Кэрол Дуглас: Cat In An Aqua Storm

I expect a tranquil day. Miss Temple Barr, my doting roommate and a freelance public relations specialist, is between assignments. While I dream of vistas of wild game, my civilized heart awaits thegrrrrof the can opener. This happy sound precedes the dollop of some rich aquatic concoction into the banana spilt dish that my little doll has deemed fitting for, and large enough, to accommodate my healthy appetite.

It is not a bad life I lead of late, during this age of Aquarius. Much is to be said for domestic bliss, especially by one who not four weeks ago languished on Death Row in the local animal pound. It is true that my presence there was by design: I went undercover as a common homeless dude, a transient as the sociologists put it, in order to solve a murder at a booksellers convention. Yet this environment in which I now bask—a ray of not-yet-searing sun, a dry desert breeze and Miss Temple Barr hovering with the can opener—appeals far more nowadays than the edge-treading loner’s life-style I have been wont to lead.

So I slip into the languid snooze my kind is famous for, a happy laid-back dude expecting no more at the moment than the attentions and comforts I have earned over the course of several of my lives.

My personal sun-spot has shifted into shade when I next come to, awakened by the click-click of two dainty high heels arriving at my side. Gastric juices begin doing a tap dance on my rib cage as I lazily cock open one green peeper. I do not wish my famous, devastating stare to bedazzle my little doll before she is completely awake.

But Miss Temple Barr is more awake than I think, or than she should be at this early hour.

“No breakfast for you, Louie,” she announces with puzzling cheerfulness.

My still-drowsing senses are then jolted by yet another out-of-custom shock. Something thumps down beside me. Before I can open my other eye to study the phenomenon, Miss Temple Barr's long-nailed hand (she has irresistible attractions for a fellow of my sort) scoops under my midsection.

"Come on, big boy. Whew, what a handful.”

While I enjoy the personal contact, and before I am fully awake, I am prodded into an ambience I know all too well: four bland-blond walls that reek of plastic.

A silver grille snaps shut on my blinking, disbelieving eyes. I have been herded into a portable cell. All I can see through my steel meshwork is Miss Temple Barr’s shapely ankles, today propped atop a pair of deep purple pumps. (Some so-called experts claim that my breed is color-blind, but what do they know? Certainly their conclusions are not based on personal testimony.)

I know that I see pure red as the reality of my situation impresses itself upon me... mostly it is the grille that is impressed upon my body hair as I turn frantically in the cramped space. I also express my opinion in words not fit for the company of a lady, but then Miss Temple Barr’s entrapment scheme is less than ladylike.

“Hey, no growling, Louie. It won’t be so bad.”

My portable cell is swooped aloft to the accompaniment of Miss Temple's anguishedoof. Then I am swaying helplessly beside her as she trots into the condominium, pauses to grab her tote bag and car keys and vamooses out the door. Some say that ocean voyages produce seasickness. I say that bouncing about like a captive clapper in a molded plastic swinging bell is worse.

At last I am slung onto the sun-warmed front seat of her Geo Storm car. I feel like last week’s refuse being heaved into the belly of the trash truck. Miss Temple Barr hops behind the wheel and starts the car. Moments later the air-conditioner grilles spurt a stream of hot air directly into my big green beads.

I sigh, turn my posterior to the door of my cell, and settle onto my stomach, which has now joined me in making soft, intermittent growls of protest. The aqua Storm darts through the early-morning traffic like the winged insect known as a darning needle. It was a knitting needle that iced the book dude, I recall, as I contemplate using that weapon on Miss Temple Barr. Is this the thanks I get for solving the ABA murder and getting her tat (what little there is of it—she is more than somewhat petite) out of the fire?

At last the car stops and Miss Temple Barr leaps out. I am extracted in my cage and taken into a low building that smells of disinfectant, indiscretions of a liquid nature, and dogs. I cannot believe my nose! I have been returned to Death Row, although the betraying scents seem muted now.

“Oooh, he's a hefty one,” a feminine voice chirps as I am flung atop a counter, case and all. “A real heavyweight."

“Yup," Miss Temple Barr admits with little concern for my feelings and the truth.

I am solid, that is true, but this is all muscle and bone.

"What is his name?”

“Midnight Louie.”

“Cute. Is he black all over?”

“I think so. I haven’t looked everywhere.”

"Then you do not know if he is fixed or not."

“Er... no.”

I have never heard my little doll sounding so uncertain, and a trifle guilty.

"Last name?” the chirpy chick prods.

“His... or mine?”

“Yours is his now.”

"Oh. Barr. But Midnight Louie Barr doesn't sound right.”

“It is just for the records. We had better weigh him,” Miss Chirpy suggests.

At last! The grille swings open and I am swung out in my little lady’s loving arms. Not for long. I am swiftly deposited like an errant hairball on a black rubber carpet.

"Eighteen—nineteen. Nineteen point eight." Miss Chirpy’s tone drips with syrupy admonition. “Time for an improvement in diet.”

This ambiguous statement suggests that some chow is headed my way, at least. I growl approval as Miss Temple Barr lifts me again with a graceless groan, and follows the white-coated female into a private chamber.

I have heard of such places, though I am not sure if this is the kind of joint that arranges forced assignations between two individuals of the opposite sex who have never before met. I have not been party to such shenanigans in the past, being perfectly capable of finding my own lady friends.

“I am sorry, Louie,” Miss Temple Barr croons while chucking me under the chin. I have never known it to fail that a person chucks me under the chin when playing Benedict Arnold, or is it Roseanne Arnold these days? And didn’t her last name used to be Barr?

I only have time to scan the ceiling for spiders, study a cabinet filled with bottles and boxes of a pharmaceutical nature, and observe that I am sitting atop a slab with a monolithic base not unlike a sacrificial altar. (I have seen my share of old movies when the TV remote and I are the only active things in the living room.)

The hair on the back of my neck rises as the door opens, then closes just as quickly. I glimpse another white lab coat.

“Dr. Doolittle,” a second strange female announces herself. I am feeling surrounded. I look up and would blanch, were that possible. I am staring up at an exceedingly thin, tall doll with a face that would do a hatchet man credit. I have never before seen such a personage, but it is clear that Midnight Louie has joined the vet set, not by his own inclinations.