now that Max was out of her life? Did she c rave the excitement of a crime fi x? Did she like being the target of cra zed murderers and homicide Lieu tenant Molina's unending skepticism?

Or did she just have an uncanny talent for landing dead c enter of the scene of the crime?

She unlocked the Storm and gingerly pulled open the hot metal latch. Inside, the car was a shell of sweltering plastic surfaces and a genuine-fabric hot seat.

Temple stared at the collapsible cardboard shading her windshield: the Pink Panther in full feline stalk on both sides, coming and going. Somehow, a cat show couldn't c ompete with the five- course exhilaration of the American Booksellers Convention and a stripper's competition, both with a generous helping of murder on the side.

W ho'd want to kill a cat other than some deranged pit bull?

Chapter 6

Bad Karma

I cannot say that I am relieved when Miss Temple Barr and Miss Electra Lark exit arguing into the hall, leaving me in the penthouse, in the dark.

For one thing, my legendary skills at seeing in the dark are more than somewhat exaggerated. I am not one to pooh-pooh the notion that I possess heroic powers, but l must admit that there is enough wall-to-wall whatsitz in these rooms to make me long tor my look-alike, the black cat with the Eveready flashlight batteries. I could use some technological assistance.

Not having any at the moment, I opt for the next best thing: a bright idea. I jump up on a table studded with knickknacks, managing to land---by some miracle--straddling two scorpion paperweights and a lava lamp cord. Once at window height, I paw among the mini-blinds until I have bent a couple out of shape. A boomerang-shaped sliver of daylight slices the dimness like a machete.

I turn and regard all that I can see: the room I occupy, which appears to be accoutered for dining, and portions of adjacent spaces. Opposite me is the familiar dead gaze of a television screen on empty--only this one is inset into a blond box I have never seen the likes of before. And atop the television case sits a large green glass ball, held aloft by a sculpture that resembles a conga line of cockroaches.

I breathe a sigh of relief. Yes, even Midnight Louie has his anxieties. I was worried about meeting some mega size dude on his own territory, without a clue, in the dark. But now l spy the faint reflection off other glass balls here and there and realize that Miss Electra Lark is merely partial to shiny globelike objects, rather than keeping a secret menagerie of dogs--or, worse, demons.

I arch athletically down to the floor. Actually, it would have been an athletic arch had the lava lamp cord not snagged in my foot. l resemble an arch myself--just call my maneuver the St. Louie Arch--as I twist in midair lo extricate myself. Naturally, I do, barely pulling the lamp along the table more than three inches, and pounce lightly to tepid parquet.

Now that I am safely ensconced and at my leisure, and have a window-slit to see by, I decide to take a peek around. Obviously, Miss Electra Lark is a collector of sorts, and I am always interested in what people stock upon. Miss Electra Lark seems to have a taste for furniture styles that I have not seen since visiting the Ghost Suite at the Crystal Phoenix. Which dates--untouched- from the 1940s. I writhe in and out among various overstuffed pieces attired in fabric patterns so loud they sing the "Hallelujah Chorus."

Ceramic ashtrays almost as noisy squat on every tabletop, some with rhinestones embedded in their tree-form shapes. Bauhaus this is not. A pole lamp upholds a corner of the room, its various light bulbs wearing shades of maroon, forest green and chartreuse. This last chartreuse is an attractive color when it is on little green apples and in the eyes of a lovely lady of the feline persuasion, but on lamps it is a disaster.

I settle down in the middle of the room under a chrome dinette set whose chairs are upholstered in pearlized gray plastic while I mop my fevered brow. Actually, my brow cannot get fevered, since dudes of my ilk do not sweat, even under the most extreme pressure. But I am certain that I can get brain fever, at least, from exposure to such assertive furnishings. No wonder Miss Electra

Lark does not want anybody to see her place; I would not either, it I lived in a vintage junkyard . . . come to think of it, at times (bad times). I have.

At least that baleful slime-green eye is not upon me anymore. It must have been a reflection of the lava lamp in a chrome chair leg or one of the dozens of crystal balls scattered around the joint.

I tidy my whiskers. which look best when they are a snappy pure white against my best black suit coat, and make sure my tail has not snagged any dust that I may have inadvertently picked up on my unexpected slide across the tabletop. Midnight Louie does not descend to domestic duties, even by accident. The word "house," when attached to the word "work" or "cat." is not in my vocabulary, no more than that most obscene of terms. "pet."

I am gazing about the premises, wondering where to wander next, when I spot another orb of green, this one near floor level. No doubt this is the eternal gleam of some common household machine, such as a VCR, to show that it is on and ready to perform at the flick of a button, unlike myself.

On the other hand, it could be the eye of some uncommon household familiar. and given Miss Electra Lark's apparent fondness for the trappings of the occult, my speculations could run riot.

In fact, the more I think of it, I could run riot. There are more things on heaven and earth, Horatio, than I care to meet in either place, or even dream of.

I pinch myself to make sure I am not in La-La-Bye Land. Sure enough, I draw blood. I have no alternative but to face off this unknown entity. I do not know the layout well enough to run, and would have to turn my back to the room while working on the French door lever. I do not intend to die with one paw jammed on a piece of foreign hardware.

What is up? I growl in a low, surly tone. I do not care to ask "Who is there?" just in case the eye I spy does not belong to a Who, but a What. No point in irritating a genuine What by miscalling it a Who. I figure.