Кэрол Дуглас: Cat In An Aqua Storm

Ingram, out the door in a jiffy, is still growling when I approach him. He sits on the concrete stoop and angrily boxes his muzzle with his mitts. This ritual of keeping his nose clean seems more along the lines of slapping some sense into himself, which he could use, in my opinion.

He is in no mood to thank me for his sudden furlough, but watches the display window sourly as Miss Maeveleen Pearl sets about arranging a pair of stuffed Scottish fold-type felines amongst the books.

Her devotion to these inert bozos, Ingram tells me, borders on the psychotic.

“A human must have her hobby," I reply, reaching out to give Ingram’s rabies tags a jingle. "Now quit whining and tell me what is happening in this town of late."

Ingram is the scholarly sort who thinks nothing of drifting off over the entertainment section of theLas Vegas Review-Journal. It is amazing what he can commit to memory without even trying.

Well, he says, spreading his toes so as to count off on his six digits (Ingram’s forebears are prone to quirky genetic modifications), the Cat’s Meow shop across from the Sands has quite a few layabouts on the premises, but the word is the proprietor is kind of a Carrie Nation teetotaler.

This is bad news. While I have no time for Scottish folds, in the flesh or the fabric, I am partial to a touch of scotch in my milk now and again.

"What kind of Carrie Nation is she?” I inquire. There is a cute kitten or two at the Cat’s Meow I have my eye on.

“She is a crusader, and not the rabbit kind,” Ingram replies. He tells me certain dudes of an uninhibited nature have been disappearing from the alley behind the Cat’s Meow and when they show up again, they are singing soprano. Not, Ingram adds snootily, that there is anything wrong with a higher register.

He is one to talk, having long since sacrificed his masculine prowess to the dubious joys of being a kept cat.

"Dudes are being swept off the street and returned minus their operative parts?” I demand in horror and something of aMagnum PIfalsetto. My imagination is hitting the roof too.

Ingram nods sagely, his old-gold eyes glimmering. It is true, he says, so help him, Havana Brown. The atrocities, he goes on, are part of a pet population control program.

“If they want to control the pet population,” I growl, “why do they not stick to pets, instead of snatching innocent dudes off the street and abstracting their oysters? Have you any news that will not turn my stomach?"

Kitty City, says he, is offering a new revue of naked talent.

I report that I am not interested in transfeline entertainment.

Too bad, says he. Then you will not be interested in the fact that the Goliath Hotel is hosting a competition of striptease artists of all sexes including questionable.

“Why should I be?" I reply.

Here Ingram looks unbearably sly and runs his barbed pink tongue over his scanty whiskers. He hears, he goes on, that Miss Savannah Ashleigh, the film star, will help judge the action at the striptease competition. Is not this the same Savannah Ashleigh who visited my old stomping grounds, the Crystal Phoenix Hotel and Casino, in palmier days, along with her companion, a foxy number of the female persuasion named Yvette?

I stare at Ingram as if seeing him for the first time. The name “Yvette” hits my ears like a bouncer’s fists. Yvette. The Divine Yvette. I hear again her subtle throaty voice, see the infinitely changing kaleidoscope of her baby blue-greens, feel sable-tipped silver fur brushing against my broad shoulders....

The Divine Yvette is back in town.

Wait, Ingram yodels in his scratchy voice as I rocket down the street, headed for the Goliath Hotel, do you not wish to learn about the exotic goldfish display at the Mirage—?

I pay no mind. If there is any force on earth that can distract me from the pursuit of food, it is the Divine Yvette.

In fact, even thinking of her in retrospect as I lounge here in silken comfort in the lap of Miss Temple Barr’s luxury almost makes me forget the shocking events of the past twelve hours, in which I have slipped the gentle bonds of my little doll’s attentions. I doze off, dreaming of crystal ashtrays brimming with champagne, catnip caviar and a world-class lady friend with whom to share them.

7

The Cookie Crumbles

Overhead fluorescent lightslent Crawford Buchanan’s normally pasty complexion a sallow tinge. The breath-mint-green hospital gown did nothing for him, either, except to tinge his silver hair yellow. Temple rebelled at expressing false sentiments, so her “Gosh, Crawford, you look... tired” avoided coming out “awful” only by a hair.

He lay in the industrial-strength hospital bed, puny and pathetic. Temple unconsciously lowered her voice to a genuinely solicitous level. “How are you feeling? Is it... serious?”

“The heart attack? I’ll live.” His voice was still a surprisingly deep basso he played like a cello. “The murder? If they nail me for it, I may not live,” he added gloomily.

“You? A murderer?” Temple hovered on the brink of laughter. “Victim, maybe, but perpetrator—”

“Listen, T.B., you’ve been where I’m sitting, or lying, rather. I found the goddamn body! You know how that looks.”

“PR people may kill stories, but they don’t kill people. Nobody could seriously suspect you.”

“How about Lieutenant Too-tall Molina?”

“She is the suspicious sort,” Temple conceded.

“Listen. I want you to take over for me.”

“No way! I turned the job down, remember? Why should I take it now that it’s a hot potato? Besides, Molina doesn’t like me, either.”

Even in a hospital bed Buchanan managed to preen. He rolled his big, cow-brown eyes. “Oh, she likes me, all right. She just suspects me, too.”

Temple strangled a groan in view of the surroundings. “Why? Lieutenant Molina may have a suspicious nature by profession, but what would make her think you particularly would kill a stripper? And how was it done, anyway?”

He paled, if that was possible. The pallor emphasized his dark, thick eyebrows and the languid-lashed eyes as melting as a panda’s. His hand clenched the slack sheet over his chest.

“She was in the dressing room. Alone. Very alone. I took her for a costume at first... only the lights around one mirror were on and all the costumes glitter so you can’t tell what’s real from what’s unreal. She was hanging—”

He stopped, shut his eyes, the lashes resting on the puckered bags beneath them. Temple kept quiet, moved despite her dislike of Buchanan, recalling the moment a few weeks before when she had found herself sprawled across the corpse of Chester Royal in the Las Vegas Convention Center booth.

“How... how was she hanging?” Temple made herself ask.

His eyes opened slowly, but the words came out staccato. “G-string. Rhinestone. G-string.”

“How? From... what did it hang?”

“I don’t know! You think I looked that close? I’d gone nearer to see what was wrong, what—it—was that was turning there silently like a becalmed wind chime. Feathers fluttering, rhinestones twinkling. Looked like a damn Mardi Gras figure on a float. An animated costume. But it wasn’t—animate or a costume.”